Just after a jury finds Ann Grey guilty of murder, the car carrying her to prison crashes into another car. Ann escapes and ends up in lawyer Tony Baxter's car. Tony realizes Ann is innocent, so he vows to help her prove it, risking his neck in the process. Tony and Ann are pursued by the police and by Smiley Gordon, a mob boss who engineered Ann's escape thinking that she can lead him to a $250,000 stash.
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one of my absolute favorites!
Must See Movie...
As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
Maureen O'Sullivan is "Woman Wanted" in this 1935 film starring Joel McCrea, Lewis Stone, Louis Calhern, Robert Greig, and Adrienne Ames. O'Sullivan as Ann is found guilty of murder, but en route to the prison, a car accident gives her a chance to escape. She jumps into the nearest car, being driven by Tony Baxter (Joel McCrea), an attorney with an eye for the ladies. A group of mobsters, led by Louis Calhern, know she didn't do it, but they also think she knows where $250,000 in bonds are, so they are after her as well as the police."Woman Wanted" comes off as a light film because of the interjected comedy supplied by Robert Grieg, who plays Tony's butler, a sweet scene in an empty diner between Tony and Ann, and Tony's efforts to hide Ann from his fiancée Betty (Ames). It's a pleasant enough film because of the cast, but there really isn't anything special about the plot.The revelation here is the beautiful Ames. I've seen untold thousands of films, not just ones I've reviewed on IMDb, and this was the first time I'd seen her. Her beauty was very much of the young Crawford or Loretta Young, and she was a good actress. Unfortunately she died when she was 39, having left films 7 years earlier to become a commentator and devote herself to bond rallies and war charities. Looking around the Internet, there are certainly people who appreciate her great beauty and sense of style.You can see O'Sullivan, McCrea and the rest in better films. This is a nice chance to see Adrienne Ames.
Joel McCrea and Maureen O'Sullivan star in Woman Wanted about a fugitive who escapes minutes after her murder conviction and the young attorney who tries to help her. I'll let you decide which of the stars played what role.Seriously though, Woman Wanted could have and should have been a straight drama, but the folks at MGM decided to try for some comedy relief. Though some of the bits are funny, especially the performance by Robert Grieg as McCrea's butler, they don't come as relief. Instead they interrupt the flow of the plot.After her conviction for murder, Maureen O'Sullivan is sprung from the courthouse by gangster Louis Calhern who wants information from her. Of course she didn't do the crime and the jailbreak goes well, but Maureen jumps into Joel McCrea's car. Now the proper thing to do would be for attorney McCrea to advise her to turn herself because he is an officer of the court. Still she's kind of cute. So as the Woman Wanted, O'Sullivan is only wanted by McCrea for good reasons, the police and the mob have other things in mind.Lewis Stone is in a similar undefined role as the District Attorney. Usually Stone is wise and sagacious even when he's not Judge Hardy on the screen. Here he's not all that smart, but he's a Rhodes Scholar next to the police who graduated from the Mack Sennett Police Academy. There is another good bit by Edgar Kennedy as a flustered house detective.In the films of Joel McCrea, Tony Thomas correctly says this is a B film, but it's got the MGM gloss to it so it looks far better than it really is.
I caught this garbage today and I don't know about the previous reviewers..one calling it a classic. I always found Marie O'Sullivan a plane Jane. No pun intended ( Jane in Tarzan ). One called her seductive....please. It might of passed the year it was made, 1935 as a "B" movie as a second feature for a double bill which was popular in those days. Great acting? I think not...the dialog even in the contest of the early '30's sounded ridiculous. Joel McCrea was completely wasted here, but obviously he had not arrived at his peak of his popularity as leading man. Robert Grieg, the butler was humorous and thats about it. My TV guide gave it 1 star out of 4...even that was being generous.
This 1935 movie is similar to the later television series and the hit movie "The Fugitive." In this one a female rather than a male is found guilty of a murder she did not commit. Rather than an unplanned train derailment, a planned car wreck sets Ann Gray free. Ann Gray is played by the seductive Maureen O'Sullivan, Tarzan's Jane and Mia Farrow's mother, in a light-hearted manner much in the same way she played Jane. The wreck was orchestrated by mobster Smiley Gordon who is the real killer. The much underrated actor Louis Calhern portrays Smiley with skill and daring. Tony Baxter, Joel McCrae when he was still playing comedic romantic leads, at first unwittingly aids Ann in her escape from so-called justice and hides her away in his apartment. There is a hilarious scene at this point in the film when Tony's on-again off-again fiancée unexpectedly shows up and he has to hide Ann not only from the police but also from his girlfriend. Enter Peedles, Tony's Butler (Robert Greig), who has a delicious time keeping the two separated so the girlfriend Betty Randolph (Adrienne Ames) won't discover the other woman. The law then shows up complicating Peedles' job even more. Now he has to hide both women from the long arm of the law. The wonderful Edgar Kennedy as bumbling House Detective Sweeney is before the camera much too briefly but does get a chance to create a little mayhem for everyone concerned.Another fun scene takes place in a closed diner where the now two fugitives, Ann and Tony, take shelter following a chase by mobsters during a thunder storm. Ann finds some apple jack and proceeds to get looped. Tony pretends to be the cook when the gangsters arrive and serves them hamburgers that he and Ann intended to eat. The local constable shows up after the hoods leave. He gets pie-eyed too.This is one of those neat little films where loose ends get tied much too soon making for a fairly abrupt ending, as if the writers ran out of ideas and decided to wrap things up quickly. Still a very watchable comedy drama with some great acting thrown in to make it even more entertaining.