Warren Hymer Movies

In this comedy, a convict uses his skills as a masseur and a fight manager to get out of prison and become the private gym coach for a powerful oil magnate. When the instructor's little brother gets involved with his employer's daughter and they learn that the oil baron is trying to pull off shenanigans with the government all heck breaks loose so the ex-con enlists the aid of two other former inmates to help him set things right. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The most intriguing aspect of the 1932 Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey romp Hold 'Em Jail was that it was co-scripted by legendary humorist and frequent Marx Bros. contributor S. J. Perelman. The film bears a slight resemblance to the like-vintage Marx/Perelman collaboration Horse Feathers, in that both pictures are climaxed by a zany football game sequence. But while Horse Feathers is set at a college, Hold 'Em Jail takes place behind the cold gray walls of Bidemore Prison. Edgar Kennedy, Bidemore's warden, is all geared up for an impending all-prisoner football game; alas, his team is woefully short of talent. Kennedy puts out a call to Bidemore's "alumni," one of whom is nightclub-owner John Sheehan. When novelty salesmen Wheeler and Woolsey show up at Sheehan's club, the owner frames the two goofs on a robbery charge so that they'll be carted off to Bidemore and recruited for the football team. W&W make themselves at home in jail, securing jobs as trustees so that Wheeler can romance Kennedy's pretty daughter Betty Grable (who was 16 at the time, and looks it), while Woolsey pitches woo at Kennedy's homely sister Edna May Oliver (explaining that she's spent four years studying music in Paris, Edna confesses "I'm not a virtuoso." "Not after four years in Paris" is Woolsey's response). During the climactic gridiron activity, Wheeler and Woolsey spot the duplicitous John Sheehan on the other team, and struggle manfully to get him to sign a confession that will exonerate them. When originally previewed, Hold 'Em Jail was a musical comedy running 74 minutes; audiences laughed at the comedy scenes but groaned at the songs, whereupon the film was pared down to a 66-minute non-musical. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Cagney was originally pegged to play brash Broadway columnist Jimmy Russell in this pleasant if somewhat lightweight newspaper yarn, but when director William Wellman called "action," Douglas Fairbanks Jr. had replaced him. In love with pretty actress Mary Wodehouse (Frances Dee), Jimmy can only watch as gangster Eddie Shaw (Lyle Talbot) takes on the girl's mounting debt. Sending Jimmy on a wild goose chase to Atlantic City, Shaw then attempts to lure Mary to his penthouse but is instead confronted with the girl's gun-toting Aunt Hattie (Cecil Cunningham). Jimmy manages to escape Shaw's goons and arrives at Shaw's apartment just in time to watch Aunt Hattie hide the murder weapon. There is an attempt at a coverup, and the eventual ruling of the court reads suicide. The ambitious Mary, meanwhile, marries theatrical entrepreneur Max Boncour (André Luguet) and Jimmy vows to stay away from the "love racket" for good. Or at least until gal-pal Sally (Ann Dvorak) can convince him otherwise. Although George Raft is listed in most credits for Love is a Racket, he is not in the surviving print. The drama was retitled Such Things Happen for release in Great Britain, where the word "racket" meant something entirely different. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

An illusionist is performing his astounding tricks when an audience member is killed by another. This mystery chronicles the attempts of the magician to find out whodunit and why. He gives his theories to a police detective who thinks the illusionist is plumb nuts. Still the investigator goes along with the magician's plot and allows him to stage a seance. During the spooky doings, the killer is revealed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A remake of Howard Hawks's 1928 effort A Girl in Every Port, Goldie is the sort of film for which the phrase "Male Chauvinist Pig" was invented. Finding a book of girl's addresses, a sailor named Spike (Warren Hymer) learns to his dismay that every one of the girls has been tattooed by her previous sweetheart. Vowing to beat up the man responsible for this, Spike finally tracks the perpetrator down; he turns out to be another sailor named Bill (Spencer Tracy), who winds up as Spike's closest friend. Later on, the boys find themselves in Calais, where Spike falls in love with carnival girl Goldie (Jean Harlow). Bill considers Goldie to be nothing more nor less than a gold-digger, but Spike refuses to believe him. Goldie shows her true colors when she "comes on" to Bill, whereupon the latter leaves behind another tattoo as a warning for the gullible Spike. Geez, ya just can't trust dem dames! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first of director John Ford's three films for 1931 was the now-forgotten The Seas Beneath. Essentially a reworking of Ford's 1930 effort Men Without Women, the story concentrates on the WWI submarine crew captained by rough-and-tumble Bob Kingsley (George O'Brien). While trying to coerce a German sub into a winner-take-all battle, Kingsley learns that his sweetheart Anna-Maria Von Stuben (Marion Lessing) is an enemy spy, and that her brother and fiancee are officers on the German vessel. Adding to the intrigue is Mona Maris, a sexy Cabaret singer who likewise moonlights as a spy. The Seas Beneath was largely filmed on location in and around Catalina Island. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lone Star Ranger was a superior entry in western star George O'Brien's Zane Grey series for Fox Studios. Lensed on location in Utah's Monument Valley (long before it was "adopted" by John Ford), the film was adapted for the screen by Zane Grey from a novel by Max Brand, which had previously done service as a Tom Mix vehicle (and would later be remade by Fox with John Kimbrough in the lead). At the outset of the film, Buck Duane (O'Brien) is an outlaw, but upon rescuing Mary Aldridge (Sue Carol) from a runaway stagecoach, he vows to turn over a new leaf. He takes to ranching, whereupon the governor offers him a pardon -- if he will agree to lasso a gang of cattle rustlers. What no one knows is that the leader of the outlaws is Mary's father Colonel Aldridge (Russell Simpson). There are plenty of well-rehearsed thrills in Lone Star Ranger, but the film's most charming moment is purely spontaneous: upon meeting Sue Carol for the first time, a shirtless George O'Brien instinctively sucks in his stomach! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This sprightly romantic comedy chronicles the delightfully unlikely and tempestuous relationship between an opera diva and a sneak thief. They meet after he breaks into her home and attempts to chloroform her. She awakens and arrogantly warns him that the drug could destroy her beautiful voice. The thief then recognizes her as his very favorite singer. The two become friends. She attempts to have him take voice training so that she can reform him from a crook to an opera star, but he hates it and so prepares to resume his previous vocation. This causes her to ask him to marry him, but he refuses until she agrees to give up her career. Unfortunately, their married life is anything but blissful and eventually, he leaves her. Fortunately, they are reunited in the story's romantic conclusion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The one-time-only combination of director John Ford and actors Spencer Tracy (in his first film) and Humphrey Bogart (in his second) should be recommendation enough for the offbeat comedy-drama Up the River. Tracy and Warren Hymer play Saint Louis and Dannemora Dan, two hard-boiled but likeable prison convicts. While in stir, the boys befriend another convict named Steve (Bogart), who is in love with woman's-prison inmate Judy (Claire Luce). Eventually, Steve and Judy are released, whereupon they get married and head to a small town where no one knows of their criminal pasts. It isn't long, however, before the couple's future happiness is threatened by dishonest salesman Frosby (Gaylord Pendleton), the no-good rat who framed Judy. Frosby threatens to expose Steve's prison record if the latter refuses to go along with a scheme to defraud his neighbors. Learning of this situation, Saint Louis and Dan escape from jail, foil Frosby's scheme, and return behind bars just in time to play in a prison all-star baseball game! Nonsensical to say the least, Up the River is also a film that's hard to dislike. It was remade by 20th Century-Fox in 1938, with Preston S. Foster and Tony Martin respectively in the Tracy and Bogart roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical comedy, a young man from Virginia who is heir to a wealthy estate falls in love with a girl who longs to be a Broadway star. He moves to New York to be with her but discovers that she's a lot more interested in her career than in settling down. Hoping to turn her gaze away from the Great White Way (and onto himself), he buys up controlling interest in the show in which she has just been cast -- and fires her. However, the young man first discovers unemployment makes her no more inclined to walk down the aisle with him, and besides, he now has the Actor's Equity to contend with. The cast includes John Breeden, Lola Lane, DeWitt Jennings, and Stepin Fetchit, and features the songs "The Breakaway," "Walking with Susie," and "The Varsity Drag." At this time, no prints of this film are known to exist. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This sequel to the enormously successful silent film What Price Glory reunites director Raoul Walsh with stars Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe. As in the earlier film, McLaglen and Lowe are cast respectively as Flagg and Quirt, those ever-brawling U.S. Marine sergeants. With WWI but a dim memory, Flagg and Quirt continue their rowdy escapades in Russia, Nicaragua and Coney Island. And, of course, they vie for the attentions of several eager and willing young ladies, including the sexy Elenita (Lily Damita). Swedish-dialect comedian El Brendel, an inescapable presence in the early-talkie product from Fox Studios, co-stars as Olson, who indulges in his familiar "get me the lay of the land" routine. Scripted by vaudevillian Billy K. Wells, a specialist in vulgar and sometimes downright dirty humor, The Cock-Eyed World worked overtime pushing the envelope of good taste (by 1929 standards, at least), which may be one of the reasons that this dreary exercise was such a huge hit at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, set in the Far North, a half-Eskimo woman leaves her tribe and her husband to find adventure with a visiting sea captain. Unfortunately, she finds that the big world isn't what she expected. She ends up having to support the lazy sea-captain by singing. She then decides to go back home, but that seems easier said than done. On the way back, she and her captain slip into an icy crevasse. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide