Lupino Lane Movies
British comic actor and director Lupino Lane, born Henry Lane, came from a long line of theatrical performers; his brother was film actor Wallace Lupino-Lane, and his second cousin was distinguished actress/filmmaker Ida Lupino. Lupino Lane began his film career in 1915, starring in British comedy shorts. During the '20s he began working in many two reelers and several features as well. Lupino was a comedian known for his astounding acrobatics and versatility -- in one film he played 25 different characters! In 1930, he went back to England where he continued playing in films for 10 years; he also occasionally directed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1940
Lambeth Walk is the film version of the evergreen West End musical Me and My Girl, which was still being successfully revived into the 1980s. The enormously popular music-hall entertainer Lupino Lane repeats his stage characterization as Bill, a diffident working-class cockney who finds himself heir to a title and a vast estate. Though he now has his pick of England's most gorgeous debutantes, Bill remains faithful to his blue-collar girlfriend Sally (Sally Gray). The film's new title was designed to cash in on a then-popular dance craze, which is performed by the high-kicking Lupino Lane in the course of events. In America, Lambeth Walk was distributed by MGM, whose British Elstree Studios facilities had put the film together in the first place. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lupino Lane, Sally Gray, (more)
- 1936
In this drama, a British journalist is invited to be a guest journalist with a Chicago paper. He is en route to the Windy City aboard a ship when he mistakenly identifies some passengers as dangerous criminals. The addled reporter then mistakes an heiress for a cabaret singer resulting in the abduction of the real singer by the real crooks. Fortunately, the journalist saves the girl, but ends up missing a big scoop. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1935
In this comedy, two dopey sailors serve aboard the Improbable and get involved in all sorts of slapstick trouble while trying to deal with a ring of smugglers and their petty chief petty officer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1935
In this British musical, a bankrupt composer assumes the identity of an aristocrat to sneak in to a high-class soiree. While there, he exposes a gang of jewel thieves. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1933
In this comedy, a naive young woman works as a servant for a home sublet to thieves. When she and the window cleaner overhear the crooks plotting to rob an heiress during an upcoming ball, the two decide to intervene rather than call the police. They then dress up and go to the ball. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Albert Burdon, Molly Lamont, (more)
- 1933
A theatrical stage manager disguises herself as a duchess to impress a big-shot film producer. This is based on one of Fred Karno's "Mumming Bird" sketches. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide
- 1933
This musical chronicles the escapades of two Spanish couples. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1932
In this British crime comedy, an Englishman is bequeathed a Chicago dairy by his late uncle. Once there, he learns that the operation is a front for racketeers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1932
In this British comedy, a fellow goes on a Spanish vacation and finds himself mistaken for a famous matador. Mayhem ensues when he suddenly is placed in the bullring. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1932
The title lass in this Eclipse production is a goatherd-ess, in love with a strapping mountain youth. During his daily sojourn through the hills, the hero gets mixed up in a skirmish between two hunters. To avoid injury, he collapses to the ground and plays dead then escapes into the mountains. Several weeks pass before he sees his sweetheart again, by which time she has fallen out of love with him. Spotting the girl keeping company with a handsome artist, the mountaineer goes crazy and lunges after his rival with a huge knife. The girl responds with a severe tongue-lashing and flounces off with her new boyfriend, leaving her ex-beau flat. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1931
In this British farce, a boy disregards his uncle's wishes and secretly marries his dream girl. The mayhem begins when the uncle pays a surprise visit. The young husband then tries to pretend that his wife is really married to his best friend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stanley Lupino, Dorothy Boyd, (more)
- 1931
Celebrated British music-hall entertainer Lupino Lane was both star and director of No Lady. Lane plays a henpecked husband who gets more than he bargained for when he goes on holiday in Blackpool. Before he can even get his bearings, our hero is mixed up with nest of foreign spies, determined to sabotage a British air show. Virtually every gag in the film was lifted from one of Lane's old 2-reelers, including the ancient wheeze about a Scotchman's purse yielding a moth. Is it any wonder that Lupino Lane eventually abandoned films in favor of "live" performances before large and appreciative crowds? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sara Maritza, Renee Clama, (more)
- 1931
Misunderstandings cause Lupino's fiancee to jilt Lupino when he has the wrong suitcase full of lingerie. Winning the big race is the way Lupino wins his girl back. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1931
In this comedy, a struggling artist who wants to die puts out a contract on himself, but then receives a large inheritance and doesn't want to die anymore. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide
- 1930
One of the first talkie adaptations of an Edgar Wallace story, The Yellow Mask is set in motion by the skullduggery of Chinese nobleman Li San (Warwick Ward). With the reluctant aid of heroine Mary Trayne (Douglas Secombe), Li San manages to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Fortunately, Mary's reporter boyfriend (William Shine) rescues the girl and, after a short sojourn in a torture chamber, settles the villain's hash. The trick now is to sneak the jewels back into the Tower without tipping the authorities. Four screenwriters collaborated on this unjustly forgotten comedy-melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warwick Ward, Dorothy Seacombe, (more)
- 1930
A newlywed countess is asked to make a tremendous sacrifice for her husband and herself in this musical comedy-drama. Count Adrian Beltrami (Allan Prior) is an Italian nobleman who on the day of his wedding to Anna-Marie (Vivienne Segal) is driven from his estate by Austrian rebels, who turn his castle their base of operations. While Beltrami maps out a scheme to win back his home, his new bride is left behind to deal with Col. Vultow (Walter Pidgeon) and his minions. The lecherous Vultow offers to grant freedom and safety to Anna-Marie and her husband, but only in exchange for her virtue. Myrna Loy, Ford Sterling, and Lousie Fazenda highlight the supporting cast of this early two-strip Technicolor musical; sadly, no prints are known to exist at this writing. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vivienne Segal, Allan Prior, (more)
- 1930
A failure of near epic proportions when first released and an unintentionally funny disaster today, this bizarre operetta almost single-handedly destroyed the musical genre for years to come. Vivienne Segal stars as Dawn, a white girl presumed to be born among the natives in what was once Dutch East Africa. Set in a German prisoner of war camp during World War I, Golden Dawn presents a truce between captors and captives who are facing a common danger: the threat of an uprising among the native African population. The threat becomes almost a certainty when young rubber planter Tom Allen (Walter Woolf King) spends a romantic night with Dawn. That doesn't sit well with Shep Keyes (Noah Beery), a native brute who covets Dawn, despite the fact that she is promised to the god Mulunghu. To quell an almost certain riot among the natives, Tom is sent home to England. The British soon recapture the area and Keyes demands that Dawn be sacrificed to the god Mulunghu to ward off a potentially calamitous drought. Tom, meanwhile, having learned that Dawn is indeed Caucasian, kidnapped by Mooda (Alice Gentle) in childhood and raised as her own, rushes back to the camp just in time to rescue the girl from the evil Keyes. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vivienne Segal, Noah Beery, Sr., (more)
- 1929
Look up "suave and sophisticated" in the dictionary, and one might very well find a picture of Adolphe Menjou. In His Private Life, Menjou is cast as Georges St. Germain, whose sexual peccadilloes are so frequent and plentiful that he is forced to bribe practically every civil servant in Paris to keep mum. At present, Georges is fascinated with virginal American tourist Eleanor Trent (Kathryn Carver), who is visiting Paris in the company of her more worldly friends Yvette and Henri Bergere (Margaret Livingston, Eugene Pallette). Our hero does his utmost to seduce Eleanor -- even engaging an entire section of a fancy restaurant for this purpose -- but she is not so easily won over. Ultimately, Georges does win the heroine, but only on her terms. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adolphe Menjou, Kathryn Carver, (more)
- 1929
Director Ernst Lubitsch's first talking picture, The Love Parade was a witty souffle about a royal "marriage of state." Jeanette MacDonald, the queen of Sylvania, is required to take a husband. Maurice Chevalier is a highborn Sylvanian diplomat called back to his country due to his amorous escapades. It is arranged for Chevalier to marry MacDonald, but though he is ostensibly the "king" of the boudoir, he is not allowed to participate in any affairs of state. Gradually the royal protocol erodes the marriage, as the formerly footloose Chevalier bristles at being a mere consort. After numerous complications and misunderstandings, Chevalier asserts his authority over the secretly willing MacDonald. Counterpointing the main plot is the backstairs romance of servants Lupino Lane and Lillian Roth, who, like the stars, get to cut loose in the occasional musical number. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, (more)
- 1928
Filmed in the Ukraine, Hectic Days is a comedy about the life and loves of Belokon, a tank commander in the Red Army. Having never had any time for romance, Belokon is startled to learn that Tania, a gorgeous co-ed at the Agricultural Academy, has fallen in love with him. Alas, our hero considers himself unworthy of the girl: Not only is he nearly illiterate, but his is the worst tank in the regiment. Will he be able to "smarten" up in time to qualify for Tania's hand in marriage -- and will his sudden fascination in academia compromise his ability on the battlefield? Amazingly, Hectic Days arrives at a happy ending, but only after pausing for a few propagandistic passages. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1924
Producer/director D.W. Griffith's feature is a fairly realistic study of the deprivations visited on the German people after their defeat in World War I. In her best-ever performance, Griffith protégée Carol Dempster plays Inga, who does her best to hold her family together and keep food on the table despite grinding poverty, debilitating illness and out-of-control inflation. The most memorable scene finds Inga desperately trying to maneuver a basketful of near-worthless Deutschmarks to a market before the prices rise again and she is unable to buy meat. Aware that anti-German sentiment still prevailed in the US, Griffith cannily inserted an opening title which noted that the main characters were Polish. A further title explains that "The Story is laid in Germany only because the conditions there were most suitable to show the struggle of love over hardship." Filmed on location in Germany, Isn't Life Wonderful sentimentalizes things just a tad towards the end, but otherwise remains an uncompromising forerunner of the semi-documentary European "street" dramas of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Alas, the film failed completely at the box office, ending D.W. Griffith's career as an independent producer (he would continue to direct, but only as a "hired hand" for various studios). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carol Dempster, Neil Hamilton, (more)
- 1923
British music hall favorite Lupino Lane enjoyed an energetic if not spectacular film career in Hollywood. Largely confined to 2-reelers, Lane managed to star in one feature film, Friendly Husband. In this one, he plays the very patient spouse of featherbrained Alberta Vaughan. And, of course, he is saddled with the obligatory mother-in-law, here played by the fearsome Eva Thatcher. The martial-farce plot complications allow Lane to indulge in his world-famous athletic slapstick, including his legendary "scissors kick." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lupino Lane, Alberta Vaughn, (more)
