Alan Curtis Movies

Also released as The Great Awakening, New Wine purports to recreate an incident in the life of Austrian composer Franz Schubert. Though the real-life Schubert was chubby and homely, he is played on screen by the slim-and-handsome Alan Curtis. Unable to convince the world of his talent, Schubert is on the verge of starvation when he is rescued by a gorgeous patron: Countess Anna, portrayed by Curtis' then-wife Ilona Massey. In the film's most memorable scene, Ludwig Van Beethoven (Albert Basserman) advises Schubert to finish that Unfinished Symphony. It's that kind of picture. At least New Wine is full of glorious music, written by Schubert and his contemporaries and only slightly Hollywoodized in the arrangements. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Hollywood Cavalcade was a fictionalized history of silent films and the growth of the movie industry. Don Ameche portrays a character based on equal portions of Mack Sennett and D. W. Griffith, while Alice Faye's silent star is an amalgam of Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Ameche breaks into pictures with slapstick comedies, initiating the first "pie throwing" scene, with Buster Keaton the thrower and Alice Faye the throw-ee. Thanks to Ameche, Faye becomes a major comedy star, appearing in wild Keystone Kops chase comedies. But success goes to Ameche's head, and soon he's staging elaborate Intolerance-like historical spectacles. As Ameche's artistic aspirations climb, his relationship with the faithful Alice deteriorates. She finds solace with her young leading man (Alan Curtis) and becomes a top dramatic star. Having made and lost several fortunes, Ameche talks Alice into appearing in his "comeback" picture, but shortly before filming ends, she and her husband are in a serious auto accident. The husband is killed, and as Faye recuperates, Ameche agonizes over how he'll save his uncompleted masterpiece. He witnesses the premiere of Al Jolson's part-talking The Jazz Singer and decides to risk everything by scrapping his film and remaking it as a talkie. Faye, who's never really stopped loving Ameche, agrees to star in this new project. On a level of accuracy, Hollywood Cavalcade is for the birds, but it scores on its energetic performances and nostalgic appeal. As a bonus, several past movie greats appear in cameos: Al Jolson, Buster Keaton, Mack Sennett, Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin, Jimmy Finlayson, Hank Mann and even Rin Tin Tin Jr. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this interesting drama, a highly respected straight-arrow Irish cop is pleased when his son follows him onto the force. Unfortunately, the son is more interested in promotions than in upholding the law and he makes few friends among his peers. When he shoots a child caught stealing, the others frame him and he is sent to prison where his attitude becomes even worse than before. Upon his escape, the bad seed goes on a crime spree. He then learns that his wife has just borne him a son. When he goes to the hospital to see the babe, his father, who set this trap, arrests him and sends him back to the pokey, proving that in this case, justice is thicker than blood. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Sidney Howard/Paul de Kruf Broadway play Yellow Jack was transferred to the screen by MGM in 1938. The film is set at the turn of the century, when yellow fever was the Number One killer in Latin America. Army doctors Lewis Stone, Charles Coburn and Stanley Ridges gather in Cuba to attempt to find the cause and cure of the dreaded disease. Five US soldiers--Robert Montgomery, Buddy Ebsen, Alan Curtis, Sam Levene and William Henry--volunteer to expose themselves to yellow fever as a means to test the experimental vaccines. In a very well handled close-up setpiece, the audience discovers long before the medical staff that the humble mosquito is the disease carrier. The "Let me be the first to die" brand of heroics is sometimes hard to take, but otherwise Yellow Jack is inspiring entertainment in the grand old Hollywood tradition. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Louis Hayward plays an arrogant Cambridge student who emigrates to America and enrolls at the West Point. Hayward's superior attitude earns him the enmity of his fellow students and the derisive nickname "the Duke". Those viewers familiar with college pictures will know as early as the opening titles that Hayward is down deep a swell guy. He proves this by helping impoverished plebe Richard Carlson pay his college costs and winning a crucial hockey game against a Canadian team. While Hayward and his student companions all look a bit long in tooth to be West Pointers, 20-year-old leading lady Joan Fontaine fits right in to the predictable proceedings. Like most of producer Edward Small's films, Duke of West Point was a perennial attraction on TV's "Late Late Shows" in the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Guy Kibbee, moviedom's archetypal small-town bigshot, stars in RKO Radio's Don't Tell the Wife. On this occasion, Kibbee, playing Malcolm Winthrop, has greatness thrust upon him when he buys a few shares of supposedly worthless mining stock. Though it looks as though he and the entire town will be ruined financially, Winthrop emerges triumphant when he manages to outwit up a gang of stock swindlers. Lynne Overman has some good moments as one of the crooks, Steve Dorset by name, who intends to go straight for the sake of his spouse Nancy (the "wife" of the title, played by Una Merkel), but he can't resist trying to pluck a fat goose like Winthrop. The supporting cast of Don't Tell the Wife is filled to overflowing with familiar faces, none more familiar than RKO contractee Lucille Ball. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this adaptation of the operetta by Rudolf Friml, secret agent Nina Maria Azara (Jeannette MacDonald) is working undercover for the King of Spain as a singer known as the "Mosca del Fuego" or "Firefly." Her mission is to uncover Napoleon's plot to invade Spain before it is too late. This film features a variety of songs including "Donkey Serenade," "Love Is Like a Firefly," " and "When a Maid Comes Knocking At Your Heart." ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

Maxwell Anderson combined the Sacco-Vanzetti story with elements of the still-unsolved disappearance of Judge Crater, and the result was the blank-verse theatrical piece Winterset. Burgess Meredith, Margo and Eduardo Cianelli repeat their Broadway roles, respectively playing the grown son of an executed political radical, the woman who loves and stands by Meredith, and a menacing gangster with plenty to hide. 15 years after the execution, Meredith endeavors to clear his father's name, and to that end seeks out the judge (Edward Ellis) who presided over the trial, now a drunken, guilt-ridden derelict. Screenwriter Anthony Veiller remove most of Anderson's flowery dialogue and substituted a happy ending for the original play's cynically tragic denouement. Neither of these changes hurt the property, and in fact were heartily endorsed by Maxwell Anderson himself. But depression-era audiences, too wrapped in their own current problems to shed tears over the long-dead Sacco and Vanzetti, stayed away from Winterset in droves. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ann Sothern is a magazine model looking for a rich husband. Wealthy Gene Raymond attends a photo shoot; Sothern mistakes him for a male model and resists his advances. Eventually she falls for Raymond and decides to cease her search for quick wealth. The story resolves itself in a fast-moving hotel lobby climax, with misunderstandings piling up like dirty laundry. Smartest Girl in Town was one of Ann Sothern's shortest vehicles, zipping along at a mere 57 minutes but still getting top-of-the-bill bookings. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi