Happiness Ahead (1934 film)

Happiness Ahead is a 1934 American comedy film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Dick Powell with Josephine Hutchinson. This was Hutchinson's (credited) debut.

Plot
Joan Bradford is a society heiress who rebels against her mother's choice of a future husband by masquerading as a working-class girl and dating a window washer.

Cast

 * Dick Powell as Bob Lane
 * Josephine Hutchinson as Joan Bradford
 * John Halliday as Henry Bradford
 * Frank McHugh as Tom
 * Allen Jenkins as Chuck
 * Ruth Donnelly as Anna
 * Dorothy Dare as Josie
 * Marjorie Gateson as Mrs. Bradford
 * Gavin Gordon as "Jellie" Travis
 * Russell Hicks as Jim Meehan
 * Mary Forbes as Mrs. Travis
 * J. M. Kerrigan as The Boss
 * Mary Treen as The Girl
 * Mary Russell as Girl
 * Jane Darwell as Landlady
 * George Chandler as Window Washer (uncredited)

Reception
Andre Sennwald, critic for The New York Times, called it "a winning and agreeable film", adding: "Mervyn LeRoy, the director of detonating screen melodramas, goes soft and sentimental in his new work without losing his grip on life. "Happiness Ahead" has a continuously warming effect and it produces a mood of benevolence and good cheer. In addition to the strawberry and heart-popping tunes, there are the title number and "Beauty Must Be Loved," which have a good uplift percentage in Dick Powell's sunny tenor. Mr. LeRoy seems to have made a lot out of a little.

Preservation status
The film is preserved in the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation collection.