Freckles Comes Home

The bucolic, down-home novels and short stories of Gene Stratton-Porter had been fodder for Monogram's screenwriting staff ever since the early 1930s. This cinemazation of Stratton-Porter's Freckles Comes Home stars Johnny Downs as the title character, who returns from college to his sedentary home town. Freckles' efforts to bring the community kicking and screaming into the 20th century somehow require him to tackle a group of gangsters who've taken up residence for the purpose of knocking off the town's bank. Every so often, the story stops dead in its tracks to permit black comedian Mantan Moreland to indulge in one of his famous "interrupted conversation" routines; they're the highlight of the picture. Seen as Johnny Downs' hometown sweetheart is Gale Storm, who does some of her best acting to date as the bank president's daughter.