Robert Greig Movies

This Hollywood remake of the French Pepe le Moko adheres so slavishly to its source that it utilizes stock footage from the original film, and even picked its actors on the basis of their resemblance to the French cast. Contrary to legend, star Charles Boyer never says "Come wizz me to zee Casbah"; as master criminal Pepe le Moko, he's already in the Casbah, a crook-controlled safe harbor which protects Pepe from the French authorities. Pepe's friendly enemy, police inspector Joseph Calleia, treats his pursuit of Pepe like a chess game, patiently waiting for his opponent to make that one wrong move. The ever-careful Pepe has the misfortune to fall hopelessly in love with tourist Hedy Lamarr (in her first American film). A combination of events, including the betrayal of Pepe by his castaway lover Sigrid Gurie and Hedy's tearful return to her ship when she is misinformed that Pepe is killed, lures the hero/villain into the open. Arrested by Calleia, Pepe begs for one last glance at his departing sweetheart. At this point in the French version, Pepe cheated the hangman by killing himself; this would never do in Production Code-dominated Hollywood, so Algiers contrives to have Pepe shot while trying to escape. Algiers was remade in 1948 as a musical, Casbah, starring Tony Martin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

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

After Ray Milland turned down the leading role in Bride of Vengeance, Paramount contractee John Lund stepped into the role of Alfonso D'Este, second husband of the notorious Lucrezia Borgia. The ruthlessly ambitious Lucrezia is played by Paulette Goddard, who seems ill at ease in the role. MacDonald Carey is better suited to his assignment as Cesar Borgia, the real villain of the piece. The plot proper gets under way when Lucrezia seeks revenge for her first husband's murder. The supporting cast is an odd lot, especially Billy Gilbert as Beppo, a wandering minstrel. A far better recreation of the Borgia "regime" was offered in the like-vintage Prince of Foxes. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

John Ford directed this outdoor adventure set in the American Colonial period. Gilbert and Lana Martin (Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert) are a young couple trying to make a home in New York State's Mohawk Valley, but repeated attacks by Indians drive them, along with other settlers in the valley, into a nearby fort, where they watch helplessly as the natives lay waste to their farms and cabins. A spinster with a large farm, Sarah McKlennar (Edna May Oliver), comes to their rescue when she hires Gilbert to work as a field hand and gives the Martins a place to stay. The rugged life of the farm and frontier doesn't always sit well with Lana, who was raised in wealthy and comfortable circumstances; in time she develops a thicker skin and learns to love their new life in the Mohawk Valley, especially after giving birth to their first son. Gilbert joins the militia, who must do battle both with the local Indian tribes and the British soldiers who are provoking them to battle. Gilbert returns wounded, and as he recuperates, a healthy crop rises in the fields, but their satisfaction is short lived when the Indians once again hit the warpath. 1939 was a stellar year for John Ford; along with this highly successful adventure tale, which was nominated for three Academy Awards, Ford also released the ground-breaking western Stagecoach. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Financier J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold) -- known in the press as "the Bull of Broad Street" -- may be one of the wealthiest investment bankers in the country, but he also knows the value of a dollar. And when his wife (Mary Nash) spends 50,000 of them on a sable coat, he is driven into such a fury in the ensuing argument on the roof of their Fifth Avenue townhouse, that he throws the coat into the street -- where it promptly lands on the head of Mary Smith (Jean Arthur), a clerk-typist on her way to work, riding on the upper deck of a double-decker bus, ruining her hat in the process. She jumps off the bus to try to return the coat, but Ball insists that she keep it. What she really needs, however, is not a 50,000-dollar sable coat so much as a ride to work -- as she doesn't even have a dime for bus fare -- and perhaps a new hat. Ball obliges, taking her to one of the top clothing stores in New York, buying her an expensive fur hat to go with the coat, and then dropping her at work in his limo. Her superiors, seeing her decked out in a sable coat and a new hat, and getting out of the chauffeured car, conclude that Mary is a kept woman, and, therefore, unfit to work for the boys magazine where she is employed, and they fire her. Now out of work and virtually broke, she seems to have become a victim of random fate, but suddenly the scales start to tip the other way from the very same misunderstanding that got her fired. Having been seen in the company of J.B. Ball -- whose name she didn't even get -- she is rumored to be his mistress; the prissy clothing store proprietor (Franklin Pangborn) spreads this story, and that turns Mary into the object of attention for Mr. Louis Louis (Luis Alberni), the owner of a failed luxury hotel on which Ball's bank holds the mortgage, and is about to foreclose. For reasons that she can't begin to understand, since there is nothing going on between her and J.B. Ball (whose name she doesn't even know), or between her and anyone, Louis moves her into the most luxurious suite in his hotel for a dollar a day, asking her only to inform "that certain someone" of how she loves living there. Mary has no idea of who "that certain someone" is, or what Louis is talking about, but she needs a place to live, and Louis is insistent. She still needs to eat, and, while trying to get a meal at the automat, she crosses paths with a handsome, well-meaning, but inept waiter (Ray Milland), who gets fired for helping her. She takes him into her suite so he has a place to stay, and the two fall in love in the course of finding out about each other. She knows that he is John Ball Jr., but doesn't realize that he is the son of J.B. Ball, trying to make it on his own, nor does she yet realize who J.B. Ball is, in terms of being the man who gave her the coat and the new hat, or one of the wealthiest men in the country. But after the elder Ball spends an innocent night at the Hotel Louis, a gossip columnist named "Wallace Whistling" (William Demarest) prints that he is keeping a woman at the hotel, and suddenly the Hotel Louis, perceived as a fashionable playground for the upper-crust, is filled with guests. This multiple case of mistaken identity plunges through two or three new layers, eventually bringing about an impending stock market crash to rival 1929, before Mary discovers who her would-be benefactor and her would-be fiancé are. She bails them out of the jam that they're in, also restoring the Ball's marriage, her own reputation, and her romance with Ball's son in the process. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, Uncle Rodney, the host of a kiddie show, finds himself assuming guardianship of a bratty lad at the behest of his radio station, which thinks it would boost ratings. The host is also to become trustee of the boy's estate. When the host meets the boys lovely big sister, he is elated. His mood crashes when he discovers that both urchins are broke. He dutifully supports them and keeps the mansion going. Uncle Rodney's good deeds soon land him a sponsor and a new love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

They said it couldn't be done, but they did it: Kathleen Winsor's "notorious", bestselling bodice-ripper Forever Amber actually made it to the screen in 1947 with full censorial approval. Of course, it was necessary to tone down the more erotic passages of Winsor's novel, but the end result pleased fans of the book and bluenosed nonfans alike. A last-minute replacement for British import Peggy Cummins, Linda Darnell steps into the role of 17th century blonde bed-hopper Amber as though she'd been born to play it. Feeling suppressed by her Puritan upbringing, Amber heads to London, finding considerable success as a courtesan (that's the polite word for it). The first real love of her life is dashing soldier Bruce Carlton, who leaves her pregnant and penniless when he marches off to war. Subsequent amours include the sadistic Earl of Radcliffe (a superbly loathsome performance by comic actor Richard Haydn), handsome highwayman Black Jack Mallard (John Russell) and privateer Captain Rex Morgan (Glenn Langan). Surviving the Plague and the Great London Fire with nary a hair out of place, Amber ends up in the arms of no less than King Charles II (wittily portrayed by George Sanders), but true love, as personified by Bruce Carlton, will always elude her. Taking no chances, 20th Century-Fox sent out Forever Amber with a spoken prologue, heard over the opening credits, which explained that the film in no way endorsed its heroine's libertine behavior, and that she would be amply punished for her sins before fadeout time (that prologue has thankfully been removed from current prints). A model of restraint by today's standards, Forever Amber was sufficiently titillating in 1947 to post an enormous profit, far in excess of its $4 million budget. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood and Vine is set in a drugstore located at the intersection of the title. James Ellison plays a successful screenwriter who likes to do his research first-hand. Assigned to write a film about Hollywood hopefuls, Ellison gets a job as a drugstore soda jerk. Wanda McKay plays Daisy, a small-town girl with dreams of stardom who hangs out at the soda counter in hopes of being discovered. Despite its tiny budget and brief running time, Hollywood and Vine is jam-packed with prominent movie character people, including Franklin Pangborn, Ralph Morgan, Leon Belasco, Robert Grieg, and sometimes "Bowery Boy" Billy Benedict. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As she burns at the stake, a 17th century witch, Jennifer (Veronica Lake), places a curse on her accuser (Fredric March), so that from this day forward, all of his descendants (each played by him) will be unhappy in marriage. After several hilarious through-the-years examples (the Civil War-era Fredric March runs off to battle rather than endure his wife's nagging), we are brought up to 1942. Wallace Wooley (March) is a gubernatorial candidate, preparing to wed snooty socialite Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward) -- the well-to-do daughter of a publisher who is backing him. A bolt of lightning strikes the tree where Jennifer had been executed three centuries earlier, thereby freeing the spirits of Jennifer and her warlock father, Daniel (Cecil Kellaway). Wallace meets Jennifer when she materializes in a burning building, obliging him to save her life. The revivified sorceress does everything in her power to induce Wallace to fall in love with her -- even destroying the ceremony in which the wedding is supposed to take place. The attempts succeed, and the two marry, but on their wedding night, Wallace refuses to believe Jennifer's claims that she is a witch. Frustrated, she attempts to convince him by doctoring the gubernatorial election -- in his favor. Based on the Thorne Smith novel The Passionate Witch, the rollicking I Married a Witch can be considered the forerunner of the TV series Bewitched, but only on a surface level. The film had been scheduled to be directed by Preston Sturges and to be released by its producing studio, Paramount; the end result was helmed by René Clair (his second Hollywood film), and was distributed by United Artists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy/mystery a milquetoast ad man finds his good ideas constantly copped by ambitious coworkers. His boss doesn't even seem to see him. The ad man's wife pushes her husband into confronting his boss during a party. Unfortunately, the timid fellow finds himself accused of murder after a corpse is found in the trunk of his car. He is quickly incarcerated for the crime. Meanwhile his wife begins investigating in an attempt to prove his innocence. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This imitation-Lubitsch romantic comedy stars William Powell as an elegant jewel thief plying his trade in Vienna. Powell's latest victim is bored baroness Kay Francis, who is much taken by the gentleman crook's handsomeness and poise. Since Francis is casting about for a new lover and newer thrills, Powell meets her qualifications, criminal or no. But the lady's husband (Henry Kolker) is not so easily charmed, and he sets about to bring Powell to justice. Jewel Robbery was based on a play by Ladislas Fodor, previously filmed in an Austrian version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide