Nick Copeland Movies

Joan Crawford is at her most glamorous (a different outfit and hairdo in each scene!) in the romantic melodrama Chained. Crawford plays Diane Lovering, the mistress of prominent Manhattan businessman Richard Field (Otto Kruger). Though she really isn't in love with him, she feels obligated to marry him when he divorces his wife (Margaret Gateson) for Diane's sake. By the time the divorce is final, Diane has fallen for wealthy South American rancher Mike Bradley (Clark Gable), but, out of loyalty to Field, she abruptly cuts off her relationship with Mike, who does his best to hide his pain. It looks as though both Diane and Mike will continue to suffer stoically until the plot is resolved by the understanding and remarkably generous Field. Clarence Brown's glossy direction helps to make this star vehicle seem more important than it really is. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Harold Lloyd's second talkie finds The Bespectacled One playing a shoe clerk in Honolulu. Harboring dreams of becoming an executive, Lloyd passes himself off as a millionaire to heiress Barbara Kent. As the plot merrily rolls along, Harold stows away on a ship bound for the mainland, and ends up at the top of a dizzying skyscraper. In a reversal of his dilemma in 1923's Safety Last, Lloyd must find the safest way to climb down the building--with the dubious assistance of bumbling black janitor Willie Best (here derogatorily billed as "Sleep 'N' Eat"). Attempting to extend his silent-film technique into the talkie era, Harold Lloyd is successful about half the time. The climactic building-climbing sequence, though amusing, pales in comparison to Lloyd's earlier excursions into "high and dizzy" humor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though Busby Berkeley is the director of I Live for Love, there isn't a dancer or dance number anywhere to be seen. Dolores Del Rio stars as hot-tempered South American stage favorite Donna Alvarez, who is brought to America to headline a Broadway show. The film details the backstage romance between Donna and her handsome co-star Roger Kerry (played by Everett Marshall, an opera star who'd last been seen on-screen in 1930's Dixiana). They fight, make up, fight again, make up again, and fight and make up again. And that's all, folks. The film's singular highlight is the barbershop-quartet lampoon "A Man Must Shave". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Legion of Terror was the first in a cycle of "exposé" films inspired by the upsurge in such hate groups as the KKK, the Silver Shirts and the Black Legion. The titular vigilante organization, which cloaks its extortionist motivations in the guise of patriotism, has a habit of sending mail bombs to its enemies -- and that's how Postal Inspector Frank Marshall (Bruce Cabot) becomes involved in the story. Before Marshall is able to expose the Legion of Terror for the cowards that they are, the group has murdered Don Foster (Ward Bond), the brother of Marshall's sweetheart Nancy (Marguerite Churchill). The film closes with an admonition to the audience to avoid getting suckered in by similar phony "All American" organizations. Legion of Terror was released just before Warner Bros. similar (and superior) The Black Legion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Obviously filmed several years before its 1938 release, Meet the Mayor serves as a vehicle for popular Broadway comedian Frank Fay. Unfortunately, Fay's smug, self-satisfied line deliveries had never played well on screen, and didn't here. The star is cast as Spencer Brown, elevator operator in a backwoods hotel. As the community's resident philosopher, Brown's support is highly coveted in the upcoming mayoral race. The outcome of the plot is decided by a hidden recording device developed by Brown's friend and confidante Harry Bayliss (George Meeker in a rare sympathetic role). Fulfilling the film's leading-lady obligations is Ruth Hall, who by the time Meet the Mayor hit the screens had retired to become the wife of cinematographer Lee Garmes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on Frederick Hazlett Brennan's play Battleship Gertie, Miss Pacific Fleet is short and snappy "gobs and gals" affair. At the urging of gold-digging showgirls Gloria Foy (Joan Blondell) and Mae O'Brien (Glenda Farrell), goofy promoter Augustus Frietag (Hugh Herbert) comes up with a "Miss Pacific Fleet" contest, with each 10-cent purchase at a seaside amusement park representing one vote. Hundreds of sailors participate in the voting process, including Kewpie Wiggins (Allen Jenkins), who hopes that his "goil" Gloria will emerge the winner -- whereupon she and Mae will confiscate the money collected and skeedaddle to New York. Naturally, there are a few snags in this scheme, especially when the girls both fall for handsome marine sergeant Tom Foster (Warren Hull). Marie Wilson pilfers most of the film with her standard dizzy-dame routine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior senator, puts in a call to Governor Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee) reporting the news. Hopper then calls powerful media magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), who controls the state -- along with the lawmakers. Taylor orders Hopper to appoint an interim senator to fill out Foley's term; Taylor has proposed a pork barrel bill to finance an unneeded dam at Willet Creek, so he warns Hopper he wants a senator who "can't ask any questions or talk out of turn." After having a number of his appointees rejected, at the suggestion of his children Hopper nominates local hero Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), leader of the state's Boy Rangers group. Smith is an innocent, wide-eyed idealist who quotes Jefferson and Lincoln and idolizes Paine, who had known his crusading editor father. In Washington, after a humiliating introduction to the press corps, Smith threatens to resign, but Paine encourages him to stay and work on a bill for a national boy's camp. With the help of his cynical secretary Clarissa Sanders (Jean Arthur), Smith prepares to introduce his boy's camp bill to the Senate. But when he proposes to build the camp on the Willets Creek site, Taylor and Paine force him to drop the measure. Smith discovers Taylor and Paine want the Willets Creek site for graft and he attempts to expose them, but Paine deflects Smith's charges by accusing Smith of stealing money from the boy rangers. Defeated, Smith is ready to depart Washington, but Saunders, whose patriotic zeal has been renewed by Smith, exhorts him to stay and fight. Smith returns to the Senate chamber and, while Taylor musters the media forces in his state to destroy him, Smith engages in a climactic filibuster to speak his piece: "I've got a few things I want to say to this body. I tried to say them once before and I got stopped colder than a mackerel. Well, I'd like to get them said this time, sir. And as a matter of fact, I'm not gonna leave this body until I do get them said." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1930 with Lawrence Tibbett and Grace Moore, the robust Sigmund Romberg operetta New Moon was given another airing in 1940 as Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald vehicle. Set in 18th century Louisiana, the story concerns the relationship between haughty plantation owner Marianne de Beaumanoir (MacDonald) and her handsome bondservant Charles (Eddy). Actually a French nobleman in disguise, Charles leads his fellow bondsman in revolt, commandeering a ship and heading out to sea. He ends up capturing a vessel carrying Marianne and a cargo of mail-order brides. Though the bondsmen and the brides get along just fine, the romance between Marianne and Charles is noticeably strained, but the French Revolution comes along to solve everyone's problems. The soaring Romberg musical score includes such favorites as "One Kiss", "Stout-Hearted Men" and "Lover Come Back to Me", all performed con brio by the stars. Comedian Buster Keaton, whose supporting role was cut from the final release print of New Moon, can still be glimpsed among the bondsmen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Working on the theory that the only thing funnier than Laurel and Hardy is two sets of Laurel and Hardys, Our Relations milks its central mistaken-identity situation for all it's worth. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two solid citizens, happily married and highly respected in their community. One morning, Hardy receives a letter from his mother, containing an old photo of himself and Laurel with their twin brothers, Alf Laurel and Bert Hardy. Mamma also reveals that Alf and Bert turned out to be "bad lads" and ran off to sea, and that reportedly they'd been hanged for taking part in a mutiny. "Isn't that calamitous!" remarks Hardy, who conspires with Laurel to hide the facts about their no-good brothers from their wives. Meanwhile, in another part of town, the S.S. Periwinkle pulls into port. Among the crew members are the selfsame Alf and Bert, who have decided to entrust their pal Fin (James Finlayson) with their month's salary. Fin has promised to invest the dough so that the boys will become millionaires "before you can say Jack Robinson". Alf and Bert are then summoned to the cabin of their captain (Sidney Toler), who orders them to pick up a valuable package for him, then meet him later at Denker's Beer Garden. While waiting for the captain at Denker's, Alf and Bert are captivated by a pair of waterfront floozies, Alice (Iris Adrian) and Lily (Lona Andre). Talked into buying the girls a huge meal for which they haven't the necessary funds, Alf and Bert decide to go back to Fin and reclaim their money, leaving the contents of the captain's package-a valuable pearl ring-with tough waiter Joe Groagan (Alan Hale) as security. Later, Laurel and Hardy take their wives Betty (Betty Healy) and Daphne (Daphne Pollard) to lunch-and, inevitably, they end up at Denker's Beer Garden, where the equally inevitable mix-ups begin to occur. Things snowball from bad to worse before both sets of twins, an angry captain, a disgruntled Fin, the wives, the floozies, a genial drunk (Arthur Housman) and a brace of smooth gangsters (Ralf Harolde and Noel Madison) all converge at the upscale Pirate Club. Several slapstick complications later, Laurel and Hardy are captured by the gangsters, who threaten to dump the boys in the river with their feet encased in cement if they don't cough up the pearl ring. Alf and Bert come to the rescue, and all is well, at least until the film's boffo punchline. Based on W.W. Jacobs' short story The Money Box, Our Relations is perhaps the most plot-heavy of Laurel and Hardy's features for Hal Roach Studios. It is also one of their funniest, as well as their most lavishly produced. The film was officially listed as "A Stan Laurel Production"-as if Laurel hadn't been the prime creative force behind all of the team's previous films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Student Tour looks like an MGM musical two-reeler that was expanded to feature length as it went along. Charles Butterworth and Jimmy Durante are teamed respectively as fey philosophy professor Lippincott and brash athletic coach Hank. The two comics shepherd a co-ed college rowing team on a world tour, with orders to keep the team's rowdy captain Bobby (Phil Regan) out of trouble. Lackluster leading lady Maxine Doyle co-stars as Ann, a plain-jane who takes off her glasses at a Monte Carlo masquerade ball and wins BMOC Bobby for her very own. Ann also brings the story to a rousing conclusion by substituting for the cockswain in the climatic rowing race, urging the team to victory with a peppy song-and-dance. Nelson Eddy also shows up to sing "The Carlo," a pulsating number obviously inspired by "Bolero." The film's giddy highlight is "Taj Mahal," in which a group of pretty students (including a young Betty Grable) go swimming in the pool of the famous Indian shrine! According to studio publicity, a crop of genuine college coeds were hired to play the students in Student Tour, but to the trained eye they sure look like standard Hollywood extras and bit players. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

American mousetrap salesmen Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy journey to Switzerland, reasoning that where there's cheese, there's mice. When they innocently try to pay their dinner bill with phony money, Stan and Ollie are put to work in the kitchen of the Alpen Hotel. Their enforced stay coincides with the visit of famed composer Walter Woolf King, who has come to Switzerland to soak up "local color." He also hopes to write an operetta that will succeed on its own merits, without the lovely voice of his lovely actress wife Della Lynd winning over the audience. But Lynd is determined to star in King's latest opus, and to that end she finagles Stan and Ollie into getting her a job as a hotel chambermaid. As the plot rolls along its merry way, Ollie labors under the misapprehension that Lynd is in love with him. Swiss Miss is, on the whole, one of Laurel and Hardy's weaker feature films, with far too much emphasis on the romantic leads and way too many forgettable songs ("Crick Crick Crick Here the Cricket" is a particular low point). But the team's individual scenes save the show, even though Stan Laurel, who'd been ill during production, looks like he's about to fall asleep at any moment. Best bits: Stan hoodwinking a St. Bernard out of a cask of brandy; Ollie serenading Lynd while Stan accompanies him on tube; and the legendary sequence, immortalized by film critic James Agee, wherein Stan and Ollie try to transport a piano across a rope bridge high above an alpine chasm--only to confront a gorilla! One of the screenwriters of Swiss Miss was Jean Negulesco, later the director of such memorable films as Mask of Dmitrios, Three Strangers, Titanic and How to Marry a Millionaire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Errol Flynn makes his Hollywood screen debut as a corpse in this funny, fast-paced whodunit, the third of six Perry Mason vehicles produced by Warner Bros. from 1934 to 1937. Flynn's murder victim is one Gregory Moxley, the estranged and long-thought dead husband of Perry's client, Rhoda Montaine (Margaret Lindsey), who, in the meantime, has married a millionaire (Donald Woods) and is ripe for blackmail. Perry agrees to meet with Moxley, but finds him very much dead and this time for good. Rhoda naturally becomes the prime suspect, but, with the able assistance of his wisecracking secretary Della Street (Claire Dodd), Perry is able to reveal the identity of the real culprit, not in the courtroom this time, but at an elegant cocktail party. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide