Blanche Frederici Movies

Rain, the famous John Colton-Clemence Randolph theatrical adaptation of Somerset Maugham's short story about religious hypocrisy, was such a "hot potato" in 1928 that the Hays Office, Hollywood's self-appointed censorship bureau, would not allow the play to be filmed under its original title. Thus, the silent film version of Rain went out as Sadie Thompson, which happened to be the name of the central character. Gloria Swanson plays Sadie, a woman of loose morals and sordid reputation who travels to the South Seas, seeking out a new life. She makes little effort to curb her hedonism, especially when she's "entertaining" a group of US marines stationed in the tiny island where she lives. Sadie falls genuinely in love for the first time with marine Raoul Walsh (who also directed the film), which displeases visiting bluenose Lionel Barrymore (a clergyman in the original play, but a private citizen here). Threatening to expose Sadie to the local authorities if she doesn't clear out, the sanctimonious Barrymore declares that the fallen woman can only save herself by embracing the word of God. The repentant Sadie sobbingly promises to do so--whereupon Barrymore, in a moment of weakness, seduces Sadie himself. Barrymore commits suicide, leaving Sadie free to start life over with Walsh. Lip-readers had a field day watching Gloria Swanson mouth the most colorful of obscenities, which were immediately "laundered" by censor-approved subtitles. Current prints of Sadie Thompson are incomplete; the final reel has been reconstructed with reshot titles and still pictures. The film would be remade under the original title Rain in 1932, with Joan Crawford in the lead; 22 years later, a heavily bowdlerized musical version of Rain, starring Rita Hayworth, was released as Miss Sadie Thompson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The present unavailability of 1928's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is especially frustrating for those who'd like to compare this first version of the classic Anita Loos comic novel to the 1953 Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell remake. The blonde in question is Miss Lorelei Lee, a dumb-like-a-fox golddigger on the prowl for a rich husband. With her best friend Dorothy Shaw (Alice White), Lorelei takes a trip to Gay Paree, where among other adventures she gets mixed up with roguish old millionaire Sir Francis Beekman (Mack Swain). Eventually she finds that true love doesn't come with a price tag, or does it? Ford Sterling and Holmes Herbert co-star as Lorelei and Dorothy's middle-aged swains. Lorelei herself is played by Ruth Taylor, a onetime Mack Sennett bathing beauty who retired from films upon her marriage to a Manhattan stockbroker (life imitates art!) Incidentally, Taylor was the mother of humorist Buck Henry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A long-lost silent melodrama, Fleetwing stars handsome Barry Norton as a young Arab whose happiness over having captured both a handsome stallion and a beautiful slave girl (Dorothy Janis proves short lived when both horse and girl are stolen by a cruel sheik (Robert Kortman). In an attempt to recover his property, our hero finds himself imprisoned by his enemy but is ultimately saved when the sheik's lair is attacked by an enemy tribe. Directed by Lambert Hillyer, Fleetwing was an obvious attempt by Fox to turn Argentine-born Norton into another Rudolph Valentino. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an impoverished songwriter from the South travels to Tin Pan Alley with his trusty piano. He stays at a boarding house where he falls in love with a pretty young woman. When the two are discovered trysting in the same room, the landlady tosses them out on their ears. To help pay for his back rent, the vindictive landlady keeps his piano. Her husband attempts to steal it away, but accidentally drops it down the stairs and smashes it into a jillion pieces. Fortunately, his new love works for two zany music publishers who begin selling the writer's songs which become hits. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Edward Knoblock's warhorse theatrical piece Kismet, first filmed in 1920, resurfaced as a talkie in 1930. Repeating the role he'd created on stage in 1911, Otis Skinner stars as Hajji, the wily Baghdad beggar who goes from rags to riches to rags again to riches again in the space of 24 hours. Outwitting the evil wazir (Sidney Blackmer), Hajji manages to install himself in the royal palace, romance the wazir's gorgeous "head wife," and arrange the marriage between his own daughter (Loretta Young) and the caliph's son (David Manners). Though well on in years, Skinner conveys much of the effortless charisma which had endeared him to audiences since the turn of the century. Kismet was remade in 1944 with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich; the popular Broadway musical version was brought to the screen in 1955, with Howard Keel as Hajji. The subsequent film versions have kept the 1930 Kismet out of television circulation, denying future generations the pleasure of watching the legendary Otis Skinner in action. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, a dancer works in a sleazy Marseilles portside dive that is really the front for a bordello. While dancing one night she meets a sailor and agrees to be his bride. Unfortunately, one of her former suitors suddenly shows up and a terrible fight ensues. The sailor kills his rival and ends up sentenced to Devil's Island. The only females allowed there are the wives of the guards, so, not wanting to be far from her beloved, the dancer marries the meanest guard in the prison. During a prison riot, the sailor proves his mettle and gets pardoned. The couple happily decide to return to the dancer's native Britain. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The title alone should clue the reader that Numbered Men is a prison picture. Based on the stage play Jail Break, the film is hardly a paragon of credibility: more than one critic noted that the prison depicted herein is more like a country club than a house of corrections. The party-like atmosphere and casual camaraderie between prisoners and guards is spoiled when hard-boiled King Callahan (Ralph Ince) insists upon trying to escape. Before this problem can be resolved, there's the little matter of innocent counterfeiting suspect Bud Leonard (Raymond Hackett), who is finally sprung when the guilty party Bertie Gray (Conrad Nagel) graciously confesses. The film's most (unintentionally) amusing moment finds a prison road gang enjoying a pleasant luncheon in the home of sociable heroine Mary Dane (Bernice Claire). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Illicit office romances provide the basis of this melodrama. The story centers around an older man's secretary who drops her real boyfriend to seduce her boss. When he discovers that his wife has begun fooling around with younger men he lets his secretary have her way. Fortunately, the boss's wife files for divorce and now everyone is free to fool around. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this mystery set at an Army post, two women are having a passionate affair with a soldier. The trouble begins when one of the women's husbands is mysteriously killed. The conniving daughter of the commanding officer is behind the death, but she tries to frame her lover. Later when the accusatory finger is pointed at her and evidence of her guilt is presented, the woman commits suicide. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

William Wellman's Night Nurse survives as a potentially interesting but ultimately unsatisfying melodrama about a nurse discovering evildoings in the household where she is caring for a couple of sick children. Based on a 1930 novel by Dora Macy, Wellman's probe into medical corruption is one of the director's more cynical looks on Depression-era America, but most of the characters are weakly drawn and the denouement a cheat, cinematically. Barbara Stanwyck plays Lora Hart, an ambitious student nurse whose first assignment after graduation is tending to a couple of deathly ill little girls, Nanny (Marcia Mae Jones) and Desney (Betty Jane Graham). Despite their posh surroundings, the girls are apparently suffering from malnutrition; their mother, Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam), is hopped-up on bootleg booze ("I'm a dipsomaniac! A dipsomaniac I tell ya! And I like it!"), and the girls' physician (Ralf Harolde) is a society quack with a facial tick. Lora soon realizes that the good doctor is deliberately starving the children to death in order to gain access to their trust fund and that Mrs. Ritchey is kept in line by Nick (Clark Gable), a black-clad gangster posing as the family chauffeur. A desperate Lora proposes to contact the authorities, but her medical sponsor (Charles Winninger) deems that unethical and instead suggests that she find a solution from inside the family. Nearly at the end of her ropes -- and having accepted one too many blows to the chin from Nick -- Lora is saved by an admirer, good-natured bootlegger Mortie (Ben Lyon), whose "friends" take the evil chauffeur on a final "ride." None of this makes much sense, and the film appears to have been tampered with along the way. One of the children disappears without any explanation halfway through, and the hospital establishment's reticence is never properly explained. Instead of a coherent plot, Night Nurse, in typical pre-Production Code style, offers quite a few scenes of Barbara Stanwyck and fellow nurse Joan Blondell dressing and undressing and a rather brutal portrayal by a very young Clark Gable on the threshold to fame. Warner Bros. had borrowed Gable from MGM to play the despicable chauffeur when the original choice, James Cagney, suddenly proved too valuable a commodity for what was actually a supporting role. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Two rough-and-ready guys; one beautiful dame; a tough job that has to be done, and "one of us may not come out alive"; the younger guy gets the girl in the end. This could have been the synopsis of virtually every one of the Jack Holt-Ralph Graves vehicles at Columbia, as witness Dangerous Affair. This time, Holt plays police lieutenant McHenry, while Graves is his friendly rival, crime reporter Wally Cook. After the two men verbally duel over a variety of details, they hunker down to business, that of solving the murder of a lawyer who was in the midst of reading a will to a motley collection of heirs. Outside of the identity of the killer, the big surprise in A Dangerous Affair is that heroine Marjory Randolph (Sally Blane) does not become the romantic bone of contention between McHenry and Cook. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

Wicked stars Elissa Landi as Margot Rande, a basically decent woman led down the path to perdition by her bank-robber husband Tony (Theodore Von Eltz). When Tony is cornered by the police, Margot tries to protect him, shooting a policeman in the process. Sentenced to a 20-year prison term, the ladylike heroine is subjected to all manner of brutality and humiliation behind bars. Scott Burrows (Victor McLaglen), Margot's former sweetheart, hires an attorney to help reduce her sentence, but in the meantime she has given birth to a child, which is promptly snatched from her arms and put up for adoption. Upon her release, Margot desperately kidnaps her own baby, leading to further courtroom entanglements before a happy (or at least satisfactory) ending can be reached. It's positively miraculous that director Alan Dwan was able to squeeze all of Wicked into a mere 57 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide