Ann Dvorak Movies

Dan Mitchell (Randolph Scott) is the town marshal of Abilene, KS, in the turbulent years after the Civil War and the start of the big cattle drives out of Texas. The town is growing faster than a lot of citizens are prepared to deal with it, especially as homesteaders start moving in, fighting for space with the cattlemen. Dan has kept the peace, such as it is, by keeping the saloons, gambling, and guns on one side of Main Street and the shop-owners, farmers, women, and children on the other. He's also been walking a tightrope in his own life, conducting a sometimes turbulent romance with Rita (Ann Dvorak), a saloon singer and co-owner, while also not discouraging the attentions of Sherry Balder (Rhonda Fleming), the "nice girl" daughter of one of the town's leading businessmen, who would love to marry Dan if only he would settle down. A new wave of homesteaders is arriving, and the cattlemen, cowboys, and saloon owners want them driven out and the town kept wide open, fearing the homesteaders' religious beliefs and the arrival of families, which means schools, building, and encroaching "respectability." Trouble breaks out and people are killed, with Dan caught in the middle. Using his guile and a good deal of bravery, and the unwitting help from the cowardly county sheriff (Edgar Buchanan), Dan manages to get the shop owners onto the side of the homesteaders, and plays a dangerous game of divide-and-conquer with the saloon-keepers and cowboys. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Joe E. Brown's extensive circus and burlesque training serve him well in this familiar but likeable yarn. Brown and Ann Dvorak stars as small-time vaudevillians Joe and Fay Wilson, presently employed by a seedy burlesque troupe. Also on tour with the Wilsons is society girl Peggy (Patricia Ellis), who's merely joined the troupe for a few laughs. Publicity agent Daniel Wheeler (William Gargan) offers Joe a big-time contract, but only if he will team up with Peggy. Surprisingly, Fay goes along with this, though she soon has reason to regret her generosity. The film's many intrigues give way to slapstick when Joe commandeers an airplane to expedite a reconciliation with his ever-loving spouse. The film's comic highlight is Joe E. Brown's "drunken mouse" routine, which later caused him courtroom trouble when comedian Bert Wheeler insisted that the bit was his personal property. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Those who only know Pat O'Brien from his later, slightly more avuncular roles may be surprised to see him pumping out almost as much energy as his friend (and sometime co-star) James Cagney, in the lead and title role of College Coach. As James Gore, the head football coach for Calvert College, he leads his team to victory at any cost, including fair-play, decent (if not good) sportsmanship, and honesty -- he's even got his hooks into the financial end of a stadium deal. But all isn't well with those around Gore -- his best and most honorable player, Sargeant (Dick Powell, really wants to get an education while playing college ball, and finally backs out when he sees the hypocrisy around him; and his other top player, Weaver (Lyle Talbott), is a self-centered headline hound with an IQ in low double-digits who is a detriment to the team whenever he isn't scoring touchdowns. And his work seems to be unraveling when his tactics bring about a tragedy on the playing field. But it's when he discovers that his own wife (Ann Dvorak) is feeling so neglected that she's been pushed toward infidelity -- with Weaver -- that he realizes he's gone too far. With Calvert College about to lose much of what it stands for academically over the collapse of its football team, help comes from unexpected places, including a wife who still loves him and the one player Gore had who is smart enough to see the bigger picture. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Paul Muni is a prominent physician who is kidnapped by gangsters and forced to tend the needs of head crook Barton MacLaine. MacLaine takes a liking to the intellectual doctor and allows him to go home after his job is done. Muni finds himself the reluctant "staff physician" for the gangster, thus is periodically spirited away from his practice to look after the criminal. He has given his word not to "rat" on the crooks, but he can't sit idly by while the gangsters loot the city. Muni foils the crooks by injecting them with a drug which induces temporary blindness. Dr. Socrates was remade in 1939 as King of the Underworld, with Humphrey Bogart as the gangster boss and actress Kay Francis in Paul Muni's role (with surprisingly few dialogue alterations to accommodate the gender switch!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, a Montana cattle rancher travels to San Francisco's notorious Barbary Coast and ends up falling in love with a dance hall girl who helps him win big at the gaming tables. Unfortunately, a card sharp takes it all from the innocent rube. The dance hall girl is also involved with the sharper. This western chronicles the way in which the rancher gets his revenge and wins back the love of the woman. The great earthquake of 1906 provides the story's climax. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this British comedy, a mild mannered editorial writer for a right-wing newspaper becomes fed up with the constant badgering of his domineering, self-righteous editor. The writer decides that there is more to life than kow-towing to his supervisor, and so sets off looking for fun and adventure. He really goes over the edge after he is insulted by a lowly soda jerk. This leads the milquetoast writer and his good friend to go on a Bacchanalian spree filled with gambling, drinking, and even involvement with the underworld. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Film historian William K. Everson once referred to Warner Bros.' Gentleman are Born as an all-male precursor to Mary McCarthy's The Group. The story focuses on a tight-knit quartet of friends, all of whom graduate from college on the same day. Determined to "change the world" while keeping their friendship intact, the foursome is forced to weather some harsh realities during the early years of the Depression. Smudge Casey (Nick -- later Dick -- Foran) whose dream was to become an athletic coach, ends up as a tank-town boxer and petty thief. Wealthy Fred Harper (Robert Light) is wiped out financially and emotionally when his embezzler father commits suicide. Tom Martin (Ross Alexander), married early on to Trudy Talbot (Jean Muir), has to take an entry-level brokerage job to make ends meet. Only wisecracking Bob Bailey (Franchot Tone) achieves happiness, not only landing a high-paid job as a journalist, but also winning the film's heroine, Harper's socialite sister Joan (Margaret Lindsay). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The DeSylva-Brown-Henderson Broadway musical Good News was first brought to the screen by MGM in 1930. The scene is Tait College, where everyone is in a blue funk over the dilemma of gridiron star Tom (Stanley Smith). Since the only thing he's ever passed is a football, Tom is in danger of flunking out before the Big Game. Plain-looking Connie (Mary Lawlor) is enlisted to tutor Tom through his final exams, and in the process the two students fall in love -- much to the dismay of campus vamp Patricia (Lola Lane). Managing to finagle a marriage proposal out of Tom, it looks as though Patricia will emerge triumphant, but all is set aright during the lavish Technicolor finale. Good News is an instructive example of how Hollywood perceived the movie musical during this period: While much of the film is shot in the static, nailed-down-camera technique so common to early talkies, several isolated sequences -- most of them featuring comedy-relief characters Bessie Love and Gus Shy -- are cleverly and inventively photographed (as Love shoots dice with the football team, the camera records her reactions from the dice's point of view!) Many of the original play's songs are retained in the film, including the title number, "The Best Things in Life are Free" and the lively "Varsity Drag," performed con brio by soubrette Dorothy McNulty (later known as Penny Singleton) and including such esoterica as animated wall paintings and a superimposed thermometer which boils over as the dancing gets "hotter. Future writer-director Delmer Daves has a good supporting role as surly campus jock "Beef." Existing prints of Good News are minus the final Technicolor reel, but Turner Films has provided a videotaped synopsis, complete with production stills, for television showings. Good News was remade -- and vastly improved upon -- by MGM producer Arthur Freed in 1947. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With the arrival of talkies, every major studio hopped on the musical bandwagon by turning out lavish "revues," spotlighting their top stars performing specialty numbers. MGM's entry in this all-star genre was Hollywood Revue of 1929, which, though a box-office smash and a "Best Picture" Oscar nominee, is an absolutely deadly experience when seen today. Even so, it coasts by on its curiosity value, as several major MGM luminaries display their all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing talents (or lack of same). The film is hosted by Conrad Nagel and Jack Benny, the latter still purveying the "wise-guy" personality he used on screen before adopting his more likable radio characterization. Some of the individual acts are modestly entertaining: Joan Crawford, the top of her head cut off due to faulty camerawork, is quite appealing in a jazz number; Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton provide genuine laughs, the former in a makeshift magic act and the latter performing a burlesque ballet; Bessie Love and Marion Davies are cute and cuddly in their respective musical numbers, while Marie Dressler is outrageously funny in her brace of appearances; and, best of all, Cliff Edwards solemnly introduces MGM's "signature" tune Singin' in the Rain, which serves as a leitmotif throughout the picture. Other "highlights" are more impressive for their concept than their actual execution: Gus Edwards' "Lon Chaney Will Get You if You Don't Find Out" would have been more interesting had the real Lon Chaney Sr. made an appearance (something he reportedly refused to do), while John Gilbert and Norma Shearer's "slang" version of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet (a sequence filmed in Technicolor) produces winces rather than laughs. At that, these scenes are easier to digest than the wretched sentimental ballad Your Mother and Mine, performed ad nauseum by the otherwise reliable Charles King, and the overproduced and under-rehearsed Orange Blossom finale (also in color). Long available only in its 82-minute TV release version, Hollywood Revue of 1929 was restored to nearly its original 125-minute length in the 1970s; the film is worth seeing once for historical purposes, but is hardly a "keeper," even for the most diligent of video collectors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"I Sell Anything" is the boast of penny-ante auctioneer Spot Cash Cutler (Pat O'Brien), and he more than makes good his boast in this brisk Warner Bros. programmer. When Cutler accidentally sells a rare antique to clever Millicent Clark (Claire Dodd) for a mere 50 bucks, he demands a cut when Millicent resells the item to a museum for $5000. Instead, she talks him into utilizing his talents at a high-class Broadway auction house. This leads to a series of double- and triple-crosses as Millicent maneuvers Cutler into selling the worthless items cluttering the home of her boyfriend Smiley Thompson (Russell Hopton), leaving our hero empty-handed except for the love of his ever-patient sweetheart Barbara (Ann Dvorak). The cast of I Sell Anything lists "three stooges," but they're played by Hobart Cavanaugh, Gus Shy and Harry Tyler rather than Curly, Larry and Moe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though silent-screen favorite William Haines wasn't able to sustain his popularity into the talkie era, he insisted upon honoring his MGM contract in such forgettable fare as Just a Gigolo. Based on a weather-beaten David Belasco play, the film casts Haines as Lord Robert Brummell, a footloose bachelor who is ordered by his wealthy uncle (C. Aubrey Smith) to settle down with a wife. Not wishing to tie himself down to any one girl, Brummell endeavors to prove that no woman is worthy of him by pretending to be a gigolo. Sure enough, every woman he meets turns out to be mercenary or amoral -- every one except the true light of his life, played by Irene Purcell (who, unbeknownst to our hero, knows he's not a gigolo). Just a Gigolo was released in England under the prudish title The Dancing Partner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Cagney was originally pegged to play brash Broadway columnist Jimmy Russell in this pleasant if somewhat lightweight newspaper yarn, but when director William Wellman called "action," Douglas Fairbanks Jr. had replaced him. In love with pretty actress Mary Wodehouse (Frances Dee), Jimmy can only watch as gangster Eddie Shaw (Lyle Talbot) takes on the girl's mounting debt. Sending Jimmy on a wild goose chase to Atlantic City, Shaw then attempts to lure Mary to his penthouse but is instead confronted with the girl's gun-toting Aunt Hattie (Cecil Cunningham). Jimmy manages to escape Shaw's goons and arrives at Shaw's apartment just in time to watch Aunt Hattie hide the murder weapon. There is an attempt at a coverup, and the eventual ruling of the court reads suicide. The ambitious Mary, meanwhile, marries theatrical entrepreneur Max Boncour (André Luguet) and Jimmy vows to stay away from the "love racket" for good. Or at least until gal-pal Sally (Ann Dvorak) can convince him otherwise. Although George Raft is listed in most credits for Love is a Racket, he is not in the surviving print. The drama was retitled Such Things Happen for release in Great Britain, where the word "racket" meant something entirely different. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide