Jane Darwell Movies

Credit is due to director Lois Weber for establishing (or, at least, popularizing) the concept of "artistically justifiable nudity." Weber's The Hypocrites was a semi-allegorical piece, with an unclad young lady, billed appropriately as "The Naked Truth," parading across the screen at various crucial plot junctures. The story concerns a pious priest who, motivated by a love of fine art, erects a nude statue in the town square. The townspeople fail to appreciate the aesthetic value of the statue and proceed to stone the priest to death. At this point, the statue comes to life in the form of the aforementioned girl, who spends the balance of the film exposing the hypocrisy of the self-righteous townsfolk. It can be argued that only a rock-ribbed Christian like Lois Weber could have gotten away with so potentially controversial a mood piece as The Hypocrites. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Almost the entire Jesse L. Lasky stock company was trotted out for this minor offering starring stage actor Edward Abeles and Theodore Roberts as a couple of prospectors who get involved with greedy city types on a business trip to New York. The film was the first to be shot entirely on Lasky's new ranch at Wilson Canyon in the San Fernando Valley. The ranch, managed by one Hosea Steelman who also played bit parts, included "varied scenery such as streams, woods, mountain peaks, abandoned mines, ore dumps, miners' huts, and an Indian camp of 35 tepees." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Produced by Famous Players, The Only Son was one of several efforts to bestow movie stardom upon Broadway comic actor Thomas W. Ross. Re-creating his stage role, Ross (who must have been 45 at the time!) played the young, ne'er-do-well son of a millionaire. Refusing to enter the family business, our hero chooses instead the life of a "starving artist." He becomes involved with the wife of an insanely jealous Englishman, whose mid-film murder dictates the pulse-pounding outcome of the story. Running 3 reels, The Only Son was serviceable, but the movie-going public simply didn't warm up to Thomas W. Ross. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It was probably pretty simple for William C. DeMille to adapt this comedy stage hit to the screen -- he and his brother, director Cecil B. DeMille, were the playwrights. When his broker friend offers big returns, Ted Ewing (Edward Abeles) invests both his own money and that of his fiancée, Nora Heldreth (Betty Schade). But then the broker disappears and Ewing, believing that he has squandered his girl's money, takes out an insurance policy on himself and then sets out to get "accidentally" killed. Of course, nothing he tries works -- he falls in front of a train only to have it switch tracks on him, a fall from a window is broken by an awning, etc. Since members of a black hand society seem to be following him around, Ewing finally gets the idea of hiring them to murder him and gives the payment to Oki, his Japanese valet (Sessue Hayakawa). But then the broker returns and Ewing discovers that the money he invested has doubled. Now he has to figure out how to call off the black hand men, who have followed him and Nora to her aunt's cottage in Maine. Eventually a deal is worked out to everyone's satisfaction. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn stars Junior Durkin in the title role, Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer, Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher and Clarence Muse as Jim the slave. The film hopscotches around the book, ignoring such highlights as the Grangeford-Shepherdson feud and devoting too much time to such minor incidents as Huck and Tom's "orchestrated" rescue of Jim. The basic storyline begins when Huck's no-good Pap (Warner Richmond) kidnaps the boy from his guardian, the Widow Douglas. Huck stages his own "death" and escapes down the Mississippi on a raft, in the company of Tom Sawyer and escaped slave Jim. The threesome link up with two confidence men, the King (Oscar Apfel) and the Duke (Eugene Pallette). The unscrupulous pair plan fleece the grieving family of a recently deceased man of wealth, but Huck falls in love with one of the victims of the scam (Charlotte Henry) and thwarts the villains. Huckleberry Finn was Paramount's followup to 1930's Tom Sawyer, with many of the principal actors repeating their roles. This 1931 version of Huckleberry is easy to take, but somewhat threadbare when compared to later remakes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Beautiful but impractical socialite Penelope Newbold (Carole Lombard) has convinced herself that "the perfect marriage" is an impossible concept. After all, she reasons, no one man could possess all the virtues required for an ideal husband. Thus, she divides her time between dependable, hard-working gynecologist Dr. Karl Bemis (Paul Lukas) and wastrelly playboy Bill Hanaway (Ricardo Cortez). Penelope wises up in a hurry when Bill turns up murdered in the bedroom of another woman, whereupon our heroine takes a crash course in nursing to prove worthy of the faithful Dr. Bemis. If Carole Lombard had continued starring in dreck like No One Man, chances are that she wouldn't have attained the legendary status she presently enjoys in the annals of movie history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this political melodrama, an idealistic freshman congressman swears to do his best to get relief for his impoverished constituents who lost everything in the Great Depression. Unfortunately, he discovers that many of his colleagues have been corrupted by avaricious crooks. He begins lobbying to have them ousted from the government. To stop the rebellious young politician, the crooks demand a recount of the votes and then doctor the results to get the man thrown out of office. Fortunately, an older statesman and his granddaughter rally round the honest congressman. Soon they clear his name, and have all the bad apples thrown out of congress. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a best-selling novel by Fannie Hurst, Back Street concerns an ill-starred couple, Rae (Irene Dunne) and Walter (John Boles). Rae meets Walter and falls hopelessly in love with him; Walter is also drawn to Rae, but he has already pledged to marry another woman and can't find a way out. They part, and for a while Rae takes up with someone else; Walter needs to leave the country and impulsively tries to arrange a marriage with Rae, but she is unable, due to her new beau, and he sails away without her. When Rae next encounters Walter, he has married a woman from a wealthy family. Even though he's wedded to another, a passion still burns between Walter and Rae, and they enter into an illicit affair. Over the course of nearly 30 years, Rae turns down opportunities to marry other men to live a shadowy life as Walter's mistress, until she accepts a proposal of marriage when she's convinced that Walter is finally through with her. This was the first of three film versions of Hurst's story; remakes were released in 1941 and 1961. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

On the outs at Paramount, musical comedy star Nancy Carroll was "punished" by being sent to Columbia for the lachrymose Child of Manhattan. Carroll plays a dance-hall girl who falls hard for wealthy John Boles. Marriage is out of the question until she becomes pregnant. After losing her baby, Carroll divorces Boles and runs off with Charles Jones (better known as cowboy star Buck Jones). As the plot would have it, this convinces Boles that Carroll is not the golddigger she appears to be. Child of Manhattan was based on a Preston Sturges play, but most of the wittier and more pungent lines were lost in translation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Insanely jealous of his wife, wealthy zoologist Lionel Atwill uses his knowledge of animals to dispose of any would-be rivals. Atwill brings his latest collection of wild animals to a major metropolitan zoo. Here he continues his homicidal ways, dispatching his wife's lover (John Lodge) with the severed head of a poisonous snake. When his wife (Kathleen Burke) gathers up enough evidence to go to the police, Atwill unceremoniously dumps her in the zoo's alligator pit. A young animal specialist (Randolph Scott) and the zoo owner's daughter (Gail Patrick) suspect foul play and get the goods on the villain. Attempting to escape, Atwill accidentally locks himself in the python cage, and.....Despite the drunken comedy relief of Charlie Ruggles, Murders in the Zoo is a genuine spine-tingler, from its first scene--in which Atwill sews a man's lips shut and leaves him to be devoured by jungle wildlife--to the last. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a young surgeon and his driver must combat the racketeers who have taken over the hospital where he works. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Easily the best of Eddie Cantor's gargantuan musical comedies for producer Sam Goldwyn, Roman Scandals begins in the middle-America community of West Rome, where our hero Eddie (Cantor) is employed as a delivery boy. A self-styled authority of Ancient Roman history, Cantor bemoans the fact that the local shanty community is about to be wiped out by scheming politicians, certain that such an outrage could never have happened during Rome's Golden Days. After a blow on the head, Cantor wakes up in Imperial Rome, where he is sold on the slave auction block to good-natured tribune Josephus (David Manners). Cantor soon discovers that the evil emperor Valerius (Edward Arnold) is every bit a crook and grafter as the politicians in West Rome, and he intends to do something about it. He gets a job as food taster for Valerius -- a none-too-secure position, inasmuch as the emperor's wife Agrippa (Veree Teasdale) is constantly trying to poison her husband -- and does his best to smooth the path of romance for Josephus and recently captured princess Sylvia (Gloria Stuart). Cantor's well-intentioned interference earns him a session in the torture chamber, but he escapes and commandeers a chariot, setting the stage for a spectacular slapstick climax. On the verge of recapture, Cantor wakes to find himself in West Rome U.S.A. again, where he quickly foils the modern-day despots and brings about a happy ending for all his friends.

Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A former opera star loses her voice, her career evaporates, and she takes to drinking heavily and blaming her son for her situation. In order to get revenge on her son, and to get her name back in the newspapers to try to resurrect her career, she tells the authorities that her son is responsible for the murder of a local playboy. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide