Eddie Kane Movies
Tall, distinguished-looking Eddie Kane was never remotely a star in movies or television, but he played just about every kind of important supporting and bit role that there was to portray in a Hollywood career that stretched over a quarter century. Born in 1889, Kane entered show business by way of vaudeville and rose to the top of that field as a member of the team of Kane & Herman. Hollywood beckoned with the coming of sound and his first role was typical of the kind of work that he would do for the next 25 years. In MGM's The Broadway Melody, although uncredited, Kane played the important supporting role of Francis Zanfield (a thin burlesque of Ziegfeld), the theatrical producer whose interest in one of the two sisters, played by Anita Page and Bessie Love, gets the backstage plot rolling. In later films, the actor's parts varied from anonymous head waiters and hotel managers to essential supporting roles, small but telling in the plot. He was apparently at least a nodding acquaintance of James Cagney, playing important bit parts in two of Cagney's movies: in Something To Sing About, Kane portrayed the San Francisco theater manager who shelters Cagney from the crowds swarming around him on his return from an ocean voyage; in Yankee Doodle Dandy he played the actor in Little Johnny Jones who tells Cagney's George M. Cohan, in the title role of Jones, of the plan to fire a rocket from the ship when the evidence clearing him has been found. Kane's range of roles ran from business executives and impressarios to maitre d's and as he grew older and more distinguished-looking, his delivery grew even sharper onscreen. Kane is probably best known to audiences from the 1950s and beyond for his portrayal (uncredited, as usual) of Mr. Monahan, Ralph Kramden's boss at the Gotham Bus Company, in The Honeymooners' episode in which Kramden impersonates a bus company executive to impress an old rival. Kane retired from movies and television after the 1950s and died in 1969 of a heart attack at his home. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide- 1939
The Missing Daughters of the title are innocent young girls who've been led astray by seedy dance-hall operator Lucky Rogers (Edward Raquello), who is Lucky Luciano in everything but name. Ordering his beautiful charges to shake down the customers, Rogers has a habit of bumping off any girl who refuses to obey his commands. Winchell-like radio commentator Wally King (Richard Arlen) teams up with Kay Roberts (Rochelle Hudson), sister of one of Rogers' victims, to bring the villain to justice. The resemblances between Missing Daughters and 1937's Marked Woman are underlined by the fact that hard-boiled Isabel Jewell appears in both films. Also on hand as one of Lucky Rogers' tootsies is Marian Marsh, light-years removed from her role of Trilby in John Barrymore's Svengali (1937). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Arlen, Rochelle Hudson, (more)
- 1939
Comedy, romance, and song hit the ice in this musical. Larry Hall (James Stewart) is a professional ice skater whose act with his friend Eddie Burgess (Lew Ayres) breaks up when Larry weds Mary McKay (Joan Crawford). Mary is also a skater, and she teams up with Larry to perform, but their on-stage (or, more accurately, on-ice) partnership proves short-lived when Mary is offered a contract to make movies in Hollywood. She quickly becomes a popular film star, but Larry does not have the same luck in California; in time, he decides to head to Canada, where he gets the idea of staging an elaborate ice revue. The producers of Ice Follies of 1939 worked with the Shipstad and Johnson Ice Follies troupe to stage the film's spectacular closing ice ballet, which was filmed in Technicolor (the remainder of the film was shot in black and white). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Crawford, James Stewart, (more)
- 1938
Nancy, a jilted bride-to-be, is played by Janet Gaynor in one of her last starring films. The three loves are novelist Robert Montgomery, publisher Franchot Tone, and gormless nebbish Grady Sutton (Sonny TUFTS??). In New York to find her runaway groom Sutton, Janet runs across Montgomery and Tone. More selective since her unfortunate near-wedding, Gaynor decides to have the two swains demonstrate their worthiness, leading to a brief (and chaste) menage-a-trois in which all three are under the same roof. Three Loves Has Nancy is a sedate screwball comedy, carried completely by the charm of its stars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janet Gaynor, Robert Montgomery, (more)
- 1938
Bob Hope and Jack Whiting are amorous sailors. Martha Raye is the "ugly duckling" sister of beautiful Betty Grable. The complication? Everyone's in love with the wrong person: Martha pines for Jack who pines for Betty who pines for Bob, and so it goes. The casting seems to be mixed up as well. Betty Grable would have been the likely candidate for the roles of Legs Larkin, but this in fact is the character name of Martha Raye, who (in the picture) defeats Grable in a beautiful legs contest! Because Paramount was trying to build up a Raye-Hope team, Martha ends up with Bob at fadeout time, while Jack and Betty have to make do with each other. Martha Raye is clearly the star of Give Me a Sailor, though Bob Hope, in his third feature film, has a few worthwhile moments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Martha Raye, Bob Hope, (more)
- 1938
This drama offers a fascinating backstage look at the making of westerns. The story centers around a stunt double working for an egotistical, emotionally fragile cowboy star. When the stunt man sets his romantic sights on the leading lady, the leading man gets huffy and unsuccessfully attempts to frame him. Real trouble ensues when the fall guy finds himself in the midst of a real bank robbery and finds himself accused of being the thief. He is arrested and put in jail. Fortunately, another movie cowpoke helps him escape. The stunt man then goes out and catches the real villains. Included in this video are demonstrations of how the dangerous stunts of the film were performed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buck Jones, Helen Twelvetrees, (more)
- 1938
The most successful of Joe E. Brown's post-Warner Bros. efforts, The Gladiator finds cavern-mouthed Brown winning a cash prize at a movie theatre, then using his windfall to attend college. The son of a legendary athlete, clumsy Brown is unable to live up to his dad's reputation. Genially batty scientist Lucien Littlefield injects Brown with a strength serum that turns Our Hero into a star football player. When he balks at joining the team, the coach sends pretty June Travis, the girlfriend of campus jock Robert Kent, to flatter Brown into suiting up. At first considering Brown a twerp, Travis grows to genuinely love him, especially after he is publicly humiliated by Kent. The climax finds Brown wrestling against Man Mountain Dean, with virtually everyone at the college betting their bankroll on Brown. Trouble is, the serum begins to wear off at the most inopportune moment. Despite his milquetoast characterization, Joe E. Brown was in fact a champion-level athlete; he used no doubles in the wrestling scenes, and as a result landed in the hospital with a double hernia. The Gladiator is a lighthearted adaptation of the satirical novel by Philip Wylie, which was reportedly also the inspiration for the Superman comic strip. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe E. Brown, Man Mountain Dean, (more)
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).
Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, (more)
- 1938
In this comedy, a dull statistician changes his life after winning a pile of money after successfully determining the number of beans in a barrel. He decides to do something novel with the prize and ends up buying a barrel factory. He encounters trouble when the nearby pickle factory is threatened by a shyster attempting to close it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Erwin, Helen Chandler, (more)
- 1938
- NR
American mousetrap salesmen Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy journey to Switzerland, reasoning that where there's cheese, there's mice. When they innocently try to pay their dinner bill with phony money, Stan and Ollie are put to work in the kitchen of the Alpen Hotel. Their enforced stay coincides with the visit of famed composer Walter Woolf King, who has come to Switzerland to soak up "local color." He also hopes to write an operetta that will succeed on its own merits, without the lovely voice of his lovely actress wife Della Lynd winning over the audience. But Lynd is determined to star in King's latest opus, and to that end she finagles Stan and Ollie into getting her a job as a hotel chambermaid. As the plot rolls along its merry way, Ollie labors under the misapprehension that Lynd is in love with him. Swiss Miss is, on the whole, one of Laurel and Hardy's weaker feature films, with far too much emphasis on the romantic leads and way too many forgettable songs ("Crick Crick Crick Here the Cricket" is a particular low point). But the team's individual scenes save the show, even though Stan Laurel, who'd been ill during production, looks like he's about to fall asleep at any moment. Best bits: Stan hoodwinking a St. Bernard out of a cask of brandy; Ollie serenading Lynd while Stan accompanies him on tube; and the legendary sequence, immortalized by film critic James Agee, wherein Stan and Ollie try to transport a piano across a rope bridge high above an alpine chasm--only to confront a gorilla! One of the screenwriters of Swiss Miss was Jean Negulesco, later the director of such memorable films as Mask of Dmitrios, Three Strangers, Titanic and How to Marry a Millionaire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, (more)
- 1937
Scheduled to marry a man she doesn't love (and for good reason), spoiled heiress Barbara Blanchard (Claire Trevor) runs away from her wedding and hits the road. While hitchhiking, Trevor is given a ride by Bob Reynolds (Michael Whalen), a personable young auto salesman who's been hired to deliver what was then called a "caravan car" but would now be labelled an RV. As luck and the screenwriters would have it, a fugitive jewel thief hides his stolen gems in Bob's vehicle. Our hero is arrested, causing Barbara to cease her incessant put-downs of the poor guy. In trying to spring Bob from jail, Barbara realizes that she's fallen in love with him (why didn't she just ask the audience, who knew it all along?) It's positively awe-inspiring how many runaway-heiress films were spawned by the freak success of It Happened One Night. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claire Trevor, Michael Whalen, (more)
Olsen and Johnson's second starring vehicle for Republic was better than their first (Country Gentlemen), but a Hellzapoppin' it wasn't. Ole and Chic play a couple of itinerant vaudevillians, teamed with Sally the Singing Seal ("the eighth wonder of the world"). Heroine Joan Eldredge (Mary Howard) is about to lose the theater left to her by her father, so O&J offer to stage a gala fund-raising show. Unfortunately, one of the potential backers (Eddie Kane) is murdered -- and for a while, it looks like the killer was Sally the Seal! Our heroes decide to capitalize on this setback by offering to reveal the real killer's identity during a nationwide radio hookup -- but first they need a sponsor, so the boys perform their old vaudeville musical act for "The Mackerel King" (played by perennial Laurel & Hardy stooge Jimmy Finlayson). Kidnapped just before the broadcast, Olsen and Johnson escape in time to finger the murderer, whereupon the culprit leads them on a zany chase throughout the darkened theater. All Over Town never really pulls together, but the irrepressible Olsen and Johnson deliver what may well be their funniest joint screen appearance. Incidentally, nominal leading man Harry Stockwell was the singing voice of the Prince in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs--and the father of present-day actor Dean Stockwell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, (more)
- 1937
The Westland Case was the opening volley in Universal's "Crime Club" series. The film was based on Headed for a Hearse, a novel by Jonathan Latimer which had to be toned down considerably for the filmgoers' consumption. Latimer's cynical private-eye team of Bill Crane and Doc Williams are here played by Preston S. Foster and Frank Jenks, who'd repeat these roles in subsequent entries. This time out, Bill and Doc try to clear a wrongly condemned man before his date with the electric chair. This they do on behalf of the poor fellow's desperate fiancee Emily Lou (Carol Hughes) -- who, like most of the other characters in the film, knows a lot more than she's telling. If The Westland Case doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it certainly can't be faulted for a lack of energy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Preston S. Foster, Carolyn Hughes, (more)
- 1937
Film collectors take note: Hal Roach's Pick a Star is not a Laurel and Hardy picture, though the popular comic duo does make a brace of amusing cameo appearances halfway through the film. A remake of Buster Keaton's Free and Easy, this is the story of how small-town gas-station owner Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley) tries to help his sweetheart Cecilia Moore (Rosina Lawrence) realize her ambition to become a movie star. At the behest of travelling entrepreneur Stone (Russell Hicks), Jenkins organizes a talent contest, the first prize being a trip to Hollywood and a screen test. When Stone turns out to be a crook and skips town with the proceeds of the contest, Cecilia is heartbroken, but Joe promises to go to Hollywood himself and make the right connections to assure her rise to stardom. Alas, the best Joe can manage in Tinseltown is a busboy job at the Colonial Club, a fact he tries to conceal from Cecilia and her wisecracking sister Nellie (Patsy Kelly) when they unexpectedly arrive in California as guests of movie-matinee idol Rinaldo Lopez (Mischa Auer). In desperation, Joe pretends to be a nightclub entertainer, but when this ruse is revealed, Cecilia angrily walks out on him, accompanying Rinaldo first to his movie studio and then to his apartment. Naturally Rinaldo has seduction on his mind, but innocent Cecilia doesn't realize this until Joe storms into the apartment with blood in his eye. Ashamed for his lascivious behavior, Rinaldo arranges for Cecilia to have a screen test for producer Klawheimer (Charles Halton). At the last moment, Cecilia suffers an attack of "camera fright," but Joe gently coaches her through her test, and there's a happy ending for all concerned -- even for sister Nellie, who's been relentlessly cynical about the storyline from first scene to last. Cast as "movie stars," Laurel and Hardy show up briefly in the movie-studio scenes to participate in a reciprocal-destruction sequence with their old screen nemesis Walter Long, and to perform an amusing musical routine with "dueling" harmonicas. Pick a Star has been reissued as Movie Struck, while the Laurel & Hardy scenes were released separately to TV as the ersatz two-reeler A Day at the Studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patsy Kelly, Jack Haley, (more)
- 1937
Small Town Boy was the 33rd release from the burgeoning "B"-picture factory of Grand National Pictures. Stuart Erwin plays the title character, a milquetoast named Henry, who's brimming with good ideas but lacks the confidence to express them. All this changes when he finds a thousand-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Emboldened by his sudden wealth, Henry becomes a veritable dynamo of energy -- and, to some, a major pain in the neck. Joyce Compton, usually consigned to dumb-blonde support, is a most-appealing heroine. Small Town Boy is based on a short story by Manuel Komroff, also titled The Thousand Dollar Bill. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Erwin, Joyce Compton, (more)
A Star is Born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a "true behind-the-scenes" story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. Janet Gaynor stars as Esther Blodgett, the small-town girl who dreams of Hollywood stardom, a role later played by both Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand in the 1954 and 1976 remakes. Jeered at by most of her family, Esther finds an ally in her crusty old grandma (May Robson), who admires the girl's "pioneer spirit" and bankrolls Esther's trip to Tinseltown. On arrival, Esther heads straight to Central Casting, where a world-weary receptionist (Peggy Wood), trying to let the girl down gently, tells her that her chances for stardom are about one in a thousand. "Maybe I'll be that one!" replies Esther defiantly. Months pass: through the intervention of her best friend, assistant director Danny McGuire (Andy Devine), Esther gets a waitressing job at an upscale Hollywood party. Her efforts to "audition" for the guests are met with quizzical stares, but she manages to impress Norman Maine (Fredric March), the alcoholic matinee idol later played by James Mason and Kris Kristofferson. Esther gets her first big break in Norman's next picture and a marriage proposal from the smitten Mr. Maine. It's a hit, but as Esther (now named Vicki)'s star ascends, Norman's popularity plummets due to a string of lousy pictures and an ongoing alcohol problem. The film won Academy Awards for director William Wellman and Robert Carson in the "original story" category and for W. Howard Greene's glistening Technicolor cinematography. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, (more)
- 1937
Operatic tenor James Melton stars as on-the-skids bandleader Tod Weaver, who finds himself in charge of an all-girl orchestra. Though he tries to remain oblivious to his musicians' charms, he can't help but fall in love with assistant conductor Gale Starr (Patricia Ellis). Things look bad for hero and heroine when seductive Lorna Wray (Winifred Shaw) comes between them, but Tod is brought back to earth with a well-aimed slap. The cast of Melody for Two contains some potent comedy talent, including Marie Wilson and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, but the spotlight is on the golden-throated James Melton. The film's one memorable song is "September in the Rain," later hilariously re-created in the "Looney Tunes" installment Porky's Preview (1938). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Melton, Patricia Ellis, (more)
- 1937
In this musical comedy, a crooked record producer uses his mob connections to force performers to do their stuff. The trouble really begins when the gangster's strong-arm tactics nearly cause a singer to lose his fiancée. A wide variety of entertainers appear including cowboy crooner Gene Autry, baseball hero Joe DiMaggio, and big band stars Cab Calloway, Ted Lewis, and the Kay Thompson Singers. Songs include "Mamma I Wanna Make Rhythm," "Manhattan Merry-Go-Round," "Heaven?," "I Owe You," and "It's Round-up Time in Reno." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Phil Regan, Leo Carrillo, (more)
- 1936
One Horse Town is the TV title for MGM's 1936 version Small Town Girl (the new title was bestowed to avoid confusion with the 1953 remake). Robert Taylor plays an irresponsible playboy who is arrested in a backwater town for drunken driving. While intoxicated, Taylor proposes to local girl Janet Gaynor. She accepts, knowing full well that he wouldn't have popped the question had he been sober. Gaynor spends the rest of the film trying to reform Taylor and to get him to fall in love with her while he's got all his faculties--no small trick, in that her competition is sophisticated Binnie Barnes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Janet Gaynor, Robert Taylor, (more)
When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in his life: he just wants enough time to practice his tuba and compose greeting-card doggerel. When Deeds is convinced to move to New York, hard-boiled newspaper reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur) is dispatched to get the inside scoop on "The Cinderella Man." Babe's stories of Deeds' eccentricities and no-nonsense dealings with phonies and poseurs provide excellent headline fodder; but she begins to regret her actions, having fallen in love with the big lug. Deeds ultimately sets up a foundation to dispense his fortune to the country's neediest souls, on the proviso that the recipients do their best to get back on their feet, a turn of events that leads his lawyer John Cedar (Douglas Dumbrille) to try to have him declared insane. By the end of the sanity hearing, the judge (H. B. Walker) declares: "Not only are you sane, but you're the sanest man who ever walked in this courtroom!" A joyously unadulterated hunk of Frank Capra-corn, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was adapted by Robert Riskin from Clarence Buddington Kelland's short story "Opera Hat." In addition to the pleasure of watching the country bumpkin outwit city slickers, the movie is a film buff's dream, boasting one of the best character-actor casts ever assembled for a single film. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the film won Frank Capra his second Oscar (out of three) as Best Director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, (more)
- 1936
Love on a Bet is a lightweight programmer from the "Get Rich Quick Wallingford" school of comedy. Gene Raymond stars as Michael, a fresh young sprout who needs $15,000 to produce a Broadway play. His rich uncle Carlton (William Collier Jr.) agrees to pony up the money, but only on the condition that Michael leave New York City in nothing but his underwear and show up in Los Angeles 10 days later in a new suit, with a hundred dollars, and a sweetheart -- which happens to be the plotline of the play that Michael wants to produce! As he embarks upon his hitchhiking "tour" of the U.S., Michael is given a lift by wisecracking Charlotte (Helen Broderick) and her pretty niece Paula (Wendy Barrie). At this point, everyone in the audience will know how Love on a Bet ends up, but getting there is all the fun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gene Raymond, Wendy Barrie, (more)
Battling Hoofer is the reissue title of the 1936 James Cagney vehicle Something to Sing About. Cagney plays Terry Rooney, a New York bandleader who heads to Hollywood when he is offered a movie contract. The down-to-Earth Rooney resists the "star treatment," an attitude misinterpreted by movie executive Bennett O. Regan (Gene Lockhart) as arrogance. When Terry's first film is a hit, Regan orders everyone involved to keep its success a secret from Terry, lest he develop a swelled head! (We don't believe it either.) The best sequence has Rooney chewing out his Asian houseboy, Ito (Philip Ahn), whereupon he drops his "So solly" pidgin English and begins talking like a Harvard professor! Terry gets to romance newcomer Evelyn Daw, as well as veteran vamp Mona Barrie; he also gets to participate in several lively dance numbers. Something to Sing About was the second of Jimmy Cagney's films for Poverty Row studio Grand National: the production values and snappy script work that he might have enjoyed at Warner Bros. are noticeably lacking, but Cagney is always fun to watch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Evelyn Daw, (more)
- 1936
On New Year's Eve, aspiring actress Julia Wayne (Joan Bennett) and chronic gambler Larry Stevens (Joel McCrea), both flat broke, each find one-half of a $1000 banknote. They decide to invest their windfall in a race horse and jockey, in hopes of financing a theatrical career for Julia and a new start in life for Larry. Unfortunately, the thousand-dollar note turns out to be stolen, dropped in haste during a bank robbery. This gets hero, heroine and horse mixed up with the crooks, and for a while it looks as though the nag won't show up for the climactic Big Race. Even after the horse arrives at the starting gate, he refuses to gallop until he spies the cart that he used to haul around for coal peddler Jonesy (Andy Clyde). After a great opening, Two in a Crowd runs out of gas, but the two stars are always worth watching. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Bennett, Joel McCrea, (more)
- 1935
Rudy Vallee made his third feature-film starring appearance in the breezy Warner Bros. musical Sweet Music. Vallee is appropriately cast as singer-bandleader Skip Houston, who falls in love with aspiring dancer Bonnie Haydon (Ann Dvorak). Though Bonnie feels the same way about Skip, the two leads indulge in a movie-long quarrel before the long-awaiting final clinch. This is one musical comedy where there's definitely more comedy than music, what with a chucklesome supporting cast including Ned Sparks, Allen Jenkins, Alice White and veteran vaudevillians Joseph Cawthorn and Al Shean (of "Gallegher and Shean" fame). Despite such heady competition, the film is stolen by the hilarious Frank and Milt Britton Band, a zany precursor to the Spike Jones aggregation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rudy Vallee, Ann Dvorak, (more)
- 1935
In this drama an older actress plays her last role. The aging thespian is terribly depressed and ready to kill herself when she finds out that an older more successful friend has vanished. The missing actress's family is in a real quandry. To help them, the other impersonates the older actress. Loose ends are knitted together and then she admits her ruse. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henrietta Crosman, Dorothy Lee, (more)
- 1935
Produced by M.H. Hoffman's Liberty Pictures, School for Girls is based on Reginald Wright Kauffman's story Our Undisciplined Daughters. It all begins when innocent heroine Annette Eldridge (Sidney Fox) gets mixed up with a slimy jewel thief. Taking the rap for her boyfriend, Annette ends up doing a three-year stretch in a girl's reformatory, where she's subjected to the sadistic excesses of brutal matron Miss Keeble (Lucille La Verne) (the same actress who later provided the voice of the Wicked Queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). Thankfully, young prison-board appointee Gary Waltham (Paul Kelly) dedicates himself to helping Annette -- and by extension, the rest of the unfortunate female inmates. The supporting cast of School for Girls reads like a "B"-picture Who's Who: Lona Andre, Russell Hopton, Kathleen Burke, Fred Kelsey, Edward Le Saint, and former silent-film favorites Anna Q. Nilsson, Charles Ray, Myrtle Stedman and Helene Chadwick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sidney Fox, Paul Kelly, (more)
