Walter Connolly Movies

In this detective drama, a gumshoe falls in love with a torch singer who is unfortunately, involved with a crook. The two lovers then take off to Bermuda, but not before the crook double-crosses his own gang. The detective is then persuaded into following the two and bringing the traitor back to his gang. He does so, but just as the gang is about to double-cross and kill him, motorcycle cops intervenes. Justice prevails, and romance ensues as the remaining two begin to finally fall in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A wealthy, but sad young woman falls in love with an impoverished fellow in this bittersweet romance. While her father is only concerned with her happiness, her uncle strongly objects to the match as he wants her to marry into royalty. When the father's bank is on the verge of collapsing, he asks his brother for help, but he only will if his niece will marry a prince. The dutiful daughter agrees to it. Before she does, her parents arrange for her to meet her true love again. Her father then flies back to meet his brother, but instead ends up crashing his plane so his daughter can receive his insurance policy and marry the man she really loves. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

May Robson plays Apple Annie, a slatternly Broadway apple peddler. Annie has a curious setup whereby she is able to finagle other street merchants and beggars to pony up part of their weekly earnings to her--yet she never seems to spend any of the money on herself. This is because Annie has a daughter named Louise (Jean Parker), who has been supported in luxury all her life by her mother. Louise has no idea who Annie really is; so far as she knows, her mother is Mrs. E. Worthington Manville, a Manhattan society matron. When Louise sends Annie a letter telling her that she's become engaged to a young Spanish nobleman named Carlos (Barry Norton), Annie is aghast: once Louise brings her fiance to New York, the jig will be up. Coming to the rescue is high-rolling gambler Dave the Dude (Warren William), who considers Annie his good-luck charm. With the help of his nightclub-thrush girlfriend Missouri Martin (Glenda Farrell), Dave arranges a huge society reception for Louise -- and a complete fashion makeover for Annie. To do this, a few strong-arm methods are required, notably the kidnaping of several society reporters; also, it's necessary to pass off down-and-out Judge Blake (Guy Kibbee) as Annie's well-connected husband. Lady for a Day is the film with which Frank Capra hoped to enter the Big Leagues by taking home a shelf-full of Academy Awards. His subsequent embarrassment at the 1934 Oscar ceremonies has now passed into Hollywood legend, but he made up for this debacle with his Oscars sweep for It Happened One Night. Lady for a Day was remade by Capra as 1961's Pocketful of Miracles, with Bette Davis as Apple Annie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of ten films that Fay Wray made in 1993 (including King Kong), Master of Men casts her as Kay Walling, a woman who is being ignored by her husband, Buck (played by Jack Holt). Buck owns a prosperous steel mill and they make a very good living, but he is ambitious and wants more. To this end, he is devoting considerable amounts of time to expanding his finances -- and doing quite well. Not satisfied with his success, he journeys to New York, where his wrangling further increases his bank account. Unfortunately, his stock with his wife is dropping steadily. Jealous and unhappy, she fights back by giving one of Buck's business rivals details about what he is up to. This proves disastrous for Buck -- although, as the stock market crashes the day after his bankruptcy, he would have been ruined anyway. Now that the distraction of wealth is out of the way, Buck and Kay are able to settle down and make a real life for themselves. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

This Depression-era romantic drama, which offers a surprisingly potent and unsentimental view of the economic hardships of the time, stars Spencer Tracy as Bill, a rough-hewn laborer struggling to get by and sleeping in a Hooverville shack. Bill meets Trina (Loretta Young), a sad and desperate young woman with no prospects and nowhere to go; her plight touches his heart of stone, and he allows her to stay with him. Bill picks up work where and when he can, while Trina tries to turn their hovel into a home. Bill soon makes the acquaintance of Fay LaRue (Glenda Farrell), a brassy showgirl whose career is on the way up and wouldn't mind if Bill tagged along. But Bill learns that leaving Trina behind won't be as simple as he thought. Trina is pregnant with his child, so he ends up planning a dangerous robbery in hopes of raising enough money to provide a proper home for Trina and the baby. Dealing with tough material in an adult manner, A Man's Castle was considered quite daring in its day. A year after its release, Hollywood adopted the Production Code that prohibited the depiction of unwed cohabitation and premarital pregnancy (among many other things), which would have made this a very different film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: "I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me!" But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the "screwball" comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family business, but Baxter would rather spend his time at the racetrack. He buys a nag named Broadway Bill and tries to build the horse into a winner--if he doesn't bankrupt himself first. Only Baxter's sister-in-law Myrna Loy and black stable hand Clarence Muse have faith in Broadway Bill. The horse wins a crucial race, but dies suddenly at the finish line. Baxter is comforted and given encouragement by Loy, who is now his sweetheart, Vinson having long since washed her hands of her "irresponsible" husband. Broadway Bill was remade by Capra as Riding High (1950), utilizing generous portions of stock footage and even going so far as to rehire several of the original film's cast members (Douglass Dumbrille, Clarence Muse, Charles Lane, Raymond Walburn, Margaret Hamilton, Frankie Darro) to recreate their roles and match up their scenes from the earlier production. Long withheld from distribution due to Riding High, Broadway Bill was made available for videocassette in the mid-1980s. Keep an eye out for Lucille Ball as a blonde telephone operator and Alan Hale Sr. as a racetrack announcer. ~ 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

Paramount's Eight Girls in a Boat was a remake of the 1932 German film of the same name. Impregnated by medical student David Perrin (Douglass Montgomery), European schoolgirl Christa Storm (Dorothy Wilson) contemplates killing herself. Wisely, she chooses instead to explain her plight to her sympathetic teacher Hanna (Kay Johnson), who arranges a marriage for the girl despite the protests of her wealthy father (Walter Connolly). Before this happens, however, Christa's seven best friends agree to mutually adopt the girl's baby, and are sorely put out when she opts for matrimony. Many cynical reviewers presumed that Eight Girls in a Boat was merely an excuse to show off an octet of well-developed ingenues in shorts, tight blouses and bathing suits. Perhaps it was, but few filmgoers complained back in 1934. The film was one of the few made by starlet Barbara Barondess before she forsook acting for a lucrative career as a Hollywood interior decorator. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

G.K. Chesterton's crime-solving cleric Father Brown was first brought to the screen in 1934, in the corpulent form of Walter Connolly. The good father spends most of the film trying to retrieve a valuable diamond cross from elusive thief Flambeau (Paul Lukas). Father Brown is convinced that Flambeau is eminently redeemable, but the double-crossing thief hardly proves to be a prime candidate for salvation. Amazingly, Father Brown's faith in Flambeau's essential decency proves well-founded, but it's certainly touch-and-go for a while. Long unavailable for reappraisal, 1934's Father Brown, Detective has been eclipsed by the popularity of the 1954 Alec Guinness remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Walter Connolly, Columbia's answer to Edward Arnold, is his usual bombastic self in White Lies. Connolly is cast as powerful publisher John Mitchell, whose pursuit of sensational headlines at the expense of all else takes a personal toll when his daughter Joan (Fay Wray) is implicated in a murder. Police officer Terry Condon (Victor Jory), in love with Joan, is nonetheless duty-bound to arrest her and treat her like any other murder suspect. Likewise, Mitchell is ruthless in his treatment of Joan in the press, despite his inner emotional turmoil. Fortunately, Condon, working "outside the law," is able to crack the murder case and pave the way for a tearful reconciliation between father and daughter. A bit too plot-heavy for 63 minutes, White Lies nonetheless moves at a fast and logical clip. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

So Red the Rose is a Civil War drama that plays like a warm-up for Gone With the Wind--and, unlike Wind, has two genuine Southerners in the leading roles. Margaret Sullavan is the aristocratic mistress of a sprawling Southern plantation, whose sheltered lifestyle is rent asunder by the War. All that sustains her during the conflict's darkest days is her love for her distant cousin, a Confederate officer played by Randolph Scott. Despite the incursions of Yankee troops (most of whom are portrayed as one step above gorillas), Sullavan holds her family together even after her mansion is burned to the ground. She even manages to talk her slaves out of rebelling, in a scene that must have caused embarrassment for everyone concerned in later years. The fact that So Red the Rose died at the box office (industryites dubbed the picture "So Red the Ink") was the principal reason why so many producers turned down Gone with the Wind a few years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the print ads for Soak the Rich, writers/producers/directors Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur were shown singing "We're the boys who wrote the yarn/ And here's what it's about/ Class ideas don't mean a thing/ When love kicks 'em out." The film pokes broad fun at New Deal liberalism and 1930s campus unrest, which the authors evidently regarded as a passing fad ("the latest form of necking," observes one character) Millionaire college chairman Humphrey Craig (Walter Connolly) is saddled with fuzzy-headed daughter Belinda (Mary Taylor), who allows campus radicals to hold rallies in her living room. The main bone of contention is Belinda's romance with starry-eyed economics professor Buzz Jones (John Howard), whom Craig had fired after the publication of Jones' inflammatory book Soak the Rich. Belinda's enchantment with "pinkos" comes to an end when she's kidnapped by a comically menacing communist agitator (Lionel Stander) and when Buzz proposes marriage (in the Brave New World, she reasons, there is no room for matrimony). Her fed-up daddy solves matters with a shotgun wedding -- only it's the bride, not the groom, who's the reluctant participant. Novelist Alice Duer Miller, a longtime Hecht-MacArthur crony, plays a supporting role. Soak the Rich may sound like a "lost masterpiece," but it isn't; in fact, many critics regard it as one of the worst films of the 1930s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide