Louise Dresser

George Ade's turn-of-the-century stage success The County Chairman was retailored as a Will Rogers vehicle in 1935. Set in 1904, the film casts Rogers as Jim Hackler, political-party chairman of Tomahawk County, Wyoming. At rise, Hackler is running for county prosecutor against his old political and romantic rival, crooked Elias Rigby (Berton Churchill). Complications arise when Jim's protégé Ben Harvey (Kent Taylor) falls in love with Rigby's daughter Lucy (Evelyn Venable). Presented with the opportunity to smear Rigby in public by digging up an old scandal, Jim refuses to stoop to his opponent's level -- and miracle of miracles, he wins the election anyway! The film's best moments occur when Will Rogers departs from the script to offer extemporaneous comments on a wide variety of subjects: he even manages to poke gentle fun at Henry Ford, who was hardly a "major player" in 1904! The supporting cast ranges from such Rogers "regulars" as Charles Middleton and Stepin Fetchit (at his most incomprehensible!) to such relative newcomers as 15-year-old Mickey Rooney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Inasmuch as the film was based on a novel by Swedish author Sigrid Boo, Fox's Servant's Entrance is logically set in Sweden. Heiress Hedda Nillson (Janet Gaynor) certain that her family is about to lose all its money, takes a job as a maid. After the usual trials and tribulations, Hedda falls in love with humble chauffeur Eric Landstrom (Lew Ayres). When it turns out she's not going to go broke after all, Hedda despairs, believing that she will be forced to give Eric up -- but of course nothing like that ever happens. The highlight of Servant's Entrance is an animated nightmare sequence, courtesy of Walt Disney studios, wherein poor Hedda is "attacked" by a barrage of anthropomorphic pots and pans (Disney's previous contribution to Fox Studios was a futuristic television sequence in the 1933 Lilian Harvey vehicle My Lips Betray). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Of the two 1934 film versions of the life of Russia's Catherine the Great, Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress was the most opulent and exotic. Marlene Dietrich plays the German-born Catherine, who is required to marry Russia's mad Grand Duke Peter (Sam Jaffe, decked out in a Harpo Marx wig). As if her joke of a marriage isn't torment enough, Catherine must endure the excesses of her new mother-in-law, Empress Elizabeth (Louise Dresser). Eventually, Catherine finds solace -- and romance -- in the form of Count Alexei (John Lodge). But even this balm is denied her when the ambitious Alexei begins wooing the much-older Elizabeth. When the old Empress dies, Catherine ascends to the Russian throne, knowing full well that her addled husband would kill her at the slightest provocation. Soon her power outstrips Peter's, and the opportunistic Alexei now comes back into her life. The finale finds Catherine emerging triumphant over all her enemies -- and, in the film's least subtle sequence (which is saying a lot!), the new Empress is shown astride a horse, to whom she displays far more affection than any of her human compatriots. The Scarlet Empress has even less to do with accuracy than Paul Czinner's Catherine the Great of the same year, which starred Elizabeth Bergner. Watch for Dietrich's real-life daughter Maria Sieber (aka Maria Riva) as the 7-year-old Catherine in the early scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Will Rogers is Dr. Bull, a small-town physician with precious little book learning. This doesn't stop him from ministering to the citizens, often substituting advice and witticisms for pills and sutures. There are those who resist Dr. Bull's everyday doses of common sense and humanity, especially the gossip mongers who read the worst into the doctor's frequent visits to a lonely widow (Vera Lewis). Bull triumphs over his adversaries when he stems a typhoid epidemic, proving that the disease was spread by pollution from the construction camp owned by the town's resident Scrooge (Berton Churchill). Directed by John Ford with his usual compassion towards sensible small-town types, Dr. Bull was adapted from The Last Adam, a novel by James Gould Cozzens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stepping Sisters was a variation on Fox Studio's favorite plots, "three girls on the make," the difference being that the three ladies depicted herein were well past the "girl" stage. Louise Dresser, Minna Gombell, and Jobyna Howland are cast as Mrs. Ramsey, Rosie La Marr, and Lady Chetworth-Lynde, who try to keep their past lives as burlesque dancers a secret as they hobnob with High Society. But blood will tell, and soon all three ladies have reverted to their old bump-and-grind routines, much to the dismay of their sophisticated companions. Somehow it was inevitable that at least one of the heroines would end up with a pie in her face; in this instance, its is Lady Chetworth-Lynde, the most pretentious of the trio, who is the recipient of the flying custard. A dash of drama is thrown in the stew when it appears that the impending marriage of Mrs. Ramsey's daughter Norma (Barbara Weeks) will be endangered by the revelation of her mom's show-biz past (it isn't, as it turns out). Stepping Sisters certainly sounds fascinating, and one hopes that someday this long-lost film will be found by some enterprising archivist or other. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mammy features Al Jolson as the star of a travelling minstrel show, appearing in a small Southern town. Jolson falls in love with an actress in the troupe (Lois Moran), but she loves another. One of Jolson's fellow minstrels (Lowell Sherman) is shot backstage, and it is assumed thanks to several plot convolutions that Jolson is guilty of the deed. He heads for the hills, but returns to the show, his reputation restored but his love for the actress unrequited. Maudlin in the extreme, Mammy is salvaged by several enjoyable songs by Irving Berlin and by its Technicolor photography (though most TV prints are black and white). The film's fascination with modern viewers rests with the presence of Al Jolson--and with the casual use of profanity during his confrontation scene with Lowell Sherman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This melodrama follows the lives of three sisters. One dies while giving birth, another gets married and goes to the US, and the last one gets involved with a Viennese musician. The two survivors become wealthy, and seem to forget about their impoverished mother back in Italy. Unbeknownst to any of the parties, the money the good daughters send home is being taken by a third party. That person's identity is discovered when the women and their spouses come to Italy to visit. They later leave the poor woman with a nice retirement fund. Songs include: "Italian Kisses" (L. Wolfe Gilbert, Abel Baer), "Lonely Feet," "Hand in Hand," "Keep Smiling," "Won't Dance," "Roll on Rolling Road," "What Good are Words," "You Are Doing Very Well" (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this early, early talkie containing only 15 minutes of spoken word, an aging nightclub performer takes a young woman under her wing and rescues her from the suspicious fellow she hangs around with. The two women get very close; soon they discover they are long-lost mother and daughter who were separated when the older woman was widowed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One of the first of director Howard Hawks' many aviation films, The Air Circus stars Arthur Lake and David Rollins as two young flight-school cadets. After bragging about their airborne prowess to pretty Sue Carol, the boys are dismayed to learn that she is an accomplished aviatrix, who can fly rings around both of them. Later, during his first solo flight, Rollins is overcome by fear. In danger of "washing out," Rollins proves that he's got what it takes by rescuing Lake and Carol from a disabled plane in flight. Long thought lost, Air Circus was rescued from oblivion in the early 1970s; originally a part-talkie, it currently exists only in its silent version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having worn out his welcome in country-bumpkin roles, silent film star Charles Ray made an effort to re-establish himself in sophisticated parts. The Garden of Eden finds the dinner-jacketed Ray as a urbane Parisian bachelor, with Corinne Griffith co-starring as a wide-eyed rural lass. While visiting Paris, the nonplused Corinne is transformed into an elegant fashion plate by a mysterious "fairy godmother." Directed by Lewis Milestone, The Garden of Eden featurs art-direction courtesy of William Cameron Menzies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Its title notwithstanding, White Flannels starts out in a grimy coal-mining town. Mrs. Jacob Politz (Louise Dresser) scrimps, saves and sacrifices to send her son Frank (Jason Robards Sr.) to a fancy New England college. He soon becomes Big Man on Campus, adored by everyone -- but all this comes to an end when his snobbish chums find out about his low-born family. Though he initially expresses embarrassment and humiliation, Frank comes to realize that the love of his mother is more important to him than any of his phony-baloney society "friends." Brooks Benedict, who played one of Harold Lloyd's college tormentors in The Freshman, offers a virtual reprise of his earlier role in White Flannels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide