Dudley Digges Movies

The troublesome years "between the wars" provide the backdrop for the romantic drama The Searching Wind. Adapted by Lillian Hellman from her own stage play, the film stars Robert Young as Alex Hazen, an idealistic but incredibly naïve US ambassador who fails to heed the warning signals when Mussolini and then Hitler ascend to power in Europe. Feeding into Hazen's ingenuousness is his beautiful but shallow wife Emily (Ann Richards), who is far more preoccupied with tuxedos and dinner gowns than with brown shirts and Nazi armbands. Only journalist Cassie Bowman (Sylvia Sidney), a character obviously based on playwright Hellman, can foresee the impending horror-even when her judgment is occasionally clouded by her undying love for Hazen. Benefiting from the mistakes of his elders is the Hazens' son Sam (Douglas Dick), who represents the "Never Again" viewpoint of the post-WW2 years. The Searching Wind was the sort of politically supercharged fare that earned Hellman condemnation as a "premature anti-fascist" during the infamous Hollywood Blacklist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Fight for Life was documentary filmmaker Pare Lorentz' first "dramatic" film, utilizing the talents of several top New York stage actors. A tribute to the Chicago Maternity Center and its efforts to provide the best possible care for destitute mothers, the film is based on the book of the same name by Paul de Kruif. Myron McCormick plays the largest role as a dedicated intern, while others in the cast include such theatrical heavywrights as Will Geer, Dudley Digges and Dorothy Adams. The film's many vignettes range from the tragic (a mother dying in childbirth in the opening scene) to the exultant (another mother rescued from the brink of death in a disease-ridden tenement). Filmed in Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, Fight for Life is a worthwhile effort, though Lorentz seems more comfortable with the "actuality" scenes than with the dramatized passages. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fourth cinematic version of the novel Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung, this romantic caper is a virtual remake of the 1930 version. David Niven stars as A.J. Raffles, a famed cricket player of English society's upper crust. Secretly, however, Raffles is a skilled cat burglar known as "The Amateur Cracksman" to Scotland Yard, which has been unable to catch him. Known for returning the items he's filched, Raffles is about to give up a life of crime because he's fallen for Gwen (Olivia de Havilland), a rich society girl. But first Gwen's brother, Bunny (Douglas Walton), needs help to extricate himself from a gambling debt that will be satisfied nicely by the valuable necklace owned by royal Lady Melrose (May Whitty). At a party thrown by Melrose, a rival thief and a detective (Dudley Digges) stand in Raffles' way, although the nimble and perturbed master criminal has a master plan that will result in the least possible harm coming to all involved. ~ Karl Williams, 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

Gladys George, a superlative actress often wasted in secondary roles, carries her starring assignment in Valiant is the Word for Carrie with singular brilliance. George plays the town trollop, who for the love of two orphaned children sets up a successful dry-cleaning business. Her past comes back to haunt her, but she perseveres, giving up all thoughts of personal happiness to provide a decent upbringing for her adopted family. A real four-hanky film, Valiant is the Word for Carrie might never have been made if it hadn't been for Mae West. Paramount had signed Gladys George to star in a filmization of her stage hit Personal Appearance, but this property was deflected to Ms. West and retitled Go West, Young Man. As compensation, Gladys George was offered Carrie--and she certainly made the most of this rebound opportunity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three former POWs return home and find that they have been listed among the dead. This comedy follows their attempts to prove themselves among the living. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

China Seas proved that the recently imposed Hollywood production code had little if any effect on the popularity of MGM sex symbols Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Gable plays the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong. Harlow is Gable's ex-main squeeze, a "woman of the world" who books passage on the steamer at the same time that another of Gable's former loves, aristocratic Rosalind Russell, shows up. Wallace Beery plays Gable's supposedly lovable first mate, who is actually in league with a gang of pirates who plan to steal the gold shipment being carried in the hold of the steamer. Harlow tumbles to Beery's secret, but is unable to convince Gable, who is sore at Harlow for mean-mouthing Russell. Out of pique, Harlow casts her lot with the crooked Beery, but when the pirates attack the steamer, she returns to Gable's side. A subplot involves the regeneration of ship's mate Lewis Stone, who has been cashiered out of the navy for cowardice and who redeems himself during the final battle. Based on a novel by Crosbie Garstin, China Seas is a programmer at heart, but is decked out with full A-picture trappings by MGM producer Irving Thalberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1932 publication of Charles Nordhoff and James Norton Hall's Mutiny on the Bounty sparked a revival of interest in the titular 1789 ship mutiny, and this 1935 MGM movie version won the Oscar for Best Picture. Clark Gable stars as Fletcher Christian, first mate of the infamous HMS Bounty, skippered by Captain William Bligh (Charles Laughton), the cruelest taskmaster on the Seven Seas. Bligh's villainy knows no bounds: he is even willing to flog a dead man if it will strengthen his hold over the crew. Christian despises Bligh and is sailing on the Bounty under protest. During the journey back to England, Bligh's cruelties become more than Christian can bear; and after the captain indirectly causes the death of the ship's doctor, the crew stages a mutiny, with Christian in charge. Bligh and a handful of officers loyal to him are set adrift in an open boat. Through sheer force of will, he guides the tiny vessel on a 49-day, 4000-mile journey to the Dutch East Indies without losing a man. Historians differ on whether Captain Bligh was truly such a monster or Christian such a paragon of virtue (some believe that the mutiny was largely inspired by Christian's lust for the Tahitian girls). The movie struck gold at the box office, and, in addition to the Best Picture Oscar, Gable, Laughton, and Franchot Tone as one of the Bounty's crew were all nominated for Best Actor (they all lost to Victor McLaglan in The Informer). The film was remade in 1962 and adapted into the "revisionist" 1984 feature The Bounty with Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Captain Bligh. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though habitually unlucky in love, wealthy London recluse Mary Herries (Aline MacMahon) succumbs to the charms of handsome artist Henry Abbott (Basil Rathbone). She is persuaded to invite Abbott into her home, only to discover that he has a sinister ulterior motive. With the help of his disreputable associates, he intends to steal all of Mary's valuable art treasures, then do away with the poor woman when the job is done. Held prisoner in her own home, Mary is unable to summon the authorities, who've been persuaded by a crooked doctor that the old woman is insane. How long will it be before she can get word to the outside world? Kind Lady is adapted from Edward Chodorov's theatrical version of the Hugh Walpole novel Silver Mask, with Walpole's original bleak ending bypassed in favor of Chodorov's more optimistic denouement. To avoid confusion with MGM's 1951 remake, the 1936 version of Kind Lady was retitled House of Menace for television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the tradition of Fox Studios' Oscar-winning Cavalcade, The World Moves On covers over one hundred years in the lives of two Louisiana families: The Girards, of French extraction, and the Warburtons, formerly of Manchester. Forming an alliance by marriage in 1825, the families rapidly corner the cotton business in the South. Years later, three of Girard/Warburton sons split up to head business operations in England, France and Germany: as a result, descendants of the original families find themselves fighting on opposite sides during WW I (this episode is similar to a memorable sequence in the 1928 silent Four Sons, which like World Moves On was directed by John Ford). Surviving the war, Richard (Franchot Tone), the last of the descendants becomes a sharkish Wall Street speculator in the 1920s, ultimately losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash. Bloody but unbowed, Richard and his wife Mary (Madeleine Carroll) cut their losses and return to their ancestral home, to start all over again. Both The World Moves On and the subsequent Fox production Road to Glory rely to a considerable extent upon stock footage from the grim 1931 French antiwar drama Wooden Crosses. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the first major Hollywood films to seriously address America's ongoing mistreatment of its Indian population, Massacre is more admirable for its intentions than its execution. The film was inspired by the activities of John Collier, commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term. A staunch advocate for Native American rights, Collier had been far more effective than his predecessors in this pursuit, effectively purging much of the corruption and bigotry then prevalent in the administration of the Indian Reservation system. The film's John Collier counterpart, a man named Dickinson (Henry O'Neill), turns out to be less important to the storyline than Joe Thunder Horse, the "assimilated" college-educated Sioux portrayed by Richard Barthelmess. Upon the death of his father, who was the tribal chieftain, Joe returns to the reservation of his youth, only to discover that his people are dying of various diseases and are being systematically cheated of their possessions and basic rights by crooked Indian agents. He heads to Washington in hopes of righting these wrongs, only to experience prejudice and hatred all along the way. Eventually successful in his efforts, Joe casts away the last vestige of his "white" existence by giving up socialite Norma (Claire Dodd) in favor of Sioux maiden Lydia (Ann Dvorak). The optimism of the final reels is sorely at odds with the rest of the picture, which paints a bleak portrait of an oppressed people under the thumb of corrupt, rapine petty tyrants (colorfully represented by Dudley Digges as the worst of the batch). The deck-stacking is a bit hard to take at times (surely there must have been some Indian agents who weren't substance abusers and lechers), but it's undeniably effective in the usual over-the-top Warner Bros. tradition. The film's oddest scene (and the one which has drawn the most attention from William K. Everson and other prominent film historians) finds a stereotyped African American valet (Clarence Muse) looking disdainfully upon the Indians as his racial inferiors! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gangster Cagney allows his powerful political connections to appoint him "deputy inspector" of a state reform school. There he finds the youths abused and battered by a brutal, heartless warden and his thuggish guards. It is a nurse who informs Cagney and pleads with him to clean things up. Something touches Cagney's normally hard heart and he commits himself to enacting more humane reforms. Soon, he gets the warden booted out and begins working closely with the inmates, who come to trust and respect him until Cagney's dark side emerges and he reveals himself for what he is--a ruthless mobster. This destroys the boys' trust and when the old warden is reinstated makes matters even worse until Cagney makes a difficult choice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Edmund Gwenn makes his American film debut in this lighthearted adaptation of Frederick Jackson's stage play The Bishop Misbehaves. The central character is a Bishop (Edmund Gwenn) who harbors a fondness for detective stories. This harmless pastime gets him mixed up in the travails of heroine Hester (Maureen O'Sullivan), who hopes to wreak vengeance against the man who stole her father's invention. The key to the plot solution is a packet of valuable patent papers, for which the Bishop, Hester, and handsome American tourist Donald (Norman Foster) put their lives on the line. Hester and Donald are briefly kidnapped by a team of holdup men, but they escape in time to beard the villain in his den -- with, of course, the considerable aid of the "misbehaving" Bishop. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide