The Golden Arrow is a 1936

1936 in film

The year 1936 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 29 - Fritz Lang's first Hollywood film Fury, starring Spencer Tracy and Bruce Cabot, is released.*November 6 - first Porky Pig animated cartoon...

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 directed by Alfred E. Green. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Charles Kenyon is based on a story of the same title by Michael Arlen

Michael Arlen

Michael Arlen , original name Dikran Kouyoumdjian, was an Armenian essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter, who had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England...

 published in the September 14, 1935 issue of Liberty

Liberty (magazine)

Liberty magazine may refer to:* Liberty , a political magazine published from 1881 to 1908 by Benjamin Tucker* Liberty , a general-interest magazine published from 1924 to 1950...

.

Plot

The story centers on Johnny Jones, a penniless newspaper reporter who's assigned to interview Daisy Appleby, heiress to the Appleby Facial Creams fortune and the target of numerous suitors anxious to latch onto her wealth. What neither they nor Johnny know is that she's really a cafeteria

Cafeteria

A cafeteria is a type of food service location in which there is little or no waiting staff table service, whether a restaurant or within an institution such as a large office building or school; a school dining location is also referred to as a dining hall or canteen...

 cashier

Cashier

Cashier is an occupation focused on the handling of cash money.- Retail :In a shop, a cashier is a person who scans the goods through a machine called a cash register that the consumer wishes to purchase at the retail store. After all of the goods have been scanned, the cashier then collects...

 hired by a public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

 team to impersonate the socialite. She proposes a marriage of convenience

Marriage of convenience

A marriage of convenience is a marriage contracted for reasons other than the reasons of relationship, family, or love. Instead, such a marriage is orchestrated for personal gain or some other sort of strategic purpose, such as political marriage. The phrase is a calque of - a marriage of...

 that will free her from the cads pursuing her so she can find her ideal man and allow Johnny leisure time to finish his novel. He agrees, and after they wed the company's board of directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

 try to place him under their control, as well. When Johnny rebels and begins dating oil heiress Hortense Burke-Meyers in retaliation, Daisy, who realizes she truly loves him, tries to win him back by having her brother-in-law Alfred Parker impersonate an old beau in an effort to make Johnny jealous.

Production

Although audience reaction to the film, originally titled Cream Princess, at a preview in Long Beach, California

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

 was dismal, Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 rushed it into release to capitalize on the Academy Award

Academy Award for Best Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 leading lady Bette Davis

Bette Davis

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

 recently had won for Dangerous

Dangerous (film)

Dangerous is a 1935 American drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Bette Davis in her first Oscar-winning role. The screenplay by Laird Doyle is based on his story Hard Luck Dame.-Plot synopsis:...

. The actress was upset publicity for the film, which she thought was ridiculous, included mention of her Oscar win. "The was the beginning of the end, temporarily, of my contract with Warner Bros.," she later recalled. "I was actually insulted to have to appear in such a cheap, nothing story as The Golden Arrow after Of Human Bondage, The Petrified Forest

The Petrified Forest

The Petrified Forest is a 1936 American film, starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. A precursor of film noir, it was adapted from Robert E. Sherwood's 1936 stage play of the same name...

, and Bordertown

Bordertown (1935 film)

Bordertown is a 1935 American drama film directed by Archie Mayo. The screenplay by Laird Doyle and Wallace Smith is based on Robert Lord's adaptation of the 1934 novel Border Town by Carroll Graham....

."

Cast

• Bette Davis
  Bette Davis
  Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
  
   ..... Daisy Appleby
• George Brent
  George Brent
  George Brent was an Irish film and television actor in American cinema.-Early life:He was born George Brendan Nolan in Raharabeg, County Roscommon on the opposite bank of the River Shannon from the town of Shannonbridge, County Offaly, Ireland, the son of a British Army officer.During the Irish...
  
   ..... Johnny Jones
• Eugene Pallette
  Eugene Pallette
  Eugene William Pallette was an American actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946....
  
   ..... Mr. Meyers
• Dick Foran
  Dick Foran
  John Nicholas 'Dick' Foran was an American actor, known for his performances in western musicals and for playing supporting roles in dramatic pictures.-Life and career:...
  
   ..... Tommy Blake
• Craig Reynolds ..... Jorgenson
• Carol Hughes ..... Hortense Burke-Meyers
• Hobart Cavanaugh
  Hobart Cavanaugh
  Hobart Cavanaugh was an American character actor in films and on stage.Born in Virginia City, Nevada, Cavanaugh made his film debut in San Francisco Nights...
  
   ..... DeWolfe
• Earle Foxe
  Earle Foxe
  Earle Foxe was an American actor.-Background:Foxe was born Earl Aldrich Fox in Oxford, Ohio, to Charles Aldrich Fox, originally of Flint, Michigan, and Eva May Herron. His older half sister was Ethel May Fox, a music teacher, born in Michigan to Charles Aldrich Fox and Katie Eldridge. Always very...
  
   ..... Alfred Parker

Critical reception

In his review in the New York Times, Frank S. Nugent observed, "With this and that device, with a deal of patterned dialogue and the transparent air of a man who recognizes the unimportance of what he has to say and yet prides himself on telling it so well that you will not mind, The Golden Arrow drifts rather pleasantly across the screen. It derives most of its slight strength as entertainment from the saucy performance of Miss Davis and the harried, but good-natured, expression of Mr. Brent."

Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

described the film as "a minor comedy" and added "Although Miss Davis still can make her eyes pop and her lips droop, The Golden Arrow proves nothing more than that she is adept at nonchalance."