George Irving Movies

A Child is Born is a remake of 1932's Life Begins, softened to conform to stricter movie censorship and lengthened to qualify as an "A" picture. The film is an episodic account of one particularly busy night in a maternity hospital. A generous portion of screen time is lavished on a gangster's moll (Geraldine Fitzgerald), about to give birth to her illegitimate baby. The young woman dies in childbirth, but other subplots end more happily. Even at 79 minutes, A Child is Born seems more padded and protracted than its 1932 predecessor--notably in a contrived sequence wherein the only surgeon qualified to perform a delicate operation is blinded in an accident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real "message to Garcia" was delivered by an American lieutenant to Cuban rebel General Garcia, asking for the General's help in the Spanish-American war. The fact that the lieutenant made his way to Garcia in absolute safety was ignored in 20th Century-Fox's Message to Garcia--which is just as well, since otherwise the movie would have been eight minutes long. In the film version, lieutenant John Boles is guided through the treacherous Cuban jungle by Barbara Stanwyck, doing her best to convince us that she's an Hispanic senorita. Also along for the trip is renegade marine Wallace Beery, who may not be as friendly as he seems. Fighting off Spaniards and spies at every turn, Boles successfully completes his mission. As history, Message to Garcia is about as reliable as the Hearst newspaper dispatches which triggered the Spanish-American war in the first place. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although some purists hold out for Duck Soup (1933), many Marx Brothers fans consider A Night at the Opera the team's best film. Immediately after the credits roll, we are introduced to Groucho Marx as penny-ante promoter Otis B. Driftwood. After a sumptuous dinner with a beautiful blonde at a fancy Milan restaurant, Driftwood tries to cadge another free meal from his wealthy patroness, Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont). The dignified dowager complains that Driftwood had promised to get her into high society, but has done nothing so far. Otis B. counters by introducing Mrs. C to pompous opera entrepreneur Gottleib (Sig Rumann); all Mrs. Claypool has to do is invest several hundred thousand dollars in Gottleib's opera company, and her entree into society is in the bag. Contingent upon this plan is Driftwood's signing of Rodolfo Lassparri (Walter Woolf King), a self-important tenor. Backstage at the opera, Driftwood meets Fiorello (Chico Marx), who poses as a manager and offers to sell Driftwood the "world's greatest tenor"-not Lassparri, as Driftwood assumes, but Fiorello's pal Ricardo Baroni (Allan Jones). Instantly the two sharpsters try to draw up a contract ("The party of the first part shall hereafter be known as the party of the first part..."), which they proceed to tear up piece by piece whenever coming across a clause that displeases them (Driftwood: "That's a sanity clause"; Fiorello: "You no foola me. There ain't no Sanity Claus"). Having lost Lassparri to Gottleib, Driftwood sails back to America with Mrs. Claypool and the opera company. Gottleib arranges for Driftwood to get the tiniest, least accessible stateroom on the ship. Unpacking his trunk, Driftwood discovers that he's got to share his postage-stamp quarters with Ricardo Baroni, who has stowed away because he's in love with the opera troupe's leading lady Rosa (Kitty Carlisle). Also hiding out in Driftwood's trunk is Fiorello, who's come along because he's still Ricardo's manager, and the wacky Tomasso (Harpo Marx), Lassparri's former dresser, who has come along for the hell of it. Anxious to arrange a tete-a-tete with Mrs. Claypool in his stateroom, Otis finds out that his unwelcome guests won't leave until they're fed ("Do you have any stewed prunes? Well, give them some black coffee, that'll sober 'em up"). After ordering a huge dinner, Otis and his new friends are crowded even farther by a steady stream of intruders, including an engineer and his assistant, a cleaning lady, a manicurist, a girl looking for her Aunt Minnie, and a dozen waiters. The celebrated "stateroom scene" comes to a rollicking conclusion when Mrs. Claypool has the misfortune of opening the door. On the last night of the voyage, Fiorello, Tomasso and Ricardo sneak out of their stateroom to enjoy an impromptu ethnic festival in steerage. Ricardo sings, Fiorello "shoots the keys" on the piano, and Tomasso plays the film's theme song Alone on the harp. The stowaways are caught and thrown in the brig, but with Driftwood's help they escape. To avoid recapture, the stowaways don heavy beards and pose as three famed Russian aviators. After making a shambles of a public reception, the three reprobates hide out in Driftwood's New York apartment, where everyone conspires to drive an investigating detective (Robert Emmet O'Connor) crazy. Driftwood is fired from the opera company for associating with the stowaways, while Rosa is dismissed for refusing Lassparri's affections. In order to restore Rosa's job and put the deserving Ricardo in Lassparri's place during the opening performance of La Traviata, Driftwood, Fiorello and Tomasso concoct a scheme that will reduce the opera to comic chaos. The actual night at the opera in A Night at the Opera must be seen to be believed, but the spirit of the scene can be summed up by Gottleib's anguished cry "A battleship in Il Trovatore!" Opera was the Marx Brothers' first film for MGM, and they dearly coveted a hit after the disappointing box-office showing of their final Paramount films. With the blessing of MGM production chief Irving Thalberg, the Marxes went on the road with their brilliant writing staff (including George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind and Al Boasberg) to test their comedy material before live audiences. As a result of this careful preplanning, Night at the Opera was a smash-hit gigglefest, grossing over $3 million and putting the Marxes back on top in the hearts and minds of filmgoers everywhere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though his parents are street evangelists, Clyde Griffiths (Phillips Holmes) grows up in squalor, but not without ambitions. He first works as a bellhop in Kansas City, but when he's the passenger in a car that kills a little girl, Clyde fears he'll be arrested and flees town. His wealthy uncle Samuel Griffiths (Frederick Burton) gets Clyde a job at a shirt factory in upstate New York where the young man soon becomes foreman of a department that employs only young women. He is attracted to Roberta Alden (Sylvia Sidney), known as "Bert," and though company policy forbids them to fraternize, they begin secretly dating on weekends. Eventually, Clyde seduces the smitten Bert, even though he has already become attracted to Sondra Finchley (Frances Dee), the daughter of a wealthy family. Clyde and Sondra fall in love, and she promises to marry him when she's of age, but by now, Bert has informed Clyde that she is pregnant. With vague thoughts of drowning her in mind, Clyde takes Bert on a vacation in the Adirondacks. While canoeing, he decides not to kill her, but to honorably marry her instead. He reveals to Bert what he'd planned, and in shock, she accidentally falls overboard. However, instead of rescuing her, Clyde swims to shore, and Bert drowns. Eventually, the police track him down and he is arrested, resulting in a trial that gains national attention. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Based on a stage play by Augustus Thomas, this silent takes a Biblical saying, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," and applies it to the double standard of the then-modern era. Frank Clayton (Henry Clive) travels to Paris with his wife Elinor (Leah Baird). In steps the treacherous Benjamin deLota (Warburton Gamble). He was once friendly with Mrs. Clayton and attempts to renew that relationship, while at the same time getting Mr. Clayton tangled up with an artist's model. When the Claytons return to the States, Frank (who hasn't been so faithful himself) has doubts about his wife's fidelity that run so high, he begins to suspect that their son is not really his. As a Man Thinks was quite a powerful morality play for its time. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A French sculptor travels to LA and, with the help of Ace the Wonder Dog, pretends to be blind so he can sneak into a museum and reclaim some missing love letters. The amorous missives were written by his sister and could destroy her reputation. Someone has been using them to blackmail her, so her brother steals them. Unfortunately, they get mixed up in some shipping crates and get sent to California with a bunch of his latest creations. When the crooks learn that the letters are there, they too head for LA making the bulk of this crime drama a race to find those letters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This independently made mystery features a solid, if not exactly stellar, cast. The Blue Pearl of the title is a priceless piece of jewelry which belongs to a royal Romanian family. However, Frederick Thurston (D.J. Hannegan) and Penrose Kent (Earl Schenk) have managed to get their hands on it. They sell it to Holland Webb (Lumsden Hare), who borrowed the money from his wife, Laura (Edith Hallor). The gem, however, isn't for Laura -- Webb gives it to his mistress, who is Sybil Kent (Florence Billings), the wife of Penrose. Police commissioner Richard Drake (Richard Halliday), who also happens to be an admirer of Laura's, is determined to track down the pearl, and he puts Laura's brother, Wilfred Scott (Corliss Giles), on the case. Scott discovers Webb giving Mrs. Kent the pearl. That night, the Webbs have a party and everyone is there. The featured guest is a Russian hypnotist and Sybil offers to be his subject. The lights go out and when they come back on again, the pearl is missing. Everyone except Laura is searched, and she confesses to Drake that she is the thief -- mainly because her husband engraved the pearl to Sybil, and she wants to use it as grounds for divorce. Webb's affair with Mrs. Kent is revealed, and the pearl is returned to the police. Once Laura is free from her philandering husband, it is obvious she will unite with Drake. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Loretta Young, who became known almost exclusively for playing sweet, wholesome roles, is kind of a shocker in this romantic drama as Letty Strong, an unwed mother who survives by living life as a grifter and the next thing to a prostitute -- all for the good of her son Mickey (Jackie Kelk), who, not yet 10 years old, is turning into a street hustler every bit as devious and untrustworthy as she is. Then, one day, he's skating on the street and gets hit by a milk truck, which happens to be driven by Malcolm Trevor (Cary Grant), the owner of the dairy, who was spot-checking his operation. Letty and Mickey try to take Malcolm for a hefty sum in court until their case is blown out of the water, but Malcolm also finds himself appalled by the kind of life that Letty is setting up for the boy. He gets her to agree to let Mickey move in with him and his wife Alice ($Marion Burns), at their estate outside the city. And after some extremely rough patches, Mickey begins to see that there's more to being a boy -- or becoming a man -- than what you can steal or cheat off the next guy. But Letty isn't about to let her son get away that easily, or let Malcolm get away with taking him from her, even if he is right. She tries to wreck Malcolm's home and marriage, all to get her son back and take revenge on him in the process. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Despite stiff competition like Poor Little Rich Girl and Heidi, Bright Eyes is arguably the best of Shirley Temple's 1930s vehicles. The little curly-top is cast as Shirley Blake, daughter of Mary Blake (Lois Wilson), the widowed housemaid of snooty J. Wellington and Anita Smythe (Theodore Von Eltz and Dorothy Christy). Though continually terrorized by the Smythe's obnoxious, doll-destroying daughter Joy (Jane Withers), Shirley finds comfort in the fact that she is the darling of the airplane-pilot buddies of her late father. Especially fond of our heroine is flyboy Loop Merritt, who arranges a birthday party for the girl. Alas, even as Shirley sings "On the Good Ship Lollipop" to a gathering of beaming airmen, her mother Mary is run over by a car while shopping for her daughter's birthday cake. It thus becomes Loop's painful duty to tell Shirley that her mother "cracked up," just like her father did (if this scene doesn't move the viewer to tears, the viewer is made of granite). Fortunately, the Smythe's irascible Uncle Ned takes a liking to Shirley, securing her financial future at the expense of his repulsive relatives. But before this happy ending can come about, Shirley must be rescued from an imperiled passenger plane by the resourceful Loop. Though Shirley Temple is inarguably the main drawing card in Bright Eyes, 9-year-old Jane Withers is equally terrific as the pint-sized "villainess"; indeed, some critics felt that Withers stole the show, and it was this as much as anything else that earned Withers her own starring series at 20th Century-Fox. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Returning from the war, Tom Mason (Tom Mix) rides square into a raging feud between the his family and the neighboring Brady gang. Dad Mason (George Irving) is wounded in an ambush, and Tom goes out to get revenge. At the Brady ranch he meets the lovely stepdaughter Paulita (Helene Costello), which naturally complicates matters somewhat. The untenable situation comes to an end, however, when both families are threatened by a gang of crooks determined to blow up a Spanish mission. The director of this fine Mix western was one Orville O. Dull who later became a producer at MGM. None of his films, it is safe to say, was ever released as a "Dull Production." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Calling Philo Vance is a perfunctory remake of 1933's The Kennel Murder Case, which many aficionados consider the best of the "Vance" films. James Stephenson plays the titular gentleman sleuth, who must solve the murder of the inventor of a revolutionary new bombsight (the original film concerned a championship dog race). The principal suspect is the victim's brother, who is taken out of the running when he, too, is bumped off. The actual killer is in the employ of an unnamed foreign government-and, in the tradition of Kennel Murder Case, is also the least suspicious and most cooperative of the suspects. With Calling Philo Vance, mystery novelist S. S. Van Dine's dilettante detective bade farewell to the screen for seven years, returning in 1947 through the facilities of low-budget PRC Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

En route from Honolulu to Los Angeles by steamship, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) is pressed into action when a fellow passenger is killed. The dead man was a prominent horse breeder, whose favorite stallion has been entered in the Santa Anita handicap. At first glance, it appears as though the victim has been kicked to death by his own horse, but further investigation reveals the complicity of a crooked gambling ring. The excitement of the "photo finish" climax is amplified when Charlie and Number One Son Lee (Keye Luke) are kidnapped by the gamblers -- and the murderer still hasn't been revealed! The best line in Charlie Chan at the Race Track occurs at the end, when Lee excitedly bursts into a room with a vital clue that Charlie has already revealed, whereupon Mr. Chan murmurs: "Please -- save clue for next case." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide