Life Of Jimmy Dolan, The (1933)

Jimmy Dolan (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) is a light heavyweight champion, with the world at his feet. Then he gets into a fight with a reporter at a party and, thanks to an accident of fate and a perfect frame by some “friends” of his, he ends up on the run from a homicide. He ends up hiding out in a small town on a health farm, run for the rehabilitation of young children suffering from infantile paralysis (aka polio) by Peggy (Loretta Young) and Mrs. Moore (Aline MacMahon). They initially have doubts about this stranger, who seems to be hiding something, but Dolan is gradually won over by the unselfishness of the two women — especially Peggy — and the love of the children, whose ranks include Freckles (Mickey Rooney), Mary (Anne Shirley), and Sam (Allen “Farina” Hoskins). Peggy and Mrs. Moore may lose the farm unless they can come up with a way of paying off the mortgage, and when a barnstorming fighter comes through town offering $100 a round for anyone who can stay in the ring with him, Jimmy starts thinking that maybe this is a chance to use his fists one last time for a good cause. But then Philaxer (Guy Kibbee), a disgraced police detective, shows up, looking to redeem himself by finding the killer in the case back in New York — and he’s got his eye on Dolan.

1933, B&W, 70 min.