Evelyn Knapp Movies

Again forsaking his traditional western garb, Tim McCoy plays a rough-and-ready fireman in Columbia's A Man's Game. During one blaze, Tim and his partner Dave (Ward Bond) rescue pretty stenographer Judy (Evelyn Knapp). Falling in love with the girl, the boys try to save her from getting mixed up in an embezzlement scheme. The plot requires Judy to set off a fire herself to rout the villains, which of course also brings Tim and Dave back into the picture. As was his custom, director D. Ross Lederman deftly combines newly shot scenes with stock footage of genuine fires (one of which pops up three different times in the film!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Quite a bit of stock footage accompany this aerial melodrama from Columbia, which was directed by low-budget action specialist Albert S. Rogell. Pretty TWA air hostess Kitty King (Evalyn Knapp) falls in love with and marries dashing stunt pilot Ted Hunter (James Murray), despite the young man's rather rough lifestyle. She willingly accepts his plans for building a new kind of airplane in Albuquerque, NM, but upon arrival there finds him in the arms of a haughty socialite (Thelma Todd). A dejected Kitty hurriedly boards a train for home, unaware it is headed straight for a collapsing bridge. Learning of the possible disaster, Ted takes to the air in a final effort to warn the train's engineer. But the latter ignores the roaring plane and Ted is forced to crash land right on the tracks. None the worse for wear, the heroic pilot apologizes to Kitty for his bad behavior and they fly home to happiness. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, Mervyn LeRoy directs the black-and-white 1932 comedy drama Big City Blues. A small-town innocent from Indiana, Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) inherits money and goes to New York to get in all sorts of trouble. He meets up with his cousin Gibby (Walter Catlett), who introduces him to chorus girl Vida Fleet (Joan Blondell). Bud and Gibby then throw a drunken hotel party with bootleg liquor that gets out of hand and a young woman (Josephine Dunn) is hit on the head and accidentally killed. Bud and Vida go gambling and drinking to escape the cops, but they are caught and arrested with everyone else from the party. Eventually, the police find the real killer and release everyone. Bud leaves for Indiana, but plans to go back, get his dog, and marry Vida. Humphrey Bogart appears in a brief uncredited role as Shep Adkins, a guy who gets into a fight with Lyle Talbot during the party. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Treasury agent Dave Elliot (Donald Cook) dedicates himself to smashing a crime syndicate, especially after his best friend is killed by the mob. This requires Elliot to go undercover, posing as a criminal. He gains the confidence of sadistic mob gunman Lefty (J. Carroll Naish), and it's nip-and-tuck from then on until the identity of the mysterious Mister Big is revealed. Evalyn Knapp is excellent as glib-tongued mob bookkeeper Maxine, and Warren Hymer is equally good as a stupid numbers runner. Confidential can be seen as a Mascot Pictures pocket version of Warner Bros.' Special Agent, which in turn was inspired by the tax-evasion downfall of Al Capone. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two-bit hoofer Joe (Edward Norris) hires starry-eyed Sally (Evelyn Knapp) for his vaudeville act. They marry, but the pressures of show business, coupled with Joe's irresponsibility, leads to a breakup. Lou Kenton (Mae Busch), a tough broad with a heart of gold, decides to help the pregnant Sally by introducing her to big-time Broadway producer Wade Valentine (Alan Dinehart). Our heroine skyrockets to stardom, while Valentine subsidizes her private life and even pays the hospital bills when Sally's baby is born. He finally asks her to marry him -- but incredibly, her heart still belongs to Joe, who manages to show up at fadeout time for a tearful reconciliation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location, Hawaiian Buckaroo is certainly the most novel of the Smith Ballew westerns. Pineapple plantation worker Jeff Howard (Ballew) and his pal Mike (Benny Burt) go to work on a cattle ranch run by haughty Paula Harrington (Evelyn Knapp). It doesn't take long for our heroes to figure out that Paula's foreman Riga (Georges Regas) is a crook. Acting quickly, Jeff and Mike prevent Riga and his confederates (Harry Woods and Pat O'Brien -- no, not that Pat O'Brien) from depleting Paula's stock for their own purposes. Ethnic humor is provided by black actor Fred "Snowflake" Toones, while Honolulu cabaret entertainer Princess Luana shows up unbilled. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A very young John Wayne is atypically cast as a randy playboy in His Private Secretary. Much to the dismay of his businessman father, Dick Wallace (Wayne) prefers a life of wine, women and more women to honest work. The elder Wallace demands that Dick take a job as his company's collection manager, and it is in this capacity that our hero heads to the small town of Somerville to collect a debt. Here he meets pretty Marion (Evelyn Knapp), the granddaughter of the man from whom Dick must extract overdue payments. Immediately putting the moves on Marion, Dick is rebuffed with a slap and several harsh words -- and for the first time in his life, the prodigal son is really in love! Inevitably, Marion ends up working as a secretary for Dick's dad, driving the poor boy crazy in his efforts to make up for his previous boorish behavior. Excerpts from His Private Secretary have frequently shown up in TV documentaries about John Wayne, as "proof" of his inability to act in his pre-John Ford years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having recently left Universal Pictures in a huff, mercurial cowboy star Ken Maynard stopped briefly at Mascot Studios for a brace of films. The first was In Old Santa Fe, a modern story set at a dude ranch where Maynard (playing himself) is employed. The villain is dude sharpshooter Chandler (Kenneth Thomson), who makes a play for Maynard's sweetheart Lila Miller (Evelyn Knapp). Before our hero is permitted to triumph, the film makes a side trip to a western nightclub, wherein a couple of radio crooners named Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette make their joint film debuts. Less than a year later, Autry would replace a recalcitrant Ken Maynard in the Mascot serial Phantom Empire -- and the rest, as they say, is history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Singer-bandleader Phil Regan, Republic Pictures's answer to Dick Powell, stars in Laughing Irish Eyes. Regan plays Danny O'Keefe, a pugnacious County Cork blacksmith who rises to prizefighting fame in the U.S. Fight manager Pat Kelly (Walter C. Kelly) isn't above using his pretty daughter Peggy (Evelyn Knapp) to keep Danny happy, but things turn out OK when the boxer and the girl fall in love for keeps. The film is predicated on the notion that every true Irishman is a fighter or a singer at heart, a notion that worked just fine in 1936 but which might not go over quite as well in these more ethnically sensitive times. Serving as film editor on Laughing Irish Eyes was future cult-favorite director Joseph H. Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three confidence men set up in a luxury hotel, but wind up as their own victims when several swindles backfire. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior senator, puts in a call to Governor Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee) reporting the news. Hopper then calls powerful media magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), who controls the state -- along with the lawmakers. Taylor orders Hopper to appoint an interim senator to fill out Foley's term; Taylor has proposed a pork barrel bill to finance an unneeded dam at Willet Creek, so he warns Hopper he wants a senator who "can't ask any questions or talk out of turn." After having a number of his appointees rejected, at the suggestion of his children Hopper nominates local hero Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), leader of the state's Boy Rangers group. Smith is an innocent, wide-eyed idealist who quotes Jefferson and Lincoln and idolizes Paine, who had known his crusading editor father. In Washington, after a humiliating introduction to the press corps, Smith threatens to resign, but Paine encourages him to stay and work on a bill for a national boy's camp. With the help of his cynical secretary Clarissa Sanders (Jean Arthur), Smith prepares to introduce his boy's camp bill to the Senate. But when he proposes to build the camp on the Willets Creek site, Taylor and Paine force him to drop the measure. Smith discovers Taylor and Paine want the Willets Creek site for graft and he attempts to expose them, but Paine deflects Smith's charges by accusing Smith of stealing money from the boy rangers. Defeated, Smith is ready to depart Washington, but Saunders, whose patriotic zeal has been renewed by Smith, exhorts him to stay and fight. Smith returns to the Senate chamber and, while Taylor musters the media forces in his state to destroy him, Smith engages in a climactic filibuster to speak his piece: "I've got a few things I want to say to this body. I tried to say them once before and I got stopped colder than a mackerel. Well, I'd like to get them said this time, sir. And as a matter of fact, I'm not gonna leave this body until I do get them said." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The 1934 Universal serial The Perils of Pauline borrows the title and very little else from the pioneering Pearl White chapter play of 1914. This time around, Pauline (Evelyn Knapp) is the daughter of a prominent scientist (James Durkin). When daddy heads to Indochina to search for the formula to a deadly gas, Pauline dutifully tags along. So does villain John Davidson and his battalion of henchmen. Pauline is rescued from certain doom at every turn by hero Robert Allen and by unfunny comic relief Sonny Ray. The 12-episode Perils of Pauline makes excellent use of standing sets from such previous Universal efforts as The Old Dark House and The Mummy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Singing cowboy Smith Ballew is the nominal star of Rawhide, but the audience only had eyes for Ballew's co-star: baseball-great Lou Gehrig, in his one-and-only screen appearance. Gehrig plays "himself"-that is, he's a rancher named Lou Gehrig. Pressured by crooks to give up his spread, Gehrig, his sister (Evelyn Knapp) and cowboy-lawyer Ballew inspire the neighboring ranchers to form a united front. During a climactic fist-fight in a pool hall, Gehrig utilizes his pitching skills to subdue the villains. A fan of B westerns in real life, Gehrig does his best to fit into the proceedings of Rawhide; his acting is strictly from hunger, but he does possess an imposing physique and an eagerness to the please the filmgoers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide