Arthur Hoyt Movies

Ruth Robbins (Mae Clarke) is already a cynic about marriage, and well she should be -- at age 19, she's the secretary/stenographer to Albert Hartman (John Halliday), one of the top divorce lawyers in Los Angeles, and she's heard so many detailed accounts of marriages gone wrong that she regards the institution itself as poison. She's living happily enough with her daffy southern roommate Betty Merrick (Una Merkel) in a run-down apartment in Los Angeles's Bunker Hill section, off of Angel's Flight, going about her life. And then she chances to meet Myron Brown (Lew Ayres), a young doctor just starting his internship. They fall in love and he wants to marry her, but knows that it will be years before he can earn any real money; she's practical as well, and allegic to marriage, so they do nothing about their feelings, which leaves them both miserable. In the course of trying to forget him, she takes her employer up on his seemingly altruistic offer of an apartment in the building he owns -- but Brown gets the wrong idea about Ruth, Hartman, and the apartment, and abandons any thought of marrying her. Meanwhile, Betty has fallen in love with Clarence Howe (Andy Devine), a talkative and eccentric male nurse who rides in the same ambulance that Myron is assigned to -- and Clarence also gets the wrong idea and insists that Betty leave her friend. It also turns out that Hartman's intentions weren't all honorable, after all, and Ruth is left without a job or a decent home to live in. Matters go from bad to worse when she's hit with a sudden attack of acute appendicitis, which brings Myron back into her life, just as her life is on the line. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Having signed for eight Westerns with poverty row entrepreneur E.W. Hammons, Ken Maynard went on to deliver a series of solid sagebrush entertainment despite non-existing budgets and filming on standing sets at the old, threadbare Tiffany lot on Sunset Boulevard. The opener, Dynamite ranch presented Ken as a cowboy falsely accused of safe-cracking.The robbery was actually committed by villainous foreman Park Owens (Alan Roscoe) but only the rancher's daughter, Doris (Ruth Hall), believes in his innocence. But even she turns against the cowboy when his glove is found on the crime scene. When the assistance of the rancher's accountant (Arthur Hoyt), Ken sets a trap for Owens and manages to clear his own good name. As a sign of changing times in Hollywood, former silent star Jack Perrin appears at the bottom of the cast-list playing one of Owens' henchmen. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Perhaps most noteworthy for the first onscreen performance by future Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel, this politcal melodrama from director Charles Brabin stars Lionel Barrymore as Jefferson Keane, a widowed US Senator who suddenly finds himself sought after by Consuela, a beautiful young woman played by Karen Morley. Smitten by her, Keane marries Consuela, unaware of the fact that she is in cahoots with a powerful lobbyist and is only pretending to be in love. After Consuela persuades Keane to take a bride for his vote on a water-rights bill, he suddenly finds himself embroiled in a scandal that he cannot escape. The aforementioned McDaniel plays a maid. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama with strong racist overtones, Clara Bow attempts to revive her failing career by playing a free-spirited girl whose father is an American Indian and whose mother is Anglo Saxon. For some reason the girl doesn't know of her mixed heritage and constantly fights with her dad. The rebellious girl decides to show her dad who's boss by marrying a man he hates. Unfortunately it's a big mistake and soon after she gives birth to a sickly baby the marriage busts up. He leaves her impoverished and in desperation she turns to prostitution. Eventually, she returns to her homeland and learns the truth. Now at peace she meets a boy with similar heritage and they find marital bliss together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson's final film for Warner Bros. is as much a vehicle for comedienne Winnie Lightner as it is for the venerable vaudeville team. The premise: Gertie (Lightner) marries Harlan (Johnson), then divorces him to marry Guthrie (Olsen), Harlan's partner in a bathing-suit manufacturing business. After Gertie dumps Guthrie, he weds Lucille (Vivian Oakland), while Harlan ties the knot with Lucille's sister Mabel (Dorothy Christy). Several years pass before Gertie re-enters Harlan and Guthrie's lives, demanding back alimony. Since the partners have never informed their henpecking wives that they've been married before, the fur really begins to fly when Lucille and Mabel spot Gertie in a variety of compromising situations with their spouses. The laughs multiply when Gertie pursues her two ex-hubbies on an ocean liner, then descends upon them at a Florida swimsuit convention. Olsen and Johnson seem uncomfortable doing what is essentially Laurel and Hardy material (Ole Olsen even sports a mustache, a la Hardy), but they invest their roles with their usual manic enthusiasm. Gold Dust Gertie winds up with a slapstick speedboat chase, consisting mainly of stock footage from the recently completed Joe E. Brown comedy Top Speed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

Set in the Mississippi Valley, The Flood spends the bulk of its running time concentrating on a romantic triangle. Heroine Eleanor Boardman is married to William V. Vong, but she's in love with muscular Monte Blue. Only the titular deluge, brought about by a bursting dam, solves this domestic dilemma. The climactic flood sequences are a bit disappointing, especially after the dialogue has raised audience expectations to a fever pitch. Silent-picture leading man Monte Blue never did click as a talkie star, and within a few years he was rebuilding his career from the ground up as a bit player. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Not every Greta Garbo film is an imperishable classic; this was seldom truer than in the case of her repetitious 1931 vehicle Inspiration. A modernized adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's Sappho, the film casts Garbo as Yvonne, a Parisian belle with "a history." When her past returns to haunt her, she decides to walk out on her sweetheart Andre (Robert Montgomery), even though she still loves him. Eventually she returns to Andre, but this time he leaves her. Worried that Yvonne will take drastic action over his defection, Andre returns, whereupon Yvonne breaks up the romance a third time, "all for the best." Had there been a fourth breakup, the audience probably would have walked out. No matter: Garbo illuminates every scene she's in, and that's all anyone could possibly ask for. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Out of sympathy, a grown lad fighting for Canada in World War I agrees to let an older childless woman adopt him, becoming unexpectedly close to her just before he's shipped off to combat in this sentimental war drama. ~ All Movie Guide

In this romantic drama, a chorine marries her absent-minded childhood sweetheart so she can make her real love, a millionaire jealous. The newlyweds are on their honeymoon, but soon get in trouble when the house detective bursts in their room. It seems the groom forgot to sign his bride's new name into the register. The detective then informs him, that he caught the woman in the room with a different man the night before. The couple is thrown out, and the groom, angered that his bride was unfaithful before they were even married, leaves her. The woman is heartbroken, and throws herself into a new Broadway show to help her forget. On opening night, who should appear but the millionaire bearing a bouquet and offering to become her new husband. Happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a New York dressmaker struggles to make it big so she can provide a good life for her beloved son. As her son enters college, she opens a Fifth Avenue boutique. When her son falls in love with a chorus girl, the mother is appalled. Later, the girl finds herself a wealthy benefactor and runs up a large tab at the dress shop. The dressmaker's son has no idea that his true love is messing around. When he returns from college, still deeply in love, the mother attempts to blackmail the chorine into breaking up by forcing her to pay her bill or else. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, one of the first to be completely shot in Technicolor, two shop clerks go out on the town to look for wealthy fellows to shower with them gifts and show them a good time. They end up pursuing two disparate men, a poor one and a rich one, to Havana where more romantic mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide