Gene Towne Movies

Shot on location in New York City's Winter Garden Theatre, this is essentially a filmed performance of Phil Silver's hit Broadway show in which he plays a moody and egotistical television comic (allegedly patterned after Milton Berle). Trouble begins when the ratings for Jerry Biffle's (Silvers) television show begin to sag. The producer spice up the show by adding sales clerk Sally Peters (Judy Lynn) and handsome young Cliff Lane (Danny Scholl) as love interests. Jerry falls in love with Sally, but Sally is in love with Cliff. The ensuing tension is most problematic for Jerry's every diplomatic personal assistant Vic Davis (Jack Albertson). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This Victorian-era drama is based upon the classic novel by Thomas Hughes. It follows the exploits of a young boy forced to attend a rowdy boarding school. There he finds himself surrounded by budding punks and hoods. It is rough at first, but eventually he learns to make friends and handle himself well in the tough environment. The film is also titled Adventures at Rugby. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Anita's (Loretta Young) life seems to be progressing nicely. She's engaged to Don Barnes (Broderick Crawford), a wealthy man that will give her all the stability and comfort a woman could desire. But then she meets a magician with the unlikely name of The Great Arturo (David Niven), who performs a singular feat of magic -- he sweeps her off her feet. Promptly dropping Barnes, she weds Arturo and travels the globe as his assistant. After some time, however, the magic begins to wear off and Anita longs for a simpler life, perhaps on a quite farmhouse in the country. She's also a bit put out by Arturo's flirting with other women, but what really worries her are the dangerous stunts he has added to his repertoire. Realizing it is time for her to do something, she pulls a little magic of her own and disappear, forcing Artuto to set off on a lively chase to find her. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Bookish bank employee Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) is ordered to investigate the near-bankrupt Colossal Studios in Hollywood, to see if the firm is any sort of good risk. Dodd's first brush with Tinseltown's cuckoo atmosphere occurs when he takes a room in a boarding house for extras, where all manner of eccentrics wander about as they wait for the phone to ring (Charles Middleton comports himself in an Abe Lincoln costume, on the off-chance that Hollywood will go back to making Civil War pictures soon). He befriends Lester Plum (Joan Blondell), a former child star now working as a stand-in for haughty movie queen Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton), and perpetually soused producer Douglas Quintain (Humphrey Bogart). Aware that the latest epic of autocratic director Koslofski (Alan Mowbray) will ruin the studio, Howard investigates further, discovering that a rival company has bribed Koslofski to pad the budget and thus bring about the foreclosure of Colossal. While his business sense tells him that this is the next logical move, Dodd has fallen in love with Plum; thus, he gives Quintain 48 hours to re-edit Koslofski's fiasco into something workable, and himself staves off the studio's shutdown by rallying all the Colossal employees to stand firm against being removed from the premises. Based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Buddington Kelland, this is a light-hearted satire of the movie industry, the sort of amiable farce in which everyone--even the most contentious of characters--is shown to be basically decent underneath. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

History is Made at Night has been described as a romantic tragedy, which it indeed is, up to a point. The film begins deceptively in screwball-comedy fashion with socialite Jean Arthur and handsome head waiter Charles Boyer "meeting cute." But there's nothing cute about Arthur's estranged husband, shipbuilder Colin Clive. Insanely jealous, Clive arranges for the ship on which his wife and her lover are travelling to hit an iceberg--then, aghast at what he has done, Clive commits suicide. As the ship lists dangerously close to sinking beneath the waves, the terrified passengers--Boyer and Arthur included--huddle on the deck. The fog-enshrouded scene in which Charles and Jean affirm their love in the face of death is among the most heartrending sequences ever filmed (the director was Frank Borzage, a past master at transforming potential maudlin material into high-gloss art). Even the happy ending of History is Made at Night does not diminish the power and poignancy of that shipboard scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When wealthy Mr. Ames is murdered, his beautiful wife Hope (Madeleine Carroll) is the principal suspect. She is acquitted through lack of evidence, but it's hardly a happy ending: her son Bobbie (Scotty Beckett) is taken away from her by spiteful relatives, who poison the boy's mind against her. Making matters worse, assistant DA Matt Logan (George Brent) is still convinced that Hope is guilty. Upon seeing Hope's devotion to her child, Logan softens a bit and alters his strategy. He offers a huge reward for additional information pertaining to the case, ostensibly to prove Mrs. Ames' guilt, but actually to clear her name so that she and her son can be reunited. If the outcome of The Case Against Mrs. Ames seems predictable, it is only because the actor who plays the real murderer was nearly always revealed as the "surprise" culprit in the final reel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marshall Neilan had fallen from the top ranks of directors by the time he helmed the Jane Withers vehicle This is the Life, but he still had it in him to deliver a first-rate job. Withers is cast as pint-sized vaudeville artiste Geraldine Revier. Tired of being professionally exploited by her parents (Gloria Roy and Gordon Westcott), Geraldine disguises herself as a boy and runs away from home. While on the road, she teams up with Michael Grant (John McGuire), a fugitive from justice. Naturally, Michael is innocent, and equally naturally, it is Geraldine who proves it. Future "Charlie Chan" Sidney Toler is a riot as blowhard medicine-show entrepreneur Professor Breckenridge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An innocent but admittedly none-too-bright victim of circumstance, Mary Burns (played by perennial movie victim Sylvia Sidney) is inexorably sucked into the vortex of organized crime. She tries to escape her murderer husband Babe Wilson (Alan Baxter), but it's a losing proposition, especially since the newspapers have already branded her a gun moll. Making matters worse, she is thrown into prison for crimes committed by her husband (understandably, since her behavior at her trial was self-defeating to say the least). Though believing her guilty, detective Harper (Wallace Ford) allows Mary to escape from jail, hoping in this way to track down Wilson. Nominal hero Alec MacDonald (Melvyn Douglas) isn't much help; not introduced until the film's halfway point, he spends most of his time in a hospital bed, recuperating from an injury. In fact, the story is wrapped up only after MacDonald is rescued by the heroine! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The stigma of miscegenation (horrors!) is at the base of this very dated romantic melodrama. Charles Boyer stars as Dmitri Koslov, an enterprising Eurasian who rises from rickshaw driver to powerful industrialist, all the while concealing his mixed parentage. Koslov falls in love with beautiful American Barbara Howard (Loretta Young), but dares not propose marriage because he is half-Chinese. Even so, Barbara insists upon trailing after the elusive Koslov into the mountainous regions of China, symbolically shedding all her valued possessions to finance her odyssey. But East is East and West is West, thus the "forbidden" alliance between hero and heroine must end on an unhappy note. Swedish-born Warner Oland once again convincingly impersonates an Asian as a Chinese ambassador. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his autobiography, Pat O'Brien described his character in The Personality Kid as a "Cassius Clay" type (this of course, was before Clay metamorphosed into Muhammad Ali). Indeed, arrogant prizefighter Ritzy (Pat O'Brien) is quite a piece of work, wearing a derby hat in the ring and dancing an Irish jig whenever he scores a knockout. Once he's risen to the top of his profession, Ritzy becomes even more insufferable, forsaking his faithful manager-wife Joan (Glenda Farrell) in favor of society artist Patricia (Claire Dodd). Ultimately he discovers that he'd be nowhere without Joan, who's been arranging "bum a month" boxing matches to guide him towards the championship. Only when he's hit the skids, however, does Ritzy return to Joan -- just in time to learn of another surprise in store for him, courtesy of "Mr. Stork." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This drama was written by famed radio announcer Walter Winchell. It chronicles the tragic love between a racketeer and a singer. So smitten is he by the chorus girl's charms that he buys her a nightclub. Unfortunately for him, the club's male crooner/bandleader also loves the girl. Realizing that he cannot compete, the crook bows out. However, during her wedding the racketeer lays down his life in exchange for hers when others attempt to kidnap her. He is shot, but survives. In the hospital he listens to the radio and hears that he is considered a hero and that the would-be kidnappers have been killed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Very loosely based on Booth Tarkington's novel The Plutocrat, Business and Pleasure stars Will Rogers as Earl Tinker, a newly rich Oklahoma razor-blade manufacturer. On the pretext of taking a vacation with his family, Earl journeys to far-off Syria, there to purchase the secret formula for Damascus steel. During the ocean voyage to the middle east, Earl's daughter Olivia (Peggy Ross) falls in love with struggling playwright Lawrence Ogle (Joel McCrea), while a worldly adventuress named Madame Momora (Jetta Goudal) apparently sets her sights on the bashful Earl, much to the dismay of his wife (Dorothy Peterson). In truth, however, Madame Momora is an "industrial spy" in the employ of Tinker's main competitor, and it is her job to prevent Earl from completing his business mission. But our dumb-like-a-fox hero manages to turn the tables with the use of a clever disguise and a few other dexterous diversions. Filmed before the 1931 Will Rogers vehicle Ambassador Bill, Business and Pleasure was released afterward in early 1932, thereby giving audiences the pleasant surprise of seeing Boris Karloff, newly famous thanks to his performance as The Monster in Frankenstein, popping up unbilled as a desert sheik. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide