Mary C. McCall, Jr. Movies

The Russian Revolution provides the backdrop of this costume epic that centers around a young nobleman who, with his maid, escapes from his homeland to Constantinople where the two marry and begin a new life as commoners. But though it seemed a good idea at the time, the aristocrat has trouble adjusting to the daily toil and grimness of his new existence and when he meets an exciting seductress he immediately, abandons his good, peasant wife. With his shady lady, the fellow tries to become a con artist, but it doesn't work. He decides to return to his wife, and gets there just as she is about to be sent back to Russia. Much of the film was shot in real homes in Constantinople. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis' satirical novel of the American "middle class" was first filmed as a silent in 1924, then as a talkie ten years later. In this second version, Guy Kibbee portrays George Babbitt, a small town businessman whose sense of self-importance has turned him into a pompous ass. Only Babbitt's loving wife (Aline MacMahon) sees the decent man behind the fatuous facade. Babbitt's ego gets the better of him when he is inveigled by a lovely but duplicitous young lady (Claire Dodd) into promoting a shady land deal. On the verge of ruin, Babbitt is rescued by his wife, though there's every indication that he hasn't completely learned his lesson. While the sting of Sinclair Lewis' original novel has been blunted, One couldn't ask for a better George Babbitt than Guy Kibbee. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Max Reinhardt's legendary Hollywood Bowl production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream was transferred to the screen by Warner Bros. in 1935. Like most of Shakespeare's comedies, the story contains several seemingly unrelated plotlines, all tied together by a single unifying event, in this instance the impending wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. One story thread concerns the mistaken-identity romances of four young Athenians; another involves a group of "rude mechanicals" who plan to stage a production of "Pyramus and Thisbe" in honor of the wedding; and third plot strand is motivated by the mischievous misbehavior of invisible fairies Oberon, Titania, and Puck. While one of the members of Reinhardt's original stage cast, Olivia De Havilland (Hermia) was retained for the film version, the remainder of the roles went to Warners' ever-reliable stock company. Some of the casting is inspired: James Cagney is brilliant as vainglorious amateur thespian Bottom, while Joe E. Brown is ideal as the reluctant female impersonator Flute. As the four lovers, De Havilland and Jean Muir far outshine the smirking and simpering Dick Powell and Ross Alexander. In the dominion of the fairies, Mickey Rooney is a bit too precious as Puck, but Anita Louise is a lovely Titania and Victor Jory a suitably menacing Oberon (his opening line "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania!" still sends shivers down our spines). Cagney and Brown's fellow "mechanicals" are an odd mixture of the sublime (Frank McHugh) and the just plain silly (Hugh Herbert). While the performances and direction (by Reinhardt and William Dieterle) are uneven, the art direction and special effects (especially the nocturnal dance of the fairies) are breathtakingly beautiful. Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream" incidental music is masterfully orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, while the cinematography by Hal Mohr earned the first write-in Academy Award in Hollywood history (Mohr had not been nominated due to hostilities arising from a recent industry strike). Considered a brave failure at the time of its first release, on a purely visual level A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of the more satisfying Shakespearean cinemadaptations of Hollywood's golden age. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Secret Bride is Ruth Vincent (Barbara Stanwyck), the daughter of Governor Vincent (Arthur Byron). Attorney general Robert Sheldon (Warren William) falls in love with Ruth and they marry, but Sheldon insists that their marriage be kept secret. It seems that the Governor has been accused of accepting $10,000 in bribes, and Sheldon doesn't want to be accused of complicity while he investigates the matter. In the course of events, two murders occur, and it's up to Ruth to straighten the mess out. But how will she be able to manage this without involving herself or her secret husband in the scandal? It's funny how the various TV cable services tend to trot out The Secret Bride whenever a real-life political scandal bursts onto the scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After several light comedy roles, Rosalind Russell proved her salt as a dramatic film actress in this 1936 adaptation of George Kelly's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Craig's Wife. Russell plays Harriet Craig, whose obsession with keeping her house and its furnishings spotless has driven away most of her friends. Harriet's husband Walter (John Boles) loves her and will not brook any criticism of her fastidiousness. But even he has a breaking point: this comes when, during a moment of dire crisis, she reveals that she is more concerned with her own well-being than her husband's. Walter declares his independence by smoking a cigarette in Harriet's spotless living room, strewing his ashes all over her nice clean rug, smashing one of her precious vases, and walking out on her. The final image is of Harriet Craig standing alone in her "perfect" house, so benumbed by events that she fails to notice that her armful of roses is leaving a path of petals on her hitherto unsullied floor. Previously filmed in 1928, Craig's Wife was remade in 1950 with Joan Crawford as Harriet Craig. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romance, a secretary is awarded a legacy. Later she meets a male secretary who begins protecting her from an avaricious baron endeavoring to steal her money. The two rivals engage in fisticuffs, and the secretary loses. Fortunately, he wins the love of the girl. He then reveals that his actually a millionaire himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Boy soprano Bobby Breen dons a pair of skates in the oddball musical Breaking the Ice. Escaping his super-strict Mennonite relatives, our hero gets a job singing at a Philadelphia ice-skating rink. Here he tries to earn enough money to help his beloved widowed mother (Dolores Costello) wrest herself free of those selfsame relatives. The plot requires canary-voiced Breen to share the spotlight with six-year-old skating sensation Irene Dare. Within a year, Breaking the Ice producer Sol Lesser attempted to launch another series of family musicals built around the talents of little Ms. Dare, but the first entry in this project--Everything's on Ice--was also the last. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maisie stars Ann Sothern as a worldly showgirl stranded in Wyoming when her show fails. She accepts a job at a carnival shooting gallery, where she meets the handsome foreman (Robert Young) of a lavish ranch -- and is promptly accused of picking the man's pocket. Despite this rocky beginning, Maisie grows fond of the foreman, clearing him of a murder charge (she proves that the victim committed suicide). The wisecracking, street-smart Maisie is on the verge of settling down on the Wyoming ranch at fade-out time. She must have had a change of heart, since Maisie was the first of ten MGM B-pictures featuring Ann Sothern as Maisie Ravier. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This third installment in MGM's "Maisie" series finds eternally stranded showgirl Maisie Revere (Ann Sothern) stuck in a deserted mining camp. Here she links up with Davises, an impoverished migrant family which hopes to strike gold somewhere in the neighboring hills. Their efforts are resisted by hard-hearted local rancher Bill Anders (Lee Bowman), who orders the family off his property. With Maisie's assistance, the Davises are offered the opportunity to launch a cooperative farming project, with Anders' blessing. Evidently inspired by The Grapes of Wrath, Gold Rush Maisie is hardly in the same league, but it passes the time painlessly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Out of work as usual, showgirl Maisie Revier (Ann Sothern) takes a job as the maid for a wealthy family. She wins over the young man of the household (Lew Ayres), but the rest of the family is too wrapped up in its own problems to benefit from Maisie's good-natured personality. The daughter (Maureen O'Sullivan) tries to kill herself when her engagement breaks up, prompting Maisie to instill a sense of purpose and self-confidence in the shallow lives of her employers. Maisie Was a Lady is enjoyable "B" fare, given substance by the battle of wits between down-to-earth Maisie and imperious family butler C. Aubrey Smith. This film was the fourth in MGM's "Maisie" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The combination of Ann Sothern and Red Skelton pays off in giggles, chortles and guffaws in Maisie Gets Her Man. Broke and stranded once more, showgirl Maisie Revere briefly works as the wrong end of a knife-throwing act, then dedicates herself to helping would-be comedian Hap Hixby (Skelton) overcome his debilitating stage fright. The plot then goes off on an entirely new tangent, as the hapless Hap gets mixed up with cherubic con artist Denningham (Lloyd Corrigan). Things end happily for both Maisie and Hap, but not quite in the way that either one of them would have predicted. It's a tribute to the comedy genius of Red Skelton that he can raise laughs while playing a character who can't raise laughs! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In her seventh outing as irrepressible vaudeville entertainer Maisie Revere, Ann Sothern aided the war effort by working the swing shift in an airplane factory. Taking in a seemingly suicidal co-worker, Iris (Jean Rogers), Maisie can only watch as the girl steals her beau, handsome pilot James McLaughlin (James Craig). Promising to be faithful to James, who is going away on a training course, Iris promptly flirts with everyone in pants, much to chaperone Maisie's chagrin. When Maisie catches the selfish Iris in the middle of staging yet another "suicide," the vaudeville trouper turned everyone's favorite riveter threatens to spill the beans to Lieutenant James. In retaliation, Iris accuses Maisie of spying for the Nazis but everything is cleared up before the fadeout. MGM had at first assigned the male lead to newcomer Jim Davis, but he proved too inexperienced and the role eventually went to Craig, the studio's all-purpose Clark Gable lookalike. (As a consolation, Davis played a G.I. instead.) Starlet Jean Rogers, formerly Dale Arden in Flash Gordon (1936), does surprisingly well in her unsympathetic part and, doubled only partially by Jacqueline Wiere, performs a funny acrobatic number with the Wiere Brothers. Sothern leads a rousing chorus of the morale-boosting "There's a Girl Behind the Boy Behind the Gun" and remains her usual delightful self throughout what is one of MGM's better wartime potboilers. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Sullivans attempts to find the positives in one of the most tragic chapters of World War II. Edward Ryan, John Campbell, James B. Cardwell, John Alvin and George Offerman Jr. play the Sullivan brothers, sons of an Iowa railroad worker (Thomas Mitchell) and his wife (Selena Royle). The film traces the boys from childhood, maintaining a relatively lighthearted tone until the Sullivans sign up en masse for the navy at the outbreak of the war. Refusing to be separated, the boys are all assigned to the cruiser Juneau--and all are killed when the vessel goes down at Guadalcanal. This appalling incident (which made something of a celebrity of the brothers' grieving father when he went on a nationwide patriotic lecture tour) resulted in the Navy's decision to never again allowed all the enlisted members of one family to serve on the same ship. Even from the vantage point of fifty years, the scene in which the family receives the wire from the war department is impossible to watch with a dry eye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide