Ricardo Cortez Movies

Broadway Bad stars Joan Blondell as a wisecracking but goodhearted chorus girl whose husband (Ricardo Cortez) is an abusive lout. Blondell's plight makes the headlines, which results in an upswing in her career. Rather than wallow in self-pity, she trades on the publicity to become a star, while hubby mutters dark promises of revenge. This film was based on the real-life relationship between Broadway star Hal Skelly and a promiscuous young actress who assumed several professional names. Though its cast and subject matter might suggest that Broadway Bad is a Warner Bros. epic, the picture was actually produced and released by Fox Studios. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This melodrama chronicles three decades in the life of the New York located title house beginning at the turn of the century when a chorine falls in love with a wealthy young man. He loves her too and this inspires the lass to leave her sugar daddy, marry and move into the beautiful home that is located very close to Park Avenue. The pair are deliciously happy and even more so when a daughter is born. Unfortunately, unhappiness comes in the form of the jilted lover who returns and threatens to kill himself unless the former dancer comes back to him. Concerned, she visits his apartment to dissuade him from suicide. A struggle ensues with his gun and he dies leaving her to spend twenty years in jail for the alleged crime. Fortunately, her husband's belief in her innocence and his devotion never wavers. Unfortunately, he ends up killed on the front lines during WW I. It is 1925 when the hapless heroine is finally released from prison. She finds herself confused by the many dramatic changes that have turned refined New York into the wild Big Apple of the 1920s. She is also upset that her late husband's family refuses to let her see her grown daughter. They pay her a large sum to stay a stranger. On a subsequent ocean cruise she joins forces with a card sharp and becomes a wealthy con artist. They decide to work in a speakeasy on 56th Street. Surprise, it turns out to be her old home and in it is still the beautiful Florentine medallion that once symbolized the undying love between the woman and her husband. Still she opens the house for its disreputable business. One night her daughter, a compulsive gambler, who of course, doesn't recognize her own mother, shows up and loses a lot of money. She and the card sharp get in a terrible row and the young girl shoots him. Her mother then tries to take the rap but the speakeasy owner doesn't buy it and tells her he'll cover for her on the provision that she remain in the house forever. She accepts the dubious proposition and the story ends. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Loaned to MGM by her home studio of Warner Bros., Loretta Young suffers her way through the title role in Midnight Mary. A good girl led astray, Mary (Young) endeavors to save the life of her boyfriend Tom (Franchot Tone) by killing the aptly named Leo the Rat (Ricardo Cortez). As her case is heard in court, the clerk goes over Mary's record, and at this point the flashbacks begin, stretching all the way back to her days as an unwanted orphan. One bad break leads to another, and by the time she reaches adulthood Mary is mixed up with a gang of crooked gamblers. For the sake of Tom, a well-connected socialite who loves her unquestioningly, Mary tries to go straight, but her past, and the ill-fated Leo the Rat, catch up with her. No matter what disaster befalls her in Midnight Mary, Loretta Young always manages to look as though she's just stepped out of a beauty salon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Men of Chance refers to those well-dressed gentlemen who stake their fortunes upon the outcome of horse races. Ricardo Cortez plays Diamond Johnny Silk, a big-time gambler whose rough exterior hides the fact that he's scrupulously honest. Johnny's enemies, led by smooth but disreputable Dorval (John Halliday), dispatch seductress Marthe (Mary Astor) to convince our hero to poison his own horse before the upcoming Big Race. Instead, Astor falls in love with Johnny and marries him, resulting in disaster for Dorval and his stooges. Men of Chance was based on a story by Louis Weitzenkorn, of Five Star Final fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gary Curtis, aka Farnsbarns (Richardo Cortez), is really a former hoodlum hired to retrieve some compromising letters from gold digger Jenny Wren (Karen Morley). She, in turn, announces her retirement, but not before cajoling noted banker Priem Andes (H. B. Warner) into hosting a farewell party at his estate near Crestwood, "El Casa Andes." Also invited are three additional former "clients" of Jenny's: William Jones (Gavin Gordon), Senator Herbert Walcott (Robert McWade) and Eddie Mack (Richard "Skeets" Gallagher), all of whom are unaware of the purpose of the party and are therefore blithely bringing wives and girlfriends along. Also present at the Andes retreat are Jenny's kid sister Esther (Anita Louise),her boyfriend Frank (Matty Kemp, who just happens to be Andes' nephew, Jenny's wry maid Carter (Hilda Vaughn), and the banker's disdainful sister Faith (Pauline Frederick). The retiring gold digger's real purpose is revealed after she regales her former sugar-daddies with the tragic story of how her latest conquest, penniless, young Tom Herrick (Tom Douglas), threw himself off a cliff in the Adirondacks after she turned down his proposal of marriage. Victory, however, proves all too brief and the blackmailing gold digger is soon confronted with what appears to be the unfortunate young suitor's ghost. Soon, darts are flying everywhere, bodies fall, and trapdoors reveal hidden passageways. But Curtis, who arrives in the nick of time accompanied by assorted hoodlum friends, is never fooled by the fake Phantom of Crestwood and can reveal the real murderer shortly before the law arrives. The Phantom of Crestwood was based on the popular NBC "Hollywood-on-the-Air" radio program and the denouement of the film was the winning entry in a country-wide contest. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Flesh was one of the few big-studio films to deal with the subject of professional wrestling--at least until Hulk Hogan came along in the 1980s. Wallace Beery stars as a thickheaded waiter in a German beer garden who uses his muscles to clear out rowdy patrons. Beery channels his strength into a wrestling career, grappling his way up to the championship. His wife Karen Morley enjoys the creature comforts of Beery's success, but her heart belongs to her ex-lover Ricardo Cortez, and soon Karen is stepping out on her husband. Beery finds out and exacts a terrible revenge on Cortez--just minutes after Karen wises up and realizes she loves Beery after all. John Ford directed Flesh in a heavy Germanic fashion reminiscent of the Emil Jannings "cuckolded husband" melodramas of the 1920s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This first of three film adaptations of Dashiel Hammett's The Maltese Falcon plays at times like the road-company version of the more famous 1941 John Huston/Humphrey Bogart adaptation. Ricardo Cortez stars as a slick, rogueish edition of Sam Spade, using his office as a trysting place for his various amours. Bebe Daniels plays the Brigid O'Shaughnessy character, here rechristened Ruth Wonderly. Ruth hires Spade and his partner Miles Archer (Walter Long) to locate her missing sister. Archer is killed while on duty, confirming Spade's suspicion that Ruth's lost-sister story was a subterfuge. In fact, Ruth is one of several disreputable types in search of a valuable falcon statuette encrusted with jewels. Others mixed up in the quest for the "black bird" are portly Casper Gutman (Dudley Digges), Gutman's neurotic gunsel Wilmer (Dwight Frye, better known as Renfield from Dracula) and effeminate Joel Cairo (Otto Matiesen). It is giving nothing away at this stage of the game to note that, after all the various intrigues concerning the falcon have come and gone, Spade turns Ruth over to the cops as the murderer of Archer. As would be the case with the 1941 version, the 1931 Maltese Falcon does not use Hammett's original ending, in which Spade callously resumes his affair with Archer's widow (Thelma Todd). Instead, we are offered a jailhouse coda, where a suddenly compassionate Spade asks the matron to treat the incarcerated Ruth gently during her 20-year stay. When Maltese Falcon was due for a reissue in 1936, it was denied a Production Code approval on the basis of one single line: Archer's widow, spotting Ruth Wonderly in Spade's bedroom, exclaims "Who's that dame in my kimono?" In between the 1931 and 1941 versions of Maltese Falcon, there would be a heavily disguised reworking of the Hammett novel, Satan Met a Lady (1936), starring Warren William and Bette Davis. To avoid confusion with the 1941 remake, the 1931 Maltese Falcon has been retitled Dangerous Female for television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Loretta Young briefly contemplates using her sexual allure to get ahead in business in this sometimes frank but ultimately old-fashioned comedy-drama from Warner Bros. Packing her new husband, bandleader Johnny Saunders (Frank Albertson), off to Paris, Claire McIntyre (Young) sets her sight on her boss, wolfish advertising maven Robert J. Clayton (Ricardo Cortez). The latter's clumsy attempt to seduce the girl is interrupted by an enraged Johnny, however, and Claire comes to her senses. But Clayton doesn't take no for an answer and concocts a plan to sabotage the union. Big Business Girl was based on a College Humor magazine story by Patricia Reilly and H.N. Swanson. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a married couple who own a speakeasy aspire to go legitimate and open a gas station; unfortunately, they are perennially broke because the husband is addicted to gambling on the horses. Their situation makes them easy marks for a racketeer who uses the couple as a front. Fortunately, the couple overcome their weaknesses, save the needed money, and achieve their humble dream. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an impoverished young woman meets a millionaire who marries her on the spot and then begins pampering her with jewels and furs. When not attending to her every need, the business magnate works his mines so he can buy her some more. While he is gone, a gigolo makes advances upon her. At first she resists, but then gives in. When her husband hears of her weakness, he swears he will get revenge. He hires private detectives to make sure the two stay together. Every time the crook tries to abscond with her jewels, the gumshoes bring him back to the girl. When the wife tries to get away from him, the detectives ensure that she can't. In the end, the woman's first husband, who she never divorced, appears and ends up killed by the angry gigolo. He ends up convicted and imprisoned. The chastened woman then returns to her generous second husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ten cents a dance, that's what they pay her -- "her" being downtrodden taxi dancer Barbara (Barbara Stanwyck). The only thing Barbara sells is her time, or at least that's the story she gives her jellyfish husband Eddie (Monroe Owsley). But when wealthy Carlton (Ricardo Cortez) starts making goo-goo eyes at Barbara, Eddie accuses his wife of infidelity. This, in Eddie's mind, provides him with an adequate excuse to steal money from Carlton, which action leads to the no-good husband's downfall. Barbara's fate is more merciful: she ends up with Carlton, with whom she has fallen in love. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Crawford and Johnny Mack Brown star in this high budget horse opera from M-G-M. She is Joan Prescott, a spoiled debutante en route to the family ranch in Montana and he is the cowboy she meets and marries after impulsively departing the train at a whistle stop. Surprising everyone, Papa Prescott (Lloyd Ingraham) is only too willing to welcome Larry Carrigan (Mack Brown) into the family, Larry being exactly the opposite of the slick society swells that Joan usually dates. But our Joan just can't help cutting the rug with old beau Jeff Pelham (Ricardo Cortez) and a jealous Larry slugs him. An angry Joan hops the next train back to New York but suddenly finds herself a victim of a gang of outlaws. A gang that seems mighty familiar! Co-written by executive producer Irving Thalberg's sister Sylvia, Montana Moon comes complete with songs by house composers Arthur Freed, Nacio Herb Brown and Herbert Stothart, including "The Moon is Low", "Happy Cowboy" and "Let Me Give You Love". ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this convoluted melodrama, a wife frames her husband, an inventor, for the murder she committed. He gets a life sentence, she assumes his name, sells the inventions and becomes quite rich. She then decides to marry her daughter to a man of quality. Unfortunately, the girl loves a working stiff. After 15 years, the real inventor is paroled and is introduced as a "family friend" to his own daughter. When he supports the girls desire to marry the common fellow, the conniving mother threatens to reveal the inventor's past to her. Later, a judge tells the girl's boyfriend the truth and a fight erupts resulting in the judge's demise. It was the inventor's old cellmate that did the killing, but the fiance gets the blame. Eventually the inventor straightens the whole mess out, the wife begs forgiveness, and everybody lives happily-ever-after. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide