Alexander Schoenberg Movies
- 1939
This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Lawson's inner-city music school. Unfortunately, the school teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Fortunately the determined young boy convinces his street buddies to help him plead with Heifetz to help them save the school by doing a benefit concert. The master violinist agrees and saves the day. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jascha Heifetz, Andrea Leeds, (more)
"Garbo Laughs!" declared the ads for Ninotchka. In the face of dwindling foreign revenues, MGM decided to put Greta Garbo, a bigger draw in Europe than the US, in a box-office-savvy comedy, engaging the services of master farceur Ernst Lubitsch to direct. The film opens in Paris during the aftermath of the Russian revolution. A trio of Russian delegates (Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart, and Alexander Granach) are sent to Paris to sell the Imperial Jewels for ready cash. Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire), who once owned the jewels, sends her boyfriend Count Leon (Melvyn Douglas) to retrieve the diamonds, and he turns the trio into full-fledged capitalists, wining and dining them all through Paris. Moscow then dispatches the humorless, doggedly loyal Comrade Ninotchka (Garbo) to retrieve both the prodigal Soviets and the gems. When Leon turns his charm on Ninotchka, she regards him coldly, informing him that love is merely a "chemical reaction." Even his kisses fail to weaken her resolve. Leon finally wins her over by taking an accidental fall in a restaurant, whereupon Ninotchka laughs for the first time in her life. She goes on a shopping spree and gets drunk, while Leon begins falling in love with her in earnest. As a bonus to the frothy script, by Billy Wilder and others, and its surefire star power, Ninotchka features what is perhaps Bela Lugosi's most likeable and relaxed performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, (more)
- 1938
Herman Bahr's German play The Yellow Nightingale from 1907 became Paramount's 1938 entry in the then-popular operetta cycle. Gladys Swarthout, formerly of the Met, stars as Ilona Boros, a peasant girl with a magnificent voice who becomes a pawn in the rivalry between opera tenor Tony Kovach (John Boles) and his business manager Zoltan Jason (John Barrymore). Both men are infatuated with the beautiful, but cold, Countess Foldessy (Claire Dodd), and Tony plans to make Ilona a star so that Jason will be attracted to her instead. The scheme backfires, of course, and soon both men are fighting over Ilona, the outraged countess left to instead pursue Jason's butler, Von Hemisch (Curt Bois). In between the comedy, Swarthout, Boles, and company perform such well-known selections as "Because," from the opera Jocelyn; "Habanera," from Carmen; "La Ci Darem la Nano," from Don Giovanni; and Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin's "Tonight We Love." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gladys Swarthout, John Boles, (more)
- 1938
This poverty-row quickie stars Ray Walker, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, and James Bush as troubleshooting telephone linemen Torchy, Slim and Eddie. When their supervisor is killed, the boys offer to adopt the dead man's "little" daughter Ann (Sally Blane), actually a curvaceous young lady for whom both men harbor romantic inclinations. Things get serious again when Eddie dies while stringing wire during severely inclement weather. This leaves Torchy and Slim to battle over Ann's affections-and neither one is much of a prize. With an unprepossessing cast and only fair production values, Crashin' Thru Danger could only hope to make back its cost, which wasn't much to begin with. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ray Walker, Sally Blane, (more)
- 1937
After a year-long period of starring in such heavy fare as Maid of Salem, Claudette Colbert returned to comedy with I Met Him in Paris. Colbert plays a successful American fashion designer, squired by three suitors: playwright Melvyn Douglas, playboy Robert Young and hometown lad Lee Bowman. Bowman is fourth-billed, so that lets him out. Young is already married: Strike Two. That leaves Melvyn Douglas, who is indeed the winner of this three-way race. Most of the film takes place at a vacation resort in Switzerland (actually Sun Valley, Idaho), where several minutes of humor is extracted from the three suitors' clumsiness on skis. I Met Him in Paris charmed the critics in 1937; today it seems like just another pleasant diversion, served up by experts in the comedy field. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudette Colbert, Melvyn Douglas, (more)
"This is New York, Skyscraper Champion of the World...Where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye..." With this jaundiced opening title, scripter Ben Hecht introduces his classic comedy Nothing Sacred. Fredric March plays Wally Cook, a hotshot reporter condemned to writing obituaries because of his unwitting complicity in a fraud. Anxious to get back in the good graces of his editor Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly), Cook pounces on the story of New England girl Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard), who is reportedly dying from radiation poisoning. Actually, Hazel isn't dying at all; she's been misdiagnosed by Moscow's eternally drunk doctor (Charles Winninger). But when Cook offers to take her on an all-expenses-paid trip to New York in exchange for her exclusive story, it's too good an offer to pass up. Once in the Big Apple, Hazel is feted as a heroine by the novelty-seeking populac; she enjoys the adulation at first, but soon (and with the help of gallons of alcoholic beverages) suffers the pangs of conscience. She confesses her deception to Cook, who by now has fallen in love with her. Cook and Stone conspire to keep the public from discovering the truth, eventually dreaming up a phony suicide. Travelling incognito to avoid arrest, Wally and Hazel marry and go on a honeymoon, secure in the knowledge that New York City has forgotten all about her and moved on to their next fad. Brimming with witty, acerbic dialogue and hilarious bits of physical business, Nothing Sacred is among the best "screwball" comedies of the 1930s. The musical score by Oscar Levant both mocks and celebrates the George Gershwinesque musical style then in vogue. As an added bonus, the film is lensed in Technicolor (avoid those two-color reissue prints), allowing modern viewers to see what New York City looked liked back in 1937. Nothing Sacred was later adapted into a Broadway musical, Hazel Flagg, which in turn was filmed by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as Living It Up (1954), with Lewis in the Carole Lombard role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carole Lombard, Fredric March, (more)
- 1937
The third of MGM's profitable Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy songfests, Maytime opens in the early 20th century, with a young girl arguing with her boyfriend over her wishes to become an opera singer. The girl's neighbor, a lonely old woman whom we gradually recognize as a convincingly "aged" Jeanette MacDonald, tells the girl of her own career in opera. The old lady was once the radiant young diva Marcia Mornay. In 1868 she was the toast of Europe, thanks to the tutelage of her voice instructor Nikolai Nazarov (John Barrymore). He proposes marriage, and Marcia accepts, more out of gratitude than love. In a euphoric pre-nuptial state, Marcia finds herself on Paris' Left Bank, where she meets handsome café crooner Paul Allison (Nelson Eddy). They meet again at a lavish Maytime festival, falling in love (to the accompaniment of Sigmund Romberg's most dazzling duets) in the process. Sadly, Marcia returns to Nazarov, while Paul goes off to America to lick his wounds. Seven years later, Marcia, making her New York debut in a fictional opera based on the works of Tchaikovsky, finds that the leading baritone is none other than Paul. Unable to envision life without her new love, Marcia begs Nazarov for a divorce. He smiles slyly and promises to give her her freedom-whereupon he heads to Paul's apartment and kills the poor fellow. The flashback done, Marcia advises her pretty young neighbor that one can never have both love and a career. Out of tragedy grows the happy ending, in which the spirit of the now-deceased Marcia is reunited with Paul in a blossom-filled Hereafter. On paper, Maytime may seem to be the ultimate in Hoke, but even in recent revival showings the film never fails to cast its spell over an audience. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, (more)
- 1937
Pulp fiction writer Max Brand's 1936 creation Dr. Kildare made his screen debut in the amiable person of Joel McCrea in this well-received Paramount production. Aided by Janet (Barbara Stanwyck, young Dr. Kildare saves the life of gangster boss Hanlon (Lloyd Nolan), who awards the intern $1,000 for his troubles. Janet, who is being blackmailed by Innes (Stanley Ridges), one of Hanlon's rivals, attempts to steal the money but Kildare catches her and, disillusioned, returns the loot to Hanlon. But when Janet agrees to Innes' lascivious terms, Kildare thinks better of his decision and arranges for Hanlon to take care of the matter. M-G-M later starred Lew Ayres in a series of 17 "Dr. Kildare" programmers and the character resurfaced in the early 1960s in a television series featuring Richard Chamberlain. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, (more)
- 1935
A hybrid jungle melodrama-horror show, Beast of Borneo consisted of mainly leftover footage from Universal's 1931 East of Borneo. A couple of added dialogue scenes were spliced into what was essentially a travelogue and a series of close-ups of an enraged orangutan. A noted big game hunter, Bob Ward (John Preston), is visited in the jungles of Borneo by Russian scientist Boris Borodoff (Eugene Sigaloff) and his lovely assistant Alma Thorne (Mae Stuart), who want to prove the evolutionary link between man and beast. Ward at first declines to lead the scientists to a tribe of orangutans, but Alma's charms finally convince him. Along with Ward's pet orangutan, Borneo Joe, they track the apes and actually manage to capture a male orangutan, whom Dr. Borodoff anaesthetizes with a shot of whiskey. Borodoff, it soon appears, is quite insane -- and Bob, in an effort to calm him down, is knocked unconscious and dragged into the jungle by the tormented orangutan. He is rescued by Alma and Borneo Joe, but the trio can only watch as the enraged simian kills the evil Dr. Borodoff. A cast of unknowns struggled valiantly with this ersatz Tarzan story, but they were soundly defeated by amateurish production methods. Leading man John Preston later starred in a couple of cheap Northwest melodramas for Poverty Row company Stage & Screen. Although reviewed in 1933, Beast of Borneo did not enjoy a wide release until 1944. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
