Roscoe Ates Movies

In this comedy, Jimmy Potts (Jimmy Durante) and Elmer J. Butts (Buster Keaton, Jr.) come up with a scheme to start up a beer brewery with the hope that Prohibition will soon be over. However, things don't work out exactly as they planned, and they end up in a mess of trouble. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

"How would you like to star opposite the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood?" Enticed by these words, brunette leading lady Fay Wray dyed her hair blonde and accepted the role of Ann Darrow in King Kong -- and stayed with the project even after learning that her "leading man" was a 50-foot ape. The film introduces us to flamboyant, foolhardy documentary filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), who sails off to parts unknown to film his latest epic with leading lady Darrow in tow. Disembarking at Skull Island, they stumble on a ceremony in which the native dancers circle around a terrified-looking young girl, chanting, "Kong! Kong!" The chief (Noble Johnson) and witch doctor (Steve Clemente) spot Denham and company and order them to leave. But upon seeing Ann, the chief offers to buy the "golden woman" to serve as the "bride of Kong." Denham refuses, and he and the others beat a hasty retreat to their ship. Late that night, a party of native warriors sneak on board the ship and kidnap Ann. They strap her to a huge sacrificial altar just outside the gate, then summon Kong, who winds up saving Ann instead of devouring her. Kong is eventually taken back to New York, where he breaks loose on the night of his Broadway premiere, thinking that his beloved Ann is being hurt by the reporters' flash bulbs. Now at large in New York, Kong searches high and low for Ann (in another long-censored scene, he plucks a woman from her high-rise apartment, then drops her to her death when he realizes she isn't the girl he's looking for). After proving his devotion by wrecking an elevated train, Kong winds up at the top of the Empire State Building, facing off against a fleet of World War I fighter planes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Scarlet River, Tom Keene plays "himself," a cowboy movie star, on location in the Wide Open Spaces for his latest epic. The locals chortle and guffaw at these picture people posing as genuine Westerners, but Keene proves his worth by rescuing Dorothy Wilson from villainous ranch foreman Creighton Chaney (aka Lon Chaney Jr.). Edgar Kennedy plays the flustered director, forever tearing out what little hair he has. The film-within-a-film sequences are staged with reasonable accuracy (future consumer advocate Betty Furness shows up as Keene's on-camera ingenue), while a few shots at the RKO commissary offer glimpses of studio contractees Myrna Loy, Joel McCrea and Bruce Cabot. The basic premise of Scarlet River would be revived in several future westerns by such cowboy stars as Charles Starrett, Buck Jones and Gene Autry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This star-laden version of Lewis Carroll's novel combines elements of both the title novel and Carroll's sequel, Through the Looking Glass. In England of the 19th century, young Alice finds that the mirror over the library fireplace opens into a strange world. She has odd adventures and changes size several times both before and after she follows a time-obsessed White Rabbit (Skeets Gallagher). Soaked after nearly drowning in a pool of tears, Alice is helped to dry off by a Dodo (Polly Moran), and encounters a caterpillar (Ned Sparks), whose mushroom also changes Alice's size. In a noisy home where the Cook (Lillian Harmer) and the Duchess (Alison Skipworth) are always fighting, Alice takes care of the Duchess' baby, but it turns into a pig and runs away. Asking directions of the Cheshire Cat (Richard Arlen) is no help, and a tea party with the Mad Hatter (Edward Everett Horton), the March Hare (Charlie Ruggles) and the Dormouse (Jackie Searl) is confusing and annoying.

Alice meets the Queen of Hearts (May Robson), and encounters the Duchess again; while strolling with her, Alice meets the Gryphon (William Austin) and the Mock Turtle (Cary Grant). The twins Tweedledum (Jack Oakie) and Tweedledee (Roscoe Karns) recite a poem about a Walrus and a Carpenter (seen as an animated cartoon), but when they decide to go to battle, they're chased off by a crow. Humpty Dumpty (W.C. Fields) relates the poem "Jabberwocky" to Alice, then falls off a wall and breaks. The mournful White Knight (Gary Cooper), unable to put Humpty Dumpty together again, escorts Alice for a while, but she tumbles down a hill and finds she's become a queen. At a party in Alice's honor, the Red Queen (Edna Mae Oliver) becomes furious at Alice, who then wakes up to find herself in the library, with her kitten Dinah in her lap. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

In this western, a Texas Ranger is assigned to bring in a woman who is causing trouble in a nearby town. He soon comes to suspect, however, that she is being set up to deflect attention away from a gang of cattle thieves and bandits led by a man whom the Ranger believes killed his brother. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

Based on Veneer, a 1929 Broadway flop by Hugh Stange, this sentimental domestic drama came to the screens in early 1932, first as Love Starved, then under the less inflammatory title of Young Bride. The love-starved young bride is Allie Smith (Helen Twelvetrees), who, after a whirlwind romance, marries handsome but weak-willed Charlie Riggs (Eric Linden). Presenting himself as a wheeler-dealer, Charlie is in reality a mere runner in a Wall Street brokerage firm and, if that isn't bad enough, is cheating on his new wife with Maizie (Arline Judge), a brassy taxi dancer. When a pregnant Allie threatens to leave him, Charlie attempts to win her back with money earned in a dance contest with Maizie, but the taxi dancer absconds with the winnings and a distraught Allie contemplates suicide. After a final confrontation with Maizie, a chagrined Charlie returns to home and hearth begging forgiveness. Convinced of her husband's reformation, Allie accepts the apology and the couple embrace. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The genesis of MGM's Freaks was a magazine piece by Ted Robbins titled Spurs. The story involved a terrible revenge enacted by a mean-spirited circus midget upon his normal-sized wife. In adapting Spurs for the screen, writers Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, Edgar Allan Wolf, and Al Boasberg retained the circus setting and the little man-big woman wedding, all the while de-vilifying the midget and transforming the woman into the true "heavy" of the piece. German "little person" Harry Earles plays Hans, who falls in love with long-legged trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova). Discovering that Hans is heir to a fortune, Cleopatra inveigles him into a marriage, all the while planning to bump off her new husband and run away with brutish strongman Hercules (Henry Victor). What she doesn't reckon with is the code of honor among circus freaks: "offend one, offend them all." What set this film apart from director Tod Browning's earlier efforts was the fact that genuine circus and carnival sideshow performers were cast as the freaks: Harry Earles and his equally diminutive sister Daisy, Siamese twins Violet and Daisy Hilton, legless Johnny Eck, armless-legless Randian (who rolls cigarettes with his teeth), androgynous Josephine-Joseph, "pinheads" Schlitzie, Elvira, Jennie Lee Snow, and so on. Upon its initial release, Freaks was greeted with such revulsion from movie-house audiences that MGM spent the next 30 years distancing themselves as far from the project as possible. For many years available only in a truncated reissue version titled Nature's Mistakes, Freaks was eventually restored to its original release print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A sequel to the 1931 George O'Brien western Riders of the Purple Sage, The Rainbow Trail picks up where the earlier film left off -- sort of. In Riders, fugitive from justice Jim Lassiter (O'Brien) and his sweetheart Jane Withersteen (Marguerite Churchill) escaped to the "lost valley," sealing themselves off from civilization with the aid of a huge boulder. In the sequel, O'Brien assumes the role of Lassiter's nephew Shefford, who has been assigned to search for his missing uncle; thus, in effect, the actor spends the early portions of the film chasing himself. Shefford's search is interrupted by a confrontation with his uncle's old nemesis Dyer (W. L. Thorne), now a masked bandit. On a more pleasant note, our hero inaugurates a romance with the lovely Fay Larkin (Cecilia Parker, in her film debut). Unfortunately, it is necessary to be familiar with Riders of the Purple Sage to be able to follow the convoluted plotline of The Rainbow Trail (both properties, of course, were based on the works of Zane Grey). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this Academy Award-winning film, Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) is a hotshot Californian lawyer from a well-to-do family, whose main failing is his indulgence in alcohol. After winning a case for mobster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), Stephen brings his client along to a party at his parents' house for a little celebrating. However, when they arrive at their destination, Ace manages to steal the heart of Stephen's wild daughter, Jan (Norma Shearer), and the two run off together, much to the family's dismay. Stephen struggles to win his foolhardy daughter back from the clutches of her lowlife boyfriend, as she defies her father at every turn. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Wallace Beery won an Academy Award for his tour de force performance as a washed-up boxer. The bibulous Beery travels from one tank-town bout to another in the company of his faithful son Jackie Cooper and his stuttering manager Roscoe Ates. Hoping for a comeback in Tijuana, Beery is approached by his ex-wife Irene Rich, now married to wealthy Hale Hamilton. Rich convinces Beery that Cooper would be better off with her. Feigning brusqueness, Beery orders his son to get lost, hoping that the kid will be disillusioned enough to remain with his mother. But Cooper runs away from his new home and shows up back in Tijuana, just as Beery is in the middle of his comeback bout. Cheered on by his son, Beery knocks his opponent cold--and then collapses himself. Dying, Beery tells the tearful Cooper that everything will be all right if the boy returns to his mom. While Wallace Beery was capable of laying on pathos with a trowel, his final scene in The Champ can still move an audience to tears--far more so than the similar scene between Jon Voight and Rick Schroeder in the wearisome 1979 remake. In 1953, writer Frances Marion updated and revised her Champ script, changed the washed-up pug to a washed-up comedian, and came up with The Clown, one of Red Skelton's few dramatic vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ostensibly a "team" vehicle for Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, Cracked Nuts is half over before Bert and Bob even get together! The first scenes belong to Wheeler, cast as spendthrift millionaire Wendell Graham, who is in love with Betty Harrington (Dorothy Lee). Betty's aunt Minnie (Edna May Oliver) considers Wendell to be an irresponsible jerk, so our hero decides to prove his worth by financing a revolution in the mythical country of El Dorania, thereby becoming ruler of the postage-stamp kingdom. Meanwhile, Zander U. Parkhurst (Woolsey), aka Zup, has won the crown of El Dorania in a crap game with King Oscar (Harvey Clark) -- who is glad to be rid of the country, inasmuch as he's been targeted for assassination. Unaware that he's been set up as a dead duck, Zup quickly assumes command of El Dorania, wearing a variety of outlandish "official" costumes. When Wendell shows up to stake his claim to the country, he is greeted effusively by his old pal Zup, but the reunion turns sour when scheming General Bogardus (Stanley Fields) orders Wendell to kill Zup. The day of the assassination is a gala event for the El Doranians, who set up concession stands and provide a team of cheerleaders for the occasion. Not wishing to do his pal harm, Wendell arranges for "cockeyed Ben" (Ben Turpin) to fly the plane that is to drop the fatal bombs on Zup and further sees to it that the bombs are disarmed. Alas, the explosions surrounding Zup are all too real, and soon both he and Wendell are fleeing for their lives. Fortunately, one of the bombs brings forth an oil gusher, which has the salutary effect of bringing the revolution to an end -- and also makes Wendell a worthy bridegroom for Betty (remember her?) In recent years, Cracked Nuts has taken on near-legendary status because of its pre-Duck Soup political satire, its Abbott-and-Costello style comedy patter, and the presence of Boris Karloff as one of the revolutionaries. But in the cold light of day, the film doesn't live up to its reputation; though laughs are plentiful, Cracked Nuts must be ranked as a disappointment for all but Wheeler and Woolsey's most fervent fans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Not the first of the prison pictures, but the one that truly put the genre on the map. Playboy Kent (Robert Montgomery), driving drunk, kills a couple of pedestrians and is sentenced to a 10-year manslaughter term. His cellmate is forger Morgan (Chester Morris), a tough but essentially decent con; the cell-block leader is Butch (Wallace Beery), whose outer oafishness hides a cruel, calculating mind. Butch lives for the day that he can bust out and doesn't care who gets hurt along the way. Panicking, Kent "rats" on Butch and is murdered during the climactic breakout as a consequence. Morgan behaves courageously, saving the warden (Lewis Stone) and the guards from Butch's wrath; as a reward, Morgan earns a reduced sentence and the love of Kent's sister Anne (Leila Hyams). Remarkably brutal for an MGM film, The Big House (a double Oscar winner, for best screenplay and sound recording) established not only the grimy mise-en-scene of prison life, but also a whole new glossary of slang terms and a veritable menagerie of movie "types," from the firm but kindly prison chaplain to the embittered lifer. The film was gloriously lampooned by Laurel & Hardy's Pardon Us, in which Walter Long played the Beery counterpart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide