Byron Foulger Movies

Drawing heavily on both Madame X and Stella Dallas, this cheap exploitation-melodrama was produced by the ill-named Progressive Pictures at the newly formed Grand National studios. The parents of the title are Edythe Ellis (Marjorie Reynolds) and Charles Wharton (Carlyle Moore Jr.), who are forced to marry in secrecy because of his socially prominent family. A child, Carol, is born, but Charles is forbidden to see Edythe and the little girl is adopted by the kindly Cardwells (Walter Young and Sybil Harris). Years later, Carol (Doris Weston), now a pretty teenager, falls in love with handsome Bruce (Maurice Murphy), much to the chagrin of her adopted cousin, Betty (Terry Walker), Bruce's former girlfriend. In spite, Betty reveals that Carol is adopted and the distraught girl leaves home to take a job as an entertainer in the Cuddle Club, a notorious establishment secretly owned by Charles Wharton (now Morgan Wallace). When Carol refuses to change her mind, Bruce solicits the aid of Edythe (now Helen MacKellar), who has become a famous judge. Keeping her identity a secret, Edythe warns Carol about an upcoming police raid and is eventually able to have Charles arrested. Tearfully but still incognito, Edythe then gives her blessing for Carol and Bruce to be married. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, 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

Carole Lombard stars as Helen Bartlett, a compulsive liar who always tips the audience to an oncoming whopper by sticking her tongue in her cheek. Helen is married to a Kenneth Bartlett, a scrupulously honest lawyer whose integrity has always held him back professionally. Hoping to help Kenneth get ahead, Helen confesses to a murder she obviously didn't commit, confident that he'll get her off and make his reputation. But things don't go exactly as planned, thanks largely to a mysterious eccentric named Charley (John Barrymore), who assures the heroine over and over that she'll "fry." Once considered a prime example of screwball comedy, True Confession is now regarded by film buffs as one of Carole Lombard's worst pictures: it wasn't much better when remade by Betty Hutton in 1946 as Cross My Heart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Larceny on the Air is a Republic B-plus picture "drawn from today's headlines." In this instance, the news event pounced upon was the mid-1930s Federal crackdown on patent-medicine quacks. Robert Livingston stars as a doctor who takes to the radio airwaves to campaign against cure-all charlatans. Livingston's mission is compromised when he falls in love with Grace Bradley, daughter of the medicine-racket ringleader. Somehow Larceny on the Air found the time to accommodate a musical number, "Sittin' on the Moon" (from the 1936 Republic picture of the same name). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Leo McCarey directed this classic screwball comedy in which Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a couple whose marriage is starting to fall apart. Jerry informs Lucy that he's taking a vacation alone in Florida; instead, he holes up with his buddies and plays poker for a week (while sitting under a sun lamp so he'll have an appropriate tan). Lucy concludes that Jerry was never in Florida just as Jerry discovers that Lucy was spending her time with Armand Duvalle (Alex D'Arcy), a handsome voice teacher. Both Jerry and Lucy believe the other was unfaithful, so they agree to a trial divorce, with a bitter battle fought over custody of Mr. Smith, the dog (Lucy gets the dog, but Jerry has visitation rights). Determined to make Jerry jealous, Lucy continues keeping company with Armand while also dating Daniel Leeson (Ralph Bellamy), a wealthy oil man from Oklahoma. Convinced that turnabout is fair play, Jerry starts going out with Dixie Belle Lee (Joyce Compton), a brassy nightclub singer, as well as socialite Barbara Vance (Molly Lamont). However, Lucy has belatedly decided that she wants Jerry back, and she hatches a plan to win him back by making a spectacle of herself at a party. The Awful Truth was based on a play which had been filmed twice before, but McCarey gave his superb comic cast free reign to improvise and add new business, and the results were splendid; you haven't lived until you've heard Irene Dunne attempt to sing "Home on the Range." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel and play by James M. Barrie, The Little Minister turned out to be Katharine Hepburn's best vehicle since Little Women. John Beal plays the Reverend Gavin, the sobersided new cleric of a tiny Scottish village. Almost against his better judgment, Beal falls in love with Babbie (Hepburn), a feisty gypsy girl whom the villagers regard as a pariah. Thanks to this "unholy" alliance, the little minister is nearly run out of town, but when he is accidentally stabbed in a fracas, the townsfolk come to their senses. Previously filmed in 1921, The Little Minister was afforded sumptuous production values by RKO Radio (its elaborate Scottish-village set would later pop up in innumerable films, notably Laurel & Hardy's Bonnie Scotland), and benefits immeasurably from the spirited performances of all concerned. Alas, the film was too expensive to post a profit, and despite respectable business it ended up $9000 in the red. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide