Walter Catlett Movies
Walter Catlett began his acting career in stock companies in his hometown of San Francisco. After attending St. Ignacious College, he reached New York in 1911 in the musical The Prince of Pilsen. Catlett's dithering comic gestures and air of perpetual confusion won him a legion of fans and admirers when he starred in several editions of The Ziegfeld Follies, and in the Ziegfeld-produced musical comedy Sally, in which he appeared for three years. Catlett made a handful of silent film appearances, but didn't catch on until the advent of talking pictures allowed moviegoers to see and hear his full comic repertoire. Usually sporting horn-rimmed spectacles or a slightly askew pince-nez, Catlett played dozens of bumbling petty crooks, pompous politicians and sleep-benumbed justices of the peace. Hired for a few days' work in Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938), Catlett proved so hilarious in his portrayal of an easily befuddled small-town sheriff that his role was expanded, and he was retained off-screen to offer advice about comic timing to the film's star, Katharine Hepburn. In addition to his supporting appearances, Catlett starred in several 2-reel comedies, and was co-starred with his lifelong friend Raymond Walburn in the low-budget "Henry" series at Monogram. Busy until a few short years before his death, Walter Catlett appeared in such 1950s features as Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (1956), Friendly Persuasion (1956) and Beau James (1957) (as New York governor Al Smith). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1930
In this pygmalionesque musical, a drab secretary leads a boring life until a good friend intervenes. The friend begins a total make-over upon her friend. First she slathers her in mud-packs, and then she encases her in lovely silk dresses. Soon the plain woman is transformed into an extraordinary beauty. It is no surprise that her boss, not knowing her true identity, falls hopelessly in love with her. Singing, dancing and romancing ensues. Songs include: "A Picture No Artist Can Paint," "You Gotta Be Modernistic," "I'm Telling the World About You," "Maybe Someday," and "Can I Help It." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Mulhall, Sue Carol, (more)
- 1930
One of the most delightful of Marion Davies' early talkies, The Floradora Girl is set in New York at the turn of the century. The star plays Daisy Dell, one of the members of the original Floradora Sextette ("O Tell Me, Pretty Maiden") She spends several seasons on stage in this capacity, during which time the other five Floradoras all land wealthy husbands. Daisy's one chance at connubial bliss with handsome young socialite Jack Vibart (Lawrence Gray) apparently comes to an end when she is persuaded by Jack's mother to give the boy up -- not because of class consciousness, but so that Jack can marry a wealthy woman and thereby save his family from bankruptcy. Before the film can metamorphose into a Gay '90s variation of Camille, Jack decides that love is far more important than money, whereupon he makes a surprise appearance in the last act of Floradora to sing his proposal to Daisy. Some of the exterior scenes in Floradora Girl were filmed outside the gargantuan "beach house" built for Marion Davies by her sponsor-lover William Randolph Hearst. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1930
In this comedy, set during the 1900s, a Florodora girl slowly falls for a gentle millionaire. Songs include: "My Kind Of Man," "Pass The Beer And Pretzels," "Swingin' In The Lane," and a Technicolor stage sequence of "Tell Me Pretty Maiden." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, (more)
- 1930
Filmed in "Fox Grandeur," an early widescreen process, Happy Days was the immediate follow-up to Fox Studios' Movietone Follies of 1929. Most of the film takes place on the showboat of Mississippi entrepreneur Colonel Billy Batcher (Charles E. Evans). When the Colonel faces foreclosure after several failing seasons, soubrette Margie (Marjorie White) stages a fund-raising revue on the boat, enlisting the aid of all the big stars who got their start with Batcher. By an amazing coincidence, virtually all of the showboat alumni are under contract to Fox Studios! Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell perform "We'll Build a Little World of Our Own," Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe kid their roughneck screen images in the novelty number "Vic and Eddie," Sharon Lynn and Ann Pennington offer the "hot" dance routine "Snake Hips," and "Whispering" Jack Smith offers a rendition of the title tune. Also on hand are Will Rogers, El Brendel, Walter Catlett (who also staged the musical numbers), Lew Brice (Fanny's brother), Dixie Lee (Mrs. Bing Crosby) and Georgie Jessel -- not to mention an uncredited 14-year-old chorus girl named Betty Grable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1929
Dixie Lee, best known to latter-day viewers as the first wife of Bing Crosby, essayed a leading role in the early Fox talkie Why Leave Home?. Things get under way when suburban matrons Ethel (Ilka Chase), Susan (Dot Farley) and Maude (Laura Hamilton) discover that their husbands George (Jed Prouty), Elmer (Walter Catlett) and Roy (Gordon DeMain) have been "stepping out" with some chorus girls. To get even, the ladies hire college boys Jose (Richard Keene), Oscar (David Rollins) and Dick (Nick Stuart) as their "gigolos." Caught in the middle are the collegiates' showgirl sweethearts Billie (Dixie Lee), Jackie (Jean Barry) and Mary (Sue Carol). Inevitably, all fifteen protagonists meet at a nightclub, leading to a cascade of slapstick complications. A remake of 1928's The Cradle Snatchers, Why Leave Home? was itself remade as Let's Face It in 1943. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1929
In this musical romance, a showgirl tours Europe in a troupe. There she falls in love with a Balkan prince. Naturally, his parents are appalled and try to stop the romance, but a revolution occurs and their son flees to Hollywood to marry his leggy lover. Songs include: "Dance Away the Night," "Peasant Love Song," "A Man, a Maid," "Deep in Love," "Bridal Chorus," "National Anthem," and "Once Upon a Time." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- J. Harold Murray, Norma Terris, (more)
- 1927
The Music Master was based on the barnstorming David Belasco-David Warfield play of the same name. Alec B. Francis assumes the old Warfield role as Anton Von Barwig, an elderly musician eking out a meager existence in a Bohemian artists' colony. Years earlier, a cad had run off with Von Barwig's wife and destroyed his happy home. Before the inevitable "reunion" with the man who ruined his life, the old man contents himself by living vicariously through the successes of his prize pupils. Critics in 1927 complained that many of the dramatic highlights of the original play were treated in an offhand fashion, but director Allan Dwan was merely trying to make the property more cinematic by removing its marathon dialogue passages (which wouldn't have worked as well in a silent picture, anyway). Featured in the cast in a peripheral role was Helen Chandler, later the enigmatic leading lady of such talkies as Dracula and The Last Flight. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alec B. Francis, Lois Moran, (more)
- 1926
Summer Bachelors is predicated on a hot-weather ritual which was later satirized to the hilt in George Axelrod's The Seven Year Itch. Every summer, the wives of New York businessmen are bundled off to vacation in the mountains, while their husbands stay behind on their jobs. Naturally, when the cats are away the mice will play, and it's not uncommon for the stay-at-home husbands to dally with other women. Capitalizing on this, heroine Derry Thomas (Madge Bellamy) sets up a club to keep these "summer bachelors" occupied -- and out of trouble. During one club meeting, she meets wealthy Tony Lander (Allan Forrest), whom she assumes is married. Later, while under hypnosis, Derry confesses that she's in love with Tony. Worried that she's breaking up someone's happy home, Derry is relieved to discover that Tony isn't married after all -- though it's a safe bet that he soon will be. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madge Bellamy, Allan Forrest, (more)
- 1924
Stage actor Alfred Lunt makes one of his rare screen appearances in this light comedy, based on the novel by Allen Updegraff. Rowland Farwell Francis (Lunt) is a retiring silk salesman at a department store. His reticent demeanor doesn't stop his widowed landlady, Mrs. Benson (Jobyna Howland) and his stenographer from considering him to be husband material. These women don't get Francis' attention, however -- and he falls for the wealthy Anne Winton (Mimi Palmeri), who he meets over the silk counter. Of course, he's too shy to do anything about it, and hat's the way it would probably have stayed if Anne's brother-in-law hadn't dared her to invite a man out to supper. She takes the dare and shows Francis such a good time that he becomes an aggressive and virile lover who wins her heart. He also lands a promotion to assistant buyer. Although the other ladies lose their chance with Francis, they still manage to win mates of their own. Lunt's wife and stage partner, Lynn Fontanne, appears in a bit role. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfred Lunt, Jobyna Howland, (more)
