Irving G. Thalberg Movies

A Day at the Races was the Marx Brothers' follow-up to their incomparable A Night at the Opera. Groucho Marx is cast as Hugo Z. Hackenbush, a veterinarian who passes himself off as a human doctor when summoned by wealthy hypochondriac Emily Upjohn (Margaret Dumont) to take over the financially strapped Standish Sanitarium. Chico Marx plays the sanitarium's general factotum, who works without pay because he has a soft spot for its owner, lovely Judy Standish (Maureen O'Sullivan). Harpo Marx portrays a jockey at the local racetrack, constantly bullied by the evil Morgan (Douglass Dumbrille), who will take over the sanitarium if Judy can't pay its debts. After several side-splitting routines--Chico selling Groucho tips on the races, Chico and Harpo rescuing Groucho from the clutches of femme fatale Esther Muir, all three Marxes conducting a lunatic "examination" of Margaret Dumont--the fate of the sanitarium rests on a Big Race involving Hi-Hat, a horse belonging to the film's nominal hero, Allan Jones. Virtually everything that worked in "Opera" is trotted out again for "Races", including a hectic slapstick finale wherein the Marxes lay waste to a public event. What is missing here is inspiration; perhaps this is due to the fact that MGM producer Irving Thalberg, whose input was so essential to the success of "Opera", died during the filming of "Races". Even so, Day at the Races made more money than any other previous Marx Brothers film--the result being that MGM, in the spirit of "they loved it once", would continue recycling Races' best bits for the studio's next three Marx vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Greta Garbo enjoyed one of her greatest triumphs in this glossy adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' oft-filmed romantic tragedy. Here, Garbo stars as Marguerite Gauthier, who is born into humble circumstances but in time becomes Dame aux Camille, one of the most glamorous courtesans in Paris. Camille is kept by the wealthy and powerful Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell), but after many years of earning a good living from her beauty without finding true love, Camille's heart is stolen by Armand (Robert Taylor), a handsome but slightly naive young man who doesn't know how she came by her fortune. Armand is just as attracted to Camille as she is to him, and she's prepared to give up the Baron and his stipend to be with Armand. However, Armand's father (Lionel Barrymore) begs Camille to turn away from his son, knowing her scandalous past could ruin his future. Realizing the painful wisdom of this, Camille rejects Armand, who continues to pursue her even as Camille contracts a potentially fatal case of tuberculosis. Remarkably, even though this was one of Garbo's greatest commercial and critical successes, she would make only three more films before her retirement in 1941; Camille, however, would be filmed several more times following this version (most memorably by elegant sexploitation auteur Radley Metzger in 1969's Camille 2000). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Although some purists hold out for Duck Soup (1933), many Marx Brothers fans consider A Night at the Opera the team's best film. Immediately after the credits roll, we are introduced to Groucho Marx as penny-ante promoter Otis B. Driftwood. After a sumptuous dinner with a beautiful blonde at a fancy Milan restaurant, Driftwood tries to cadge another free meal from his wealthy patroness, Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont). The dignified dowager complains that Driftwood had promised to get her into high society, but has done nothing so far. Otis B. counters by introducing Mrs. C to pompous opera entrepreneur Gottleib (Sig Rumann); all Mrs. Claypool has to do is invest several hundred thousand dollars in Gottleib's opera company, and her entree into society is in the bag. Contingent upon this plan is Driftwood's signing of Rodolfo Lassparri (Walter Woolf King), a self-important tenor. Backstage at the opera, Driftwood meets Fiorello (Chico Marx), who poses as a manager and offers to sell Driftwood the "world's greatest tenor"-not Lassparri, as Driftwood assumes, but Fiorello's pal Ricardo Baroni (Allan Jones). Instantly the two sharpsters try to draw up a contract ("The party of the first part shall hereafter be known as the party of the first part..."), which they proceed to tear up piece by piece whenever coming across a clause that displeases them (Driftwood: "That's a sanity clause"; Fiorello: "You no foola me. There ain't no Sanity Claus"). Having lost Lassparri to Gottleib, Driftwood sails back to America with Mrs. Claypool and the opera company. Gottleib arranges for Driftwood to get the tiniest, least accessible stateroom on the ship. Unpacking his trunk, Driftwood discovers that he's got to share his postage-stamp quarters with Ricardo Baroni, who has stowed away because he's in love with the opera troupe's leading lady Rosa (Kitty Carlisle). Also hiding out in Driftwood's trunk is Fiorello, who's come along because he's still Ricardo's manager, and the wacky Tomasso (Harpo Marx), Lassparri's former dresser, who has come along for the hell of it. Anxious to arrange a tete-a-tete with Mrs. Claypool in his stateroom, Otis finds out that his unwelcome guests won't leave until they're fed ("Do you have any stewed prunes? Well, give them some black coffee, that'll sober 'em up"). After ordering a huge dinner, Otis and his new friends are crowded even farther by a steady stream of intruders, including an engineer and his assistant, a cleaning lady, a manicurist, a girl looking for her Aunt Minnie, and a dozen waiters. The celebrated "stateroom scene" comes to a rollicking conclusion when Mrs. Claypool has the misfortune of opening the door. On the last night of the voyage, Fiorello, Tomasso and Ricardo sneak out of their stateroom to enjoy an impromptu ethnic festival in steerage. Ricardo sings, Fiorello "shoots the keys" on the piano, and Tomasso plays the film's theme song Alone on the harp. The stowaways are caught and thrown in the brig, but with Driftwood's help they escape. To avoid recapture, the stowaways don heavy beards and pose as three famed Russian aviators. After making a shambles of a public reception, the three reprobates hide out in Driftwood's New York apartment, where everyone conspires to drive an investigating detective (Robert Emmet O'Connor) crazy. Driftwood is fired from the opera company for associating with the stowaways, while Rosa is dismissed for refusing Lassparri's affections. In order to restore Rosa's job and put the deserving Ricardo in Lassparri's place during the opening performance of La Traviata, Driftwood, Fiorello and Tomasso concoct a scheme that will reduce the opera to comic chaos. The actual night at the opera in A Night at the Opera must be seen to be believed, but the spirit of the scene can be summed up by Gottleib's anguished cry "A battleship in Il Trovatore!" Opera was the Marx Brothers' first film for MGM, and they dearly coveted a hit after the disappointing box-office showing of their final Paramount films. With the blessing of MGM production chief Irving Thalberg, the Marxes went on the road with their brilliant writing staff (including George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind and Al Boasberg) to test their comedy material before live audiences. As a result of this careful preplanning, Night at the Opera was a smash-hit gigglefest, grossing over $3 million and putting the Marxes back on top in the hearts and minds of filmgoers everywhere. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The 1932 publication of Charles Nordhoff and James Norton Hall's Mutiny on the Bounty sparked a revival of interest in the titular 1789 ship mutiny, and this 1935 MGM movie version won the Oscar for Best Picture. Clark Gable stars as Fletcher Christian, first mate of the infamous HMS Bounty, skippered by Captain William Bligh (Charles Laughton), the cruelest taskmaster on the Seven Seas. Bligh's villainy knows no bounds: he is even willing to flog a dead man if it will strengthen his hold over the crew. Christian despises Bligh and is sailing on the Bounty under protest. During the journey back to England, Bligh's cruelties become more than Christian can bear; and after the captain indirectly causes the death of the ship's doctor, the crew stages a mutiny, with Christian in charge. Bligh and a handful of officers loyal to him are set adrift in an open boat. Through sheer force of will, he guides the tiny vessel on a 49-day, 4000-mile journey to the Dutch East Indies without losing a man. Historians differ on whether Captain Bligh was truly such a monster or Christian such a paragon of virtue (some believe that the mutiny was largely inspired by Christian's lust for the Tahitian girls). The movie struck gold at the box office, and, in addition to the Best Picture Oscar, Gable, Laughton, and Franchot Tone as one of the Bounty's crew were all nominated for Best Actor (they all lost to Victor McLaglan in The Informer). The film was remade in 1962 and adapted into the "revisionist" 1984 feature The Bounty with Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A few unique touches aside -- notably the opening costume-party scene, in which the revellers are dressed as insects -- Rip Tide is a standard-issue Norma Shearer soap opera. Shearer plays Mary, a footloose and fancy-free American heiress who weds British nobleman Lord Rexford (Herbert Marshall). Five years later, Rexford embarks upon a business trip to New York, while Mary, urged on by her fun-loving aunt, vacations on the Riviera. Here she is reacquainted with her ex-boyfriend Tommie (Robert Montgomery), whose drunken misbehavior causes scandal to befall them both. Refusing to hear Mary's side of the story, Rexford begins divorce proceedings, but a happy ending finally manifests itself after reels and reels of endless high-toned dialogue. Legendary stage star Mrs. Patrick Campbell makes her Hollywood film debut in Rip Tide as Shearer's all-knowing Aunt Hetty, while Walter Brennan and Bruce Bennett show up in microscopic bit roles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1934 musical comedy The Merry Widow, based on the 1905 operetta by Franz Lehar. In 1885, King Achmed (George Barbier) strives to protect the financial interests of his small, poor kingdom of Marshovia in Central Europe. When the kingdom's wealthiest widow, Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald), goes off to Paris, the king sends the village's greatest lover, Prince Danilo (Maurice Chevalier), off to marry her. The king demands that Danilo must romance and marry Sonia so she will return to the small kingdom with her riches. If he doesn't succeed, he'll be arrested. While in Paris, Danilo is distracted from his royal task when he finds himself in the company of many lovely Parisian women. Unbeknownst to him, one of the ladies is really Sonia pretending to be an escort girl. After a dance number and some songs, the Ambassador (Edward Everett Horton) announces that they are to be married. When Sonia refuses to marry Danilo, he is arrested and sent back to the small kingdom. Eventually Sonia returns to Marshovia, where she visits him in jail. She testifies on his behalf and they are finally married. The Merry Widow was filmed several other times, including the 1925 silent version directed by Erich Von Stroheim and the1952 version starring Fernando Lamas as Danilo. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

A remarkably smooth 110-minute adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's marathon eight-hour play, Strange Interlude was advertised as "the picture in which you hear the characters think," a nod to O'Neill's technique of having the characters speak their innermost thoughts out loud between dialogue passages (on-stage, the actors stood stock still while delivering their soliloquies; in the film, their thoughts are heard on the soundtrack). Norma Shearer plays Nina Leeds, who during WWI is talked out of marrying her soldier sweetheart, Gordon Shaw (Robert Young), by her professor father (Henry B. Walthall). When Gordon dies two days before the Armistice, the embittered Nina rebels against her father, escaping his dominance by marrying faithful Sam Evans (Alexander Kirkland). Upon discovering that there is a strain of insanity in the Evans family, Nina, desperate to have children, enters into a romance with Dr. Ned Darrell (Clark Gable). She bears his child, a son named Gordon (Tad Alexander as a child, Robert Young as an adult), assuring Evans that the baby is his. Gordon grows up idolizing Evans and despising Darrell, even though the boy is unaware of the circumstances of his birth or his true parentage. Her love for her son bordering on the obsessive, Nina does everything she can to dominate the boy even into adulthood, trying to scare away her son's fiancée, Madeline (Maureen O'Sullivan), by bringing up the insanity issue. Hoping to make up for past misdeeds, Darrell orders Nina to stop poisoning Madeline's mind against Gordon. By the time Evans suffers a fatal heart attack, Nina and Darrell have lost whatever love they shared between them. Through it all, Charlie Marsden (Ralph Morgan), a family friend who has long harbored an unrequited love for Nina, stands on the sidelines vicariously living his life through Nina and Darrell. Of necessity severely cut due to time and censorial constrictions, Strange Interlude still manages to distill the essence of the O'Neill play in its comparatively brief running time. The film's major flaw can also be found in the original play: though the characters age only 25 years or so in the course of the story, by the film's end they are seen doddering around like nonagenarians. The "speaking one's thoughts" gimmick in Strange Interlude was parodied in such comedy films as Animal Crackers, Me and My Gal, So This Is Africa, and even the Walter Catlett two-reeler Get Along Little Hubby. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"So much for Carlotta" muses the head of German Espionage (Lewis Stone), shortly after secret agent Karen Morley is put to death. Morley's successor is exotic dancer Mata Hari (Greta Garbo), an enigmatic woman of Javanese-Dutch ancestry who seldom thinks twice about luring some poor swain to his doom. Assigned to intercept allied war messages, Mata Hari romances garrolous-general Lionel Barrymore. She falls in love for the first and only time in her life when she meets dazzlingly handsome lieutenant Ramon Novarro. Barrymore finds out about the affair and threatens to expose both Mata and Novarro as spies, whereupon Ms. Hari shoots Barrymore dead. She arranges for Novarro to leave the country lest he be implicated in the murder. He is subsequently blinded in an airplane crash, setting the stage for Garbo's now-famous "Let me be your eyes" scene. Mata Hari is tried and sentenced to death, but is permitted a few final precious moments with Novarro, allowing him to go on believing that he is in a military hospital rather than a prison cell, and that his beloved is dying of a mysterious ailment rather than facing a firing squad. The debate still rages among film buffs as to whether Greta Garbo does her own dancing in Mata Hari, or whether that's her double in the long shots. There is no question, however, that the condemned prisoner in the first reel who refuses to betray Mata to his captors is none other than Mischa Auer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Boris Karloff stars as the villainous Dr. Fu Manchu in this wild and wooly -- and wildly racist -- adventure yarn, based on Sax Rohmer's fiction about the personification of the "yellow peril." Sir Nayland Smith (Lewis Stone) of the British Secret Service recruits Sir Lionel Barton (Lawrence Grant) to lead an expedition with Prof. Von Berg (Jean Hersholt) and McLeod (David Torrence) to the Gobi Desert, to find the tomb of Genghis Khan and retrieve the scimitar and golden mask held within. To Barton, these are mere archeological trophies, but Smith has learned that Dr. Fu Manchu also has his designs on them; and if he gets hold of these artifacts, he will use them to cause a rising in the East, and foment a war for the destruction of the white race. The action is fast and furious, resembling a Saturday-morning serial, as Barton is kidnapped and brought to Fu Manchu, who proceeds to torture him to find the location of the tomb. Barton's daughter, Sheila (Karen Morley), replaces her father to guide the expedition, accompanied by her fiancé, Terry Granville (Charles Starrett). They find the tomb and retrieve the sword and mask, and find themselves in the company of Nayland Smith as they try to return to England, and surrounded by enemies on all sides. One man is dead and soon Terry is in the hands of Fu and his sadistic daughter Fah Lo See (Myrna Loy), who proceeds to torture him; Nayland Smith is slowly being lowered into a pit of crocodiles, Von Berg is trapped between moving spiked walls, and Sheila Barton is about to be sacrificed as part of the ritual in which Fu will declare himself the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

The legendary theatrical team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne made their only starring screen appearance in this 1931 adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's The Guardsman. The Lunts are appropriately cast as a famous husband-and-wife acting duo, the husband of which suspects the wife of infidelity. To find out for certain, he disguises himself as an amorous Russian guardsman, complete with handlebar mustache. After an evening of paradise, Lunt confesses his subterfuge to Fontanne. She says she knew all the time, but that gleam in her eye opens up quite a few doubts which are never truly resolved. The fabled "naturalism" of the Lunts appears slightly strained under the probing eye of the camera lens, but their seemingly ad-libbed repartee sequences are a joy to behold. The Guardsman served as the basis for the Oscar Straus operetta The Chocolate Soldier, which itself was filmed in 1943 with Nelson Eddy and Rise Stevens. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Star Lon Chaney Sr. and director Tod Browning bade adieu to the silent-movie era with 1929's Where East is East. His face covered with hideous scars (convincingly applied with nonflexible collodion), Chaney is cast as weather-beaten animal trapper Tiger Haynes, at present living and working in Indochina. Haynes' loving relationship with his nubile half-caste daughter Toyo (Lupe Velez) is threatened by the return of Toyo's scheming mother, Madame Da Sylva (Estelle Taylor). Still harboring a grudge against Tiger, the Madame decides to get even by stealing Toyo's sweetheart Bobby (Lloyd Hughes) away from her. The villainess also intends to destroy Haynes by turning his animal "pets" against him. But the Madame is herself destroyed by Haynes' loyal gorilla, who in a gruesome (but largely unseen) finale tears the viperish woman apart. A typically morbid entry in the Chaney-Browning series, Where East is East may elicit more laughs than chills when seen today. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this lurid Tod Browning melodrama, boasting a thoroughly creepy performance by Lon Chaney, Chaney plays Phroso, a limehouse magician who is thoroughly in love with his wife Anna (Jacquelin Gadsdon). Also in love with Phroso's wife is ivory-trader Crane (Lionel Barrymore). After a performance, Anna tells Phroso that she is leaving him to go away with Crane to Africa. After Phroso confronts Crane, Crane kicks him down a second-floor landing, crippling him. Months later, Phroso, now known as "Dead Legs" Flint, is now seen to be paralyzed from the chest down, and he gets around by pulling himself forward by his hands. He enters a church where he sees Annie has returned, but she is dead at the altar, leaving her child Maizie, whom Dead Legs assumes to be Crane's child, crying next to her. Hate consumes the soul of Dead Legs, and he swears vengeance on Crane. Years pass. Dead Legs is now lording it over a group of African savages as their god. Maizie (Mary Nolan) has been installed at a brothel in Zanzibar and is now a broken-down alcoholic prostitute. Dead Legs conspires to steal some of Crane's ivory so Crane can appear before Dead Legs, and his revenge can be redeemed. He sends for Maizie and reveals her to Crane. He plans on killing Crane and, due to an African tribal custom that says a man's daughter must be burned at the stake when he dies, have the savages have their way with Maizie. But when Crane arrives and he tells Dead Legs that Maizie is not his daughter but Dead Legs' daughter, Dead Legs is stupefied. Crane leaves and is shot by the savages, his body returned to Dead Legs. Now the bloodthirsty savages want Maizie, so that she can be sacrificed at the stake. Dead Legs, as her father, must now conspire a way to save his daughter from certain death. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi