Emily Fitzroy Movies

The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Attempting to Americanize Greta Garbo to appeal to American audiences (since most of the foreign markets for Hollywood product had been cut off due to World War II), M.G.M.'s Two-Faced Woman succeeded in making Garbo angry enough to announce her retirement from the screen. Two-Faced Woman was Garbo's final screen appearance, as the legendary actress slipped into a reclusive existence that lasted until her death. This George Cukor romantic comedy casts Garbo as ski instructor Karin Borg Blake. She gives lessons to wealthy American playboy Larry Blake (Melvyn Douglas), and the two fall in love and marry even though Larry has a girlfriend named Griselda Vaughn (Constance Bennett) waiting for him back in New York. Returning to New York, Karin fears that Griselda will win Larry back. In an effort to foil Larry's imagined dalliance, Karin poses as her own twin sister, Katherine, hoping to get Larry to fall in love with her instead of Griselda. Larry is onto the scheme and plays along with her, pretending to fall in love with Katherine. But this infuriates Karin, who can't believe that her husband would fall in love with her sister, and she storms back to her ski resort. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

When Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd) and his pals Windy (George "Gabby" Hayes) and Lucky (Russell Hayden) come across teacher June Lake (Evelyn Venable) and her little schoolhouse of students (played by members of the St. Brendan Boys' Choir), they decide to help further the cause of education until a group of lowlife rustlers show up. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

China Seas proved that the recently imposed Hollywood production code had little if any effect on the popularity of MGM sex symbols Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Gable plays the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong. Harlow is Gable's ex-main squeeze, a "woman of the world" who books passage on the steamer at the same time that another of Gable's former loves, aristocratic Rosalind Russell, shows up. Wallace Beery plays Gable's supposedly lovable first mate, who is actually in league with a gang of pirates who plan to steal the gold shipment being carried in the hold of the steamer. Harlow tumbles to Beery's secret, but is unable to convince Gable, who is sore at Harlow for mean-mouthing Russell. Out of pique, Harlow casts her lot with the crooked Beery, but when the pirates attack the steamer, she returns to Gable's side. A subplot involves the regeneration of ship's mate Lewis Stone, who has been cashiered out of the navy for cowardice and who redeems himself during the final battle. Based on a novel by Crosbie Garstin, China Seas is a programmer at heart, but is decked out with full A-picture trappings by MGM producer Irving Thalberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's Grand Hotel on the high seas, with a remarkable cast -- particularly for the usually parsimonious Columbia Pictures. As irascible captain Helquist (Walter Connolly) pilots his boat along the Atlantic, an assortment of subplots involving a vast array of characters play themselves out. Among the passengers are bond-thief Checkett (Fred Keating) and his girlfriend Janet Grayson (Helen Vinson), private detective Schulte (Victor McLaglen), "fallen woman" Mrs. Jeddock (Wynne Gibson), and her unforgiving husband (Wynne Gibson). In his final film appearance, former silent-screen idol John Gilbert gives an outstanding performance as pugnacious hard-drinking reporter Steve Bramley, forever putting the lie to the legend that he failed in talkies because his voice was inadequate. The Three Stooges also show up as musicians -- but only Larry has any lines (spoken in a Yiddish accent!). The story goes that Lewis Milestone filmed the picture on a real ocean liner to prevent John Gilbert and the other imbibers in the cast from having easy access to liquor -- a plan doomed to failure when someone smuggled several cases of booze on board. As the production went way past its budget and schedule, Columbia's business manager sent an urgent wire to Milestone: HURRY UP--THE COST IS STAGGERING. Milestone's answer: SO IS THE CAST. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this British comedy, a man takes his butler and heads for the African hinterland after he and his fiancee quarrel. The woman is terribly upset and decides to follow her lover to the legendary land. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The French/British Don Quixote is a faithful rendition of the Cervantes novel, with a poignant ending added by director G.W. Pabst. Opera star Feodor Chaliapin stars as Cervantes' "Knight of the Woeful Countenance," an aged, addled Spanish gentleman so devoted to stories of long-ago chivalry that he decides to relive those bygone days. With his faithful squire, Sancho Panza (George Robey), Don Quixote rides off to tilt at windmills and to worship chubby milkmaid Dulcinea (Renée Valliers) as his lady fair. Sancho manages to save Quixote from killing himself, but cannot prevent the old gent from returning home utterly disillusioned. Director Pabst alters Cervantes' original ending by having the dispirited Quixote pass away as he watches his precious books on chivalry going up in flames. There are actually two versions of Don Quixote, one in English and one in French; the French-language version has a different supporting cast, but Pabst draws the same deep emotions and brilliant bits of business from both. Though the film unfailingly comes to life in front of an audience, Don Quixote is generally out of favor with devotees of G.W. Pabst, who consider the film a step down from his brilliant silent work. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The crackerjack director/cinematographer team of Harry Lachman and Rudolph Mate (Dante's Inferno, Our Relations) brought an extra veneer of class to the 1932 Gertrude Lawrence vehicle Aren't We All. She plays a shy and retiring lass who harbors a secret past indiscretion. Her "shameful" secret is revealed just as she plans to marry wealthy Owen Nares. The future husband expresses outrage, but his father Hugh Wakefield comes to Lawrence's rescue by exposing one or two of Nares' past peccadillos, and by inviting the girl's former lover to state his case. This British drawing room comedy was based on a stage play by the prolific Frederick Lonsdale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A socially prominent wife must choose between avoiding scandal and her own happiness in this British drama. According to social convention, the wife is expected to gracefully ignore her husband's constant philandering, and under no circumstances can she get a divorce. But her husband's actions are difficult to ignore as he is sleeping with her brother's wife. She decides to escape and head for Switzerland. There she gets involved with another. Meanwhile, her husband and his lover are killed in an automobile crash. When the wife explains that the two were en route to meet her and her lover, a major scandal erupts and her social status is destroyed. Fortunately, she is now free to marry her new love and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a conservative family becomes alarmed when they begin believing their daughter is pregnant. They frantically begin searching for the father. The search is narrowed down to three possibilities: her ex-fiancee, her current one, or her legal guardian. Meanwhile, a drunken son marries the family maid, who is also pregnant. The daughter then admits her pregnancy is false--she only did it to cover for the maid. The son, now sober annuls the marriage and the maid marries the ice man, her real love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Metropolitan opera star Grace Moore's second movie vehicle was the 1930 adaptation of the Oscar Hammerstein II-Sigmund Romberg operetta New Moon. On this occasion, Moore was teamed with another "Met" alumnus, baritone Lawrence Tibbertt. The stars are cast respectively as Tanya Strogoff, a White Russian princess slated to marry a man she does not love, and Michael Petroff, the handsome lieutenant whom she does love. The jilted fiance, Governor Boris Brusiloff (Adolphe Menjou) vows revenge, leading to a bloody military engagement in which even comedy-relief character Potkin (Gus Shy) is killed. Nonetheless, both hero and heroine live to love and sing again. The fact that the original operetta was set in 18th-century New Orleans rather than pre-Revolutionary Russia did not stop the screenwriters from utilizing most of the plot devices from the 1928 stage version. Likewise left intact were many of the timeless Hammerstein-Romberg tunes, including Lover Come Back to Me and Stout-Hearted Men. Despite its Slavic setting, New Moon was retitled Parisian Belle for television, to avoid confusion with the 1940 Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two former Fox contractees star in RKO Radio's She's My Weakness, a flat adaptation of Howard Lindsay and Bertrand Robinson's play Tommy. Hero Tommy Mills (Arthur Lake) would like to marry his sweetie Marie Thurber (Sue Carol), but first he's got to get on his feet financially. Attempting to sell a valuable piece of land at a profit, Tommy is constantly thwarted by his crooked uncle, who has no qualms about profiting from Tommy's loss. The ad campaign for this film was peppered with misleading blurbs like "Youth Whoops It Up in the Rumble Seat": in truth, the film is a stiff, with no one whooping about anything. It was films like She's My Weakness which convinced Sue Carol to give up acting and go into the talent-agent business. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide