Effie Ellsler Movies
- 1936
In this action film, a rebellious cop doesn't hesitate to bend the rules when it comes to roughing up prisoners and bringing in deadly gangsters. His insistence on working alone and on using excessive violence causes conflict with his superiors. They change their minds when he engages in a great shoot-out with a notorious gun-toting gang leader and brings him to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Preston S. Foster, Jane Wyatt, (more)
Greta Garbo enjoyed one of her greatest triumphs in this glossy adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' oft-filmed romantic tragedy. Here, Garbo stars as Marguerite Gauthier, who is born into humble circumstances but in time becomes Dame aux Camille, one of the most glamorous courtesans in Paris. Camille is kept by the wealthy and powerful Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell), but after many years of earning a good living from her beauty without finding true love, Camille's heart is stolen by Armand (Robert Taylor), a handsome but slightly naive young man who doesn't know how she came by her fortune. Armand is just as attracted to Camille as she is to him, and she's prepared to give up the Baron and his stipend to be with Armand. However, Armand's father (Lionel Barrymore) begs Camille to turn away from his son, knowing her scandalous past could ruin his future. Realizing the painful wisdom of this, Camille rejects Armand, who continues to pursue her even as Camille contracts a potentially fatal case of tuberculosis. Remarkably, even though this was one of Garbo's greatest commercial and critical successes, she would make only three more films before her retirement in 1941; Camille, however, would be filmed several more times following this version (most memorably by elegant sexploitation auteur Radley Metzger in 1969's Camille 2000). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, (more)
- 1935
Like many 1930s Warner Bros. films, Black Fury drew its inspiration from the headlines. The story is adapted from a true-life incident from 1929, wherein a striking Pennsylvania coal miner was beaten to death by three company detectives; this served as the focus for Henry R. Irving's stage play Bohunk as well as Judge M. A. Musmanno's story Jan Volkanik, both of which were woven into Black Fury's screenplay. Using a Polish accent so thick one can cut it with scissors, Paul Muni plays an illiterate miner, happy in his job and his company-town surroundings until his girl Karen Morley deserts him for policeman William Gargan. A disconsolate, drunken Muni stumbles into a labor meeting, where his loud, unthinking outbursts win him the leadership of the new miner's union. When the company locks out the strikers and brings in scabs, the angry miners hold the thick-headed Muni responsible. Fellow miner John Qualen, Muni's best friend, is then killed by a gang of rampaging hired goons. Vowing to "feex" the situation, Muni kidnaps head goon Barton MacLaine and takes him into the bowels of the mine with several sticks of dynamite in tow. Muni threatens to blow himself, MacLaine, and the mine to smithereens unless management comes to terms with the union. Thanks to overwhelming public support, the owners capitulate, and Muni is the hero of the hour. Though it seemed uncompromising in 1935, Black Fury obviously pulls its punches when seen today; for example, it is suggested that the mine owners are guiltless regarding violence against the strikers, laying blame on the hired detectives, who are shown to be in the employ of a crook who plays both sides against the other. Even allowing for this, Black Fury is one of the most powerful of Warners' "social conscience" films. Although the Academy gave Muni a Best Supporting Actor nod for this film, the AMPAS database indicates that it wasn't an "official nomination" - he was a write-in candidate, and came in second. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Muni, Karen Morley, (more)
- 1935
The film that revived Edward G. Robinson's career after a string of flops, along with A Slight Case of Murder (1938), it was one of the few comedies on his lengthy list of credits. The gangster-comedy was unusual in the composition of its writing staff, which included frequent Frank Capra collaborators Robert Riskin and Jo Swerling, as well as tough-guy scribe W.R. Burnett, who wrote Little Caesar (1931) and High Sierra (1941). The plot centers on the confusion surrounding the uncanny resemblance of a mild-mannered advertising clerk, Arthur Jones (Robinson), to escaped convict "Killer" Mannion. After the police mistakenly arrest the clerk, they give him a passport to avoid repeating the error. As a novelty, newspaper man Healy (Wallace Ford) hires the clerk, an aspiring writer, to do a series on his impressions of Mannion. But later, the convict appears at Jones' apartment and demands the passport for his own protection, threatening the fearful clerk if he reveals anything about his visit. The criminal also orders Jones to write the series of articles based on his reminiscences, which alerts the police that something strange is going on. Although the district attorney finally places Jones in jail under protective custody, for his safety, Mannion switches places with him in order to kill another inmate. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, (more)
- 1934
"That girl" is newspaper sob-sister Tony Bellamy (Claire Trevor), whose nose for news gets her into one jam after another, especially when she poses as an exotic dancer to get the goods on a gangster. Most people are fed up with Tony's intrusiveness, except for Irish detective Barney Sullivan (James Dunn), who's secretly in love with the girl. Accordingly, it is Barney who comes to the rescue when Tony's journalistic enthusiasm ends up getting her kidnapped. The film's highlight is Tony's courtroom fan dance, performed at the demand of the capricious Barney to teach her a lesson. Hold That Girl was the third co-starring assignment for James Dunn and Claire Trevor, previously teamed in Sally and Jimmy; one wonders if either star ever imagined that they'd both win Oscars within the next 15 years! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Dunn, Claire Trevor, (more)
- 1933
Somebody at MGM had the bright idea in 1933 to build a series of feature films around the talents of popular radio comedians. This bright idea fizzled after a handful of misbegotten epics starring the likes of Jack Pearl, aka Baron Munchausen, and Ed Wynn. The Wynn film was titled The Chief, a reference to Wynn's radio fame as Texaco gasoline's "Fire Chief." What plot there is concerns a dimwitted fireman named Henry Summers (who else but Wynn?) who ends up running for the office of alderman. Actually, Henry is merely a cat's paw, a dummy candidate set up by a gang of crooks. But when it looks as though Henry will win the campaign and instigate reforms, the bad guys kidnap our hero's grey-haired mother (Effie Ellsler). To alert the cops to his mother's peril, Henry begins running around and breaking things, shouting "I'm crazy! I'm crazy!" (it's difficult to argue with that). Just when the plot is about to be resolved, the film dissolves to Ed Wynn, standing before an NBC microphone, broadcasting his "Fire Chief" program in the company of announcer Graham McNamee. Wynn apprises the audience as to the film's outcome, tells a few jokes, signs off the air -- and that's all there is! One could postulate that the scriptwriters had run out of jokes by the end of The Chief, but in fact they'd been out of material since the third reel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ed Wynn, Dorothy Mackaill, (more)
- 1933
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
- Starring:
- Will Rogers, Vera Allen, (more)
- 1933
A large urban hospital provides the setting for this drama. The staff there has seen it all and this is reflected in their hard-bitten demeanor, their cynicism, and the cruel jokes they play. One of them, an excellent surgeon gains a new outlook on life after he gets involved with investigating the death of a mobster, fatally shot in his hotel suite during a card game. The police call him to the scene to look at the corpse. There he discovers a lipstick-stained cigarette butt. He begins to search for the woman who smoked it. Later that day, the woman, severely beaten, shows up in the hospital emergency room. The surgeon miraculously saves her, and then falls for her. As she lays healing, she is seen by a mobster who had come to pay his respects to the cop who killed two members of his rival gang. The mobster later sends one of his thugs to make sure that the woman stays eternally quiet. The thug's attempt to kill her is thwarted by a young intern who is wounded in the ensuing scuffle. The gangster then gets himself admitted into the hospital where he plans to kill the woman himself. This proves to be a fatal mistake as the vengeful intern "accidently" injects the gangster with a deadly poison and then claims that the mobster was D.O.A. The woman is now safe. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Dunn, Gloria Stuart, (more)
- 1933
Sally Eilers plays Sandra, a secretary who falls for her boss in this passable marital drama from Fox. The attraction is mutual and when Carter Cavendish (Ralph Bellamy) learns that his wife, Betty (Helen Vinson), is having an affair, he divorces her and marries Sandra. But Betty wants sole custody of their young daughter, Patsy (Karol Kay), a potentially wealthy child prodigy, and does what she can to embarrass her former husband. Sandra, however, calls her bluff and the greedy Betty is eventually forced to relinquish custody of the child. Second Hand Wife was based on a serialized novel by Kathleen Norris. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Eilers, Ralph Bellamy, (more)
- 1931
In this romance, an aspiring writer encounters a wealthy publisher who gives him an advance on the first two chapters of his book. Meanwhile, his wife helps out by becoming a chorus girl in a nightclub revue. Instead of enjoying the peace and quiet of home life, the poor writer finds himself inundated by unexpected visitors and minor household disasters. Among the visitors is a flirtatious Southern gal who tries to lure him away from his wife. At the same time, the publisher has become enamored of the husband's wife and tries to tempt her with his money. The wife thinks he is simply offering her more advance money on her husband's book. Mayhem ensues when the couple begins suspecting each other of cheating. Following their separation, the man becomes a famous writer. Eventually he realizes that he has only loved his wife all along. The two reconcile and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Erwin, Carole Lombard, (more)
- 1931
Janet Gaynor plays a teenaged orphanage waif who protects the younger children from the harshness of the supervisors. One of the orphanage's trustees is millionaire Warner Baxter, who spots Gaynor while visiting the home, is impressed by her tenacity, and decides to secretly adopt the girl and pay for her education. Baxter is determined not to become emotionally involved with Gaynor, but the exigencies of the plot bring the two of them together. Now that she has grown into a lovely young woman, Gaynor is a more than eligible candidate for marriage. Hoping to wed Baxter, Gaynor must first go to her guardian for consent...and imagine her surprise when she finds out the true identity of her benefactor. Based on a popular novel by Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs was remade in 1935 as the Shirley Temple vehicle Curly Top, then filmed again under its original title as a Fred Astaire/ Leslie Caron musical in 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janet Gaynor, Warner Baxter, (more)
This first of four film versions of the Ben Hecht/Charlrd MacArthur Broadway hit stars Adolphe Menjou as explosive Chicago newspaper-editor Walter Burns and Pat O'Brien as his star reporter Hildy Johnson. Hildy is on the verge of getting married and retiring from Burns' dirty little tabloid, but he agrees to cover one last story: the politically motivated execution of convicted cop killer Earl Williams (George E. Stone). Thanks to the stupidity of the police, Williams manages to escape, and Johnson hides the wounded fugitive in a rolltop desk in the prison pressroom. Burns enters the scene, senses a swell story (and also a means of keeping Johnson on his payroll), and conspires with Johnson to keep Williams out of sight until they can secure an exclusive interview. Burns will do anything to keep Johnson on the scene, including having the reporter's future mother-in-law kidnapped. Complicating matters are Johnson's fiancée Peggy (Mary Brian), Williams' girlfriend Molly Malloy (Mae Clarke), and the corrupt mayor (James Gordon) and sheriff (Clarence C. Wilson), who have railroaded Williams to the death house in order to win votes and are now trying to suppress the news that the governor has commuted Williams' sentence. The Front Page was remade by Howard Hawks in 1939 as His Girl Friday, with the symbiotic relationship between Burns and Johnson changed to a sexual one by transforming Hildy Johnson into a woman (played by Rosalind Russell) with Cary Grant as her old flame Walter. It was again remade by Billy Wilder in 1974 with Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Carol Burnett, and a young Susan Sarandon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adolphe Menjou, Pat O'Brien, (more)
- 1930
Based on Frederick Lonsdale's The High Road, The Lady of Scandal is typical of the "teacup drama" genre so prevalent during the early talkie period. It all begins with down-to-earth musical comedy star Elsie (Ruth Chatterton) visiting the home of her aristocratic fiancee, John (Ralph Forbes. She briefly becomes acquainted with his cousin Edward (Basil Rathbone), an individual of dubious character allegedly nursing an affair with a married woman. In time, two changes occur during Elsie's visit to the stiff and formal household: first, each family member falls under her spell and "loosens up"; Elsie and Edward also become amorously entwined, and in the end - when the husband of Edward's married lover dies, Elsie must make a sacrifice to this woman. In the process, she also realizes that she does not love John and wishes to return to the theater. Extremely stagy and garrulous, the film also incorporates a great deal of humor to offset the prospective melodramatic pitfalls of the material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Chatterton, Basil Rathbone, (more)
- 1929
Although Broadway star Hal Skelly never quite made it in films, it wasn't for lack of trying. In Woman Trap, Skelly is cast against type as hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray (Chester Morris) is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resolve in the least. The barely relevant title is a reference to "heroine" Kitty Evans (Evelyn Brent), the wife of a minor gang functionary. Screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, presumably on a dare, makes a brief appearance as a crime reporter. Woman Trap was an expansion of a one-act vaudeville sketch by Edwin Burke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hal Skelly, Chester Morris, (more)
- 1929
Forty-five-year-old Irish tenor John McCormack made his screen debut in Song o' My Heart. Fans of McCormack would have been satisfied if their idol had simply sung his way through the film's 85 minutes, but Fox Studios insisted on a plotline. The star plays Sean O'Callaghan, a world-renowned singer who gives up his career when his sweetheart Mary O'Brien (Alice Joyce) is forced to marry another. Years later, Mary is deserted by her husband and eventually dies of grief. Still carrying a torch for his lost love, Sean assumes the task of looking after Mary's two children. The kids are played by 11-year-old Tommy Clifford and 19-year-old Maureen O'Sullivan, the latter also making her first film appearance. Lensed partly on location in Ireland, the film provides plenty of opportunity for good old-fashioned blarney, as well as moments of honest sentiment, as when McCormick sings his signature tune "Little Boy Blue" (one of eleven musical highlights). It's hardly a coincidence that Song o' My Heart was released just before St. Patrick's Day, 1930. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John McCormack, Maureen O'Sullivan, (more)
- 1928
The Actress is a silent-film adaptation of Arthur Wing Pinero's evergreen stage play Trelawny of the Wells. Norma Shearer plays Rose Trelawny, who becomes an accomplished actress only after she learns to "love the players"-that is, to believe in what she's doing. While touring with a second-string company, Rose falls in love with aristocratic Arthur Gower (Ralph Forbes), whose parents frown on show folk. Impressed by Rose's pluck, Arthur's grandfather (O.P. Heggie) changes his mind about the theatre. The old man bankrolls a play that will make Rose a star, paving the way for a happy third-act curtain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norma Shearer, Ralph Forbes, (more)
- 1927
Snobbish socialite Gail Grant (Florence Vidor) is accustomed to getting everything she wants. Thus, when she storms into a Venetian antique shop and announces her intention of buying a rare tapestry to transform into a gown, she fully expects the staff to grovel at her feet. Instead, the owner of the shop refuses to sell her the tapestry at any price. Little does Gail suspect that the shop owner is actually Prince Danitari (Tullio Carminatti), whose war debts have forced him to go into the antique business. Though Gail walks out of the shop in a huff, the Prince is fascinated by her, thus he hires himself out as her tour guide, with the intention of pulling a "taming of the shrew" act. Ultimately, Gail and the Prince are married -- but who ends up taming whom? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Florence Vidor, Tullio Carminatti, (more)
- 1926
Long derided by film historians as a talented but visually unimaginative director, James Cruze made up for any and all past artistic sins with his rousing Old Ironsides. Per its title, this 11-reel silent film is set at the time of Stephen Decatur's defeat of the Barbary pirates in Tripoli. Decatur himself (played by comic actor Johnnie Walker) is a secondary character herein -- most of the screen time goes to the romantic leads, able-bodied seaman Charles Farrell and damsel-in-permanent-distress Esther Ralston. The acting honors go to those inveterate scene-stealers Wallace Beery and George Bancroft, cast respectively as Bos'n and Gunner. The film accommodates everything from outsized sea battles to a daring rescue from the clutches of the lustful pirates. A life-sized replica of "Old Ironsides" (aka the "Constitution") was built for the film; it remained a useful piece of bric-a-brac for many a subsequent Paramount seafaring epic. When originally released, the film utilized a wide-screen technique during many of the battle sequences. The videocassette version of Old Ironsides is, of course, unable to convey this, but it does have the bonus of a rousing musical score by Gaylord Carter. This print, incidentally, is crystal clear, enabling sharp-eyed viewers to spot Boris Karloff in a bit as a menacing Saracen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Esther Ralston, Charles Farrell, (more)
