Jean Howard Movies
Although she enjoyed a career as a Ziegfeld girl-turned-Hollywood starlet, Jean Howard left her true legacy as a legendary Hollywood hostess and photographer. Her March 21, 2000, death at the age of 89 occurred at her Coldwater Canyon home, where she had entertained the likes of Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, Laurence Olivier, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, John F. Kennedy, and Judy Garland.Born in Dallas, Texas, on October 13, 1910, Howard came to Hollywood in 1930, when she was scarcely out of her teens. She won a part in the Ziegfeld Follies, and she eventually became one of Hollywood's first Goldwyn Girls. As an MGM contract player in the 1930s and '40s, she appeared in a number of supporting roles in such films as Broadway to Hollywood (1933), The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933), and Claudia (1943). However, Howard had little interest in becoming a star; she instead focused her energies and talents on playing her real-life role as one of the industry's favorite hostesses and photographers. Her portraits were made into two books, Jean Howard's Hollywood and Travels with Cole Porter, published in 1989 and 1991, respectively. Howard also continued to make the occasional screen appearance late into her life, popping up in such films as Huckleberry Finn (1975) and Traveller (1996). ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Actor Bill Paxton produced this unusual film about a clan of Irish-American con artists practicing in the American South. They live in a secluded compound and have their own time-honored customs. Pat (Mark Wahlberg) is returning to the hideout for the funeral of his father, who irked the clan by marrying an outsider. Because his mother is not Irish, the compound's boss, Jack Costello (Luke Askew), tells him that he's no longer welcome there. But Bokky, played by Paxton, takes the younger man under his wing and teaches him the clan's trade. Bokky specializes in cheating homeowners by charging them to apply driveway or roof sealant, then leaving before they discover that it's only black oil. He also buys and resells shoddy mobile homes. Pat soon proves more nervy and creative than his boss. They try to scam a bartender, Jean (Julianna Margulies), but Bokky falls in love with her. Jean needs cash to pay for an operation for her hearing-impaired daughter, so Bokky finally agrees to work for a cowboy con artist named Double D (James Gammon), who has been trying to recruit him for a big job in Nashville. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Paxton, Mark Wahlberg, (more)
- 1975
It's still the same old story...but what a story. This umpteenth filmization of the classic Mark Twain novel stars Ron Howard as Huck and Donny Most as Tom Sawyer. After faking his own murder to escape his brutish Pap (played by Howard's real-life father Rance), Huck and fugitive slave Jim (Antonio Fargas) fashion a raft and head off down the Mississippi. The darker elements and sociological commentary of the Twain original are carefully excised from this version, the better to allow more time for the antics of those "royal" rapscallions, the King (Jack Elam) and the Duke (Merle Haggard). Mark Twain himself makes a guest appearance, in the person of Royal Dano. Filmed along the Sacramento River in California (a frequent movie "stand-in" for the Mississippi), Huckleberry Finn was first broadcast March 25, 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1944
This 20th Century-Fox programmer stars Preston Foster as breezy detective Steve Carromond. When a man dies of a suspicious heart attack, the victim's niece, Constance Martin (Ann Rutherford), hires Steve to investigate. The solution to the mystery lies in a tontine-like arrangement, wherein six WW1 vets have pooled their savings for a joint insurance policy, to be collected by the surviving veteran. Props essential to the action include a package of poisoned cigarettes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Preston S. Foster, Ann Rutherford, (more)
- 1943
Dorothy McGuire charmingly recreates her stage role in this film adaptation of Rose Franken's Broadway hit Claudia. The title character (McGuire) is the naïve, somewhat childish young bride of David Naughton (Robert Young). Slowly adapting to married life, the unworldy Claudia receives several "wake-up calls" regarding the maintenance of a household, dealing with her husband's (and her own) sexual urges, impending childbirth, and, on a more somber note, the inevitable death of a loved one. A subplot involving the criminal past of the family butler is downplayed on screen, and the film is the better for it. Tops among the supporting cast of Claudia is Ina Claire as the heroine's witty, sprightly and, alas, doomed mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, (more)
- 1937
In this comedy drama (a remake of 1932's Ladies of the Jury), an apparently bubble-headed but mule-stubborn jurist is convinced of the defendant's innocence and refuses to change her verdict. Unlike the others, she listens to her own common sense and looks carefully at the facts and decides that there is no way the accused could have committed the murder. She then sets off with a fellow jurist and long-time pal to prove it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, (more)
- 1935
Katharine Hepburn suffers nobly while her philandering conductor husband Charles Boyer dallies with the likes of Helene Millard in this overheated melodrama directed by Philip Moeller of the renowned Theater Guild. Although receiving plenty of warning, prim lady composer Constance Roberti (Hepburn) is still devastated when her new husband, Franz (Boyer), is spotted dining with glamorous Sylvia (Millard) and promptly leaves him. A dipsomaniac, Roberti finds solace in a bottle and is soon reduced to playing in a seedy dive. Constance finds him there and after playing “their song” on the honky-tonk, Roberti resolves to go straight and return to the world of classical music. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katharine Hepburn, Charles Boyer, (more)
- 1934
In this crime drama, a famous criminal attorney is abandoned by his wife who has tired of his neglect and heavy drinking. She runs to the arms of a prominent gangster. Later, the lawyer must take a murder case--his ex-wife is the victim. It is quite a shock, but somehow he manages to keep it together and keep an innocent man from going to jail. The lawyer then brings the woman's criminal lover, the real culprit, to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Otto Kruger, Una Merkel, (more)
Virtually everybody except President Roosevelt was in the lavish MGM backstage musical Dancing Lady. Joan Crawford stars as Janie Barlow, an impoverished dancer reduced to working in a seedy Manhattan burlesque house. While on a slumming party with his society friend, wealthy young Tod Newton (Franchot Tone) spots Janie in the burleycue chorus line and immediately falls in love with her. When the joint is raided, Tod pays Janie's bail, but she resists his entreaties to become his mistress, promising instead to pay back every cent she owes him "honestly." With Tod's help, Janie is able to secure work in a big-time Broadway musical being staged by Patch Gallegher (Clark Gable), who is certain that the girl is an untalented opportunist and does everything he can to sabotage her audition. When he realizes that the girl "has something," he refuses to admit it but does, grudgingly, hire her for the show. Through a combination of skill and damned hard work, Janie ends up as the star of the show, whereupon Tod, worried that he'll lose the girl to the Great White Way, buys the show and promptly closes it. But Janie, who's fallen in love with Patch, teams with her new sweetheart to restage the show with their own meager savings -- and surprise of surprises, it's a smash hit. Truly an embarrassment of riches, Dancing Lady introduced Fred Astaire to the movie-going public, solidified the popularity of MGM's new tenor Nelson Eddy, and offered a wide berth for the comedy antics of Ted Healy and his Three Stooges -- Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine (Larry, performing his role in a Jewish dialect, has a wonderful double-take bit with a jigsaw puzzle which turns out to be a portrait of Adolf Hitler). As a bonus, the film offers spectacular musical production numbers, not to mention the enduring song hit "Everything I Have is Yours." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, (more)
- 1933
Broadway to Hollywood is a through-the-years saga about a show business family. Frank Morgan and Alice Brady play vaudeville headliners of the 1880s whose fame is eclipsed by their son (played as a youth by Jackie Cooper, then as an adult by Russell Hardie). Morgan and Brady are reduced to bit roles in a musical starring their son and his wife (Madge Evans). Alas, Sonny spoils it all by drinking and philandering, while his wife dies in a freak accident. After Hardie is killed in World War One, Morgan and Brady raise Hardie's son, who grows from Mickey Rooney to Eddie Quillan and becomes a temperamental movie star. Grandpa Morgan gives Quillan a remonstrative on-set speech about professionalism, then drops dead as his chastened grandson goes back to work. Broadway to Hollywood is principally a showcase for several elaborate musical numbers originally filmed for MGM's abandoned 1930 extravaganza The March of Time. While the plotline veers towards the ridiculous, comedy buffs are advised to stick with the film for an uncredited appearance by Moe and Curly of the Three Stooges, both dressed in bizarre clown makeup and speaking in weird German accents. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alice Brady, Frank Morgan, (more)
- 1933
One woman helps make an unknown boxer a star, but could a handful lead him back to obscurity again? Steve Morgan (Max Baer) is a ex-sailor tending bar in a seedy dive when The Professor (Walter Huston), a boxing coach, sees Morgan make short work of a troublesome customer. The Professor convinces Morgan that he has what it takes to be a successful prizefighter, and takes him under his wing. One day, while Morgan is jogging, he's nearly hit by a car operated by an attractive woman named Belle (Myrna Loy), who is making a name for herself as a nightclub singer. Belle has been dating underworld kingpin Willie Ryan (Otto Kruger), but before long Morgan is able to win her away from Ryan, and they get married. Morgan's marriage to Belle turns out to be god for publicity, and soon he's racked up an impressive string of victories, but Morgan can't keep his eyes off other women, and she has reason to believe he's been unfaithful. Belle, despondent, goes back to Ryan, while Morgan starts hitting the bottle, just as he's lined up a championship fight with Primo Carnera. The Prizefighter and the Lady gave heavyweight contender Max Baer his first leading role; a year after the film was released, Baer faced off against Carnera in a real championship bout, which Baer won by a knockout. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
