John Hamilton Movies
Born and educated in Pennsylvania, John Hamilton headed to New York in his twenties to launch a 25-year stage career. Ideally cast as businessmen and officials, the silver-haired Hamilton worked opposite such luminaries as George M. Cohan and Ann Harding. He toured in the original company of the long-running Frank Bacon vehicle Lightnin', and also figured prominently in the original New York productions of Seventh Heaven and Broadway. He made his film bow in 1930, costarring with Donald Meek in a series of 2-reel S.S.Van Dyne whodunits (The Skull Mystery, The Wall St. Mystery) filmed at Vitaphone's Brooklyn studios. Vitaphone's parent company, Warner Bros., brought Hamilton to Hollywood in 1936, where he spent the next twenty years playing bits and supporting roles as police chiefs, judges, senators, generals and other authority figures. Humphrey Bogart fans will remember Hamilton as the clipped-speech DA in The Maltese Falcon (1941), while Jimmy Cagney devotees will recall Hamilton as the recruiting officer who inspires George M. Cohan (Cagney) to compose "Over There" in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Continuing to accept small roles in films until the mid '50s (he was the justice of the peace who marries Marlon Brando to Teresa Wright in 1950's The Men), Hamilton also supplemented his income with a group of advertisements for an eyeglasses firm. John Hamilton is best known to TV-addicted baby boomers for his six-year stint as blustering editor Perry "Great Caesar's Ghost!" White on the Adventures of Superman series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1934
The touching bond between a cavalry horse and the doughboy whose life he saves provides the basis for this syrupy war drama. After the horse's heroism, he and the soldier are nearly inseparable until an officer intervenes and separates them. This enrages the soldier and he deserts. He is captured and things look bleak until the US president intervenes and reunites the soldier and his beloved steed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Huston, Frances Dee, (more)
- 1930
A mystery develops when some jewels are stolen from a wealthy widow and she is murdered, with the blame wrongly falling on a phony psychic friend of hers. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Austin Trevor, Richard Cooper, (more)
- 1930
In this actioner, a Coast Guard ensign must investigate a yacht suspected of smuggling alcohol. While aboard, he falls for a lovely young woman. The woman disobeys her mother and begins seeing the ensign who soon discovers that the brains behind the operation is the man the woman's mother wanted her to marry. Songs include: "My Man Is On The Make," "A Ship Without A Sail," and "If I Knew You Better." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Kane, Victor Moore, (more)
- 1930
Having long enjoyed a near-legendary status because of its general unavailability, Dangerous Nan McGrew inevitably disappoints when seen today. In her only starring feature role, Helen Kane, the original "Boop-boop-a-doop" girl, stars as an entertainer in a travelling medicine show. While her boss Doc Foster (Victor Moore) peddles his snake oil and picks as many pockets as possible, Nan shows off her skills as a singer and sharpshooter. Through a series of improbable plot twists, Doc's little show becomes a rendezvous for bank robber Muldoon (Frank Morgan), RCMP officer Bob Dawes (James Hall), and all-around dufus Eustace Macy (Stu Erwin). The comedy sequences are strictly from hunger, and the songs aren't much better, but Helen Kane's sheer likability -- and the combined comic expertise of Victor Moore (in his first talkie) and Frank Morgan -- save the film from being a complete waste of time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Kane, Victor Moore, (more)
- 1929
The newly constructed Paramount sound stages were used as a backdrop for the Pirandellian thriller The Studio Murder Mystery. Fredric March stars as Richard Hardell, a silent-screen idol whose transition to talkies is threatened by his inability to remember his lines. Driven to distraction, Hardell's director Richard Borka (Warner Oland) wonders if his star will be able to get through the all-important "murder scene" in his current picture. The thin line between fantasy and reality is blurred when several actual attempts are made on Hardell's life. The suspects include Hardell's far-from-loyal wife Blanche (played by March's real-life wife Florence Eldredge) and sour-pussed studio "gag writer" Tony White (Neil Hamilton). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Neil Hamilton, Chester Conklin, (more)
- 1929
In this gritty drama, an epileptic john has a seizure and kills a hooker. His mother hides her distraught son. Meanwhile, the prostitute's boyfriend is accused and convicted for the crime. Just before he is to hang, the real killer confesses his crime. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1927
Filmed on location in rural England, The Silver Lining concentrates on the two sons of the Widow Hurst (Marie Ault). In true ant-and-grasshopper fashion, Thomas Hurst (Patrick Ahearne) is industrious, while his brother John (John Hamilton) is lazy. Upset that Thomas is about to marry the girl of his dreams, John steals the girl's valuable string of pearls and sells them to a gypsy. He then arranges for Thomas to be accused of the crime. Rather than break his mother's heart and reveal his brother as a cad and a liar, Thomas stoically marches off to jail. Upon his release, John suffers an attack of remorse and confesses all to his mother. Realizing that he can never truly atone for his misdeeds so long as he is alive, John goads his gypsy cohort into shooting him, then he tearfully writes a confession as he breathes his last. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Ault, Patrick Aherne, (more)
- 1925
Released in Great Britain as The Mountain Eagle, Fear o' God was Alfred Hitchcock's second directorial effort, as well as his second collaboration with Hollywood star Nita Naldi. The story is set in Kentucky, with the Austrian Tyrol incongruously standing in for the Kentucky hills and hollows. Naldi plays a schoolteacher who is caught in the middle of a village feud. Wrongly accused of immorality, the woman is driven into the woods, where she's rescued by mysterious mountain man Fearogod (Malcolm Keen). Screenwriter Elliot Stannard obviously had no idea how Kentuckians acted or behaved, but Hitchcock, despite acute health problems, breathed life into silly goings-on. Despite its flaws, Fear o' God was a hit; more importantly, the film's success allowed Hitchcock to direct a story of his own choosing: The Lodger (1926). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1925
Margery (Margarita Fisher) decides to form a partnership with her friend Franklyn Smith, a struggling attorney (Jack Mower). The company is called "Beauty to Let," with Margery as the sole worker: She leases herself out as a date for rich men who want a pretty girl to escort for the evening (this being the 1910s, she is accompanied by a chaperone -- the always amusing Kate Price). Business is booming, but finally two men take up most of Margery's time -- Henry Rockwell (J. Norris Foster) and "Diamond Tim" Moody (Wedgwood Nowell). Both want to marry her, yet -- predictably -- Margery has fallen in love with Franklyn. Franklyn has no clue, however, blithely giving her Rockwell's proposal while bragging to her about his own new bachelor quarters -- which of course will not do, and Margery spends the rest of the picture getting Franklyn to wake up and marry her. This mildly amusing story was originally a novel, Beauty to Let, by Fred Jackson.
~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1924
Alfred Hitchcock provided the screenplay for this drama about marital discord between the aristocrat Adrian St. Clair (Clive Brook) and his cold-hearted wife Drusilla (Alice Joyce). Harris returns from the war to find his wife is as unresponsive as ever. His affair with a passionate French woman (Marjorie Daw) makes Drusilla realize she must change her ways to avoid divorce and scandal. Victor McLaglen also appears in this drama that is the first to credit the legendary Hitchcock with his debut as the screenwriter. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marjorie Daw, Alice Joyce, (more)
