Charles Coleman Movies

An airy screwball comedy, Danger--Love at Work explores the lives of a wealthy but wacky family. Ann Sothern plays the daughter, the only remotely "normal" member of the clan. Poor Jack Haley enters the scene as a feckless attorney who tries to get the family to finalize an important land deal. Sothern falls for Haley, and through the machinations of her looney parents the timorous lawyer winds up the object of a "shotgun wedding." The amusing but inconsequential Danger--Love at Work was the second American film of director Otto Preminger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Everybody's Old Man looks like a stray Will Rogers project, temporarily shelved when Rogers was killed in a 1935 plane crash. Rogers' old pal Irvin S. Cobb assumes the title role; he plays a business executive who takes a year off to reflect on things when a close friend dies suddenly. Insinuating himself into his late friend's household, Cobb manages to straighten out the dead man's irresponsible offspring. He does the job so well that he's invited to stay on indefinitely. Everybody's Old Man bears a marked resemblance to the 1933 George Arliss vehicle The Working Man -- as well it should, since the 1936 film is a remake of the earlier picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A never-completed stage musical was the source for the MGM superproduction Born to Dance. The plot is another three-sailors-on-leave affair, with Ted (James Stewart), Mush (Buddy Ebsen) and Gunny (Sid Silvers, who also co-wrote the script) romancing the eminently romanceable Nora (Eleanor Powell), Peppy (Frances Langford) and Jenny (Una Merkel). Nora aspires to become a dancing star, but her career nearly ends before it begins when she inadvertently comes between Broadway luminary Lucy James (Virginia Bruce) and her producer-lover McKay (Alan Dinehart). If anyone watching back in 1936 really cared about the plot, they probably weren't music lovers. The lovely Cole Porter score (his first written directly for the screen) includes "I've Got You Under My Skin", sung by Virginia Bruce to James Stewart, and "Easy to Love", warbled by Stewart to Eleanor Powell. Highlights include Reginald Gardiner's impersonation of a symphony-conducting traffic cop (a routine he'd previously performed on stage) and Eleanor Powell's climactic tap routine on board an art-deco battleship (a sequence later re-deployed for the climax of 1944's I Dood It). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Myrna Loy plays the glamorous member of a trio of jewel thieves. G-Man Spencer Tracy goes undercover to join the gang when it transports its stolen jewels from Paris to New York. Loy falls in love with Tracy, has a change of heart, and quits the gang. But Tracy arrests her all the same when he recovers the jewels. The girl forgives Tracy when the latter is wounded in a climactic gun battle with the rest of the thieves. Why, oh why, is this thing called Whipsaw? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical comedy, a strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home to meet her parents. She wants him to be as appalling as possible so they will hate him and allow her to date the man she really loves who has recently been divorced. Romantic mayhem ensues as she finds herself really falling for the student. Songs include: "Cabin on a Hilltop" (Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby), "Let's Make a Wish," and "My Heart Wants to Dance" (Kalmar, Ruby, Sid Silvers). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Lloyds of London traces the rise to prominence of the venerable British insurance company, as seen through the eyes of fictional 19th-century Londoner Jonathan Blake (Tyrone Power, in his first starring role). A lifelong friend of naval hero Lord Nelson, Blake puts his job (and the future existence of Lloyds) on the line when he announces Nelson's victory at Trafalgar -- before it takes place. For those not interested in policies and premiums, the script serves up a romance between Blake and the lovely Lady Elizabeth (Madeleine Carroll), the unhappily married spouse of snotty aristocrat Lord Everett Stacy (George Sanders). Among the few real-life historical personages depicted in the film is Lloyds founder John Julius Angerstein, played by Sir Guy Standing. A box-office bonanza, Lloyds of London proved that 23-year-old Tyrone Power could carry a picture -- and that the recently-formed 20th Century-Fox was truly a major Hollywood studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Were it not for the deplorable Silly Billies, Mummy's Boys might well have been the weakest of the Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey comedies. The boys are cast as ditch diggers Stanley Wright and Aloysius Whittaker, who sign on as "excavators" for an archaeological expedition into Egypt. What our heroes don't know is that their destination, the tomb of King Pharantine, carries a deadly curse which has apparently claimed the lives of nine previous explorers. It turns out that the deaths have actually been caused by a member of the first Pharantine expedition, who has systematically poisoned his colleagues so that he can lay claim to all the tomb's treasures. The film wraps up with a slapstick chase through the surprisingly well-illuminated tomb, with Stanley and Aloysius doing their best to protect heroine Mary Browning (Barbara Pepper) from harm. Many of the best gags have nothing to do with the wearisome plotline, but even these lack the zip and spark of Wheeler & Woolsey's earlier routines. The film's best performance is rendered by Moroni Olsen as the maniacal, bug-eyed murderer (whose guilt is obvious the moment he's introduced to the audience!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

To fully accept the premise of Her Master's Voice, one must also accept the notion that Edward Everett Horton is radio celebrity Ned Farrar, "The Fireside Troubadour." Besieged by his adoring female fans, Ned hides out at the home of his wife Queena's (Peggy Conklin) imperious Aunt Min (Laura Hope Crews). He pretends to be Aunt Min's handyman, performing his tasks so well that the old lady refuses to let him leave! This in itself is amusing enough, but the producers felt that a few low laughs were needed, thus the film ends in a slapstick car chase. Adapted from a play by Clare Kummer (which also starred Laura Hope Crews), Her Master's Voice represented another of Dore Schary's early screenwriting assignments before his upward move into the executive suites of RKO and MGM. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The sequel to 1934's The Notorious Sophie Lang, The Return of Sophie Lang once more stars Gertrude Michael in the title role. Before reforming, Ms. Lang was a jewel thief; now she is the scrupulously honest traveling companion of an elderly dowager (Elizabeth Patterson). When the old lady's diamonds disappear during an ocean voyage, suspicion immediately falls upon Sophie. The ex-thief turns amateur sleuth, tracking down the guilty party in order to escape incarceration. A young but very self-assured Ray Milland provides the romantic angle in The Return of Sophie Lang. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM regularly churned out films in the 1930s that were all "star power" and very little plot. No More Ladies is a good example of this. Joan Crawford marries bon vivant Robert Montgomery, hoping to mend his wastrel ways. Montgomery refuses to assumes the proper responsibilities of a husband, so Crawford tries to make him jealous by taking up with Franchot Tone. Everyone involved has limitless money, beautiful clothes and all the time in the world to spend on the trivialities of the plotline. Depression era audiences loved to see good-looking people in sumptuous sets, so No More Ladies was a success. The fact that, when asked, these audiences couldn't remember a single thing about the story was beside the point. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this bedroom farce, an ex-wife overhears her former hubby's new wife and her lover planning a tryst for the weekend while the husband is away on a business trip. Hoping that the husband will catch them in the act, the ex creates an elaborate scheme whereby the lovers' plans are foiled and they must spend the weekend at her house. She then arranges for her former husband to drop by so he can see for himself the kind of hussy he married. Unfortunately the whole plot goes terribly awry when two fugitive jewel thieves wind up stranded at the ex-wife's house too. Things get really mixed up when the ex-wife discovers that she is in love with the second-wife's lover. Meanwhile second wifey recovers the jewels from the thieves just as her hubby returns. He gets there just as his ex-wife and the lover are married. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Now famous as the first feature film produced in the three-strip Technicolor process, Becky Sharp is also an enjoyable effort in its own right. Adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the film stars Miriam Hopkins as Becky Sharp, a resourceful, totally self-involved young lady who manages to survive any number of setbacks and deprivations in the years following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. In her efforts to advance herself, she manages to link up with a number of not altogether attractive gentlemen, including the Marquis of Steyne (Cedric Hardwicke), Joseph Sedley (Nigel Bruce), Rawdon Crawley (Alan Mowbray), and George Osborne (G. P. Huntley Jr.) She rises to the pinnacle of British society, only to tumble and fall into the humiliation of singing for her supper in a cheap back-alley beer hall, but, like her spiritual sister Scarlet O'Hara, Becky never stays down for long. The film ends on an ambiguous note, never hinting that Becky will eventually drop her current beau and settle down to a life of smug piety, as she does in the novel. Begun in 1934 with Lowell Sherman in the director's chair, Becky Sharp was forced to shut down production when Sherman died; he was replaced by Rouben Mamoulien, whose unerring eye for cinematic splendor exploited the new color process to the utmost, especially during the opening Brussels Ball sequence. Until its recent archival restoration, Becky Sharp was available only in a shortened, two-color version, which had the negative effect of diminishing the film's strong points and overemphasizing its weaknesses (This version is still available on the public-domain market). Becky Sharp is an enormous improvement over the low-budget 1932 version of Vanity Fair, which updated the story to the 20th century and cast dumb-blonde specialist Joyce Compton in the role of Becky. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Looking for all the world like a 2-reel comedy bloated to 6-reel proportions, Embarrassing Moments was directed by Edward Laemmle, one of the many salaried relatives of avuncular Universal chieftain Carl Laemmle. Chester Morris plays Jerry Randolph, an inveterate and obnoxious practical joker. Things take a serious turn when it looks as though Jerry's latest prank has resulted in the death of his best friend. But the audience is way ahead of Jerry: the whole "tragedy" has been staged to teach the jolly jokester a lesson. Billed third in Embarrassing Moments is Broadway singing star Walter Woolf, who as Walter Woolf King enjoyed a lengthy career as a supporting actor in such films as The Marx Bros.' Night at the Opera and Laurel & Hardy's Swiss Miss. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide