Yola D'Avril Movies

When Lucille Fletcher took on the challenge of expanding her classic 30-minute radio suspenser Sorry, Wrong Number into an 89-minute feature film, she opted on the Citizen Kane approach, filling the plotline to the brim with revelatory flashbacks. Barbara Stanwyck stars as bedridden hypochondriac Leona Stevenson, who while trying to make a call from her bedroom telephone gets her wires crossed and inadvertently overhears two men plotting a murder. Anxiously, Leona wades through telephone-company bureaucracy to trace the call, never catching on -- until it's too late -- that the murder being planned is hers. A series of flashbacks details the disintegrating marriage between the wealthy Leona and her weakling husband Henry (Burt Lancaster), and Henry's subsequent disastrous get-rich-quick schemes involving chemist Waldo Evans (Harold Vermilyea) and a surly gangster (William Conrad). It would have been a near-sacrilege to alter the radio play's ironic ending, which fortunately remains intact on film. Sorry Wrong Number was first heard on radio's Suspense series in 1943, with Agnes Moorehead as the harried Mrs. Stevenson (a role she'd repeat several times on radio and on stage). Though disappointed that she wasn't chosen to star in the film version, Moorehead took some satisfaction in the fact that a recording of the original radio program was played constantly on the set to help keep Barbara Stanwyck "in the mood". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There's slightly more fancy than fact in this lavish film biography of legendary American composer George Gershwin, but oh! That music! Director Irving Rapper had wanted Tyrone Power to play Gershwin, but Power was still serving in the Marines, so Rapper had to settle for Robert Alda--who isn't bad at all, just a trifle over-enthusiastic. The film traces Gershwin's rise from a "song plugger" for a Manhattan music publishing company to the heights of international fame and fortune. Gershwin's first big hit is "Swanee," introduced on Broadway by Al Jolson (who plays himself, making his first film appearance in six years). In collaboration with his lyricist brother Ira (well played by Herbert Rudley), George pens hit after hit in show after show. Impresario Charles Coburn is happy with this, but George's kindly old music teacher Albert Basserman wants his prize pupil to aspire to something more artistic. Gershwin responds with "Rhapsody in Blue", which debuts at Aeolian Hall in 1924 under the baton of bandleader Paul Whiteman (also playing himself). As his fame and workload grows, George finds he has no time at all for romance; the two (fictional) ladies in his life, both of whom eventually realize that they'll always have to play second fiddle to Gershwin's muse, are musical comedy star Joan Leslie and socialite Alexis Smith. Gershwin continues to compose such masterpieces as "An American in Paris", "Cuban Overture", "Concerto in F" and the 1935 folk opera Porgy and Bess. He will not allow himself to rest on his laurels, ruthlessly pushing himself to top all his previous accomplishments. Finally, the strain proves too great: George Gershwin dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1937, at the age of 39. Featured in the cast as themselves (in addition to those already mentioned) are Gershwin's lifelong friend Oscar Levant, producer George White, and Broadway performers Tom Patricola and Hazel Scott. Morris Carnovsky and Rosemary DeCamp play George's parents, while Julie Bishop is cast as Ira's wife Lee, who is saddled with the film's silliest line: "Ira, promise me that you'll never become a genius." Alternately hokey and inspired, Rhapsody in Blue has weathered the years as one of Hollywood's most solid biopics. And, as a bonus, we are treated to a virtually complete performance (running a full reel) of the title composition. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Long underappreciated by film buffs, The Lady Has Plans is a screwball comedy disguised as an espionage melodrama. The title character is not star Paulette Goddard, as one might assume, but Nazi agent Rita Lenox (Margaret Hayes), who sneaks into Lisbon with a secret message written on her bare back in invisible ink. Through a case of mistaken identity, perky Sidney Royce (Paulette Goddard), the assistant to globetrotting radio correspondent Kenneth Harper (Ray Milland) is presumed to be Rita Lenox. At the behest of British Intelligence chieftan Ronald Dean (Roland Young), who hopes to extract the vital information supposedly scribbled on Sidney's back, our nonplussed heroine is treated like royalty in a posh Lisbon hotel. Meanwhile, Rita, having summed up the situation, simultaneously poses as Sidney. Once he's figured out what's what, Harper manages to waylay Rita and intercept the message, but neither he nor Sidney are out of the woods yet-not if German spy chief Baron Von Kemp (Albert Dekker) has anything to say about it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Angry natives or a beautiful widow -- which poses the greater threat? Keith Brandon (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is an archeologist leading a team of researchers -- Richardson (Vincent Price), Loren (Alan Hale), Forrester (George Sanders), and Scott (John Howard) -- who are exploring the jungles of South America in search of Inca artifacts. The scientists discover they are not welcome when Richardson is felled by a poisoned dart, and a difficult situation is made all the more complicated when Stephanie (Joan Bennett), Richardson's wife, appears unannounced to pay her husband a visit. Stephanie must join Brandon's party as they make their way through the wilderness, with angry and armed natives surrounding them on all sides, and in the midst of the tension and danger, both Brandon and Forrester discover they're attracted to to Stephanie, leading to a dangerous rivalry among the crew. Green Hell would turn out to be the last feature film completed by the noted and idiosyncratic horror director James Whale; while he was credited with another film, They Dare Not Love, Whale in fact backed out of the project before shooting was finished. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Unguarded Hour opens with prosecutor Sir Alan Deardon (Franchot Tone) in the midst of a murder trial. He gets his conviction, while his wife, Lady Helen (Loretta Young), sits furrow-browed on the sidelines. Helen had witnessed the murder and thus can prove that the condemned man (Dudley Digges) is innocent. But she cannot come forth with this information without revealing a past indiscretion in her husband's life, for which she is being blackmailed. To make a long story short, which MGM didn't, Sir Alan ends the film not as a prosecutor in a murder case, but as the prosecuted. Based on a play by Ladislas Fodor and Bernard Merivale, The Unguarded Hour represented the Hollywood debut of that splendidly satanic villain Henry Daniell, cast to type as the blackmailer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, policemen pursue a convicted killer as he diligently searches for the real culprit. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Hoping to match the success of his boisterous (and Oscar-winning) silent comedy Two Arabian Knights, and at the same time indulging in his fascination for aviation, erstwhile Hollywood producer Howard Hughes came up with the relentlessly silly Sky Devils. Spencer Tracy and George Cooper star as Wilkie and Mitchell, a pair of buddies who are so stupid that the make Laurel and Hardy seem like Rhodes Scholars. After losing their lifeguard jobs because they can't swim, Wilkie and Mitchell try to avoid being conscripted into the army when WW1 breaks out. Unfortunately for the army, our heroes are put in uniform and placed under the charge of irascible Sergeant Hogan (William "Stage" Boyd). Before long, the boys go AWOL, dallying long enough to fight over the lovely Mary (Ann Dvorak). Eventually, Wilkie and Mitchell inadvertently take off in an airplane, accidentally blow up a German munitions dump, and by a gosh-darned miracle are lauded as heroes--long enough to screw up yet again for the finale. As hard as it is to believe that Spencer Tracy would appear in this low-brow extravaganza, it is even harder to comprehend the fact that the witty, urbane humorist Robert Benchley penned much of the "Sez you--sez me" dialogue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, a woman is blamed for another's suicide and ends up deported to Germany. Just as WW I erupts she marries a German commandant's son to keep from being sent to an alien prison camp. While her husband sells classified information to the British in order to pay her way back to England, she has an affair with another officer, causing her husband to kill himself. The young widow then tears up his note to preserve his honor and leaves Germany in the hope that she will again see her lover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Russian Revolution provides the backdrop of this costume epic that centers around a young nobleman who, with his maid, escapes from his homeland to Constantinople where the two marry and begin a new life as commoners. But though it seemed a good idea at the time, the aristocrat has trouble adjusting to the daily toil and grimness of his new existence and when he meets an exciting seductress he immediately, abandons his good, peasant wife. With his shady lady, the fellow tries to become a con artist, but it doesn't work. He decides to return to his wife, and gets there just as she is about to be sent back to Russia. Much of the film was shot in real homes in Constantinople. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The old reliable Paul Frank/Ladislaus Fodor stage play The Church Mouse was streamlined for the movies in the form of Beauty and the Boss. The "beauty" is fetching Marian Marsh, a stenographer in a staid Viennese financial institution. The "boss" is Warren William, a wealthy baron with a habit of dallying with pretty girls, then letting them down gently. But Marsh, who has a Cinderella complex, isn't about to be cast aside. The diffident Charles Butterworth injects a few genuine laughs into the pat and predictable proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A wealthy man's mistress abandons her luxurious life as a kept woman to be with the struggling Paris artist she has come to love in this third version of Robert W. Chambers' novel. It all began when she agreed to be his model. Soon they fall in love, and she decides to dump her rich old sugar daddy. Unfortunately, her relationship with the artist is tempestuous, and matters aren't helped by her former lover who tries to sabotage them at every turn. Though the artist wants to marry her, the woman isn't interested because he is too Bohemian and irresponsible. Fortunately, it all turns out to be an act and thanks to pressure from his conservative American family, marital bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Women Go On Forever is almost as old-fashioned as its title. Silent-screen queen Clara Kimball Young makes a comeback attempt as Daisy Bowman, the salty but lovable proprietress of an all-female boarding house. Like all landladies from the dawn of recorded time, Daisy takes special interest in the tribulations of her tenants. Special attention is given to shopgirl Betty (Marion Nixon), the course of whose romance with cabdriver Eddie (Paul Page) never runs as smooth as it should. Inevitably, gangsters intrude upon Daisy's establishment, leading to the tying up of several loose plot strands. The film was based on a play by Edward H. Peple, which had served as a rare dramatic vehicle for comedienne Mary Boland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide