Jay Eaton Movies

This Sessue Hayakawa film was based on the Lloyd Osborne novel East Is East. T'Su Wong Shih (Hayakawa), a Chinese prince, is in love with Qwan Yin, the gardener's daughter (Gloria Payton). His uncle, however, demands that he stick to custom and enter into a marriage that has already been arranged. When Shih refuses, the uncle sends him to America to be educated, hoping that this will bring him around. The young prince marries Yin before he leaves, and keeps her in his mind the whole time he is away. When he finally graduates from the university, he visits San Francisco's Chinatown with some pals and happens on an auction of a Chinese slave girl. The girl turns out to be Yin. To save her, Shih bids five thousand dollars, which he doesn't have. He convinces the auctioneer to give him some time and manages to win the money in a lottery. A gangster forces the auctioneer to hand over Yin to him instead. Shih goes after the gangster and gives him a thrashing to retrieve his girl. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The piquant Leatrice Joy starred in this frothy marital comedy about a wife who leaves her boring husband (John Boles) to be the companion of a kept woman (Seena Owen). The latter, however, leaves in a huff when she suspects that her gentleman friend (H.B. Warner) may be paying a bit too much attention to the newcomer. Sure enough, the lecherous Warner does indeed propose a similar arrangement for Miss Joy, who promptly turns him down in favor of returning to home and hearth. With her close-cropped and rather mannish hairstyle, Leatrice Joy was one of the era's great trendsetters and excelled at playing naughty but nice. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Naughty Baby in this late-silent opus is hat-check girl Rosie McGill, played by bubbly blonde Alice White. Taking a special interest in tippling millionaire Terry Vanderveer (Jack Mulhall), Rosie tries to save him from the grasp of fortune-hunting Bonnie LeVonne (Thelma Todd). Could it be that Rosie is actually in love with Terry herself? It could indeed. Prominent in the supporting cast are George E. Stone as bush-league gangster Toni Caponi, Jewish comedian Benny Rubin as Benny Cohen, and Andy Devine as Joe Cassidy: while Alice White's star would fade in the 1930s, Stone, Rubin and Devine would still be working well into the 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sky Raiders may be a talkie, but its plotting and performances are strictly from the silent era. Lloyd Hughes plays Bob, a daredevil aviator in love with Grace (Marceline Day). Bob's recklessness and fondness for bootleg hootch causes the death of Grace's brother, whereupon she storms out of his life. Our hero redeems himself by rounding up a gang of flying hijackers who've been robbing gold shipments in mid-air. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Cagney stars as a popular prizefighter who loses his winnings through too much partying and too many women. Cagney's fans finance the boxer's regenerative stay at a New Mexico health resort. For the sake of pretty, poverty-stricken Marian Nixon, Cagney enters into a return bout. He splits his winnings with Nixon, then goes back to his old skirt-chasing pattern with fickle society girl Virginia Bruce. Having had his nose broken, Cagney fixes it up to please Bruce, and stops taking chances in the ring lest his beezer get smashed again. It doesn't take long for Cagney to plummet from popularity, but true-blue Nixon is there for him when he gets wise to himself. The beautifully staged fight scenes in Winner Take All, wherein James Cagney disdains the use of a double, were later excerpted in Cagney's last-ever film, 1985's Terrible Joe Moran. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Affairs of Cellini is based on Edwin Justus Mayer's popular stage play The Firebrand, which in turn was based on the life and times of Renaissance artist/political reactionary Benvenuto Cellini. Fredric March plays the tempestuous, amorous Cellini, who spends as much time in swordplay with jealous husbands as he does in his artist's loft. When the duke of Florence (Frank Morgan) falls for Cellini's beautiful model (Fay Wray), Cellini is presented in court, whereupon he revives an ongoing affair with the duchess of Florence (Constance Bennett). Though a bumbling buffoon, the duke nonetheless holds the power of life and death over everyone in his domain, including Cellini. Thanks to his political activities and his overactive libido, Cellini is nearly executed, but a series of farce-like complications allows the plotline to turn out to the artist's advantage. Though hardly reliable as history, The Affairs of Cellini scores on its comic content, including the hilarious performances of Frank Morgan as the cuckolded duke and Fay Wray as the monumentally stupid artist's model. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Written by the prolific Ben Hecht, Upper World is a clash-of-class melodrama set in New York City. Railroad tycoon Alexander Stream (Warren William) is neglected by his social-climbing wife Mary Astor. Quite unintentionally, through a chance encounter, he strikes up a reasonably chaste friendship with good-hearted showgirl Lilly Linder (Ginger Rogers). Lilly's ex-boyfriend Lou Colima (J. Carroll Naish) sees an opportunity to blackmail Stream; Lilly tries to block him from doing so, and is murdered for her troubles. Stream shoots Colima in self-defense and manages to cover up his involvement so that the crime scene looks like a murder-suicide, protecting his good name and marriage in the process. But a vitriolic cop (Sidney Toler), whom Stream had earlier gotten demoted over a traffic stop -- and who was on patrol in the vicinity of the crime -- involves himself in the case and gathers enough evidence to point the detectives and the press toward the wary tycoon. Though he must stand trial for Colima's death, Stream is supported in his ordeal by his suddenly attentive and affectionate wife.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Notorious as the movie that gangster John Dillinger attended on the night he was killed, Manhattan Melodrama has weathered the years as one of MGM's finest examples of pure storytelling. The pageant-like story begins in 1904, when the excursion steamer "General Slocum" blows up and burns in the East River. Two young boys are orphaned by the disaster. They are adopted by a kindly Jewish businessman (Harry Green) who has lost his own children. Years later, when he is killed during a anarchist rally, the boys are separated once more. They grow up to be straight-arrow attorney Jim Wade (William Powell) and big-time gambler Blackie Gallagher (Clark Gable). Though the two men still like and respect one another, they are now on opposite sides of the legal fence. The professional rivalry becomes personal when Jim marries Blackie's ex-mistress Eleanor (Myrna Loy). The typically stellar MGM supporting cast includes Nat Pendleton as Blackie's faithful stooge, Isabel Jewell as his addled girlfriend, Mickey Rooney as the younger Blackie (a marvelous piece of mimicry here), and blonde singer Shirley Ross, here appearing in blackface in a Harlem nightclub sequence, singing a new Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart tune that would later gain popularity (with different lyrics) as "Blue Moon." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although some purists hold out for Duck Soup (1933), many Marx Brothers fans consider A Night at the Opera the team's best film. Immediately after the credits roll, we are introduced to Groucho Marx as penny-ante promoter Otis B. Driftwood. After a sumptuous dinner with a beautiful blonde at a fancy Milan restaurant, Driftwood tries to cadge another free meal from his wealthy patroness, Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont). The dignified dowager complains that Driftwood had promised to get her into high society, but has done nothing so far. Otis B. counters by introducing Mrs. C to pompous opera entrepreneur Gottleib (Sig Rumann); all Mrs. Claypool has to do is invest several hundred thousand dollars in Gottleib's opera company, and her entree into society is in the bag. Contingent upon this plan is Driftwood's signing of Rodolfo Lassparri (Walter Woolf King), a self-important tenor. Backstage at the opera, Driftwood meets Fiorello (Chico Marx), who poses as a manager and offers to sell Driftwood the "world's greatest tenor"-not Lassparri, as Driftwood assumes, but Fiorello's pal Ricardo Baroni (Allan Jones). Instantly the two sharpsters try to draw up a contract ("The party of the first part shall hereafter be known as the party of the first part..."), which they proceed to tear up piece by piece whenever coming across a clause that displeases them (Driftwood: "That's a sanity clause"; Fiorello: "You no foola me. There ain't no Sanity Claus"). Having lost Lassparri to Gottleib, Driftwood sails back to America with Mrs. Claypool and the opera company. Gottleib arranges for Driftwood to get the tiniest, least accessible stateroom on the ship. Unpacking his trunk, Driftwood discovers that he's got to share his postage-stamp quarters with Ricardo Baroni, who has stowed away because he's in love with the opera troupe's leading lady Rosa (Kitty Carlisle). Also hiding out in Driftwood's trunk is Fiorello, who's come along because he's still Ricardo's manager, and the wacky Tomasso (Harpo Marx), Lassparri's former dresser, who has come along for the hell of it. Anxious to arrange a tete-a-tete with Mrs. Claypool in his stateroom, Otis finds out that his unwelcome guests won't leave until they're fed ("Do you have any stewed prunes? Well, give them some black coffee, that'll sober 'em up"). After ordering a huge dinner, Otis and his new friends are crowded even farther by a steady stream of intruders, including an engineer and his assistant, a cleaning lady, a manicurist, a girl looking for her Aunt Minnie, and a dozen waiters. The celebrated "stateroom scene" comes to a rollicking conclusion when Mrs. Claypool has the misfortune of opening the door. On the last night of the voyage, Fiorello, Tomasso and Ricardo sneak out of their stateroom to enjoy an impromptu ethnic festival in steerage. Ricardo sings, Fiorello "shoots the keys" on the piano, and Tomasso plays the film's theme song Alone on the harp. The stowaways are caught and thrown in the brig, but with Driftwood's help they escape. To avoid recapture, the stowaways don heavy beards and pose as three famed Russian aviators. After making a shambles of a public reception, the three reprobates hide out in Driftwood's New York apartment, where everyone conspires to drive an investigating detective (Robert Emmet O'Connor) crazy. Driftwood is fired from the opera company for associating with the stowaways, while Rosa is dismissed for refusing Lassparri's affections. In order to restore Rosa's job and put the deserving Ricardo in Lassparri's place during the opening performance of La Traviata, Driftwood, Fiorello and Tomasso concoct a scheme that will reduce the opera to comic chaos. The actual night at the opera in A Night at the Opera must be seen to be believed, but the spirit of the scene can be summed up by Gottleib's anguished cry "A battleship in Il Trovatore!" Opera was the Marx Brothers' first film for MGM, and they dearly coveted a hit after the disappointing box-office showing of their final Paramount films. With the blessing of MGM production chief Irving Thalberg, the Marxes went on the road with their brilliant writing staff (including George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind and Al Boasberg) to test their comedy material before live audiences. As a result of this careful preplanning, Night at the Opera was a smash-hit gigglefest, grossing over $3 million and putting the Marxes back on top in the hearts and minds of filmgoers everywhere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an amateur pilot is driven to living life in the fast lane after he pilots that plane that crashed and killed his parents and his sister. He goes on to marry. He and his new wife live in terrible conditions until he suddenly inherits $8,000 which he uses to buy a plane and start up a commuter service. Unfortunately, he finds himself again in debt. His disgusted wife leaves, but when he is hurt in a car crash, she eventually returns. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Otto Preminger was able to make his directorial debut on Under Your Spell solely because Darryl Zanuck couldn't care less about the film's quality; it was a contractual obligation film for Lawrence Tibbett, who was proving a washout as a film star. In Spell, Tibbett plays Anthony Allen, a world famous singer who has grown tired of the trials that come with celebrity. Seeking to avoid the spotlight, ceaseless publicity and determined fans, Allen enlists the aid of his butler in secretly escaping to a ranch in Mexico. Allen's manager (Gregory Ratoff) is understandably upset with his client's behavior and so sets in motion a scheme of his own. He contacts celebrity-hunting heiress Cynthia Drexel (Wendy Barrie) and lets her know where to find the reluctant star. Drexel quickly hunts down her prey and sticks to him like glue. Although Allen initially is exasperated with her, he soon finds himself attracted to her. In addition to arias from The Marriage of Figaro and Faust, Tibbert performs Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz's "Amigo," "My Little Mule Wagon" and the title song. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Love Before Breakfast was the scintillating title Universal chose over Spinster Dinner, the Faith Baldwin novel upon which this airy comedy is based. Carole Lombard is a Park Avenue beauty squired by Preston S. Foster and Cesar Romero. Since neither gentleman is a prize catch, Lombard is fey and fickle throughout the film. That's all there is to Love Before Breakfast, which might have been completely forgotten had it not been for a famous 1930s-era painting in which a detailed poster for the film is the focus of attention. There's one iconoclastic alteration in the painting: Carole Lombard has been given a black eye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide