James Ford Movies

In this satire, an electrician from a tiny town impresses a New York radio sponsor with his booming baritone singing voice. He immediately contracts the worker to come to the Big Apple. Unfortunately, he suffers from bronchitis that changes him into a tenor. He still goes on the air, but everyone calls him a fake. Fortunately, the audience loved him. His manager then forbids him to appear publicly so he spends his spare time inventing a gadget that restores old radio sets. When it looks as though his clever invention will be stolen a beautiful woman gets it patented and then marries him. Songs include: The Oscar nominated "Remember Me," "Am I in Love?" "If I Were a Little Pond Lilly," "The Girl You Used to Be," and "Here Comes the Sandman." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

One of the funniest, most sharply paced comedies of the 1930s, and perhaps the best of all of Harold Lloyd's talkies, The Milky Way was based on the Broadway play by Lynn Root and Harry Clork. Lloyd plays Burleigh Sullivan, a mild-mannered milkman who intercedes one night when his sister Mae (Helen Mack) is being accosted on the street by two obnoxious drunks -- they turn their wrath on him, his sister runs for help, and when she returns less than a minute later, both men are out cold on the pavement, with Burleigh standing over them. As one of them, Speed MacFarland (William Gargan), is the world's middleweight boxing champion, and the other, Spider Schultz (Lionel Stander), is his sparring partner, Burleigh makes the front page of every newspaper in New York. McFarland's manager, Gabby Sloan (Adolphe Menjou), has to figure out how to salvage the champ's career, but first he has to figure out exactly what happened, since both fighters were too drunk to remember anything about it. It turns out that Sullivan couldn't beat an egg, but he is good at one thing -- ducking. He can dodge any punch, and the two fighters knocked each other out in the process of trying to pummel him. What's more, on hearing this, they're so angry that Schultz accidentally knocks MacFarland out again, just ahead of the press' arrival, and the little milkman is given credit once more by the reporters for decking the champ. Burleigh loves the attention, even though he never claims to have hit anyone. Meanwhile, Sloan comes up with a way of salvaging his fighter's career, and convinces Burleigh to go along with it for a promised cash sum -- all Burleigh has to do is get in the ring in six fights, to build up his standing and reputation, and finish his "career" in a fight with MacFarland, who will win. In the meantime, complications arise when MacFarland falls in love with Burleigh's sister, while Burleigh himself meets and falls in love with Polly Pringle (Dorothy Wilson), a helpful neighbor. Gabby, Spider, and Speed also discover that turning tiny, wiry Burleigh Sullivan into something that even looks like a fighter is easier said than done -- all of his fights have to be fixed (and then some) behind his back to make his victories look remotely genuine. Finally, after starting to believe his own publicity, and then discovering that the fights were fixed, Burleigh goes through with the final match-up against MacFarland, the culmination of a comedy of errors involving horses, foals, and a wild chase to the arena. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Ten cents a dance, that's what they pay her -- "her" being downtrodden taxi dancer Barbara (Barbara Stanwyck). The only thing Barbara sells is her time, or at least that's the story she gives her jellyfish husband Eddie (Monroe Owsley). But when wealthy Carlton (Ricardo Cortez) starts making goo-goo eyes at Barbara, Eddie accuses his wife of infidelity. This, in Eddie's mind, provides him with an adequate excuse to steal money from Carlton, which action leads to the no-good husband's downfall. Barbara's fate is more merciful: she ends up with Carlton, with whom she has fallen in love. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this early musical western, Stephen Ghent (Ian Keith) is a businessman who, after the death of his partner, has been helping to support Ruth Jordan (Dorothy Mackaill), the late man's college-age daughter. While visiting a town near the Mexican border on business, Ghent is shocked to discover Ruth has become a jaded and hard-drinking sophisticate. Convinced she needs a healthy dose of the great outdoors and the simple life, Ghent kidnaps her disguised as a Mexican bandit and carries her away to an isolated cabin in the hills. As the masked cowboy attempts to teach Ruth about the virtues of the simple life, she finds herself falling in love with her captor, though she has a rival for his affections in hot-blooded servant girl Manuella (Myrna Loy). Fancy Baggage was released both as a talking picture and in a silent version, designed to play in small-town theaters (where westerns were perennially popular) which had yet to be wired for sound. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this curious film, a knickknack collector falls in love with the daughter of a jewel collector. When a rare stone is swiped from a reception at the latter's home, the daughter and her sweetheart begin looking for it. As they drive to the police, they are taken upon a most circuitous path until they end up at the home of Satan, wherein many strange people dwell. The couple is befriended by a helpful dwarf. They must all attend a masquerade ball, and there some of Satan's minions abduct the woman and demand that she produces the jewel, lest she be tortured. Both she and her love then must endure a number of terrifying encounters before they can escape. Unfortunately, the bizarre ordeal has rendered them both stark raving mad. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

For 55 of its 63 minutes, Making the Grade is a silent picture; only the opening sequence and a brief "radio broadcast" scene contain any dialogue. Based on a play by George Ade, the story focuses on Herbert Dodsworth (Edmund Lowe), the scion of a family of scrappers. Alas, Herbert is something of a wimp, unable to succeed at anything because he either tries too hard or not hard enough. Even his efforts to join a local fraternal organization come to naught when he fails to pass the far-from-insurmountable initiation proceedings. About to leave town in disgrace, Herbert is talked out of it by his sweetheart Lottie Ewing (Lois Moran), who insists that he stop trying to live up to his family's reputation and start believing in himself. Almost instantaneously, the lamb turns into a lion, confounding his enemies and proving his mettle as a "true Dodsworth." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A former leading lady for director Cecil B. DeMille, vivacious Vera Reynolds was experiencing somewhat of a career slump when she starred in this romantic melodrama from poverty row producer Trem Carr. She played Lillia, a small town girl who gets involved with the wrong crowd in Paris. Arrested by police prefect Nigel De Brulier, Lillia agrees to seduce a politically important foreign prince Ernest Hilliard in exchange for her freedom. They fall in love, of course, and when the prince is informed of his succession to the throne, he chooses love instead of power and abdicates. A very young Carole Lombard (still spelling her first name "Carol") appeared in a supporting role as one of the heroine's Parisian friends. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi