Our sixth Shamedown, everyone, with summer in full swing. If anyone would like to see what a Shamedown is, the details can be found here and past Shamedowns here. All righty, then, here we go…
If anyone was around for last year’s Shamedowns, a LOT of them turned out to be movies that were filmed for TV in the nineteen-thirties and then got shelved when TV was put on hold because of the Second World War. 1936’s Ticket To Paradise is another one of those. It’s as predictable as the rest of them, its production values are about as low as its fellows, and it seems to have generated as much buzz (read: none).
The movie begins in Chicago, where Terry Dodd (Roger Pryor) is trying to make it to the airport and he wants the cab driver to step on it. He’s got ten thousand dollars in his pocket and this deal is the biggest of his life.
No shock that the inevitable happens and the cab almost hits a delivery truck. The cab swerves, Terry is hit on the head and can’t remember who he is or what he’s doing. After dodging an ambulance chasing shyster (it’s Charles Lane, by the way) who must have staked out that particular corner, Terry rushes to the train station where he buys a ticket to New York City.
Naturally, Terry gets picked up by the cops, who naturally figure out he has amnesia, which naturally precipitates a visit to the doctor, who shows Terry photos of various occupations to see if anything triggers him, and the only thing that sets off a response is a photo of a taxicab. Ergo, Terry, who’s being called Jack by the various authority figures in his vicinity, wonders if he was a cab driver. Why a cab driver would have ten thousand dollars in his pocket is anyone’s guess, but the doctor figures if Terry drives around New York City enough someone’s bound to recognize him.
Terry, or Jack, or whoever he is, is a sucky cab driver, not only because he doesn’t know his way around New York City, but he’s constantly stopping people and asking them if they know who he is. He’s been warned by the cab company to do his job or lose it.
It just so happens that Terry picks up a young woman, Jane Forbes (Wendy Barrie), and when Terry spies the good doctor waving at him from a passing towncar he pulls over. While Terry and the doctor talk, Jane makes off with the taxi. Long story short, Terry follows her home, and when his boss follows him and fires him, Terry doesn’t care and goes on drinking his scotch.
Jane’s dad, Robert (Claude Gillingwater) sets Terry up in some kind of job with a corner office and a secretarial pool at his company, but then fires him when Terry uses company resources to try to find out where he came from. He softens slightly when he finds out Jane and Terry want to get married, but he also gives Terry an ultimatum: If Terry doesn’t regain his memory by May first, he must take himself out of the Forbes family. It might seem mean, but Robert just wants to make sure Terry doesn’t already have a wife and family.
Terry and Jane hatch a crazy plan. If they can get Terry’s picture in the papers as much as possible, sooner or later someone will remember him, so they engage in one nutball stunt after another. Problem is, nothing works. Well, at least not at first. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that Terry basically has to bide his time until certain things happen.
So yeah, Ticket To Paradise isn’t great. It’s kind of boring and haphazard, actually, and not long on logic. It’s odd that Terry carries a large sum of money in his pocket but no ID. And it doesn’t seem to occur to either Terry or Jane that if Terry came from Chicago, that might be the first place to look. Oh, no, instead we see ludicrous scenes of them committing more and more outrageous acts such as pretending to jump off a bridge or start a fight.
Yeah, start a fight. In one scene Terry is hauled into court for some reason, and after he pays the fines of the other men waiting for their hearings they take great offense and start throwing punches. Terry knows there are cameras in the room, so he tries to make sure they get his best side. I’m not making this up.
Continuity isn’t much of a thing, either. While riding the merry-go-round Terry and Jane decide to let off a flare and wind up with their faces all blackened. Sometimes. In some takes they’re sooted up and in others they’re not.
Appropriately enough, Ticket To Paradise has been pretty much forgotten. No one seemed interested in documenting this film with any accuracy or otherwise. According to TCM, the film was apparently based on a short story by Frances Cockrell but no one knows for sure. It was also supposed to have Olive Cooper work on the script and Paul Perry in the cast but that can’t be confirmed, either.
What is known is that the film was made by Republic Pictures for their American Television Corporation division and given a big buildup in a few of the trade papers. Maybe a little too big. The July 8, 1936 issue of Independent Exhibitors called stars Roger Pryor and Wendy Barrie “swell” and tried to obscure the formulaic plot of the film as much as possible. It was probably no surprise to anyone when the film failed.
The movie did make it to TV at least once, though, although the time slot wasn’t great. It was broadcast at one PM in Cleveland, Ohio on Saturday, September 24, 1955, competing against Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger. I’m guessing no one noticed it there, either.
I wonder if anyone who made the movie was relieved about that.
And now for June’s Pick My Movie Tag winner. Drum roll, please…
Ari from The Classic Movie Muse!
Ari’s mission, should she choose to accept it, is to review a movie based on a movie made in a different culture (Father’s Day, My Father the Hero, and Aabra Ka Dabra are a few examples). The rules and a banner can be found here.
Coming up in July (click the images for more info):
Yeah, they’re basically the same picture, only one has horses. As Anna Nardini said on a certain episode of Gilmore Girls, “Freaky and unplanned.”
Anywhoo, things are going to be busy on the Substack page as well–just about every review in July is going to be of a new release, starting with my review of Asteroid City, which will be up tomorrow. They’ll be hopping here too, of course, because the Betty Grable Blogathon is starting TOMORROW. Hope to see you here, there, and everywhere. Thanks for reading, all…
Ticket To Paradise is available on DVD from Amazon, as well as free to stream for Prime customers.
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If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please look for additional content on Substack, where you’ll find both free and subscriber-only articles. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday.
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