MovieChat Forums > Torchy Blane.. Playing with Dynamite (1939) Discussion > Jane Wyman and Torchy Blane

Jane Wyman and Torchy Blane

posted 16 years ago by The Daz
3 replies | jump to latest

Wyman's only performance of Torchy Blane was in "Torchy Blane ...Playing With Dynamite" which was released in August of 1939. It flopped.
However, in December of '39 "Private Detective" was released, starring Wyman, Dick Foran, Gloria Dickson and Maxie Rosenbloom.
It's obvious this was written as a Torchy Blane feature as Foran's Police Officer is identical with "Steve McBride" plus the fact that he and Wyman have been waiting to get married for five years. He even carries the wedding certificate around with him. Rosenbloom's "Brody" matches Tom Kennedy's "Gahagan" while Selmer Jackson's Agency Chief matches Newspaper Editor Joe Cunningham. Joseph Crehan's Police Chief matches that of Frank Shannon. It'a pretty obvious "Private Detective" was written to be a Blane feature but with the failure of "Torchy Blane ... Playing With Dynamite", the execs at the studio just changed a few names and went from there.
The original running time, by the way, of "Private Detective" was listed as 57 minutes but the print run by TCM runs only 55:24.

[–] XweAponX 16 years ago

Looks like the whgole idea of Torchy Blane was based on the part Glenda Farrell played in Mystery of the Wax Museum:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0024368/

As a stand alone, "Playing with Dynamite" was an ok comedy-detective story, but I never consider it a Torchy Blane story.

Glenda Farrell was a lot better in the role, but they should have imported Frank McCugh into the Torchy series, the first "Ah Ha" laugh of his (that I have seen, maybe there was an earlier one) was in Wax Museum.

You ought to post what you wrote up in User Comments.

[–] jackboot 13 years ago

I think that I'm in agreement, this was not by any means on par with the rest of the Torchy Blane series. Still, I found it to be okay. There were definitely bright moments.

The guy who played Denver Eddie's henchman, Bruce McFarlane, was very effective, I thought.

I loved the conversation the two wrestlers were having in the ring!! For anyone who could enjoy a good laugh at professional wrestling and all its fakery and phoniness, they would get a big kick out of that.

Allen Jenkins and Jane Wyman were okay, they were fine. They just had the misfortune to inherit an installment in a series which had been well established by Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane. This was definitely not the best of the series, I'd agree with XweAponX, and say that this is better thought of as NOT being a Torchy Blane story. Glenda Farrell really makes the Torchy Blane series, she was wonderful.

And another thing!! In one of the earlier Torchy films we find out that her real name is "Theresa". In this film, she's called "Helen" when she's not being called "Torchy"!!

[–] hbenthow 13 years ago

Looks like the whgole idea of Torchy Blane was based on the part Glenda Farrell played in Mystery of the Wax Museum:

The Torchy Blane movies were based on the "MacBride and Kennedy" stories by Louis Frederick Nebel. They are actually very faithful adaptions, except for one notable difference: they took the drunken, hard-boiled Kennedy of the Free Press, rewrote him as a woman, gave her an affinity for steaks instead of alcohol, made her Steve MacBride's love interest instead of merely his foil, named her "Torchy Blane", and cast Glenda Farrell because of her performance in "Mystery of the Wax Museum".

One time, they asked Nebel if he minded the change, to which he replied:

"Hell, they always change the stuff around. But I don't mind--as long as I don't have to make the changes."

I, for one, believe they actually made an improvement. After seeing Torchy brilliantly brought to life by Glenda Farrell, I doubt if they would have been as good with Kennedy instead.

Courage, men! We've not sunk before, and we'll not sink now!