Usually, the Warner Brothers programmers of the 1930s were fast-paced and crisp and filled with sparkle. That is missing in this programmer that stars a young Ronald Reagan as an Army Sergeant who wants to purchase a horse that the army is trying to get rid of. Sergeant Murphy is the name of that horse, and while he's not Bonzo, Reagan has great faith in him. because of anonymity law that prohibits an active soldier from buying army animals, Reagan is unable to purchase Sergeant Murphy as long as he is an enlisted man, and as soon as he gets out, he hunts around for him, ultimately trying to enter Sergeant Murphy in a horse race.
There's always a romance in these type of films and that it always involves a girl whose father hates the hero. In this case, the father is Reagan's commanding officer, Donald Crisp, and the girl is Warner Brothers starlet Mary McGuire, certainly no Francis, Davis, Sheridan or Blondell. She's sweet and charming, but lacks star quality.
Sam McDaniel gets a stereotypical subsurvient black servant role, with the unique name of Henry H. Henry. (Guess what the H stands for...) He gets a few uncomfortable laughs. There's no real point to the film, a disappointment considering that Warner Brothers was known for their social issue dramas, this really providing only a minimal amount of entertainment and sort of just laying there. At under an hour, it seems even longer.
There's always a romance in these type of films and that it always involves a girl whose father hates the hero. In this case, the father is Reagan's commanding officer, Donald Crisp, and the girl is Warner Brothers starlet Mary McGuire, certainly no Francis, Davis, Sheridan or Blondell. She's sweet and charming, but lacks star quality.
Sam McDaniel gets a stereotypical subsurvient black servant role, with the unique name of Henry H. Henry. (Guess what the H stands for...) He gets a few uncomfortable laughs. There's no real point to the film, a disappointment considering that Warner Brothers was known for their social issue dramas, this really providing only a minimal amount of entertainment and sort of just laying there. At under an hour, it seems even longer.