Edward Arnold Movies
Hearty American character actor Edward Arnold was born in New York to German immigrant parents. Orphaned at 11, Arnold supported himself with a series of manual labor jobs. He made his first stage appearance at 12, playing Lorenzo in an amateur production of The Merchant of Venice at the East Side Settlement House. Encouraged to continue acting by playwright/ journalist John D. Barry, Arnold became a professional at 15, joining the prestigious Ben Greet Players shortly afterward. After touring with such notables as Ethel Barrymore and Maxine Elliot, he did bit and extra work at Chicago's Essanay Film Studios and New Jersey's World Studios during the early 'teens. Hoping to become a slender leading man, Arnold found that his fortune lay in character parts, and accordingly beefed up his body: "The bigger I got, the better character roles I received," he'd observe later. Following several seasons on Broadway, Arnold made his talking picture debut as a gangster in 1933's Whistling in the Dark. He continued playing supporting villains until attaining the title role in Diamond Jim (1935), which required him to add 25 pounds to his already substantial frame; he repeated this characterization in the 1940 biopic Lillian Russell. Other starring roles followed in films like Sutter's Gold (1936), Come and Get It (1936) and Toast of New York (1937), but in 1937 Arnold's career momentum halted briefly when he was labelled "box office poison" by a committee of film exhibitors (other "poisonous" performers were Joan Crawford and Katharine Hepburn!) Undaunted, Arnold accepted lesser billing in secondary roles, remaining in demand until his death. A favorite of director Frank Capra (who frequently chided the actor for the "phony laugh" that was his trademark), Arnold appeared in a trio of Capra films, playing Jimmy Stewart's millionaire father in You Can't Take It With You (1938), a corrupt political boss in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and a would-be fascist in Meet John Doe (1941). Despite the fact that he was not considered a box-office draw, Arnold continued to be cast in starring roles from time to time, notably Daniel Webster in 1941's The Devil and Daniel Webster and blind detective Duncan Maclain in Eyes in the Night (1942) and The Hidden Eye (1945). During the 1940s, Arnold became increasingly active in politics, carrying this interest over into a radio anthology, Mr. President, which ran from 1947 through 1953. He was co-founder of the "I Am an American Foundation," an officer of Hollywood's Permanent Charities Committee, and a president of the Screen Actors Guild. Though a staunch right-wing conservative (he once considered running for Senate on the Republican ticket), Arnold labored long and hard to protect his fellow actors from the persecution of the HUAC "communist witch-hunt." Edward Arnold's last film appearance was in the "torn from today's headlines" potboiler Miami Expose (1956). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1934
This well-mounted Majestic Pictures effort was inspired by Collusion, a novel by Theodore D. Irwin. Edward Arnold is in his element as Frank Rodie, an honest lawyer who turns dishonest to pay off his wife's stock-market losses. Still desperate for money, Rodie offers to serve as a co-respondent in a divorce case. His far-from-grateful wife (Helen Jerome Eddy) uses this as an excuse to divorce him and desert him for her paramour. Rodie spends the rest of the picture proving that his wife was a fool for deceiving and underestimating him. The "blonde" of the title is played by Dorothy Revier, actually one of the more sympathetic characters in the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Jerome Eddy, Edward Arnold, (more)
- 1934
One of several variations of the "Mata Hari" and "Fraulein Doktor" legends, Universal's Madame Spy is set during WW I. Fay Wray stars as Maria, the wife of Austrian diplomat Captain Franck (Nils Asther). What Franck doesn't know is that Maria is a Russian secret agent, assigned to spy on her own husband. Eventually captured and sentenced to be shot, Maria manages to make her escape by crawling through "No Man's Land" -- looking none the worse for wear at the end of her ordeal. A scene-for-scene remake of the German drama Under False Flags, Madame Spy was itself remade (and heavily rewritten) as a "B" picture in 1942. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fay Wray, Nils Asther, (more)
- 1934
A European princess heads for New York in order to see if the U. S. will back her country's bond issue. Unfortunately, she is afflicted with the mumps and ordered to bed. This is an ill turn for the banker planning to issue the bonds for if the princess reneges upon her public engagements, the deal could fall through and he will lose a huge commission. Thinking quickly, he starts looking for a look-alike. He soon discovers an impoverished actress who fits the bill. Trouble brews when a prominent and somewhat xenophobic newspaper publisher gets wind of the entire scam. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvia Sidney, Cary Grant, (more)
- 1934
Based upon a novel anonymously written by Rex Stout, The President Vanishes has as its title character a peace-loving man with distinct anti-interventionist views. As the picture opens, President Stanley Craig (A.S. Byron) finds himself in a bit of a bind: he fervently believes that the United States should stay out of the war in Europe, but the tide of public opinion seems to be turning against him, influenced by a loud and demonstrative fascist group (the Gray Shirts), influential arms manufacturers and powerful pro-war publishers. Congress seems to be unflinchingly pro-war, and is about to meet to "discuss" whether America should get involved in the deadly conflict. Suddenly, a surprise announcement is made: the President has been kidnapped. Overnight, public opinion regarding the war reverses. The American people, knowing of the President's strong anti-war stance, believe that the pro-war forces are behind the abduction, resulting in rioting and national unrest. Eventually, after the nation comes to back the President's view, he is found -- and the audience discovers that the kidnapping was staged by the President and his advisors as a way of altering public opinion. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janet Beecher, Paul Kelly, (more)
- 1934
Wednesday's Child, the song goes, is "full of woe." This is indeed the case for Bobby (Frankie Thomas), who is bundled off to military school when his father (Edward Arnold) and mother (Karen Morley) divorce. That Bobby was forced to testify during the divorce action was traumatic enough; now he must face the grim reality that neither of his parents really want him around. Eventually, Bobby's dad relents and brings the boy home -- not the painfully realistic original ending of the Leopold Atlas play upon which this film was based. When RKO Radio refilmed Wednesday's Child as Child of Divorce in 1946 (with Sharyn Moffett playing a distaff version of the Frankie Thomas role), Atlas' doleful ending was left intact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward Arnold, Karen Morley, (more)
- 1934
Wounded criminal Lucky Wilson (Robert Montgomery) takes refuge in a small Connecticut farm. He falls in love with Maureen O'Sullivan, who at first is unaware of his criminal record. Lucky is fully prepared to shoot his way out when the cops come calling, but he is softened by O'Sullivan's affections and finally agrees to turn himself in. Screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett leaven several potentially melodramatic sequences with some first-rate comic dialogue; many of the funniest scenes belong to nightclub owners Henry Armetta and Hermann Bing. Hide-Out was remade in 1941 as I'll Wait for You, a title which rather gave away the ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Montgomery, Maureen O'Sullivan, (more)
- 1933
Mae West's second starring vehicle, I'm No Angel casts the divine Miss West as the star performer in a seedy circus. Though she lives with Ralf Harolde, West allows herself plenty of time for other men. When Harolde runs afoul of the law, West secures extra money by becoming a lion tamer. While thus employed, West is "discovered" by playboy Kent Taylor; she willingly accepts his gifts and other favors, but she only has eyes for Taylor's cousin Cary Grant. Still, love takes second place to commerce in West's life, and she ends up suing Grant for breach of promise. When Grant allows her to win the case, she realizes she's truly in love with him after all. By rights, I'm No Angel should have been as big and bawdy a success as West's earlier She Done Him Wrong, but by late 1933 the censors were beginning to have their way with Hollywood. Several of the more ribald (and more hilarious) elements of the film were toned down--not least of which was the title, which was supposed to have been It Ain't No Sin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mae West, Cary Grant, (more)
- 1933
This tight little melodrama opens with a group of wealthy people staying at a luxurious European mansion. According to legend, the mansion's "blue room" is cursed--everyone who has ever spent the night in that room has met with an untimely end. The three suitors of the heroine (Gloria Stuart) wager that each can survive a night in the forbidding blue room. The first to brave the room is a callow young man (William Janney) in whom the heroine has no real interest. A scream is heard in the middle of the night; when the other guests investigate, the young man has vanished, and the available clues suggest that he has met with foul play. Within the next several months, more murders occur in the blue room, prompting the lord of the manor (Lionel Atwill) to belatedly summon the authorities. A police inspector (Edward Arnold) solves both the mystery of the missing guest and the series of murders. Veteran moviegoers will be able to guess the outcome without even trying, but somehow Mystery in the Blue Room was deemed worthy of two remakes: The Missing Guest (38) and Murder in the Blue Room (44) (a musical!) Though not publicized at the time, Murder in the Blue Room was Universal's least expensive non-western feature film of 1933. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lionel Atwill, Gloria Stuart, (more)
- 1933
In this drama, Diana (Myrna Loy) is a beautiful tourist from the United States who is visiting Cairo, accompanied by her Uncle Cecil (C. Aubrey Smith) and Aunt Powers (Louise Closser Hale). Diana is to meet her fiance Gerald (Reginald Denny) in Cairo, but she soon makes the aquaintance of Jamil (Ramon Novarro), a handsome local who works for the hotel as a tourist guide. Jamil returns Diana's lost dog, earning her gratitude, though she's unaware that Jamil took the dog himself so that he could return it to her. After several days of showing Diana Cairo's most magificnet sights (and scheming to keep Gerald at a distance), Jamil reveals his secret to Diana -- that he's actually an Arab prince who wants Diana's hand in marriage. However, Diana isn't especially taken with this idea at first, and and before long the darker side of Jamil's infatuation makes itself known. The Barbarian was based in part on one of Ramon Novarro's silent hits, The Arab, and the film inspired more than a few raised eyebrows in 1933 thanks to a scene where Myrna Loy swims in the nude at an oasis, though Loy later wrote that she was wearing a flesh-colored body stocking in deference to her modesty (and the censors). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ramon Novarro, Myrna Loy, (more)
- 1933
Easily the best of Eddie Cantor's gargantuan musical comedies for producer Sam Goldwyn, Roman Scandals begins in the middle-America community of West Rome, where our hero Eddie (Cantor) is employed as a delivery boy. A self-styled authority of Ancient Roman history, Cantor bemoans the fact that the local shanty community is about to be wiped out by scheming politicians, certain that such an outrage could never have happened during Rome's Golden Days. After a blow on the head, Cantor wakes up in Imperial Rome, where he is sold on the slave auction block to good-natured tribune Josephus (David Manners). Cantor soon discovers that the evil emperor Valerius (Edward Arnold) is every bit a crook and grafter as the politicians in West Rome, and he intends to do something about it. He gets a job as food taster for Valerius -- a none-too-secure position, inasmuch as the emperor's wife Agrippa (Veree Teasdale) is constantly trying to poison her husband -- and does his best to smooth the path of romance for Josephus and recently captured princess Sylvia (Gloria Stuart). Cantor's well-intentioned interference earns him a session in the torture chamber, but he escapes and commandeers a chariot, setting the stage for a spectacular slapstick climax. On the verge of recapture, Cantor wakes to find himself in West Rome U.S.A. again, where he quickly foils the modern-day despots and brings about a happy ending for all his friends.
Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, (more)
- 1933
Based on the 1909 novel by F. Marion Crawford, The White Sister stars Helen Hayes as an aristocratic Italian girl who spurns the potential husband chosen by her father in favor of a handsome army lieutenant (Clark Gable). When her lover is reported killed in World War I, Hayes renounces the world to become a nun. After taking her vows, the lieutenant shows up very much alive. He implores her to give up the Order, but she refuses. The lieutenant is later injured in a bombing raid; he dies, with Hayes lovingly at his side. The White Sister was previously filmed in 1922, with Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, (more)
- 1933
This turn-of-the-century tragedy chronicles the sorrowful travails of a woman who endures a series of devastating losses. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvia Sidney, Donald Cook, (more)
- 1933
In this crime-comedy, an aspiring pulp writer elopes with a young woman and ends up in a boot-legger's lair. There he decides to impress his bride and the crooks with a story about the perfect murder. The crime boss likes the idea and uses it to plot the demise of his arch rival. When the would-be author learns of the plot, he and his wife do all they can to protect the hapless victim. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ernest Truex, Una Merkel, (more)
- 1933
When the actress girlfriend of a rich man is pursued by a producer, the rich man hires bodyguard Lowe to protect her, but Lowe falls in love with her, too. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, Wynne Gibson, (more)
- 1932
It's hard to separate fact and fancy from the many accounts of what happened on the set when all three of the fabulous Barrymores -- Ethel, John and Lionel -- appeared together for the only time in Rasputin and the Empress. As for the end result, John offers the subtlest (!) performance as Russian Prince Paul Chegodieff; Lionel throws all caution to the four winds in the role of "Mad Monk" Rasputin; and Ethel comes off as rather artificial as Empress Alexandra (Ethel was more appealing in her character roles of the 1940s and 1950s). The plot covers the years 1913 through 1918, during the tumultuous final years of the Romanov regime in Russia. When young Prince Alexis (Tad Alexander), a hemophiliac, hovers near death after an accident, the royal physicians regretfully predict an imminent demise. At the advice of Prince Paul's impressionable sweetheart Natasha (Diana Wynyard), Alexandra and her husband, Czar Nikolai (Ralph Morgan), call in the mysterious Rasputin to look after Alexis. Using hypnosis, Rasputin is able to "cure" the boy-and to slowly gain control over the royal family. Prince Paul, concerned that Rasputin's despotic misuse of his new-found authority will cause the people to revolt, does his best to discredit the oily holy man, but to no avail. When Natasha is raped by Rasputin, Paul attempts to shoot the miscreant down. But Rasputin, who has taken the precaution of wearing a bullet proof vest, is not so easily killed off. In a last, desperate measure, Paul and his cohorts try to poison Rasputin to death-and even this doesn't work. Only a climactic fight to the death puts an end to Rasputin's reign. Alas, the damage has already been done, and the royal family is doomed to be toppled from power...and, ultimately, to be shot down like dogs by the Bolsheviks. Perhaps it's true that the three Barrymores spent more time trying to upstage one another than concentrating on the script at hand, but we wouldn't have it any other way. When seen today, Rasputin and the Empress seems rather choppy in spots, with isolated lines of dialogue and sometimes whole scenes completely missing. This is due to a million-dollar lawsuit brought against MGM by Prince Yusupov, the man who really engineered Rasputin's assassination. The Prince wasn't offended by being depicted as a murderer, but he was distressed when MGM suggested that his wife had been raped by Rasputin. As a result, Rasputin and the Empress was withdrawn from distribution, and all prints were later bowdlerized when released to television. Also as a result, all future Hollywood films were obliged to carry the "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, (more)
- 1932
- Add I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang to QueueAdd I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang to top of Queue
Warner Bros.' hard-hitting chain-gang movie was a faithful adaptation of the similarly titled autobiography of Robert Elliot Burns. Paul Muni plays World War I veteran James Allen, whose plans of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Flat broke, Allen is forced to pawn his war medals, which have become a glut on the market. When Allen is innocently involved in a restaurant holdup, the police don't buy his story that the robber (Preston S. Foster) had forced him to clean out the cash register, and Allen is sentenced to ten years on a chain gang. The brutal scenes that follow make the later chain-gang movie Cool Hand Luke (1967) look like a picnic in the country. Unable to stand any more, Allen escapes and heads to Chicago. Using an alias, he builds a new life for himself and within five years is the respected president of a bridge-building firm. His landlady (Glenda Farrell), learning about his past, forces Allen to marry her. When he falls in love with another girl (Helen Vinson) and asks for a divorce, his wife turns him over to the authorities. The real-life Robert Elliot Burns was still a fugitive when he wrote his exposé of the chain-gang system; the publication of Burns' book led to the abolishment of that system and an erasure of Burns' sentence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, (more)
- 1932
As indicated by its "catchphrase" title, Okay America is one of several early-1930s films based on the exploits of gossip columnist Walter Winchell. The big surprise here is that the Winchell counterpart is played not by W.W. look-alike Lee Tracy, as was usually the case, but by baby-faced Lew Ayres. Caring little how many lives he's destroyed in his pursuit of sensationalism, columnist Larry Wayne (Lew Ayres) is arguably the most-hated man on Broadway -- and in some circles, the most influential. Wayne sticks his nose in everyone's business, including Caponelike gangster Alsotto (Edward Arnold) and the grief-stricken family of a kidnapped girl (Margaret Lindsay). Motivated by his lust for power and publicity, Wayne offers to rescue the kidnap victim, and in so doing absolves himself of his past misdeeds -- but not soon enough to avoid the terrible vengeance of the unforgiving Alssoto, whom he has double-crossed along the way. Its downbeat ending intact, Okay America was effectively remade as Risky Business in 1939. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lew Ayres, Maureen O'Sullivan, (more)
- 1932
Eric Linden is a bellhop who has the extreme misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in gangster era of Chicago. After witnessing an assassination staged by gangsters, Linden becomes a pawn, being pushed back and forth by corrupt authorities and the mob. Tension mounts as the possibility that the blame for the crime may eventually rest on Linden. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Linden, Sidney Fox, (more)
- 1932
Three on a Match covers approximately 13 years in the lives of girlhood chums Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis) and Vivian Deverse (Ann Dvorak). Having graduated from grammar school together in 1919, the girls stage a reunion ten years later. Hard-boiled Mary is now a chorus girl, level-headed Ruth has a steady job as a secretary, and vixenish Vivian is on the verge of capriciously deserting her wealthy husband Robert Kirkwood (Warren William) and their baby in favor of sexy mob-boss Mike (Lyle Talbot). Several more years pass, during which Mary marries Henry, Ruth is hired as governess for Henry, and Vivian's son and a drug-addicted Vivian become fatally enmeshed in a kidnapping plot involving her own child. In his second Warner Bros. film, tenth-billed Humphrey Bogart essays his first sneering-gangster role. Three on a Match was remade (and considerably laundered) in 1938 as Broadway Musketeers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Warren William, (more)
- 1920
The Cost is what wayward lass Violet Hemming must endure for lovely not wisely but too well. Seeking an escape from the drudgery of boarding house life, Hemming marries cotton merchant Edwin Mordant, convincing herself that she cares for him. By the time she realizes her mistake, it is too late, both for Hemming and the man she truly loves, Ralph Kellard. Meanwhile, Mordant carries on an affair with a colleague's wife. Hemming leaves him, but loyally returns when he loses his fortune. Only when Mordant conveniently dies is Hemming finally able to follow the dictates of her heart. A novel by David Graham Phillips served as the basis for this tear-stained drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1919
Dick Vernon (Montagu Love) lives in New York but hasn't succumbed to the city's vices. When his vacation comes up, he goes to Boonsburg to visit his uncle (George Bunny) and aunts (Emily Fitzroy and Annie Laurie Spence). He finds small-town life far more wicked than living in the big city. A theatrical troupe comes to town, and Dick finds his match in chorus girl Mazie Chateaux (Helen Weir). Dick's uncle inherits a huge sum of money and insists that his nephew take him to New York and entertain him. Dick, knowing what his uncle expects, takes him through a number of wild adventures, but he is happy to put all that behind him and settle down with Mazie. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
