Robert Greig Movies

Animal Crackers, like The Cocoanuts before is an all-but-literal translation to film of a smash-hit Marx Brothers Broadway musical. The aristocratic Mrs. Rittenhouse (Margaret Dumont) holds a weekend party at her Long Island Estate. Her guest of honor is famed (but likely fraudulent) African explorer Geoffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx). Also showing up are renegade musician Signor Emmanuel Ravelli (Chico Marx), the mute, girl-chasing "Professor" (Harpo Marx) and Spaulding's faithful secretary Horatio Jamison (Zeppo Marx). The film, revolving around a stolen painting, finds Groucho lecturing on his most recent safari ("One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know"), Harpo and Chico unabashedly cheating at bridge, Groucho dictating a wildly nonsequitur letter to the firm of Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger and McCormick, and Groucho and Chico drawing up plans to build a house. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

This was the next-to-last entry of the Cohens and Kellys series, which were becoming increasingly more tiresome with each picture. Once again, Charlie Murray and George Sidney reprise their roles as Kelly and Cohen, respectively, but instead of Kate Price and Vera Gordon as their wives, they have Esther Howard and Emma Dunn. The story centers around the Cohen and Kelly kids, Melville Cohen (Norman Foster) and Kitty Kelly (June Clyde). Melville enters Kitty's picture in a movie contest and she wins a Hollywood contract. The Kellys dump their diner and move from the little town of Hillsboro to the glamour of Tinsletown. Kitty's subsequent success goes to the Kelly's heads (in fact, Clyde puts on airs not unlike the Marion Davies character in Show People). When the earthy (and proud of it) Cohens come to visit, it creates an embarrassing situation for everyone all around. Then talkies come in, Kitty's acting career fails, and Melville's songwriting takes off. Eventually Melville's career also goes belly-up and both the Cohens and Kellys head back for the safer confines of Hillsboro, friends once again. The one really bright note in this film is its cameos -- most of them take place in a scene at the Cocoanut Grove, back then Hollywood's place to be seen. That's where you can see Boris Karloff, Tom Mix, Lew Ayres, and Gloria Stuart, among others. One additional surprise is former silent star Eileen Percy, who plays a writer interviewing Kitty Kelly -- in real life, Percy was in the midst of giving up her acting career in favor of writing a newspaper society column. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

George S. Kaufman's sturdy stage comedy The Butter and Egg Man was the inspiration for no fewer than four Warner Bros. talkie versions. The first of these was The Tenderfoot, starring Joe E. Brown as a wealthy but naive cowboy alone in the Big Apple. The producers of a down-and-out musical revue hope to convince Brown to put his money in their show, sending out cute chorine Ginger Rogers as the "convincer." After having his heart broken a few times and tangling with gangsters, Joe comes through and the show goes on. Warners followed The Tenderfoot with a 1937 musicalization of Butter and Egg Man, Dance Charlie Dance; this in turn was remade as An Angel From Texas in 1942. The final variation on this theme (so far!) was Three Sailors and a Girl (53). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If only Merrily We Go To Hell was as interesting as its title! To escape an arranged marriage, heiress Joan Prentice (Sylvia Sidney) elopes with reporter Jerry Corbett (Fredric March). Unfortunately, Corbett is not only irresponsible, but also an abusive drunkard. To make matters worse, predatory Claire Hempstead (Adrienne Ames) has set her mind on stealing Corbett away from the hapless Joan. Finally fed up with her besotted mate, Joan walks out on him, only to discover that she's pregnant. The prospect of impending fatherhood causes Corbett to shape up and "dry out" in a hurry, but one still has doubts whether he'll be able to keep his promise never to touch another drop of liquor. Cary Grant has a tiny role as a stage actor in this unsettling blend of romance, drinking jokes, and Victorian melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the most technically accomplished and sophisticated movie musicals of the 1930's, Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932) had a profound effect on the shape of the musical genre (especially the films of Vincente Minnelli), and remains a candidate for best movie musical ever made, some seven decades after its release. And that distinction is based entirely on its style and structure -- it doesn't even take into account a hit-laden score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, or a raft of delightful performances, several of them totally unexpected in their range and wit. The movie opens with an amazing double audio/visual montage sequence, in which the sleeping city of Paris awakens to a slowly rising chorus of sounds, street by street, house by house -- forming what the script describes as a "symphony" of sound -- which coalesces into a song. It is through the latter that we meet Maurice Courtelin (Maurice Chevalier), a young Parisian tailor who has just completed his first big job, an order of 15 suits for the Viscount de Varese (Charlie Ruggles), who has promised to pay him on delivery. He then discovers that the Viscount is little more than an upper-class ne'er-do-well who, among his other faults, has no money of his own -- being completely dependent on his crusty old uncle the Duke (Sir C. Aubrey Smith) -- and never pays his bills. In one of a half-dozen remarkable musical scenes, as Maurice's friend Emile (Bert Roach) ponders the matter of love in the new suit he has made for him, Maurice begins singing "Isn't It Romantic?", causing Emile to hum the tune as he strolls onto the street; the song is picked up by a taxi driver (Rolfe Sedan), and passed to his passenger (Tyler Brooke), a composer, who carries it aboard a train, humming it, where a group of soldiers hear it and end up singing it as they march across a field, where a young gypsy hears it and carries it to his camp on his violin, where the whole clan is soon singing. And the song is finally wafted across the surrounding fields to the estate of the Duke and the Viscount de Varese, where it is heard and sung by the Duke' niece, Princess Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald). The two characters, Maurice and Jeanette, are linked for us in this way even before they meet, and the stage is set for the rest of the plot. For the Princess, living under her family's tradition-bound hand, romance is a source of unhappiness; there's no one at the chateau to interest her, and even if there were, she couldn't dare to be interested; already a widow from an arranged marriage at age 22 (her first husband was 75), she must marry someone of equal royal rank, and the only two known candidates in all of Europe are ages 85 and 12, respectively. Maurice journeys to the chateau with the clothes the Viscount ordered, hoping to confront him for payment, and is mistaken for one of the guests -- and he crosses paths with the Princess, and falls in love with her. Identified as the Count de Courtelin, he delights the rest of the guests with his joie de vivre and his way with a song, especially "Mimi" (which somehow managed to make it past the censors, despite some amazingly risque lyrics), getting the entire coterie of nobles singing it in his wake. But the Princess is resistant to his free and easy charm and flirtations, her staid upbringing and sense of station fighting her natural inclinations, while her other would-be suitor, the Count de Savignac (Charles Butterworth), is suspicious of this new-found rival. Also present at the estate is the Duke's other niece, Countess Valentine (Myrna Loy), who has a nymphomaniac interest in men under the age of 40, of whom Maurice is the only one at the chateau not related to her -- thus, he must fend off her advances while trying to woo a woman who wants nothing to do with him. Rumor soon spreads that Maurice is, in fact, a full-blooded royal prince traveling in disguise. And if he is a prince of the rank they think he is, then suddenly the Princess's marital and romantic prospects seem a lot more encouraging, especially as she begins to melt to his charm. Maurice wants to tell her the truth, but will she feel the same way about him, knowing that he is a commoner, a tradesman ... a tailor? Director Rouben Mamoulian had already jump-started the musical genre with the backstage drama Applause (1929), to great critical and financial success. In contrast to that movie's deceptively naturalistic approach to its subject, Love Me Tonight was highly stylized -- Applause had no actual musical numbers in complete form, while Love Me Tonight was filled with incredibly elaborate and subtle musical set-pieces that grow naturally out of the plot (adapted from a play by Paul Armont and Leopold Marchand) and advanced the narrative. Some of the scenes here helped set the stage for works such as An American In Paris and Gigi (one scene near the end, when Maurice's identity is revealed, seems to have been the model for "The Gossips At Maxim's" from the latter film) and Funny Face. Such is Love Me Tonight's reputation, that in the summer of 2007, 75 years after its release and more than five years after it showed up on DVD, the movie chalked up sell-out audiences when it opened the Mamoulian retrospective at New York's Film Forum. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The old reliable Paul Frank/Ladislaus Fodor stage play The Church Mouse was streamlined for the movies in the form of Beauty and the Boss. The "beauty" is fetching Marian Marsh, a stenographer in a staid Viennese financial institution. The "boss" is Warren William, a wealthy baron with a habit of dallying with pretty girls, then letting them down gently. But Marsh, who has a Cinderella complex, isn't about to be cast aside. The diffident Charles Butterworth injects a few genuine laughs into the pat and predictable proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A remarried war widow's attempts to raise her son to be a pacifist are thwarted when a second world war (this film was made well before the real WWII) erupts. Up until then, her new husband, the Secretary of State, supported his wife's crusade, but with a war on, he becomes a strong supporter in the fight that culminates in the exciting bombing of the Empire State Building. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy a maid and a butler work for a very rich man. The trouble begins when their employer dies and leaves his estate to them. Once he is gone, they are free to finally marry. Unfortunately, they do not enjoy being wealthy, and they must lose everything and break up before they get back together and have a happy life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The evergreen Laurette Taylor stage vehicle Peg O' My Heart was the basis for this Marion Davies picture. 36-year-old Davies plays a twentysomething Irish colleen who inherits a large sum of money from her grandfather. To collect the legacy, she must leave her beloved Pa (J. Farrell McDonald) and live in England for three years. Hoydenish Davies raises a ruckus in her staid family mansion, meanwhile falling in love with handsome young Onslow Stevens. It is Stevens who tells Davies that her father, who'd pretended to be dead so that she wouldn't return from England before the three years were up, is actually alive. Renouncing her inheritance, Davies returns to Pa, with Stevens not far behind. A silent version of Peg O' My Heart, with Laurette Taylor recreating her stage role, was filmed in 1923. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, based on a Zane Grey novel, a cowboy is falsely accused of stealing cows. Fortunately, his gal stands by her man as he tries to prove his innocence. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Considered by many to be the best of the many Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey vehicles of the 1930s, Cockeyed Cavaliers is set in Merrie Olde England, where the comic-opera ambience is immediately established when a Walter Winchellesque town crier (Franklin Pangborn) sings the local gossip. Bert and Bob play a pair of wandering indigents who are constantly in trouble because of Bert's chronic kleptomania. "My doctor tells me it's a sickness," he explains." Bob: "Well, why don't you take something for it?" Bert: "I've already taken everything." Bert's latest bit of unintentional larceny earns the boys a few hours in the local pillory, where the villagers pelt them with vegetables until they are rescued by a feisty young boy. Unbeknownst to our heroes, the "boy" is beautiful young Mary Ann (Dorothy Lee), who has disguised herself to escape an arranged marriage with the gross and gouty Duke of Weskit (Robert Grieg). Stopping over at a local inn, Bert, Bob and the in-drag Marian make the acquaintance of a lusty Baron (Noah Beery), who celebrates his recent hunting trip in song. Forced to make a quick getaway when the local constable shows up, Bert and Bob "borrow" the clothes of a pair of drunken royal physicians (Snub Pollard and Jack Norton) and escape in the doctors' coach, with Mary Ann still in tow. Following the instructions found in the coach, the boys stop over at the home of the Duke of Weskit, obliging Mary Ann to remain in disguise. Bert and Bob ingratiate themselves with the Duke by curing his stomach ache (using a horse-doctor book!), while Bob tries to make time with Weskit's gorgeous niece Lady Genevieve (Thelma Todd) -- never dreaming that "Genny" is the wife of the irascible Baron whom they previously met at the inn. All sorts of double-entendre nonsense ensues before Bert and Bob save themselves from the Baron's jealous wrath by capturing an elusive wild boar, a contingency that also permits Bert to wed Mary Ann, whose true identity has finally been revealed. Elaborately produced on leftover sets from RKO Radio's The Little Minister, Cockeyed Cavaliers is a gem of a comedy, filled to overflowing with clever dialogue and hilarious sight gags. Musical highlights include the novelty song "I Went Hunting (And the Big Bad Wolf is Dead)" and the delightful "Dilly Dally." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide