James Ashmore Creelman Movies

F. Scott Fitzgerald was commissioned to write the story to this low budget crime drama for actor Glenn Hughes. In spite of this, the finished film was poor and did nothing for anyone's career -- except Hughes' co-star, a fresh young thing named Clara Bow. As she did in nearly all her early motion pictures, Bow just about steals the show away. Here, as a street urchin, she plays close to her real life persona. When Houdini Hart (Roland Young) tries to go straight, he is killed for his efforts. His wife Annie (Helena Adamowska) dies in childbirth and she transfers her fear onto her son. Although Kid Hart (Hughes) grows up to be a gang member, he's not a very effective one since he's a coward. A girl member of the gang, Orchid McGonigle (Bow) returns from the reformatory (obviously not reformed!) and takes a liking to the timid Hart, which angers gang leader Boris Smith (Osgood Perkins). When Smith kidnaps a boy and takes him to a Chinese opium den, Orchid tries to intervene and winds up in trouble. The Kid learns of her peril and finds the necessary courage to save her. Smith is killed and the Kid gets his girl. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This Paramount drama was based on the novel Face, by Lucy Stone Terrill. It was a change of pace for light comedienne Bebe Daniels. In a battle during the World War, Douglas Albright (Richard Dix) has a moment of cowardice which causes the death of his friend, Captain Banning (Joe King). When Albright comes back from the war, his fiancée, Helen Castle (Mary Astor), and her father, George (Frank Losee), can see that something is bothering him. So Castle sends him to take care of business in China -- and to pull himself together. While in China, Albright runs across Bannings' widow, Breta (Daniels), who has buried her sorrows behind a mask of revelry and fast living. Because he feels responsible for what she has become, Albright attempts to regenerate her and proposes marriage. When Breta discovers that he is sacrificing his relationship with Helen on her behalf, she kills herself so that the couple can reunite. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Produced but not directed by Cecil B. DeMille, The Coming of Amos nevertheless has many earmarks of a typical DeMille film, including a climax straight out of a gaslit melodrama. Rod LaRocque plays Amos Burden, a handsome Australian who takes a Riviera vacation. Here he falls in love with White Russian princess Jetta Goudal, who is tricked into marriage by lecherous Noah Beery. When Goudal declares her devotion to Amos, Beery spirits her away to his castle by the sea. She spurns his advances, whereupon Beery locks Goudal in the cellar and opens the floodgates, allowing the water to slowly pour in. "My last wife changed her mind down here!" leers Beery as Goudal screams for assistance. Amos comes dashing to Goudal's rescue in a thrilling finale that has since been excerpted in several compilation films (and is seldom taken seriously by modern audiences). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A novel by Fannie Hurst was tailored to the talents of Gloria Swanson in The Untamed Lady. La Swanson plays St.Clair Van Tassell, a spoiled-rotten millionairess. After several outrageous examples of wealth-flaunting, St. Clair's new husband Larry Gastien vows to "tame" her. This he does by refusing to cowtow to her tantrums and forcing her to take responsibility for the damage that she has selfishly wrought on others. And waddya know? She likes this treatment, emerging as a good and dutiful wife by film's end (Of course, it helps that she's tormented by guilt after causing serious injury to Larry in an auto accident). The trade magazine Variety summed up the overfamiliar plot of Untamed Lady thusly: "As true as Heinz has 57 kinds, so has Miss Swanson done 27 of these things." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gilda Gray, best-known for inventing the shimmy, shows off her talents as a Hawaiian dancer in this South Seas drama, based on the play by John B. Hymer and LeRoy Clemens. Percy Marmont plays his usual role -- a man, who, after having his heart broken, degenerates into a drunken mess. Bob Holden (Marmont) travels to a South Sea island, where he saves Aloma (Gray) from the unwanted attentions of another white man. Aloma is more than grateful -- she falls in love with Holden and spends the better part of the film trying to seduce him. This does not please her native lover Nuitane (Warner Baxter). Just when Holden has succumbed to Aloma's charms and is about to marry her, Sylvia, his old sweetheart (Julanne Johnson), comes to the island with her nasty new husband, Van Templeton (William Powell). Aloma comes to realize that Holden is still deeply in love with Sylvia. Meanwhile, Nuitane drowns Templeton during a storm. Aloma returns to Nuitane, and Holden is reunited with Sylvia. This picture made a fortune for Paramount. A version of the story was filmed again in 1941, with Dorothy Lamour in the role of Aloma. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Though conceived and executed as a silent film, The Circus Kid was outfitted with a sound prolog and music and sound-effects track so it could pass muster as a talkie. Pint-sized Frankie Darro, no mean acrobat in real life, stars as a preteen circus performer. Darro becomes an unwilling sidelines observer of a romantic triangle involving equestrienne Helene Costello, lion-tamer Joe E. Brown (in a rare dramatic performance) and circus newcomer Sam Nelson. The climax finds Brown being mauled to death by his own lions (a sequence that sparked Brown's first real-life heart attack-though not because of the lions, who were relatively benign). One critic summed up The Circus Kid with a terse "You can sleep through it." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gang War stars Jack Pickford as speakeasy musician Clyde Baxter and Olive Borden as Flowers, a dime-a-dance girl. When Clyde falls in love with Flowers, he finds he has a deadly rival in the form of gangster Blackjack (Eddie Gribbon). During an all-out war between two rival gangs, Blackjack proves he's a "right" guy by sacrificing himself to save Clyde and Flowers. The brutish Walter Long is right in his element as the film's "bad" gangster. Completed as a silent film, Gang War was converted into a part-talkie with an irrelevant prologue sequence involving reporters Lorin Raker and David McKee; appearing in this sequence is a young Mabel Albertson, long before she became everybody's meddling mother-in-law on TV. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a aging illusionist falls in love with his comely young assistant. Unfortunately, she is enamored with the young thief who has become the magician's student. Another assistant gets jealous of the affair and tells the master. In retaliation, the thief kills the snitch and then himself at his trial. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After serving as comedy relief in three big-budget RKO Radio musicals, the comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were rewarded with their own starring vehicle, the dated but still delightful Half Shot at Sunrise. Set in Paris during WWI, the film casts Bert and Bob as Gilbert and Tommy, two AWOL doughboys. When not posing as officers to impress the local mademoiselles, our heroes spend their time ducking a pair of diligent MPs, and while doing so make the acquaintance of the hoydenish Annette (Dorothy Lee), the daughter of dyspeptic Colonel Marshall (George MacFarlane) and Marshall's snooty wife (Edna May Oliver). Tommy falls in love with Annette, while Gilbert is equally enamored of Olga (Leni Stengel), the Colonel's sultry lady friend. Hoping to save the boys from court-martial by turning them into war heroes, Annette and Olga contrive to send Gilbert and Tommy to the Front with "borrowed" secret orders. After nearly being killed by enemy shellfire, the two errant soldiers are arrested and brought to Marshall's headquarters, averting a firing squad only by revealing that their "secret orders" were actually love letters written to the Colonel by the flirtatious Olga. There are many funny routines in Half Shot at Sunrise (the scene in which Wheeler and Woolsey pose as French waiters is a riot), and the songs, particularly the Wheeler-Lee duet "Whistling the Blues Away," are quite entertaining. But the film's highlight is an uncharacteristic "straight" scene toward the end, when a panic-stricken Woolsey risks death to rescue an injured Wheeler from No Man's Land (and never mind that the scene ends with a satirically comic punch line). Half Shot a Sunrise proved beyond all doubt that Wheeler and Woolsey could carry a picture by themselves; they would remain top box-office attractions until Bob Woolsey's death in 1938. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first of many official and unofficial screen versions of Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game was put together by producer Willis O'Brien and directors Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel in 1932. Leslie Banks stars as loony Russian count Zaroff, a renowned big-game hunter who tires of stalking animals and begins hunting down the "most dangerous game"-human beings. Luring unwary victims to his remote island, Zaroff wines and dines them, gives them a few hours' head start to run into the jungle, then hunts them down with rifle and bow and arrow. As his grisly trophy room demonstrates, Zaroff hasn't missed yet. Shipwreck survivors Joel McCrea and Fay Wray are Zaroff's latest quarry. "First the hunt, then the revels!" declares Zaroff, casting a lecherous eye towards the wide-eyed Ms. Wray. The original Connell story had no heroine, but who wants to watch Joel McCrea lose most of his clothing while scurrying through the jungle? The Most Dangerous Game was filmed on RKO's standing King Kong sets during a lull in the production of that classic film, utilizing most of the Kong personnel (actors Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Noble Johnson, Steve Clemente and Dutch Hendrian; producer O'Brien; director Schoedsack; composer Max Steiner). While the plot has been reshaped and recycled many times since 1932, RKO's only official remake of Most Dangerous Game was 1945's A Game of Death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"How would you like to star opposite the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood?" Enticed by these words, brunette leading lady Fay Wray dyed her hair blonde and accepted the role of Ann Darrow in King Kong -- and stayed with the project even after learning that her "leading man" was a 50-foot ape. The film introduces us to flamboyant, foolhardy documentary filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), who sails off to parts unknown to film his latest epic with leading lady Darrow in tow. Disembarking at Skull Island, they stumble on a ceremony in which the native dancers circle around a terrified-looking young girl, chanting, "Kong! Kong!" The chief (Noble Johnson) and witch doctor (Steve Clemente) spot Denham and company and order them to leave. But upon seeing Ann, the chief offers to buy the "golden woman" to serve as the "bride of Kong." Denham refuses, and he and the others beat a hasty retreat to their ship. Late that night, a party of native warriors sneak on board the ship and kidnap Ann. They strap her to a huge sacrificial altar just outside the gate, then summon Kong, who winds up saving Ann instead of devouring her. Kong is eventually taken back to New York, where he breaks loose on the night of his Broadway premiere, thinking that his beloved Ann is being hurt by the reporters' flash bulbs. Now at large in New York, Kong searches high and low for Ann (in another long-censored scene, he plucks a woman from her high-rise apartment, then drops her to her death when he realizes she isn't the girl he's looking for). After proving his devotion by wrecking an elevated train, Kong winds up at the top of the Empire State Building, facing off against a fleet of World War I fighter planes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though she certainly didn't need the money, silent film favorite Colleen Moore made a comeback bid during the 1933-34 film season, appearing prominently in four productions. The least prepossessing of these was Columbia's Social Register, in which Moore is cast as good-natured chorus girl Patsy Shaw. Our heroine falls in love with wealthy Charlie Breene (Alexander Kirkland), but his snobbish parents oppose the relationship. To prove Patsy's unworthiness, Charlie's parents invite her to a high-society party. Turning the tables, Patsy wins over the hoity-toity crowd with her down-to-earth ebullience. As a last-ditch effort, Charlie's mother (Pauline Frederick) tries to frame the girl in a compromising position, but at the last moment the old lady relents and accepts the girl as her daughter-in-law. The whole thing was remarkably similar to MGM's The Girl From Missouri, but not so similar as to constitute plagiarism. Humorist Robert Benchley makes a brief but hilarious appearance as "himself." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide