Miriam Hopkins Movies
American actress Miriam Hopkins studied to be a dancer, but her first major opportunity with a touring ballet troupe was cut short when she broke her ankle. Opting for an acting career, Hopkins drew upon her Georgia background to specialize in playing Southern belles, most notably in the 1933 Broadway play Jezebel. Entering films with 1930's Fast and Loose, Hopkins became a popular film star, though many critics and film historians deemed her histrionic, uninhibited style as "an acquired taste." During the early stages of her film career, Hopkins contributed at least two memorable performances: Champagne Ivy, the doomed cockney songstress in the Fredric March version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), and the title role in Becky Sharp (1935), the first feature film to be shot in the three-strip Technicolor process. Relatively charming offscreen, Hopkins could be a terror on the set, driving co-stars to distraction with her lateness, lack of concentration and self-centered attitude towards camera angles; she owned the distinction of being one of the few actors ever reprimanded in full view of the production crew by the otherwise gentlemanly Edward G. Robinson. Still, she had her following, and was able to continue her stage career (she was particularly good in the 1958 Pulitzer Prize winner Look Homeward Angel) after her movie popularity waned. One of Hopkins' best later roles was her character part in 1961's The Children's Hour; 25 years earlier, Miriam had starred in the first film version of that Lillian Hellman play, These Three (1936). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1931
24 Hours is all it takes for tippling married man Jim Towner (Clive Brook) to go from social respectability to convict stripes. Upset that his wife Fanny (Kay Francis) has been unfaithful, the wealthy Jim weaves drunkenly from one nightclub to another. He falls for a cabaret performer (Miriam Hopkins) and begins an affair. The girl is killed by her gangster boyfriend (Regis Toomey), but Jim is arrested for the crime. Released from prison, the chastened Jim returns to his wife, who has vowed to remain loyal to her husband. 24 Hours was based on a novel by Louis Bromfield. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clive Brook, Kay Francis, (more)
- 1942
In this crime drama, a remake of Forgotten Faces (1936), a convict busts out of prison to protect his daughter from her conniving mother so that the girl will be able to marry a decent guy in the future. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Donlevy, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 1934
In this melodrama, an engineering professor longs to leave his ivory tower so he can be involved in a special project taking place near Boulder Dam. He decides to go and tries to convince his wealthy student/lover to go with him. They discuss this in a night club. She doesn't really want to go. While there, they encounter another couple, a crook and his moll who offer their own unique take on the situation. The crooks offer the wealthy lovers insight into the realities of living on the lower rungs of the social ladder. At the end of the evening, the crook steals the wealthy girl's purse so he can help his pregnant girl. He gets arrested. Fortunately, the kindly professor helps him break out so he can be with his moll who needs him. Unfortunately, during the escape, the crook kills a cop and takes the professor and his girl hostage. The police surround the joint and the rich girl hides in a corner during a shoot out. The situation gets desperate and the crook and his lover vow that they will never again be parted and hand in hand leap from the window to certain death. The girl suddenly realizes the true meaning of love and decides to accompany her lover out west and start all over again. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
Now famous as the first feature film produced in the three-strip Technicolor process, Becky Sharp is also an enjoyable effort in its own right. Adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the film stars Miriam Hopkins as Becky Sharp, a resourceful, totally self-involved young lady who manages to survive any number of setbacks and deprivations in the years following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. In her efforts to advance herself, she manages to link up with a number of not altogether attractive gentlemen, including the Marquis of Steyne (Cedric Hardwicke), Joseph Sedley (Nigel Bruce), Rawdon Crawley (Alan Mowbray), and George Osborne (G. P. Huntley Jr.) She rises to the pinnacle of British society, only to tumble and fall into the humiliation of singing for her supper in a cheap back-alley beer hall, but, like her spiritual sister Scarlet O'Hara, Becky never stays down for long. The film ends on an ambiguous note, never hinting that Becky will eventually drop her current beau and settle down to a life of smug piety, as she does in the novel. Begun in 1934 with Lowell Sherman in the director's chair, Becky Sharp was forced to shut down production when Sherman died; he was replaced by Rouben Mamoulien, whose unerring eye for cinematic splendor exploited the new color process to the utmost, especially during the opening Brussels Ball sequence. Until its recent archival restoration, Becky Sharp was available only in a shortened, two-color version, which had the negative effect of diminishing the film's strong points and overemphasizing its weaknesses (This version is still available on the public-domain market). Becky Sharp is an enormous improvement over the low-budget 1932 version of Vanity Fair, which updated the story to the 20th century and cast dumb-blonde specialist Joyce Compton in the role of Becky. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Cedric Hardwicke, (more)
Carrie is based on Sister Carrie, a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser's clumsy, unwieldy prose is streamlined into a neat and precise screenplay by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. Jennifer Jones stars as Carrie, who leaves her go-nowhere small town for the wicked metropolis of Chicago. Here she becomes the mistress of brash traveling salesman Charles Drouet (Eddie Albert), then throws him over in favor of erudite restaurant manager George Hurstwood (Laurence Olivier). Obsessed by Carrie, George steals money from his boss to support her in the manner to which he thinks she is accustomed. Left broke and disgraced by the ensuing scandal, Carrie deserts George to become an actress. Years later, the conscience-stricken Carrie tries to regenerate George, who has fallen into bum-hood. If Laurence Olivier seems a surprising casting choice in Carrie, try to imagine what the film would have been like had Cary Grant, Paramount's first choice, accepted the role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laurence Olivier, Jennifer Jones, (more)
- 1932
In this drama, a bandleader thinks that his young friend will be corrupted by his budding relationship with a taxi dancer. To protect the tender youth, the conductor sends him out of town.The bandleader soon finds himself wooing the lovely dancer. Unfortunately, a jealous gangster is also in love with her. When the gangster discovers that the bandleader presents competition, he targets him for a hit. Chaos ensues ending in a shoot-out. The gangster is killed, the bandleader shot, and the callow youth is finally reunited with his beloved dancer. Songs include: "St. Louis Blues." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Jack Oakie, (more)
- 1933
Design for Living was based on the stage comedy by Noel Coward, though little of his dialogue actually made it to the screen. Playwright Fredric March and artist Gary Cooper both fall in love with Miriam Hopkins, an American living in Paris. Both men love the girl, and the girl can't make up her mind between the two men, so the threesome decide to move in together--strictly platonically, of course. As the men gain in success and prominence, the chasteness of the "menage a trois" begins to be threatened, and soon both March and Cooper clash over Hopkins. She reacts by marrying her wealthy but dull boss (Edward Everett Horton). Miriam is bored to tears until March and Cooper invade one of her husband's stuffy parties and chase the tiresome guests away. Miriam's husband huffily agrees to a divorce, and the girl returns to her unorthodox relationship with her two former suitors. The subtle homosexual implications of the Noel Coward stage original were dissipated by the presence of the aggressively masculine Gary Cooper and Fredric March in the film version of Design for Living. Replacing these implications were the equally subtle but more "mainstream" boudoir innuendos of director Ernst Lubitsch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Gary Cooper, (more)
- 1931
This first sound version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic morality tale starred Fredric March as the kindly, philanthropic Dr. Jekyll, who makes the fatal mistake of delving into secrets that Man Should Never Know. Fascinated with the notion that within each man lurk impulses for both Good and Evil, Jekyll develops a drug to release the wickedness in himself. The result: the lecherous, lycanthropic Mr. Hyde (one has to keep reminding oneself that the handsome, soft-spoken March plays both roles; small wonder that he won the Academy Award). Jekyll is the honorable suitor of the virtuous Muriel Carew (Rose Hobart), while Hyde is the brutish pursuer of the sluttish "Champagne Ivy" Pearson (Miriam Hopkins, as sexy as she'd ever be in films). It isn't long before the kindly Jekyll is unable to control the wicked Hyde, with tragic results. Director Rouben Mamoulian could often seem like the Brian De Palma of his time, showing off like a first-year film student instead of telling a story. But Mamoulian's excesses work beautifully in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, notably the dizzying first transformation scene (that heartbeat you hear on the soundtrack belongs to Mamoulian himself). Withdrawn from circulation when MGM refilmed the Stevenson novel in 1941, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde resurfaced in the early 1970s, albeit only in the heavily censored version prepared for the 1938 reissue. The current video version restores most of the missing scenes--including the famous opening reel, photographed from Jekyll's point of view with a subjective camera. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 1930
Previously filmed in 1925, Avery Hopwood's stage play The Best People was refashioned by Preston Sturges as the Miriam Hopkins vehicle Fast and Loose in 1930. Hopkins (in her film debut) and Henry Wadsworth are cast as Marion and Bertie Lenox, the footloose, prodigal offspring of wealthy, social-climbing Bronson and Carrie Lenox (Frank Morgan and Winifred Harris). The parents are shocked beyond belief when daughter Marion falls in love with low-born car mechanic Henry Morgan (Charles Starrett), while Bertie becomes enamored of down-to-earth showgirl Alice O'Neil (Carole Lombard). But mom and dad change their minds when it turns out the Henry and Alice have more common sense than either of their grown-up kids. This was the film in which Paramount contract starlet Carol Lombard changed the spelling of her first name to "Carole" -- or, rather, it was changed for her by a careless title-writer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, (more)
- 1936
Something of a precursor to 1947's A Double Life, Men Are Not Gods takes its title from a line in Othello -- aptly so, as that play figures prominently in the film. Actress Barbara Halford (Gertrude Lawrence) is married to Edmond Davey (Sebastian Shaw), a classical actor whose new production of Othello is about to open. Aware that influential critic Skeates has written a vociferously negative review, Barbara pleads with his secretary Ann (Miriam Hopkins) to rewrite the notice. She does so, and the production becomes a hit - and Ann becomes a hit with Davey, which fact sits well with neither Barbara nor Ann's boy friend Rex Harrison. Barbara, who is also playing Desdemona in the production, warns Ann to keep her hands off of her husband. But that night, as Othello chokes Desdemona, it seems suspiciously real, prompting Ann to scream out in horror from the audience. Afterward, Barbara reveals that she is pregnant; as she and Davey embrace, Ann quietly exits from the scene. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Gertrude Lawrence, (more)
After the box office success of The Old Maid, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins were reunited for this catty drama. Kitty Marlowe (Davis) is a well-respected author who returns to the small town of her birth, where she becomes reacquainted with her childhood friend Millie Drake (Hopkins). While Millie is happy as a wife and mother and loves her husband Preston (John Loder), she's envious of Kitty's success, and Kitty's visit prompts Millie to sit down at the typewriter herself. Millie turns out a sexy potboiler that, with Kitty's help, attracts the attention of a publisher. To the surprise of them both, Millie's book is a runaway bestseller, and a decade later she's one of the most successful authors in America, easily eclipsing Kitty's more highbrow work. Preston finds himself growing disenchanted with Millie once success begins to go to her head, and he finds himself attracted to Kitty; while Kitty tries to dissuade Preston's advances, a scorned Millie believes that her old friend has been trying to steal her husband away from her. Old Acquaintance was remade in 1981 as Rich and Famous. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 1934
Miriam Hopkins plays a showgirl who witnesses a gangland slaying. Bing Crosby and Elliot Nugent are somewhat over-aged Princeton University students who agree to hide Miriam. They disguise her as a boy (a remarkable achievement) and manage to pull the wool over the eyes of the dean (Henry Stephenson) and even the dean's daughter (Kitty Carlisle). Before the killers are vanquished and Hopkins' life is out of danger, Crosby gets to introduce the hit song "Love in Bloom," which ever after would be associated not with Crosby but with Jack Benny. Based on the Broadway hit by Howard Lindsay, She Loves Me Not was remade in 1942 as True to the Army with Judy Canova, and again in 1955 as How to Be Very, Very Popular with Betty Grable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bing Crosby, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 1935
This romantic comedy-drama is set -- typical for producer Samuel Goldwyn at the time -- among the upper class. Joel McCrea plays Brighton Lorrimore, son of a well-to-do American family who returns from a trip abroad with a new wife, Phyllis Manning (Miriam Hopkins). Brighton's parents are dismayed because they had hoped that their son would restore the faltering Lorrimore fortunes with a marriage to society girl Edith Gilbert (Ruth Weston). Although Phyllis urges Brighton to pursue his dream career as a writer, Brighton's mother pushes him unhappily into a finance job, at which he does not excel. Mrs. Lorrimore also schemes to create romantic sparks between her new daughter-in-law and her son's superior, Martin Deering (Paul Cavanaugh), hoping that an affair will improve her son's fortunes and refill the family's coffers. Written by Rachel Crothers from her unproduced play, Spendor (1935) featured the first significant role on screen for actor David Niven. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, (more)
It's the wild and woolly waterfront world of San Francisco in the late 1800s in this rambling tale of an outrageous nightclub owner (Edward G. Robinson) and his efforts at wooing lovely Mary Rutledge (Miriam Hopkins), a lovely Eastern lass left to her own devices in the rowdy port city. The innocent babe loses that innocence when she becomes a kept lady, running the roulette wheel in Robinson's nightclub. The plot matures when Mary falls in love with an honest and upright gold miner. When the lovers are discovered during a fateful tryst, they flee the evil Robinson, hoping to escape as stowaways aboard a departing ship. Robinson is magnificent in this ruffian role. This action-filled adventure is suitable for the whole family. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson, (more)
All hell breaks loose in a Texas town when an escaped convict heads home in Arthur Penn's Southern gothic melodrama. Appointed by local kingpin Val Rogers (E. G. Marshall), benevolent Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) manages to keep the peace in Tarl, but the situation starts to fester one Saturday when news filters in that wild child Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) has jumped prison. Bubber's impending arrival arouses hostility among Tarl's citizens, such as Edwin Stewart (Robert Duvall), who believes that Bubber will come after him to settle an old score, and Damon Puller (Richard Bradford), who, between grope sessions with Edwin's wife Emily (Janice Rule), uses Bubber as an excuse to terrorize black residents. As the atmosphere heats up, Calder wants to keep Bubber alive, and he convinces Bubber's wife Anna (Jane Fonda) and her lover, Val's son Jake (James Fox), to find Bubber and coax him into surrender. Val's fear that Bubber will kill his son, however, sparks a long confrontation that leaves rational law and order pummeled into the ground by the town's ignorant cruelty. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, (more)
Based on the 1934 play by Lillian Hellman, The Children's Hour is set at an exclusive girl's school managed by best friends Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. When student Karen Balkin is punished for one of her many misdeeds, the mean-spirited youngster rushes to her wealthy aunt Fay Bainter, and, randomly choosing a phrase she has undoubtedly read in some magazine, accuses Hepburn and MacLaine of having an "unnatural relationship." As Balkin's lies grow in viciousness, the student's parents withdraw their children from the school. Hepburn and MacLaine sue Bainter for libel, only to lose their case when MacLaine's aunt Miriam Hopkins refuses to testify as a character witness. The trial takes its toll on the relationship between Hepburn and her boyfriend James Garner. When Bainter discovers that her niece has been lying, she tries to make amends, but it is too late. Director William Wyler had also helmed the first film version of Children's Hour, 1936's These Three, which due to censorship restrictions of the time did without the lesbian angle (the little girl's accusations involved a supposed romantic triangle between the two ladies and a male friend). Miriam Hopkins, who plays a supporting role in The Children's Hour, originally essayed the Shirley MacLaine role in These Three. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
- 1969
Veteran film and Broadway star Miriam Hopkins appears as Gloria Davenport, a former movie queen who has taken her vows and reemerged as Sister Adelaide. Hoping to raise money for Convent San Tanco, Sr. Adelaide stages a benefit screening of one of her old silent movies. Unfortunately, the "politically incorrect" content of the film sparks a major crisis, which only Sr. Bertrille can solve. First broadcast on November 26, 1969, "Bertrille and the Silent Flicks" was scripted by Michael Morris, from a story by Leo Rifkin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Henry James based his 1881 novella Washington Square on a real-life incident, wherein a young actor of his acquaintance married an unattractive but very wealthy young woman for the express purpose of living the rest of his life in luxury. Washington Square was turned into a stage play in 1946 by Ruth and Augustus Goetz; this, in turn was adapted for the movies under the title The Heiress. Olivia DeHavilland won an Academy Award (her second) for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper, the plain-Jane daughter of wealthy widower Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson). Catherine is not only unattractive, but lacks most of the social graces, thanks in great part to the domineering attitudes of her father. When Catherine falls in love with handsome young Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), she is convinced that her love is reciprocated, else why would Morris be so affectionate towards her? Dr. Sloper sees things differently, correctly perceiving that Morris is a callow fortune hunter. Standing up to her father for the first time in her life, Catherine insists that she will elope with Morris; but when Dr. Sloper threatens to cut off her dowry, Morris disappears. Still, Catherine threatens to run off with the next young man who pays any attention to her; Sloper, belatedly realizing how much he has hurt his only child, arranges to leave her his entire fortune. Years pass: Morris returns, insisting that he'd only left because he didn't want to cause Catherine the "grief" of being disinherited. Seemingly touched by Morris' "sincerity", Catherine agrees to elope with him immediately. But when Morris arrives at the appointed hour, he finds the door locked and bolted. Asked how she can treat Morris so cruelly, Catherine replies coldly "Yes, I can be very cruel. I have been taught by masters." Though The Heiress ends on a downbeat note, the audience is gratified to know that Catherine Sloper has matured from ugly-duckling loser to a tower of strength who will never allow herself to be manipulated by anyone ever again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, (more)
- 1940
The notoriously temperamental Miriam Hopkins is ideally cast as equally contentious theatrical prima donna Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Lady With Red Hair. As rapidly paced as any Warner Bros. gangster picture, the film charts Caroline Carter's rise to fame on Broadway through the auspices of impresario David Belasco (Claude Rains). The screenwriters take great pains to cast Carter in a sympathetic light, suggesting that she turned to the lucrative world of the theater to regain custody of her son (Johnnie Russell), won by her husband in their acrimonious 1889 divorce settlement. Though at first she meets with nothing but failure, our heroine perseveres, and by 1904 she is the idol of millions throughout the world. Along the way, she marries visionary producer Lou Payne (Richard Ainley), but by film's end she is reunited with her mentor Belasco. A young Cornel Wilde makes his screen debut as an aspiring actor in a boarding-house sequence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Claude Rains, (more)
- 1951
A pair of top 20th Century Fox contractees were loaned to Paramount as stars of The Mating Season. Gene Tierney plays globe-trotting socialite Maggie Carleton, while Thelma Ritter is cast as Ellen McNulty, the hash-slinging mother of Maggie's husband, Val (John Lund). Perceiving that her son is embarrassed by his lower-class origins, Ellen poses as a maid when she attends Maggie and Val's wedding reception. Even after Val expresses displeasure at this deception, Ellen refuses to reveal her true identity, leading to a series of funny and poignant consequences. Miriam Hopkins co-stars as Ellen's blue-blooded mother, whose third-act arrival heralds the film's inevitable "moment of truth." Rest assured, The Mating Season is never dull. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Tierney, John Lund, (more)
- 1939
When Zoë Akins' play The Old Maid (based on a novel by Edith Wharton) won the 1934-1935 Pulitzer Prize, the selection was roundly condemned by critics, who felt that Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour was more deserving, but had lost because of its lesbian theme. Certainly, Akins' story of the relationship between two Southern cousins in the years between 1833 and 1854 is nothing spectacular. Delia Lovell marries James Ralston, leaving her old beau Clem Spender out in the cold. Delia's cousin Charlotte comforts Clem by spending the night with him. Charlotte becomes pregnant, secretly farming out her daughter, Tina, to another family. The years pass; Charlotte sets up a day nursery so that she may remain close to her daughter (still in the dark as to the true identity of her mother). Meanwhile, Charlotte has become engaged to Ralston's brother Joseph. The troublesome Delia, who discovers her cousin's secret, contrives to prevent Charlotte from marrying Joseph, then arranges to have Charlotte raise Tina as her niece rather than her daughter. More years pass; Tina regards Delia as her mama and Charlotte as just an "old maid." At Tina's wedding, Charlotte almost reveals the truth to her daughter, but.....It's all slick romance-magazine stuff, and hardly worthy of the Pulitzer. On the other hand, the film version of The Old Maid, starring Bette Davis as Charlotte and Miriam Hopkins as Delia, is a classic of its kind, and one of Davis' best vehicles. The story is given additional substance by moving the early scenes up to the time of the Civil War, making Clem Spender (George Brent) less of a cad by killing him off at Vicksburg, thus rendering it impossible for Clem to make an honest woman of Charlotte. From the vantage point of the 1990s, when film stars find it difficult to turn out more than one picture a year, it is incredible that The Old Maid was but one of four first-rate Bette Davis films to be released in 1939; the others were Dark Victory, Juarez, and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 1952
This last of several movie adaptations of Bret Harte's The Outcasts of Poker Flat stars Cameron Mitchell as a murderous western outlaw, Anne Baxter as his wife, Dale Robertson as a disgraced gambler and Miriam Hopkins as a faded dance hall floozie. All these characters (with a few other socially undesirable types) are trapped in a snowbound mountain cabin. As the chances for rescue fade, the true natures of the cabin's occupants rise to the surface. It is the gambler, outwardly the most cowardly of the bunch, who takes on the outlaw when he threatens the survival of the others. Outcasts of Poker Flat is less downbeat than earlier versions of the story...and, accordingly, less memorable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Baxter, Dale Robertson, (more)
- 1964
In Volume 21 of a collection culled from the 1963-1965 science fiction anthology television series, the alien patriarch of a family searches for clues to the disappearance of his Earth-born children. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1964
On the night of his wedding in 1929, Harvey Kry (David Frankham) is surprised by an anonymous gift, a box with a single hole containing a lens, through which a strange light emanates. He looks into it and sees a monstrous creature inside, that holds him in the gaze of its single eye -- and then transports the screaming man inside. Thirty-five years later, the Kry house is in decay, occupied solely by Harvey's bride Mary (Miriam Hopkins), now aging and grotesque in her 1920's sequined dress and thick make-up, still awaiting the consumation of her marriage to Harvey. She finds herself entertaining her first guests in years, Gard (Buck Taylor) and Vivia (Melinda Plowman), a young, under-age couple who are eloping, and offers them her bridal chamber. But the box remains in there, amid the unused, still-wrapped gifts; and inside, the creature watches and waits in its own long vigil, to draw others inside. Vivia and, later, her pursuing father (John Hoyt), are both drawn into the box and the void inside, and confront this monster, an extraterrestrial from another space-time continuum, lost in our four-dimensional space and unable to fulfill its mission -- the destruction of the Earth and then our universe. To accomplish this, it needs a human being to help it find its way. Harvey Kry wouldn't do it and, so, has spent 35 years trapped inside the timeless void, looking exactly as he did in 1929, while his increasingly desperate (and insane) bride has waited, and aged, and conspired with the creature. And Vivia is just frightened enough; and her father is just self-centered enough, that one of them might do what it asks. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, David Frankham, (more)
- 1934
A witty Norman Krasna script distinguishes this airy romantic comedy. Millionairess Dorothy Hunter (Miriam Hopkins) is tired of finding out that her boyfriends love her for her money, and equally weary of losing eligible beaus who don't want to be considered fortune-hunters. That's why she trades identities with her secretary Sylvia (Fay Wray) before embarking on her next romance with Tony Travers (Joel McCrea). This causes numerous complications not only for Dorothy and Tony but for Sylvia, whose own husband Philip (Reginald Denny) is not the most patient of men. The Richest Girl in the World was remade in 1944 as Bride by Mistake, and in 1955 as the Jane Russell musical The French Line. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Henry Stephenson, (more)
