Minna Gombell Movies

In this off-beat crime drama, a philandering husband murders his wife in the midst of a department store by skewering her with an arrow shot from a sporting goods department bow. He then flees to a Greyhound bus and takes off across the country. A determined cop is hot on his trail and together they traverse some of America's most scenic areas including Chicago and the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1934 musical comedy The Merry Widow, based on the 1905 operetta by Franz Lehar. In 1885, King Achmed (George Barbier) strives to protect the financial interests of his small, poor kingdom of Marshovia in Central Europe. When the kingdom's wealthiest widow, Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald), goes off to Paris, the king sends the village's greatest lover, Prince Danilo (Maurice Chevalier), off to marry her. The king demands that Danilo must romance and marry Sonia so she will return to the small kingdom with her riches. If he doesn't succeed, he'll be arrested. While in Paris, Danilo is distracted from his royal task when he finds himself in the company of many lovely Parisian women. Unbeknownst to him, one of the ladies is really Sonia pretending to be an escort girl. After a dance number and some songs, the Ambassador (Edward Everett Horton) announces that they are to be married. When Sonia refuses to marry Danilo, he is arrested and sent back to the small kingdom. Eventually Sonia returns to Marshovia, where she visits him in jail. She testifies on his behalf and they are finally married. The Merry Widow was filmed several other times, including the 1925 silent version directed by Erich Von Stroheim and the1952 version starring Fernando Lamas as Danilo. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Love turns into an unhealthy obsession in this offbeat drama. Millie (Zasu Pitts) and Peggy (Boots Mallory) are two friends who leave behind the small town where they were raised to try their luck in New York City. Before long, Millie and Peggy meet Jimmy (James Dunn) and Mac (Terrance Ray); Millie is immediately attracted to Jimmy, but much to her displeasure she learns he's more interested in Peggy. Determined to have Jimmy as her own, Millie attempts to sew discord between Jimmy and Peggy by telling each of them foul lies about the other; when this fails, Millie becomes desperate and attempts to kill herself as an attention-getting device. The production history of Hello, Sister! was in many ways more interesting than the film itself. Originally titled Walking Down Broadway, the film was the first sound picture from the legendary Erich von Stroheim; hoping to mend the reputation as an egocentric spendthrift he acquired while directing epic-scale silent films, von Stroheim managed to bring in Walking Down Broadway on time and on budget. However, executives at 20th Century Fox were a bit puzzled by the film, which originally had a sub-plot suggesting a lesbian relationship between Millie and Peggy and other sexual undercurrents which were quite daring for the time. Uncertain about audience reactions to the movie, Fox brought in the less-than-distinguished Alfred Werker to re-shoot and re-edit von Stroheim's urban melodrama, and the resulting picture, entitled Hello, Sister!, was released without an on-screen directorial credit, and died a quick and little noticed death at the box office. No print of von Stroheim's original cut is known to exist. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Clara Bow, the saucy "It" girl of the silent screen, made her film farewell in the ragged musical drama Hoopla. Based on the stage play The Barker (previously filmed in 1927), the story takes place during the Chicago World's Fair of 1933. Bow plays Lou, a hootchy-kootchy dancer who is catapulted into stardom by fast-talking barker Nifty (Preston S. Foster). Hoping to escape her tawdry existence, Lou makes a play for handsome young naif Chris (Richard Cromwell), but by film's end she has bowed to the inevitable and returns to the sort of work she knows best. Despite excellent production values and a big-time promotional campaign, Hoopla was a bomb, convincing the ever-insecure Clara Bow to retire to private life as the wife of cowboy star and future Nevada politician Rex Bell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bret Harte's story Salomy Jane's Kiss provided the basis for a play (by Paul Armstrong and a number of films, including 1932's Wild Girl. Set in the High Sierras at the end of the Civil War, the "wild girl" of the title is Salome Jane Clay (Joan Bennett). Rather tomboyish and determined, she isn't the vixen that the title suggests; as a matter of fact, she is upset and angry over a man who has tried to take liberties with her. A stranger Charles Farrell shows up, looking for the same man who has incurred Jane's enmity. Farrell has a score to settle, for this man ruined the life and reputation of Farrell's sister. He shoots him, then flees the town with Jane's help. They are pursued by numerous individuals; as they overcome various obstacles, they find themselves falling in love. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Peter Piper (Charles Farrell) and Sidney Taylor (Marian Nixon) are deeply in love, and saving to get married, but their mothers have other ideas. Mrs. Piper (Josephine Hull) is jealous of Sidney, refusing to allow the couple to move in with her after they marry. Elsie (Minna Gombell), Sidney's mother, is disgusted with her husband Willie (William Collier, Sr.) and has an affair with their border Mr. Jarvis (William Pawley); she wants Sidney to marry a rich man. When he fears his embezzlement will be found out, Jarvis persuades Elsie to leave the country with him. After they're gone, Willie finds the note Elsie left for Sidney in which she reveals she never loved him; as a result Willie has a heart attack. Peter and Sidney are forced to use their savings for his hospitalization, and then Sidney fears Peter is attracted to another woman. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Grace Livingston (Janet Gaynor) is leading a happy life in her small town, with her mother (Maude Eburne) and father (Robert McWade), being courted by two men, the steady but predictable Tommy Tucker (Charles Farrell) and the more ambitious, flashy, and worldly Dick Loring (George Meeker), who seems closer to Grace in his desire for travel and adventure. It's Tommy whom she marries, however, while insisting that they live someplace other than the town where they grew up. So Tommy abandons his successful insurance business and the couple moves to Joplin, MO, where he takes over a real-estate business, and for 11 months the couple struggles quietly while Tommy goes about trying to establish himself, and Grace becomes increasingly bored and impatient, not liking Joplin or the tiny three-room apartment where they live. Tommy has been steadily working on a plan that will bring them all the money they need, acquiring land that he is certain that the railroad needs, but closing the deal with the purchasing agent (Henry Kolker) requires him to throw a small dinner party, on the very day that Tommy is down literally to his last ten dollars, and when Grace's patience is at an end and her kitchen help falls ill. With the maid's inexperienced daughter (Leila Bennett) doing her barely adequate best, they muddle through dinner to a successful conclusion to the deal; however, when the unexpected reappearance of Dick Loring throws a wrench in the works, not only of the deal but their marriage, his presence suddenly brings to a head all of Grace's frustrations. The couple splits up, Grace leaving Tommy to return to her parents' home, and even though each soon has some wonderful news to tell the other, it takes a lot of help -- and a knock-down, drag-out fight between two of the contending parties -- to help get them back to a place where each will give the other the hearing they should.

It sometimes seems as though, during the 1930s, the studios could mix comedy and drama more freely and easily without having to go into too many explanations for their audience -- whereas in the 21st century, audiences need a guide and a warning for pictures such as The First Year, which might be very funny in many spots (especially in the scenes with Grace's parents) and steeped in drama and serious moments elsewhere. Although not remotely as substantial as some of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor's other work together, The First Year is a good representation of the high level of quality of their work together when they weren't acting in masterpieces such as Street Angel or near-masterpieces like After Tomorrow. ~ Bruce Eder, 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

High-class call girls provide the focus of this intelligent romantic comedy that takes a rather scathing look at the down-side of blazing passion. The trouble begins when a young wife learns that her husband has been fooling around with the ladies of the evening on the side. As she investigates, the wife ends up getting entangled in her own affair. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Vina Delmar, Bad Girl stars Sally Eilers as heroine Dot Haley. The title notwithstanding, Dot isn't bad at all. She enters into a decent marriage with a decent guy, radio store clerk Eddie (James Dunn), and sticks with her man through thick and thin (mostly thin). But Eddie misunderstands Dot's seeming indifference to the new apartment which he has rented and furnished as a first-anniversary surprise. Eddie doesn't know what Dot and the audience do: there's a baby on the way, and that's all that Dot can think about. Once this misunderstanding is cleared up, Eddie takes on all sorts of extra jobs to pay for a pricey obstetrician, even moonlighting as a prizefighter. So impressed is the baby doctor by Eddie's devotion that he refuses to charge a cent when delivering Dot's baby (the bill, by the way, is a daunting $40). Curiously, some synopses of Bad Girl suggest that the hero and heroine never get married, which is hardly the case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced and directed by onetime comedy impresario Joe Rock, the early talkie The Great Power was a literal adaptation of the same-named stage play by Myron Fagan. Using the facilities of a small studio in Waterbury, Connecticut, Rock hired the cast members of the original play to repeat their roles. Hirshell Mayall stars as John Power, a ruthless millionaire forced to take an accounting of himself when he faces his Judgement Day in the Hereafter. Unfortunately, Mayall can find no one to testify in his behalf; apparently, he has spent his entire life making nothing but enemies. Faced with material that was apparently beyond his creative ken, director Rock was forced to film the entire movie twice when the first version came out looking like a high-school pageant. Despite its flaws, The Great Power managed to obtain a release through MGM. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide