Frank Darien Movies

Former child actress Dawn O'Day changed her professional name for Anne of Green Gables, assuming the moniker of her character in the film, Anne Shirley. This first of three RKO films based on the novels of L. M. Montgomery finds young, orphaned, hoydenish Anne arriving at a Canadian household. Though it's an uphill climb, Anne eventually melts the hearts of her truculent foster parents O.P. Heggie and Helen Westley. Despite the unwarranted scrutiny of local gossip Sara Haden, Anne finds true love with stalwart Tom Brown. Anne of Green Gables proved successful enough to warrant a sequel, produced six years later and also starring Anne Shirley: 1940's Anne of Windy Poplars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The down-home Weaver family stars in this countrified drama set in Peaceful Valley where if things went any slower they'd be going backwards. Things pick up a bit when someone steals $50 from a widow. The townsfolk are outraged and Judge Weaver finds himself accusing the widow's cleaning lady of the crime. Unfortunately, the judge is very wrong. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Bad Bascomb is an expensive MGM western, tailor-made for the blubbery talents of Wallace Beery. Beery plays the badman of the title, whose heart is softened by a sweet little child (Margaret O'Brien at her most cloying). Just about to make a clean getaway, Beery realizes that the child is in danger of being killed by marauding Indians. He rides back to warn the cavalry, which results in his arrest but saves the girl. Sentenced to be hanged, Beery tearfully sends O'Brien off to her foster parents, never letting the precocious little tot know that he's about to have his neck stretched. Bad Bascomb is at its best whenever Beery shamelessly pulls every trick in the book to steal scenes from the estimable Margaret O'Brien. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Behind the Evidence is a standard Columbia crime programmer, directed with verve by veteran Lambert Hillyer. Norman Foster plays a millionaire who takes a job as a reporter after he's wiped out in the Stock Market. Foster's managing editor Samuel S. Hinds considers the young upstart to be a pain in the neck. But all is forgiven-at least until next time-when Foster solves a series of puzzling robberies. Shortly after Behind the Evidence went into the theatres, Norman Foster eschewed acting to become an accomplished director (Trivia note: Foster was the husband of actress Sally Blane, the former husband of Claudette Colbert, and the brother-in-law of Loretta Young. Just thought you'd like to know). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Greer Garson is dignity and integrity personified in the role of the real-life Edna Gladney. After several life experiences which rival daytime drama for unrelenting misery and melodrama, Edna marries flour-mill owner Sam Gladney (Walter Pidgeon). They have a baby, who dies shortly after Edna discovers that she can never have any other children. To give her life some meaning, Edna sets up the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society, which specializes in caring for illegitimate children and offering them for adoption. After her husband's death, Edna becomes a powerful political figure, succeeding in removing the stigma of illegitimacy by having that word stricken from all future Texas birth certificates; in this way, she honors the memory of her own half sister, who had killed herself upon discovering she was born out of wedlock. MGM thought enough of Blossoms in the Dust to film the production in Technicolor, a luxury usually reserved in 1941 for musicals or Westerns. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hopalong Cassidy gallops to the rescue once again in this seventh entry in the long-running series. This time the trouble begins when bad-guys begin harassing the townsfolk. In desperation, Hoppy's former gal sends him a plea for help. With guns a-blazing, he gets there just in time to round 'em up and throw 'em in the hoosegow. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young reprise their roles from the film Claudia, which followed the titular young couple as they dealt with the trials of parenthood. Claudia, a bit wiser than she was in the first film but still charmingly naive and a bit nervous, is struggling with the responsibilities of motherhood when a fortune teller predicts that something horrible will happen to her husband. Since David is soon to travel to the West Coast on business, Claudia tries to persuade him not to go, even though it could mean losing his job. Claudia is next convinced that the baby has contracted a fatal illness, though it turns out to be nothing more than the measles. And jealousy creeps into the relationship when Elizabeth (Mary Astor) starts consulting David on a building project, while Claudia is attracting the uninvited attentions of Phil (John Sutton), who happens to be married. Like its predecessor, Claudia and David was based on a series of short stories by Rose Franken, which also inspired a successful stage play and radio series. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Bette Davis earned an Oscar nomination for her role in this classic four-hanky tearjerker. Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) is a very wealthy Long Island heiress whose life is a constant whirl of cocktails, parties, and wild living. Despite her hedonistic lifestyle, Judith derives little pleasure from life except for her horses, cared for by stable master Michael O'Leary (Humphrey Bogart). When Judith begins suffering from headaches and dizzy spells, Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent) gives her the bad news: she has a brain tumor that could threaten her life if not treated immediately. Judith consents to surgery, and Frederick informs her that the operation was a success. A grateful Judith quickly falls in love with Frederick, and they plan to marry. However, the tumor returns, and when Judith discovers that she has only a few months to live, she calls off the wedding, convinced that Frederick is marrying her only as an act of pity for a dying woman. A major success and perennial favorite, Dark Victory was later remade as Stolen Hours with Susan Hayward and as a TV movie starring Elizabeth Montgomery. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Now known simply as Fashions, the lavish Warner Bros. musical Fashions of 1934 stars the unlikely but copacetic team of William Powell and Bette Davis. It all begins when genial con artist Sherwood Nash (Powell) transfers his base of operations from New York to Paris. Sensing that the fashion "racket" is a hot commodity, Nash puts all his energies into promoting heroine Lynn (Davis) as France's foremost fashion designer. Along the way, of course, Nash and Lynn fall in love, but first the plotline must find a nice way to dispose of Nash's former partner-in-crime The Duchess (Veree Teasdale), currently posing as a White Russian Countess. Fashions is the picture in which a bevy of Busby Berkeley beauties are dressed (but just barely) as harps, prompting the apocryphal admonition from a chorus girl's mother, "Mr. Berkeley, I didn't raise my daughter to be a human harp!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the tradition of Bureau of Missing Persons, Warner Bros's From Headquarters offers a methodical, semi-documentary look at modern law-enforcement methods. The story concentrates on the investigation of a single murder. The victim, seemingly respectable, was actually a vicious blackmailer, a fact that brings several shady supporting characters into the story. Chief detective Stevens (George Brent) divides half his time to the tedium of police procedure and forensic work, and the other half to his romance with Lou Ann Winton (Margaret Lindsay), who may or may not be mixed up in the murder. Dorothy Burgess delivers a chillingly convincing performance as a cocaine addict, while comedian (and home-movie enthusiast) Ken Murray is equally effective as a snide reporter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Reported to have cost a whopping $2 million, this musical was actually made for far less -- and looks it. But unlike She Done Him Wrong (1932), filmed simultaneously next door, Hello, Everybody! made nary a nickel. Both films starred newcomers, but unlike the irrepressible Mae West, hefty Kate Smith, of radio fame, was given very little opportunity to shine. Awarded script and casting approval, the radio star had chosen a Fannie Hurst tearjerker about a goodhearted but plump farm girl who finds solace in music while her boyfriend takes off with her svelte sister. Paramount, however, made the fatal mistake of casting Smith's real-life manager Ted Collins as her on-screen agent as well, and Collins' overbearing presence was of no help whatsoever to the nervous songbird. Adding insult to injury, Sally Blane, the nearly emaciated sister of equally svelte Loretta Young, played Smith's sibling, insuring that Kate's ungainly girth remained steadfastly in focus. A wardrobe consisting of matronly housedresses and an especially atrocious production number entitled &Pickanninnies' Heaven" put the final nail in the coffin. In the end, Hello, Everybody! proved enough of a loser for Kate Smith to stay away from feature films entirely until a brief cameo in the all-star wartime extravaganza This is the Army(1943). Mae West, meanwhile, considered the phrase "Hello, Everybody!" such a jinx that she reportedly prohibited anyone from using it in her presence! ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Hellzapoppin' is the film version of the "anything goes" Broadway hit starring Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. The original production was part musical comedy, part "blackout" revue, with wild sight gags, zany props, audience participation sequences, dirty jokes, and never-ending gunshots. There was no plot, and in fact no two performances were exactly alike. When Hellzapoppin' was optioned by Universal, the original intention was to film the play as it stood (minus the more ribald one-liners), but the studio got cold feet and grafted on a conventional plot and romantic interest. The film's story concerns a musical show being staged at a fancy estate, and the romantic triangle of the show's producer (Robert Paige), the wealthy girl who lives at the estate (Jane Frazee), and the girl's erstwhile fiance (Lewis Howard). The show's stars are Olsen, Johnson, and Martha Raye. Martha is mistaken for the wealthy girl by a penniless Russian aristocrat (Mischa Auer), and the entire proceedings are "investigated" by a goofy private detective (Hugh Herbert). Olsen and Johnson are thus reduced to supporting players in their own film, but when they do manage to command the screen, the results are hilarious. The best moments range from a throwaway gag about Citizen Kane (Johnson finds a sled marked "Rosebud" and mutters "I thought they burned that!") to the more elaborate special-effects routines involving the mixed-up projectionist (Shemp Howard) who's ostensibly running Hellzapoppin for the benefit of the film audience. While the movie version fails to completely capture the spirit of the original play (except in a bizarre opening sequence), and the finale is a major disappointment, Hellzapoppin remains one of the few sustained filmic examples of the "nut humor" exemplified by Olsen and Johnson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

What isn't Heroes for Sale about? Within its 71-minute time frame, this film (co-written by "professional cynic" Wilson Mizner) tackles such issues as disenfranchised war veterans, misguided hero worship, drug addiction, the Depression, capitalism, labor relations and communism. Richard Barthelmess plays a wounded war hero whose hospital stay has turned him into a morphine junkie. He wanders from town to town looking for work during the Depression, only to be turned away with a "we've got our own to watch out for!" Eventually, Barthelmess befriends millionaire-in-the-making Robert H. Barrat, who has invented a revolutionary washing machine. Becoming Barrat's partner, Barthelmess attempts to quell a strike by workers who've been stirred up by Red agitators. With all this going on, Barthelmess still finds time to romance Loretta Young. Heroes for Sale is very much a product of its time, though its entertainment value has remained solid for well over six decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide