The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Jane Darwell plays a tough newspaper woman out to prove the innocence of her niece's boyfriend (Allan Lane), accused of murder and awaiting sentencing. When he escapes from his holding cell during a thunder storm, the race is on to clear him, and evidence comes from the most unlikely source, none other than the W.W.W. (Wicked Witch of the West herself, Margaret Hamilton), a hard of hearing gossip who fortunately listened in at the right time for once. What happens from there is both potentially tragic and funny as the recently resigned sheriff John Carradine creates a lynching mob to give Lane the type of justice he feels that he deserves. But the truth just is waiting to come out, leaving some of the small town babbitts with egg on their face and teaching these uppity provincials the meaning of truth.Just the year before, Hamilton and future Aunt Millie ("Andy Hardy" series) Sara Haden paired together as co-conspirators in "Way Down East", but here, Hamilton gets to tell Haden off even though she's known for her tendency to stick her ears in where they don't belong. Darwell is extremely funny, insulting Hamilton then when questioned by Hamilton as to what she said, changing it. Delma Byron (aka Brook Byron) is Darwell's niece who claims that she was with Lane at the time of the murder, but nobody will listen to her pleas in court. It's obvious that somebody knows more than their willing to tell. Also involved in this intrigue is Pert Kelton ("The Music Man") as a wealthy man's mistress, that particular snake in the grass also being involved with the nasty Haden.This is another great film about the evils of gossip and the importance of truth and justice in our court systems. It's a combination of drama and comedy with one particularly funny scene of Darwell's dinner guests all gathered at the piano singing "While Strolling Through the Park". Hamilton, who would appear in several Broadway musicals and featured a fine character voice, sounds like a fog horn here, and in several scenes, gets to scream just as she did as the W.W.W. This is probably one of her biggest film roles, and she threatens to steal every scene that she is in, although that is hard to do from the big-hearted Darwell whom 20th Century Fox probably saw as a replacement for the recently deceased Marie Dressler.Also among the character actors who get a chance to shine are James Burke playing a smarter police detective than normal, Russell Hicks as the town's eccentric doctor and Eddie Acuff as Darwell's brother. Billy Benedict, the sandy haired kid who never seemed to age in the "Bowery Boys" series, is very funny in his few scenes as one of Darwell's employees. Lots of bits by prune-faced minor character actors who wrongly believe Lane to be guilty add small town atmosphere. This has a very intelligent screenplay that is fast moving, well directed and a reminder of how real people used to get real chances to show what real people do.

1936's "Laughing at Trouble" stars Jane Darwell as Glory Bradford, a newspaper editor whose niece is in love with John Campbell (Allan "Rocky" Lane, later the voice of MISTER ED), unjustly accused of murdering his wealthy uncle with a knife. After the jury returns a guilty verdict, Campbell escapes from prison and hides out at Glory's home, with the alert Sheriff (James Burke) following close behind. Leading the chase with his German Shepherd in tow, is hot headed Deputy Sheriff Alec Brady (John Carradine), determined to replace his boss as the town sheriff, who doesn't hesitate to shoot the elusive Campbell against the Sheriff's orders. The local doctor (Frank Reicher) gives Campbell the okay to remain at Glory's due to his near-fatal injury, while Brady resigns and begins to work up the townspeople into an outraged mob over their harboring of an escaped criminal. During the evening, a remark from unmarried gossip Lizzie Beadle (Margaret Hamilton), about $10,000 in Treasury bonds belonging to Campbell's late uncle, helps lead Glory to the true identity of the real murderer. Three years before their excellent work in "The Grapes of Wrath," Jane Darwell and John Carradine team up in this long-forgotten (even in its day) little 'B' film, based on an unproduced play called "Glory," the name of its indomitable protagonist. Darwell is in fine form, snapping off witty remarks about everyone around her, especially Carradine, playing the kind of villainous role that audiences first became accustomed to seeing him in. This was the last film he did in 1936, a busy year that saw the bit actor gain character status in John Ford's "The Prisoner of Shark Island" (the hissable Sergeant Rankin), "White Fang" (with Jane Darwell), "The Garden of Allah," "Dimples," "Ramona" (also with Darwell), "Daniel Boone" (as Simon Girty, one of his most despicable villains), with a couple of sympathetic roles in John Ford's "Mary of Scotland" (as Katherine Hepburn's guitar-strumming consort, stabbed to death in her bed), and "Winterset" (as Burgess Meredith's falsely accused father). John Carradine's distinguished career was only just beginning.