Mary Gordon Movies

Once again, Mae Murray plays -- what else? -- a dancer. But while the ex-Follies girl had made an enormous success in her past two films, Peacock Alley and Fascination, this one isn't quite as good. For one thing, the plot was as musty as an old, worn stage set -- a country girl makes it big on Broadway, marries a millionaire, but gives everything up to be with her faithful sweetheart back home. Neither Murray, nor her husband, director Robert Z. Leonard could do much with this type of pap. And Murray, who was in her late thirties, used too much white make up in an attempt to rid herself of the signs of encroaching age. Murray's country girl is named Rosalie Lawrence, and the boy she leaves behind is the homely-but-comfortable Tom Darcy (Monte Blue). While performing on the Great White Way, her impressive footwork and good looks attract Hugh Thompson (Ray Bloomer). His millionaire parents (Charles Lane and Maude Turner Gordon), however, are opposed to the match. Rosalie and Thompson marry in secret, but his family eventually finds out and they make it clear they have no use for their daughter-in-law. Instead of standing by her, Thompson refuses to live without his parents' money, so Rosalie returns to the country, and to Darcy, who has been faithfully waiting for her. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This standard underworld meller was dressed up with good performances and an entertaining approach. Nancy Preston (Marguerite de la Motte) and her sweetheart Mike Horgan (John Bowers) are former jailbirds who would really like to go straight. But they are forced to stay undercover to escape the watchful eye of "Gloomy Gus" Cole (Ed Kennedy) of the Tierney Detective Agency, who is doing his best to get something, anything, on them. The beleaguered couple is finally able to escape to a small town, where they settle down, and Horgan establishes a medical practice. Tierney (Alphonz Ethier), the head of the detective agency, gets on their trail, but Nancy ends up nursing him through a serious illness. Cole arrives with a warrant for Nancy's arrest, but he confesses that she is actually innocent. Horgan, meanwhile, is cleared of a burglary charge, so the couple is finally able to start life anew. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Black Paradise begins as lifelong crook Jack Callahan (Leslie Fenton) promises that he'll reform for the sake of his sweetheart Sylvia Douglas (Madge Bellamy). But he can't, and when detective Lawrence Graham (Edmund Lowe) comes calling, Jack takes Sylvia by the hand and escapes to the safety of the schooner owned by criminal chieftain Murdock (Ed Peil Sr.), moored 12 miles outside of San Francisco. Graham boards the schooner, only to be caught by Murdock and forced to work as a crewman. The vessel ends up in the South Seas, where Jack takes up with a local native girl; meanwhile, Sylvia falls in love with the captive Graham. Murdock orders Sylvia to "give in" to him, threatening to kill Graham if she doesn't. Only the timely eruption of a volcano saves Sylvia from sacrificing her virtue to save the man she loves. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Obviously inspired by the success of Norma Talmadge's Kiki, Naughty Nanette stars Viola Dana as Nanette Pearson, a movie extra with big ambitions. During her climb to success, Nanette allows herself to be the "good friend" of several wealthy sugar daddies, but she remains her old down-to-earth self. Our heroine shows she's a good kid when she befriends disinherited socialite Lucy Dennison (Helen Foster) and reunites the girl with her crusty grandfather (Sidney De Gray). One of the best of the "forgotten" stars of the silent era, Viola Dana remained as sharp as a tack well into her eighties, providing many a film historian with vital inside information about Hollywood's Golden Years. One suspects she had as much fun making such trivialities as Naughty Nanette as the audience had watching them. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A handsome French trapper must chose between an Indian girl and a pretty white orphan in this Northwoods melodrama produced by poverty row entrepreneur Morris R. Schlank and ostensibly based on popular pulp writer James Oliver Curwood. Mustachioed Walter McGrail played the lovesick trapper, with Neva Gerber as the Indian girl, Lillian Rich as the orphan, and stunt-man Cliff Lyons (who was starring in his own series for Schlank at the time) as the villain, who menaces both girls. The father of director Henry Hathaway, Rhody Hathaway, played a priest. According to the film's press book, "a tribe of Klamath Indians furnished the picturesque backgrounds for the sequences showing the Canadian aboriginals in their natural locale." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The popular silent romantic team of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor made a successful all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing debut in Sunny Side Up. The story is old bromide about a poor girl who falls in love with a rich man, then tries to pass herself off as a woman of wealth. This being a 1929 Fox picture, the supporting cast includes the ineluctable dialect comedian El Brendel, along with squeaky-voiced soubrette Marjorie White. In his feature-film debut, 7-year-old Jackie Cooper shows up as a tenement kid, while Joe E. Brown does a guest bit as a grinning undertaker. The superb DeSylva-Brown-Henderson score includes "If I Had a Talking Picture of You," "Turn on the Heat" (a jaw-droppingly erotic number, in which the gyrations of the chorus girls causes a banana tree to blossom full out!), and the title song. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in 1929 and released early in 1930, Dynamite was Cecil B. DeMille's first all-talking feature. As one observer has noted, this 128-minute opus has enough plots for seven pictures. The basic storyline here involves spoiled heiress Cynthia Crothers (Kay Johnson) who will lose her fortune if she isn't married right away. Her love Roger Towne (Conrad Nagel) isn't interested in marriage, so Crothers decides to wed convicted murderer Hagon Derk (Charles Bickford). Her plan: Derk will die, then she'll be a millionaire, free to chase after Towne without benefit of clergy. Unfortunately for Crothers, Derk is pardoned at the last minute when the real killer (Leslie Fenton) confesses. Crothers tries to drive Derk out of her life by humiliating him at a fancy party, only to discover that the conditions of her inheritance require that she live with her husband for a set period of time. She swallows her pride and heads for Derk's home town, a grimy mining village. Touched by Crother's inept efforts to keep house and cook dinner, Derk eventually falls in love with her--though he makes it clear that he wants no part of her money. Crothers, in turn, falls genuinely in love with her brutish but basically decent husband. It must needs be that fortune-hunting Towne arrives in the mining village, leading to a powerful climax wherein Derk, Crothers and Towne are trapped in a mine cave-in. Though the dialogue is occasionally quite silly (after the killer commits suicide in a crowded restaurant, one of the patrons is heard to complain "It's ruined my dinner!") and the performances overripe at times, Dynamite actually holds up better than you'd expect. DeMilles' utilization of sound is both innovative and imaginative, especially during the noisy climactic sequences. The film was a success, paving the way for DeMilles' camp classic Madame Satan (1930). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Officially an "Our Gang" comedy, "When the Wind Blows" is really a vehicle for adult comic Edgar Kennedy, here playing his usual role of a boastful, clumsy and cowardly cop. On a dark and windy night, Officer Kennedy tries to keep the peace in a small neighborhood, only to be frightened at every turn by loud noises, most of them emanating from the tarpaper shack where Allen "Farina" Hoskins and his brother live. Meanwhile, Jackie Cooper, accidentally locked out of his house, tries to regain entry without alerting his parents, or revealing that his pajama bottoms have been torn asunder. The plot thickens when a burglar shows up, affording both Jackie and Officer Kennedy the opportunity of becoming heroes (but guess who succeeds?) Originally released on April 5, 1930, "When the Wind Blows" was the first "Our Gang" comedy to feature a wall-to-wall musical score, though the familiar Hal Roach background tunes by LeRoy Shield and Marvin Hatley had not yet been composed. The film was also released in a Spanish-language version, which apparently has not survived. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actress Shelah Fane (Dorothy Revier) is in Honolulu to shoot a movie, but her chaotic personal life is keeping her from concentrating on work. She's supposed to marry millionaire playboy Alan Jaynes (William Post Jr.), but she's also got an ex lurking around and a possible skeleton in her closet in the form of her one-time lover, actor Danny Mayo, who was murdered in Hollywood three years earlier in a case that's still officially unsolved. Fane seems to have resolved some of her problems and is prepared to move forward with her life -- with help from phony mystic Tarnevarro (Bela Lugosi) -- when she turns up murdered. Inspector Chan (Warner Oland) is up to his neck in possible suspects, including Tarnevarro, who was getting inside information on Fane and working some kind of scam; Fane's assistant, Julie O'Neil (Sally Eilers), who felt compelled to tamper with evidence; her would-be fiance, Jimmy Bradshaw (Robert Young), who tried to keep Julie from finding the body; Fane's oily ex (Victor Varconi); Smith (Murray Kinnell), a painter and beachcomber who was lurking around the murder scene; and two servants, Jessup (Dwight Frye) and Anna (Violet Dunn), one of whom seems very nervous. Several of these people had motive and opportunity, and the plot thickens considerably when some seemingly innocuous witnesses admit to hiding evidence, others start turning up dead, and yet others seem to be destroying evidence. Chan, juggling this list of suspects (and the thinly veiled racism of some of them) and the presence of his well-meaning but inept assistant Kashimo (Otto Yamaoka), as well as his family life, maintains his cool, cerebral demeanor throughout, despite attempts on his own life and the slang-laden yammering of his children, which the detective scarcely understands. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Marlene Dietrich stars as Helen Faraday, a German cabaret singer in the States whose husband, Ned, falls ill and his only hope is to receive expensive medical treatment at a clinic in Europe. Struggling to afford his care and to support their son Johnny, she works at a nightclub and succumbs to the advances of wealthy playboy Nick, whose gifts assist in her husband's recovery. Soon Ned recovers and returns, but when he discovers that Helen has been unfaithful, he divorces her, threatening to take their son. After running with little Johnny, she ends up a prostitute in New Orleans, where she is found by the detective hired by Ned. The boy is taken from her and Helen flees to Paris where she becomes a cabaret sensation. Upon witnessing a performance, Nick begins seeing her again and when the show moves to NYC, he secures a meeting between her and her ex -- who is finally made aware of the motivation behind her affair years before. This is the feature containing the well-known scenes where Dietrich performs stage numbers in an ape-suit and a white tuxedo (complete with top hat). ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a bandleader thinks that his young friend will be corrupted by his budding relationship with a taxi dancer. To protect the tender youth, the conductor sends him out of town.The bandleader soon finds himself wooing the lovely dancer. Unfortunately, a jealous gangster is also in love with her. When the gangster discovers that the bandleader presents competition, he targets him for a hit. Chaos ensues ending in a shoot-out. The gangster is killed, the bandleader shot, and the callow youth is finally reunited with his beloved dancer. Songs include: "St. Louis Blues." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this his first Western of 1932, Tim McCoy is supported by a young John Wayne. Learning that he is a dead ringer for rancher Jim Rawlins, drifter Texas Grant (McCoy) agrees to keep up the charade in order to scare off a gang of rustlers that has been terrorizing the area. The missing man's wife, Helena (Shirley Grey in the second of four appearances opposite McCoy), at first believes Texas to be her husband but when learning otherwise agrees to keep his real identity hidden. Helena has been having trouble with Utah Becker (Wheeler Oakman), the owner of the Red Dog Saloon, who is secretly employing a majority of the Rawlins' cow hands. Texas, as Jim Rawlins, has the crooks thrown off the property, keeping only Steve, who has remained loyal to Helena throughout. When Becker learns of the newcomer's real identity, he accuses the cowboy of taking advantage of Helena and challenges him to a gunfight at dawn. The saloon owner hedges his bets, however, by having Nick hide in ambush, but both men are killed and Texas wounded. Nursed back to health by Helena, Texas reveals that he is indeed Jim Rawlins, a victim of amnesia caused by an earlier scuffle with Becker. Rotund Vernon Dent, later a popular villain in Three Stooges two-reelers, appeared in this film as Hefty, the bartender, a role he would re-create in future McCoy Westerns. Young John Wayne would also reappear in a future McCoy Western, Two Fisted Law (1932), in both instances playing characters sympathetic to Tim. Offscreen, Wayne and McCoy were less friendly, the former finding the latter morose and distant. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Bret Harte's story Salomy Jane's Kiss provided the basis for a play (by Paul Armstrong and a number of films, including 1932's Wild Girl. Set in the High Sierras at the end of the Civil War, the "wild girl" of the title is Salome Jane Clay (Joan Bennett). Rather tomboyish and determined, she isn't the vixen that the title suggests; as a matter of fact, she is upset and angry over a man who has tried to take liberties with her. A stranger Charles Farrell shows up, looking for the same man who has incurred Jane's enmity. Farrell has a score to settle, for this man ruined the life and reputation of Farrell's sister. He shoots him, then flees the town with Jane's help. They are pursued by numerous individuals; as they overcome various obstacles, they find themselves falling in love. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide