William Janney Movies

Coquette is Mary Pickford's first talkie, based on the play by George Abbott and Ann Preston Bridgers. The story was already made famous on the stage by star Helen Hayes. At almost 40 years old and lacking her signature curls, Pickford plays the young Southern belle Norma Besant, who is courting three different men: Stanley (Matt Moore), Robert (George S. Irving), and bad boy Michael Jeffrey (Johnny Mack Brown). She naturally falls for Michael and flees with him to a cottage. Her angry father, Dr. John Besant (John M. St. Polis), follows them with his shotgun, shooting both Michael and himself. Superstar Pickford won Best Actress at the 1930 Academy awards. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In this drama, set in a bordertown gambling saloon, the owner falls in love with a promiscuous young girl. When she has an affair with another, he tosses her out of town. She gets revenge by marrying his younger brother. To make it worse, she and her new hubby honeymoon in the jilted brother's saloon. The saloon owner simply pretends he doesn't know her. Meanwhile, sure that revenge is her, the woman begins playing around with other men. Unfortunately, she chooses to mess with the town lunatic. He kills her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Exercising his usual creative prerogative, Lowell Sherman was both star and director of RKO's The Pay Off. Sherman plays Gene Fenmore, a jaded gangster boss who falls in love with innocent young Nancy Porter (Marian Nixon). When Nancy's sweetheart Tommy Brown (William Janney) faces execution for a crime he didn't commit, Gene's first impulse is to let the boy fry so that he can have a clear field with the heroine. Ultimately, however, Gene proves he's a decent sort by clearing Tommy and philosophically keeping that date with the electric chair himself.
Released in Great Britain as The Losing Game, The Pay-Off was remade in 1938 as Law of the Underworld, with Chester Morris in the old Lowell Sherman role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Those Who Dance is not so much a film as a "class reunion" for several former silent-screen favorites. Monte Blue stars as Dan Hogan, a cop who poses as a Detroit gangster, the better to ferret out the murderer of his brother. He does this as much for himself as for his sweetheart Nora Brady (Lila Lee), whose own brother Tim (William Janney) has been accused of the crime. The real villain is Diamond Joe Jennings (William "Stage" Boyd), who is ultimately betrayed by his mistress Kitty (Betty Compson). The title, of course, is derived from the old proverb that ends "must pay the piper." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Released in both silent and sound versions, this lurid melodrama from Universal was based on the 1924 play Carnival by William R. Doyle. Mary Nolan, whose demure name hid a rather volatile personality, played Helen Herbert, a sideshow dancer falling for handsome socialite Bobby Spencer (Leon Janney). After a tête-à-tête with Spencer Sr. (George Irving), Helen, like a carnival version of Marguerite Gautier, heroically disappears from young Bobby's life by leaping to her death from a balloon. A former Ziegfeld girl, Mary Nolan kept changing her moniker (from "Bubbles" Wilson to Imogene Robertson to Mary Nolan) in order to escape a series of lurid scandals. Retiring from films in 1932, she later suffered bouts with drug addiction, managed a bungalow court in Hollywood, and died all but forgotten at the young age of 43 in 1948. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Two holdovers from the silent-film era top the cast of Columbia's Meet the Wife. Laura La Plante and Lew Cody are cast respectively as scatterbrained wife Gertrude Lennox and Getrude's first husband Phillip Lord. Long believed dead, Lord returns from the ashes as a successful writer. Meanwhile, poor Gertrude has taken a second husband, Harvey Lennox (Harry Myers). When the heroine proves incapable of choosing between her two spouses, Phillip and Harvey put their heads together to come up with a solution of their own. A subplot concerns the romantic travails of Gertrude's sister Doris (Joan Marsh), who is ardently pursued by gormless juvenile Gregory Brown (William Janney) and silly-ass Englishman Victor Staunton (Claud Allister). Meet the Wife is based on the play of the same name by Lynn Starling. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1935 Mascot programmer of the same name, Girls Demand Excitement offers an early starring appearance by John Wayne. The Duke is cast as college basketball player Peter Brooks, who's in love with sports-happy Joan Madison (Virginia Cherrill). Their hot-and-cold relationship culminates in a boys-against-the-girls basketball match, a scene only slightly less ridiculous than an early sequence in which a bunch of sexually integrated psychology students are assigned to test the "emotional reaction" to a group necking session! Evidently designed as a musical, Girls Demand Excitement contains no songs whatsoever, robbing future generations of the spectacle of John Wayne serenading his lady love. With films like these, it's no wonder that Wayne had to start his career all over again in cheap westerns. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an assistant DA must scramble to save the life of an innocent man he mistakenly sent to the chair. Unfortunately, he is too late and turns to alcoholism to soothe his throbbing conscience. It is only down from there and soon the attorney begins working for the mob until he falls in love. Some of the story was based on the life of William J. Fallon, a New York City attorney. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Sudden success can be a double-edged sword as this drama aptly proves. An aspiring musician finds success when his manager has him switch from playing the sax to vocals. He soon becomes a popular star. Unfortunately as his popularity swells, so does his head. His arrogance and megalomania cause his downfall. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

George Arliss is a world-renowned pianist, engaged to a young woman (Bette Davis) much younger than himself. An explosion renders Arliss completely deaf, but he soon becomes an expert lip-reader. To practice this skill, he looks out his window through binoculars, reading the lips of those who pass through the public park below. He learns that many people have problems far worse than his own, so he secretly arranges to solve the financial and emotional crises of those whose words he has read. Arliss' talent backfires on him when he spots his fiancee in the park with another man; she reveals that she does not love Arliss, but is staying with him out of loyalty. Though broken-hearted, Arliss expansively allows his fiancee to marry the man she truly loves, and even arranges for their future security. The Man Who Played God was based on a stage play also starring George Arliss, which he'd previously filmed in 1922. It was remade in 1955 as Sincerely Yours, starring the inimitable Liberace! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This well-wrought drama chronicles the rise and fall of a midwestern family dynasty from the mid 1800s through the Great Depression. Most of the tale centers on a young Dakota farm boy whose grand schemes and ambition lead him on a cattle drive to Texas. From there he hooks up with the owner of a major Chicago slaughterhouse and then falls in love with his new partner's beautiful daughter. They marry and after the youth figures out how to use refrigerated train cars to ship his beef, begin living the lives of the nouveau riche. When his partner dies, he leaves the young man his considerable fortune making him an instant meat-packing magnate. With a good wife, two beautiful children and a terrific home, life for him couldn't be better. Unfortunately, his self-centered wife is discontent. Thinking her husband's profession is preventing her from becoming a true society dame, she begins badgering him to selling the meat business and becoming a more respectable stockbroker. Unfortunately, her attempted machinations fall on deaf ears and the resulting frustration drives her insane. The tycoon's son has his own troubles with his beautiful blue-blooded wife and brokerage business that is destroyed when the market crashes in 1929. His father, who did eventually sell the meat business and invest in his son' brokerage, is also nearly wiped out. In order to support his wife and save face, the son begins embezzling. Unfortunately he gets caught. When he learns that his own wife has betrayed him, the despondent youth is beyond help and tragedy ensues for both the son and his elderly father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a middle-aged woman married to a much older man begins a harmless flirtation with an artistically inclined gigolo after she mistakes him for her long-lost lover. Unfortunately, the opportunist really loves the woman's daughter. He is also smitten with another woman. Romantic mayhem ensues when the artist's true identity is revealed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This tight little melodrama opens with a group of wealthy people staying at a luxurious European mansion. According to legend, the mansion's "blue room" is cursed--everyone who has ever spent the night in that room has met with an untimely end. The three suitors of the heroine (Gloria Stuart) wager that each can survive a night in the forbidding blue room. The first to brave the room is a callow young man (William Janney) in whom the heroine has no real interest. A scream is heard in the middle of the night; when the other guests investigate, the young man has vanished, and the available clues suggest that he has met with foul play. Within the next several months, more murders occur in the blue room, prompting the lord of the manor (Lionel Atwill) to belatedly summon the authorities. A police inspector (Edward Arnold) solves both the mystery of the missing guest and the series of murders. Veteran moviegoers will be able to guess the outcome without even trying, but somehow Mystery in the Blue Room was deemed worthy of two remakes: The Missing Guest (38) and Murder in the Blue Room (44) (a musical!) Though not publicized at the time, Murder in the Blue Room was Universal's least expensive non-western feature film of 1933. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide