Florida Special
Cast & Crew
Ralph Murphy
Jack Oakie
Sally Eilers
Kent Taylor
Frances Drake
Claude Gillingwater
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Bangs Tucker, a newspaper reporter, inadvertently boards a Florida bound train with his wealthy friend, Wally Nelson, who amidst much publicity, has broken his engagement to socialite Marina Stafford. They are both unaware that Marina and her uncle, Simeon Stafford, are also on board. Simeon hires police captain Timothy Harrigan to be his bodyguard, fearing for the safety of some jewels as well as his life. For safekeeping, he gives the jewels to Marina. When the train stops in North Philadelphia, Simeon disappears, and a group of mobsters are suspected, as is Jenkins, Simeon's secretary, despite the fact that he is found unconscious. Wally is smitten by hostess Jerry Quinn, and rescues her from the unwanted attentions of her former lover, Jack Macklyn, a jewel thief. Macklyn attempts to blackmail Jerry into seeing that he gets off the train safely with Simeon's jewels, but she resists. Harrigan and Bangs then find Jenkins dead, Marina tied up, and the jewels missing. After Macklyn tries to force Jerry to take the jewels, Wally breaks into his cabin, and he, Harrigan and Bangs find the jewels in Jerry's purse, although she swears Macklyn stole them. In another room, Bangs discovers an unconscious Simeon, being tended to by a doctor, who tells Bangs that Simeon hired him to kidnap him and keep him on sleeping pills because he was afraid he would be killed. Wally and Macklyn, meanwhile, fight for the jewels until Macklyn jumps off the train, but a recovered Simeon reassures everyone that he had the real jewels with him the entire time in his icebag. Gangsters then break into the cabin, handcuff Harrigan, steal the jewels and lock everyone in the cabin. On arrival in Virginia, hundreds of policemen wait to greet Harrigan. Jerry alerts them to the crooks, and the police round up the gangsters and the jewels. After Bangs receives a telegram from his newspaper informing him he is fired, he returns to New York with his story, while Wally and Jerry remain blissfully together on the Florida-bound train.
Director
Ralph Murphy
Cast
Jack Oakie
Sally Eilers
Kent Taylor
Frances Drake
Claude Gillingwater
J. Farrell Macdonald
Sidney Blackmer
Mathew Betz
Sam Hearn
Dwight Frye
Garry Owen
Clyde Dilson
Mack Gray
Stanley Andrews
Freddy Welch
Dewey Robinson
Robert Perry
Jean Bary
Harry C. Bradley
Norman Willis
Sam Flint
Jackie Heller
William Paul "sugar" Keeler
Oscar G. Hendrian
Ben Taggart
William Jeffrey
Charles R. Moore
Margaret Mann
Betty Farrington
William Griffith
Tommy Tobin
Oscar Smith
Fred "snowflake" Toones
Charles Sherlock
Herbert Ashley
James Adamson
William K. Herman
Louise Small
Eddie Fetherston
Jack Adair
Virginia Howell
Francis Sayles
Robert E. Homans
David Mitchell
Henry Roquemore
Billy Dooley
Gail Sheridan
Jill Dean
Jeanne Perkins
Irene Bennett
Wilma Francis
Ann Evers
Wheaton Chambers
Esther Howard
Ricca K. Allen
Crew
David Boehm
Charles Brackett
Hans Dreier
Farciot Edouart
A. E. Freudeman
Mack Gordon
Loyal Griggs
Earl Hedrick
Don Johnson
Clarence Budington Kelland
Albert Lewis
Eugene Merritt
Frank Partos
Laura Perelman
S. J. Perelman
Harry Revel
Marguerite Roberts
James Smith
Ralph Spence
Harlan Thompson
Leo Tover
Hal Walker
Adolph Zukor
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Although the Screen Achievements Bulletin notes that the film was based on Clarence Budington Kelland's unpublished short story "Recreation Car," the story was published while the film was in production in Country Gentleman magazine (Nov 1935-March 1936). According to the pressbook, the studio reconstructed Pennsylvania Station for this film.
