Conrad Nagel Movies

Norma Shearer earned an Academy Award for playing the not so gay divorcée in this pre-Code offering based, loosely, on Ex-Wife, a 1929 Ursula Parrott novel. Shearer is Jerry, a socialite who marries handsome Ted (Chester Morris) after a whirlwind courtship. But Ted is not exactly the faithful type and after three years of what she in her naïveté considered marital bliss, Jerry learns of his affair with Janice (Mary Doran). "It meant nothing," Ted assures her but Jerry is devastated and decides to investigate adultery for herself by sleeping with Ted's best friend, Don (Robert Montgomery). When she discovers that the old double-standard still applies, Jerry announces that henceforth Ted, and only Ted, is no longer welcome in her bed. After a string of lovers who mean little or nothing to her, Jerry falls for an old flame, Paul (Conrad Nagel), but when she understands the effect their affair has on Paul's poor disfigured wife, Dorothy (Helen Johnson, aka Judith Wood), Jerry returns to Ted, who still loves her despite it all. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Sometimes all it takes to save a marriage is a good pop, right in the kisser or so this family drama seems to imply. The story focuses on a troubled married couple. At first the wife turns to a therapist, but she finds herself paying a lot of money for nothing. In desperation, she decides to pack up the children and move out. Her husband tries to persuade her to comeback, but she refuses. He then punches her in the face. This seems to do the trick, and she comes home. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this early sound film, adapted from a play by Somerset Maugham, a WW I veteran is left crippled after a plane crash that occurred on his wedding day. He must spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Meanwhile his loving wife begins an affair with his brother. When his mother finds out about it, she kills her invalid son so he will never know of his wife and brother's treachery. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks) directed this second film version of the Bayard Veiller play, which was his first collaboration with Bela Lugosi, whom he would launch to stardom two years later. Lugosi plays Inspector Delzante, who investigates a series of murders near a British mansion in Calcutta. The murders are pinned on a young runaway named Helen O'Neill (Leila Hyams) who is taken in by a well-intentioned fake Irish medium, Madame LaGrange (Margaret Wycherly). Delzante toys with the various characters in attendance and makes them reveal the real killer, and Lugosi is a lot of fun to watch. The film doesn't hold up to straight criticism very well -- the accents are particularly ludicrous, the Indian setting is totally unconvincing (and, in light of the short shrift it is given in the script, wholly unnecessary), and the acting is of the stiff, declamatory style so popular in the early days of sound. If one can accept these drawbacks and just enjoy the cast (Holmes Herbert, Conrad Nagel, even a young Joel McCrea), the film is quite entertaining. Those viewers whose familiarity with Lugosi is limited to his horror work and his sad decline under the tutelage of Edward D. Wood Jr. may be quite surprised at his screen presence here, which -- while undeniably hammy -- is nonetheless commanding and powerful. He doesn't really act so much as mesmerize. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

MGM's paranoid fear of audience reaction to Greta Garbo's speaking voice must have been the only reason for this plodding courtroom melodrama to have been made as a silent. Released with a synchronized score and two important sound effects, The Kiss would prove to be Garbo's, and Metro's, final silent feature film. Happily, Belgian director Jacques Feyder used both the pantomime format and the aforementioned sound effects -- a gunshot and the incessant ringing of a telephone -- to optimum effect. When ulcer-plagued husband Anders Randolf returns unexpectedly in the middle of a smooch between his wife and 18-year-old Lew Ayres, he naturally jumps to the wrong conclusion. But the kiss is in reality merely Garbo's firm goodbye to an overly anxious admirer. Randolf and Ayres fight, Garbo vainly attempts to reason with her husband, a closed door shields the action from the viewer, and only a muffled shot is heard (yes, heard). Then the telephone rings: It is Ayres' father (Holmes Herbert) wondering why his appointment, Randolf, never showed. To shield the boy, Garbo takes the blame for the killing (she actually did do it but only to save Ayres' life) and is defended in court by the real love of her life, Conrad Nagel. Hans Kraly's screenplay is a bit heavyhanded and certainly nothing special, but Garbo's luminous presence almost saves the film from the doldrums. She plays the kind of society wife who lounges about in Art Deco elegance, keeping a stack of eight-by-ten glossies at the ready to hand out to young admirers like Ayres. It is all completely artificial of course, but Garbo somehow makes it believable. The supporting cast is what you expect: Ayres, handsome and impossibly young, Randolf, all bombast and pomposity, and Nagel, his usual dull self. For now obscure reasons, Conrad Nagel was highly regarded at the time and was by far Hollywood's busiest leading man at the changeover to sound. Garbo enjoyed working with Feyder, who went on to guide her through the German-language version of Anna Christie in 1930; and she was always more relaxed on and offscreen when other Scandinavians were around, in this case the Danish-born Randolf. As the near future would reveal, neither Garbo nor Metro had anything to worry about regarding the diva's accent and in February of 1930, the studio could at long last proudly proclaim that Garbo talks. She was the last major star to do so with the possible exception of Charles Chaplin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

In one of his last silent films, Conrad Nagel stars as Charles H. Cook, a sober-sided young man who is persuaded by his buddies to visit a nightclub. Partaking of spirits for the first time in his life, Cook proceeds to get totally plastered and ends up passing out on the floor. Upon awakening, he is informed that he has sullied the reputation of good-time-girl Miss Scott (Sharon Lynn). It's all a hoax, of course, but Cook doesn't know that -- and even worse, he's got a less-than-understanding wife (June Collyer) at home. Things really get dicey when Mrs. Cook insists the next evening that her husband take her out to dinner -- at the selfsame nightclub where her hubby made a fool of himself the night before. When the title Red Wine failed to click at the box office, Fox Studios changed it to the somewhat less subtle Let's Make Whoopee. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This late silent effort from Warner Bros. stars Conrad Nagel and May McAvoy. Nagel plays a wealthy young sprout who makes an unannounced visit to his mother's houseboat. Here he confronts a gang of thieves, including the lovely McAvoy. Somewhat amused, Nagel offers no protest when the crooks assume that he's a burglar. When another team of burglars shows up, posing as house guests, Nagel, having fallen in love with McAvoy, convinces the first gang of crooks to pose as servants. Caught in the Fog included a handful of talkie sequences, dispelling the then-prevalent rumor that May McAvoy suffered from a speech impediment which rendered her dialogue unintelligible. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

German actress Lena Malena starred in this lavishly budgeted and potentially intriguing melodrama about the influence of a valuable gem on its owners. In South Africa, a miner (Charles Stevens) loses his life after stealing a valuable diamond. Before he expires, he gives the stone to Musa (Malena), a girl from the village. Now known as the Shah Diamond, the gem turns up in New York City, where it is admired by Cecile (Gwen Lee), a socialite. When Cecile's lover Jerry (John Roche) buys her the stone, her husband John (Conrad Nagel) leaves in a fit of jealousy. Cecile, however, mistakes the gem for a valueless glass trinket and gives it to her maid, Musa. Next, the diamond turns up in a speakeasy, where it is admired by Tillie (Eleanor Boardman), the owner's girlfriend who is suffering from tuberculosis. An admirer, Larry (Lawrence Gray), secretly gives the girl money for treatment, but she instead buys the diamond. There is a police raid and Musa, now a dancing girl, is shot attempting to retrieve the diamond. Diamond Handcuffs was produced by Cosmopolitan Productions, an organization founded by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

When unassuming clerk Tom Blake (Conrad Nagel) is framed with the murder of a policeman in the midst of a violent bank robbery, the innocent pawn briefly eludes the authorities before committing suicide. Arriving at the scene just as Tom breathes his final breath, twin brother Ralph vows to avenge his the death of his ill-fated brother after reading a letter detailing his innocence. In turn mistaken for Tom by a gangster (George Stone) who arrives at the scene shortly thereafter, Ralph learns of a nefarious figure known as "The Bat" (William Russel) who carries out the biddings of underworld kingpin "The Chief." Soon mistaken for his brother by the police as well, Ralph hides out in the apartment of the slain police officer's daughter Slinkey (Myrna Loy), quickly forming a romantic bond and partnership with the girl in order to seek out "The Bat." Soon realizing that "The Bat" and "The Chief" are one in the same, Ralph pursues the vicious killer onto a nearby rooftop with the police in hot pursuit. Derived from a story by Melville Crossman, in addition to being the first speaking role for actress Loy this film took advantage of the recent advent of film sound to include two scenes of key exposition. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The father of footloose Cynthia Martin (May McAvoy) has decreed that, until Cynthia finds a husband her two sisters won't be allowed to go out with men. To help her sisters out, Cynthia pretends to be married to famous aviator Major John Smith (Conrad Nagel), who is far far away in Nicaragua. When she falls in love with Donald Woodward (Robert Agnew), Cynthia "kills off" her husband by claiming that he has fallen in battle. As expected, Major Smith shows up very much alive, and when he finds out what's been going on, he insists upon claiming his "bride." As also expected, this turn of events is hardly the end of the story! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Most sources agree that MGM's Heaven on Earth was actually a re-edited version of the 1926 Josef Von Sternberg production The Exquisite Sinner. Both films starred Renee Adoree and Conrad Nagel; both concerned the scion of a silk-manufacturing family who joins a band of gypsies; and both were credited to director Phil Rosen, who took over for the notoriously slow Von Sternberg halfway through production of Exquisite Sinner. To qualify as a "new" picture, Heaven on Earth included a gratuitous subplot involving such supporting actors as Gwen Lee and Julia Swayne Gordon. Film editor John English then deftly rearranged the scenes from the 1926 film, so that audiences would not suspect that they were being served warmed-over stew. English did his job so well that not even the trade paper Variety figured out that Heaven on Earth was hardly an original effort. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though he's perfectly happy with his wife May (May McAvoy), Ted Howard (Conrad Nagel) isn't above a little flirtation with another girl named Joan (Myrna Loy). Not too pleased with Ted's roving eye -- especially since her "rival" is also her best friend -- May cooks up a plan to cure him of his flirting. Our heroine pretends to be in love with music teacher Claude (Andre Beranger), who happens to be Joan's boyfriend. The two errant couples are forced together by circumstance when the car in which they're driving breaks down, whereupon all four parties decide to behave themselves from now on. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi