O.P. Heggie Movies

Warner Baxter plays Dr. Samuel Mudd, American history's most famous victim of circumstance. In 1865, Dr. Mudd, a known Confederate sympathizer, sets the broken leg of a mud-caked stranger who stumbles into his home. The injured man turns out to be John Wilkes Booth, and Mudd is accused of conspiring to murder President Lincoln. Sentenced to hang with the genuine conspirators, Mudd finds his sentence commuted to life imprisonment at the very last moment. He is shipped to Shark Island, a brutal penal colony. Subject to the cruelties of a guard (John Carradine) who hates Mudd because of his "complicity" in Lincoln's death, the doctor suffers the torments of the damned, while outside Shark Island his wife (Gloria Stuart) campaigns desperately to get her husband pardoned. During a Yellow Fever breakout on Shark Island, Dr. Mudd performs heroically to save the survivors. For his humanitarian efforts, Mudd is finally released and reunited with his wife. While the script glosses over the fact that Dr. Mudd had never been officially pardoned by the US government (the pardon wouldn't be granted until years after this film was made), Prisoner of Shark Island strives long and hard to exonerate the man for whom the phrase "your name is mud!" was coined. Dr. Samuel Mudd's story was retold in the 1952 feature Hellgate, with Sterling Hayden as a (fictional) doctor, and in the 1980 TV movie The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd, starring Dennis Weaver in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

O.P. Heggie plays an ageing Parisian book collector who has spent four decades tracking down a rare volume. The trail leads to a small French village, where Heggie meets the daughter (Anne Shirley) of a woman he'd been in love with years earlier. He becomes the girl's guardian, smooths the path of her romance with a local boy (Trent Durkin), finds his precious book, and foils the machinations of villain Etienne Girardot. Chasing Yesterday represents the final screen appearance of Trent Durkin, formerly a child star named Junior Durkin; before 1935 was over, Durkin would be killed in a car accident. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This greatest of all Frankenstein movies begins during a raging thunderstorm. Warm and cozy inside their palatial villa, Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton), and Shelley's wife Mary (Elsa Lanchester) engage in morbidly sparkling conversation. The wicked Byron mockingly chastises Mary for frightening the literary world with her recent novel Frankenstein, but Mary insists that her horror tale preached a valuable moral, that man was not meant to dabble in the works of God. Moreover, Mary adds that her story did not end with the death of Frankenstein's monster, whereupon she tells the enthralled Byron and Shelley what happened next. Surviving the windmill fire that brought the original 1931 Frankenstein to a close, the Monster (Boris Karloff) quickly revives and goes on another rampage of death and destruction. Meanwhile, his ailing creator Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) discovers that his former mentor, the demented Doctor Praetorius (Ernst Thesiger), plans to create another life-sized monster -- this time a woman! After a wild and wooly "creation" sequence, the bandages are unwrapped, and the Bride of the Monster (Elsa Lanchester again) emerges. Alas, the Monster's tender efforts to connect with his new Mate are rewarded only by her revulsion and hoarse screams. "She hate me," he growls, "Just like others!" Wonderfully acted and directed, The Bride of Frankenstein is further enhanced by the vivid Franz Waxman musical score; even the film's occasional lapses in logic and continuity (it was trimmed from 90 to 75 minutes after the first preview) are oddly endearing. Director James Whale was memorably embodied by Ian McKellen in the Oscar-winning 1998 biopic Gods and Monsters. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The old "If it were your own daughter" plot device forms the basis of the independently-produced crime melodrama Midnight. O.P. Heggie plays jury foreman Edward Weldon, who has no qualms about sentencing a woman to death for a crime of passion. His unpopular decision makes Weldon persona non grata even in his own home, but he sticks to his firm belief that all murderers must pay the supreme penalty, no matter what the provocation. He soon has cause to regret his intractability when his own daughter Stella (Sidney Fox) kills a former lover who betrayed her. In addition to Humphrey Bogart, who plays the small but memorable role of one of the murder victims, this New York-filmed oddity also features such Broadway-bred talent as Margaret Wycherly, Henry Hull, Granville Bates, Helen Flint, and, in their film debuts, Lynne Overman and Richard Whorf. Midnight was later reissued by Astor Films as Call it Murder to cash in on Bogart's latter-day popularity (Bogie was also "promoted" to top billing in the refilmed opening credits). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Few famous novels have been filmed as often as Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo--and few versions are as enjoyable as this 1934 adaptation starring Robert Donat. Donat plays Edmond Dantes, wrongly accused of a plot against the post-Napoleonic French government. Condemned to a prison cell in the impenetrable Chateau D'If, Dantes vows vengeance against the four conspirators who framed him. He is particularly anxious to give his ex-friend Mondego (Sidney Blackmer) his comeuppance, since it was Mondego who married Dantes' fiancee Mercedes (Elissa Landi). Twelve years pass; with the help of ancient fellow prisoner Abbe Foria (O.P. Heggie), Dantes digs his way out of the Chateau D'If and escapes. He finds the treasure of Monte Cristo, which makes him the wealthiest man in the world. He uses his riches to put his plan of revenge into motion, methodically destroying every one of his enemies. Though he lives for vengeance, Dantes--alias the Count of Monte Cristo--has his humanity restored by the love of Mercede, who despite her marriage has always remained spiritually faithful to him. According to publicity, the 1955 TV series based on The Count of Monte Cristo was filmed on the standing sets from the 1934 film. This might well have been true, since both film and series were produced by Edward Small. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of George Arliss' "smaller" vehicles, The King's Vacation casts the eminent British stage star (always billed as "Mr. George Arliss") as an abdicating monarch. Seeking the simple life, he comes to America in search of the wife (Marjorie Gateson) he'd been forced to divorce years earlier in order keep his crown. Upon locating her, Arliss discovers that his ex-wife has remarried into wealth, and is now better off than he's ever been. His disillusionment complete, Arliss returns to his queen (Florence Arliss), who has likewise renounced her throne for an austere existence. Only George Arliss could get away with telling us that "poor is better" in a picture made in the middle of the Depression! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Devotion is a stiff, static early talkie in which everybody speaks in stage British and suffers in dinner jackets. Ann Harding is desperately in love with London barrister Leslie Howard. To be nearer to him, she dons a disguise (wig and spectacles) and takes a job as the governess to Howard's son. Though Howard is lauded as brilliant, he's as dense as Lois Lane when it comes to penetrating a cheap pair of glasses. The plot begins to move (and about time!) when a wastrelly artist, played by Robert Williams, is successfully defended in court by Howard. Invited to the barrister's home, Williams goes on the make for Ms. Harding; only then does Howard acknowledge the fact that Our Heroine is alive. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Lily Damita, an actress best known today for her tempestuous marriage to screen idol Errol Flynn, is the Dietrich-like heroine in RKO Radio's The Woman Between. Damita plays a knockout French modiste who marries the much-older widower O.P. Heggie. She immediately incurs the wrath of Heggie's grown children (Lester Vail, Miriam Seegar), who suspect that Damita married the old coot for her money. She didn't, but she does eventually tire of Heggie, ending up running off with her handsome "stepson" Vail. In an incredible climactic about-face, our heroine decides to remain faithful to Heggie after all, apparently for no other reason than RKO's fear of the Hollywood censors. Director Victor L. Schertzinger also wrote the film's theme song, Close to Me. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this sparkling musical comedy, a bungling waiter (Maurice Chevalier) loses his job at a tony restaurant. His employment prospects look grim until the opportunistic restaurateur learns that his ex-employee is slated to receive a vast inheritance. Hastily, he hires the youth back and then tries to convince him to fall in love with his very eligible daughter. Unfortunately for the scheming employer, the waiter finds out about the money and disdains the girl while continuing to work at the restaurant just to bedevil his boss. At night though, the young fellow becomes a notorious, club-hopping playboy until he insults an aristocrat and finds himself challenged to a duel. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The second of three versions of the Ferenc Molnar play The Swan, One Romantic Night represented the talkie debut of the great Lillian Gish. The star plays Alexandra, a mittel-European princess who falls in love with Dr. Hafler (Conrad Nagel), her brother's tutor. Alas, affairs of state demand that Alexandra marry Prince Albert (Rod La Rocque), whom she does not love despite his graciousness and affability. Our heroine's problem is twofold: she must let Dr. Hafler down gently -- then she must do the same for herself. Though about ten years too old for her role, Lillian Gish is as serenely regal as ever and does a nice job of modulating her stage-trained voice (which under normal circumstances was capable of reaching the last row of the balcony) for the more intimate demands of the microphone. For the record, the original Broadway production of The Swan starred Eva Le Galleine; the 1925 film version starred Frances Howard, while the 1956 remake top-billed Grace Kelly, who of course eventually became a real-life princess. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on Porter Emerson Browne's 1920 play of the same name, The Bad Man features Walter Huston as the title character, bold Mexican bandido Pancho Lopez. Holding Americans Ruth Pell (Dorothy Revier) and her wealthy husband Morgan (Sidney Blackmer) for ransom, Lopez takes a liking to Ruth and begins plotting Morgan's demise. As things turn out, however, Lopez's inherent decency suddenly and unexpectedly surfaces -- not soon enough, however, to save him from being mowed down by the Texas Rangers. Previously filmed in 1923, The Bad Man was remade in an oriental setting as West of Shanghai (1937), with Boris Karloff assuming the Walter Huston role, albeit transformed into a Chinese war lord. It was filmed again, under its original title, as a 1941 Wallace Beery vehicle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Letter was the first film version of the Somerset Maugham play of the same name. Broadway star Jeanne Eagels plays the wife of Reginald Owen, the owner of a Malayan rubber plantation. The film opens with Eagels shooting a man (Herbert Marshall) to death; she explains that the man had tried to assault her. It is assumed that the subsequent trial will go well for Eagels, who has the advantage of wealth and social position. But Eagels' lawyer (O.P. Heggie) learns of the existence of a letter sent to the dead man in which Eagels declares her undying love--thereby proving that the killing was not justified. At great personal expense, the lawyer buys back the letter from the dead man's wife, a grim native woman. Only after Eagels is found not guilty does she reveal her indiscretion to her husband. She tries to convince him that she will be a faithful wife in the future, but suddenly pulls back and violently declares "With all my heart--I still love the man I killed!" The Letter was remade in 1940 (with considerable censorial alterations) starring Bette Davis as the murderess and Herbert Marshall--the victim in the 1929 version--as her cuckolded husband. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this melodrama set during WW I, a gangster joins the army and is promoted to major. He then returns from war torn Europe to tell a family that their beloved son had died in his arms during a battle. The major then falls in love with the late soldier's sister and decides to accept a position in town as the new police commissioner. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi