Harry Holman Movies
Rotund, squeaky-voiced American actor Harry Holman forsook vaudeville and the legitimate stage for films in 1929. For the next 18 years, Holman played a vast array of mayors, justices of the peace, attorneys, millionaires and sugar daddies. Sometimes he had no professional designation at all, and was simply a "Jolly Fat Man" (as he was billed in 1935's Dante's Inferno). Equally busy in short subjects as in features, Holman is best remembered by Three Stooges fans as the first of many wealthy professors who tried to turn the Stooges into gentlemen in Hoi Polloi (1935). A fixture of Frank Capra films, Harry Holman showed up as the high school principal in Capra's Yuletide perennial It's a Wonderful Life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1933
Hard to Handle stars James Cagney as a fast-talking promoter who pounces upon every current fad and foible to make a quick buck. He promotes marathon dances (where spectators feel cheated because no one drops dead), crash diets, reducing creams and treasure contests, finagling his way into the confidence of high rollers and money men. In a cute "inside" joke harking back to a choice Cagney moment in The Public Enemy, our hero at one point takes up the promotion of grapefruits! Like most conners, Cagney isn't aware when he is being conned himself, and he falls victim to his marathon-dance business partner, who absconds with the winnings. The contest winner is pretty Mary Brian, whose mother (Ruth Donnelly) tries to extract payment by forcing Cagney to marry her daughter. He does, but only after eight reels of high-pressure wheeling and dealing. In the tradition of Jimmy Cagney's other early-1930s, Hard to Handle is socked over by the energetic insouciance of its star. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Mary Brian, (more)
- 1932
This second of three film versions of Edna Ferber's novel So Big stars Barbara Stanwyck as Ferber's resilient heroine Selena Dejong Peake. Widowed early in the proceedings, Chicago truck farmer Selena sacrifices everything for her son Dirk (Dickie Moore as a child, Hardie Albright as a grown-up), living for the day that the boy will become a successful architect. But the callow Dirk breaks his mom's heart by becoming a bond salesman. Selena vows that Rolf Pool (Dick Winslow as a boy, George Brent as an adult) will not prove a similar disappoint to his parents, taking it upon herself to encourage Rolf's dreams to become a sculptor. Bette Davis plays a supporting role as Dallas O'Mara, a young artist who hopes to convince Dirk to fulfill his mother's dreams. Previously filmed in 1925 with Colleen Moore, So Big was remade in 1953 with Jane Wyman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, (more)
- 1932
Bank president Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston) has instituted a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but which also irritates his board of directors, as does his claim that an increased money supply will help end the Depression. Elsewhere in the bank, criminal Dude Finlay (Robert Ellis) has coerced head cashier Cluett (Gavin Gordon) into cooperating with a robbery by threatening to reveal Cluett as a habitual gambler. Dickson's neglected wife Phyllis (Kay Johnson), upset that Thomas has forgotten their anniversary, agrees to go out with Cluett, but they're spotted by head teller Matt Brown (Pat O'Brien). Matt goes to Cluett's apartment and convinces Phyllis to leave with him just as the robbery takes place back at the bank. Because he was responsible for locking the vault, Matt is assumed to be in league with the robbers, and he's arrested. News of the robbery leads to frantic depositors demanding their money back from the bank; Dickson cannot talk them out of it, and the bank is running out of money. This gives the board of directors the leverage over Dickson that they've been seeking, and they try to force his resignation. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, (more)
- 1932
The factual story of H.A.W. Tabor and "Baby Doe" was the inspiration of Silver Dollar. Edward G. Robinson plays the Tabor counterpart, a prospector who strikes it rich with a silver mine. Robinson establishes the city of Denver, strongarms his way into political power, buys every creature comfort he can get his hands on, and deserts his faithful wife (Aline McMahon) for a flashy younger woman (Bebe Daniels, playing the character based on Tabor's mistress "Baby Doe"). Robinson is ruined by the decline of the silver market, spending his last days in near-madness planning and dreaming for a return to his glory days. In real life, it was Baby Doe who went insane, living (and dying) in a tiny shack near the once-prosperous silver mine. Stodgily directed, Silver Dollar isn't nearly as surrealistic as the true story it's based on. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Bebe Daniels, (more)
- 1932
Two small-town youths head for the Big Apple and somehow get mixed up with mobsters during a visit to the title park in this episodic comedy drama filmed on location. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1932
This Depression-era morale-booster looks at the ups and downs of a banking family from the 1870s to the 1930s (and borrows plentifully from the previous year's hit Cimarron, another empire-building saga that also starred Dix). Following the financial collapse of 1873, Roger Standish (Richard Dix) starts a bank that he guides through various panics. Despite the adversities, he and his wife Caroline (Ann Harding) ultimately establish an American banking dynasty. Note Richard Dix in a dual role, also appearing as Roger's grandson when he joins the Lafayette Escadrille during World War One. (Director Wellman was a former member of the Lafayette Flying Corps.) ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Dix, Ann Harding, (more)
- 1932
In this romance a school marm takes a cruise and falls for an unobtainable man, a district attorney married to a crippled woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, (more)
- 1932
Alfred E. Green directs the political satire The Dark Horse, starring Bette Davis early in her career. The progressive party nominates moronic candidate Zachary Hicks (Guy Kibbee) for governor. Party secretary Kay Russell (Davis) wants to hire her sweetheart, Hal Blake (Warren William), for campaign manager, even though he is in jail for not paying his alimony. Impressed with his slick behavior, the campaign committee bails him out of jail and he goes to work. He teaches Hicks to give cryptic answers to journalists and makes him memorize a speech by Abraham Lincoln. During the big debate, conservative opponent William A. Underwood (Berton Churchill) quotes Lincoln and Hicks calls him a plagiarist. Eventually, Blake's ex-wife, Maybelle (Vivienne Osborne) shows up demanding her alimony payments. The climactic scene involves a set-up at a rural mountain cabin and confusing marital arrangements. Also starring Frank McHugh as aide Joe and Sam Hardy as the conservative manager Mr. Black. Hollywood mogul Darryl F. Zanuck received co-writing credits for the screenplay under the pseudonymn Melville Crossman. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren William, Bette Davis, (more)
- 1932
Fay Wray screams when she first lays eyes on Lionel Atwill in Doctor X, but don't let that fool you. Atwill plays Fay's father this time around, and he may very well not be the diabolical "Moon Murderer" whom the police are seeking. Dr. Xavier (Atwill) maintains a research lab in a remote Long Island estate. The police suspect that one of Xavier's assistants--all "second-chancers" whose previous misdemeanors range from botched experiments to cannibalism!--is the mysterious murderer who strikes only when the moon is full. Newspaper reporter Lee Tracy sneaks into the estate to get a swell scoop, whereupon he falls in love with Fay. In trying to help the authorities, Xavier stages an elaborate trap for the Moon Murderer, with his daughter as the willing bait. The killer (we won't tell you who it is, but you'll figure it out anyway) reveals himself by coating his body with "synthetic flesh", which gives him supernatural powers. Based on a play by Howard C. Comstock and Allen C. Miner, Doctor X was originally filmed in two-color Technicolor; available for years only in black and white, the film was restored to its full tinted state in the 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lionel Atwill, Lee Tracy, (more)
- 1932
In this comedy, a hard-working husband loses his job and his wife becomes the bread winner. The husband feels demeaned by his new role and takes a mistress to regain his lost manhood. The chastened wife eventually returns to the daily drudgery of home so her hubby can feel important and manly again. Marital bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Norman Foster, (more)
- 1931
In this musical comedy, Fred Von Wellingen (Ben Lyon), the scion of a wealthy German family, has fallen in love with Lia Toerrek (Marilyn Miller), a poor but beautiful girl who has gladly agreed to marry him. However, when Fred's father Otmar (Ford Sterling) decides to hold a banquet to celebrate his son's imminent marriage, he's thoroughly appalled by Bela Toerrek (W.C. Fields), Lia's father and a man with a severe lack of good breeding. When Bela announces that he earns a living as a barber and that Lia is a barmaid, the assembled bluebloods are less than amused, and their ire turns to disgust when Bela grabs some of the dinnerware and uses it to demonstrate his juggling techniques. Otmar wants to call the wedding off and offers his son a high-paying job in the family business if he leaves Lia for good. Fred breaks off the engagement, and Lia meets another wealthy man, Baron von Schwarzdorf (Leon Errol), who offers to marry her. However, both Lia and Fred are miserable without each other, and when he learns that she is to wed, he leaps into action to win her back. Field's juggling routine provides the high point of this film, which marked his first appearance in a sound feature. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marilyn Miller, Ben Lyon, (more)
- 1931
Clark Gable went from supporting actor to star in the space of one year with Sporting Blood, adapted from a novel by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan. Gable is top-billed as a gambling house proprietor named Rid Riddell. When the owner of a prize thoroughbred loses heavily in Riddell's establishment, he is forced to give up the horse to the gambler as security. Rid enters the horse in several honest races, then pulls the animal during a crucial race in order to collect big money on the losses; then he plans to dope up the horse to assure future wins. But when the horse loses, the gambler, deeply in debt to mobsters, transfers ownership to one of his female dealers (Madge Evans), and then drops out of the plotline. Clark Gable isn't really the lead in Sporting Blood--actually he's something of a rat--but he's the one whom everybody in the audience remembers long after the final fadeout. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clark Gable, Ernest Torrence, (more)
- 1931
One of the best of the pre-Production Code Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey vehicles, Peach O' Reno remains as hilariously ribald today as it was nearly 70 years ago. Wheeler and Woolsey play Wattles and Swift, a pair of Reno divorce attorneys whose practice is so successful that their clients have to take numbers to be served. When the working day is over, Wattles & Swift convert their law offices into a nightclub, with the secretaries shedding their street clothes to don skimpy dancing outfits and the junior lawyers transforming into waiters. The story is set in motion when Joe and Aggie Bruno (Joseph Cawthorn and Cora Witherspoon) decide to get a divorce after 20 years of marriage. Wattles agrees to represent Joe in court, while Swift agrees to handle Aggie's case -- a cute conflict of interest that will mean money in the bank for the partners no matter what the outcome. The Brunos' pretty daughters Prudence (Dorothy Lee) and Pansy (Zelma O'Neill) show up in Reno to prevent their parents' breakup, whereupon Wattles falls in love with Prudence and Swift is overcome (quite literally) by Pansy. As part of his legal strategy, Swift arranges for Joe to be seen in public with another woman, who turns out to be Wattles in drag. After several minutes of double- and single-entendre comedy patter, disgruntled ex-husband Ace Crosby (Mitchell Harris), angry over the outcome of his divorce case, comes gunning for Wattles. The latter, still in female disguise, manages to keep Crosby at bay, but soon the ruse is revealed and the shootin' starts. The whole affair ends in up court, where the Brunos' divorce develops into a huge media event, with radio announcer Eddie Kane providing play-by-play and concessionaire Monte Collins hawking peanuts to the spectators. With the help of a melancholy violin rendition of "Hearts and Flowers" Wattles and Swift manage to reunite the warring couple. At this point, the Judge (Sam Hardy) instruct the jurors -- armed with musical instruments -- to "get hot," as he performs a double wedding ceremony, marrying Wattles to Prudence and Swift to Pansy. The musical highlights include a priceless Wheeler-Woolsey terpsichorean number which starts as a sultry tango and ends as an wild Apache dance, and Bert Wheeler and Dorothy Lee's delightful Niagara Falls to Reno, showing off the tapping skills of both performers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, (more)
