Mary Forbes Movies

In his starring film for Universal Pictures, W.C. Fields plays circus manager and all-around flim flam man Larson E. Whipsnade. When he's not trying to fleece the customers or elude the sheriff, Whipsnade busys himself trying to break up the romance between his daughter Vicky (Constance Moore) and carnival ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (playing himself). He also carries on a running feud with Bergen's nattily attired dummy Charlie McCarthy ("I'll slash you into venetian blinds!"). Bergen's other dummy is Mortimer Snerd, who occasionally comments upon the action in his own thickheaded fashion. Anxious to arrange a marriage between Vicki and the wealthy Roger Bel-Goodie III (James Bush), Whipsnade disposes of Bergen and his dummies by sending them aloft in a hot-air baloon. Attending a party at the Bel-Goodie mansion, Whipsnade makes a pest of himself by constantly referring to snakes, a subject that invariably causes Mrs. Bel-Goodie (Mary Forbes) to swoon. He also engages in a zany ping-pong tournament with socialite Ronnie (Ivan Lebedeff). But it is Vicki, and not Whipsnade, who breaks up the engagement by telling off her pompous fiance. At that very instant, Bergen, having escaped from the balloon, arrives to claim Vicki and to help Whipsnade escape the sheriff once more. A partial remake of the W.C. Fields silent Two Flaming Youths, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man was scripted by Fields under the pseudonym "Charles Bogle." As published in the 1973 compendium W.C. Fields by Himself, the original screenplay was to have had dramatic overtones, including the death of Fields' trapeze-artist wife and a climactic soul-baring scene wherein Fields expresses his genuine love for his daughter. All this was jettisoned when it was decided to capitalize on the Fields-Charlie McCarthy "feud" then blazing on radio's Chase and Sanborn Show. While nowhere near as funny as Fields' subsequent Universal feature The Bank Dick, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man still contains a generous supply of laughs. Our favorite line: "Somebody's taken the cork out of my lunch." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Musical comedy star Phil Regan headlines this modest Republic tunefest. He plays an American bandleader who inherits an Irish castle. With his band members and his singer (Penny Singleton) in tow, Regan takes charge of the castle, hoping turn it into a nightclub. Naturally, these plans arouses the ire of the local landed gentry, but pretty soon they're keeping in step with Regan's entourage. Like many Republic films of the 1930s, Outside of Paradise is generally available only in the 54-minute version prepared for television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).

Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Everybody Sing is an uncertain blend of screwball comedy and standard MGM musical. Reginald Owen plays Hillary Bellaire, patriarch of a looney theatrical family, while Billie Burke co-stars as his overly dramatic actress wife Diana. What story there is gets under way when the Bellaire's daughters Judy (Judy Garland) and Sylvia (Lynne Carver) are expelled from school because Judy insists upon singing Mendelssohn to a "swing" beat. As it turns out, Judy is the most sensible member of the family! In one of her few film appearances, Fanny Brice is rather wasted as a Russian maidservant, though she does get to perform a musical number based on her "Baby Snooks" radio character. Far better served within the film's framework is MGM's resident tenor Allan Jones as the family's chauffeur and Reginald Gardiner as Diana Bellaire's long-suffering stage leading man. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this lovely John Ford film, Joyce Williams (June Lang) and her young daughter, Priscilla (Shirley Temple), travel to India to live on a British Army base with Joyce's father, Colonel Williams, Aubrey C. Smith). Once there, sweet, young Priscilla manages to win the love and affection of the soldiers and her curmudgeonly grandfather, and she plays an important role in easing a local rebellion. One of the best Shirley Temple movies, Ford allows her to be sweet without being cloying and moves the action at a good pace. A wonderful cast of some of Hollywood's best supporting actors add charm to this film which is appealing to both children and adults. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

The girl is teenaged singing sensation Deanna Durbin; the one hundred men are out-of-work musicians. Still in her "little miss fix-it" stage, Durbin connives to help the musicians crack the big time. The person Durbin is most concerned with is her father (Adolphe Menjou) the 100th and most underemployed of the bunch. The men organize their own orchestra; all they need is a prestigious leader. Enter legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski, who after several refusals to listen to Durbin's entreaties is captivated when he hears the sounds of Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody, as played by 100 shabby instrumentalists camped out on the stairway of his house. This film literally saved Universal Studios from receivership in 1937, assuring Ms. Durbin a movie career until she was too rich to care. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman play, Stage Door is a comedic portrait of the theatrical community in New York. Katharine Hepburn stars as Terry Randall a young woman who comes from a wealthy, socially connected family. Aspiring for a career on the stage, Terry opts to see if she can make it on her own gumption and moves into a boarding house with several other wannabe Broadway starlets attempting to make a mark for themselves in show business. Terry's sassy roommate Jean (Ginger Rogers) just might get the opportunity to do that when she meets a lecherous producer, but at what cost? Unamused by Terry's attempts to pull herself up by her bootstraps, her father offers her an opportunity for a starring role in a show that's sure to fail. Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, and Ann Miller are among the other residents of the boarding house. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

One Horse Town is the TV title for MGM's 1936 version Small Town Girl (the new title was bestowed to avoid confusion with the 1953 remake). Robert Taylor plays an irresponsible playboy who is arrested in a backwater town for drunken driving. While intoxicated, Taylor proposes to local girl Janet Gaynor. She accepts, knowing full well that he wouldn't have popped the question had he been sober. Gaynor spends the rest of the film trying to reform Taylor and to get him to fall in love with her while he's got all his faculties--no small trick, in that her competition is sophisticated Binnie Barnes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After six years' worth of tragic and noble roles, Irene Dunne began a new phase in her career as a top comedienne in Theodora Goes Wild. She plays a prim small-town schoolteacher, raised in an oppressive environment by two maiden aunts. Seeking surreptitious adventure, Dunne writes a steamy romance novel in her spare time--which becomes a scandalous best-seller. Heading to the big city to meet her publisher, Irene has a fling with the artist (Melvyn Douglas) who has designed the dust jacket for her book. Though on surface a Manhattan sophisticate, Douglas is just as trapped as Dunne had been in her small town; he's saddled with a nasty wife and insufferable parents. Both Douglas and Dunne free themselves of those who'd hold them down, and find happiness together. To round out the happy ending, Dunne's small town, which had ostracized her for writing her "hot" novel, welcomes her back with a brass band when the book puts the town on the map. If Theodora Goes Wild doesn't seem quite as funny now as it did in 1936, it is only because most of its satirical targets (notably the shocked spinster aunts) have ceased to exist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When British actor Robert Donat dropped out of Warner Bros. Captain Blood, the studio took a chance on its new contractee, Tasmania-born Errol Flynn. Adapted from the novel by Rafael Sabatini, the film is set during the oppressive reign of King James II. Irish physician Peter Blood (Errol Flynn), arrested for treating a wounded anti-crown rebel, is condemned to slavery in Jamaica. Here he earns several privileges after treating the governor (George Hassell) for gout; this does not rest well with Lionel Atwill, the wicked owner of the plantation on which Blood is forced to work. Nor is Atwill pleased with the growing relationship between his niece Arabella (Olivia DeHavilland) and the imprisoned doctor. An attack on Jamaica by Spanish pirates gives Blood and his fellow slaves the opportunity to become buccaneers themselves. After several months of fighting and plunder, Blood's men capture a merchant ship bearing Arabella. Blood fights a duel with a French pirate (Basil Rathbone) over the girl; having "won" her, Blood intends to have his way with her, but his more decent instincts prevail. When King James is overthrown by William of Orange, Blood is given a commission and lauded as a hero as a reward for his bravery against the Spanish galleons. He is appointed governor of Jamaica, wins the hand of the lovely Arabella, and genially forces Atwill to eat crow. This seemingly outsized swashbuckler was actually a very economical production, using stock footage from several silent films. Captain Blood transformed the 26-year-old Errol Flynn into a star; he's a little clumsy in the dialogue department at times, but cuts a dashing figure in the action scenes. The film also represented the cinematic debut of composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who wasn't completely happy with his hastily written score and asked that his on-screen credit be diminished to "musical director". Long available only in its 99 minute re-issue version, Captain Blood has been restored to its full, glorious 119 minute length. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This second filmization of Leo Tolstoy's novel is widely regarded as the best version. Greta Garbo plays the title character, the sheltered wife of Czarist official Rathbone. Intending to dissuade Rathbone's brother (Reginald Owen) from a life of debauchery, Garbo is sidetracked by her own fascination with dashing military officer Fredric March. This indiscreet liaison ruins Garbo's marriage and position in 19th century Russian society; she is even prohibited from seeing her own son (Freddie Bartholomew). In keeping with the censorial strictures of 1935 Hollywood, Anna Karenina is extremely careful in the staging of its final suicide sequence, allowing the audience to determine for itself whether or not Garbo's desperate act of throwing herself under wheels of a train is intentional. Outside of the expected superb performances of Garbo and March, the film's most fascinating characterization is offered by Basil Rathbone, whose cold cruelty in banishing his wife is shown to be the by-product of his own broken heart (though Rathbone never allows himself to descend into cheap sentiment). The first film version of Anna Karenina was the 1927 silent feature Love, also starring Garbo, which substituted an imbecilic happy ending for Tolstoy's bleak denouement (there would be an acceptable third version in 1948, starring Vivien Leigh. The 1935 Anna Karenina is arguably the finest accomplishment of the felicitous 1930s alliance between star Greta Garbo, director Clarence Brown and cinematographer William Daniels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alice Duer Miller's novel Gowns by Roberta was adapted into the 1933 Broadway musical Roberta, with music by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The 1935 filmization of Roberta was slightly adapted to accommodate the dancing talents of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, though their roles are secondary to the characters portrayed by Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott. Dunne plays a deposed White Russian princess who has become a famed Parisian couturier. Dunne is the partner of "Roberta" (Helen Westley), who passes away, leaving her half of the business to American football player Randolph Scott--who of course knows next to nothing about the gown business, and couldn't care less anyway. Astaire co-stars as bandleader Huck Haines, the character played by Bob Hope in the original Broadway production of Roberta. Rogers rounds out the cast as a phony Polish countess who happens to be Astaire's former girlfriend. Many of the songs written for Roberta were retained for the film version, including "Lovely to Look At," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "I Won't Dance;" other tunes are heard as background music. Keep an eye out for a blond Lucille Ball as a fashion model. Withdrawn from circulation for many years due to the 1952 MGM remake (titled Lovely to Look At), Roberta began making the public-domain rounds in the early 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Celebrated British musical comedy star Cicely Courtneige was given a chance at American movie stardom in Perfect Gentleman. Courtneige plays an actress whose career has faltered. Frank Morgan portrays a retired military officer and longtime fan of Courtneige, who engineers her comeback. Despite being given the red carpet treatment by MGM, Cicely Courtneige was unhappy with her film, as indicated by the numerous script changes and haphazard shooting schedule. While Perfect Gentleman did small business in the US, it was popular in Great Britain, where in deference to Ms. Courtneige the film was retitled The Imperfect Lady. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide