Gary Cooper Movies
American actor Gary Cooper was born on the Montana ranch of his wealthy father, and educated in a prestigious school in England -- a dichotomy that may explain how the adult Cooper was able to combine the ruggedness of the frontiersman with the poise of a cultured gentleman. Injured in an auto accident while attending Wesleyan College, he convalesced on his dad's ranch, perfecting the riding skills that would see him through many a future Western film.After trying to make a living at his chosen avocation of political cartooning, Cooper was encouraged by two friends to seek employment as a cowboy extra in movies. Agent Nan Collins felt she could get more prestigious work for the handsome, gangling Cooper, and, in 1926, she was instrumental in obtaining for the actor an important role in The Winning of Barbara Worth. Movie star Clara Bow also took an interest in Cooper, seeing to it that he was cast in a couple of her films. Cooper really couldn't act at this point, but he applied himself to his work in a brief series of silent Westerns for his home studio, Paramount Pictures, and, by 1929, both his acting expertise and his popularity had soared. Cooper's first talking-picture success was The Virginian (1929), in which he developed the taciturn, laconic speech patterns that became fodder for every impressionist on radio, nightclubs, and television.
Cooper alternated between tie-and-tails parts in Design for Living (1933) and he-man adventurer roles in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) for most of the 1930s; in 1941, he was honored with an Oscar for Sergeant York, a part for which he was the personal choice of the real-life title character, World War I hero Alvin York. One year later, Cooper scored in another film biography, Pride of the Yankees. As baseball great Lou Gehrig, the actor was utterly convincing (despite the fact that he'd never played baseball and wasn't a southpaw like Gehrig), and left few dry eyes in the audiences with his fade-out "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech. In 1933, Cooper married socialite Veronica Balfe, who, billed as Sandra Shaw, enjoyed a short-lived acting career. Too old for World War II service, Cooper gave tirelessly of his time in hazardous South Pacific personal-appearance tours.
Ignoring the actor's indirect participation in the communist witch-hunt of the 1940s, Hollywood held Cooper in the highest regard as an actor and a man. Even those co-workers who thought that Cooper wasn't exerting himself at all when filming were amazed to see how, in the final product, Cooper was actually outacting everyone else, albeit in a subtle, unobtrusive manner. Consigned mostly to Westerns by the 1950s (including the classic High Noon [1952]), Cooper retained his box-office stature. Privately, however, he was plagued with painful, recurring illnesses, and one of them developed into lung cancer. Discovering the extent of his sickness, Cooper kept the news secret, although hints of his condition were accidentally blurted out by his close friend Jimmy Stewart during the 1961 Academy Awards ceremony, where Stewart was accepting a career-achievement Oscar for Cooper. One month later, and less than two months after his final public appearance as the narrator of a TV documentary on the "real West," Cooper died; to fans still reeling from the death of Clark Gable six months earlier, it seemed that Hollywood's Golden Era had suddenly died, as well. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Directly after his successful screen teaming with Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, Gary Cooper returned to Paramount's "Zane Grey" western series with Fighting Caravans. Cooper is cast as Clint Belmet, a hell-raisin' frontiersman facing a misdemeanor jail term. To avoid arrest, Clint talks French-born Felice (Lily Damita) into posing as his wife. Having successfully eluded the Law, Clint joins a wagon train heading to California, with Felice in tow. He callously tells her that he expects to exercise his "husbandly" prerogative in bed, but changes his tune when he genuinely falls in love with the girl. Eventually, Clint assumes some responsibility for the first time in his life by becoming the wagon train's sole trail guide, rescuing the other passengers from the villainous machinations of gun-runner Lee Murdock (Fred Kohler). Several stock shots and outtakes from Fighting Caravans (retitled Blazing Arrows for television) later showed up in another Zane Grey series entry, Wagon Wheels (1934). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, (more)
- 1931
In this drama, a remake of Sal of Singapore(1929), the captain of a freighter becomes an instant father when his crew rescues a drifting Navy boat that contains a baby. The captain decides that he will keep the baby and take it back to the U.S. instead of turning it in to the authorities. He begins advertising for a "mother" for the baby to help him while he runs the ship. His call is answered by a woman with a dubious, secret past. During the interview she lies about her character and qualifications and gets the job and a free cruise to the States. It is smooth sailing until one of the sailors recognizes her and attempts to blackmail her into sleeping with him. Fortunately, the captain rescues her and tosses the loutish seaman into the sea. The woman immediately falls for the good captain who has also fallen for her. They encounter more rough seas when, upon docking in New York, the captain is arrested for attempted murder. The woman becomes his witness, but when he learns the truth about her, he loses his respect and they go their separate ways. She again becomes a loose woman, and he begins to drink heavily. When the baby gets deathly ill, the two are reunited--this time it is for good, and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert, (more)
- 1930
Out of sympathy, a grown lad fighting for Canada in World War I agrees to let an older childless woman adopt him, becoming unexpectedly close to her just before he's shipped off to combat in this sentimental war drama. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Beryl Mercer, (more)
- 1930
Like so many campaigners before him, Gary Cooper joins the Foreign Legion to "forget." At a smoky cabaret in Morocco, Cooper meets café entertainer Marlene Dietrich (making her American film debut). A woman with a very checkered past, Dietrich toys with the callow Cooper, but eventually falls hopelessly in love with him, even to the extent of throwing over wealthy Adolphe Menjou. The now-famous final image of Morocco finds la Dietrich, decked out in her cabaret finery and wearing high heels, heading after Cooper's regiment across the desert with the rest of the "camp followers." There is considerably more to the story than that, but these bare-bones details should be enough to entice anyone familiar with the exotic eroticism of the Josef von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich vehicles. Should you need more enticement, let us inform you that Morocco is the film in which Marlene Dietrich, dressed in a man's tuxedo for her nightclub act, kisses a female patron squarely on the lips. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, (more)
- 1930
Considered the best of the all-star "studio" musicals of 1929 and 1930, Paramount on Parade utilized the talents of practically everyone on the Paramount Pictures payroll. Under the supervision of British musical-comedy favorite Elsie Janis, 11 top directors contributed to the project: Dorothy Arzner, Otto Brower, Edmund Goulding, Victor Heerman, Edwin H. Knopf, Rowland V. Lee, Ernst Lubitsch, Lothar Mendes, Victor Schertzinger, Edward Sutherland and Frank Tuttle. Introduced by masters of ceremonies Jack Oakie, Skeets Gallegher and Leon Errol, the film is a vaudeville-like maelstrom of musical duets, comedy sketches, occasional dramatic interludes, and spectacular production numbers. To mention all the highlights would take a book in itself but among them are Nancy Carroll's rendition of "Dancing to Save Your Sole" (performed inside a giant shoe!); Maurice Chevalier (and chorus) soaring heavenward in "Sweeping the Clouds Away" ; child actress Mitzi Green's dead-on impersonations of Chevalier, George Arliss, Moran & Mack and Helen "Boop-a-doop" Kane; Ernst Lubitsch's witty staging of an Apache dance in the style of a polite boudoir farce, with Chevalier (again) and Evelyn Brent; Clara Bow's saucy "I'm True to the Navy Now" ; the wish-fulfillment sketch "Impulses," in which George Bancroft and Kay Francis delightedly upset a dinner party by saying what's really on their minds; and best of all, "Murder Will Out," a murder-mystery parody wherein Fu Manchu (Warner Oland) bumps off Sherlock Holmes (Clive Brook) and Philo Vance (William Powell) when they refuse to give him proper credit for his killing of Jack Oakie. Only the dramatic sketch with Frederic March and Ruth Chatterton truly creaks when seen today. Originally released at 102 minutes, Paramount on Parade is presently available only in an 80-minute version, with all its Technicolor sequences missing: casualties include the elaborate "Drink to the Girl of My Dreams" number, directed by Edmund Goulding and featuring Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur and Fay Wray, and Harry Green's dialect song "Isadore the Toreodor". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Chevalier, Richard Arlen, (more)
- 1930
With a title like The Texan and a star like Gary Cooper, one might assume that this 1930 actioner is a western -- and one would be wrong! Set in 1885, the film stars Gary Cooper as Enrique, alias Quico, alias the Llano Kid. Whatever the name, he's a bold and daring bandit, and after shooting a young gambler in self-defense he's got a price on his head. Looking for a safe hideout, the Llano Kid agrees to a scheme hatched by a crooked lawyer named Thacker (Oscar Apfel). Our hero agrees to pose as the long-lost son of Mexican aristocrat Senora Ibarra (Emma Dunn), a role for which he is extensively coached by Thacker, who stands to collect a huge reward when he delivers the "son" to the old woman. Upon learning that the real son was the gambler he killed, the Llano Kid calls off the scheme, whereupon Thacker hires a band of thugs to steal Senora Ibarra's fortune. With the help of his long-time adversary, Bible-quoting sheriff John Brown (James Marcus), the Llano Kid foils Thacker's plan and in the bargain wins the hand of Senora Ibarra's lovely niece Consuelo (Fay Wray). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Fay Wray, (more)
- 1930
This third film version of Rex Beach's rugged Yukon novel The Spoilers was also the first talkie adaptation. This time, Gary Cooper and William "Stage" Boyd are cast as gold prospector Glennister and crooked Alaska politician McNamara. In partnership with Dextry (James Kirkwood), Glennister is the proud owner of the Midas gold mine, but McNamara and the corrupt Judge Stillman (Lloyd Ingraham) conspire to gain control of the mine, using legal but highly unethical maneuvers. Preparing to shoot each other full of holes, Glennister and McNamara are temporarily dissuaded by Glenister's sweetheart Helen (Kay Johnson), who suggests that the courts handle the dispute. But saloon owner Cherry Malotte (Betty Compson), jealous of Helen, lies to Glennister, telling him that Helen and McNamara are conspiring to cheat him again. Matters come to a head when Glennister and McNamara settle their differences with a spectacular fistfight. During filming of The Spoilers, the stars of the 1914 version William Farnum and Tom Santschi showed up frequently on the set, ostensibly to serve as "technical advisers" for the climactic set-to (one suspects that their advice was merely for the benefit of the Paramount publicity department). The Rex Beach story would be filmed again in 1942 with John Wayne and Randolph Scott, and yet again in 1955 with Jeff Chandler and Rory Calhoun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Kay Johnson, (more)
- 1930
Amidst the furor of the Civil War a courageous Union captain, nursing a broken heart, volunteers for spy duty. Masquerading as a Confederate sympathizer who has obtained important Union plans, he eventually lands at the plantation of home of a southern belle with whom he falls in love. Her love for him proves problematic because part of his duty is to get arrested so he can slip the bogus plans to the Confederate army. Unfortuantely, every time he is about to be arrested, the belle intervenes and gets him released. After finally escaping her influence long enough to complete his mission, he is captured and sentenced to stand before a firing squad. But is this end or will salvation again come in the nick of time? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Mary Brian, (more)
- 1929
Director Lewis Milestone presided over The Betrayal, a part-talkie which represented the only screen teaming of Hollywood's Gary Cooper and Germany's Emil Jannings. Second-billed Esther Ralston stars as Swiss peasant girl Vroni, who enjoys a blissful summertime romance with vacationing Viennese artist Andre Frey (Cooper). For diverse reasons, the young lovers decide to keep their affair a secret until Andre can return to Vroni. But when he does come back to Switzerland, Andre learns to his dismay that Vroni has been forced into a marriage with wealthy burgomeister Poldi Moser (Jannings). To justify Andre's presence, Vroni introduces him as a young man who has just lost his sweetheart (which, of course is true) -- whereupon Poldi sympathetically invites Andre to be a guest in his house. The situation is sheer hell for both hero and heroine, but they brave it out for the sake of the likable Poldi. Seven years later, Andre comes back to the village for another visit, prompting Poldi to again extend his hospitality to the increasingly morose artist. Unable to withhold his emotions any further, Andre begs Vroni to run off with him, threatening to kill himself if she doesn't. She refuses but agrees to one last rendezvous in the village. While speeding down a toboggan slide, an accident occurs, killing Vroni and seriously injuring Andre. At the funeral, Poldi discovers the truth about the relationship between Andre and Vroni. He swears revenge, only to discover that Andre has already died from his injuries. Left alone in his grief, Poldi philosophically vows to forgive and forget, preferring to harbor only good thoughts towards his late wife and their mutual "friend." Boasting a plotline dangerously close to Ethan Frome, Betrayal was co-produced by David O. Selznick. In later years, director Lewis Milestone tended to dismiss this film, recalling only that Emil Jannings was an extremely difficult man to work with. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emil Jannings, Esther Ralston, (more)
- 1929
If Hollywood gossip columnists can be believed, Gary Cooper and Lupe Velez were lovers -- and very passionate ones -- when they co-starred in Paramount's Wolf Song. Cooper is cast as Sam Lash, a fur trapper with a randy reputation when it comes to women. But when Sam meets tempestuous Mexican damsel Lola Salazar (Velez), he falls deeply in love for the first time in his life. Lola's aristocratic father Don Solomon (Michael Vavitch) disapproves of the romance, forcing Sam to kidnap the girl and high-tail it to the mountains. After a brief period of marital contentment, Sam gets restless and leaves Lola, preferring the company of his trapper pals Gullion (Louis Wolheim) and Rube (Constantin Romanoff). But he relents and returns to his bride -- making short work of his bitter enemy, Indian leader Black Wolf (George Rigas). Completed as a silent film, Wolf Song was released as a part-talkie by virtue of the inclusion of three songs, two performed by Lupe Velez and one by radio crooner Russ Columbo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Lupe Velez, (more)
- 1929
Gary Cooper, as a lanky Wyoming ranch and foreman, places his gun on a poker table after being insulted by one of the gamblers and intones, "If you want to call me that . . . smile." That much quoted line's origin is in this early sound version of the Owen Wister novel, The Virginian, directed by Victor Fleming. When the Virginian meets his old friend Steve (Richard Arlen), he gives him a job on his crew at the Box H Ranch near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Newly arrived in town is the new schoolmarm, Molly Wood (Mary Brian), and both men take notice. Afterwards, in a saloon, The Virginian encounters the evil Trampas (Walter Huston), and the two get into an argument over a dancer. The Virginian calls Trampas' bluff but, although Trampas backs down, he seethes inside. Afterwards, following a christening party, The Virginian walks Molly back home, and a friendship grows between the two that burgeons into love. But when Steve joins up with Trampas and his gang of rustlers and is captured by a posse, The Virginian is forced to supervise Steve's lynching. After that, Molly spurns The Virginian. However, when The Virginian is wounded, Molly forgets all that, and nurses him back to health. They decide to finally marry, but Trampas interferes with their plans --Trampas wants The Virginian to leave town, and he is out gunning for him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, (more)
- 1928
The fertile creative mind of director Gregory LaCava is well in evidence throughout Half a Bride. Esther Ralston stars as Patience Winslow, an impulsive heiress who marries a much-older man whom she really doesn't love. While honeymooning on her yacht without her new husband, Patience is marooned on a desert island with handsome Captain Edmunds (Gary Cooper). Her head full of notions that she's gleaned from radio dramas and pulp novels, Patience demands that she and Edmunds enter into an in-name-only marriage, observing the responsibilities and proprieties of matrimony without the sexual entanglements. So guess who's in love with whom by the time Patience and Edmunds are rescued? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1928
George Fitzmaurice directed this romantic World War I drama, which was First National Pictures' entry into the epic war/romance genre popular in the late 1920s (The Big Parade, Wings). Colleen Moore stars as the French gamin Jeannine Bertholot who is a good luck charm to a seven-man platoon of the British Air Force that uses the lilac fields of a small French village as their base. Jeannine is the niece of Madame Berthelot (Eugenie Besserer), who lodges and cares for the platoon. After a bumpy start, one of the flyers from the platoon, Philip Blythe (Gary Cooper) falls in love with her. Philip is reluctant to tell Jeannine that he loves her, but one morning before a dangerous mission, he declares his love. During the mission, Philip is shot down, and Jeannine frantically arranges for an ambulance crew to remove Philip's body from the wreckage. But during the rescue operations, Jeannine loses sight of Philip. To find him again, she begins an exhausting search of all the military hospitals, hoping to see Philip for one last time. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Colleen Moore, Gary Cooper, (more)
- 1928
Director William Wellman's follow-up to Wings was based in part on his own WWI experiences with the Lafayette Flying Corps. Four young men from various walks of life sign up for the French escadrille known as "The Legion of the Condemned." In essence, all four are running away -- from the law, from love, from themselves. Whenever a suicide mission comes up, the four men draw cards to see who will fly off to near-certain doom. With his best friend Byron Dashwood (Barry Norton) already haven died in combat, Gale Price (Gary Cooper) waxes fatalistic when he draws the high card next time around. As he prepares to drop a spy behind enemy lines, Gale flashes back to the events leading up to this moment -- specifically, to his ill-fated romance with Christine Charteris (Fay Wray), whom he has been led to believe is a German spy. Returning to the present, Gale discovers that his passenger is Christine, who is actually an operative in the French secret service. Before explanations can be exchanged, Gale is obliged to fly Christine to her rendezvous point. She is arrested as a spy and sentenced to be executed but is saved when the firing squad is decimated by a bombing raid, paving the way for a tender reunion with Gale. The screenplay for Legion of the Condemned was written by Wellman and his Wings collaborator John Monk Saunders. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fay Wray, Gary Cooper, (more)
- 1928
This silent romantic adventure is set in the Sahara desert, and purports to be a sequel to the successful Beau Geste. Like the first, it is based on a story by Christopher Wren and features members from the original cast. The story begins as three Legionnaires do not return promptly from furlough and end up in the poky. There, the hero duels with a traitor and wins, causing him to gain the designation "Beau Sabreur." Later he is sent into the desert to learn the ways of the Arabs and to help forge a peace treaty. There he encounters a lovely American journalist. Meanwhile the defeated traitor tries to stop the treaty from going through. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Evelyn Brent, (more)
- 1928
Shopworn Angel was the first of three film versions of the Dana Burnet short story Private Pettigrew's Girl. Nancy Carroll stars as footloose cabaret entertainer Daisy Heath, who is totally oblivious to world affairs until she sees a parade of soldiers marching off to WWI. Later on, she inaugurates a casual romance with Texas-born private William Tyler (Gary Cooper). Daisy treats their brief affair as "just one of those things," but Tyler falls deeply in love with her. Panicking when Daisy begins keeping time with Broadway roue Bailey (Paul Lukas), Tyler goes AWOL on the eve of his embarkation to France. He seeks out and finds Daisy, whereupon the two spend a romantic day and night together. At last realizing that she is genuinely in love with Tyler, Daisy agrees to marry him but faints just before the preacher is able to complete the ceremony. Borne off by the MPs, Tyler is bundled onto his transport ship and sent off to the battlefields of France. Her outlook on life profoundly changed by this experience, Daisy forsakes her carefree ways, promising to wait faithfully for Tyler's return. Shopworn Angel was remade in 1938 with Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart, then again in 1959 as the Sophia Loren vehicle That Kind of Woman. A silent film, the 1929 Shopworn Angel was released with a handful of musical sequences, including Nancy Carroll's solo rendition of A Precious Little Thing Called Love. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Carroll, Gary Cooper, (more)
- 1928
"Doomsday" is the name of a valuable patch of British farm property owned by self-made millionaire Percival Fream (Lawrence Grant). Impoverished aristocrat Mary Viner (Florence Vidor) lives in a cottage on Fream's property, with her aged and infirm father Captain Viner (Charles A. Stevenson). Another tenant of Doomsday is young farmer Arnold Furze (Gary Cooper), who tills the land with pride, even though he doesn't own it. Fream hopes to make Mary his wife as proof that he's "arrived" in society, but she falls in love with Furze. Even so, Mary can't resist the creature comforts offered her by Fream, so she marries him instead of the man she truly loves. Eventually, Mary realizes that her marriage is a mistake, and after the death of her father she asks for an annulment. Knowing full well that Fream will cut her off without a cent, Mary shows up at Furze's doorstep, humbly offering her services as his housekeeper. Though still feeling betrayed by Mary, Furze accepts her offer, and soon this "business arrangement" rekindles their love. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Florence Vidor, Gary Cooper, (more)
- 1927
After a lengthy apprenticeship in bits and secondary roles, Gary Cooper was promoted to stardom in the Zane Grey western Arizona Bound. Cooper plays a character known only as The Cowboy, who rides into a small frontier town on the same day that a big gold shipment is departing. It so happens that the shipment has been targeted for robbery by two separate villains: "Trusted" driver Buck O'Hara (Jack Dougherty), and a swarthy stranger (Christian J. Frank). Even so, it is The Cowboy who is accused of the robbery, and soon our poor hero finds himself the guest of honor at a "necktie party." He escapes the mob in time to expose the crooks, recover the gold, and win the heart of the heroine (Betty Jewel). Discovered by stunt-rider Marilyn Mills, young Gary Cooper had appeared in a pivotal role in Samuel Goldwyn's production of The Winning of Barbara Worth and Paramount saw him as their answer to MGM's Tim McCoy or Columbia's Jack Holt. Cooper's contract would be shared by Goldwyn and Paramount for years to come ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Betty Jewel, (more)
Contrary to popular belief, Clara Bow was already Paramount's biggest box-office draw when she starred in this delightful rags-to-riches comedy. But It, from the fertile mind of bizarre best-selling author Elinor Glyn, remains perhaps the quintessential Bow picture. Not that the story of a poor shopgirl falling for her rich employer was anything new (by 1927, Bow could play that role in her sleep), but It came complete with one of the best publicity campaigns in Hollywood history. Glyn herself publicly pointed to Bow as the personification of It, "that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force." Paramount made sure that Glyn's lofty description of the word sunk in and even convinced the author to explain It in the film to leading man Antonio Moreno (who, according to Glyn, simply oozed It as well). The lightweight comedy behind all this hoopla centered on little Betty Lou Spence, a vivacious salesgirl invited to dinner at the Ritz by foppish wastrel and self-described "old fruit" "Monty" Montgomery (William Austin in one of those roles later personified by Edward Everett Horton). Betty is not paying attention to her dinner companion, however, but is ogling department store heir Cyrus Waltham (Moreno). He notices her too, and takes the salesgirl on a whirlwind tour of Coney Island. But when Betty is mistakenly assumed to be the unmarried mother of an infant (actually her roommate Molly's), stern Cyrus no longer sees her as proper marriage material. Betty, of course, gets her man in the end and Waltham's snooty girlfriend ("other woman" specialist Jacqueline Gadsden) ends up in the drink. Delivering all the vivacious punch expected of a Bow comedy, It takes time out for a couple of rather poignant scenes. With the hindsight that Brooklyn's own Bow was never fully accepted by Hollywood society despite her stardom, it is touching to watch Betty being ostracized at the snobbish Ritz; and Bow is never more affecting than when she realizes that Moreno is offering diamonds and pearls instead of marriage. Priscilla Bonner, as Bow's drab, single-mother roommate, adds a touch of realism to her brief role, enviously observing Betty's frivolity. If It only added to Bow's brilliant success, the film did little for the intelligent Bonner. To the end of her life, Bonner maintained that accepting featured billing in It lost her any chance of true stardom. A very young Gary Cooper, has a bit as a reporter and director Josef Von Sternberg reputedly took over for Clarence Badger during a brief illness. Despite its rather trite Cinderella plot, It magnificently demonstrates why Bow's guileless flapper came to define an entire decade. It is heartbreaking to realize that her decline had already set in, and Bow's very public troubles and eventual career destruction were lurking right around the corner! ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, (more)
- 1927
Kitty Flanders (Yvonne Pelletier), Jean Waddington and Ted Larrabee (Don Marion) are all "children of divorce" -- the two girls are left in a convent school by their mothers and Ted's upbringing is sketchy at best. When the three of them grow up, Ted (now played by Gary Cooper) falls deeply in love with Jean (the beautiful Esther Ralston). Kitty (Clara Bow) loves Vico, an impoverished prince (Einar Hansen), but she refuses to marry him because her mother, Katherine (Hedda Hopper), has drilled into her the necessity of marrying for money. So Kitty sets her sights on the wealthy Ted, even though Jean is her friend. After a night of drunken revelry, Ted wakes up to find he and Kitty are married. Even though he is desperately unhappy, Jean doesn't want their parents' mistake repeated and refuses to allow him to seek a divorce so that he can marry her. A few years later, things have gotten much worse for Kitty and Ted. Although they have a baby, it does nothing for the marriage and Ted does everything he can to avoid his unwanted wife. Then Kitty finds out that, for religious reasons, Vico can never marry a divorced woman. Since she can see no other way out, she poisons herself so that Ted and Jean can be together. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clara Bow, Esther Ralston, (more)
- 1927
No relation to the earlier John Ford western of the same name, The Last Outlaw was a vehicle for Paramount's up-and-coming action star Gary Cooper. The actor is cast as frontiersman Buddy Hale, who endeavors to prove that young Ward Lane (Jack Luden) is innocent of murder. He does this primarily because he's fallen in love with Ward's pretty sister Janet (Betty Jewel). But when Hale is appointed sheriff, he is obliged to track down Ward and arrest the boy, convincing Janet that Hale has betrayed her brother. It turns out that Ward was actually guilty, and that he's also the head of a vicious outlaw gang. Ultimately, Ward expires in a hail of bullets, and Hale and Janet are reunited. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Jack Luden, (more)
- 1927
Young Paramount stars Gary Cooper and Thelma Todd, the latter a recent graduate of the studio's acting school, starred in this otherwise average Zane Grey Western directed by studio hack John Waters. It was Waters who, having spotted young Cooper in a screen test, recommended the lanky newcomer for Arizona Bound (1927). That film was successful enough for Paramount to conjure up Nevada, in which a once notorious gunfighter takes a respectable job on a ranch. Cooper's "Nevada" is charged with protecting the ranch owner's pretty daughter (Todd), arousing the enmity of ranch foreman William Powell, who is in love with the girl. The villainous foreman leaks a rumor of his rival's dark past to the sheriff, and the former outlaw is soon on the run again. But along the way, he catches a gang of cattle rustlers led by -- surprise -- William Powell. Thus rehabilitated, Nevada is free to marry lovely Thelma. Despite the strong cast -- in retrospect, at least -- Nevada was considered a rather weak entry in Paramount's long Zane Grey series and actually did little to further Cooper's career prospects. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, William Powell, (more)
- 1927
Wings, the first feature film to win an Academy Award, tends to disappoint a little when seen today. Too much time is afforded the wheezy old plotline about two World War I aviators (Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen) in love with the same woman (Jobyna Ralston), while the comedy relief of El Brendel is decidedly not to everyone's taste. But during the aerial "dogfight" sequences, the film is something else again: a grand-scale spectacular, the likes of which has never been duplicated, not even by more expensive efforts like Hell's Angels (1930) and The Blue Max (1965). Twenty-eight-year-old director William Wellman, himself a wartime aviator, was fortunate enough to have the full cooperation of the US War department at his disposal (even though his legendary temper nearly lost him that cooperation on more than one occasion!) Brilliantly handled though the aerial scenes may be, they are matched by the Earthbound combat sequences, including the now-famous shot of a long trench caving in on hundreds of unfortunate doughboys. The storyline is as follows: Jack Powell (Rogers) and David Armstrong ($owell) hate each other during basic training, grow to like each other, and fall out again while competing for the affections of Sylvia Lewis (Ralston). Mary Preston (Clara Bow) sacrifices her own nursing career to save a drunken Powell from disgrace, Powell goes on a rampage when he believes his pal Armstrong has been killed, inadvertently shoots down Armstrong while decimating the German air corps, and is finally reunited with the nurse. Wrapped up in nurse's garb throughout most of the film, the ebullient Clara Bow is permitted a sequence in which, disguised as a Parisian floozie while trying to rescue a revelling Rogers, she displays a great deal of epidermis. One of the film's chief claims to fame is its "introduction" of Gary Cooper (who'd actually been in films since the early 1920s), in a brief but crucial role as veteran flyer with a cheerily fatalistic attitude. When originally released, Wings included a sequence lensed in the wide-screen "Magnascope" process; even when seen "flat", however, the film contains some of the best flying sequences ever captured on celluloid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, (more)
