Robert Young Movies

Herbert Heyes, a prominent stage and screen actor of the teens and twenties (and the father of writer/director Douglas Heyes), stars in It is the Law. Heyes is framed for murder by Arthur Hohl, who is jealous over the fact that he lost his girl friend Mimi Palmieri to Heyes. The man killed by Hohl was his wealthy exact double, whose identity Hohl assumes. Years later, justice is belatedly served when Heyes kills Hohl-then is let off the hook because he can't be tried twice for the same murder! It is the Law was adapted from a play by Elmer Rice and Hayden Talbott. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Shakespeare's classic tragedy Romeo & Juliet is loosely adapted and modernized in director Rowland V. Lee's Guilty Generation. Set in 1930's New York, rival gangster families the Palmero's and the Ricca's play Lee's version of the infamous Montagues and Capulets. The two mobs had once co-existed peacefully, but split after a terrible argument, causing a long-standing and deadly rivalry. Maria Palmero (Constance Cummings), the daughter of gangster Mike Palmero (Leo Carillo), meets and falls in love with a young architect played by (Robert Young). Though Young's character goes by the name of John Smith, his true identity is none other than Marco Ricca--the son of Mike's (Carillo) rival. Due to the war waged by their families, Maria and Marco try to keep their affair and ultimate marriage to one another secret. Unfortunately, Maria's father realizes the two have married and vows to kill Marco, who had earlier killed Maria's brother. Tragically, the Palmero family patriarch is only stopped with a bullet from his own mother's (Emma Dunn) gun. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Clark Gable was officially elevated to stardom with this airborne MGM action-adventure, but good old Wallace Beery (whom Gable disliked in real life) ended up with more screen time. They played Naval officers training in the newfangled art of dive bombing while spending a great deal of time squabbling over who is more macho. The two rivals, of course, end up crashing on a deserted atoll only to discover that behind the tough veneer they share a common goal. In the end, the gruff but lovable Beery sacrifices himself so that Gable and the stolid Conrad Nagel may live. As usual in this kind of testosterone-driven action fare, the girls are given short shrift and have to literally shout to be heard above the din. Dorothy Jordan is forgettable as Gable's love interest, but both Marjorie Rambeau and Marie Prevost, as a couple of goodhearted floozies, make the most of their all too brief moments. Hell Divers is the kind of film where action in the skies makes up for the lack of any real drama and where characters are constantly uttering such lines as "Gee honey, I'm just goofy about you!" The film was produced with full co-operation from the U.S. Navy on-location at San Pedro and in Panama. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

Directed by Harry Beaumont, the courtroom drama Unashamed stars Robert Young as Dick Ogden, who will do anything to protect his sister Jean (Helen Twelvetrees). Unfortunately, Jean is in love with the sleazy Harry Swift (Monroe Owsley), who is only interested in her fortune. After Harry (Owsley) manipulated Jen (Twelvetrees) into spending the night alone with him, Mr. Odgen (Robert Warwick) refused to give them permission to marry. A furious Harry threatens to ruin Jean's reputation, but is shot by Dick (Young) before he can say anything. Heartbroken, Jean does not forgive her father or brother and plans to testify against Dick even if it means the death penalty. It looks as if Dick will be sent to the gas chamber until the very end, when his sister suddenly has a change of heart. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Young football hero Jim Fowler (Robert Young) isn't in it for the love of the game. The hardworking young man is simply using the sport as a means to help him pay for school, and doesn't consider it any different from the laundry service he runs in his spare time. Rather than stroking his ego, the constant onslaught of football fanatics and sports reporters disgust Jim (Young) to the extent that his football coach (Joe Sawyer) tells old football chums--Jim's father Ezra (Grant Mitchell) and the father of Jim's girlfriend--about the star player's erratic behavior. The men, being passionate football fans themselves, are saddened by Jim's lackluster attitude towards the game. Convinced that people only respect him because of his skills on the field, Jim distances himself from Joan (Leila Hyams), his girlfriend, and seeks out a woman he believes knows nothing about football or his role in it. To his surprise, however, she not only knows of his career, but blackmails him to throw the game. When he refuses, her husband breaks Jim's hand. Suddenly inspired, Jim refuses to let the coach know about his condition and heroically takes to the field with a new perspective. Regardless of whether the big game is one or lost, Jim realizes that his teammates, being true friends after all, would rather lose with him than win without him. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

A love triangle forms the basis of this drama set during WWI. The screenplay was written by the story's original author William Faulkner. It centers on a pleasure-seeking British girl who is romantically involved with her brother's naval buddy. She then sees and falls for an American pilot. He leaves to fly a combat mission over France and is later listed as dead, causing her to return to the sailor. Fortunately, the flyer didn't actually die and eventually the two are joyfully reunited. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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

In director Edwin L. Marin's film Paris Interlude, a beautiful French woman named Julie Bell (Madge Evans) unexpectedly falls in love with Sam Colt (Otto Kruger, a vulgar American news journalist. Based on (All Good Americans), a play by Laura and .J. Perelman , Sam spends most of his time in Paris drinking beer and consorting with his fellow American colleagues. Meanwhile, rookie reporter Pat Wells (Robert Young) also has eyes for Julie (Evans), and tries to persuade her to marry him after hearing that Sam (Kruger) was likely killed in his trip to China. After much debate, Julie finally agrees. Unfortunately for Pat, it turns out that Sam had not been killed after all. On the night of Julie and Pat's wedding party, Sam drunkenly approaches Julie and proposes, though he collapses before he could hear her answer. Julie remains undecided until Sam himself, in a rare moment of personal honor, tells her she belongs with the younger journalist. (Paris Interlude) also includes actors Ted Healy and Una Merkel. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Cortland Fitzsimmons, the storyline of this "gimmick" mystery follows the St. Louis Cardinals during a championship season. The arrival of hotshot pitcher Larry Kelly (Robert Young) coincides with an apparent plot to sabotage the Cards' chances of making it to the World Series. A failed attempt to poison all the pitcher's mitts is followed by a series of murders: catcher Dunk Spencer (Joe Sauers) is shot while sprinting to third base, pitcher Frank Higgins (Robert Livingston) is strangled in the locker room, and lovable catcher Truck Hogan (Nat Pendleton) is killed with an arsenic-laden hot dog. Finding himself one of the many suspects, Kelly nearly becomes a victim as well when he is slipped a booby-trapped baseball. With the help of sportscaster Jimmy Downey (Paul Kelly), Kelly exposes the murderer, surviving to win the pennant and the heroine, team secretary daughter Frances Clark (Madge Evans). Partly filmed on location at Los Angeles' Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs' minor-league LA farm team), Death on the Diamond offers a fresh slant to the standard whodunit format, with some particularly good work by Ted Healy as an exasperated umpire. That MGM produced the film is tipped off by two of the studio's trademarks: The killer's last-minute confession, wherein the guilty party transforms from a mild-mannered soul into a raving lunatic, and the shoddy process-screen work in the ballgame scenes. Future stars Mickey Rooney, Walter Brennan and Bruce Bennett show up in bit roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Inspired by the Titanic tragedy, Whom the Gods Destroy is a tour de force for character actor Walter Connolly. The star is cast as theatrical entrepreneur John Forrester, who finds himself on board an ocean liner crippled in a shipwreck. At first he behaves courageously, but as the ship goes down Forrester panics and dons women's clothes to ensure himself a seat on the lifeboat. Rescued at sea, he hides out in a tiny fishing village for several years, then returns to New York under an assumed name. Upon discovering that he is celebrated as a "dead" hero, Forrester realizes that he can never reveal his true identity lest he be exposed as a craven coward. Standing on the sidelines, he watches as his son Jack (Robert Young) rises to success on the Broadway stage, all the while secretly helping the boy get ahead in his career. Forrester's wife Margaret (Doris Kenyon) finally recognizes her husband, forgives him, and offers to take him back, but by now Forrester himself feels it is too late and retreats into the shadows, never to be seen again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood Party was planned as a lavish, star-studded MGM musical titled Hollywood Revue of 1933. Under the less-than-sterling guidance of "kicked upstairs" MGM producer Harry Rapf, production dragged on interminably, using up the talents of five directors (none of whom were credited) and seven writers. The "all star" cast lineup slowly dwindled down to comparatively inexpensive contract players Jimmy Durante and Jack Pearl (radio's Baron Munchhausen) and a passel of non-MGM personalities. The final product wove a goofy story about The Great Schnarzan (Durante), a jungle-movie star whose films are suffering at the box office because his lions are anemic. Schnarzan schemes to purchase several healthy lions from Baron Munchhausen; to get the baron into a bargaining mood, Schnarzan throws a huge Hollywood party in Munchhausen's honor. Liondora (George Givot), Schnarzan's "hated rival", hopes to purchase the Baron's lions for himself, and crashes the party disguised as a Greek Baron. Also figuring into the plot are the members of the Klemp family (Charles Butterworth, Polly Moran and June Clyde), who are filthy rich and thus quite attractive to both Schnarzan and Liondora; poor-but-honest Eddie Quillan, who romances the Klemp's daughter; and Schnarzan's ex-girlfriend Lupe Velez, who shows up at the party in an astonishingly revealing gown for the express purpose of making trouble. In an amusing animated sequence courtesy of Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse introduces the Technicolor musical exploits of "The Hot Chocolate Soldiers." Shortly before the end, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy make a welcome appearance as a pair of lion-farm owners who wish to collect a debt from Baron Munchhausen. This segues into the classic egg-breaking sequence involving Stan, Ollie, and Lupe Velez. Now we've reached the 65 minute mark, with no logical ending in sight. Director Allan Dwan, brought into the project at the last minute, took a look at the existing footage and declared "It's a nightmare!" Inspired, Dwan directed a closing sequence which suggested that the whole plot had been dreamed by Jimmy Durante; Durante is wakened from his slumbers by his wife--played by Mrs. Jimmy Durante. Hollywood Party makes no sense at all, but it's a must for comedy lovers and 1930s film buffs. Don't miss that opening number, written by Rodgers and Hart and performed by Frances Williams and a chorus of barely dressed telephone operators; and keep an eye peeled for a lengthy uncredited appearance by the Three Stooges. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Carolina, a melodrama directed by Henry King, follows a young woman's attempt to restore a southern plantation back to its pre-Civil War glory. Joanna Tate (Janet Gaynor), originally travels from her home in Pennsylvania to the plantation in order to collect her deceased father's belongings. Though he didn't own the plantation himself, he had worked there as a farmer for a number of years. Once she arrives, Joanna (Gaynor) finds that the actual plantation owner, Bob Connelly (Lionel Barrymore), is a Civil War veteran who, despite his dogged determination to return his farmland to what it was before the war, has fallen to alcoholism. Least expected, however, was the love that would develop between Joanna and the plantation's handsome young heir, Will Connelly (Robert Young). Joanna and Connelly (Young) eventually marry, and the farm is successfully restored through their dedication and hard work. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide