Jobyna Howland Movies
A former "Gibson Girl" and a stage performer from the age of nine, Amazonian actress Jobyna Howland acted in a couple of Norma Talmadge silent vehicles in the late 1910s but became a star in the long-running Broadway hit The Gold Diggers. She returned to films after the changeover to sound, appearing opposite the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey in The Cuckoos (1930) and Dixiana (1930), as Sidney Fox's mother in One in a Lifetime (1932), and as the retired burlesque dancer in Stepping Sisters (1932). Retiring due to illness in 1933, Howland was the sister of supporting actor Olin Howlin and the wife of novelist Arthur Stringer. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide- 1933
Producer David O. Selznick's adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's satirical play Topaze stars John Barrymore, delivering a peerless comedy performance a full year before Howard Hawks allegedly "discovered" Barrymore's comic potential in Twentieth Century. Barrymore plays a French science teacher who is dismissed because he refuses to compromise his integrity by passing the student of a wealthy man. To console himself, Barrymore tinkers in his laboratory, where he stumbles upon the formula for a health tonic. Hired by unscrupulous tycoon George Mason to market the drink, Barrymore finds himself becoming as dishonest as his fellow businessmen. On the road to redemption toward the end, Barrymore wins the love of Mason's mistress Myrna Loy, who likewise seeks to change her ways. Eschewing much of the cynicism of the Pagnol original, Topaze aims more for whimsical chuckles than knowing nods. The property would be remade with most of its sardonic humor restored by Fernandel in 1951 and Peter Sellers in 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Barrymore, Myrna Loy, (more)
- 1933
This comedy is last entry in the five-movie series "The Cohens and Kellys." In this episode, Sidney and Murray are competing tugboat captains. They fight over the ownership of the waterways. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Sidney
- 1933
William Faulkner's bestseller Sanctuary was so taboo in some circles that Hollywood couldn't even use the title when making the first film version. Thus, Paramount's adaptation of Sanctuary went out as The Story of Temple Drake, fooling no one who could read. Miriam Hopkins plays the title role, the promiscuous daughter of a Southern judge. Temple will do anything for a thrill, which plays right into the hands of a gang of kidnappers. Coerced into a pickup date at a roadhouse, Temple is held for ransom by the lascivious Trigger (Jack LaRue) and his mob. She is raped by Trigger, whereupon she kills him. One of Trigger's earlier murders is pinned on a hapless half-wit (Irving Pichel). Called to testify in the murder trial by her former boyfriend (William Gargan), the prosecuting attorney, Temple not only confesses to Trigger's killing, but proclaims to one and all that she secretly enjoyed the rape. Even though this hot material was considerably toned down from the novel (where the villain raped Temple with a corncob!), The Story of Temple Drake was one of many films responsible for incurring the wrath of the "clean up Hollywood" brigades--resulting in the restrictive Production Code of 1934. Sanctuary was remade under its original title in 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Jack LaRue, (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
Based on the stage comedy by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, Once in a Lifetime is a satire of Hollywood's early-talkie era. A down-and-out vaudeville trio (Jack Oakie, Aline MacMahon, and Russell Hopton) takes advantage of the confusion attending the talkie revolution by heading to Hollywood and posing as voice experts. George (Oakie), the team's dimwitted straight man, falls in love with a pretty young miss (Sidney Fox) who has come to Hollywood to become an actress -- and won't let her utter lack of talent get in the way. Fast-talking themselves into jobs at the Glogauer Studios, the phony vocal specialists eventually wear out their welcome and are on the verge of being fired. But George, who has been listening to the complaints of a disillusioned screenwriter, suddenly spouts those complaints word for word to Mr. Glogauer (Gregory Ratoff) -- and is lauded as a genius for being the first man to stand up to the despotic studio head. George is made a producer, and immediately sets about filming an expensive movie vehicle for his girlfriend. Unfortunately, George had found the script for his film in a wastebasket, and winds up shooting the wrong picture. He and his vaudeville chums are fired, but when his picture (an incomprehensible farrago shot in darkness because George forgot to turn on the klieg lights) is previewed, it is hailed as a daringly original masterpiece. George is made the supervising producer of Glogauer Studios, and all ends happily for himself and his friends. An interesting precursor to the Singin' in the Rain school of Hollywood kidding itself, Once in a Lifetime has tarnished a bit over the years but is still well worth seeing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Oakie, Aline MacMahon, (more)
- 1932
Stepping Sisters was a variation on Fox Studio's favorite plots, "three girls on the make," the difference being that the three ladies depicted herein were well past the "girl" stage. Louise Dresser, Minna Gombell, and Jobyna Howland are cast as Mrs. Ramsey, Rosie La Marr, and Lady Chetworth-Lynde, who try to keep their past lives as burlesque dancers a secret as they hobnob with High Society. But blood will tell, and soon all three ladies have reverted to their old bump-and-grind routines, much to the dismay of their sophisticated companions. Somehow it was inevitable that at least one of the heroines would end up with a pie in her face; in this instance, its is Lady Chetworth-Lynde, the most pretentious of the trio, who is the recipient of the flying custard. A dash of drama is thrown in the stew when it appears that the impending marriage of Mrs. Ramsey's daughter Norma (Barbara Weeks) will be endangered by the revelation of her mom's show-biz past (it isn't, as it turns out). Stepping Sisters certainly sounds fascinating, and one hopes that someday this long-lost film will be found by some enterprising archivist or other. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Dresser, Minna Gombell, (more)
- 1932
Despite a troubled production that witnessed the exits of both leading man (Phillips Holmes) and director (George Fitzmaurice), this tearjerker was a winner at the box office in November of 1932. Constance Bennett plays Broadway diva Judy Carroll who loses custody of a wee orphan after testifying in a notorious embezzlement case. To get over the blow, Judy co-produces a play that basically mirrors her own life experiences, falling in love with playwright Jake (Joel McCrea) in the process. But when she learns that Jake's wife (Virginia Hammond) is with child, Judy nobly severs the romance and instead finds solace in the arms of the worldlier Tony (Paul Lukas). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, (more)
- 1932
Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, Mervyn LeRoy directs the black-and-white 1932 comedy drama Big City Blues. A small-town innocent from Indiana, Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) inherits money and goes to New York to get in all sorts of trouble. He meets up with his cousin Gibby (Walter Catlett), who introduces him to chorus girl Vida Fleet (Joan Blondell). Bud and Gibby then throw a drunken hotel party with bootleg liquor that gets out of hand and a young woman (Josephine Dunn) is hit on the head and accidentally killed. Bud and Vida go gambling and drinking to escape the cops, but they are caught and arrested with everyone else from the party. Eventually, the police find the real killer and release everyone. Bud leaves for Indiana, but plans to go back, get his dog, and marry Vida. Humphrey Bogart appears in a brief uncredited role as Shep Adkins, a guy who gets into a fight with Lyle Talbot during the party. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, (more)
Hoping to repeat the success of its 1929 musical spectacular Rio Rita, RKO Radio reteamed leading lady Bebe Daniels and the comedy team of Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey for the equally lavish Dixiana. Set in antebellum Louisiana, the film casts Daniels as the title character, a lovely and charming circus entertainer. Dixiana is loved by Carl Van Horn (Everett Marshall), the son of plantation owner Cornelius Van Horn (Joseph Cawthorn). Though Cornelius approves of his son's choice, his imperious wife (Jobyna Howland) orders Dixiana out of her house, much to the delight of crooked gambler Royal Montague (Ralf Harolde), who has his own wicked designs on our heroine. Fired by her circus, Dixiana is forced to go to work at Montague's gambling establishment, and it is here that the love-struck Carl catches up with her. Hoping to bankrupt Carl and force him to relinquish the deed to the Van Doren plantation, Montague engages the young man in a crooked card game, but Dixiana turns the tables on the villain. Elected queen of the Mardi Gras, Dixiana is kidnapped by the disgruntled Montague, who intends to goad Carl into a duel, knowing full well that the boy's guns have been tampered with. Dixiana is the film debut of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who performs a "stair dance" routine during the Technicolor Mardi Gras finale. Incidentally, the film's final color reels were for many years considered lost, with only the black-and-white scenes remaining: thus, many TV prints of Dixiana come to an end long before the plot has been resolved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bebe Daniels, Bert Wheeler, (more)
- 1930
The 1916 Alice Duer Miller play Come Out of the Kitchen, previously filmed in 1921 with Marguerite Clark, was expertly transformed into early musical Honey. The story takes place in a poverty-stricken Virginia household, where blue-blooded brother and sister Olivia and Charles Dangerfield (Nancy Carroll and Skeets Gallagher) are reduced to renting out their mansion. Pretentious Yankee dowager Mrs. Falkner (Jobyna Howland) moves in with her spunky daughter Cora (Lillian Roth) in tow, while Olivia and Charles remain as servants. It isn't long before Cora has fallen in love with Charles, and Olivia has done likewise with Cora's former fiancee Burton Crane (Stanley Smith). The songs range from the self-spoofing "In My Little Hope Chest" to the lively "Sing You Sinners" (later used as a jazzy leitmotif in several Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons!) The Alice Duer Miller original was filmed again in 1934 as the British comedy Come Out of the Pantry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Carroll, Stanley Smith, (more)
- 1930
The Virtuous Sin was adapted from The General, a novel by Lajos Zilahy. Kay Francis plays Marya, the wife of overly sensitive scientist Sabin (Kenneth MacKenna). Commissioned into the Russian army during WWI, Sabin can't cope with the rigors of military life, and as a result is condemned to death for insubordination. To save his life, Marya offers herself to libidinous General Platoff (Walter Huston), even willing to rendezvous with the general in a seamy bordello. Against both their better judgements, Marya and Platoff fall in love, whereupon the far-from-grateful Sabin threatens to kill his rival. The Virtuous Sin may have a silly storyline, but otherwise the film does a remarkable job re-creating the milieu, manners, and costumes of 1914. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Huston, Kay Francis, (more)
- 1930
The Cuckoos began life as The Ramblers, a Broadway musical vehicle for the comedy team of Clark and McCullough. By the time the property reached the screen, it had been retailored to the talents of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey -- and the improvement was enormous. The scene is a fancy Mexican resort, where Sparrow (Wheeler) and The Professor (Woolsey), a pair of petty crooks, try to pick up a few bucks as fortune-tellers. Also staying at the resort is pompous matron Fannie Furst (Jobyna Howland), who is determined that her niece Ruth Chester (June Clyde) marry oily aristocrat Baron de Camp (Ivan Lebedeff). When Ruth evinces a preference for handsome aviator Billy Shannon (Hugh Trevor), the Baron, anxious not to let Ruth's millions slip through his fingers, orders a local band of gypsies to kidnap the girl and spirit her away to his private estate. Billy rushes to Ruth's rescue, as do Sparrow and The Professor -- though "rush" is hardly the appropriate word, since they play for time by singing "Goodbye" to the female chorus and waste even more precious minutes attempting to pilfer a keg of bootleg booze. Actually, our heroes are motivated less by chivalry than by cowardice: Gypsy king Julius (Mitchell Lewis) has threatened to kill both of them because of Sparrow's romance with sexy gypsy maiden Anita (Dorothy Lee). The boys manage to save Ruth from the Baron's clutches, but not before Sparrow distracts the gypsies by posing as a beautiful women. The Bert Kalmar-Harry Ruby score includes such standards as "All Alone Monday" and "Wherever You Are," both indifferently performed by June Clyde and Hugh Trevor. Far more entertaining are Wheeler & Woolsey's "Oh! How We Love Our Alma Mater!" (in which they pay tribute to all the prisons they've attended), Wheeler and Dorothy Lee's "I Love You So Much," and Lee's sizzling dance number "Dancin' the Devil Away." Though little more than a photographed stage play, The Cuckoos is a lot of fun, especially when Wheeler &Woolsey take center stage. For years available only in its 75-minute TV version, the film has recently been restored to its full 95 minutes with the inclusion of several long-unseen Technicolor sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, (more)
- 1930
Metropolitan Opera diva Grace Moore made her film debut in MGM's A Lady's Morals. The film purports to be the biography of "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind, who was ballyhooed to stardom by 19th-century showman P.T. Barnum (Wallace Beery, who'd re-create the role in 1934's The Mighty Barnum). Most of the story, however, is given over to the fabricated romance between Lind (Moore) and young composer Paul Brandt (Reginald Denny), who gives her up when stricken with blindness. As if this wasn't trouble enough, Lind loses her voice at the height of her career; she regains her golden throat, but Paul is lost to her forever. Grace Moore sings seven songs during the film's amazingly brief (75-minute) running time, two of them operatic classics. The anemic box-office showing of A Lady's Morals and her follow-up vehicles briefly squelched Grace Moore's hopes for film stardom, but a few years later she enjoyed enormous success in a series of Columbia musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Reginald Denny, (more)
The comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey made their fourth film appearance of 1930 in the hectic comedy-melodrama Hook Line and Sinker. This time the boys are cast as itinerant insurance salesmen Wilbur Boswell and J. Addington Ganzy ("Not Pansy -- Ganzy, with a 'G'"!) After talking their way out of a traffic ticket, Wilbur and Addington make the acquaintance of penniless socialite Mary Marsh (Dorothy Lee), who is fleeing a wealthy marriage arranged by her mother Rebecca (Jobyna Howland). Falling in love with Mary himself, Wilbur talks Ganzy into helping her renovate a seedy hotel willed to her by her uncle. With the dubious aid of a decrepit bellboy (George F. Marion) and a nutty house detective (Hugh Herbert), the boys turn the hotel into a thriving enterprise. The plot thickens when a gang of jewel thieves and a band of bootleggers register at the hotel, followed in short order by Mary's mother and the girl's prospective fiance, lawyer John Blackwell (Ralf Harolde) -- who happens to be in league with the bootleggers! A wild gangland shoot-out and nocturnal chase caps this dated but amusing Wheeler and Woolsey vehicle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, (more)
- 1924
Stage actor Alfred Lunt makes one of his rare screen appearances in this light comedy, based on the novel by Allen Updegraff. Rowland Farwell Francis (Lunt) is a retiring silk salesman at a department store. His reticent demeanor doesn't stop his widowed landlady, Mrs. Benson (Jobyna Howland) and his stenographer from considering him to be husband material. These women don't get Francis' attention, however -- and he falls for the wealthy Anne Winton (Mimi Palmeri), who he meets over the silk counter. Of course, he's too shy to do anything about it, and hat's the way it would probably have stayed if Anne's brother-in-law hadn't dared her to invite a man out to supper. She takes the dare and shows Francis such a good time that he becomes an aggressive and virile lover who wins her heart. He also lands a promotion to assistant buyer. Although the other ladies lose their chance with Francis, they still manage to win mates of their own. Lunt's wife and stage partner, Lynn Fontanne, appears in a bit role. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alfred Lunt, Jobyna Howland, (more)
- 1919
Nancy Lee (Norma Talmadge) is a Southern belle with a good pedigree whose family, nevertheless, is impoverished. They refuse to allow her to marry the man of her heart, Anthony Weir (Conway Tearle), because, although he has money, his family tree is lacking. Nancy sends Anthony away but then rebelliously marries a New Yorker who throws all his money away on partying. He dies not long after they are wed and leaves her nearly penniless. Anthony's nephew passes himself off to Nancy as a man of wealth, so she accepts the money he offers to loan her. But he has actually embezzled the cash, and Anthony berates Nancy because he believes his nephew stole the money on her behalf. But his nephew reveals that he misrepresented himself to Nancy, and then Anthony finds out that she's no longer a part of her dead husband's fast crowd. So the two are finally reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
