Mary C. McCall, Jr. Movies

Chester Morris plays a working stiff unable to provide for his family on his meager salary. He arranges a loan with the seemingly benign Leo Carrillo, but soon learns that he can't keep up with the usurious interest payments. Carrillo's loan company is actually a racket in league with the local crime organization; Morris gets in so deep that he can't get out, and before long his wife and daughter are in dire jeopardy. As was customary at Columbia Pictures, the screenwriters were handed the title I Promise to Pay and then told to fashion a story from it. In this instance, inspiration came from a recent government crackdown on loan sharks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romantic drama, a horsewoman is forced to work in a society dame's stable. There she meets and falls in love with a destitute polo-player who has curried the favor of his lovely employer. The matron gets jealous of the budding relationship between the horsewoman and the player. A wealthy man, who wants the stable girl, also gets jealous. Fortunately, the young lovers are able to withstand the ensuing turmoil and they elope. A while later, the other man attends a lively party aboard a yacht. There a drunken chorine falls overboard and drowns. One of the ship's officers blames the wealthy man and says he saw him leaving with a mysterious "woman in red." During the ensuing trial, the horsewoman clears his name by admitting that he was with her. It is a difficult admission because she knows she is risking her marriage. Fortunately, her husband and his family support her all the way and the marriage is strengthened. ~ Sandra Brennan, 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

This drama examines the rivalry between a mother and the daughter she is too vain to acknowledge. The mother is a famous actress who does not want her true age to be known. She, therefore, keeps her 19-year old daughter secreted away in a boarding school. The daughter is too old to be concealed. She wants her own life, and she wants her mother to acknowledge her existence. She goes to New York to see her mother. At her mother's house, the young woman encounters her mother's newest suitor. He sees the young girl and falls for her. The mother becomes terribly jealous and tries to thwart the romance. She fails, and the happy young couple get married. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this complicated drama, a husband begins an affair. His new mistress has a handsome brother who ends up falling for the husband's daughter. Mayhem ensues until the husband's wife learns of the affair and decides to free him by getting a divorce. This frees the husband to marry the mistress and his daughter to marry her brother. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide