David Landau Movies

This "gimmick" murder mystery begins during a crucial college football game. Wally Clark (Johnny Mack Brown), the team's star player, is killed just before making the winning touchdown, as the titular 70,000 witnesses look on. Wally's teammate Buck Buchanan (Phillips Holmes), the younger brother of gambler Slip Buchanan (Lew Cody), had previously refused to drug Wally at Slip's bequest. Even so, when Wally drops dead, the leading suspect is poor Buck. It's up to bibulous reporter Johnny Moran (Charles Ruggles) and Wally's sister Dorothy Clark (Dorothy Jordan) to save Buck before local detective Dan McKenna (David Landau) railroads the boy into the electric chair. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mildred Cram's novel Scotch Valley was transformed by the scenarists at Fox into the Warner Baxter vehicle Amateur Daddy. Baxter plays a true-blue sort who agrees to take care of the family of dying pal Edwin Stanley. While his neighbors make cruel fun of Baxter's efforts to play surrogate father, he does an admirable job. Baxter's resolve to do right is put to the test when a stranger shows up, claiming to be the family's "genuine" father. Marian Nixon plays the oldest and prettiest member of Baxter's foster family; her presence smooths the path for a romantic finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the best-selling Gladys Hasty Carroll novel of the same name, As the Earth Turns covers four seasons in the life of a Maine farming family. Jean Muir stars as Jen Shaw, daughter of dirt-poor farmers Mark and Min Shaw (David Landau, Dorothy Appleby). Jen's parents have an abiding distrust for their new neighbors, the Jankowskis -- not only because they're first-generation Poles, but also because they used to live in faraway Boston. Despite Mark and Min's opposition, Jen falls in love with Stan Jankowski (Donald Woods), but trouble looms in the form of Jen's stepsister Doris (Dorothy Appleby), who also has designs on Stan. New Warners contractee Jean Muir acquitted herself well in her first major role, which may be why As the Earth Turns did slightly better than expected at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Cortland Fitzsimmons, the storyline of this "gimmick" mystery follows the St. Louis Cardinals during a championship season. The arrival of hotshot pitcher Larry Kelly (Robert Young) coincides with an apparent plot to sabotage the Cards' chances of making it to the World Series. A failed attempt to poison all the pitcher's mitts is followed by a series of murders: catcher Dunk Spencer (Joe Sauers) is shot while sprinting to third base, pitcher Frank Higgins (Robert Livingston) is strangled in the locker room, and lovable catcher Truck Hogan (Nat Pendleton) is killed with an arsenic-laden hot dog. Finding himself one of the many suspects, Kelly nearly becomes a victim as well when he is slipped a booby-trapped baseball. With the help of sportscaster Jimmy Downey (Paul Kelly), Kelly exposes the murderer, surviving to win the pennant and the heroine, team secretary daughter Frances Clark (Madge Evans). Partly filmed on location at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs' minor-league LA farm team), Death on the Diamond offers a fresh slant to the standard whodunit format, with some particularly good work by Ted Healy as an exasperated umpire. That MGM produced the film is tipped off by two of the studio's trademarks: The killer's last-minute confession, wherein the guilty party transforms from a mild-mannered soul into a raving lunatic, and the shoddy process-screen work in the ballgame scenes. Future stars Mickey Rooney, Walter Brennan and Bruce Bennett show up in bit roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1933, at the height of the bleakness and desperation of the Depression, MGM released this genuine curiosity piece -- directed by comedy (!) director Gregory La Cava -- concerning a Warren G. Harding-like partisan hand-shaker President of the United States who, after seeing a vision, revokes the Constitution, becomes a reigning dictator, and solves all of the nation's problems. Walter Huston plays Judson Hammond, recently elected President of the United States, who treats his elected office as a joke and acts as a dispenser of Party favors. But after an automobile accident, he sees the Archangel Gabriel, who inspires him to declare himself dictator. His first line of business after his conversion is to fire his Cabinet. This leads to impeachment proceedings, but Hammond enters the Senate chamber and takes over the Congress. He then tackles unemployment by meeting with John Bronson (David Landau), the leader of masses of marching unemployed men. When gangster Nick Diamond (Henry C. Gordon) and his goons assassinate Bronson, Hammond uses his brown-shirted storm troopers to blast their way into Diamond's headquarters and blow him away. The President then intimidates the leaders of countries that owe money to the United States to pay their debts then forces them to disarm and pledge world peace. Hammond rapidly becomes the most popular fascist President in United States history. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

If ever there was an archetypal Marx Brothers comedy, it was the team's 1932 offering Horse Feathers. Groucho Marx is cast as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the newest president of Huxley College. As he delivers his introductory speech before the assembled student body ("As I look out among your smiling, eager faces, I can readily understand why this college is flat on its back"), he maps out his plans for the future by singing those deathless hits Whatever It Is, I'm Against It and I Always Get My Man. He then has a powwow with his son Frank (Zeppo Marx), who has been a Huxley student for 12 years. Frank tells his old man that Huxley has had a new president every year since 1888, the year the college won its last football game. The only way to save the establishment is to hire a couple of good football players, Mullen and McHardie (Jim Pierce and Nat Pendleton), who hang out at the local speakeasy. With his usual efficiency, Professor Wagstaff signs up the wrong men for the Huxley team: Baravelli (Chico Marx), the ice man/bootlegger, and Pinky (Harpo Marx) the dog catcher. Meanwhile, gambler Jennings (David Landau), who has all his money bet on Darwin College in the upcoming Thanksgiving Day football game, instructs his girlfriend Connie Bailey (Thelma Todd), the college widow, to get her hands on Huxley's secret football signals. This leads to a frenetic four-way courtship in Connie's apartment, as Wagstaff, Baravelli, Pinky and Frank duck in and out of doors and windows to romance the heroine. Later on, Baravelli and Pinky try to kidnap Mullen and McHardie to keep them out of the Big Game, only to end up kidnapped themselves. Miraculously, all four of our heroes show up at the Huxley-Darwin game in time, achieving victory through some of the most creative cheating in gridiron history. Written by such renowned wits as S. J. Perelman, Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, Horse Feathers is a comedy smorgasbord, offering generous doses of all four Marx Brothers performing some of their best-ever material. Who could not love a film in which, just before Chico Marx launches into his obligatory piano solo, Groucho saunters up to the camera and growls "I've got to stay here, but that's no reason why you folks can't go into the lobby until this thing blows over"? In addition, this is the film that introduced the semi-satirical romantic ballad Everyone Says I Love You, which was used over six decades later as the title of a Woody Allen picture. Unfortunately, current prints of Horse Feathers are incomplete, with nearly five minutes of comedy material missing; the search goes on for a pristine, uncut negative. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a Mary Roberts Rinehart novel, I Take This Woman stars Carole Lombard as the spoiled daughter of a wealthy rancher. Lombard impulsively marries cowhand Gary Cooper, a poverty-stricken employee of her father. Cooper insists that they live on his income in a tiny shack; Lombard gives this new life a try, but eventually balks and walks. Cooper joins a travelling rodeo, and is badly hurt during a performance in New York--where Lombard is in the audience. Having eaten several slices of Humble Pie, Lombard rushes to her ex-husband's side, and all is well. I Take This Woman bears no relation to the 1940 Spencer Tracy/Hedy Lamarr soap opera of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Will Rogers stars as Judge William "Billy" Priest, the common-sense Kentucky jurist created by humorist Irvin S. Cobb. The Judge's easygoing manner bothers many of the self-righteous good citizens of his small 19th-century hometown, imperiling his chances for re-election. The anecdotal plot boils down to a single storyline involving orphaned Anita Louise, reclusive David Landau (secretly Louise's father), and young attorney Tom Brown.The testimony that saves Landau from a murder charge is delivered by Civil War veteran H.B. Walthall, whose stirring loyalty to the Confederacy inspires everyone in town to organize an impromptu parade! Some of the best scenes are highlighted by Will Rogers' affectionate rapport with stereotyped black-actors Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel, though these scenes are frequently removed from TV showings of Judge Priest due to their undeniably racist overtones. If you haven't guessed by the first frame of the film that John Ford was the director, you'll recognize Ford's personal stamp the moment Will Rogers kneels by his wife's grave and carries on a warm conversation with his long-departed bride. Ford would remake (and improve upon) Judge Priest in 1953 as The Sun Shines Bright, with Charles Winninger as the judge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A boozy newspaper reporter is booted out of his job for drinking too much. A few fateful twists later, he becomes partners with a talented advertising executive and opens a business. The former reporter proves to have a killer's instinct and all the morals of a shark. Under his helm, the business thrives, but his personal life falls to ruin when his fiancee kills herself. Returning to the sanctuary of alcohol, he drinks himself blind and jeopardizes the career he worked so hard to build. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this romantic drama, a strait-laced preacher creates controversy when he marries a seductive trapeze artist . The two meet after the swinger is injured during a performance and taken to his home to recover. Love blossoms while she heals and they surreptitiously marry. When the minister's snooty parishioners find out, they are shocked evict him from their chapel. When he is unsuccessful at finding other work, his wife selflessly returns to the circus so he can have his congregation back. This leads to the story's upbeat conclusion, but not before some exciting aerial antics ensue. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Elmer Rice's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Street Scene was purchased for the screen by producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1931. The entire story takes place on the street in front of a foreboding old New York brownstone, between one evening and the next afternoon. The individual fates of eight neighboring Manhattan families intertwine during this brief stretch of time. Special emphasis is given the Maurrant family: the philandering mother (Estelle Taylor), the drink-sodden husband (David Landau) and long-suffering daughter Rose (Sylvia Sidney). When the husband catches the wife "in the act" with bill-collector Russell Hopton, the resulting tragedy is not shown, but reflecting in the wildly varying reactions of neighbors and passersby. Though resisting the temptation to "open up" the play, director King Vidor nonetheless injects his cinematic know-how into the proceedings, by utilizing an entirely different camera setup or angle for each individual "take." The cast of Street Scene includes several carry-overs from the Broadway original, including David Landau, Max Montor, Matt McHugh (brother of Frank), John Qualen, George Humbert, Tom H. Manning, and Anna Konstant (Sidebar: Shirley Kaplan, the role played by Ms. Konstant, was portrayed in the London production of Street Scene by Greer Garson). Unavailable for TV for many years due to legal tangles, Street Scene was freed up for the small screen when it lapsed into public domain in the early 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Henry Harrison Kroll's novel Cabin in the Cotton was an attack on wealthy southern landowners who exploited their sharecroppers. While the landowners still don't come off too well in Warner Bros.' film version of Kroll's novel, the film tries to avoid stepping on powerful toes, even composing an opening-title disclaimer pointing out that both sides of the issue had arguments in their favor. Richard Barthelmess, 23 going on 45, plays a sharecropper's son who wants to improve his lot with a college education. Land baron Berton Churchill advises Barthelmess' father to get those "silly ideas" out of our hero's head, lest he forget his place. Bette Davis plays Churchill's seductive daughter, whose influence with daddy enables Barthelmess to rise to the position of Churchill's bookkeeper. When Barthelmess discovers that Churchill is cooking the books, Churchill counters that Barthelmess wouldn't have any chance to advance himself without the largess of the landowners. He even tries to get Barthelmess to inform on those field workers who plan to organize a union. A potentially bloody confrontation between the workers and management is quelled by Barthelmess, who manages to wangle compromises from both sides. The only thing Barthelmess loses is Davis, but he is compensated by the affections of longtime sweetheart Dorothy Jordan. Nobody really remembers the plot complications in Cabin in the Cotton; to most viewers, the film is memorable only for Bette Davis' classic line "Ah'd love to kiss ya, but ah jest washed ma hair." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Man with Two Faces is based on The Dark Tower, a stage comedy-mystery by Alexander Woollcott and George S. Kaufman. Edward G. Robinson is at his hammy best as flamboyant, temperamental, but withal endearing theatrical actor-manager Dawson Wells. Mary Astor co-stars as Damon's beloved actress sister Jessica, making a stage comeback after a disastrously unhappy marriage. Alas, Jessica's caddish husband Stanley Vance (Louis Calhern) soon returns, exerting a Svengali-like hold on the poor girl and setting her back on the road to ruin. Unable to buy off Vance, Wells plots a clever revenge, and shortly afterward, Vance is visited by one Monsieur Chautard, an effusive European producer with murder on his mind. The central "gimmick" in Man With Two Faces, which was adroitly concealed in the original Dark Tower, is a bit more obvious on screen due to the dynamic personalities involved. Also, the play's ending, in which Vance's murderer is allowed to escape scot-free by a sympathetic detective, was obviously altered at the very last minute to appease the new Production Code. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide