Clara Langsner Movies

Adapted from the play by Elmer Rice, Counsellor-at-Law is the story of a successful Jewish lawyer George Simon (John Barrymore) who finds it's lonely at the top. Simon's wife (Doris Kenyon) and children look down upon him because of his humble upbringings, while his mother reprimands him for turning his back on his heritage. Simon is threatened with disbarment when a rival digs up a big wormy can of legal wrongdoing in Simon's past, but this is only the beginning of the end. When the beleaguered lawyer discovers that his wife has been unfaithful, he looks out the window of his Empire State Building office and contemplates suicide. Simon is brought to his senses by his faithful secretary (Bebe Daniels), who has loved him all along. Filled with vivid character vignettes and blessed with energetic direction by William Wyler, Counsellor-at-Law is one of the best "lawyer" films of the 1930s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on a 1923 novel by Fannie Hurst, this dreary and primitive early talkie was unleashed on a derisive audience in January of 1930. Winifred Westover played the title-role, a downtrodden Swedish kitchen slavey seduced by the son (Ben Lyon) of her wealthy employer (Ida Darling). When she discovers that the boy is engaged to a society belle, she leaves the household, carefully hiding her pregnancy. Giving the baby up for adoption to a rich family, "Lummox," a la Madame X, can only watch from the sides as her son (Robert Ullman then William Bakewell) grows up in luxury to become a famous concert pianist. Directed by one of the grand old men of the silent era, Herbert Brenon, Lummox was stagebound to the point of ridiculousness with actors speaking their lines carefully into mikes hidden in vases and other such places. The film was also a case of nepotism: Not even a near-star, Winifred Westover was the wife of William S. Hart, the former Western ace rumored to have a financial interest in the producing company, United Artists. Formerly a leading lady of silent Westerns, Westover was singularly incapable of carrying a full-fledged talking picture. The film, her first in nine years, also proved her last. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi