Mischa Auer Movies
The screen's foremost "Mad Russian" (though he was more dour than demented in most of his movie appearances), Mischa Auer was the son of a Russian navy officer who died in the Russo-Japanese war. Auer's family scattered during the Bolshevik revolution, forcing the 12-year-old Mischa to beg, borrow, and steal to survive. Orphaned during a typhus epidemic, Auer moved to New York where he lived with his maternal grandfather, violinist Leopold Auer. Inspired by the elder Auer to become a musician, Mischa entered the Ethical Culture School in New York, where he developed an interest in acting. Playing small parts on Broadway and with Eva LeGalleine's company, Auer persisted until his roles increased in size and importance. While appearing with the Bertha Kalich Company in Los Angeles, Auer was hired by Hollywood director Frank Tuttle for a minor role in the Esther Ralston comedy Something Always Happens (1927). During his first nine years in films, the tall, foreboding Auer was typecast as sinister foreigners, often playing villainous Hindu priests, Arab chieftains, and feverish anarchists. His comic gifts were finally tapped by improvisational director Gregory La Cava, who cast Auer as society matron Alice Brady's free-loading "protege" in My Man Godfrey (1936). Thereafter, the actor flourished in eccentric comedy roles in such films as 100 Men and a Girl (1937), You Can't Take It With You (1938) (in which he popularized the catchphrase "Confidentially, it stinks!"), Destry Rides Again (1939), and Hellzapoppin' (1941). During the 1940s, Auer starred in the radio series Mischa the Magnificent and headlined several Broadway flops. The following decade, he spent most of his time in Europe, playing aging oddballs in films like Orson Welles' Mister Arkadin (1955). Among Mischa Auer's last professional engagements was a 1964-1965 revival of The Merry Widow -- one of his few successful stage ventures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1945
Ernst Lubitsch was the original director for A Royal Scandal, but illness forced him to bow out; his replacement was Otto Preminger, who did his utmost to retain the "Lubitsch touch." Based on a play by Lajos Biro and Melchior Lengyel, the film dwells upon a fictional incident in the life of Russia's Catherine the Great, here played with blue-blooded bawdiness by Tallulah Bankhead. Catherine falls in love with a handsome young army officer (William Eythe), who turns out to be an insurrectionist planning her downfall. At the last moment, Catherine relents, allowing the officer to escape with his true love, lady-in-waiting Anne Baxter. A bit too cute for its own good, Royal Scandal has some choice moments: Most notable are Tallulah Bankhead's pained reaction upon being hailed as "The Mother of All Russias," and supporting actor Grady Sutton's southern-accented reference to the "U-ral Mountains". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Coburn, (more)
- 1933
Released in Great Britain as Sealed Lips, this WWI melodrama stars Constance Bennett as Carla, aka Russian spy "K-14." Though there's no room for romance in her line of work, Carla falls in love all the same with Austrian captain Rudi (Gilbert Roland). When he discovers that she's working for the enemy, Rudi is forced to arrest Carla, a turn of events which she takes in stride as the fortunes of war. Though slated for a firing squad, Carla manages to escape and after the war is reunited with Rudi at the train station where they first met. One of the screenwriters was Worthington Miner, later a leading light of the TV anthology series Studio One. Coming at the tail end of the early-1930s "spy cycle," After Tonight lost $100,000 at the box office, forcing RKO Radio to rethink the studio's contract with Constance Bennett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Constance Bennett, Gilbert Roland, (more)
- 1949
Al Diavolo con Celebrita is one of two Italian films hurriedly made in 1948 by comic actor Mischa Auer. Like the first (Snow White and the 7 Thieves), it is hardly representative of Auer at his best. The star plays U.S. diplomat Bernard Stork, whose timid young interpreter Professor Bricci (Leonard Cortese) is hopelessly in love with Stork's secretary Ellen Rawlins (Marilyn Buford). Somehow, Bricci comes into possession of a magic artifact that enables him to assume the bodies and personalities of recently deceased individuals. The Professor hopes to profess his love for Ellen in one of these guises, but is always prevented from doing so. When Mr. Stork dies suddenly, Bricci takes over his body, resulting in a bizarre finale at the United Nations, with look-alikes for President Truman, Churchill, and Stalin engaging in silly slapstick. Somewhere there's an antiwar message in Al Diavolo con Celebrita, but it's buried under mounds of nonsense. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mischa Auer, Marilyn Buford, (more)
- 1940
Radio humorist Bob Burns plays the title role in Alias the Deacon. Based on a stage play by John B. Hymer and LeRoy Clements (previously filmed in 1927 with Jean Hersholt), the story concerns a philosophical drifter named Deke Caswell (Burns) who is mistaken for the new deacon of a small town. A gambler by nature, Caswell decides to continue the clerical pose so that he can divest the locals of their hard-earned dollars. Instead, he turns honest, eventually solving all of the town's problems. A subplot concerns the "scandalous" (but wholly innocent) relationship between truck driver Johnny Sloan (Dennis O'Keefe) and hitchhiker Phyllis (Peggy Moran). This being a Universal film of the early 1940s, it was all but mandatory for Mischa Auer to show up in an incongrous but amusing supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mischa Auer, Peggy Moran, (more)
Based on the classic novel by mystery author Agatha Christie that was later adapted as the Broadway hit Ten Little Indians , And Then There Were None begins with ten characters, each with a skeleton in his or her closet, on a remote island off the English coast. They soon realize that they have been brought there by an insane judge, who has tried each of them for criminal behavior in the past, and who now feels it is his duty to render proper justice for each. The struggle to stay alive begins as each "guest" is eliminated in a fashion that corresponds to the titular nursery rhyme. Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, and C. Aubrey Smith are among those marked for death. The film's ending differs from that of the novel, and later remakes in 1966, 1975, and 1989 (all using the title Ten Little Indians), alternated between Christie's original finale and this film's climax. Depending on one's taste, the film's pacing is either excruciatingly slow or suspenseful, but the storyline has become a cinematic staple in everything from horror (Theatre Of Blood) to satire (Murder By Death). ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, (more)
- 1943
In this '40s film Kay Kyser parades an entertainment group all over the globe providing laughs for the boys in battle. This film realistically portrays the role of the USO during the WW II time period. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mischa Auer
- 1932
John Barrymore plays a burglar and his brother Lionel Barrymore is the detective trying to catch him in this cleverly cast drama. An upscale thief who works under the name of Arsene Lupin is making the rounds of the homes of the wealthy and privileged, and Detective Guerchard (Lionel Barrymore) is determined to track him down. What he doesn't know is that the suave and sophisticated Duke of Charmerace (John Barrymore) is actually the man behind the robberies. Will Guerchard find out the thief's true identity before he can execute a daring theft from the Louvre Museum? Karen Morely co-stars as Sonia, the Duke's love interest. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, (more)
- 1952
The first of British director John Guillermin's two 1952 offerings was Song of Paris. Dennis Price stars as stomach-pill sales representative Matthew Ibbetson, who goes to Paris to close a business deal. While taking in the sights, Ibbetson inaugurates a casual affair with French chanteuse Clementine (Anne Vernon). Upon returning to London, Ibbetson finds to his dismay that Clementine has followed him. How can he keep his Parisian rendezvous secret from his veddy proper mother (Hermione Badderly). In his British-film debut, dour character comedian Mischa Auer chews the scenery as a seedy nobleman who covets the affections of the hapless Clementine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Price, Anne Vernon, (more)
- 1932
Before he moved to MGM, director Richard Thorpe virtually lived at the tiny production firm of Chesterfield-Invincible. Thorpe's Beauty Parlor is a Chesterfield programmer that aspires to be Grand Hotel. The titular parlor is the setting for a multitude of comic and dramatic episodes, most of them involving manicurists Barbara Kent and Joyce Compton. Among the supporting players is Mischa Auer, essaying one of the villainous roles he was stuck with before turning to zany comedy parts in the mid-1930s. Beauty Parlor wraps up all its loose plot strands in 66 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Kent, Joyce Compton, (more)
- 1950
Character actor Mischa Auer tended to choose vehicles unworthy of his talents when he left Hollywood for Europe during the postwar era. Biancaneve e I Setti Lavri is a heavy-handed variation on the "Snow White" legend, with a gang of thieves replacing the seven dwarves. Auer glowers and grimaces through his performance as the gang leader, while the Snow White character -- actually a naïve young man -- is played by Neapolitan comedian Peppino De Felippo, to whom subtlety is a lost art. The plot finds De Felippo plotting to rob the home of his wealthy fiancee. Naturally, everything goes sour -- including the script. Still, Biancaneve e i Sette Lavri posted a decent profit when first released in Italy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peppino De Filippo, Mischa Auer, (more)
- 1945
- NR
The 1945 version of the Winchell Smith/Byron Ongley theatrical war-horse Brewster's Millions stars Dennis O'Keefe as the lucky recipient of an $8,000,000 inheritance. But there's a catch; O'Keefe will receive his legacy only if he spends $1,000,000 in two months. Prohibited from giving the money away, O'Keefe invests in several losing propositions, including a flop Broadway musical; alas, every one of his bad investments turns a profit. African-American comic actor Eddie "Rochester" Anderson co-stars as O'Keefe's valet; the bantering master-servant relationship was much too casual for several Southern cities, which banned the film on the grounds that blacks should behave more "respectfully" to whites. In the original Brewster's Millions, the hero was a stockbroker; in this 1945 version, Brewster is a returning GI. The seventh and most recent filmization of Brewster's Millions (1985) starred Richard Pryor as a washed-up baseball player. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis O'Keefe, Helen Walker, (more)
- 1934
This second and final "Bulldog Drummond" film to star Ronald Colman, finds the famed sleuth in the midst of a sinister plan orchestrated by Warner Oland. Damsel in distress Loretta Young reports that her wealthy and influential uncle is missing, but all those concerned insist that the uncle never existed, and that Young is out of her mind. Drummond suspects that she's telling the truth, and that the uncle's disappearance is tied into political intrigue of some sort or other. Before the rousing climax, Drummond, the heroine, and Drummond's pal Algy (Charles Butterworth) are repeatedly kidnapped, imprisoned, and threatened with certain death. Counterpointing the film's plot twists (a bit too convoluted to relate in full here) is a comic subplot involving the continually interrupted honeymoon of Algy and his frustrated bride (Una Merkel). Unfortunately, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back is currently unavailable on television or on videocassette. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1932
In this melodrama with strong racist overtones, Clara Bow attempts to revive her failing career by playing a free-spirited girl whose father is an American Indian and whose mother is Anglo Saxon. For some reason the girl doesn't know of her mixed heritage and constantly fights with her dad. The rebellious girl decides to show her dad who's boss by marrying a man he hates. Unfortunately it's a big mistake and soon after she gives birth to a sickly baby the marriage busts up. He leaves her impoverished and in desperation she turns to prostitution. Eventually, she returns to her homeland and learns the truth. Now at peace she meets a boy with similar heritage and they find marital bliss together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clara Bow, Monroe Owsley, (more)
One of the most beloved American films, this captivating wartime adventure of romance and intrigue from director Michael Curtiz defies standard categorization. Simply put, it is the story of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a world-weary ex-freedom fighter who runs a nightclub in Casablanca during the early part of WWII. Despite pressure from the local authorities, notably the crafty Capt. Renault (Claude Rains), Rick's café has become a haven for refugees looking to purchase illicit letters of transit which will allow them to escape to America. One day, to Rick's great surprise, he is approached by the famed rebel Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), Rick's true love who deserted him when the Nazis invaded Paris. She still wants Victor to escape to America, but now that she's renewed her love for Rick, she wants to stay behind in Casablanca. "You must do the thinking for both of us," she says to Rick. He does, and his plan brings the story to its satisfyingly logical, if not entirely happy, conclusion. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, (more)
- 1934
Four courageous college graduates become heroes when they successfully complete a 15-hour coast-to-coast plane flight. Alas, things don't go so well for the foursome when they return to earth to seek out employment. Chris Thring (Charles Farrell) has a particularly rough time of it, but his sweetheart Catherine Furness (Janet Gaynor) remains faithful through thick and thin. Trouble brews in the form of Chris and Catherine's mutual friends Mack McGowan (James Dunn) and Madge Rountree (Ginger Rogers): Catherine thinks Chris is in love with Madge, while Mack falls in love with Chris? and on and on it goes. Shirley Temple shows up in the early scenes as a plane passenger, while that grand old trouper Gustav von Seyfertitz sheds his usual villainous image as the film's avuncular last-minute problem-solver. Change of Heart is based on a novel by Kathleen Norris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, (more)
- 1935
Ronald Colman plays Robert Clive, a true-life 18th century Britisher who works up the ranks to become leader of Britain's military forces in India. Though produced on a superficially lavish scale, the film inexpensively sidesteps several of Clive's more famous battles with Indian insurrectionists, relegating them to offscreen events described by subtitles. The notorious Sepoy Mutiny "Black Hole of Calcutta" incident, hardly a costly event to recreate, is faithfully presented. In real life, Clive was ruined by a trial in the House of Commons, after which he suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide. The film tactfully closes on the trial and Clive's reunion with his faithful wife (Loretta Young). Typically jingoistic in its "White Man's Burden" approach to East Indian affairs, Clive of India is best viewed in context of the time it was filmed (1935), when the sun still hadn't set on the British Empire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, (more)
In Condemned to Live, Ralph Morgan stars as Professor Paul Kriston, the kindly and generous doctor of a tiny European village. So well-liked is Kriston that the beautiful Marguerite Mane (Maxine Doyle) is willing to marry him, even though she loves another man, young David (Russell Gleason). Things take a sinister turn when a series of murders occur in the village, apparently committed by a vampiric beast. David makes himself quite unpopular when he suggests that the killer may be a human being. Meanwhile, Professor Kriston turns to an old family friend, Dr. Anders Bizet (Pedro de Cordoba), for a possible solution to the murder spree, but Bizet is strangely secretive. Condemned to Live was filmed on standing sets at Universal City and on location at Bronson Canyon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ralph Morgan, Maxine Doyle, (more)
- 1933
Preston Foster, Mischa Auer, and Evalyn Knapp star in this tale of political intrigue centering on the quest of a powerful mayor to clear his name. Political leaders are being assassinated - stealthily shot dead by bullets made of ice - and when the blame falls on the mayor he must race to find the real killer before it's too late. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Evelyn Knapp, Preston S. Foster, (more)
- 1941
No relation to the Cracked Nuts he directed in 1931, this hokey sci-fi-comedy from director Edward F. Cline stars Stuart Erwin as Lawrence Trent, a country rube who wins a refrigerator-slogan contest and gets some money for his efforts. Meanwhile, mad scientist Boris Kabikoff (Mischa Auer) builds a silly-looking robot in his own image and hooks up with a New York patent attorney (William Frawley from I Love Lucy) to bilk Trent out of his prize money. Shemp Howard plays the robot as a lusty creature with a penchant for skirt-chasing and is used by black servant Chloe (Hattie Noel) to do housechores and frighten her husband Burgess (Mantan Moreland), who has a gambling problem. Una Merkel co-stars with Astrid Allwyn and Pierre Watkin. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1933
In this crime drama, a dapper thief meets a female detective at a party and fall in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Baxter, Miriam Jordan, (more)
- 1931
Delicious represents the first time that George and Ira Gershwin ever wrote a musical score exclusively for the screen. Unfortunately, the film fails to come up to the standards set by the music, though it's not from lack of trying. Janet Gaynor stars as Heather Gordon, a poor Scotch immigrant who dreams of relocating to the United States. Her aspirations are confounded by the intractability of the customs inspectors, who are bound and determined to send Heather back whence she came. In the meantime, she takes up residence in a rooming house catering to immigrants, where the other tenants -- especially comic-relief Swede Jansen (El Brendel) -- work overtime to cheer her up. All ends happily when American millionaire Jerry Beaumont (Charles Farrell) proposes marriage, despite his family's objections. The musical numbers include the overly coy title tune, a bizarre "Welcome to America" setpiece in which Heather dreams that she's being greeted by a singing Statue of Liberty, and a virtually complete performance of Gershwin's Second Rhapsody (aka The New York Rhapsody). The film's highlight, however, is El Brendel's rendition of the Blah Blah Blah song, in which he itemizes every love-song cliché known to man. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, (more)
Tom Destry (James Stewart), son of a legendary frontier peacekeeper, doesn't believe in gunplay. Thus he becomes the object of widespread ridicule when he rides into the wide-open town of Bottleneck, the personal fiefdom of the crooked Kent (Brian Donlevy). His detractors laugh even louder when Destry signs on as deputy to drunken sheriff Wash Dimsdale (Charles Winninger). But the laughter subsides when Destry casually proves himself a crack shot, despite his abhorrence of firearms. Later, when saloon chanteuse Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich), Kent's gal, takes umbrage at Destry's indifferent reaction to her charms, she vows to make a fool of the new deputy. A huge moneymaker, Destry Rides Again served as a spectacular comeback for Marlene Dietrich, who two years earlier had been written off as "box office poison." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, (more)
- 1941
Three different Universal pictures made between 1922 and 1941 bore the catchall title Don't Get Personal. The 1941 film stars Hugh Herbert as a ditzy pickle manufacturer whose favorite radio program stars Jane Frazee and Robert Paige. The couple plays a bickering husband and wife on the air, and Herbert mistakes their scripted bouts for the real thing. He heads to the radio station to patch up their differences, but succeeds in embroiling the actors in a real battle. Don't Get Personal seems to have been made at the same time as Universal Hellzapoppin' (41), with at least four actors (Hugh Herbert, Robert Paige, Jane Frazee and Mischa Auer) appearing in both films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugh Herbert, Mischa Auer, (more)
- 1932
A rather complicated but well-made little Poverty Row thriller, Drifting Souls features silent screen star Lois Wilson as Linda Lawrence, a woman lawyer whose father needs 5,000 dollars for an operation. A dutiful daughter, Linda places a newspaper ad promising marriage to anyone who will pay 5,000 dollars. Meanwhile, a joyriding Joe Robson (Theodore von Eltz) kills a road worker, a hit-and-run he unscrupulously pins on his intoxicated passenger, socialite Ted Merritt (Gene Gowling). Needing an alibi, Ted agrees to marry Linda, but is arrested for the hit-and-run. Hedging his bets, Joe secures Ted a crooked lawyer (Edmund Breese), but he quits and Linda takes over the defense. Enterprising reporter "Scoop" (Raymond Hatton) recovers Greta (Shirley Grey), Joe's accomplice, in the nick of time, and the girl is made to testify in court that it was Joe and not Ted who drove the car that fateful night. Having fallen in love during the trial, Ted and Linda decide to exchange their marriage of convenience for the real thing. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
