It All Came True *** (1940, Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, Jeffrey Lynn) – Classic Movie Review 11,092

Director Lewis Seiler’s 1940 Warner Bros black and white comedy crime drama It All Came True is a virtually unknown Humphrey Bogart movie from just before his best period.

Bogart plays a crooked mobster nightclub owner Chips Maguire, who is holed up in tatty boarding house lodgings after murdering a police informant, turns the place into a money-making hit nightclub and forces singer Sarah Jane Ryan (Ann Sheridan) to choose him or songwriter Tommy Taylor (Jeffrey Lynn), whose eccentric mother Mrs Norah Taylor (Jessie Busley) owns the house with Sarah’s mother Maggie Ryan (Una O’Connor).

Possibly to help her to make up her mind, Sheridan trills a couple of pretty new numbers, The Gaucho Serenade and Angel in Disguise, as well as the old songs My Pony Boy, Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet, Mister Dooley, Cuddle Up a Little Closer Lovey Mine, The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady, and When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.

Bogart isn’t too happy in this soft stuff and anyway it is mainly a vehicle for the talented and cool-looking Sheridan, but it is an attractive vehicle for an attractive star. ZaSu Pitts as a tippling boarder who sees men following her, Una O’Connor and Jessie Busley are very appealing.

‘A GREAT NOVEL BECOMES A GREATER MOTION PICTURE!’ Well, that would be Louis Bromfield’s novel It All Came True, with the screenplay by Michael Fessier and Lawrence Kimble.

Also in the cast are ZaSu Pitts, Una O’Connor, Jessie Busley, John Litel, Grant Mitchell, Felix Bressart, Charles Judels, Brandon Tynan, Howard Hickman, Herbert Vigran and Tommy Reilly.

It is made at Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,092

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