Arlene Francis Movies
Most famous for her stage and TV work, Arlene Francis had a sporadic screen career as well. An only child, Francis early on adopted an extroverted personality to hide her lack of self-confidence. After attending Finch College in New York City, she decided to give acting a try, accumulating a handful of stage credits before making her screen debut as a "woman of the streets" in the 1932 Universal horror film Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). The role called for her to be strung up by her wrists on an embalming rack while clad in a flimsy nightgown -- an image that infuriated her father, who demanded that she head back to New York immediately and stop "demeaning" herself in the movies. She returned to the stage, working with Orson Welles' Mercury Theater and co-starring in such Broadway hits as The Doughgirls in which she stole the show as a garrulous Russian sniper. After playing "herself" in Stage Door Canteen (1943), she once again acted in films in 1948, essaying a character role in All My Sons (1948), her last movie for several years. Plunging headlong into television in 1949, Francis emceed a number of interview, quiz, and human interest programs, and from 1950 until 1967 was a panelist on TV's What's My Line? She also hosted scores of radio programs, wrote several books, and was the peripatetic spokesperson of such charitable causes as the United Cerebral Palsy Fund. At the personal request of director Billy Wilder, she accepted her first screen role in 13 years, playing James Cagney's vitriolic wife in Wilder's One Two Three (1961). Thereafter, she appeared in only two more films, portraying a pregnant middle-ager in Carl Reiner's The Thrill of It All (1963) and a reporter in Wilder's Fedora (1978). In 1946, Arlene Francis married actor Martin Gabel, a union that endured until Gabel's death four decades later. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi- 1978
- PG
In Fedora, Billy Wilder approaches Hollywood stardom in the same fashion as he did in Sunset Boulevard--with cynicism, regret, understanding, and awe. Fedora (Marthe Keller) is film's most intriguing movie queen. Rumored to be well into her sixties, the actress has remained a starlet for over four decades--retaining youth and radiance despite her advancing years. The mystery behind her numinous persona has never ceased to captivate audiences. Even now, as she lives in seclusion on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu, the public buzzes for her to return to the screen. When producer Barry Detweiler (William Holden) travels to Corfu, staking his faltering career on Fedora's return, he discovers the actress's tragic secret. Fedora's eternal loveliness may not be the result of defying her age, but of concealing her youth. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Holden, Hildegarde Neff, (more)
This amusing romantic comedy concerns Dr. Gerald Boyer (James Garner), a successful gynecologist with a wife and two children. Wife Beverly (Doris Day) focuses on maintaining the household and watching the kids. One of Gerald's patients, Mrs. Fraleigh (Arlene Francis), overhears Beverly talking up a new product she's discovered called 'Happy Soap' - whose manufacturer just happens to be Mrs. Fraleigh's father-in-law, Old Tom Fraleigh (Reginald Owen). She introduces Beverly to him; hugely impressed, the old man offers her $80,000 a year to pitch a new product called "Happy Soap." Beverly's career takes her away from her family responsibilities and causes a series of comedic commotions for Gerald and the kids. He comes home from work one morning and accidentally drives his convertible into a freshly dug swimming pool ordered by Beverly without his knowledge. The furious physician throws a bevy of boxes of Happy Soap into the pool, causing the house to be engulfed in suds by morning (which the kids mistake for snow). The family maid Olivia (Zasu Pitts) is nearly driven crazy with the events and has many harried scenes of comedic frustration. Directed by Norman Jewison, this thouroughly engaging comedy was written by Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner. Reiner provides the screenplay for the feature which turned out to be the last film appearance of Zasu Pitts. With her passing marked the end of a long and successful career as a comedic and well respected actress that began in 1917. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Doris Day, James Garner, (more)
In his last starring film (it was supposed to be his last film, but Ragtime came along in 1981), James Cagney plays Coca-Cola executive C.R. MacNamara. Assigned to manage Coke's West Berlin office, MacNamara dreams of being transferred to London, and to do this he must curry favor with his Atlanta-based boss, Hazeltine (Howard St. John). Thus, MacNamara agrees to look after Hazeltine's dizzy, impulsive daughter, Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin), during her visit to Germany. Weeks pass, and on the eve of Hazeltine's visit to West Berlin, Scarlett announces that she's gotten married. Even worse, her husband is a hygienically challenged East Berlin Communist named Otto Piffl (Horst Buchholz). The crafty MacNamara arranges for Piffl to be arrested by the East Berlin police and to have the marriage annulled, only to discover that Scarlett is pregnant. In rapid-fire "one, two, three" fashion, MacNamara must arrange for Piffl to be released by the Communists and successfully pass off the scrungy, doggedly anti-capitalist Piffl as an acceptable husband for Scarlett. MacNamara must accomplish this in less than 12 hours, all the while trying to mollify his wife (Arlene Francis), who has learned of his affair with busty secretary Ingeborg (Lilo Pulver).
Seldom pausing for breath, Billy Wilder's film is a crackling, mile-a-minute farce, taking satiric scattershots at Coca-Cola, the Cold War (the film is set in the months just before the erection of the Berlin Wall), Russian red tape, Communist and capitalist hypocrisy, Southern bigotry, the German "war guilt," rock music, and even Cagney's own movie image. Not all the gags are in the best of taste, and most of the one-liners have dated rather badly, but Cagney's mesmerizing performance holds the whole affair together. Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond adapted their screenplay from an obscure play by Ferenc Molnár. Watch for Red Buttons in an unbilled cameo as a military policeman, and listen for the voice of Sig Rumann, emanating from the mouth of actor Hubert Von Meyerinck (the Count von Droste-Schattenburg). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Seldom pausing for breath, Billy Wilder's film is a crackling, mile-a-minute farce, taking satiric scattershots at Coca-Cola, the Cold War (the film is set in the months just before the erection of the Berlin Wall), Russian red tape, Communist and capitalist hypocrisy, Southern bigotry, the German "war guilt," rock music, and even Cagney's own movie image. Not all the gags are in the best of taste, and most of the one-liners have dated rather badly, but Cagney's mesmerizing performance holds the whole affair together. Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond adapted their screenplay from an obscure play by Ferenc Molnár. Watch for Red Buttons in an unbilled cameo as a military policeman, and listen for the voice of Sig Rumann, emanating from the mouth of actor Hubert Von Meyerinck (the Count von Droste-Schattenburg). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, (more)
- 1950
With These Hands is an entertaining 47-minute slice of propaganda, courtesy of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. The film dramatizes the rise of the American labor movement, beginning with the dark days of the sweatshop in 1910 and culminating with the much-improved working conditions and wage scales of the 1950s. The infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1913 is re-created, along with many other examples of labor-management iniquity. Given the temper of the times, the film is careful to distance the ILGWU from the Communist Party, by demonstrating the damage caused to the Movement by Red agitators. The cast is filled to overflowing with top Broadway talent, including Arlene Francis, Sam Levene, Joseph Wiseman, Alexander Scourby and Alexander Lockwood. Though designed to be shown at rallies and fundraisers, With These Hands managed to attain a few theatrical bookings. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sam Levene, Arlene Francis, (more)
- 1948
Based on the play by Arthur Miller, All My Sons is a drama of man's duty to man that retains a potent impact. Edward G. Robinson plays a manufacturer of parts for World War II airplanes who lives a full, satisfied life in a small town. But his idyll is shattered by the arrival of the fiancée of the manufacturer's oldest son, who is missing in action. The younger son begins to fall in love with the girl, but her own brother is against the relationship because, he claims, the manufacturer and his partner delivered defective parts to the war effort. The younger son (Burt Lancaster) investigates, even going as far as visit his father's former partner in jail, and discovers the awful truth -- that his father's corrupt actions were responsible for both the partner's incarceration and the deaths of 21 U.S. pilots. The tale ends with a bitter and tragic confrontation that drives home the message that we are all our brother's keepers, and we cannot push aside that responsibility for personal gain. Thoughtful and intense performances by Robinson and Lancaster bring humanity and life to this powerful theme. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster, (more)
- 1932
Having missed the opportunity to direct Frankenstein for Universal, Robert Florey was offered Murders in the Rue Morgue as a consolation, whereupon he transformed a pedestrian property into a minor classic. Owing more to Cabinet of Dr. Caligari than to Edgar Allen Poe, the film stars Bela Lugosi as Doctor Mirakle (accent on the second syllable), a carnival sideshow entertainer who doubles as a mad scientist. Kidnapping prostitutes off the Paris streets, Mirakle endeavors to mix their blood with that of his pet gorilla. His experiments will forever be doomed to failure, however, until he is able to obtain the blood of a virgin -- and that's where Camille L'Espanye (Sidney Fox) comes into the picture. When Mirakle's monkey kidnaps Camille and murders her mother, suspicion immediately falls upon the girl's sweetheart, starving artist Pierre Dupin (Leon Waycoff, later known as Leon Ames). But by using the deductive skills displayed in the original story by Poe's master detective C. Auguste Dupin, our hero not only proves his innocence, but rescues the helpless heroine from Mirakle's clutches. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bela Lugosi, Leon Waycoff [Ames], (more)
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