Walter Catlett Movies

Emerson Treacy stars in this Mack Sennett-produced comedy short as Clarence, a hapless would-be lover (a "quivering mass of dormant sex appeal") who can't work up the words or the courage to propose to Betty (Joyce Compton). He makes the mistake of relying on his uncle (Walter Catlett), a fast-talking city-slicker who isn't half as smart as he thinks he is, for advice. And soon, Clarence's upper-crust rival (Franklyn Pangborn) seems to have the inside track for Betty's affections. Catlett steals most of the movie with his mix of zany schtick and fast-talk connivances, including a machine-gun like delivery at times. The slapstick bits are predictable but Catlett's inspired comedic outbursts pick up any slack in the action, which even finds room for a comedic dream sequence that's positively surreal in Catlett's scenes. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Walter Catlett is the unhappy losing suitor in this Mack Sennett-produced short, disrupting a wedding and overwise insinuating himself into the romantic life of his beloved (Joyce Compton) and her new husband (Edward Nugent). He follows them on their honeymoon in Mexico, and spends his time fomenting arguments between the newlyweds, as well as causing trouble for just about everyone he meets. Catlett is a little awkwardly cast in terms of his role here, being too old to play a romantic rival to the too-callow Nugent, but that's half the fun -- his antics are comical enough so that the plot is almost incidental, and only Walter Catlett could get so much comedic mileage out of a scene in which an unhappy suitor tries to do himself in (with a rope, no less). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Distantly related to Frederick Lewis Allen's non-fiction book of the same name, Only Yesterday uses fictional characters to trace the years between 1917 and 1929. Wealthy New Yorker John Boles recalls a long-ago affair with southern belle Margaret Sullavan. She gave birth to his child without ever naming the father, then moved to New York herself and set up a dress shop. As the stock-market crash of 1929 wipes out his life savings, Boles becomes remorseful over how he's forgotten Sullavan, who is now dying. He acknowledges that he is the father of her child, and promises to make a good life for the boy despite his dire financial situation. Only Yesterday opens with a remarkable montage sequence showing the devastating effects of the Depression; after that, it never quite gains momentum despite the superb performance of Margaret Sullavan (in her film debut). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, Mervyn LeRoy directs the black-and-white 1932 comedy drama Big City Blues. A small-town innocent from Indiana, Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) inherits money and goes to New York to get in all sorts of trouble. He meets up with his cousin Gibby (Walter Catlett), who introduces him to chorus girl Vida Fleet (Joan Blondell). Bud and Gibby then throw a drunken hotel party with bootleg liquor that gets out of hand and a young woman (Josephine Dunn) is hit on the head and accidentally killed. Bud and Vida go gambling and drinking to escape the cops, but they are caught and arrested with everyone else from the party. Eventually, the police find the real killer and release everyone. Bud leaves for Indiana, but plans to go back, get his dog, and marry Vida. Humphrey Bogart appears in a brief uncredited role as Shep Adkins, a guy who gets into a fight with Lyle Talbot during the party. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy a demanding French actress is upset because she has not recently received the proper adulation from WW I Allies. To calm her down, a meeting is arranged between the actress and a charming Army official in Italy. Initially both of them resist the artificially designed encounter, but soon the inevitable occurs and they fall in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

As indicated by its "catchphrase" title, Okay America is one of several early-1930s films based on the exploits of gossip columnist Walter Winchell. The big surprise here is that the Winchell counterpart is played not by W.W. look-alike Lee Tracy, as was usually the case, but by baby-faced Lew Ayres. Caring little how many lives he's destroyed in his pursuit of sensationalism, columnist Larry Wayne (Lew Ayres) is arguably the most-hated man on Broadway -- and in some circles, the most influential. Wayne sticks his nose in everyone's business, including Caponelike gangster Alsotto (Edward Arnold) and the grief-stricken family of a kidnapped girl (Margaret Lindsay). Motivated by his lust for power and publicity, Wayne offers to rescue the kidnap victim, and in so doing absolves himself of his past misdeeds -- but not soon enough to avoid the terrible vengeance of the unforgiving Alssoto, whom he has double-crossed along the way. Its downbeat ending intact, Okay America was effectively remade as Risky Business in 1939. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hoping to match the success of his boisterous (and Oscar-winning) silent comedy Two Arabian Knights, and at the same time indulging in his fascination for aviation, erstwhile Hollywood producer Howard Hughes came up with the relentlessly silly Sky Devils. Spencer Tracy and George Cooper star as Wilkie and Mitchell, a pair of buddies who are so stupid that the make Laurel and Hardy seem like Rhodes Scholars. After losing their lifeguard jobs because they can't swim, Wilkie and Mitchell try to avoid being conscripted into the army when WW1 breaks out. Unfortunately for the army, our heroes are put in uniform and placed under the charge of irascible Sergeant Hogan (William "Stage" Boyd). Before long, the boys go AWOL, dallying long enough to fight over the lovely Mary (Ann Dvorak). Eventually, Wilkie and Mitchell inadvertently take off in an airplane, accidentally blow up a German munitions dump, and by a gosh-darned miracle are lauded as heroes--long enough to screw up yet again for the finale. As hard as it is to believe that Spencer Tracy would appear in this low-brow extravaganza, it is even harder to comprehend the fact that the witty, urbane humorist Robert Benchley penned much of the "Sez you--sez me" dialogue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Despite a troubled production that witnessed the exits of both leading man (Phillips Holmes) and director (George Fitzmaurice), this tearjerker was a winner at the box office in November of 1932. Constance Bennett plays Broadway diva Judy Carroll who loses custody of a wee orphan after testifying in a notorious embezzlement case. To get over the blow, Judy co-produces a play that basically mirrors her own life experiences, falling in love with playwright Jake (Joel McCrea) in the process. But when she learns that Jake's wife (Virginia Hammond) is with child, Judy nobly severs the romance and instead finds solace in the arms of the worldlier Tony (Paul Lukas). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A rather bleak comedy-drama from Frank Capra, Platinum Blonde basically starts where Capra's later and much more buoyant It Happened One Night (1934) ends: the marriage between a brash newspaperman and a society dame. But where the latter comedy was enhanced by the director's patented optimism, Platinum Blonde, produced at the height of the Great Depression, expresses no faith in a common ground between the classes. Star reporter Stew Smith (Robert Williams) falls in love with the sister (Jean Harlow) of his latest victim (Donald Dillaway). They marry despite the misgivings of Ann Schuyler's blue-nosed mother (Louise Closser Hale) and Stew's cynical colleagues ("Ann Schuyler's in the blue book. You're not even in the phone book!"). Unable to stand life in a gilded cage for long, Stew upsets the Schuyler mansion by inviting his friends to a wild and woolly party. Returning home unexpected in the middle of the drunken revelry, Ann lays down the law and Stew bolts -- right into the arms of girl reporter Gallagher (Loretta Young), whom he has loved all along without realizing it. Jean Harlow is surprisingly realistic as the callous society girl but Robert Williams' wisecracking reporter comes across as rather grating. An up-and-coming comic lead, Williams died after an operation for appendicitis on November 3, 1931, less than a month after Platinum Blonde had premiered to mostly positive reviews. Ironically, Loretta Young, who received top billing, had demanded to star in this film when it was still known as "Gallagher," the name of her character. Harlow, needless to stay, stole the limelight completely and Capra changed the title much to Young's chagrin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This first of four film versions of the Ben Hecht/Charlrd MacArthur Broadway hit stars Adolphe Menjou as explosive Chicago newspaper-editor Walter Burns and Pat O'Brien as his star reporter Hildy Johnson. Hildy is on the verge of getting married and retiring from Burns' dirty little tabloid, but he agrees to cover one last story: the politically motivated execution of convicted cop killer Earl Williams (George E. Stone). Thanks to the stupidity of the police, Williams manages to escape, and Johnson hides the wounded fugitive in a rolltop desk in the prison pressroom. Burns enters the scene, senses a swell story (and also a means of keeping Johnson on his payroll), and conspires with Johnson to keep Williams out of sight until they can secure an exclusive interview. Burns will do anything to keep Johnson on the scene, including having the reporter's future mother-in-law kidnapped. Complicating matters are Johnson's fiancée Peggy (Mary Brian), Williams' girlfriend Molly Malloy (Mae Clarke), and the corrupt mayor (James Gordon) and sheriff (Clarence C. Wilson), who have railroaded Williams to the death house in order to win votes and are now trying to suppress the news that the governor has commuted Williams' sentence. The Front Page was remade by Howard Hawks in 1939 as His Girl Friday, with the symbiotic relationship between Burns and Johnson changed to a sexual one by transforming Hildy Johnson into a woman (played by Rosalind Russell) with Cary Grant as her old flame Walter. It was again remade by Billy Wilder in 1974 with Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Carol Burnett, and a young Susan Sarandon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this backstage musical, an aspiring actor comes to Hollywood to get his big break. Trouble ensues when he is mistaken for a famous opera star and given red-carpet treatment wherever he goes. He even stays at the singer's mansion until he gets his break. Unfortunately, he soon loses his girlfriend after the singer's wife, who has not yet seen him, appears. The whole mess is cleared up when the real singer appears, and the young actor learns that he is the singer's nephew. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide