Alan Napier Movies
Though no one in his family had ever pursued a theatrical career (one of his more illustrious relatives was British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain), Alan Napier was stagestruck from childhood. After graduating from Clifton College, the tall, booming-voiced Napier studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then was engaged by the Oxford Players, where he worked with such raw young talent as John Gielgud and Robert Morley. He continued working with the cream of Britain's acting crop during his ten years (1929-1939) on the West End stages. Napier came to New York in 1940 to co-star with Gladys George in Lady in Waiting. Though his film career had begun in England in the 1930s, Napier had very little success before the cameras until he arrived in Hollywood in 1941. He essayed dignified, sometimes waspish roles of all sizes in such films as Cat People (1942), The Uninvited (1943), and House of Horror (1946); among his off-the-beaten-track assignments were the bizarre High Priest in Orson Welles' Macbeth (1948) and a most elegant Captain Kidd in the 1950 Donald O'Connor vehicle Double Crossbones. In 1966, Alan Napier was cast as Bruce Wayne's faithful butler, Alfred, on the smash-hit TV series Batman, a role he played until the series' cancellation in 1968. Alan Napier's career extended into the 1980s, with TV roles in such miniseries as QB VII and such weeklies as The Paper Chase. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1930
One of several British films produced and directed by American moviemaker Larry Trimble, Caste gets under way when the hero, played by Sir John Hare, defies his family's wishes and marries a chorus girl. Disgraced in the eyes of "proper" society, Hare deserts his new wife and joins his regiment in South Africa, where he is later reported to be missing in action. Meanwhile, Hare's wife returns to her old neighborhood and bears her husband's child. Several years pass before the very-much-alive Hare returns to entreat his wife's forgiveness. Though billed first, the delightful Peggy Hyland was wasted in the role of the hero's wisecracking sister. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1931
In this complex romantic drama set in the Middle East, a German baroness goes there for a visit and ends up falling in love with a French military officer. Her husband is equally adulterous and endeavors to catch her with her lover to insure that he will have custody of the heir after their divorce. Before his scheme plays itself out, the Frenchman intervenes and kills him. To protect the baroness, he then disposes of the evidence the husband gathered against her. Unhappiness eventually ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1934
In this British drama, based on a popular play, a wealthy young Jew goes to a weekend house party and finds himself victimized by anti-Semitic guests. To add insult to injury, his wallet is then stolen. The fellow exposes the pilferer and threatens to take him to court until the other guests, terrified of scandal, offer to make him a member of their exclusive club. It seems, like a good offer until the other members express their racist reservations about his joining. The angered fellow decides to take it to court after all. The distraught thief is found guilty and subsequently suicides. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Basil Rathbone, Heather Thatcher, (more)
- 1935
In this drama, two brothers fall in love with the same woman. As she is already betrothed to a count, neither of them have a chance until a murder occurs that sends one of the brothers to jail, freeing the other to have the woman. He does this by performing beautiful musical compositions that he swiped from his imprisoned brother. The compositions are proclaimed the work of a musical genius, and the faker becomes quite famous. Meanwhile, the imprisoned brother is released and joins a monastery. Nothing can persuade him to forsake his vows. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Stuart, Hugh Williams, (more)
- 1937
In this British comedy, set during the Boer War, a foot soldier saves his major's life. The officer is most grateful and puts the soldier in line for a Victoria Cross (a medal for valor). Unfortunately the well-meaning major's actions cause the soldier to be extradited back to England where he must stand trial for a series of crimes he committed before he joined the military. Later the major scours the British jails in search of the heroic lad. He finally finds him recruiting soldiers for WW I. The major offers to raise the soldier's son along with his own grandson. The boys are totally different. The soldier's son is a budding juvenile delinquent while the major's grandson is a perfect angel. The major hopes that the latter will have a good influence on the former, but this does not turn out to be the case. Twenty years pass. Goody-two-shoes is now serving time, while the soldier's son lives quite well on the spoils of his illegal activities. He also takes good care of the elderly major, who does not know the truth about his grandson ( he thinks his grandson is living in America) because the soldier's son refuses to tell him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn, (more)
In this espionage drama, a Secret Service agent must discover who has been smuggling British arms into China. The prime suspect is a prosperous Chinese merchant-philanthropist and the agent thinks the merchant is working with the notorious Chinese guerrilla warlord General Ling. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Griffith Jones, Valery Inkijinoff, (more)
- 1939
The eponymous Four Just Men of this film are British World War I comrades, who reunite in peacetime to bring disaster to their country's enemies. The quartet is not above murder and sabotage to achieve their ends, but their patriotism is never in question. The goal of the heroes is to thwart a megalomaniac who plans to destroy the Suez Canal, then devastate the British empire in order to create his own world dictatorship. Francis L. Sullivan, Hugh Sinclair, Griffith Jones and Frank Lawton play the Four Just Men, though Lawton's early death reduces the ranks to three. The villainy is in the hands of Basil Sydney, who is every bit as ruthless and resourceful as the heroes. Four Just Men is based on a series of adventure novels by British "writing machine" Edgar Wallace--which also formed the basis of a 1959 TV series of the same name, starring Dan Dailey, Richard Conte, Jack Hawkins and Vittorio De Sica. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugh Sinclair, Griffith Jones, (more)
- 1939
A violin-playing British doctor's life changes forever after he takes in a distraught Austrian ballerina who tries to kill herself after breaking her wrist. He hires the sad girl as a nanny for his bright son, whom he wants to keep away from his neurotic, overbearing wife. The trouble starts when the doctor and the nanny become genuinely attracted to each other. The wife learns of the nanny's former career and suicide attempt and orders her fired. This causes the doctor to take action on behalf of his son. This in turn causes a downward spiral into tragedy involving an accidental death. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Muni, Jane Bryan, (more)
- 1939
In this African adventure, a band of Englishmen search for a buried cache of diamonds. Unfortunately, their greed creates considerable friction that erupts in violence culminating in the death of one party member and the wounding of another. The rest of the men end up abandoning the killer and opting to share their new-found wealth equally. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Gardner, Ian Colin, (more)
- 1940
This fine adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale about a cursed family opens with a title card that reveals how the Pyncheon family stole, cheated, lied, and murdered their way to wealth. But within the hearts of the family's bloodline lay fear of the curse of Matthew Maule, a man they crossed many years earlier. Jumping to the year 1828, upstart judge Jaffrey Pyncheon (George Sanders) is called to his family's beloved seven-gabled house where he is told by his father (Gilbert Emery) and brother Clifford (Vincent Price) that the home is to be sold in order to pay their debts. A bitter, loathsome man who deeply believes in Maule's curse -- and the legend that gold is hidden in the house -- Jaffrey takes the opportunity of his father's death to accuse the innocent Clifford of murdering their patriarch. Clifford is sentenced to life in prison, but in a bizarre quirk of legal fate, the house is left in the care of Clifford's lively fiancée Hepzibah (Margaret Lindsay), who immediately boots out the hateful Jaffrey. The passage of 20 years leaves the house in shambles and Hepzibah a bitter spinster. The arrival of two people -- Hepzibah's pretty young cousin Phoebe (Nan Grey) and a mysterious boarder named Matthew Holgrave (Dick Foran) -- spark Hepzibah into opening the old house as a business. Clifford is finally released from prison and returns home for a touching reunion, but after a serious a strange reports about him leak out, Jaffrey plots to have his brother committed. However, Clifford has some plans for his evil brother and a plan to end the family's curse. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay, (more)
- 1940
A semi-sequel to the 1933 Universal horror masterwork The Invisible Man, The Invisible Man Returns stars Vincent Price in the title role. Condemned for a murder he did not commit, Price begs doctor John Sutton to inject him with the invisibility serum invented by Claude Rains in the first film. Sutton does so, even though he warns Price that the serum will very likely drive him insane. Sir Cedric Hardwicke co-stars as the genuine murderer, a colliery owner who framed Price. Though his behavior veers dangerously close to homicidal, Price is able to mete out retribution to Hardwicke without stooping to murder. As he gradually weakens, Price is recaptured and rushed to the hospital, where his life is saved by an emergency blood transfusion. Price's face is revealed to us for the first time as he vows his undying love to leading lady Nan Grey. Taking a less playful approach to the grim goings-on than director James Whale had in The Invisible Man, The Invisible Man Returns is a grim little morality play, containing vestiges of The Count of Monte Cristo and distinguished by an odd preoccupation with the mechanics and minutiae of death (a characteristic trait in the screenplays of Curt Siodmak). The film helped to solidify the cinematic reputation of Vincent Price, though it would be years before he'd specialize in horror on a full-time basis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cedric Hardwicke, Vincent Price, (more)
- 1941
Don Ameche, an American news bureau chief stationed in London, is frustrated by the British government's censorship of his wildly speculative dispatches to the United States. Joan Bennett is the government Teletype operator assigned to make sure that Ameche doesn't send out any story that hasn't been cleared. At first adversarial towards each other, Ameche and Bennet fall in love while huddled in various bomb shelters during the 1940 London blitz. Clearly inspired by Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (40), Confirm or Deny was one of many "preparedness" films turned out by Hollywood in the months just prior to Pearl Harbor. Any political proselytizing, however, takes second place to the Don Ameche/Joan Bennett love story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Ameche, Joan Bennett, (more)
- 1942
MGM's A Yank at Eton follows the same basic formula as the 1938 Robert Taylor starrer A Yank at Oxford, with a wartime angle thrown in. This time it's Mickey Rooney as the cocky young American who is shipped off to England to complete his education. Upon his arrival in the hallowed halls of Eton, Timothy Daniels (Rooney), bereft of common courtesy or a sense of tradition, wastes no time alienating the rest of the students. Eventually of course, Timothy knocks the chip off his own shoulder and becomes a model student and top athlete. Freddie Bartholomew, Rooney's costar in so many MGM classics of the 1940s, plays Timothy's upper-classman half-brother Peter Carlton, who applies a little "tough love" to bring our headstrong hero into line; also seen as the school bully is new MGM contractee Peter Lawford, who in 1938 had made his American film debut in the Rooney-Bartholomew starrer Lord Jeff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rooney, Edmund Gwenn, (more)
- 1942
Handed the exploitive title Cat People, RKO producer Val Lewton opted for a thinking man's thriller--a psychological mood piece, more reliant on suspense and suggestion than overt "scare stuff". Simone Simon plays an enigmatic young fashion artist who is curiously affected by the panther cage at the central park zoo. She falls in love with handsome Kent Smith, but loses him to Jane Randolph. After a chance confrontation with a bizarre stranger at a restaurant, Simon becomes obsessed with the notion that she's a Cat Woman--a member of an ancient Serbian tribe that metamorphoses into panthers whenever aroused by jealousy. She begins stalking her rival Randolph, terrifying the latter in the film's most memorable scene, set in an indoor swimming pool at midnight. Psychiatrist Tom Conway scoffs at the Cat Woman legend--until he recoils in horror after kissing Simon. If the film's main set looks familiar, it is because it was built for Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (Lewton later used the same set for his The Seventh Victim). Cat People was remade by director Paul Schrader in 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simone Simon, Kent Smith, (more)
- 1942
With America's Air Force not completely mobilized in mid-1942, Universal paid tribute to those foresighted Yankee flyboys who joined England's Royal Air Force before America's entry into WW2 in Eagle Squadron. Robert Stack stars as Chuck Brewer, one of several US flyers participating in RAF bombing raids of Germany. The film stresses the importance of hands-across-the-sea teamwork in this massive undertaking, concluding with Brewer leading his British compatriots on a Commando raid behind enemy lines, the better to capture a revolutionary new Nazi war plane. Every so often, the story slows to a walk as Brewer romances British lass Anne Partridge, played by the unfortunate Diana Barrymore in her last truly important screen role. Producer Walter Wanger made special arrangements with the British government to incorporate several exciting shots of authentic air battles in the film's 108 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Stack, Diana Barrymore, (more)
At the close of World War I, shell-shocked amnesia victim Ronald Colman is sequestered in a London sanitarium; with no identity and no next of kin, he has nowhere else to go. Unable to stand the loneliness, Colman wanders into the streets, then stumbles into a music hall, where he is befriended by good-natured entertainer Greer Garson. That Colman and Garson fall in love and marry should surprise no one; what is surprising, at least to Colman, is that he discovers that he has a talent for writing. Three years pass: while in Liverpool to sell one of his stories, Colman is struck down by a speeding car. When he comes to, he has gained full memory of his true identity; alas, he has completely forgotten both Garson and their child. Returning to his well-to-do relatives, Colman takes over the family business. Having lost her child, the distraught Garson seeks out the missing Colman. Psychiatrist Philip Dorn helps Garson, advising her that to reveal her identity may prove a fatal shock for her husband. To stay near him all the same, Garson takes a job as Colman's secretary. "Strangely" attracted to Garson, Colman falls in love with her all over again. Will there be yet another memory lapse? Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't believe a minute of Random Harvest, but the magic spell woven by the stars and by author James Hilton (Lost Horizon, Goodbye Mr. Chips etc.) transforms the wildly incredible into the wholly credible (just one quibble: isn't Colman a bit long in tooth as a "young" World War I veteran?) The film was one of MGM's biggest hits in 1942--indeed, one of the biggest in the studio's history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, (more)
- 1942
Strange but true: Norma Shearer turned down the title role in Mrs. Miniver to star instead in the insignificant trifle We Were Dancing. Loosely based on two Noel Coward playlets originally presented as part of the omnibus production Tonight at 8:30, the story concerns the romance between socialite Vicki Wilomirsky (Norma Shearer) and Nicki Prax (Melvyn Douglas), an impoverished baron who supports himself as a "professional guest." Nicki steals Vicki away from her stuffy attorney fiance Hubert Tyler (Lee Bowman), but their subsequent marriage comes to an end when Vicki spots Nicki in the arms of his ex-lover Linda Wayne (Gail Patrick). Returning to Tyler, Vicki is on the verge of a second marriage, when Nicki once again waltzes into her life?.and on and on it goes, where it will stop, nobody knows. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norma Shearer, Melvyn Douglas, (more)
- 1943
This wartime melodrama stars George Sanders as Keith Wilson, a disillusioned Britisher who becomes a "Lord Haw Haw"type at a Nazi radio station. All the time he's dispensing anti-British propaganda over the airwaves, however, Wilson is actually a secret agent in the employ of the His Majesty's government. It is Wilson's intention to use his intimate relationship with the Germans to expose a worldwide Nazi spy ring. Romance enter the picture in the form of Ilse Preissing (Marguerite Chapman), the sister of a Nazi agent whose decision to join Wilson's side results in her death. Veteran movie villainess Gale Sondergaard also appears in the film, cast against type as a courageous British intelligence agent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Sanders, Marguerite Chapman, (more)
Female dogs tend to shed while in heat; this is why all the collies who've played doggy heroine Lassie in the movies have actually been well-disguised males. A magnificent animal named Pal was the screen's first Lassie in 1943's Lassie Come Home. Set in Yorkshire during the first World War, the film gets under way when the poverty-stricken parents (Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester) of young Joe Carraclough (Roddy McDowall) are forced to sell his beloved Lassie. While her new master, the duke of Rudling (Nigel Bruce), is pleasant enough, Lassie prefers the company of Joe and repeatedly escapes. Even when cared for by the duke's affectionate granddaughter, Priscilla (Elizabeth Taylor), Lassie insists upon heading back to her original home. This time, however, the trip is much longer, and Lassie must depend upon the kindness of strangers, notably farmers Dally (Dame May Whitty) and Dan'l Fadden (Ben Webster) and handyman Rowlie (Edmund Gwenn). Based on the novel by Eric Knight (originally serialized in The Saturday Evening Post), Lassie Come Home was released quite some time after Knight's death. Like all the Lassie sequels turned out by MGM between 1943 and 1951, Lassie Come Home was lensed in Technicolor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, (more)
Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon team for the third time in this fact-based biography directed by Mervyn Leroy, based on Eve Curie's book about her mother. In early 1900s Paris, poor Polish student Marie (Greer Garson) gets a chance to study magnetism with kindly professor Jean Perot (Albert Basserman). Perot also arranges for the shy scientist Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon) to share the lab with Marie. As they work together, Pierre and Marie fall in love. Pierre eventually musters up the courage to ask her to marry him, and she accepts. After their honeymoon, Marie becomes obsessed with a piece of pitchblende that has been displaying some peculiar properties. After five years of work, Marie discovers radium. But as the years go on, Marie and Pierre struggle to raise money to continue their research, hoping to one day be able to isolate radium from the pitchblende. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, (more)
The Song of Bernadette is a reverent recounting of the life of St. Bernadette of Lourdes. As a teen-aged peasant girl growing up in the tiny French village of Lourdes in the 19th century, Bernadette (Jennifer Jones) experiences a vision of the Virgin Mary in a nearby grotto. At least, she believes that she did. The religious and political "experts" of the region cannot accept the word of a silly little girl, and do their best to get her to renounce her claims. Bernadette's vision becomes a political hot potato for many years, with the authorities alternately permitting and denying the true believers' access to the grotto. No matter what the higher-ups may think of Bernadette, there is little denying that the springs of Lourdes hold some sort of recuperative powers for the sick and lame. Eventually, Bernadette dies, never faltering in her conviction that she saw the Blessed Virgin; years later, she is canonized as a saint, and the Grotto of Lourdes remains standing as a permanent shrine. The 20th Century-Fox people knew that The Song of Bernadette would whip up controversy from both the religious and the agnostic. The company took some of the "curse" off the project with a now-famous opening title: "To those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible." Jennifer Jones' performance in The Song of Bernadette won her the Best Actress Oscar in 1943. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, (more)
- 1944
Exiled from his own country during WW2, French filmmaker Leonide Moguy worked briefly in Hollywood, where he directed the patriotic thriller Action in Arabia. George Sanders stars as Gordon, an American newspaperman at large in Damascus. When a colleague is murdered, Sanders wants to find out why. He is helped along by glamourous secret agent Yvonne (Virginia Bruce), who is on the trail of a group of Nazi saboteurs. It turns out that the murder is tied in with a plan to destroy the Suez Canal in the name of Der Fuehrer. Though economically produced, Action in Arabia benefits from several rather spectacular-looking scenes of desert combat-most of these lifted from a never-finished 1933 filmed biography of Lawrence of Arabia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Sanders, Virginia Bruce, (more)
Adapted from a Saturday Evening Post serial by Frank and Marian Cockrell, Dark Waters stars Merle Oberon as heiress Leslie Calvin, a woman with a neurotic aversion to water. This stems from the fact that in her childhood, Leslie was one of four survivors of a torpedoed steamship. Preying upon Leslie's fears, conniving Mr. Sydney (Thomas Mitchell), a guest at the Calvin family's Louisiana plantation, concocts a campaign of terror designed to drive the poor girl crazy so that he can claim her vast inheritance. Sydney and his cohorts also have the presence of mind to murder all of Leslie's closest relatives, leaving her utterly helpless. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Merle Oberon, Franchot Tone, (more)
- 1944
Margaret O'Brien, MGM's newest child sensation, was given her first starring vehicle with Lost Angel. O'Brien plays Alpha, who has been groomed to be a genius by a trio of well-meaning but misguided professors (Philip Merivale, Henry O'Neill and Donald Meek). Taking pity on the reluctant prodigy, police reporter Mike Regan (James Craig) takes it upon himself to "deprogram" Alpha and transform her into a normal, healthy child. In an effort to inflate this B picture into "A" proportions by increasing the running time, the scriptwriters contrive a silly subplot involving a gang of Runyonesque gangsters (headed by the ineluctable Keenan Wynn). Margaret O'Brien's appeal may be elusive to modern viewers, but she was a proven audience favorite back in 1944. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margaret O'Brien, James Craig, (more)
- 1944
One of the few failures for RKO Radio's resident "prestige programmer" producer Val Lewton, Mademoiselle Fifi is based on two Guy De Maupassant tales, with emphasis on Boule de Suif. The story takes place during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, though it is clearly an allegorical representation of the German mindset of WW2. "Mademoiselle Fifi" is the derisive nickname of a brutal Prussian officer (Kurt Krueger) who rules the roost in a tiny French village. When a stagecoach rides into the village, the passengers are detained by the Prussian tyrant, who threatens to kill them all at any given moment. Desperately, the passengers demand that one of their own, a laundress of dubious morals named Elizabeth (Simone Simon), surrender herself sexually to the Prussian to secure their freedom. Previously the object of scorn and ridicule from her fellow passengers, Elizabeth is bitterly amused by their change of heart, but she's too loyal to France to refuse their request. How she completes her "mission" and eliminates "Mademoiselle Fifi" in the process is the film's dramatic core. Though superbly directed by Robert Wise, Mademoiselle Fifi is laid low by its pretentiousness-not to mention the uneveness of the performances, none more uneven than Jason Robards Sr., who at one point declaims in his flat midwestern tones "We must not forget that we're all Frenchmen!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simone Simon, John Emery, (more)
