Gregg Toland Movies
The most influential and innovative cinematographer of the sound era, Gregg Toland was born May 29, 1904, in Charleston, IL. He began working as an office boy for mogul William Fox at the age of 15, first making a name for himself in 1924 by creating a soundproof camera housing which blocked any mechanized noise from reaching recording equipment, a major advance in the new era of sound, as it allowed directors to film intimate moments without accidentally capturing the winding of film as well. By the age of 27, Toland was the youngest first-unit cameraman in Hollywood, and by the end of the 1930s, he was perhaps the most sought-after director of photography in the business, with an Oscar under his belt for his work in 1939's Wuthering Heights; ultimately, MGM chief Samuel Goldwyn was even forced to share Toland's services with other studios for fear of losing him permanently.Toland's fame rested on his gifts for innovative lighting techniques and crystalline deep-focus photography. His work was remarkably evocative, spanning the urban sprawl of William Wyler's 1937 effort Dead End to the documentary-like grit of John Ford's 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Dust Bowl-era novel The Grapes of Wrath. His Expressionistic work with Ford on 1940's The Long Voyage Home set the stage for his towering achievement, 1941's Citizen Kane. After offering his services to writer/director Orson Welles, Toland was given free rein to experiment on Kane, using coated lenses and arc lights to create a depth of focus staggering in its clarity and ability to capture the minutiae of each scene. Additionally, he revamped the Mitchell BNC camera to include a new anti-noise device which allowed even greater flexibility of movement and control, eliminating the need to intercut between scenes and enabling Welles to create long, continuous shots.
Toland was duly rewarded for his innovations on Kane by receiving credit alongside Welles at the film's close -- the director's clear acknowledgment of the crucial importance of Toland's work -- and it has often been suggested that the film's brilliance was as much a product of his vision as it was Welles'. However, deep focus was slow in sweeping across Hollywood. It was never a common practice; still Toland remained its leading proponent in features ranging from 1941's The Little Foxes to 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives. Ultimately, his techniques reached their fullest application in the medium of television. Sadly, Toland did not live to see his vision become the small-screen industry standard. He died of heart disease in Hollywood on September 28, 1948. His final effort, 1948's Enchantment, was issued posthumously. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1929
This is the first sound film of Vilma "the Hungarian Rhapsody" Banky, a popular romantic star from the silent era. She plays a young Hungarian woman who has just arrived in the US. She is sheltered by her uncle. Soon she becomes a waitress. While at work, she falls in love with a handsome millionaire whom she mistakes for a chauffeur. Soon the two are married. Still not knowing his true financial worth, she attempts to make him buy a taxi and start his own business. He takes the cab money and squanders it on gambling. His good wife then must borrow money from the wealthy lover of his cousin. In the end, the new husband finally tells her the truth and happiness ensues. Though dialog is featured, much of the film is silent. Banky, whose thick Hungarian accent was difficult to understand, retired soon after making this film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vilma Banky, James Hall, (more)
- 1929
Tired of his sedentary postwar existence, Col. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (Ronald Colman) offers his services as adventurer for hire. This gets him mixed up with lovely Joan Bennett, whose wealthy father is being held against his will in a gloomy sanitarium. Armed with little more than bravado, Drummond, his pal Algy (Claud Allister) and faithful butler Danny (Wilson Benge) walk right into the villain's lair--said villain being the evil Dr. Lakington. Drummond is overpowered by Lakington's henchpersons, played by Lilyan Tashman and Montague Love. Our Hero is willing to accept the inevitability of his own death, but when the unspeakable Lakington fondles the unconscious Ms. Bennett, that's too much! Drummond escapes, and in a jaw-dropping sequence kills Lakington in cold blood. He then becomes his old charming self and allows secondary villains Love and Tashman to escape, since he's not really mad at them. Drummond saves the millionaire and wins the girl, though later "Bulldog Drummond" films bear out the fact that he doesn't marry her immediately as he should (virtually every subsequent "Drummond" flick would open with an interrupted wedding). Filmed in the earliest days of the talkie era, Bulldog Drummond is a remarkably sophisticated film for its time, directed with assurance by former Mack Sennett associate F. Richard Jones (who unfortunately died shortly after the film's release). Its only concessions to the "all talking/all singing" mania of 1929 are the unnecessary Irish songs performed by tenor Donald Novis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Claud Allister, (more)
Though filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim's notorious profligacy had made him virtually unhirable in the US by 1929, screen-star Gloria Swanson still had faith in him. She poured a great deal of her own money in Von Stroheim's last silent film, Queen Kelly, and agreed to play the leading role to insure box-office success. When production began, Stroheim had not quite completed his script: all he had was the premise of a young Irish convent girl named Kitty Kelly (Gloria Swanson) being seduced by a German nobleman (Walter Byron) who was slated to marry the mad Queen (Seena Owen) of a tiny European principality. Brandishing a whip, the loony Queen drives the hapless Kitty from the palace. It was after shooting had started that Von Stroheim filled Swanson in on the rest of the plot: Kitty was to inherit all the worldly possessions of her aunt in German East Africa. Arriving to take charge of the estate, Kitty would learn that she was proud possessor of a string of brothels. Realizing that such a plot device would never get past the American censors, Swanson reacted in horror; she frantically called her money men in America and screamed "There's a madman in charge!" In the final release version of Queen Kelly, hastily completed by Swanson to recoup her losses and ultimately released in Europe, Kitty Kelly was forced into a marriage with brothel manager Tully Marshall, a tobacco-juiced stained degenerate. She ultimately returns to the nobleman who'd seduced her, is driven from the palace by Queen Owen, and commits suicide. This version contained dialogue sequences, and one musical interlude, sung by star Swanson. Despite its tawdry plot, Queen Kelly was beautifully photographed; its most famous shot, of Swanson praying in church, her face framed by flickering candles, was excerpted in the actress' much-later talkie Sunset Boulevard. The currently available restored version of Queen Kelly uses still pictures and explanatory titles to fill in the footage that has decomposed over the years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gloria Swanson, Seena Owen, (more)
- 1929
Ronald Colman's second talking picture, Condemned is a snail's-pace melodrama set on a Devil's Island. The evils of the notorious French penal colony are treated head-on, though the awkwardness of early-talkie techniques lessen the impact of several scenes. The plot has Colman, a condemned bank robber, working his way into the confidence of the warden (Dudley Digges) and into the heart of the warden's frustrated wife (Ann Harding). When she leaves for France, Colman escapes in order to join her. Condemned was adapted from Blair Niles' novel Condemned to Devil's Island by future Gone with the Wind screenwriter Sidney Howard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Ann Harding, (more)
- 1929
The Trespasser was Gloria Swanson's first all-talking picture. All talk is right. Swanson plays a humble secretary who marries the son (Robert Ames) of a domineering millionaire (William Holden--no, not that William Holden). The father-in-law bullies Swanson into giving up his son; she agrees to step out of his life, proudly withholding the fact that she's about to become a mother. Later, Swanson enters her ex-husband's social class via an inheritance. Unfortunately, he's remarried to Kay Hammond, who is crippled and thus more needful of the man's love and comfort than self-reliant Swanson. Tearfully, Swanson gives up the man she loves, left only with her child and a bulging bank account. When Trespasser was remade by director Edmund Goulding as That Certain Woman with Bette Davis in 1937, a last-minute happy ending was tacked on--if one can call the death of wife number two a joyous event. As for the original film, Gloria Swanson proved (contrary to the popular belief engendered by Sunset Boulevard) that she could have been just as big a star in talkies as she'd been in silents (she even sings well); unfortunately her subsequent judgment in screenplay selection resulted in a string of flops. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gloria Swanson, Robert Ames, (more)
- 1929
This drama, based on a Joseph Conrad novel, follows the exploits of a British adventurer who helps hide an island prince and his sister after they are chased out of their village by rebellious natives. The adventurer then tries to help the prince reclaim his home, but he is waylaid by a wealthy English couple who have sailed their yacht into his area. Soon he and the wealthy wife are having an affair. When the angry natives forcibly board the ship, the woman runs to get the adventurer's help, but they get caught up in mutual lust and by the time they get back to the boat, they learn that the ship was blown up along with everyone on board, including the woman's husband. The guilty adventurer sends the woman away and spends his life as a hermit. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfred Hickman
- 1930
Ronald Colman plays the "black sheep" of a wealthy British family, sent to South Africa so that he'll be as far away from home as possible. Broke again, Colman auctions off his belongings and heads for London to the less-than-open arms of his father (Frederick Kerr). He begins to dally with a saucy actress (Myrna Loy), but soon his attentions shift to a young heiress (Loretta Young) engaged to a nobleman. The heiress manages to set Colman on the straight and narrow, so he renounces his wastrel ways and settles down--but not before breaking up the girl's upcoming wedding. Based on a play by Frederick Lonsdale, Devil to Pay is dated only in its subject matter; on a purely technical level, the film hardly betrays its age at all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1930
The third in a succession of film adaptations of author E.W. Hornung's novel Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman, this version was the first to also be produced in sound. Ronald Colman stars as A.J. Raffles, an utterly unflappable British gentleman cricket player who by night is secretly a thief known in the press as The Amateur Cracksman and causing apoplectic fits at Scotland Yard. Raffles has fallen in love with society girl Gwen Manders (Kay Francis) and intends to give up his criminal pursuits, but first he must help an indebted pal, Bunny (Bramwell Fletcher) by stealing a valuable necklace owned by Lady Melrose (Alison Skipworth) at a weekend soiree. Suspecting that Raffles and the Cracksman are one and the same, Inspector McKenzie (David Torrence) is a guest at the same party, with a keen eye peeled at Raffles. In the meantime, rival crook Crawshaw (John Rogers) also has designs on the necklace, setting himself as an unfortunately perfect scapegoat. Although George Fitzmaurice was credited as the sole director of Raffles (1930), he was actually the replacement for Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast, who was fired during production. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Kay Francis, (more)
- 1930
Adapted from Owen Davis's stage comedy The Nervous Wreck (itself filmed in 1927), Flo Ziegfeld's musical spectacular Whoopee! was one of the solid hits of the 1928-29 Broadway season, thanks largely to the irrepressible Eddie Cantor. The property was transferred to film virtually intact in 1930, again produced by Ziegfeld (in collaboration with Sam Goldwyn) and again starring Cantor. The star plays Henry Williams, a wide-eyed hypochondriac who heads to a western resort town in the company of his long-suffering nurse Mary Custer (Ethel Shutta). Meanwhile, Wanenie (Paul Gregory), the son of an Indian chief, pines away out of love for white heiress Sally Morgan (Eleanor Hunt), who has been forbidden to marry Wanenie because of their racial differences. One of the most unsympathetic heroines in screen history, Sally coerces Henry into helping her elope then allows the poor boob to be accused of kidnapping. All sorts of zany complications ensue, not least of which is the side-splitting scene in which Henry, disguised as an Indian, adopts a thick Jewish accent while trying to sell a rug to a tourist. The Sally/Wanenie dilemma ends happily when the young man turns out not to be Indian after all, while Henry, cured of his ills by all the excitement, marries nurse Marie. The "Ziegfeld Touch" is most obvious in the final reels, when the story stops dead in its tracks to offer a long, drawn-out parade of "Glorified" Follies girls wearing enormous headdresses and precious little else. But the film's highlight is Eddie Cantor's sly, insinuating rendition of the title song, in which he details in humorous fashion the pitfalls of "makin' whoopee" with the wrong girl. Featured among the Goldwyn Girls are such future stars as Claire Dodd, Virginia Bruce, and 14-year-old Betty Grable, who energetically performs the very first chorus of the very first song in the film. Lensed in eye-pleasing early Technicolor, Whoopee was a success, launching a long and fruitful cinematic collaboration between Eddie Cantor and Sam Goldwyn. It was remade by Goldwyn in 1944 as Up in Arms, a showcase for the producer's "new Cantor" Danny Kaye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Eleanor Hunt, (more)
Though frequently credited to impresario David Belasco, the play upon which Tonight or Never is based was actually penned by Lili Havatny. Gloria Swanson stalks through the proceedings as an opera prima donna who goes through men like tissue paper. While on holiday in Venice with her elderly fiance Ferdinand Gottschalk, Swanson becomes intrigued by one of her admirers, Melvyn Douglas (in his film debut). One evening Douglas manages to corner the heroine in her lavish apartment, whereupon she becomes convinced that he's merely a gigolo interested in her money. But -- ha-ha -- the last laugh is on Swanson when Douglas reveals that he's a representative of the Metropolitan Opera, determined to sign her to a contract. Produced by Sam Goldwyn, Tonight or Never represented the end of the first phase of Gloria Swanson's talkie career; she subsequently announced her "retirement" but was back before the cameras two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gloria Swanson, Ferdinand Gottschalk, (more)
- 1931
A clever, slyly self-satirical screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur helps to make The Unholy Garden seem better than it is. The title refers to a Saharan oasis where a group of international crooks have converged, free from prosecution. Ronald Colman stars as gentleman thief Barrington Hunt, who rallies his fellow crooks together in a plan to divest a wealthy baron (Dudley Digges) of his fortune. Part of the scheme requires Hunt to make love to Fay Wray, the baron's lovely daughter, a task that proves pleasurable indeed. But Hunt hadn't counted on falling in love with Wray -- and when he does, it's "reformation and redemption" time, with our hero turning on and turning in his former pals. Among the reprobates within Hunt's orbit are such veteran screen heavies as Warren Hymer, Lucille LaVerne and Lawrence Grant, the latter chewing the scenery as a discredited doctor who keeps the skull of his murdered wife in a jar! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Fay Wray, (more)
- 1931
Eddie Cantor plays Eddie Simpson, a shy and jumpy young fellow who spontaneously bursts into song whenever he gets nervous. He works with the sly Yolando, a phony but successful psychic. The trouble in this lively musical farce begins when Yolando attempts to swindle the owner of the local bakery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Charlotte Greenwood, (more)
Divesting herself of her own production company, silent-screen queen Gloria Swanson entered into a two-picture deal with producer Joseph M. Schenck, which paid her a straight (and very hefty) salary for both productions. The first film completed under this arrangement was the trivial romantic comedy- musical Indiscreet, scripted and scored by songwriters Buddy G. DeSylva, Ray Henderson, and Lew Brown and directed by the matchless Leo McCarey. Swanson plays Geraldine "Gerry" Trent, a worldly socialite who endeavors to protect her sister Joan (Barbara Kent) from the lecherous machinations of Jim Woodward (Monroe Owsley). But when Joan discovers that Jerry and Woodward were once lovers themselves, she mistakenly believes that Jerry's attempts to break up her romance is motivated by jealousy. In fact, Jerry is completely committed to Joan's brother Tony Blake (Ben Lyon). One of the more successful of Gloria Swanson's talkies, Indiscreet posted a much-needed profit for financially strapped United Artists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gloria Swanson, Ben Lyon, (more)
- 1931
Samuel Goldwyn attempted to turn British operetta star Evelyn Laye into another Jeanette MacDonald with this cardboard romance that proved a disaster at the operetta-weary box office. Laye plays Lilli, a demure flower girl at a Budapest theater who worships the show's star, the temperamental and highly flirtatious Fritzi Yajos (Lilyan Tashman), despite the admonitions of her friend Otto (Leon Errol). Fritzi, however, commits one indiscretion too many and the local prefect of police (Henry Kolker) orders her to take a six months "vacation" in the country, but the highly combustible chanteuse is loath to leave her many lovers and convinces Lilli to go in her stead. When the attractive girl arrives in the provincial town of Zuppa, she becomes the target of handsome but shallow Count Mirko Tibor (John Boles), who is merely out to make yet another conquest. Needless to say, the count has fallen head over heels in love with the surprisingly decorous "star," and she with him, when the real Fritzi makes her belated appearance. Miss Laye sings Bruno Granichstaedten, Edward Eliscu, and Clifford Grey's lilting "Along the Road of Dreams"; Nacio Herb Brown's "Heavenly Night (When Evening Is Near)" with John Boles; and "Goodnight Serenade." Lilyan Tashman performs Granichstaedten's "I Belong to Everybody." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Evelyn Laye, John Boles, (more)
- 1932
In director Leo McCarey's film The Kid From Spain, actor Eddie Cantor plays mischievious college boy Eddie Williams, who, with his buddy Ricardo (Robert Young), is kicked out of college for sneaking into the women's dormitory. Ricardo (Young), on his way back to Mexico, suggests Eddie (Cantor) come along. First, however, Ricardo must stop at the local bank for some cash. Unfortunately, the bank is robbed as the two boys are leaving, and the fleeing thieves mistake Eddie for their getaway driver. In a panic, Eddie races off towards the Mexican border in hopes of getting way from them. Realizing that the bank robbers will go after him--Eddie, after all, is the only one who saw their faces--he convinces a skeptical border guard that he, too, is a Mexican. Once in Mexico, he's mistaken for a renowed bullfighter, and plays along with his newly assigned identity in order to avoid the American detective on his trail. Mayhem ensues, and Eddie eventually falls in love with Rosalie (yda Roberti), a young Mexican woman with an over-protective father. The musical numbers in The Kid From Spain were staged by a young Busby Berkeley and feature the oldwyn Girls, whose ranks in this film include Betty Grable, Paulette Goddard, and Jane Wyman.
~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Lyda Roberti, (more)
- 1932
In her first film under contract to Warner Bros., Kay Francis plays Lois Ames, a magazine editor whose husband Fred (Kenneth Thomson) is too busy with his polo friends to pay her much attention. But when her secretary (Charlotte Merriam) suddenly leaves, Lois hires handsome Tom Sheridan (David Manners), who has arrived to demonstrate a new rowing machine. Sharing work brings boss and employee closer together and they soon fall in love. Tom's dumbbell fiancée, Ruth (Una Merkel), does not take this development very well and threatens to tell Fred. But the latter is discovered making love to the uppity Ann Le Maire (Claire Dodd) and Lois is able to obtain a divorce. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kay Francis, David Manners, (more)
- 1932
A very young Loretta Young stars in this domestic drama in which a naïve department store clerk falls for an inveterate gambler. The clerk, Buster Green, falls in love with handsome Wallie Dennis (Norman Foster) at a dance and marries him after a whirlwind romance. But their wedded bliss is ruined by Wallie's gambling habit and a pregnant Buster is forced to return to the Mayfield Department Store counter. In an effort to salvage her crumbling marriage, Buster plays on a dark horse to win the Big Race but is cheated out of her prize by unscrupulous bookie Martie Happ (Noel Madison). An angered Wallie picks a fight with Happ and is arrested by the police. Buster, meanwhile, delivers a baby girl and Wallie, who has been released due to the happy circumstances, bets that their next child will be a boy. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Winnie Lightner, (more)
- 1932
George S. Kaufman's sturdy stage comedy The Butter and Egg Man was the inspiration for no fewer than four Warner Bros. talkie versions. The first of these was The Tenderfoot, starring Joe E. Brown as a wealthy but naive cowboy alone in the Big Apple. The producers of a down-and-out musical revue hope to convince Brown to put his money in their show, sending out cute chorine Ginger Rogers as the "convincer." After having his heart broken a few times and tangling with gangsters, Joe comes through and the show goes on. Warners followed The Tenderfoot with a 1937 musicalization of Butter and Egg Man, Dance Charlie Dance; this in turn was remade as An Angel From Texas in 1942. The final variation on this theme (so far!) was Three Sailors and a Girl (53). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe E. Brown, Ginger Rogers, (more)
- 1932
Perhaps most noteworthy for the first onscreen performance by future Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel, this politcal melodrama from director Charles Brabin stars Lionel Barrymore as Jefferson Keane, a widowed US Senator who suddenly finds himself sought after by Consuela, a beautiful young woman played by Karen Morley. Smitten by her, Keane marries Consuela, unaware of the fact that she is in cahoots with a powerful lobbyist and is only pretending to be in love. After Consuela persuades Keane to take a bride for his vote on a water-rights bill, he suddenly finds himself embroiled in a scandal that he cannot escape. The aforementioned McDaniel plays a maid. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lionel Barrymore, Karen Morley, (more)
- 1933
Easily the best of Eddie Cantor's gargantuan musical comedies for producer Sam Goldwyn, Roman Scandals begins in the middle-America community of West Rome, where our hero Eddie (Cantor) is employed as a delivery boy. A self-styled authority of Ancient Roman history, Cantor bemoans the fact that the local shanty community is about to be wiped out by scheming politicians, certain that such an outrage could never have happened during Rome's Golden Days. After a blow on the head, Cantor wakes up in Imperial Rome, where he is sold on the slave auction block to good-natured tribune Josephus (David Manners). Cantor soon discovers that the evil emperor Valerius (Edward Arnold) is every bit a crook and grafter as the politicians in West Rome, and he intends to do something about it. He gets a job as food taster for Valerius -- a none-too-secure position, inasmuch as the emperor's wife Agrippa (Veree Teasdale) is constantly trying to poison her husband -- and does his best to smooth the path of romance for Josephus and recently captured princess Sylvia (Gloria Stuart). Cantor's well-intentioned interference earns him a session in the torture chamber, but he escapes and commandeers a chariot, setting the stage for a spectacular slapstick climax. On the verge of recapture, Cantor wakes to find himself in West Rome U.S.A. again, where he quickly foils the modern-day despots and brings about a happy ending for all his friends.
Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, (more)
- 1933
Marie Dressler plays the title character, tugboat captain Annie Brennan, in this 1933 Hollywood box office hit. Her husband Terry (Wallace Beery) is a lazy, bragging drunk. Robert Young plays their son Alec, who has big ambitions and winds up as captain of a fancy ocean liner. The ocean liner's owner is Red Severn (Willard Robertson), whose daughter Pat (Maureen O'Sullivan) is the object of Alec's longings. Young tries to get his mother to leave his father and join him on the ocean liner, but she refuses out of love for her husband and her tugboat. Terry crashes the tugboat while drunk one night, and it is sold at an auction, then repaired and converted into a garbage boat. Sequels were made in later years, with Marjorie Rambeau and later Jane Darwell in the title role, and it was made into a TV series in the 1950s. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, (more)
- 1933
In this comedy, an oily tongued sleazy lawyer, who specializes in injuries, makes sure all of clients, regardless of the size of their injuries, make it big in court. He is assisted by a thoroughly convincing doctor who can make the smallest bruise look like life-threatening internal bleeding. The lawyer is so successful, that one of the companies he constantly sues attempts to get him disbarred. To prove that he's a shyster, the company hires a pretty woman to seduce the truth out him. Unfortunately, they end up falling in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Tracy, Madge Evans, (more)
- 1933
In an interesting precursor to his later vehicle The Prisoner of Zenda, Ronald Colman essays a dual role in Goldwyn's The Masquerader. Colman is cast as Member of Parliament Sir John Chilcote and his identical cousin, a newspaper journalist also named John. A mean-spirited alcoholic and drug addict, Sir John needs time to try to recover from his multitude vices. Thus with the help of the MP's faithful butler Brock (Haliwell Hobbes), the "good" John agrees to take his cousin's place -- doing the job so well that he even convinces and wins Sir John's estranged wife Eve (Elissa Landi). Based on a novel by Katherine Cecil Thurston (previously adapted as a play by John Hunter Booth), The Masquerader proved to be a box-office disappointment, a fact that made Ronald Colman hesitant to star in A Tale of Two Cities until he was assured that he wouldn't have to play both Sidney Carton and Charles Darnay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Elissa Landi, (more)
We Live Again was based on Tolstoy's Resurrection; the title was changed upon producer Sam Goldwyn's theory that it meant the same thing as Resurrection and was easier to understand. The film was meant as an introductory showcase for Goldwyn's latest discovery, Russian actress Anna Sten. The story, much laundered from the Tolstoy original, depicts the downfall of a peasant girl who is seduced by a Russian prince (Fredric March). The once-callous nobleman tries to make amends for the hurt he has inflicted on the girl, who has wound up in prison for solicitation. The first American version of Resurrection, directed by D. W. Griffith, was made in 1909 and lasted ten minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Sten, Fredric March, (more)
