Ann Dvorak Movies
American actress Ann Dvorak was the daughter of silent film director Sam McKim and stage actress Anne Lehr ("Dvorak" was her mother's maiden name). Educated at Page School for Girls in Los Angeles, Dvorak secured work as a chorus dancer in early talking films: she is quite visible amongst the female hoofers in Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929). Reportedly it was her friend Joan Crawford, a headliner in Hollywood Revue, who introduced Dvorak to multimillionaire Howard Hughes, then busy putting together his film Scarface (1931). Dvorak was put under contract and cast in Scarface as gangster Paul Muni's sister, and despite the strictures of film censorship at the time, the actress' piercing eyes and subtle body language made certain that the "incest" subtext in the script came through loud and clear. Hughes sold Dvorak's contract to Warner Bros., who intended to pay her the relative pittance she'd gotten for Scarface until she decided to retreat to Europe. Warners caved in with a better salary, but it might have been at the expense of Dvorak's starring career. Though she played roles in such films as Three on a Match (1932) and G-Men (1935) with relish, the characters were the sort of "life's losers" who usually managed to expire just before the fadeout, leaving the hero to embrace the prettier, less complex ingenue. Dvorak cornered the market in portraying foredoomed gangster's molls with prolonged death scenes, but they were almost always secondary roles. One of her rare forays into comedy occurred in producer Hal Roach's Merrily We Live (1938), an amusing My Man Godfrey rip-off.In 1940, Dvorak followed her first husband to England, starring there in such wartime films as Squadron Leader X (1941) and This Was Paris (1942). Upon her return to Hollywood in 1945, Dvorak found very little work beyond westerns and melodramas; she did have a bravura role as a cabaret singer held prisoner by the Japanese in I Was an American Spy (1951), but it was produced at second-string Republic Pictures and didn't get top bookings. After Secret of Convict Lake (1951), Dvorak quit film work; she had never found it to be as satisfactory as her stage career, which included a year's run in the 1948 Broadway play The Respectful Prostitute. During her retirement, spent with her third husband, she divided her time between her homes in Malibu and Hawaii, and her passion for collecting rare books. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1932
Howard Hawks directed this fast-paced auto racing drama. Joe Greer (James Cagney) is a top-ranked race car driver; his younger brother Eddie (Eric Linden) wants to follow in Joe's footsteps, but Joe knows his brother's reckless side and tries to keep him away from the racer's life. Eddie, however, can't be dissuaded from a career on the track, and he turns out to like his women as fast as his cars when he gets involved with Ann (Joan Blondell). Joe's best friend Spud (Frank McHugh) tries to keep the feuding brothers apart, but his attempts to do so in the midst of a race leads to Spud's death. Joe is despondent after Spud's passing and gives up his career in racing, while Eddie becomes eligible for the Indianapolis 500. Joe grudgingly comes to the race to see his kid brother in action, but he gets the chance to redeem himself when Eddie is hurt and needs a driver to complete the race in his car. Racing legend Billy Arnold, who won the Indy 500 in 1930, advised the production. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Joan Blondell, (more)
- 1931
The legendary theatrical team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne made their only starring screen appearance in this 1931 adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's The Guardsman. The Lunts are appropriately cast as a famous husband-and-wife acting duo, the husband of which suspects the wife of infidelity. To find out for certain, he disguises himself as an amorous Russian guardsman, complete with handlebar mustache. After an evening of paradise, Lunt confesses his subterfuge to Fontanne. She says she knew all the time, but that gleam in her eye opens up quite a few doubts which are never truly resolved. The fabled "naturalism" of the Lunts appears slightly strained under the probing eye of the camera lens, but their seemingly ad-libbed repartee sequences are a joy to behold. The Guardsman served as the basis for the Oscar Straus operetta The Chocolate Soldier, which itself was filmed in 1943 with Nelson Eddy and Rise Stevens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, (more)
Based upon the French film Le Jour Se Lève, The Long Night opens in the in the midst of a dire situation: ex-serviceman Joe Adams (Henry Fonda) finds himself holed up in his apartment, surrounded by policemen who soon open fire in a relentless and determined manner. Adams has been accused of murder, and as his apartment is riddled with bullets, he flashes back to how this all came about. It began when Adams met Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes), who, it turns out, grew up in the same orphanage at the same time as he. They soon fall in love, but things are complicated when a magician named Maximilian (Vincent Price) enters the picture. He tells Adams that he is Jo Ann's father, but that he doesn't want her to know this. Maximilian begins spending a lot of time with Jo Ann, which makes Adams feel vaguely unsettled. He discovers that Maximilian lied -- that he is not her father but is someone who has been trying to seduce her for a long time. Maximilian goes to Adams' apartment to taunt him, with the result that Adams shoots him, thus bringing about the current state of affairs. As Adams has been recalling all of this, a crowd has gathered, including Jo Ann. She leads the crowd in protesting the police's actions, and a riot brews. With tension continuing to rise, Jo Ann desperately tries to find a way to rescue the man she loves. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, (more)
- 1947
Writer/director Albert Lewin, ever on the lookout for esoteric story material that would accommodate his fascination with Egyptian sculpture and feline symbolism, managed to inject both into The Private Affairs of Bel Ami. Though based on a Guy de Maupassant story, Bel Ami seems to have been written by Oscar Wilde, another of Lewin's pets (e.g. The Picture of Dorian Gray). George Sanders plays an epigrammatic Parisian journalist, who rises to the top through the "kindnesses" of the various influential women that he's seduced and abandoned. This 19th-century rake's progress is ultimately halted by a duel, and somehow we're sorry that we don't get to see Sanders pull off at least one more caddish trick to save himself. Echoes from Lewin's previous works include his insertion of a Technicolor sequence (as he'd done in Dorian Gray and The Moon and Sixpence). George Sanders' stepping-stone ladies include Angela Lansbury, Frances Dee, Ann Dvorak, Marie Wilson, Katherine Emery and Susan Douglas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, (more)
- 1950
Return of Jesse James is an excellent example of how to get full value for money from an attenuated budget. John Ireland plays Johnny, a bank robber who closely resembles the late Jesse James. As Johnny's crime spree spreads, so do rumors that Jesse is still alive. This forces Jesse's brother Frank (Reed Hadley) to emerge from hiding to put an end to Johnny's activities once and for all. The faultless supporting cast includes Henry Hull as Ireland's partner in crime, and Ann Dvorak as Hull's enigmatic sister. Hard to believe that Lippert Films, a company generally associated with time-filling quickies, could turn out something as accomplished as Return of Jesse James. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Ireland, Ann Dvorak, (more)
- 1951
Glenn Ford plays a convict who breaks out of a 19th century Nevada prison in the company of several less handsome inmates. When they enter a snowbound California village, they find that all the men have left to prospect for silver; only the women remain. The village is known as Convict Lake because, years earlier, $40,000 of stolen money was hidden somewhere in the area. Town matriarch Ethel Barrymore seems to know where it is, but she ain't talkin'. After recovering the money, the convicts are forced to shoot it out with the returning menfolk. All prisoners are rounded up by the law except for Glenn Ford, who has fortuitously been cleared of false charges, allowing him a fadeout embrace with costar Gene Tierney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Gene Tierney, (more)
- 1932
In this strange, convoluted tale, a hotel clerk ends up pregnant and alone after she has a brief fling with a wealthy playboy. Shortly after her daughter's birth, she hooks up with a criminal. She does not realize that the good-hearted bellboy with whom she works secretly loves her. When the criminal inadvertently involves her in a murder, an eager-beaver reporter, who also grows to lover her, hatches a clever scheme to save her and win her hand. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Dvorak, Lee Tracy, (more)
- 1948
The year is 1908 and the setting Jericho, Kansas, a veritable cesspool of sin and vice. Dave Connors is a politically ambitious lawyer married to Belle, the town lush, and is in love with beautiful colleague Julia Norman. Matters are worsened when Algeria Wedge, his best friend's wife, makes a pass at him. When Dave rejects her advances, she retaliates by printing vile things about him in the town paper. This effectively destroys his political career and causes him to leave town. Algeria then successfully helps to launch her husband's career so she can remain in town and cause even more trouble. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Art Baker, Griff Barnett, (more)
- 1933
In this romantic musical, a carnival knife thrower's assistant falls for a Parisian tour guide who earns money wearing a sandwich board that says "Is Your Heart Happy? No? Consult Professor Bibi, 17 Rue Canton." After a few romantic mishaps, true love eventually ensues. Songs include: "Lover of Paree," "Lucky Guy," "In a One-Room Flat," "The Way to Love," "It's Oh, It's Ah, It's Wonderful" (Ralph Rainger, Leo Robin). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Chevalier, Ann Dvorak, (more)
- 1931
With a blonde wigged Joan Crawford offering one of her more high-handed performances, and veteran silent star Pauline Frederick doing her best to keep up, audiences are in for MGM soap-opera at its 1931 zenith. Reunited with her long-lost mother in Paris, Crawford fails to realize that the loving and dignified woman is actually kept by a Parisian roué Albert Conti. Although she briefly falls in with a fast crowd, headed by the alcoholic Monroe Owsley), Crawford, a good girl at heart, falls in love with visiting Harvard graduate Neil Hamilton, and he with her. But Hamilton's stern, puritanical parents (Hobart Bosworth and Emma Dunn) frown upon Crawford's Parisian friends, who rudely spoil a dignified but deadly dull evening of superficial conversation and bridge. When a disgusted Hamilton informs his upcoming bride about her mother's true metier, Crawford is at first disbelieving and then huffily breaks the engagement. A penitent Frederick agrees to leave her life as a kept woman, but when she realizes that her daughter still carries a torch for the stuffy Hamilton, she pretends to willingly return to Conti. Denouncing her mother, Crawford goes on a tryst with Owsley, but is returned by Hamilton, who reunites her with the self-sacrificing Miss Frederick. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Crawford, Pauline Frederick, (more)
- 1941
Filmed in England at Warner Bros.' Teddington Studios facilities, This Was Paris stars American actors (and current British residents) Ann Dvorak and Ben Lyon. She is cast as Ann Morgan, a female ambulance driver in the early days of WWII. He is cast as bibulous American newspaperman Butch, who likes to throw his weight around Paris because he knows he can get away with it. As the clouds of war gather all over Europe, Ann finds romance in the form of British Intelligence agent Bill Hamilton, while Butch sobers up and begins taking his responsibilities seriously. Oddly enough, This Was Paris didn't receive an American release until several years after its production. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Dvorak, Ben Lyon, (more)
- 1932
Three on a Match covers approximately 13 years in the lives of girlhood chums Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis) and Vivian Deverse (Ann Dvorak). Having graduated from grammar school together in 1919, the girls stage a reunion ten years later. Hard-boiled Mary is now a chorus girl, level-headed Ruth has a steady job as a secretary, and vixenish Vivian is on the verge of capriciously deserting her wealthy husband Robert Kirkwood (Warren William) and their baby in favor of sexy mob-boss Mike (Lyle Talbot). Several more years pass, during which Mary marries Henry, Ruth is hired as governess for Henry, and Vivian's son and a drug-addicted Vivian become fatally enmeshed in a kidnapping plot involving her own child. In his second Warner Bros. film, tenth-billed Humphrey Bogart essays his first sneering-gangster role. Three on a Match was remade (and considerably laundered) in 1938 as Broadway Musketeers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Warren William, (more)
- 1930
A pleasant enough western parody starring one of the victims of sound, William Haines, Way Out West is the story of a carnival huckster forced to work on a western ranch in order to repay a couple of cowboys he once fleeced. There's a sandstorm, a fist-fight with the ubiquitous crooked foreman (Charles Middleton), a pretty female ranch owner (Leila Hyams), and sundry other western clichés thrown in to prove the star's manly qualities.The light-weight Haines played many such roles, but reshuffling due to sound (not to mention a quarrel with MGM studio head, Louis B. Mayer), ended his career. Haines later became a fashionable interior decorator. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Haines, Leila Hyams, (more)
- 1937
Its title notwithstanding, We Who Are About to Die has nothing to do with Roman Gladiators. Rather, the film is based on the true story of San Quentin inmate David Lamson, who spent 13 agonizing months on Death Row before the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. Renamed John (and played by John Beal), the Lamson character knows he's innocent but also knows that the date of his execution is drawing ever nearer. Meanwhile, his sweetheart Connie (Ann Dvorak), in collaboration with private eye Matthews (Preston S. Foster), races against time to unearth new evidence and expose the guilty party. Rather pokey for the most part, We Who Are About to Die turns into a real nail-biter during the final 15 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Preston S. Foster, Ann Dvorak, (more)
