Hot Water
Cast & Crew
Frank R. Strayer
Jed Prouty
Shirley Deane
Spring Byington
Russell Gleason
Kenneth Howell
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
At a council meeting for the town of Maryville, Jack Jones arrives and tells his father, John Jones, that he just stopped at the Red Mill cocktail bar for a burger, a place that had earlier been raided for illegal gambling practices. Distressed that his son has innocently frequented such a house of vice, Jones gives a moving speech about the imperative to clean up Maryville. The meeting attendees agree and nominate the hesitant Jones for mayor. As Jones gives another speech on the radio about the iniquities of the Red Mill, Hal Lynch, the bar's owner, and Mayor Roberts discuss the prudence of closing the bar during the race. Lynch reminds Roberts where his campaign funds come from, and the two decide that the campaign needs the bar's proceeds. Jones later discovers that the Red Mill is owned by a Caleb Stone, Roberts' cousin, who is in the poor house, and this connection implicates Roberts in the bar's ownership. Roger, Jack's younger brother, overhears his father and mother discussing Roberts' ownership of the bar and prints the story in his little newspaper, The Maryville Tattler . Roger distributes the papers to a crowd of moviegoers, and when Jack sees the story, he tells Roger to retrieve the newspapers or risk endangering his father's campaign. A reporter for a Maryville daily refuses to return his copy, however, and rewrites the story for his own paper. Lynch, after reading the story, gets Bebe Montaine, a cocktail waitress at the Red Mill, to lure Jack to the bar by pretending that her car has broken down. After Jack takes her to the Red Mill and drives away, Lynch sends a henchman, Walter Whittaker, to swerve into Jack's car on the highway. The police arrive and discover in Jack's car a bottle of liquor that Lynch's men had earlier planted. Whittaker is taken to the hospital and pronounced paralyzed from the waist down. Roger deduces from oil spots and tire marks that Whittaker had been lying in wait for Jack's car and that he is now faking his illness. He goes to the hospital with a box of hornets wrapped up as candy, and when the hornets fly out of the box, Whittaker runs screaming into an officer's arms. Roger and Jack pull Whittaker up on a platform, where Roberts and others make campaign speeches, and Whittaker confesses that Lynch and Roberts framed Jack. Roberts runs away, presumably in resignation, and Jones' election as Mayor of Maryville is announced.
Director
Frank R. Strayer
Cast
Jed Prouty
Shirley Deane
Spring Byington
Russell Gleason
Kenneth Howell
George Ernest
June Carlson
Florence Roberts
Billy Mahan
Joan Marsh
Marjorie Weaver
Willard Robertson
Robert Gleckler
Arthur Hohl
Selmer Jackson
Joseph King
Paul Fix
Carlyle Moore
Ray Walker
Billy Wayne
George Chandler
James Flavin
Ralph Dunn
Jack Dougherty
John Ince
Charles Lane
Lloyd Whitlock
Gladden James
Wilfred Lucas
George Guhl
Carroll Nye
Emmett Vogan
Dorothy Phillips
Cy Kendall
Robert Emmett Keane
William Burress
Carl Stockdale
Don Downen
Monte Grady
Peter Gowland
Erich Von Stroheim Jr.
Donald House
Billy Watson
Buster Slaven
Harry Watson
Tom Herbert
Harry Semels
Stanley Blystone
Robert Homans
J. Anthony Hughes
Helen Dickson
Robert Lowery
Crew
Jack Adams
Si Adams
Al Baker
Arthur Berthelet
Paul Burger
Fred Casey
Robert Chapin
Walter Christie
Harry Clark
Harry Cornfield
Edwin H. Curtis
Eleanor De Lamater
Nick De Maggio
Karen De Wolf
Ed. Ebele
Charles Faye
Ron Ferguson
Bernard Freericks
Max Golden
Chester Gore
Jerry Gose
Kenny Green
Herschel
Gladys Howe
Samuel Kaylin
Olive Koenitz
Harry M. Leonard
Phil Mandella
C. J. Mazzoletti
J. C. Milligan
Kurt Rehfeld
Maynard Rugg
William Sittell
Edward Snyder
Frank Sullivan
John Van Wormer
Jack Vernon
Saul Wurtzel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The plot summary was based on a screen continuity at the USC Cinema-Television Library, and the onscreen credits were taken from a screen credit sheet in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department at the UCLA Theater Arts Library. The working titles of this film were The Jones Family in Politics, Too Much Limelight and The Jones Family in Too Much Limelight. This film was also known as The Jones Family in Hot Water. According to the legal records, Ron Ferguson and Eleanor De Lamater, who received screen credit for original story, based their treatment on an original story by Paul Burger, who did not receive screen credit. The legal records also note that the exterior of the Jones family home was filmed at 844 5th Avenue in Los Angeles and that filming of the automobile accident was shot at night in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. For information about the series, please see the entry above for Every Saturday Night.
