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- 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)
- 1933
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are policemen on night duty. As they sit in their car having a snack, they get a call from headquarters to inform them that their spare tire is being stolen. But that's only a taste of their sheer incompetence -- when they are told to investigate a burglary, they get distracted and forget the address. While trying to call headquarters to get the address again, the duo encounter a crook in a jewelry store (Frank Terry) and send him on his way after fitting a court appearance into his busy schedule. When they find the crook trying to steal their police car, Ollie scolds him for his misbehavior, and says he now must be in court tomorrow. With that they head over to the house in question and sure enough, a man (Frank Brownlee) is wandering around, trying to get in. He goes into the basement and they follow, but are faced with a locked door. Ollie decides the best bet is to go in the front door, using a marble bench as a battering ram. After several attempts, which land Ollie in the fish pond, they crash in -and crash through the staircase into the basement. The man who broke in -- and who, it turns out, is the owner -- goes to investigate and also falls through the hole to the basement. Stan and Ollie knock the man unconscious and drag him triumphantly into the station. The other policemen recognize him as the Chief of Police. The boys make a dash for the exit, and the Chief, now conscious, goes after them, brandishing his gun. Two gunshots later, he returns with a grim order: "Send for the coroner!" The other officers remove their caps. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1933
If MGM could cast an Olympic champion it its Tarzan series, so could Sol Lesser's Principal Pictures. Thus it was that Larry "Buster" Crabbe, gold-medal winner for the 400 meter free-style swimming event in the 1932 L.A. Olympics, played the title role in Principal's 15-chapter serial Tarzan the Fearless. One of the few Tarzan epics actually based on a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, this one finds the Lord of the Jungle protecting pulchritudinous heroine Mary Brooks (Jacqueline Wells) from the villainous machinations of the High Priest (Mischa Auer) of Zar, God of the Jeweled Fingers. Tarzan must also avoid Jeff (Philo McCullough), a bounty hunter who has been offered a huge reward to bring the ape man to Civilization -- dead or alive! This 60-minute feature-length version of Tarzan the Fearless is mostly comprised of the first four chapters, with a rather abrupt wrap-up of several plotlines in the final two reels; another feature version, running 86 minutes, was prepared for television in 1960. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Jacqueline Wells, (more)
This ultra-cheap murder mystery stars Jack Mulhall as Devlin, a dapper police detective with a quick wit and a way with the ladies. During a seance, much-hated millionaire Richard Lang (Philips Smalley) is murdered with a rare oriental dagger. Everyone present at the seance falls under suspicion, obliging Devlin to sift through the morass of would-be murderers to finger the real killer. After an incredible monologue in which he outlines all the suspects' motives on the basis of their physical or ethnic characteristics (Hindu swami Mischa Auer is singled out for some particularly nasty racial slurs), Devlin identifies the killer on the basis of his tennis-playing technique! Definitely a product of its times, Sinister Hands is perhaps best forgotten. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Mulhall, Phyllis Barrington, (more)
- 1932
It's hard to separate fact and fancy from the many accounts of what happened on the set when all three of the fabulous Barrymores -- Ethel, John and Lionel -- appeared together for the only time in Rasputin and the Empress. As for the end result, John offers the subtlest (!) performance as Russian Prince Paul Chegodieff; Lionel throws all caution to the four winds in the role of "Mad Monk" Rasputin; and Ethel comes off as rather artificial as Empress Alexandra (Ethel was more appealing in her character roles of the 1940s and 1950s). The plot covers the years 1913 through 1918, during the tumultuous final years of the Romanov regime in Russia. When young Prince Alexis (Tad Alexander), a hemophiliac, hovers near death after an accident, the royal physicians regretfully predict an imminent demise. At the advice of Prince Paul's impressionable sweetheart Natasha (Diana Wynyard), Alexandra and her husband, Czar Nikolai (Ralph Morgan), call in the mysterious Rasputin to look after Alexis. Using hypnosis, Rasputin is able to "cure" the boy-and to slowly gain control over the royal family. Prince Paul, concerned that Rasputin's despotic misuse of his new-found authority will cause the people to revolt, does his best to discredit the oily holy man, but to no avail. When Natasha is raped by Rasputin, Paul attempts to shoot the miscreant down. But Rasputin, who has taken the precaution of wearing a bullet proof vest, is not so easily killed off. In a last, desperate measure, Paul and his cohorts try to poison Rasputin to death-and even this doesn't work. Only a climactic fight to the death puts an end to Rasputin's reign. Alas, the damage has already been done, and the royal family is doomed to be toppled from power...and, ultimately, to be shot down like dogs by the Bolsheviks. Perhaps it's true that the three Barrymores spent more time trying to upstage one another than concentrating on the script at hand, but we wouldn't have it any other way. When seen today, Rasputin and the Empress seems rather choppy in spots, with isolated lines of dialogue and sometimes whole scenes completely missing. This is due to a million-dollar lawsuit brought against MGM by Prince Yusupov, the man who really engineered Rasputin's assassination. The Prince wasn't offended by being depicted as a murderer, but he was distressed when MGM suggested that his wife had been raped by Rasputin. As a result, Rasputin and the Empress was withdrawn from distribution, and all prints were later bowdlerized when released to television. Also as a result, all future Hollywood films were obliged to carry the "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, (more)
- 1932
Alexander Carr, a Jewish-dialect comedian usually confined to small roles, is practically the whole show in the sentimental drama No Greater Love. Carr is cast as delicatessen owner Sidney Cohen, who unofficially adopts Irish-Catholic orphan girl Mildred (Betty Jane Graham). Hoping to finance an operation that will enable the crippled Mildred to walk, Cohen hocks all his possessions and sells his store. The insensitive adoption authorities intervene, snatching Mildred from Cohen's arms, but the girl eventually walks all the same, inspired by the love of her foster father. No Greater Love was partially remade in 1938 as City Streets, with the protagonist changed to an Italian (played by Leo Carrillo). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dickie Moore, Alexander Carr, (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
- 1932
The Russian Revolution provides the backdrop of this costume epic that centers around a young nobleman who, with his maid, escapes from his homeland to Constantinople where the two marry and begin a new life as commoners. But though it seemed a good idea at the time, the aristocrat has trouble adjusting to the daily toil and grimness of his new existence and when he meets an exciting seductress he immediately, abandons his good, peasant wife. With his shady lady, the fellow tries to become a con artist, but it doesn't work. He decides to return to his wife, and gets there just as she is about to be sent back to Russia. Much of the film was shot in real homes in Constantinople. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Nancy Carroll, (more)
- 1932
In this murder mystery, everyone around a murdered movie producer is a suspect, including his girl friend. Most of those involved have good reason to kill him. The murder occurred on a ship bound for a new location; all the suspects are aboard. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greta Nissen, Mary Brian, (more)
A judge investigating two Wall Street brokers accused of stock manipulations learns of a mysterious invention, a "DXL Accumulator" with which its inventor, Prof. Farrington, plans to harness solar power. The judge decides to visit the professor at his mountain hideaway. When he arrives, he finds that the professor's daughter and her boyfriend are there, along with the professor's mysterious housekeeper, her creepy son and a strange couple the daughter and her boyfriend brought along. As the judge is questioning the professor, someone turns off the lights, and when the daughter and her boyfriend rush into the room, the judge is found murdered and the professor has disappeared! Mischa Auer and Martha Mattox, the twin menaces in the "classic" horror cheapie The Monster Walks, play approximately the same roles here. The sputtering laboratory equipment and the electronic special effects were the handiwork of Kenneth Strickfaden, of Frankenstein fame. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Mulhall, Josephine Dunn, (more)
"So much for Carlotta" muses the head of German Espionage (Lewis Stone), shortly after secret agent Karen Morley is put to death. Morley's successor is exotic dancer Mata Hari (Greta Garbo), an enigmatic woman of Javanese-Dutch ancestry who seldom thinks twice about luring some poor swain to his doom. Assigned to intercept allied war messages, Mata Hari romances garrolous-general Lionel Barrymore. She falls in love for the first and only time in her life when she meets dazzlingly handsome lieutenant Ramon Novarro. Barrymore finds out about the affair and threatens to expose both Mata and Novarro as spies, whereupon Ms. Hari shoots Barrymore dead. She arranges for Novarro to leave the country lest he be implicated in the murder. He is subsequently blinded in an airplane crash, setting the stage for Garbo's now-famous "Let me be your eyes" scene. Mata Hari is tried and sentenced to death, but is permitted a few final precious moments with Novarro, allowing him to go on believing that he is in a military hospital rather than a prison cell, and that his beloved is dying of a mysterious ailment rather than facing a firing squad. The debate still rages among film buffs as to whether Greta Garbo does her own dancing in Mata Hari, or whether that's her double in the long shots. There is no question, however, that the condemned prisoner in the first reel who refuses to betray Mata to his captors is none other than Mischa Auer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, (more)
- 1932
This thriller involves a shipboard murder, castaways on a desert island, another murder, a wild man, and the hapless hero who must deal with it all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monte Blue, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1932
An average entry in Columbia Pictures' Tim McCoy Western series, The Western Code features perennial Bad Guy Wheeler Oakman as Nick Grindle, a crooked saloon keeper who marries lovely Polly Loomis' mother for her money. The woman dies leaving everything to Grindle while Polly (Nora Lane) and her brother, Dick (Dwight Frye), remain penniless. Texas Ranger Tim Barrett (McCoy), however, suspects the will to be a forgery. When Grindle is found dead, both Polly and Dick confess to the crime, each believing the other to be guilty. Assuming both to be innocent, Tim follows Grindle's henchmen, Worden (Matthew Betz) and Chapman (Mischa Auer), to the gang's hideout where he finds Grindle still very much alive. The dead man was in fact Frank Newport, a missing ranger whose face Grindle had disfigured to hide his identity. Worden confesses to the murder of the ranger, Chapman admits to having forged the will, and Grindle himself is killed in a climactic gun battle. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1932
Upon her release from prison, Joyce Greeley (Edwina Booth) is promptly and mysteriously murdered. Fledgling crime reporter John Martin (Regis Toomey) wants to find out why and also wants to discern the role of Joyce's lawyer Judson (Earl Foxe) in this whole sordid mess. Martin befriends the dead woman's sister Ellen (Betty Bronson) then extracts an important piece of evidence from deaf-mute Dummy Black (Mischa Auer in his pre-comedy days). Things come to a head when the villain is trapped in his own web of deceit -- and by his own accomplice. Former boxing great Jim Jeffries and silent comedy star Snub Pollard appear as themselves in a nightclub sequence. This Midnight Patrol is sometimes confused with the 1933 Laurel and Hardy two-reeler of the same title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Regis Toomey, Betty Bronson, (more)
It is difficult to believe that this ultra-cheapie ever actually scared anyone; it's just possible that audiences laughed as loudly at the film in 1932 as they do today. On a dark and stormy night, Hero and heroine Rex Lease and Vera Reynolds head to Reynolds's ancestral mansion to claim her inheritance. Everyone in the house takes great delight in informing the girl that her scientist father died suddenly (the word is repeated at least 20 times in the first two reels). Soon our heroine discovers that she, too, has been marked for death by her maniacal uncle Sheldon Lewis, who is using his deranged son Micha Auer, Auer's housekeeper-mother Martha Mattox, and a huge and surly ape as his vessels of wrath. The climax finds Auer binding Reynolds to a post as he exhorts the ape to tear her apart; unfortunately for him, the big beast chooses to rend the villains asunder. Black comedian Willie Best (here billed as Sleep 'N'Eat) is supposed to be the comedy relief, but Mischa Auer is heaps funnier unintentionally. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vera Reynolds, Sheldon Lewis, (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)
- 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)
- 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)
- 1931
A clever, slyly self-satirical screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur helps to make The Unholy Garden seem better than it is. The title refers to a Saharan oasis where a group of international crooks have converged, free from prosecution. Ronald Colman stars as gentleman thief Barrington Hunt, who rallies his fellow crooks together in a plan to divest a wealthy baron (Dudley Digges) of his fortune. Part of the scheme requires Hunt to make love to Fay Wray, the baron's lovely daughter, a task that proves pleasurable indeed. But Hunt hadn't counted on falling in love with Wray -- and when he does, it's "reformation and redemption" time, with our hero turning on and turning in his former pals. Among the reprobates within Hunt's orbit are such veteran screen heavies as Warren Hymer, Lucille LaVerne and Lawrence Grant, the latter chewing the scenery as a discredited doctor who keeps the skull of his murdered wife in a jar! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Fay Wray, (more)
Most existing prints of the 1931 melodrama Drums of Jeopardy are in pretty bad shape, but it's worth enduring the tinny soundtracks and messy splices just to watch Warner Oland in his full villainous glory. Oland plays a mad scientist who seeks revenge on the aristocratic family responsible for the death of his daughter. He travels from Russia to New York in search of any and all descendants of the hated Petroff family, using four rubies (the "drums" of the title) as instruments of death. Rising above its poverty-row origins, Drums of Jeopardy contains a high level of suspense, as well as several cunningly designed camera angles courtesy of cinematographer Arthur Reed. Trivia note: Warner Oland's character name is Dr. Boris Karlov! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Oland, June Collyer, (more)
- 1931
An aspiring artist leaves his wife and daughter when he gets a chance to spend a year studying in Paris in this melodrama. Although his wife supports the idea, a year later he returns a bohemian and decides to separate from his family. Later he reconsiders his new life style after his little girl is killed in an auto accident. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Lukas, Eleanor Boardman, (more)
- 1931
Based upon a much-filmed play by Michael Morton (which may in turn have been based upon a story by Frank Harris, The Yellow Ticket is also an indirect descendant of the opera La Tosca. In pre-Revolutionary Russia, a Jewish peasant girl named Marya Kalish (played by Elissa Landi) has reason to believe that her poor father is dying in St. Petersburg. She wishes to visit him, but the only way she can obtain passage is through disguising herself and obtaining a yellow ticket -- a pass that will mark her as a woman of low repute. Once in St. Petersburg, she discovers that her father has died. She also encounters the sinister Baron Andrey (Lionel Barrymore), head of the Czar's secret police, who comes to have designs upon her. She, however, develops an interest in British journalist Julian Rolphe (Laurence Olivier). She tells Rolphe the truth about life for most people in Russia, and his stories begin to change in tone, becoming critical and unflattering. This does not escape the attention of the secret police, who attempt to imprison the journalist. Meanwhile, Baron Andrey tells Marya that he will give her his own card with which she may travel, thereby eliminating the stigma and the difficulties that the yellow ticket presents. This is actually just a ploy to lure her into his clutches, and when he makes a move on her, she shoots him. Rescuing Rolphe, the two lovers flee via an airplane as Austria invades the country. Yellow Ticket features Olivier's second U.S. appearance, as well as Boris Karloff in a small role as a drunken orderly. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore, (more)
- 1931
In this fluffy comedy, an innocent usherette falls for a customer whom she finally meets and eventually marries. Soon after the ceremony, she learns that he is a jewel thief about to go to jail. She then moves into a girlfriend's ultra-modern apartment that is really a front for gamblers. Again, the young woman finds herself in real trouble until her hubby is released from jail and comes to her rescue. Happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1931
As was often the case in the films of Chesterfield Studios, the title The Lady From Nowhere has little relevance to the film itself. Alice Day and John Holland play a pair of young lovers who may or may not be crooks. Or, they may or may not be detectives. Whatever the case, hero and heroine team up to trap the villains responsible for a major crime (just what that crime is was never made clear in the film, nor in the "official" synopses). Silent-screen veterans Phillips Smalley and Barbara Bedford strive hard to make their roles worthwhile, while Mischa Auer, still several years removed from his fame as one of Hollywood's most delightful character comedians, is suitably menacing as a maniacal heavy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Phillips Smalley, Barbara Bedford, (more)
- 1931
Based on a stage play by C. Stafford Dickens, Command Performance is also beholden to The Prisoner of Zenda and other Ruritanian romances of that ilk. Neil Hamilton stars as Peter Fedor, a stage actor who bears a striking resemblance to Prince Alexis of Kordovia (also Neil Hamilton). Getting into a fight with the hotheaded Alexis, Peter gives the prince a royal shiner. Impressed by his courage, the Queen Mother (Vera Lewis) orders Peter to impersonate Alexis, who has announced that he will give up his throne if he is forced to marry the contentious Princess Katerina (Una Merkel). Peter and the Princess fall in love, whereupon the petulant Alexis is told to take a hike. Command Performance was one of several interesting if not altogether successful films produced by James Cruze for low-budget Tiffany Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Neil Hamilton, Una Merkel, (more)
