Emma Dunn Movies

Though not the first Dr. Kildare film ever made, this is the first entry in MGM's long-running series set at Blair General Hospital. With the ink still wet on his diploma, Dr. Kildare is faced with a difficult decision: should he return home to work in his father's quiet country practice, or work at exciting, New York-set Blair General Hospital? Though his parents and his girlfriend are against it, Kildare chooses the latter and promptly gets into trouble after one of his first patients, a prominent politician dies. All kinds of turmoil follows as Kildare tries to clear his name and treat his other patients. Just as it seems like the strong-willed Kildare's career is to die on the vine, curmudgeonly but always capable Dr. Gillespie becomes his mentor. For trivia buffs, the first Dr. Kildare film was Interns Can't Take Money made in 1937 for Paramount. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

If you're wondering which Warners musical featured the songs "Old King Cole" and "Have You Got Any Castles?," we refer you to Varsity Show. Dick Powell stars as a musical producer, called back to his alma mater to stage the annual college variety show. Uptight dean Walter Catlett is dead set against Powell's "scandalous" form of entertainment. The college kids conspire with Powell to stage their show in an empty Broadway theatre during the off-season. Turns out that Powell has Busby Berkeley under contract; well, he doesn't really, but it is Berkeley who stages the "big show" finale, in a spectacular fashion that would be impossible for any stage, college or professional. Among the costars of Varsity Show are Rosemary Lane as the ingenue, Ted Healy (in his last screen appearance) as comic relief, and Our Gang's "Spanky," here billed more formally under his real name, George McFarland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sam Wood directed this fourth version of the Alexandre Bisson weeper, buffed to a high gloss by shimmering M.G.M. production values. Gladys George plays Jacqueline Fleuriot this time around, the wife of a diplomat who has an affair and is compelled to leave her husband and son. After abandoning her family, she sinks into a sea of debauchery, becoming involved in prostitution, blackmail, and eventually murder. After the murder, her son Raymond (John Beal), now a grown man and a famous lawyer, is called upon to defend her. Unaware that the woman he is defending is his long lost mother, Jacqueline tries to hide her past from her successful son. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this tuneful, romantic drama, an Australian opera star (Grace Moore) wants to perform in a major U.S. festival but cannot enter the country unless she is married. To this end, she hires a handsome artist (Cary Grant) temporarily marry her. At first it is all strictly business, but in time, the artist starts falling in love. Songs include: "Our Song," "Minnie the Moocher" (this number is usually cut out in 98m televised version of the film), "Siboney," and "The Waltz Song." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

June Travis plays a trapeze star who becomes the romantic bone of contention between Robert Livingston and Charles Jerome. Silent movie veterans Betty Compson and Charlie Murray lend their expertise to this Republic 7-reeler. The aerialist scenes are performed by the Escalante Family Troupe, who also contributed their breathtaking skills to such Hollywood films as Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932),and the Marx Bros.' At the Circus. One of the scripters of Circus Girl was Bradford Ropes, author of the quintessential backstage yarn 42nd Street. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first of 20th Century-Fox's college musicals, Pigskin Parade is also close to the best of them in musical terms -- though they were all at least pretty good on that level -- principally thanks to the presence of 13-year-old Judy Garland, playing an Arkansas farm girl with surprising sincerity and success (in addition to belting out a couple of numbers with the depth and sincerity of a performer at least twice that age). The plot starts rolling when the Yale University football team, looking for a credible but not too tough opponent for a charity game, accidentally invites the team from tiny Tesax State University (enrollment 700) instead of the University of Texas (enrollment 7500). Texas State has also just gotten a new football coach, Slug Winters (Jack Haley), who's had a lot of success coaching high school back in Flushing, New York but still has to prove himself with college players -- he arrives with his brassy, outspoken wife (Patsy Kelly) just ahead of the invitation from Yale, which nearly sends them running back to New York. Through sheer luck and Mrs. Winters' brainstorm, however, they figure out a way they can meet the Yale team on the field and not get steamrollered -- they come up with a fast, highly mobile brand of football that makes them contenders, but then they lose their star-player. Mrs. Winters manages to stumble onto Amos Dodd (Stuart Erwin), an Arkansas farm boy who developed his arm by tossing watermelons around, and brings him and his sister (Judy Garland) to the college. But now they have to make Amos -- who never finished high school -- eligible, and keep him interested enough in the team and the college to get him to the game. It's all a lot of fun, with lots of comic antics and a song spicing up the pace every few minutes, and Haley and Kelly are a delight to watch together. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in his life: he just wants enough time to practice his tuba and compose greeting-card doggerel. When Deeds is convinced to move to New York, hard-boiled newspaper reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur) is dispatched to get the inside scoop on "The Cinderella Man." Babe's stories of Deeds' eccentricities and no-nonsense dealings with phonies and poseurs provide excellent headline fodder; but she begins to regret her actions, having fallen in love with the big lug. Deeds ultimately sets up a foundation to dispense his fortune to the country's neediest souls, on the proviso that the recipients do their best to get back on their feet, a turn of events that leads his lawyer John Cedar (Douglas Dumbrille) to try to have him declared insane. By the end of the sanity hearing, the judge (H. B. Walker) declares: "Not only are you sane, but you're the sanest man who ever walked in this courtroom!" A joyously unadulterated hunk of Frank Capra-corn, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was adapted by Robert Riskin from Clarence Buddington Kelland's short story "Opera Hat." In addition to the pleasure of watching the country bumpkin outwit city slickers, the movie is a film buff's dream, boasting one of the best character-actor casts ever assembled for a single film. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the film won Frank Capra his second Oscar (out of three) as Best Director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Perhaps the best of Mascot Pictures' feature-film releases, Ladies Crave Excitement is also one of the fastest 69 minutes ever put on film. Norman Foster and Eddie Nugent play Don and Bob, a pair of ace newsreel cameraman for The March of Events, forever keeping one step ahead of their competition. Swept up in the boys' adventures is thrill-seeking heiress Wilma Howell (Evalyn Knapp), who eventually proves to be a valuable member of the team. After a dizzying series of hairbreadth escapes, Don once again scoops his rivals by rounding up a gang of crooks, with the not inconsiderable help of the resourceful Wilma. One interesting aspect of Ladies Crave Excitement is the suggestion that newsreel photographers regularly "stage" events to make things more exciting; in one amusing scene, a storm at sea is re-created on a studio soundstage, as "captain" Christian Rub is doused with bucket after bucket of cold water. Future TV favorites Milburn Stone and Marie Wilson pop up unbilled as a sailor and his date, while perennial Superman villain Herb Vigran appears as a wisecracking photographer. Serving as film editor on Ladies Crave Excitement was director-in-training Joseph H. Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The George M. Cohan-Earl Digger Biggers theatrical comedy/mystery Seven Keys to Baldpate had already been filmed in 1915, 1917, 1925 and 1929 when this 1935 version made its appearance. It turned out to be the second of four talkie remakes of the Cohan-Diggers piece, if one includes the misbegotten 1983 adaptation House of the Long Shadows. The 1935 edition stars Gene Raymond as author William Magee, who wagers that he can write a mystery novel in 24 hours. At the suggestion of his agent, Magee heads to the remote and reportedly deserted Baldpate Inn so he can work undisturbed. Unfortunately, a steady stream of eccentric and highly suspicious characters, including a minor-league crook (Murray Alper) a duplicitous detective (Eric Blore), a damsel in distress (Margaret Callahan) and a murder victim-to-be (Erin O'Brien-Moore) converge upon the inn, all apparently in search of a cache of stolen money. The amusing double-surprise ending works just as well here as it did in all other versions of the Cohan-Diggers play. At the time of this film's release, RKO Radio issued a study guide to schoolrooms, noting with pride that all the "dated" slang in the original Seven Keys to Baldpate had been carefully weeded out -- unmindful that the "improved" rewrite would seem even more dated 60 years hence! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charming but ruthless fugitive gangster Dutra (Brian Donlevy) demands that a doctor (Oscar Apfel) perform plastic surgery upon him. Emerging from the bandages with a new face, Dutra murders the doctor, changes his name to Dawson, and heads to California, secure in the belief that no one who can identify him is still living. Unfortunately for him, the sole link to Dawson's past, nurse Molly Lamont, is now working in Hollywood -- where Dawson is enjoying a whole new career as a movie star! Things move along comically until Dawson tips his hand by taking his leading lady Sheila (Phyllis Brooks) hostage. Salvation comes in the unlikely form of obnoxious studio-press-agent Joe Haynes (Wallace Ford). Also released as It Happened in Hollywood, Another Face is a very uneven blend of comedy and melodrama, making up in energy what it lacks in coherence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marshall Neilan had fallen from the top ranks of directors by the time he helmed the Jane Withers vehicle This is the Life, but he still had it in him to deliver a first-rate job. Withers is cast as pint-sized vaudeville artiste Geraldine Revier. Tired of being professionally exploited by her parents (Gloria Roy and Gordon Westcott), Geraldine disguises herself as a boy and runs away from home. While on the road, she teams up with Michael Grant (John McGuire), a fugitive from justice. Naturally, Michael is innocent, and equally naturally, it is Geraldine who proves it. Future "Charlie Chan" Sidney Toler is a riot as blowhard medicine-show entrepreneur Professor Breckenridge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of three Kay Francis films in which the star was cast as a dedicated lady physician, Doctor Monica was adapted from a Polish play by Marja Morozowicz Szezepkowska. Francis plays obstetrician Dr. Monica, whose husband John (Warren William) cheats on her with young Mary (Jean Muir). When Mary becomes pregnant, the selfless Monica befriends her, provides her with advice, and delivers the baby. The good doctor even offers to give up John so that the child will have a father. But after giving birth, Mary calmly tells John to go back to Monica -- even though there's every indication that he'll never give up his philandering ways! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Quitters was typical of the curiously uninviting titles frequently bestowed upon the Chesterfield-Invincible productions of the mid-1930s (other examples include Cross Streets, Stolen Sweets and Fugitive Road). The grand old trouper Charles Grapewin heads the cast as vagabond journalist Ed Tilford, who leaves his wife Cordelia (Emma Dunn) behind to manage his newspaper when he's seized once more by Wanderlust. The Tilford sons, Russell (William Bakewell) and Eddie (Glen Boles), are raised to believe that their father died in WW I. Lacking most of Ed's business acumen, college-educated Russell suggests that his mother convert her weekly newspaper to a daily, resulting in a financial disaster. It's up to the prodigal Ed, returned from the nowhere and into the now, to save the day with the help of his nouveau riche old crony Zack (Lafe McKee). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide