Except for one absolutely brilliant scene staged by director Norman Taurog with such marvelous insight that it will bring tears to your eyes, this is pretty much a par-for-the-course part-talkie in which George Jessel (who is nowhere near as handsome as he appears on the cover of Alpha's quite acceptable DVD) plays himself but fails to make his character really likable, let alone charismatic. As a singer, he is definitely amateurish, and as a personality, he is generally too aggressively self-centered to be likable. All the same, the way Jessel handles just this one scene when the movie is practically over, is absolutely brilliant, and it could well be argued that the scene would not have come off with even a quarter of its power if he had not so cleverly established a somewhat aggressive and even a totally insensitive characterization beforehand. So, despite its dated part-talkie style, "Lucky Boy" is certainly an interesting movie in which Jessel's bumptious self- centered style is totally redeemed by this one really marvelous scene he shares with Gwen Lee and Richard Tucker. As noted above, this film is not lost and never has been, and it's now available on a pretty good Alpha DVD.
Review of Lucky Boy
Lucky Boy
(1929)
George Jessel allowing one of HIS movies to get lost?
12 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers