Vera Gordon Movies

Lucille Ball delivers the finest dramatic performance of her career in this satisfying adaptation of Damon Runyon's The Big Street. Ball is cast as Gloria, aka "Your Highness," the vain and thoroughly selfish star attraction of gangster Case Ables' (Barton MacLaine) New York nightclub. Henry Fonda costars as busboy Little Pinks, who worships Gloria from afar. When Gloria is crippled by a fall downstairs-caused by a blow across the face by the sadistic Ables-Little Pinks selflessly waits upon the invalided and doggedly ungrateful songstress hand and foot. So devoted to Gloria is Pinks that he's willing to pilot her wheelchair from Manhattan to Florida so that she can renew her romance with callow playboy Decatur Reed (William Orr). Touched by Pinks' loyalty, his Runyonesque friends-Professor B (Ray Collins), Horsethief (Sam Levene), Mr. and Mrs. Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Eugene Pallette, Agnes Moorehead) and all the rest-raise enough money to open a Florida nightclub so that Gloria can put up a brave front. The ending is at once the most lachrymose and most effectively moving scene in the film, one that can only be spoiled if detailed here. Produced by Damon Runyon himself, The Big Street is one of the few completely successful filmed Runyon adaptations-as well as Lucille Ball's finest hour (and a half) on-screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film is one of acclaimed director Fritz Lang's less noted achievements, a mixture of romance, comedy, drama, and satire. It includes three songs by the famed Kurt Weill, including "The Right Guy for Me." George Raft plays Joe Dennis, an ex-convict working in a department store. The store's boss, Mr. Morris (Harry Carey), likes to hire ex-cons. Joe falls in love with Helen (Sylvia Sidney), who hides the fact that she is on parole until after they marry. Since parolees can't wed, the marriage is illegal. Distraught, Joe organizes a gang to rob Morris' store. Helen intervenes and tries to convince the gang members that the potential take isn't worth the risk of returning to prison. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this tearjerker, a 10-year old orphan and his crippled sister struggle to survive. The newsboy is devoted to his little sister and will do anything to help her. After their parents die, a local woman, embroiled in a messy divorce, endeavors to help them by taking them in. She also wants to help herself by proving to the courts that she is a good person. She is surprised to find herself falling for the children. They, in turn, bond with her too. When the husband sees how good his wife is with the two, he has a change of heart and stops the divorce. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a story by Zona Gale, When Strangers Meet concentrates on a small, interrelated community separated down the middle by a narrow path. The bungalow-dwelling residents on one side of the path consider their neighbors to be "beneath" them, and vice versa. Tensions come to a boil when a double murder is committed, with accusations flying back and forth. The solution to the crime comes about when a much-abused housewife (Sarah Padden) finally rebels against her tyrannical husband (played by the ever-hissable Charles Middleton). A good cast, headed by Richard Cromwell and Arline Judge, helps lift this independently-produced drama well above the "B"-picture norm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Cohens and Kellys in Africa is the fourth in the seemingly endless movie series based on characters created in the 1925 stage play Two Blocks Away. Back again are George Sidney and Charlie Murray as Cohen and Kelly, those two eternally bickering business partners and reluctant in-laws. This time, the Hebraic-Hibernian duo are in the piano-manufacturing business. When a shortage in ivory threatens to close down their operation, our heroes pack up their families and head to Africa in hopes of locating the legendary Elephant's Graveyard. To the surprise of no one, Cohen and Kelly find themselves mixed up with a sheik's harem and a cannibal tribe, with time left over for a miniature-golf game (reprising gags previously seen in The Cohens and Kellys in Scotland). The level of humor can be gauged by the scene in which a swarthy tribal chieftain (Eddie Kane) turns out to be a lower-east-side Jewish merchant in disguise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of Cecil B. DeMille's talkies (as well as his second for MGM), Madam Satan is an exercise in incoherence, but this doesn't detract one iota from its entertainment value. Kay Johnson plays the sedate wife of philandering Reginald Denny, who is currently carrying on with "jazz baby" Lillian Roth. In a desperate effort to win back her husband, Johnson disguises herself as the alluring, provocatively clothed "Madame Satan." In this guise, she attends a lavish charity costume party being thrown by socialite Roland Young on a dirigible moored high above New York Harbor. Failing to recognize his mousey little wife, Denny arranges for a rendezvous with Madame Satan. When she reveals her true identity, Denny is outraged and threatens divorce. Suddenly, the dirigible is struck by lightning; it breaks loose from its moorings, tossing its terrified passengers around and about. Denny behaves heroically in shepherding the passengers into their parachutes; meanwhile, Johnson gives up her own parachute to save Roth. Coming to the mutual realization that each is worthy of the other's love, Johnson and Denny are reunited. Though when taken out of context, the dirigible sequence appears to be the ultimate in campy melodrama, this scene and all the scenes that built up to it are played for laughs: DeMille didn't take this farrago any more seriously in 1930 than we do today. Highlights include several unexpected and charmingly innapropriate musical numbers, including a bizarre "Ballet Mechanique" featuring dancer Theodore Kosloff. Though DeMille carefully threw in every ingredient that he hoped would appeal to a mass audience, Madam Satan was one of his few box office flops. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A businessman and his partner rush off to Paris in hopes of stopping their children from getting married. Unfortunately, the two are married before their father's arrive. This romantic comedy follows what happens when the businessmen find themselves having to act as marriage counselors to the unhappy couple. The marital upheaval stems from the bride's jealousy over her artist husband's newest model. She feels that he is paying far too much attention to the lovely lass. The model's husband finds out and flies into a jealous rage in a cafe. He nearly destroys the place and the businessmen and their children are in trouble deep until their own wives show up to rescue them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The incredible success of the Broadway comedy Abie's Irish Rose sent movie producers scurrying abot for similar "Catholic-Jewish romance" yarns. First on the scene was Universal's Carl Laemmle, who purchased an obscure theatrical piece titled Just Next Door and transformed it into The Cohens and the Kellys. Jacob Cohen (George Sidney) is a Jewish dry-goods merchant, while Patrick Kelly (Charlie Murray) is an Irish cop. Though they carry on a grumpy-old-man feud, one gets the feeling that the two guys would really like each other were the circumstances right. Those circumstances are forced upon them when Jacob's daughter Nannie Cohen (Olive Hasbrouck) secretly marries Patrick's son. Once the truth comes out, there's a lot of anguish, hand-wringing and denunciations, but all turns out well when the Cohens and the Kellys become business partners. Universal managed to parlay The Cohens and Kellys into a series of feature films, which extended well into the talkie era; many of the follow-up films also starred Charlie Murray and George Sidney, who later teamed for a group of Columbia 2-reelers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Broadway entertainer Georgie Jessel beat his "friendly rival" Al Jolson to the screen by one year in the wartime comedy drama Private Izzy Murphy. Of Jewish-Irish heritage, merchant Izzy (Jessel) falls in love with 100-percent Irish colleen Ellen Connaghan (Patsy Ruth Miller). To make her proud of him, he joins the Fighting 69th, the famed WWI Irish-American regiment. Performing valiantly on the battlefield, Murphy returns home a hero (and, amusingly, wearing fewer medals than the real-life Jessel would display in his talk-show appearances of the 1960s). Even so, Ellen's staunchly Catholic father (played by German actor Gustav von Seyfertitz) refuses to allow his daughter to marry a Jew. Izzy's buddies convince the old man that he could never find a better son-in-law than our hero, leading to an elaborate wedding finale. Private Izzy Murphy did well enough for Warner Bros. to offer George Jessel the lead in their pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer; but Jessel (who'd appeared in the last-named production on Broadway) turned down the offer, to his everlasting regret. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Most of the elements that made the first Potash and Perlmutter film so successful are brought back here: Frances Marion is the scenario's author, Alexander Carr plays Mawruss Perlmutter, and Vera Gordon is Rosie Potash. The original Abe Potash, Barney Bernard, had died, but George Sidney does a good job as his replacement. In this entry, the two men give up the tailoring business and go into motion picture production. Their first film, however, stars all of Potash's relatives and is a complete failure. Blanchard, a banker (Anders Randolf), offers Potash and Perlmutter a hundred thousand dollars to make a film, providing they star his mistress, Rita Sismondi (Betty Blythe). Rita's presence incites much marital discord, and both Mrs. Potash and Mrs. Perlmutter (Gordon and Belle Bennett) threaten to leave their spouses. But everything is straightened out in the end -- the picture is a success and Rita dumps Blanchard, who was merely using her, in favor of her director, Sam Pemberton (Charles Meredith). Silent star Norma Talmadge and her comedienne sister, Constance Talmadge, have amusing cameos as actresses auditioning as vamps. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

After the success of 1920's Humoresque, it only made sense to put together all the same elements -- a story by Fanny Hurst, directed by Frank Borzage, and starring Dore Davidson and Vera Gordon as an old Jewish couple. But this time around, instead of concentrating on the mother, the father, played by Davidson -- Julius Binswanger -- is the focus. Through his years of struggle, selling dry goods from a cart, Binswanger has provided for his chidden, Pearl (Vivienne Osborne) and Izzy (William "Buster" Collier Jr.). But the kids see only a dead end living in the small town they call home. When mamma Becky (Gordon) agrees that they should move to the city, Binswanger complies. But city life is much more expensive, and it costs more for the Binswangers to stay in their hotel than poppa makes in a day. When he runs out of money, he contemplates suicide so that his family can live off the insurance money. But when Pearl marries a rich young man who invests in Binswanger's business, the family is saved. After this close call, they decide they were happier in their country home and return. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

After her success in Humoresque, character actress Vera Gordon became known for her matriarchal roles. Here, she is Mrs. Lantini, an Italian immigrant who keeps her family together in New York City. Her husband (Bertram Marburgh) makes plaster casts for a living. When the Lantini's boy, Lorenzo, saves little Dorothy Manton in an accident, her father (William H. Tooker) takes an interest in the family. He funds the boy's education and he becomes an architect. Because of his success, Lorenzo (Hugh Huntley) is able to move his family to fashionable Riverside Drive, and they are all happy except for the earthy mother Lantini, who thinks the servants get in the way. Lorenzo has designed a theater for Richard Sewell (Donald Hall). His sister, Francesca (Yvonne Shelton), approaches Sewell for some theatrical costumes and he attacks her. Lorenzo finds out that his sister has been raped, and when he goes to Sewell's, he finds him dead. The young man is arrested and convicted of the murder, and only Mrs. Lantini's love keeps the family from falling apart. Eventually the real killer is apprehended, and Lorenzo is freed to be united with Dorothy (Ray Kean). Francesca's sweetheart resolves to marry her in spite of the circumstances. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide