Joseph Crehan Movies

Desperately tired of playing man-eating "vamps," Theda Bara begged to play Ouida's 1901 Foreign Legion heroine, "Cigarette," in the fourth screen version of this enduring drama. The Legion's mascot, Cigarette falls for an Englishman, Bertie Cecil (Herbert Heyes), and when he is sentenced to a firing squad, she heroically takes the bullet herself. Directed by Bara regular J. Gordon Edwards (the step-grandfather of Blake Edwards), Under Two Flags was a major critical and popular success despite obvious Long Island locations standing in for the North African desert. Making his screen debut in this film, handsome but somewhat stodgy Herbert Heyes embarked on a long career than lasted until the late '50s; he is perhaps best remembered for playing Montgomery Clift's millionaire uncle in A Place in the Sun (1951). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Nancy Carroll's popularity enabled her to survive the melodramatic excesses of Stolen Heaven with little if any damage to her career. Carroll plays Mary, the streetwalker sweetheart of born-loser Joe (Phillips Holmes). Engineering a $20,000 robbery, Mary and Joe draw up a pact to spend all the money foolishly and then commit suicide. But as time passes, they decide that they might as well live. Joe confesses to the robbery and willingly marches off to jail, secure in the understanding that Mary will await his return. Louis Calhern makes an excellent first impression as the film's nominal villain, only to completely disappear from view in the final scenes. The 1938 musical drama Stolen Heaven is not a remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Scrappy society belle Geraldine (Ann Sothern) is The Hell Cat in this peppy Columbia potboiler. Fed up with the intrusions of brash newspaper reporter Dan Collins (Robert Armstrong), Geraldine punches him in the nose -- whereupon he promptly punches her back. Feeling humiliated, Geraldine plots a diabolical revenge by vamping Dan, intending to drop him like a hot potato the minute he falls in love with her. Instead, Dan ends up saving Geraldine's hide by capturing a gang of crooks who've been using her father's yacht to smuggle aliens. In his first major film role, Benny Baker scores a comic bull's-eye as photojournalist Snapper Dugan. The basic plotline of Hell Cat would be reworked by Columbia several times, most memorably as Atlantic Adventure in 1935. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: "I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me!" But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the "screwball" comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The Man with Two Faces is based on The Dark Tower, a stage comedy-mystery by Alexander Woollcott and George S. Kaufman. Edward G. Robinson is at his hammy best as flamboyant, temperamental, but withal endearing theatrical actor-manager Dawson Wells. Mary Astor co-stars as Damon's beloved actress sister Jessica, making a stage comeback after a disastrously unhappy marriage. Alas, Jessica's caddish husband Stanley Vance (Louis Calhern) soon returns, exerting a Svengali-like hold on the poor girl and setting her back on the road to ruin. Unable to buy off Vance, Wells plots a clever revenge, and shortly afterward, Vance is visited by one Monsieur Chautard, an effusive European producer with murder on his mind. The central "gimmick" in Man With Two Faces, which was adroitly concealed in the original Dark Tower, is a bit more obvious on screen due to the dynamic personalities involved. Also, the play's ending, in which Vance's murderer is allowed to escape scot-free by a sympathetic detective, was obviously altered at the very last minute to appease the new Production Code. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is the second movie version of Willa Cather's Pulitzer Prize winning novel that tells the story of a bride-to-be whose fiance is near-fatally injured by the jealous husband of a woman he had an affair with. The poor young woman is so upset by the situation that she swears she will never love another and takes off to live in an isolated mountain retreat. There she feels terribly sorry for herself. One day she is moping along a rough trail, falls and hurts herself. Fortunately, she is rescued by an elderly lawyer who helps her heal both physically and psychologically. The grateful girl ends up marrying him. Unfortunately she meets a handsome young man with whom she falls passionately, but chastely in love. Now she regrets marrying the old attorney. She decides to tell the lawyer her true feelings. When she is finished he promptly keels over with a heart attack. It might be noted that after Cather saw this film, she forbade the further sale of her works to Hollywood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After briefly enjoying an "A" budget as Mae West's vis-a-vis in Belle of the Nineties, Johnny Mack Brown returned to the "B"-picture mills with Columbia's Against the Law. Brown plays ambulance driver Steve Wayne, whose devotion to his interne pal Bert Andrews (George Meeker) supersedes all else in his life, including his romance with Martha Gray (Sally Blane). When Bert gets mixed up with gangsters, Steve tries to bail him out, nearly losing his job as a result. Ultimately Bert is bumped off by the villains, leading to a pulse-pounding climax as Steve commandeers his ambulance to bring the mob to justice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell, the female Laurel and Hardy of Warner Bros., share top billing in We're in the Money. This time Blondell and Farrell are cast respectively as Ginger and Dixie, intrepid process-servers for goofy lawyer Homer Bronson (Hugh Herbert). Things go from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous when the girls are ordered to serve a summons to Ginger's wealthy boyfriend C. Richard Courtney (Ross Alexander), who's entangled in a breach-of-promise suit. Our heroines are also called upon to deliver their missives to a nightclub singer (Phil Regan), a brawny wrestler (Man Mountain Dean) and a surly gangster (Lionel Stander), with predictable but hilarious results. With so many expert farceurs in the cast, poor Ross Alexander virtually ends up as dramatic relief! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joe E. Brown's extensive circus and burlesque training serve him well in this familiar but likeable yarn. Brown and Ann Dvorak stars as small-time vaudevillians Joe and Fay Wilson, presently employed by a seedy burlesque troupe. Also on tour with the Wilsons is society girl Peggy (Patricia Ellis), who's merely joined the troupe for a few laughs. Publicity agent Daniel Wheeler (William Gargan) offers Joe a big-time contract, but only if he will team up with Peggy. Surprisingly, Fay goes along with this, though she soon has reason to regret her generosity. The film's many intrigues give way to slapstick when Joe commandeers an airplane to expedite a reconciliation with his ever-loving spouse. The film's comic highlight is Joe E. Brown's "drunken mouse" routine, which later caused him courtroom trouble when comedian Bert Wheeler insisted that the bit was his personal property. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romance, a social worker employed by Traveler's Aid finally is able to show her love to a construction foreman responsible for building the Golden Gate Bridge. She has loved him for nine years and is delighted that they can finally be together. Unfortunately, both of them are so busy that it is difficult to be together. Fortunately, they do eventually connect. The film contains actual footage of the construction of the great San Francisco Bridge. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Broadway legend Al Jolson and his second wife Ruby Keeler costarred in this thin backstage musical. In keeping with Jolson's earlier starring films, the plotline is melodramatic to the point of risibility. Jolson plays an irresponsible performer whose unprofessional antics incur the wrath of Actor's Equity. Suspended from the stage, Jolson spends all his money on gambling, but is "cured" after his wife (Ruby) is wounded when Jolson shoots it out with a rival. Musical highlights include "A Latin From Manhattan", "A Quarter to Nine" (Jolie's at his best here) and the title number. The script of Go Into Your Dance is predictably full of references to the offstage Jolson/Keeler relationship; reportedly, Al's on-set adlibs became more insulting and abusive as the marriage deteriorated. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast in the title role Dinky is Jackie Cooper, who wasn't all that dinky by 1935. Mary Astor co-stars as Mrs. Daniels, Dinky's mother, who has been framed on a fraud charge and sent to prison. By bundling her son off to military school, Mrs. Daniels is able to keep her shame a secret from Dinky. Upon learning the truth, our young hero voluntarily pulls out of the school and takes up residence in an orphanage. But now it's his turn to hide the truth from his mother, by pretending via correspondence that he's still a cadet in good standing. This surfeit of self-sacrifice comes to a merciful end when Mrs. Daniels is proven innocent. Featured in the cast as bullying cadet Jackie Shaw is Richard Quine, who like Jackie Cooper grew up to become a busy TV and movie director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a man marries his Russian lover and discovers that she has a large extended family. He is utterly overwhelmed and decides that the only way he will be able to free himself of their burden will be to make them famous. Along the way, he keeps running into the bold lover of his new bride. Mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide