C. Graham Baker Movies
A typical Hollywood professional, screenwriter C. Graham Baker had been a newspaper reporter prior to entering films in 1914 writing farces for Vitagraph's rotund comedian John Bunny. Baker later supplied stories and/or scenarios for Inspirational, Fox, and Universal and, using the pseudonym of Leslie S. Barrows, penned Warner Bros.' 1928 part-talkie The Singing Fool, a major hit for Al Jolson. Equally busy in the sound era, Baker later both produced and wrote such juvenile fare as Swiss Family Robinson (1940), Little Men (1940), and Tom Brown's School Days (1940), and penned two above-average Westerns, Ramrod (1947) and Four Faces West (1948). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
For his debut feature film, writer/director Marcus Adams helmed this independent occult horror flick set in the U.K. Long Time Dead tells the story of a group of college students who find themselves playing with a homemade Ouija board late one night. Not taking the game seriously, they unwittingly conjure up a demon that promises to kill them all one by one. Starring Lukas Haas, Joe Absolom, and Lara Belmont, Long Time Dead screened in 2002 at Germany's Munchen Fantasy Filmfest and The Netherlands' Fantastic Film Festival. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Absolom, Lara Belmont, (more)
Another winning collaboration between producer Benedict Bogeaus and director Allan Dwan, Tennessee's Partner is the third film version of the same-named Bret Harte story. The plotline is motivated by the curious friendship between slick gambler Tennessee (John Payne) and gunslinging Cowpoke (Ronald Reagan). Setting up shop in California gold-rush town, Tennessee spends most of his time getting Cowpoke out of trouble--specifically female trouble. The two friends fall out when Tennessee tries to prevent Cowpoke from falling for bewitching gold-digger Goldie (Colleen Gray), but Cowpoke proves to be true-blue when Tennessee is framed on a false murder rap. Rhonda Fleming costars as The Duchess, proprietress of the gambling establishment where Tennessee makes his headquarters. The film's best moment belongs to Colleen Gray, as she deftly switches allegiance from one man to another at fadeout time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Payne, Ronald Reagan, (more)
When the family land is threatened with foreclosure, honest, hard-working rancher Ross McEwen (Joel McCrea) resorts to bank robbery in order to come up with the necessary cash. Although he leaves the bank an I.O.U., Sheriff Pat Garrett (Charles Bickford) is sent out to catch the criminal as he flees to escape capture. This western was originally titled They Passed this Way. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, (more)
- 1946
This little-known Warner Bros. melodrama reteams Hotel Berlin co-stars Helmut Dantine and Andrea King. He is cast as Dr. Eric Ryder, a seemingly respectable medico, while she plays Ryder's impressionable young bride Brook. Despite significant evidence that Ryder isn't all that he seems to be, his wife continues to believe in and worship him. Only when it's nearly too late does she realize that Ryder is not only a phony, but a murderer to boot. The tension is heightened by the fact that Ryder's young son (Larry Geiger) from an earlier marriage is being methodically starved to death by his deranged father. Shadow of a Woman was based on a novel by Virginia Perdue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helmut Dantine, Andrea King, (more)
- 1945
In this drama, an amoral, manipulative womanizer gets his comeuppance. The story begins as the handsome cad is witnessed quickly leaving a hotel room in the East. He has just stolen money, and a wedding band from a dead woman. He is next seen in L.A. living under an alias. There, he begins victimizing two naive sisters and uses them to substantially increase his wealth. Eventually, the two figure out the man's evil game, but there is little they can do to thwart him. Meanwhile, the gigolo is being stalked by the husband of the woman he robbed in the film's beginning. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Faye Emerson, Zachary Scott, (more)
- 1943
In this drama, based on a popular radio program, the leader of a ring of burglars suffers a blow to the head and loses his memory. Unable to remember anything about his past, he starts anew and becomes a psychiatrist. He never does stop trying to remember his past life, even while his present life continues to advance. He is soon made the head of the state parole board. There he gets entangled with former gang members, one of whom hits him in the head, again. Suddenly, he remembers. He gives himself up, but then receives a suspended sentence. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Baxter, Margaret Lindsay, (more)
- 1942
- NR
Though officially based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Buddington Kelland, RKO Radio's Valley of the Sun was obviously inspired by the blockbuster comedy western Destry Rides Again (indeed, both films were directed by George Marshall). James Craig stars as Indian scout Jonathan, whose pro-Native American sentiments do not rest well with crooked civilian Indian agent Jim Sawyer (Dean Jagger), who intends to benefit from an impending tribal uprising. Court-martialed on a trumped-up charge fomented by Sawyer, Jonathan escapes the stockade with the help of a friendly sergeant and rides off to Washington DC, hoping to forestall an all-out Indian war. En route, he makes the acquaintance of Sawyer's snooty fiancee Christine (Lucille Ball), forcing her into a marriage for plot reasons too complicated to go into here. After juggling comedy and melodrama for nearly eight reels, the film turns serious towards the climax, when the fate of the protagonists falls into the hands of level-headed Indian chieftan Cochise (Antonio Moreno) and his hotheaded rival Geronimo (Tom Tyler). RKO's first big-budget western in several years, Valley of the Sun lost $158,000 at the box office, temporarily discouraging any followups. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, James Craig, (more)
- 1940
Johan David Wyss' novel Swiss Family Robinson had been in print for nearly fifty years before the first film version was made by RKO in 1940. Thomas Mitchell is top-billed as the patriarch of the Robinson family, who, as in the book, are shipwrecked on a tropical island and compelled to bring the edicts and values of civilization to their tiny patch of the world. To give the story a bit of topicality, screenwriters Walter Ferris, Gene Towne and Graham Baker contrive to depict the Robinsons as refugees from a foreign war (Napoleonic rather than Hitler-inspired). Produced independently by The Play's the Thing Productions and released by RKO, Swiss Family Robinson was completely withdrawn from circulation on the occasion of the 1960 Disney remake. Side note: The 1940 version represented the feature film debut of Orson Welles, who functioned as offscreen narrator. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Mitchell, Edna Best, (more)
This Victorian-era drama is based upon the classic novel by Thomas Hughes. It follows the exploits of a young boy forced to attend a rowdy boarding school. There he finds himself surrounded by budding punks and hoods. It is rough at first, but eventually he learns to make friends and handle himself well in the tough environment. The film is also titled Adventures at Rugby. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cedric Hardwicke, Freddie Bartholomew, (more)
Anita's (Loretta Young) life seems to be progressing nicely. She's engaged to Don Barnes (Broderick Crawford), a wealthy man that will give her all the stability and comfort a woman could desire. But then she meets a magician with the unlikely name of The Great Arturo (David Niven), who performs a singular feat of magic -- he sweeps her off her feet. Promptly dropping Barnes, she weds Arturo and travels the globe as his assistant. After some time, however, the magic begins to wear off and Anita longs for a simpler life, perhaps on a quite farmhouse in the country. She's also a bit put out by Arturo's flirting with other women, but what really worries her are the dangerous stunts he has added to his repertoire. Realizing it is time for her to do something, she pulls a little magic of her own and disappear, forcing Artuto to set off on a lively chase to find her. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, David Niven, (more)
- 1938
- NR
Given the talent involved, The Joy of Living should have been far better than it is. Irene Dunne plays Maggie, a popular musical-comedy star saddled with a possessive, spendthrift family. Maggie would like to leave the house once in a while and experience "real life," but her parents (Alice Brady, Guy Kibbee), worried that they'll lose their meal ticket, refuse to allow her to do so. The Prince Charming who rescues Maggie from her folks is ship-owner Dan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) As a bonus, the footloose and fancy-free Dan teaches the repressed Maggie that "it's fun to be foolish." Apparently director Tay Garnett couldn't keep the production under control, and the cost ballooned to a then-staggering $1.1 million, resulting in a huge loss for RKO Radio. Some of the film's brighter moments are provided by Lucille Ball, Billy Gilbert, Jean Dixon and Franklin Pangborn, who like Dunne and Fairbanks all deserved funnier material than this. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Irene Dunne, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., (more)
Bookish bank employee Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) is ordered to investigate the near-bankrupt Colossal Studios in Hollywood, to see if the firm is any sort of good risk. Dodd's first brush with Tinseltown's cuckoo atmosphere occurs when he takes a room in a boarding house for extras, where all manner of eccentrics wander about as they wait for the phone to ring (Charles Middleton comports himself in an Abe Lincoln costume, on the off-chance that Hollywood will go back to making Civil War pictures soon). He befriends Lester Plum (Joan Blondell), a former child star now working as a stand-in for haughty movie queen Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton), and perpetually soused producer Douglas Quintain (Humphrey Bogart). Aware that the latest epic of autocratic director Koslofski (Alan Mowbray) will ruin the studio, Howard investigates further, discovering that a rival company has bribed Koslofski to pad the budget and thus bring about the foreclosure of Colossal. While his business sense tells him that this is the next logical move, Dodd has fallen in love with Plum; thus, he gives Quintain 48 hours to re-edit Koslofski's fiasco into something workable, and himself staves off the studio's shutdown by rallying all the Colossal employees to stand firm against being removed from the premises. Based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Buddington Kelland, this is a light-hearted satire of the movie industry, the sort of amiable farce in which everyone--even the most contentious of characters--is shown to be basically decent underneath. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Howard, Joan Blondell, (more)
- 1937
History is Made at Night has been described as a romantic tragedy, which it indeed is, up to a point. The film begins deceptively in screwball-comedy fashion with socialite Jean Arthur and handsome head waiter Charles Boyer "meeting cute." But there's nothing cute about Arthur's estranged husband, shipbuilder Colin Clive. Insanely jealous, Clive arranges for the ship on which his wife and her lover are travelling to hit an iceberg--then, aghast at what he has done, Clive commits suicide. As the ship lists dangerously close to sinking beneath the waves, the terrified passengers--Boyer and Arthur included--huddle on the deck. The fog-enshrouded scene in which Charles and Jean affirm their love in the face of death is among the most heartrending sequences ever filmed (the director was Frank Borzage, a past master at transforming potential maudlin material into high-gloss art). Even the happy ending of History is Made at Night does not diminish the power and poignancy of that shipboard scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, (more)
Archetypal depression-era stars Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney are felicitously teamed in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Fonda plays an ex-convict who can't get a break on the "outside". He marries Sidney, who like her husband is one of life's losers. Framed on a murder rap, Fonda is forced to take it on the lam, with his wife and baby in tow. In trying to avoid capture, Fonda becomes a murderer for real, condemning himself and Sidney to an early demise. Partly based on the legend of Bonnie and Clyde, the Gene Towne-Graham Baker screenplay stacks the deck against its protagonists to such an extent that the audience is virtually forced to hate their various antagonists. As superb as Henry Fonda is in portraying the foredoomed hero, Sylvia Sidney is even better as his wife; her reading of such lines as "We just call him...baby" are enough to shrivel the heart even after six decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, (more)
- 1933
This drama was written by famed radio announcer Walter Winchell. It chronicles the tragic love between a racketeer and a singer. So smitten is he by the chorus girl's charms that he buys her a nightclub. Unfortunately for him, the club's male crooner/bandleader also loves the girl. Realizing that he cannot compete, the crook bows out. However, during her wedding the racketeer lays down his life in exchange for hers when others attempt to kidnap her. He is shot, but survives. In the hospital he listens to the radio and hears that he is considered a hero and that the would-be kidnappers have been killed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Constance Cummings, Russ Columbo, (more)
- 1929
This drama opens with a most disturbing scene as a jilted lover places a gun to his head and pulls the trigger. Fortunately, he is but an actor in a play and the gun is but a prop. His co-star is a beautiful young woman. A young man is utterly in love with the actress and after the show visits her and presents her with an arm-load of fragrant blossoms. He then invites her to meet his wealthy family in Philadelphia. The family, who lives in an ancient mansion, prove to be a very strange lot. The father is a stern and dour fellow. Grandpa is a lascivious old coot. She also meets an assortment of snobs and perverts. Upon meeting her, they immediately assume that she is a gold digger. Soon the family lawyer offers her a large amount of money for the love letters the young man had written her. She accepts the money and then gives it to the boy to keep him on the straight and narrow. Her good deeds are finally made apparent to the dour patriarch who begins courting her and eventually marries her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Costello, Ralph Graves, (more)
- 1929
H.B. Warner, so convincing as Jesus Christ in DeMille's The King of Kings, does a complete about-face in the early talkie Conquest. Warner plays James Farnham, a no-good rat who deserts his best friend during an expedition to the South Pole. He then accepts military honors for bravery that should have gone to his deceased friend, capping his misdeeds by claiming the dead man's sweetheart Diane Holden (Lois Wilson). When good-guy Donald Overton (Monte Blue) confronts Farnham with evidence of his skullduggery, Farnham tries to do the younger man in with a hammer. This time, however, Farnham pays for his perfidy -- undoubtedly to the dismay of the audience, who realized early on that H.B. Warner was the best actor in the picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monte Blue, H.B. Warner, (more)
- 1929
In this sad drama, a nightclub chanteuse gives up everything to have her daughter educated abroad. When her grown-up, highly cultured daughter returns from Europe, she is appalled to learn the truth about her mother -- that she has a low class job entertaining boozy old men. She disowns her mother and the distraught mother begins singing the blues in earnest. Songs include: "I'm The Last Of The Red Hot Mommas," "I'm Doin' What I'm Doin' For Love," "He's A Good Man To Have Around," "I'm Feathering A Nest (For A Little Bluebird)," and "I Don't Want to Get Thin." and "Some of These Days." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sophie Tucker, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1928
Popular film lore has it that The Jazz Singer was the film that established the talkie as the pre-eminent film medium in 1927. But it was Al Jolson's follow-up film, The Singing Fool that actually introduced the sound film to the general film-going population of the United States and it was the popularity of The Singing Fool that paved the way for the wide-acceptance of sound features. Jolson plays Al Stone, a singing waiter at Blackie Joe's cafe, who writes a hit song and sky-rockets to success as a Broadway headliner. Looking ahead to unlimited success, Al falls in love with scheming golddigger Molly Winton (Josephine Dunn), whom he marries. When Molly gives him a son, Sonny Boy (Davey Lee), Al is beside himself with love for his cutey-pie offspring. But when Molly deserts him for small-time gangster John Perry (Reed Howes) and takes Sonny Boy with her, Al is heartbroken. His spirit shattered, Al becomes a bum and, after a time, regains his singing waiter job at Blackie Joe's. Back at the dive, Grace (Betty Bronson), a cigarette girl secretly in love with Al, convinces him to make a comeback. Al struggles and regains his confidence and hits the stage like a trouper -- even when he hears that his beloved Sonny Boy has died in a hospital ward. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Al Jolson, Betty Bronson, (more)
- 1928
George O'Brien, Fox Studios' general-purpose leading man, heads the cast of Honor Bound. The story opens in the bedroom of hero John Ogletree (George O'Brien), who is awakened from his slumbers by the unexpected arrival of Evelyn (Evelyn Brent), a total stranger. Claiming that she's fleeing from her brutal husband, Evelyn begs John to protect her. On cue, the husband shows up and in the ensuing struggle is accidentally killed. Arrested for manslaughter, John nobly serves his sentence without ever implicating Evelyn in her husband's death. Our hero subsequently joins a prison work gang, assigned to the coal mines owned by one Mr. Mortimer (Tom Santschi) -- who happens to be Evelyn's new husband. Feeling guilty for John's plight, Evelyn arranges for him to have the relatively cushy job of Mortimer's chauffeur. This naturally arouses the suspicions of Mortimer, who promptly assigns John to "grunge" duty in the mines. A fire set by a fellow convict is blamed on John, but this time Evelyn steps forward to exonerate the long-suffering hero, freeing him to marry his true love, pretty nurse Selma Ritchie (Leila Hyams). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George O'Brien, Estelle Taylor, (more)
- 1927
The Gay Old Bird in this silent Warner Bros. programmer is Louise Fazenda, cast as ugly-duckling maidservant Sisseretta Simpkins. Our heroine is in the employ of the unhappily married Cluneys (John T. Murray, Jane Winton). Mr. Cluney's wealthy uncle (John Stepping) has promised to bequeath a fortune to the family, provided Cluney remains married. When Mrs. Cluney walks out on her husband, he desperately cajoles Sisseretta into posing as his wife. No surprises here, just a tip-top comic performance by Louise Fazenda, a proven film favorite since 1913. John T. Murray, who plays Cluney, would later become a member in good standing of the Columbia Pictures short subject "stock company." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John T. Murray, Jane Winton, (more)
- 1927
The plot to this underworld drama, based on a story by Arthur Somers Roche, sounds more like something from the 1930s than from the silent era. It's an early starring vehicle for Myrna Loy. Southern girl Mary Carlton (Loy) finds out that her brother, Bob (Carroll Nye), is going to the electric chair for a crime he says he didn't commit. In order to get her brother exonerated, Mary travels to New York and pretends to be a Chicago gun moll. She wins the love of two gangsters, Handsome Joe (Conrad Nagel) and Big Steve Drummond (William Russell). Joe, it turns out, isn't a gangster at all, but an undercover detective. He attempts to help Mary prove her brother's innocence, and the two of them are caught in a fierce gun battle between the crooks and the cops. They make it through alive (although Drummond gets his due), and Bob is released at the last minute. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Conrad Nagel, Myrna Loy, (more)
- 1927
Hardly an important film, Finger Prints pleased the crowd with its heady combination of slapstick comedy and old-dark-house melodrama. A professional crook is collared by the law, but not before squirreling away a fortune in hidden money in a crumbling country mansion. The crook's sister is kidnapped by his accomplices, who take the girl to the mansion, hoping to force her to reveal the whereabouts of the loot. What they don't know is that the house has been fitted with all sorts of modern, push-button devices, which thoroughly flummox the bad guys while delighting their unterrified captive. The day is saved by the timely intervention of comic-relief servant Louise Fazenda (who certainly deserves the top billing bestowed upon her). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Fazenda, Warner P. Richmond, (more)
- 1926
Hungarian director Michael Curtiz made his American film bow with the highly stylized crime melodrama The Third Degree. Set against the backdrop of Coney Island, the story concerns a young couple, Annie Daly (Dolores Costello) and Howard Jeffries Jr. (Jason Robards Sr.). She's a working-class girl, he's the son of a wealthy family. Disinherited by his father, Howard finds himself the prime suspect when the old man is murdered. The hapless hero is strong-armed into a confession by the overzealous police, but eventually the truth is revealed, and the lovers are free to marry. Admittedly trying to impress his new employers at Warner Bros. with his cinematic know-how, Curtiz adopted a bizarre, expressionistic style that out-Caligaried Caligari; his camera pyrotechnics are particularly prevalent in a "subjective" sequence involving a dangerous carnival attraction. In fact, Curtiz spent so much time with offbeat camera angles and bizarre compositions that he nearly forgot to tell the story! Once he got all this gimmickry out of his system, however, Michael Curtiz settled down to become one of Warners' most prolific and dependable commercial filmmakers, remaining a fixture at the studio until 1950. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Costello, Louise Dresser, (more)
