Dell Henderson Movies

In this musical, a Kansas City family despises their stepmother who selfishly moves them to New York so she can make her theatrical comeback. There she again begins singing; the a brother and sister are terribly angry until their songs are turned into hits by a band leader who has fallen in love with the stepmother. Songs include: "I Must Be in Love with Love," "Dance My Blues Away" (Elizabeth Morgan, Harry Von Tilzer). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

To further her husband's political career, wealthy Mrs. Clark (Lillian Elliot) throws a lavish party in her home for the poor children of the community. Among the invitees are the Our Gang kids, including Matthew "Stymie" Beard, who of late has been getting into trouble because of his tall tales. Thus, no one believes Stymie when he claims that a pair of midgets, disguised as infants, have invaded the party for the purpose of stealing everybody's wallets and jewelry. As it turns out, however, Stymie is telling the truth for the first time in his life. Originally released on February 11, 1932, "Free Eats" benefits from a strong adult supporting cast, including Billy Gilbert and Paul Fix (the latter in female drag!) as a pair of crooks. The film is best remembered, however, as the "Our Gang" debut of 3-year-old George "Spanky" McFarland, who delivers a rambling, impromptu monologue about monkeys, swings, and airplanes --- hardly a high point in American comedy, but enchanting nonetheless. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Forbidden Adventure is the British title of the American film comedy Newly Rich. Edna May Oliver was borrowed from RKO by Paramount to portray the "nouveau riche" mother of precocious Mitzi Green. Edna's great rival is Louise Fazenda, mother of Jackie Searl. At first the ladies compete through their children by trying to promote the kids as movie stars; they then decide to team the children as a brother/sister act. While on vacation in London, Green and Searl escape from their overbearing parents and go off on a merry adventure with a pint-sized boy king. Forbidden Adventure was very liberally based on a short story by Sinclair Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, based on a long-running Broadway hit from 1927, a sailor finds himself the object of a cafe owner's affections. Singin', dancin', and mayhem ensues. Songs include: Sometimes I'm Happy," "Hallelujah," "Why, Oh Why," "Keeping Myself For You," "More Than You Know," "Billy Rose," "I Know That You Know," and "Sez You--Sez Me" ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This touching drama follows the exploits of a big-hearted businessman. The financier is just about to close a major deal when he is forced to move to the desert to help his tubercular son recover. It takes two years, and during that time, the businessman's partner has written him off as a business failure. That may be true, but in other areas of his life, the man finds untold riches from the grateful children he once so unselfishly helped. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This Marion Davies vehicle was loosely inspired by the career of Gloria Swanson. Davies plays would-be starlet Peggy Pepper, who arrives at the gates of MGM Studios with her dad Colonel Pepper (Dell Henderson) in hopes of becoming a great dramatic actress. Instead, she a scores a hit as an ingenue in the slapstick comedies starring the effervescent Billy Boone (William Haines). As the audience rocks with laughter during the preview of Peggy's first film (no one is more enthusiastic than her director Harry Gribbon), she sits in sullen silence, insisting to Billy that some day she'll invoke tears instead of laughter. This doesn't seem likely, inasmuch as Peggy can't even cry on cue (her director is forced to peel onions outside of camera range to achieve the desired emotion), but the tenacious young actress finally manages to win favor in dramatic roles. Inevitably, this causes a strain on her budding romance with Billy, and the couple slowly drifts apart. Now the unchallenged Queen of the Cinema, Peggy -- billing herself as Patricia Pepoire -- prepares to marry her oily leading man Andre (Paul Ralli), but mischievous Billy disrupts her fancy wedding. She angrily tosses Billy out of the house, realizing only when it's too late that she's still in love with him. But in the final scene, the hero and heroine are accidentally reunited on the set of a WWI picture directed by King Vidor (who also directed Show People). Two versions of Show People are currently available for TV; the "stretch-framed" Kevin Brownlow-David Gill restoration, with a new orchestral score by Carl Davis, and the original MGM release version, outfitted with a lively music and sound-effects track. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

All evidence suggests that Riley the Cop was a delightful vehicle for John Ford "regular" J. Farrell McDonald. New York policeman James Riley is asked to retrieve neighborhood boy Joe Smith (David Rollins), who skipped town after being falsely accused of theft and is now living a sinful life in Berlin. It isn't long before Riley himself succumbs to charms of the German metropolis, whereupon he magnanimously allows Joe to stay in Berlin long enough to win the heart of aristocratic Mary Coronelli (Nancy Drexel). Riley himself also finds romance, in the form of gawky German damsel Lena (Louise Fazenda). Little does he realize that Lena is the sister of his hated rival -- police officer Hans Krausmeyer (Harry Schultz). If the synopsis is any indication, the present unavailability of this John Ford comedy is a real loss. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As was the case with every film project that he cared deeply about, filmmaker King Vidor had to fight long and hard with his studio bosses to get The Crowd produced. Though Vidor's parent studio MGM was certain that this simple story of everyday people would take a bath at the box-office, the film earned back twice its cost. The story concentrates on John Sims, brilliantly played by James Murray, an extra boosted to stardom by Vidor. Born on the fourth of July in the year 1900, John convinced that he's destined to be a man of importance. 27 years later, however, Sims is merely one of the faceless crowd, an underpaid clerk in a huge New York office building. On a blind date, John meets Mary (Eleanor Boardman), a likeable if not overly attractive young lady (Boardman, the wife of director Vidor, balked at the notion of departing from her usual glamorous roles; Vidor prevailed, and as a result the actress delivered what is now considered her finest performance). John and Mary are eventually married, raising two children in their tiny New York tenement (complete with a balky toilet-the first time that this particular bathroom fixture ever appeared in an American film). As John's dreams of glory go unfulfilled, he becomes bitter and argumentative, while Mary grows old before her time. Just when John wins $500 in a slogan contest, tragedy strikes unexpectedly when the Sims' youngest child is killed in a traffic accident. Haunted by the memory of his child, John is unable to function properly at his job, and is soon fired. In despair, Sims contemplates suicide, only to be shaken back to reality by his son, who, oblivious to John's grief and disillusionment, declares proudly that he wants to be just like his daddy when he grows up. By chance, John gets a job as a street huckster for a local department store. Though both John and Mary know that this "triumph" is transitory, at least the family is together again, and at least they're reasonably happy. As the camera pulls back, back, back in a packed movie theatre, we leave John Sims just where we found him-one of The Crowd. At the behest of MGM, Vidor reluctantly filmed an idiotic alternate ending, wherein the Sims family, having inherited a fortune, are seen living in the lap of luxury. This finale was hooted off the screen wherever it was shown; thus, current prints of the film contain Vidor's original, ambivalent ending. A deceptively "small" film, The Crowd was assembled on as large a budget and with as much production polish as any "big" MGM picture. In 1934, Vidor produced a sequel with his own funds, Our Daily Bread. Alas, James Murray, the actor catapulted to the Big Time in The Crowd, was not a part of the project. A headstrong, irresponsible man, Murray had squandered the chance offered him by Vidor, and had descended into drunken dereliction. Unlike the hero in The Crowd, there was no one to pull James Murray back when, in 1936, he fell off a pier and drowned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As a follow-up to the successful marital farce Up in Mabel's Room, PDC Productions came out with a film version of the evergreen Avery Hopwood stage comedy Getting Gertie's Garter. Charles Ray, once again trying vainly to shed his "boy next door" image, stars as a bachelor lawyer who gives a jeweled garter and a photograph to his girlfriend Marie Prevost. Upon becoming engaged, however, Ray realizes that his bride-to-be is not the understanding type. Thus, he spends the rest of the picture trying to retrieve the garter from Prevost, who isn't about to give up the precious -- and embarrassing -- keepsake. Famed fan dancer Sally Rand shows up in a supporting role, as does that ubiquitous movie fussbudget Franklin Pangborn. Getting Gertie's Garter was remade in 1944 with Dennis O'Keefe and Marie McDonald. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the few surviving films of Leatrice Joy, the wife of screen heartthrob John Gilbert, The Clinging Vine is a typically frothy '20s comedy: Mannish and efficient executive secretary Antoinette Allen (Joy), known colloquially as A.B., is the real power behind Bancroft Paint ("the kind that comes in a bucket," as an intertitle helpfully explains). A.B. fires Grandpa Bancroft's carefree grandson, Jimmy (Tom Moore), via Western Union and Bancroft (Robert Edeson) leaves it up to the youngster to charm the secretary into giving him his job back. Jimmy, of course, assumes A.B. to be a sexless spinster in sensible shoes and doesn't recognize the flirtatious beauty he meets at the Bancroft garden party. With a lot of help from Grandma Bancroft (Toby Claude, who, a title explains, "crosses a lemon with a dressmaker's bill and produces a peach"), A.B. has become Antoinette, a "clinging vine" who only knows two sentences: "Do go on!" and "Aren't you wonderful!" Do Antoinette and Jimmy fall in love at first sight? Why, of course they do, and now it is truly up to Antoinette to become the woman behind the man. It is all extremely silly, slightly chauvinistic, and at times quite beguiling. Grandma Bancroft is the kind that glides down the banister and a rather trying comedian named Snitz Edwards is high up in the Bancroft corporation. Enough said. Neither Joy nor director Paul H. Sloane are much remembered but The Clinging Vine's executive producer is: Cecil B. De Mille. In fact, the comedy harkens back to the kind of fluffy make-believe De Mille used to do with his star discovery Gloria Swanson. And while Leatrice Joy is perhaps no Swanson, she is mightily believable as both the before and after Antoinette and a natural comedienne. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Produced by Hunt Stromberg for Producers Distributing Corp., this silent Western melodrama starred the veteran Harry Carey as Patrick Angus O'Toole, a military officer assigned to investigate a gang of gunrunners operating near Fort Sumner in the Dakota Bad Lands. At the fort, O'Toole comes to the aid of Mary Owen (Trilby Clark), who is being harassed by Captain Blake (Lee Shumway). The irate Blake gives Mary's cowardly brother, Hal (Gaston Glass), 24 hours to pay his gambling debt. In desperation, Hal robs the Pony Express, a crime for which O'Toole is arrested. The Indians raid the fort, and O'Toole is freed by Freckles (Buck Black), the young survivor of a previous attack. During the battle, Hal proves his courage and is mortally wounded. On his deathbed, he confesses to the robbery, leaving Angus and Mary free to wed. The success of this film was due in no small measure to the fine rapport between Carey and seven-year-old Buck Black, a freckled, gap-toothed child actor whose appeal was much like the later Jackie "Butch" Jenkins. Black later played bits in Our Gang shorts and, as Brett Black, supporting roles in the '30s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Charles E. Blaney was a well-known name when it came to melodramas, and this one was brought to the screen with all the excitement intact -- the heroine's even imperiled by that classic melodramatic device, the revolving saw! The scene, logically, is the New York lumber mills, and Frederick Van Clayton (Gardner James) has robbed his employers of their money. To save him from prison, his sister Amy (Doris Kenyon) marries his boss, Jim Blazes (Victor Sutherland). When Jim comes to the realization that Amy doesn't love him, he returns to the lumber camps. But there is far more evil afoot than anyone realizes and Amy is kidnapped. Working overtime to save his wife, Blazes winds up in a furious gun battle. After rescuing Amy from her captors, she comes to the realization that she loves the heroic man she has married after all. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Comedy veteran Dell Henderson directed this obscure silent western starring Cullen Landis as a naive youngster who is sold a phony mine. Landis catches the villain (Stanton Heck) and wins the girl (Mildred Harris Chaplin) in the usual fashion. The only noteworthy aspect of this ultra-cheap western is the appearance in a bit part of Cecil Spooner, a veteran stage star whose main film career dated back to the very early 1910s. Spooner played Hansel in an Edison version of Hansel and Gretel in 1909 and both starred in and directed Nell of the Circus (1914). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide