Robert Elliott Movies

'Til We Meet Again is an inflated remake of 1932's One Way Passage. As in the original, the hero is a convicted murderer en route to the death house by way of a merchant ship; the heroine is suffering from a terminal illness. Once more, hero and heroine fall in love, each keeping the facts of his or her imminent doom from the other. The principal difference this time is that instead of William Powell and Kay Francis, the stars are George Brent and Merle Oberon. This cast change does no damage to the basic storyline, but the decision in 'Til We Meet Again to expand upon the secondary romance between the arresting detective (Pat O'Brien) and an accomplice of the condemned man (Geraldine Fitzgerald) throws the focus of the film completely out of kilter. One decided benefit to both One Way Passage and 'Til We Meet Again is the comic presence of Frank McHugh, who plays the same role--a tipsy pickpocket--in both pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Priscilla Dean was one of the major star names of the early 1920s. By the time the all-talking quickie Behind Stone Walls was made, however, Ms. Dean was taking any job she could get. Here she plays an adulterous wife who kills her lover. Eddie Nugent, Dean's loyal stepson, confesses to the crime himself and is carted off to prison, but eventually the real murderer's conscious gets the better of her. Top billing in Behind Stone Walls is bestowed upon Robert Elliot, who plays (as ever) the hard-nosed investigating detective. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Warner Bros.' Captain Thunder contains some of the darndest Mexican accents you've ever heard in your life. The star is Hungarian-born Victor Varconi, portraying a legendary south of the border outlaw who tries to force Canadian senorita Fay Wray to marry a rival rustler whom she despises. She pleads with the bandito so pathetically that he is moved to grant her a single wish. Without hesitation she chooses her poor but true love. The bandit king, being a somewhat honorable fellow grants the wish and without a twitch, guns down the wicked cattle thief. Fortunately the film was played for comedy, a wise decision since it probably would have garnered laughs as a straight drama anyway. No fewer than four writers worked on Captain Thunder, and that folks is never a good sign. The true "bandit" in this film was Jack Warner, who picked the pockets of those filmgoers who thought they were going to see a thrilling melodrama (or at least a film with a semblance of coherent plot). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Henry M. Blossom melodrama had a long success on the stage before it was made into an action-packed, serial-like picture by Fox. When Pert Barlow (Jean Acker) was born, her father Judge Barlow (Bertram Marburgh) promised his best friend that she would marry his son, Arthur Kendall (Robert Elliott). But his plan goes awry when, as a young woman, Pert meets Checkers (Thomas J. Carrigan). To save her father from financial ruin, Checkers encourages Pert to enter her horse, Remorse, in a big race. The horse turns out to be incredibly fast, and Arthur, who has entered a horse of his own, is determined to keep Remorse out of the running. First Pert has to escape from her father's house, then she, Checkers, and Remorse wind up in a burning freight car. After narrowly escaping, Pert is imprisoned in the house of a wealthy Chinese man. Finally she and Remorse both make it to the race track, where she rides the horse to victory. Because of Checkers' help in saving the family fortune, Judge Barlow finally gives him his consent to marry Pert. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

After a two-year absence, the "Hopalong Cassidy" western series returned with The Devil's Playground. William Boyd, now executive-producer of the series, returns as Hoppy, with Andy Clyde as California Carson and Rand Brooks as Lucky Jenkins. More plot-oriented than earlier Cassidy efforts, Devil's Playground finds our three heroes coming to the rescue of widowed Mrs. Evans (Elaine Riley). The villain of the piece is Judge Morton (Robert Elliot), who hopes to force the heroine off her property for reasons unknown. Hoppy uncovers Morton's motivations and saves the day, but not without putting up one whale of a good fight. While Devil's Playground upheld the standard set by the previous "Hopalong Cassidy" films, the quality of the series would gradually deteriorate during the next eleven installments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This melodrama was based on Rex Beach's novel The Net. Countess Margherita (Betty Blythe) is a Sicilian girl who is about to be married, but Caesar Maruffi, the head of a criminal syndicate (Thurston Hall), wants her for himself. He arranges to have the bridegroom assassinated, and Norvin Blake, a young American (Robert Elliott), almost loses his life in his attempt to save him. Margherita is devastated by the death of her loved one and, like a true Sicilian, she swears vengeance. She travels to America, where she poses as a nurse in New Orleans. Once again she encounters Blake, who reveals that he loves her. Together they track down Maruffi and his syndicate, determined to bring them to justice. Blake and Maruffi battle it out with their fists, with Blake emerging victorious. Gladys Hulette almost steals the show from the leads in a supporting role as the spirited Myra Drew. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Enterprising Chinese-born actress Lady Tsen Mei co-founded the Betzwood Production Company in Philadelphia. As her first film for the new studio, she touched on a popular subject -- the current World War -- and put an Oriental spin on it. Princess Tsu (Mei) discovers that her uncle the Viceroy (Lai Mon Kim) is in league with the Germans, who want to put together a Chinese army to support Germany in Russia. She goes to the Americans with this information and Robert Kenyon (Robert Elliott) is given charge of the matter. Princess Tsu falls in love with Kenyon but discovers, much to her ire, that he already has a fiancée back home in the States. She is so furious that she is ready to go to the Germans and spoil all the Americans' hard work. But her conscience gets the better of her and instead she directs her efforts to vanquishing the Germans and making sure that the East is free of their evil influence. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Gone With the Wind boils down to a story about a spoiled Southern girl's hopeless love for a married man. Producer David O. Selznick managed to expand this concept, and Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel, into nearly four hours' worth of screen time, on a then-astronomical 3.7-million-dollar budget, creating what would become one of the most beloved movies of all time. Gone With the Wind opens in April of 1861, at the palatial Southern estate of Tara, where Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) hears that her casual beau Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) plans to marry "mealy mouthed" Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). Despite warnings from her father (Thomas Mitchell) and her faithful servant Mammy (Hattie McDaniel), Scarlett intends to throw herself at Ashley at an upcoming barbecue at Twelve Oaks. Alone with Ashley, she goes into a fit of histrionics, all of which is witnessed by roguish Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), the black sheep of a wealthy Charleston family, who is instantly fascinated by the feisty, thoroughly self-centered Scarlett: "We're bad lots, both of us." The movie's famous action continues from the burning of Atlanta (actually the destruction of a huge wall left over from King Kong) through the now-classic closing line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Holding its own against stiff competition (many consider 1939 to be the greatest year of the classical Hollywood studios), Gone With the Wind won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to win an Oscar). The film grossed nearly 192 million dollars, assuring that, just as he predicted, Selznick's epitaph would be "The Man Who Made Gone With the Wind." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a grizzled cabbie is scammed out of his life savings by a fake finance company. He tries to no avail to get police assistance. Finally he becomes a wanted criminal and escapes to California where he meets the girl who will become his wife. She helps him go straight by helping him set up a garage. When she gets pregnant, she talks him into to confessing his crimes to the police. He agrees, but before he goes, he decides to commit one last crime to ensure that his wife and child will not starve while he serves his prison sentence. He then steals a million dollars only to learn that the money is worthless. He is subsequently killed in a police shoot-out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Invisible Stripes is a cookie-cutter Warners prison drama which rounds up the usual suspects. George Raft and Humphrey Bogart are top-billed, and as is often the case in such a circumstance, it is Raft who is given the larger (albeit less interesting) role. Raft plays Cliff Taylor, an ex-convict who finds that his "invisible stripes" prevent him from getting a decent job. Cliff's younger brother (William Holden) shows unfortunate signs of following his older sibling's footsteps when he is pressured into crime to support himself and his girl friend (Jane Bryan). To save his brother, Cliff joins Humphrey Bogart's gang and earns enough dishonest money to set his brother up in business. But movie censorship prevails, and all of the miscreants in Invisible Stripes--even those motivated by good intentions--must pay the penalty. Side note: The prankish Humphrey Bogart spent so much time needling newcomer William Holden that Holden nearly came to blows with the older actor; the animosity persisted into the Bogart-Holden costarring feature Sabrina, made fourteen years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on Dion Boucicauls's Irish play, this early talkie from lower-echelon company Tiffany starred one of the victims of sound, Sally O'Neil, formerly of MGM. A young Irish lassie, Kathleen arrives in New York to marry Terry (Charles Delaney), a poor but honest plumber. At a party given by her Aunt Nora Shannon (Aggie Herring), Kathleen dallies with unscrupulous political boss Dan Moriarity (Robert Elliott), whom she mistakes for a gentleman. When a jealous Terry denounces the girl, Moriarity asks her to marry him. At their wedding, a rabble-rouser accuses Moriarity's henchmen of having committed murder and is shot by the groom right in front of a terrified Kathleen. Having finally realized her intended's true character, Kathleen quickly returns to a forgiving Terry. Boucicault's sentimental melodrama had been filmed three times before, in 1906 by Edwin S. Porter, in 1913 starring Mary Fuller, and in a sumptuous 1919 version featuring a miscast Theda Bara. A fifth screen version of the play was produced in Ireland in 1937, again starring Sally O'Neil. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Contrary to popular belief, no one speaks into microphones hidden in vases in this, the first 100% "all-talking" feature film, although an oversized telephone prop is rather conveniently placed near the actors in one long sequence. Although not nearly as crude as its tattered reputation, Lights of New York is far from thrilling, however. Not so much due to the later so maligned sound-on-disc Vitaphone system, but mainly because this was really a quickie B-Movie helmed by a first time director, Bryan Foy, who seems to have been little more than an inefficient traffic cop. Not that there is all that much traffic in this stage-bound melodrama about Eddie (Cullen Landis), a young kid from Upstate New York conned into fronting for a speakeasy on Broadway. There is the inevitable chorus-girl with a heart of gold (top-billed Helene Costello), the downtrodden floozy (Gladys Brockwell), and a cop-killing gangster boss, Hawk Miller (Wheeler Oakman), whom screenwriters Hugh Herbert and Murray Roth furnished with the film's one memorable line. With the cops closing in on him, Hawk needs a patsy. Planting contraband in poor Eddie's shop, the gang leader then instructs his henchmen to "take. . .him. . .for. . .a. . .ride!" Oakman speaks this much parodied line slowly and in a stentorian manner, lest the audience should fail to understand the grave implications. But Eddie escapes his "ride," and there is a final confrontation. Just as all hope seems lost, Hawk is killed by persons unknown. The murder weapon, however, belongs to the chorus girl and she is about to be arrested by no-nonsense Detective Crosby (Robert Elliott), when the real murderer -- the downtrodden floozy -- gives herself up. The performances in this historic talking picture run the gamut from inept (Costello, Landis) to over-the-top (Brockwell) to adequate (Oakman, comic sidekick Eugene Palette). Perhaps due to the newness of it all, the actors keep flubbing their line -- the poor Miss Costello being the worst offender, with Tom Dugan, a veteran supporting player, a close second. Why Warner Bros. should have chosen this pedestrian gangster melodrama as the first full-length talking picture remains a mystery. The best explanation is that the studio was merely testing the waters. Rather than a prestige project like the previous year's groundbreaking part-talkie The Jazz Singer, Lights of New York was produced for a paltry $23,000 and released not on a reserved-seat basis but in a mere grind house. But to everyone's surprise, the film went on to gross over a million dollars in its first run, proving once and for all that talkies had come to stay. Today, Lights of New York remains a museum piece but despite its tattered reputation, the gangster melodrama is really no worse than the majority of low-budget early talkies. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide