William Harrigan Movies
William Harrigan was the son of playwright/actor Edward Harrigan, one-half of the legendary Harrigan and Hart musical comedy team. Beginning his own acting career in the pre-WW I era, the younger Harrigan made his film debut in 1917. Most of his screen characters seemed destined for an early and unpleasant demise, as witness the duplicitous Dr. Kemp in The Invisible Man (1933) and retired gangster McKay in G-Men (1935). In 1947, Harrigan scored a personal triumph in the role of the irascible Captain in the original Broadway production of Mister Roberts; the play was co-written and staged by Joshua Logan, the husband of Harrigan's actress sister Nedda. William Harrigan's final screen assignments included the ghostly baseball great Red O'Malley in the risible Roogie's Bump (1954). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi- 1933
In this romantic drama, an ex-con conceals her criminal past and starts a new life with a kindly cab driver. Together, the two friends leave the city and move to the suburbs where she helps him set up an auto mechanic business. Though they are in love, they cannot marry for she is still legally the wife of her incarcerated ex-crime partner. Things get more sticky when a seductive socialite attempts to steal the cabbie from the ex-con. More trouble follows when her husband busts out of jail and she is blamed with helping him escape. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, (more)
- 1931
Locomotive engineer Edmund Lowe falls head-over-heels in love with musical-comedy dancer Mae Clarke. When he finds out that Clarke was mixed up in a notorious scandal, Lowe, who's no paragon of virtue himself, walks out on her. He's so upset by this turn of events that he accidentally causes a train wreck, whereupon he loses his job and becomes a hobo. Given a new lease on life in the Coast Guard, Lowe is "on call" when he spots a drowning girl off the port bow. Upon rescuing the girl, he discovers that it's Clarke, and all is forgiven. Men on Call was released minus screenwriter's credit, which is just as well. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, William Harrigan, (more)
- 1930
In this drama, a macho ironworker and his equally tough friend decide to leave New Orleans to work as beam-walkers on a New York City skyscraper. This arouses the ire of his Cajun girlfriend who promptly shoots at him as he walks away and then follows him to the Big Apple where she becomes a nightclub performer. Time passes and her ex-lover becomes the head of the ironworker's union. He then finds himself dishonest crooks who are trying to manipulate him into embezzling treasury funds for them by having their most luscious moll seduce him. Fortunately, the ever-jealous Cajun girl and her pistol intervene, and the treasury money is saved. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Victor McLaglen, William Harrigan, (more)
- 1930
This drama is set during the mid Twenties when gangsters were a bit more genteel than their 1930s counterparts. Based on a true story, it profiles the experiences of a young gangster who, after getting caught during a robbery is given a choice: he can either go to prison or join the military and fight. He chooses the military. There he becomes a hero. But when he returns home, he immediately returns to gangster life. Trouble ensues when he falls for an aristocratic woman with a daughter. Their happiness is interrupted by an old enemy who kidnaps the girl. The protagonist successfully saves the girl and kills his enemy. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen, (more)
- 1929
In her first important screen role, Mae Clarke is cast as Jackie Lee, a saucy vaudeville dancer. Jackie comes between acrobat-partners Bert (Robert Ames) and Johnny (William Harrigan), despite their promises to one another never to let a "dame" break up their act. Much of the dialogue is comprised of show-business slang, which must have been confusing to 1929 filmgoers but provides an endless source of enjoyment to the contemporary movie buff. The musical numbers were imaginatively staged, notably a "post-card" routine in which a photograph suddenly comes to life (and this was 12 years before this bit was "introduced" in Citizen Kane!) Filmed in New York, Nix on Dames features several Broadway performers in the supporting cast, including Gilbert-and-Sullivan specialist George McFarlane and African American actress Louise Beavers, here dropping her usual "maid" characterization to offer a soulful spiritual. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mae Clarke, Robert Ames, (more)
- 1927
A nightclub dancer is torn between two men -- a tough detective and an unscrupulous gangster -- in this rather lurid silent melodrama starring one of the icons of the era, "shimmy" dancer Gilda Gray. Miss Gray's kid brother Andy (Jack Egan) has fallen in with gangster Sam Roberts (Charles Byer) and the latter is shot and killed after an altercation in her dressing-room. Although an obvious case of self-defense, Andy is accused of murder by the dead gangster's moll (Mona Palma) and is forced to stow away on a liner bound for South America. Detective Tom Westcott (Tom Moore), meanwhile, tricks the moll into telling the truth and the kid is cleared of all charges. Despite her popularity on the stage and in the first screen version of Aloma of the South Seas (1926), Gilda Gray's fame was fleeting and her screen career was over by the advent of sound. Cabaret, which of course bore no relation to the later musical, was directed by one of the pioneers of the industry, Robert G. Vignola, whose career had begun with the old Kalem company back in 1908. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
- Starring:
- Gilda Gray, Tom Moore, (more)
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