Noble Johnson Movies

Edward Knoblock's warhorse theatrical piece Kismet, first filmed in 1920, resurfaced as a talkie in 1930. Repeating the role he'd created on stage in 1911, Otis Skinner stars as Hajji, the wily Baghdad beggar who goes from rags to riches to rags again to riches again in the space of 24 hours. Outwitting the evil wazir (Sidney Blackmer), Hajji manages to install himself in the royal palace, romance the wazir's gorgeous "head wife," and arrange the marriage between his own daughter (Loretta Young) and the caliph's son (David Manners). Though well on in years, Skinner conveys much of the effortless charisma which had endeared him to audiences since the turn of the century. Kismet was remade in 1944 with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich; the popular Broadway musical version was brought to the screen in 1955, with Howard Keel as Hajji. The subsequent film versions have kept the 1930 Kismet out of television circulation, denying future generations the pleasure of watching the legendary Otis Skinner in action. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Herman Melville's classic novel gets a major revision in this screen adaptation of his seafaring novel - Hollywood's first talkie adaptation of the work. (A silent version, The Sea Beast, had been produced four years earlier). Captain Ahab Ceely (John Barrymore), a crusty and hard-drinking sailor, falls in love with Faith Mapple (Joan Bennett), the daughter of a man of the cloth. Ahab has a rival for Faith's affections in Derek (Lloyd Hughes), his wicked brother, but as Ahab sets sail, Faith pledges to him that she'll remain loyal to him while he's out to sea. While hunting for whales, Ahab is thrown overboard, and he loses his leg to a mammoth creature known to seamen as Moby Dick. When Ahab returns, he tells Faith that he won't hold her to her pledge to marry him before showing her the wooden peg that has replaced his limb. Faith shrieks in horror, and Ahab is crestfallen to realize that his romance is over. Returning to the sea, Ahab spends the next seven years searching for the great white whale Moby Dick, obsessed with getting revenge on the creature that took his leg and ruined his life. In addition to rewriting the famous first lines of the novel, in this version of Moby Dick, Ishmael doesn't even appear. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Warner Oland makes the first of four screen appearances as Sax Rohmer's insidious oriental Dr. Fu Manchu.The film makes an effort to explain Fu's hatred of all whites by showing the death of the Doctor's family during the Boxer Rebellion. Twenty years later, Fu Manchu is a full-blooded villain, using a hypnotized Jean Arthur to help wipe out the British family Fu holds responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. But when Arthur falls in love with potential victim Neil Hamilton, Dr. Fu is forced to add her to his death-list. Weakened only by the excessive "silly-ass Englishman" comedy relief of William Austin, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu is a rapid-fire adventure devoid of early-talkie clumsiness. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sal of Singapore contains only two reels' worth of dialogue, but it was enough to prove that Phyllis Haver's decision to retire from films in 1929 was a wise one. Haver plays the title character, a saloon habitue who catches the eye of burly Captain Ericcson (Alan Hale). Invited on board Ericcson's boat, Sal assumes it's business as usual, but she's wrong: A baby has been left in the Captain's care, and Sal has been "elected" to care for the infant. Her latent maternal instincts aroused, Sal of Singapore metamorphoses into a model of respectability. Viewers with long memories quickly recognized Sal of Singapore as a remake of the Richard Barthelmess vehicle Scarlet Seas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Handsome newcomer Don Coleman starred in this independently produced silent Western about a Texas Ranger whose foster-father has been falsely accused of a series of crimes. A former stunt-double for Douglas Fairbanks, Coleman was signed to a personal contract by Gower Gulch maverick Leo Maloney, who carefully groomed him for stardom in a series of well-mounted oaters released by Pathé. Like other Coleman Westerns, The Black Ace benefitted from an above-average supporting cast that included the veteran J.P. McGowan as the foster-father, African-American Noble Johnson as a "half-breed," and the beautiful and talented Jeanette Loff as the girl. The golden tressed Loff later starred opposite Paul Whiteman in Universal's musical extravaganza The King of Jazz, but, like Coleman, never truly made the switch to talkies. Coleman's career suffered a major setback on November 2, 1929 when Leo Maloney suddenly succumbed to a fatal heart attack. He stayed around for a couple of supporting roles but retired in 1935 to take up ranching full time. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Why Sailors Go Wrong was directed by Henry "Pathe" Lehrmann, whose comedy technique hadn't changed much since his days with the Keystone studios. Sammy Cohen and Ted McNamara play a pair of silly sailors, the best friends of hero Nick Stuart. In love with wealthy Sally Phipps, Stuart has been forbidden any contract with the girl by her domineering father. Daddy ships Phipps off in the family yacht, with Cohen and McNamara at the controls, while Stuart sneaks on board. The yacht is shipwrecked on a desert island, chock-full of hungry cannibals. Stuart rescues Phipps from the natives, proving himself a worthy potential husband, while Cohen and McNamara contend with a mischievous monkey. The film's "high point" finds the two comedy-relief gobs feeding an alligator castor oil so that the huge reptile will cough up their life savings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by a young Michael Curtiz, this Warner Bros. epic had aspirations of becoming another Intolerance (1916). In the end, Curtiz' treatise of man's inhumanity to man was ironically sabotaged by the enormous success of yet another studio release, the groundbreaking The Jazz Singer (1927). Basically a quaint romantic melodrama set during World War I, Noah's Ark opens with American George O'Brien falling in love with German Dolores Costelllo while travelling on the Orient Express on the eve of war. The train wrecks and the two seek shelter at a nearby hostelry. Russian military officer Noah Beery tries to molest Miss Costello but is repulsed by O'Brien. The three meet again near the end of the war in a little French village, where Beery accuses Costello, now Mrs. O'Brien, of being a German spy. Placed before a firing squad, Dolores is saved in the nick of time by her husband, a member of the squad.The Germans use this very moment to bomb and all are soon entombed in the basement of a demolished building. Comparing the war with the Biblical account of the Flood, screenwriters Anthony Coldeway and Darryl F. Zanuck flash back to Miriam (Costello) and Japheth (O'Brien) at the festival of Jaghut. The climactic Flood (the filming of which brought Miss Costello a severe case of pneumonia) pulls out all the stops and is magnificent in UCLA's lovingly restored print. After the deluge, the story shifts back to war-torn France, where Costello and O'Brien are rescued by the Red Cross on the eve of the Armistice. Ready to be released, Warner Bros. withdrew the film in order to add several scenes of dialogue, considered a necessity after the unprecedented reception of The Jazz Singer. The results were doleful: Ever so often, Noah's Ark comes to a screetching halt as the characters leave the realm of silent movies to speak stolid lines of dialogue. The cumbersome Vitaphone sound-on-disc made for pedestrian drama as everyone were forced to speak slowly and enunciate carefully. Dolores Costello, Warners' blonde leading lady and the off-screen Mrs. John Barrymore, suffered the most and would see her flourishing career all but evaporate. But UCLA's restoration of Noah's Ark proves once and for all that the rumors of Miss Costello having trouble with sibilants were highly exaggerated. It was Costello's line-reading of "Merthy, merthy, have you no thisther of your own?" in Tenderloin (1928) that supposedly sealed her fate in talkies. But even though the restored Noah's Ark shows little sign of the dreaded lisp, the hapless Miss Costello is visibly ill at ease before the microphone and her stilted dialogue, by Coldeway, is of no help whatsoever. "Part-talkies" like Noah's Ark were mercifully only a stop-gap measure; by the time of M-G-M's Broadway Melody (released June 6, 1929), "all-talking, all-dancing" features had already freed themselves from the constraints of early sound technology. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Having scored big-time box office with his first Biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), Cecil B. DeMille hoped to top this success with his 1927 The King of Kings. Inasmuch as he was now dealing with the life of Christ, DeMille had to be careful to serve up equal amounts of showmanship and reverence. The first creative challenge: how to "introduce" Christ in a tasteful manner? The answer: as a blind child is cured through Jesus' intervention, DeMille cuts to the child's point-of-view, slowly fading in on the kindly countenance of H.B. Warner as the Son of Man. Still, DeMille remained DeMille, especially in his handling of the character of Mary Magdalene (Jacqueline Logan). No longer a tattered streetwalker, Mary Magdalene is now a glamorous courtesan, replete with legions of gorgeous slave girls (one of whom is "bubble dancer" Sally Rand) and dressed in revealing Hollywood-style gowns. In fact, the film opens on this character, as she ruminates over the defection of her favorite customer, Judas Iscariot (Joseph Schildkraut), who is spending far too much time with Jesus of Nazareth. Upon visiting Jesus herself, she immediately repents, casting off all her prior sins. Once again, the efficacy of the Cecil B. DeMille formula is proven: redemption has no dramatic value unless the film shows viewers why the sinner needs to be redeemed. Once he's gotten his box-office considerations out of the way, DeMille adheres faithfully to the particulars of Jesus' life, betrayal, trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. (Again, however, the director improves a bit upon his source material: the storm that follows the Crucifixion is of the same spectacular dimensions as the parting of the Red Sea in Ten Commandments, while the Resurrection is filmed in vibrant Technicolor). To back up the authenticity of his images, DeMille -- with an assist from scenarist Jeannie Macpherson -- utilizes Scriptural quotes in his subtitles. And to avoid any untoward publicity while filming, DeMille required all of his actors to sign legal documents preventing them from indulging in any sort of "sinful" activity; this meant that poor old H.B. Warner had to steer clear of alcoholic beverages for nearly a year, though he more than made up for lost time after his contract ran out. Prepared to mercilessly lambaste The King of Kings, DeMille's critics were disarmed by his reverent, tasteful approach to the subject. Years after the film's release, a specially prepared 60-minute version of the 18-reel King of Kings was making the rounds of religious groups, church basements, and Easter-weekend telecasts. The film was remade in 1961 by producer Samuel Bronston and director Nicholas Ray, with Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by one of "Uncle" Carl Laemmle's many relatives, this Universal "Blue Streak Western" sat on the shelf for two years before being released to a mostly indifferent reception in 1927. The reason for the film's delay could have been aged leading man William Desmond's waning popularity, or its subject matter -- the bad treatment of Native American recruits in the past war -- might have worried a rather matter-of-fact studio such as Universal, despite the success of Paramount's The Vanishing American (1925). Desmond played Chief John Nisheto who, during the campaign in France, saves the life of Jack Burr (Albert J. Smith), the son of a United States senator (Byron Douglas) favorable to Native Americans. After the Armistice, Chief Nisheto starts dating Jack's sister Agnes (Marceline Day), to the dismay of the racist Jack, who doesn't realize that the chief is the man who once saved his life. Nisheto is later mortally wounded and Jack repents his prejudice on his rescuer's deathbed. Despite the film's honorable intentions, Red Clay suffered under Hollywood's stringent miscegenation policy. Desmond (a white actor, of course) had to die for Red Clay to reach an acceptable conclusion. This and several other melodramatic treatments of Native Americans were inspired by pro-Indian legislation enacted by real-life senator John Collier. The subject matter, however, was much better served in the early silent era, where Native Americans were more a subject of benign curiosity than the condescending praise typified by films such as Red Clay and The Vanishing American. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Marking the 50th anniversary of General George Armstrong Custer's famous defeat at Little Big Horn, Universal re-created the battle in their biggest production ($400,000) of the year, The Flaming Frontier. Veteran screen actor Dustin Farnum came out of semi-retirement to play Custer -- to overwhelmingly positive notices -- and according to studio publicity, the film employed several thousand extras, including many Native Americans. Universal re-created Fort Hays, Custer's outpost, on the back lot in the San Fernando Valley and a duplicate of Crane City was erected at great expense near Pendleton, Oregon. Unfortunately, the studio also cast their resident cowboy star, the lackadaisical Hoot Gibson, in the starring role, and the entire production was thus geared to Gibson's familiar shtick rather than faithfully re-telling the story of one of the great blunders in military history. In the hands of Edward Sedgwick, Gibson's usual director, the slaughter at Little Big Horn proved little more than a plot contrivance. Gibson played a Pony Express rider admitted to West Point due to the influence of a powerful senator (George Fawcett), whose daughter (Anne Cornwall) he loves. In return, Gibson assumes the blame when the senator's wastrel son (Harold Goodwin) gets in trouble with the daughter (Kathleen Key) of a crooked Indian agent (Ward Crane). Gibson is expelled and returns West to join Custer's forces. To get even with Gibson, whom he still accuses of defiling his daughter, the Indian agent conspires with Sitting Bull (African-American actor Noble Johnson) to lure Custer and his troops into an ambush. Misinformed about the strength of the enemy, Custer and his 400 men are slaughtered by Indian warriors numbering in the thousands. Gibson, meanwhile, has been sent for reinforcements, thus surviving the massacre. He later leads an uprising among the settlers against the nefarious Indian agent, who has taken the senator's daughter prisoner. Most reviewers were appreciative of Universal's great expenditure, but Variety's scribe saw the film as little more than an ordinary Gibson Western. Sadly, modern audiences are prevented from forming an opinion, as no prints now survive. However, many of the more spectacular sequences later found their way into The Indians Are Coming (1930), a Universal serial released in both silent and sound versions. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This drama (adapted from the play by Gerald du Maurier and Viola Tree) was typical for its era: a jazz baby parties up a storm and pays the price for her sins. Tony (George O'Brien) and Una (Madge Bellamy) are childhood sweethearts who promise to marry when they grow up. Tony travels to South America, where he opens up a successful saloon and dance hall. One of the dancers, Maxine (Alma Rubens), falls in love with him, but he remains true to Una. Una, however, has immersed herself in a round of wild parties and she totally forgets Tony. She allows one of her admirers, Evan Carruthers (Freeman Wood), to take advantage of her. Tony becomes very wealthy upon his uncle's death, and he returns home to settle his affairs and marry Una. Although Una's aunt insists that she keep her affair with Evan a secret, Una's guilt is overwhelming. Finally, as they are about to be married, she confesses all to Tony. He forgives her, but she takes poison and dies anyhow. Tony returns to South America and weds Maxine. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide