Andre Cheron Movies

This George Cukor romantic comedy casts Greta Garbo as ski instructor Karin Borg Blake. She gives lessons to wealthy American playboy Larry Blake (Melvyn Douglas), and the two fall in love and marry even though Larry has a girlfriend named Griselda Vaughn (Constance Bennett) waiting for him back in New York. Returning to New York, Karin fears that Griselda will win Larry back. In an effort to foil Larry's imagined dalliance, Karin poses as her own twin sister, Katherine, hoping to get Larry to fall in love with her instead of Griselda. Larry is onto the scheme and plays along with her, pretending to fall in love with Katherine. But this infuriates Karin, who can't believe that her husband would fall in love with her sister, and she storms back to her ski resort. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A federal agent and a petty Naval officer are both investigating the theft of top-secret defense plans. Since neither one is aware that the other is working on the case, each considers the other to be the prime suspect. They end up getting romantic and catching the real spies. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi

Edmund Goulding directed this remake of his own 1929 The Trespasser, which starred Gloria Swanson. Here Bette Davis assumes the lead role of Mary Donnell, a young innocent married to a bootlegger. When her husband is killed, she decides to pursue a better life and gets a job as a secretary to attorney Lloyd Rogers (Ian Hunter). Lloyd falls in love with Mary but stoically keeps his feelings hidden from her. One of Lloyd's clients is the millionaire Merrick (Donald Crisp), whose playboy son Jack (Henry Fonda) falls in love with Mary. The two elope and take off on their honeymoon, but Merrick, who feels that Mary is not good enough for Jack, asks that the marriage be annulled. Jack reluctantly agrees and Mary goes back to her old job with Lloyd. But Mary finds that she is pregnant and has a baby boy. She swears Lloyd to secrecy concerning her child and Lloyd agrees. Meanwhile, Jack marries a woman of his own class, Flip (Anita Louise), but she is fatally injured in an automobile accident. Lloyd also falls ill and dies at Mary's feet --but not before confessing his love for Mary. When his will is read, it reveals that he has left Mary and her child a vast fortune. Lloyd's wife (Katherine Alexander) believes the baby boy is Lloyd's illegitimate child, and she tries to overturn the terms of the will. Jack hears about Mary's child, and she confesses that the child is actually his. Merrick then tries to have the baby taken away from Mary, contending that she is unfit to raise the baby. Unable to withstand Merrick's legal hammering, Mary offers the child to Jack and Flip. Mary, distraught after abandoning her baby, leaves on a European trip. While she is gone, Flip dies and Jack leaves for Europe to try to find her. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The notorious Orient Express provides the setting for this romance involving two rival reporters in pursuit of a munitions baron. The two rivals eventually fall in love, but not before they are implicated and subsequently cleared of a plot to kill the arms maker. The munitions man also falls in love and decides to use his skills for making more peaceful products. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Magazine publisher Clark Gable is happily married to Myrna Loy. Clark's devoted, super-efficient secretary Jean Harlow may have once harbored a secret desire for her boss, but she's perfectly content with boyfriend James Stewart. Accompanying Gable on a crucial business trip, Jean answers the phone in her boss' suite. Myrna, on the other end of the line, misunderstands, thereby setting the stage for a series of subsequent misunderstandings. As one can see, nothing much really happens in Wife vs. Secretary. The film is a vehicle in every sense of the word, totally reliant on the appeal of its stars. But it works beautifully, and remains as entertaining now as it did sixty years ago. One film historian has wondered what Wife vs. Secretary would have looked like had it been made before the imposition of the production code: would Jean have really had an affair with Clark, thereby giving Myrna something to really worry about? No matter; while it may have been racier, it's not likely the film could have been any more entertaining than it already is. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The 1936 comedy-mystery The Princess Comes Across might well have been inspired by a real-life incident during the silent-movie era, in which a crafty San Francisco stenographer hoodwinked the Hollywood elite into believing that she was a Spanish princess. Carole Lombard stars as an alluring Swedish beauty who travels under the name of Princess Olga. Everyone whom she meets en route to America on the steamship Mammoth bows and scrapes to the Princess, while Hollywood anxiously awaits her arrival to star her in a big-budget film. Only the ship's bandleader, King Mantell (Fred MacMurray), refuses to defer to Olga, sensing that she may not be all she claims. Mantell's instincts are right on target: the "Princess" is a brass-nickel phony, a Brooklyn girl named Wanda Nash who has cooked up her royal guise with drama coach Gertrude (Alison Skipworth) as a publicity stunt to crash into movies. Unfortunately, a weaselly blackmailer Darcy (Porter Hall) gloms onto Wanda's true identity and offers to keep quiet in exchange for a huge cash settlment. At the same time, Darcy is attempting to shake down several other passengers on the Mammoth, including King Mantell. Inevitably, Darcy is found murdered in the "Princess"'s stateroom, and Wanda finds herself one of several likely suspects, among them Mantell. A quintet of international detectives, travelling to a convention in America, sets out to solve the mystery, which becomes even more mysterious when one of the detectives also turns up dead. Taking matters in his own hands, Mantell vows to clear Wanda's name, and in the course of things he realizes that he's madly in love with her--but will Wanda give up her hoax, and her future showbiz career, for Mantell's sake? Among the many highlights in this engagingly daffy film is Fred MacMurray's rendition of the enchantingly forgettable song "My Concertina." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The old British musical-hall ditty "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" provides the title for this lightweight Ronald Colman vehicle. Colman, playing a refugee Russian prince, is the "man" in question, and the owners of the "broken bank"--that is, the proprietors of the Monte Carlo casino where Colman scored the big win--are anxious to get their money back. They dispatch the beautiful Joan Bennett to lure Colman back into the casino. He falls for her and loses his winnings in the process, but she has pangs of remorse when she learns that Colman had been gambling on behalf of his impoverished countrymen. Bennett joins Colman as he merrily heads off to chase another rainbow. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dressed to Thrill was a brave but foredoomed attempt to transform Russian musical favorite Tutta Rolf into a Hollywood movie star. Rolf is cast in a dual role, as famed stage singer Nadia Petrova and humble dressmaker Colette DuBois. It hardly takes two reels before the two heroines' identities are switched when Colette impulsively decides to wear a gown created with Nadia in mind. Hero Bill Trent (Clive Brook) looks confused even after he's figured out which girl is which. A remake of a French film of the same name (also directed by Harry Lachman), Dressed to Thrill was adapted by Samson Rafaelson from a play by Albert Savoir. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A far from factual filmed biography of Mexican patriot Pancho Villa, Viva Villa! was written by lengendary screenwriter Ben Hecht. We first meet the young Villa when his father is beaten to death after protesting Diaz' seizure of the Mexican peons' land. Pancho exacts a temporary revenge by knifing one of his father's killers, then heads for the hills, where he organizes a band of renegades. As he "matures," Pancho is played by child actor Phillip Cooper and adult star Wallace Beery. Though ruthless in his treatment of the rich, Pancho is a hero to the poor, who receive the spoils of Villa's raids. Befriended by American reporter Johnny Sykes (Stuart Erwin), Villa becomes internationally famous thanks to Sykes' articles concerning his exploits. Pancho also finds a strong ally in Don Felipe de Castillo (Donald Cook), who introduces the rebel bandit to Madero (Henry B. Walthall), the leader of the peon revolt. Madero convinces Villa to join forces with him, the better to oust the Diaz regime. His principal rival in this goal is ambitious General Pascal (Joseph Schildkraut), who intends to set up an even more despotic regime once Diaz is eliminated. Emerging victorious in his fight against the federales, Villa is encouraged to go back home by Madero. Illiterate and dangerously naïve, Villa quickly runs into trouble with the new government, giving Pascal a chance to humiliate his former "comrade in arms." Later, Pascal shows his true colors by assassinating Madero and assuming control of Mexico. Thirsting for revenge, Villa and his men go on a bloody rampage, culminiating in the ritualistic murder of the treacherous Pascal (he is staked out on an anthill and covered with honey). Made president of Mexico upon the elimination of Pacal, Villa once more finds himself in over his head. Unable to deal with political infighting, Villa retires to his ranch. One day, after running into his old friend Johnny Sykes (Stu Erwin), Villa is shot and mortally wounded by his onetime friend Don Felipe, who holds Pancho responsible for the death of his sister Teresa (Fay Wray). As he dies, Villa begs Johnny to tell him what his epitaph will be. Improvising quickly, Johnny tells of Villa's love for Mexico and his many accomplishments. Partially filmed on location in Mexico, Viva Villa was plagued with a multitude of production problems, not least of which was the diplomatic gaffe committed by Lee Tracy, the film's original Johnny Sykes: While standing on a balcony watching a military parade, an inebrieated Tracy relieved himself on the troops below and was immediately fired. Another crisis arose when the Mexican government objected to star Wallace Beery, on the grounds that Beery usually played villains or buffoons. Despite these and other setbacks, Viva Villa was finally completed under the assured directorial hand of MGM troubleshooter Jack Conway and the expert supervision of David O. Selznick. Though some critics objected to the film's violence, Viva Villa was a financial success. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A few unique touches aside -- notably the opening costume-party scene, in which the revellers are dressed as insects -- Rip Tide is a standard-issue Norma Shearer soap opera. Shearer plays Mary, a footloose and fancy-free American heiress who weds British nobleman Lord Rexford (Herbert Marshall). Five years later, Rexford embarks upon a business trip to New York, while Mary, urged on by her fun-loving aunt, vacations on the Riviera. Here she is reacquainted with her ex-boyfriend Tommie (Robert Montgomery), whose drunken misbehavior causes scandal to befall them both. Refusing to hear Mary's side of the story, Rexford begins divorce proceedings, but a happy ending finally manifests itself after reels and reels of endless high-toned dialogue. Legendary stage star Mrs. Patrick Campbell makes her Hollywood film debut in Rip Tide as Shearer's all-knowing Aunt Hetty, while Walter Brennan and Bruce Bennett show up in microscopic bit roles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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, Rovi

Hollywood responded to the exigencies of the Depression with such glorious nonsense as International House. The plot is motivated by a revolutionary television device called the Radioscope, which its Chinese inventor (Edmund Breese) is offering to the highest bidder. All interested parties are obliged to converge at International House, an ultra-modern hotel in the bustling Chinese community of Wu Hu. Among those parties is American envoy Stu Erwin, Russian general Bela Lugosi (a hilarious, pratfalling performance), the general's ex-wife Peggy Hopkins Joyce (a much-married showgirl of the era, who like Zsa Zsa Gabor was famous for being famous), and that celebrated aviator Professor Quail, better known as W.C. Fields. The lunacy begins even before Fields arrives, thanks to the antics of the hotel's doctor George Burns and nurse Gracie Allen. When Erwin comes down with the measles (he is always struck down by a childhood disease whenever he's about to marry his fiancee Sari Maritza), the hotel is quarantined. The guests make the most of their enforced stay by watching the many variety acts broadcast over the radioscope device: Rudy Vallee, singing a love song to his megaphone; Baby Rose Marie (the same), belying her 11 years by belting forth a hotcha jazz number; radio humorists Stoopnagle and Budd, showing off their own goofy inventions; and Cab Calloway, singing a paean to marijuana titled "Reefer Man" (only in recent years has this peppy number been seen with any regularity on television). There's also an elaborate production number on the dance floor of the hotel, featuring Sterling Holloway and a bevy of beauties dressed as cups and saucers. Once Fields drops in via his art-deco autogyro, the film is firmly in his pudgy hands. Erwin outbids the others for the radioscope, while Fields escapes in his aircraft with Peggy Hopkins Joyce in tow (she keeps insisting that she's sitting on something, whereupon Fields replies "I lost mine in the stock market"). A truly unique filmgoing experience, International House is a must-see for any aficionado of 1930s musical comedies. PS: The film's now-famous "outtake," showing Fields calmly advising the cast and crew not to panic while the set is rocked by a California earthquake, was actually staged several days after the genuine quake. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Emma is a turn-of-the-century domestic drama completely dominated by star Marie Dressler. She plays the maid of an upper middle class family, keeping her wits about her as her employers suffer crisis after crisis. When the master of the house (Jean Hersholt), a prominent inventor, is widowed, he proposes marriage to Emma. Shortly afterward, Hersholt dies, and Emma, who has married "out of her class", is accused of murder by Hersholt's jealous children. Cleared of the accusation, Emma turns over her inheritance to the selfish children and heads off to work for another family, once again making the best of any and all bad situations. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi