Nelson Keys Movies

In this comedy, a hotel clerk is framed for a jewel theft by the real culprits and is forced to grab his wife and flee to France where he is mistaken for a famous singer by a bogus movie producer. Eventually, he ends up running into the real thieves and bringing them to justice. Also a song he wrote becomes a hit. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this British comedy, a barrister badly botches his first case and begins to think he has chosen the wrong career. To assist with their bills, he and his wife sublet their apartment to several people at the same time. To fool them all, the couple pretends to be household servants and throws a dinner party for their guests. The wife then sprinkles sleeping powder into their soup. When the renters awaken, they find themselves in assorted compromising positions. The "servants" then blackmail them for their money. They wind up with a tidy sum of money. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Dreams Come True for Ilona Ratkay (Frances Day), a popular opera singer who falls in love with gangly farm boy Anton (Nelson Keys). Not so lucky is Anton's father Albert (Hugh Wakefield), who is left all alone when his son runs off to the Big City with Ilona. Things really get sticky when Albert becomes obsessed with the notion that Ilona is actually his own illegitimate daughter! The more censurable aspects of the story are neatly skirted and circumvented with liberal doses of music and comedy. Dreams Come True is a remake of the German operetta Liebesmelodie. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

No relation to American author Sidney Howard, bulbous Briton Sydney Howard was the star comedian in several cheaply made film farces of the 1930s. In Almost a Divorce, Howard over-imbibes at the wedding of his best friend Nelson Keys. Howard's besotted antics (and incessant repetition of his stage catch phrase "What's to do?") nearly ends Keys' marriage before it begins. The film was produced by Herbert Wilcox, but try getting him to admit it in later years. Almost a Divorce is worth a look for the presence of Eva Moore, the onetime mother-in-law of Laurence Olivier who was memorably cast as a retrogressive Victorianite in James Whale's The Old Dark House. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Another of English producer-director Herbert Wilcox's collaborations with American star Dorothy Gish, Tiptoes was also one of the most successful of the batch. Gish plays one-third of a Yankee vaudeville act, who try out some new material in a Liverpool music hall. When their act bombs, our heroine casts about for another source of income. She concocts a scheme whereby she will pose as a wealthy aristocrat, the better to inveigle a nobleman into marriage. But none of this really matters: the real "selling angle" in Tiptoes was the presence of legendary American humorist Will Rogers, cast as Gish's down-to-earth vaude partner (the third member of the trio was Nelson Keays, a popular British song-and-dance man in his own right). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dorothy Gish's screen vehicles for British director Herbert Wilcox were usually a treat, but her 1927 film Madame Pompadour tended to be weighed down by the ponderous stylistic choices of its producer, Germany's E. A. DuPont. Not surprisingly, Gish plays the title character, the celebrated 18th-century aristocrat-paramour whose clothing and hairstyles determined French fashions for decades. A favorite of King Louis XV (Henri Bosc), Mme. Pompadour has trouble limiting her ardor to any one man, and in this film she falls in love with handsome political prisoner Rene Laval (Antonio Moreno). Adapted by DuPont and Frances Marion from the stage play by Rudolf Schanzer and Ernst Wellisch, Madame Pompadour was an especially lavish and handsome production. Unfortunately, despite its brief 75-minute running time, the film moved at a snail's pace. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi