Marsha Hunt Movies
American actress Marsha Hunt, born Marcia Hunt, attended the Theodore Irving School of Dramatics while still a teenager. Simultaneously, she worked as a Powers model until she debuted onscreen in The Virginia Judge (1935) at age 18. Hunt went on to become a very busy screen actress through the early '50s. In the '30s she appeared in supporting roles such as bridesmaids and coeds, while in the '40s she played leads in second features and second leads and supporting roles in major productions. In the early '50s, during the heyday of the McCarthy Era "witch hunts," she was blacklisted by the studios for her liberal political beliefs, and after 1952 she appeared in only a handful of films, as well as the TV series Peck's Bad Girl. Through the '80s, however, she still turned up occasionally in character roles on TV. From 1938-43 she was married to editor (now director) Jerry Hopper. After 1946 she was married to movie/TV scriptwriter Robert Presnell Jr., who died in 1986. She remains active in social issues, lending her help to organizations involved with such issues as peace, poverty, population, and pollution; she is a frequent speaker on the issues that concern her, and she serves on nearly a dozen Boards of Directors. She was last onscreen in Johnny Got His Gun (1971). ~ All Movie Guide- 1936
After several appearances as a "good girl," little Jane Withers returns to her patented screen brattiness in Gentle Julia. Based on a novel by Booth Tarkington, the film stars Withers as Florence Atwater, precocious kid-sister of flirtatious Julia Atwater (Marsha Hunt). After spending most of the film bedeviling Julia's hometown sweetheart Noble Dill (Tom Brown), Florence shows that she's really a good kid underneath it all by saving her sister from an unfortunate marriage to phoney-baloney city-slicker Mr. Crum (George Meeker). The film's comic high point is a fancy lawn party, which Florence sabotages by releasing a frightening array of bugs, mice and snakes. Gentle Julia represents Jane Withers' second co-starring appearance with her male counterpart, diminutive screen menace Jackie Searl (the two young actors, neither one of which were as nasty in real life as they could be on screen, got along splendidly). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jane Withers, Tom Brown, (more)
Another above-average entry in Paramount's Zane Grey series, Arizona Raiders was adapted from Grey's Riders of Spanish Peaks. Buster Crabbe, here billed under his given name of Larry, stars as outlaw Laramie Nelson, who at the beginning of the picture manages to escape a "necktie party." A sense of obligation which Laramie himself cannot explain leads him to rescue another miscreant, Tracks Williams (Raymond Hatton), from a similar demise. The two desert rats team up with a third, handsome young Lone Alonzo Mulhall (Johnny Downs), whereupon the threesome engage in numerous adventures, many of them humorous in nature. Marsha Hunt, as much of a "regular" in the Zane Grey series as Crabbe and Hatton, plays the self-reliant ingenue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Raymond Hatton, (more)
- 1935
Vaudeville humorist Walter C. Kelley, who toured for years as "The Virginia Judge," repeated the characterization in this 1935 Paramount film. When not busy dispensing pearls of bucolic wisdom in the courtroom, Judge Davis (Kelly) of Tidewater, Virginia, tries to straighten out his hotheaded stepson Jim Preston (Robert Cummings, in one of his first major roles). The story reaches a dramatic peak when Jim is arrested for shooting his best friend Bob (Johnny Downs) during a quarrel over pretty Mary Lee Calvert (Marsha Hunt). Things look bad for a while, but Judge Davis is able to solve everyone's problems in record time. The presence of Stepin Fetchit in the cast of Virginia Judge indicates that Paramount hoped to build up Walter C. Kelly as a replacement for the late, beloved Will Rogers, who'd co-starred with Fetchit in the remarkably similar Judge Priest (1934). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter "Judge" Kelly, Marsha Hunt, (more)
