Kid Nightingale

With material like this it's no wonder John Payne got out of his Warner Brothers contract and went on to 20th Century Fox where he finally got to do some major musicals. This is probably something that Dick Powell rejected as he was leaving Warner Brothers as well.

Still Kid Nightingale does have a certain amount of goofy charm to it. Payne is a singing waiter who gets fired for getting into a brawl, but he comes to the attention of fight manager Walter Catlett who's a quick buck artist. Payne is no boxer, but he sings beautifully. Charles D. Brown goes into partnership with Catlett and they bill Payne as Kid Nightingale and set him up with a bunch of tank artists. They even send an orchestra around to accompany him as he gives the fight audience which no consists of a lot of women, a song after each knockout.

Of course Payne is such a knucklehead he hasn't a clue. He even accepts an Italian wrestler as an opera coach when he insists on singing lessons.

Only levelheaded Jane Wyman suspects something's not quite kosher in this setup. She's the means to an inevitable happy ending.

Which I won't give away, but that other Warner Brothers boxing film, The James Cagney classic, The Irish In Us provides a clue, if you've seen it.

Kid Nightingale is so silly it has a certain amount of dopey charm to it and I actually enjoyed it. But no wonder Dick Powell and John Payne whose careers took similar paths left Warner Brothers and didn't look back.