Norman Phillips Movies
- 1931
Buster Keaton once described his 1931 vehicle Sidewalks of New York as "God-awful"; it's hardly that bad, though admittedly it pales in comparison with his silent classics. Keaton plays Harmon, a wealthy young Park Avenue socialite who falls in love with Lower East Side denizen Margie (Anita Page). For her sake, he tries to reform a tough gang of kids (including Margie's brother) by building a gym to keep them off the streets. A bunch of gangsters, mistakenly believing that Harmon intends to turn them over to the authorities, try to bump him off, but he's oblivious to their homicidal overtures, believing them to be his best pals. Ultimately, Margie's brother and his gang are obliged to come to Harmon's rescue. The film's highlight is a boxing match, pitting puny Harmon against the toughest lug in all New York. Though Buster Keaton was unable to get along with his director Jules White, it was ironically White who helped Keaton stage a comeback in the late 1930s by casting the comedian in a series of mediocre but profitable Columbia two-reelers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buster Keaton, Anita Page, (more)
- 1931
In this romantic crime drama, a railroad telegraph dispatcher loses his job after a train crash. He tries to convince his superiors that he had no choice because he was tied up by crooks and was unable to pull the switch that could have saved the title train. The dispatcher's little brother also loses his job causing both of them to launch private investigations into the situation. The find that the whole mess revolves around another's desperate desire for the dispatcher's girl friend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Tryon, Merna Kennedy, (more)
- 1931
Cole Porter's Broadway musical 50 Million Frenchmen was brought to the screen in 1931 with one minor alteration -- all of the music was removed! Set in Paris, the story concerns the exploits of wealthy Jack Forbes (William Gaxton), who bets his friend Michael Cummings (John Halliday) that he can woo and win Looloo Carroll (Claudia Dell) without using any of his money or connections. Cummings hires Simon and Peter (Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson), a pair of erstwhile detectives, to make sure that Forbes doesn't win his bet. Instead, Simon and Peter befriend our hero and decide to help him out. Olsen & Johnson have all the best material, notably an early double-entendre encounter with randy American tourist Helen Broderick and a scene in which Olsen impersonates mind-reading fakir Bela Lugosi (who loses his clothes in the process!) The finale is right out of Harold Lloyd, with the comedians being chased by every law officer in Gay Paree. Evidently, the Cole Porter songs had been filmed for 50 Million Frenchmen, but were cut from the final print just before release: William Gaxton keeps building up to singing You Do Something for Me but never quite gets there (Warner Bros. later utilized the Porter score in Paree! Paree!, a 2-reel remake of Frenchmen starring Bob Hope). Originally released in Technicolor, 50 Million Frenchmen is presently available only in black and white. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Gaxton, John Halliday, (more)
- 1932
Lovers Courageous represents a rare direct-to-screen original by Frederick Lonsdale, the playwright responsible for such drawing-room comedies as The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Robert Montgomery and Madge Evans plays the titular lovers, Willy and Mary. After living a peripatetic existence all over the world, Willy settles in South Africa, where he goes to work for a tobacconist. Here he meets Mary (Madge Evans), the daughter of an aristocratic ex-admiral (Frederick Kerr). The story then develops into a "reverse Cinderella," with the rough-hewn Willy transforming himself into a gentleman, all for the love of "Princess Charming" Mary. Jackie Searl, one of the screen's best "nasty kids," is amusingly if incongruously cast as the younger Willy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Montgomery, Madge Evans, (more)
- 1934
Robert Young had to be the busiest leading man in Hollywood in 1934. He appeared in no fewer than nine pictures, four of them at his home studio of MGM. The Band Plays On features Young as one of four close pals, who have grown up together and are now college football champs known as "The Four Bombers". So inseparable are these chums that, when one is injured in a car accident, the remaining three quit the team. But everyone is back on the field for the inevitable Big Game, including Young, who of course scores the winning T.D. Robert Young plays a football star as realistically as he'd played a baseball star in the earlier Death on the Diamond (34)--meaning that the film relies a heavily on stunt doubles and process screens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Young, Stuart Erwin, (more)
- 1939
The Carter Family finds itself in serious financial difficulty when its patriarch, druggist Doc Carter (Frank Craven), is all but forced out of business by a neighboring chain store. Doc isn't worried so much for himself and his wife Emma (Fay Bainter) as he is for his five children, played by Scotty Beckett, Bennie Bartlett, Donald Brenon, Mary Thomas and Gloria Carter (who real name is the same as her "reel" name). But there may be a way out: wealthy Bill and Gloria Hastings (Edmund Lowe, Genevieve Tobin), longtime friends of the Carters, have offered to adopt the couple's polio-stricken son Dickie (Beckett) for a substantial fee. Doc and Emma refuse this offer, but their somewhat more practical children offer themselves up for adoption rather than separate little Dickie from his parents. The ultimately happy denoument suggests that Paramount Pictures hoped to develop a "Carter Family" series, though no such project developed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fay Bainter, Frank Craven, (more)
- 1939
Pat O'Brien is his usual likably obnoxious self in the Warner Bros. newspaper yarn Off the Record. While trying to smash a numbers racket, star reporter Breezy Elliot (O'Brien) takes tough young numbers-runner Mickey Fallon (Bobby Jordan) under his wing. The kid gets a job as a copy boy, earning the enmity of one and all because of his inability to keep his fists to himself. Mickey redeems himself-and, by extension, Breezy-when he engineers the capture of his gangster brother Joe Fallon (Alan Baxter). The romantic angle is handled by Breezy's gal Friday Jane Morgan (Joan Blondell), who eventually agrees to marry the hero only if he adopts the troublesome Mickey as his son (gee, things were so much simpler in the movies!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, (more)
- 1939
In this drama, a vengeful woman searches for the man she blames for her sister's suicide. To get at him, the woman masquerades as a mousy maid in the tiny hotel where he stays. The story is set in Gallacia during WW I and while she enacts her plan, the Russians and Austrians take over the town. This does not stop her from getting revenge. This is a remake of a 1927 film of the same title. In Hollywood it has the legend of being a cursed production in that it suffered endless production problems and major changes in cast and crew. Originally Marlene Dietrich was to play the title role, but she and director Henry Hathaway were constantly at loggerheads. With the help of Paramount head Arthur Lubitsch, she got Hathaway to rewrite the script with Grover Jones. The new story was called I Loved a Soldier and things resumed. Unfortunately, Lubitsch had been fired and Dietrich, still miserable, abruptly quit, costing Paramount, a fortune. All production ceased, but later they resurrected the original script and tried again to make the film with Margaret Sullavan. Unfortunately, Sullavan and a co-star were horsing around one day on the set and she ended up with a broken arm. The studio heads demanded she perform the role in a sling. This was too much for Hathaway who immediately quit. Soon after, Dietrich returned with her long-time director Josef von Sternberg and said she was now willing to make Hotel Imperial. The studio heads refused and eventually the lead was given to Italian actress Isa Mira. A major sex symbol in Italy, she made this her U.S. debut. Unfortunately, she spoke little English and was forced to recite her lines phonetically. Meanwhile her co-star Ray Milland nearly died during a scene in which he had to lead a cavalry charge. During the run, he was thrown off his horse and tossed head first into a brick pile. Fortunately he only suffered a concussion. Later Hotel Imperial was remade as Five Graves to Cairo Sometimes, as in this case, the history behind the film is more interesting than the film itself, no? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Isa Miranda, Ray Milland, (more)
The postwar classic The Best Years of Our Lives, based on a novel in verse by MacKinlay Kantor about the difficult readjustments of returning World War II veterans, tells the intertwined homecoming stories of ex-sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March), former bombadier Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), and sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell). Having rubbed shoulders with blue-collar Joes for the first time in his life, Al finds it difficult to return to a banker's high-finance mindset, and he shocks his co-workers with a plan to provide no-collateral loans to veterans. Meanwhile, Al's children (Teresa Wright and Michael Hall) have virtually grown up in his absence. Fred discovers that his wartime heroics don't count for much in the postwar marketplace, and he finds himself unwillingly returning to his prewar job as a soda jerk. His wife (Virginia Mayo), expecting a thrilling marriage to a glamorous flyboy, is bored and embittered by her husband's inability to advance himself, and she begins living irresponsibly, like a showgirl. Homer has lost both of his hands in combat and has been fitted with hooks; although his family and his fiancée (Cathy O'Donnell) adjust to his wartime handicap, he finds it more difficult. Profoundly relevant in 1946, the film still offers a surprisingly intricate and ambivalent exploration of American daily life; and it features landmark deep-focus cinematography from Gregg Toland, who also shot Citizen Kane. The film won Oscars for, among others, Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary William Wyler, Best Actor for March, and Best Supporting Actor for Harold Russell, a real-life double amputee whose hands had been blown off in a training accident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Myrna Loy, (more)
- 1947
Blondie opens a bakery in her home to help fill the family cookie jar in this entry in the long-running domestic comedy series based on the popular comic strip. Her tasty cookies become so popular that a cookie magnate makes her an offer that is difficult to refuse. Unfortunately, this creates all kinds of problems for the Bumsteads. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1947
The popular wartime catchphrase "Kilroy Was Here" was affixed to this minor campus comedy. Jackie Cooper plays peripatetic ex-sailor John J. Kilroy, who is assumed to be the Kilroy. Once John finds himself in college on the GI bill, he finds that his fame is also a curse: none of the "right" people want anything to do with him because of his WW2 notoriety. Even worse, John insists upon retaining his friendship with navy buddy Pappy Collins (Jackie Coogan), a "lowly" cabdriver. By film's end, of course, Kilroy and Collins have washed their hands of the campus snobs, but not before several slapsticky complications. At the time of its release, Kilroy Was Here was exploited on the basis of its teaming of former child stars Cooper and Coogan, who work together quite well consider the material they're given. Not unlike 1946's Snafu, Kilroy Was Here ran into some censorship trouble because of the sexual connotations of its inspiration (a line drawing of a face, with a phallic nose resting between two ball-shaped cheeks!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Cooper, Wanda McKay, (more)
- 1948
That Wonderful Urge is the second remake of Love is News (37), and is much closer to the original than the first remake (the Betty Grable musical Sweet Rosie O'Grady). Tyrone Power repeats his role from the 1937 film as a handsome reporter who targets a flighty heiress (Gene Tierney, taking over from Loretta Young) for ridicule. Sick of unwanted public attention, the heiress announces that she has secretly married Power, forcing him to endure the spotlight for a change. Several crosses and double-crosses later, Power and Tierney find that they're really in love after all. Personal item: This writer's favorite version of Love is News is the 1940 radio adaptation, which starred a wildly adlibbing Bob Hope. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, (more)
New Zealand-born filmmaker Jane Campion directs the darkly humorous family drama Sweetie. Thin and mousy Kay (Karen Colson) works in a factory and lives a dreary existence with her well-meaning boyfriend, Louis (Tom Lycos). One day, her sister Dawn (Genevieve Lemon) arrives with her so-called manager, Bob (Michael Lake). Nicknamed Sweetie, Dawn is everything Kay is not: boisterous, impulsive, and overweight. Kay is consumed with uptight phobias, while Dawn hangs on to her unrealistic childhood dreams of show business. Meanwhile, their parents, Gordon (Jon Darling) and Flo (Dorothy Barry), are involved in a strange separation. Kay, Louis, and Gordon trick Dawn so they can visit Flo at a ranch in the Australian outback. Everyone gets together back at the family home where Dawn pulls an immature stunt, exposing the psychological realities of the situation. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Genevieve Lemon, Karen Colston, (more)
