Edward J. Le Saint Movies

In this western, a Chicago slicker begins grabbing land and using it to scam city dwellers by selling it first to locals, and then, once it is developed by selling it again to city folk desiring to come West. Naturally there are conflicts when the owners meet up. Fortunately, the town sheriff gets wise to the scam, settles it all, and stops the slicker. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In the wake of such cinematic Calamity Janes as Jean Arthur and Doris Day, it comes as a shock to find a film in which the famed frontierswoman is played by someone who actually looks the part. Matronly, granite-visaged Louise Dresser stars as Calamity in Caught, an early-talkie psychological western. According to this film, Calamity is a cattle rustler, wanted by the US cavalry. Halfway through this movie the plotline turns into a sagebrush Madame X The young trooper (Richard Arlen) sent to track down Calamity is the woman's long-lost son! It took four writers to cook up this heady brew of motherly love and blazing six-shooters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A minister's daughter finds fame as an evangelist but struggles with her own lack of faith in Frank Capra's impassioned drama. Inspired by the true story of Aimee Semple McPherson, the film follows the rise to prominence of Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck). Disillusioned by the mistreatment of her dying father by his church, Florence grows cynical about religion. She nevertheless retains an intimate knowledge of the Bible and natural flair for preaching, talents put to use by promoter Bob Hornsby (Sam Hardy) in a series of phony revival meetings, complete with staged healings and other stunts. Florence plays along, but she soon comes to take her religious mission more seriously, especially after a blind songwriter John Carson (David Manners) claims that her preaching saved his life. Guilt-ridden Florence decides to go straight, but Hornsby sets out to stop her, seeing her new-found morality -- and her budding romance with John -- as a threat to his lucrative business. Foreshadowing many of his better-known classics, Capra addresses issues about the manipulation of the public and the importance of truth while also presenting an unlikely romance. The film's treatment of religion was considered controversial on its initial release; it now seems justifiably complex but far from critical. The film's most notable element is the intense lead performance from Stanwyck, whose combination of fiery charisma and vulnerability is magnetic and convincing, providing Capra's ambitious drama with a gripping emotional core. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Buck Jones is supported by a very young John Wayne in this fine Western from his early years at Columbia Pictures. They play stepbrothers involved in a feud between the Turners and the Waltons. Clint Turner (Wayne) is forbidden to visit Judy Walton (Susan Fleming) by her father, John (Edward J. LeSaint). He does so anyway and is conveniently blamed for old man Walton's murder. Forced to arrest his stepbrother, Sheriff Buck Gordon (Jones) decides to investigate the real reason for the feud. After being shot and wounded by a mysterious figure, Buck discovers that a cattle rustler, Vandall (Harry Woods), is stirring up the bad blood between the families for his own nefarious purposes. When Vandall is proven guilty of Walton's murder, the feud comes to a peaceful end and Clint and Judy are reunited. While Wayne disliked working with Tim McCoy, another Columbia Western star, he came to admire the amiable Jones, a friendship that lasted until Jones' death. Range Feud was unofficially remade by Jones as The Red Rider (1934), a 15-chapter Universal serial featuring Grant Withers as the stepbrother falsely accused of murder. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this suspenseful crime drama a woman is threatened by an angry husband and a man comes to her aid. Unfortunately, after he accidentally kills the husband, the woman flees the crime scene and he ends up imprisoned. While doing his time, he and his cell mate, a con artist, become friends. The con man helps the fellow escape. He then goes to a small town, changes his identity and gets a job as a mill worker. To make himself more anonymous, the fellow sticks his fingers in a milling machine to scrape off his fingerprints. Later, his cell-mate breaks out and the fellow sends him to New York to find the woman so she can help clear his name. Unfortunately, the woman has become a famous extortionist and immediately turns the con artist in to the cops. She then makes a beeline to the hapless millworker to begin blackmailing him. Unfortunately for her, he refuses to let her intimidate him and in the end proves his innocence and gets her arrested instead. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This ambitious independently-produced musical was filmed in New York, utilizing the talents of several Broadway performers. Dialect comedian Nat Carr stars as movie mogul J. Pierpont Ginsburg, an amusing take-off of malaprop-spouting Sam Goldwyn. On the verge of bankruptcy, Ginsburg sinks every penny he has into a musical-comedy spectacular built around the questionable talents of French film siren Adore Renee (Fay Marbre). Meanwhile, Ginsburg's daughter Hope Sutherland pursues a romance with her dad's goyishe lawyer Sherline Oliver. In the climax, Ginsburg screens his masterpiece for a gathering of potential investors (including an uncredited Sam Levene), only to discover to his horror that the soundtrack is out of synchronization with the picture (pre-dating a similar gag in Singin' in the Rain by 22 years). Perhaps unintentionally, Talk of Hollywood is funnier in its dramatic moments than in its comedy sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This romantic melodrama was based on the novel Peggy of Beacon Hill by Maysie Greig. Because she is so badly treated by her stepfather (James Marcus), Peggy Mason (Lillian Rich) considers marrying Joe Wheeler (Brooks Benedict), even though she does not love him. Then she inherits a thousand dollars and this enables her to become a partner in a Bohemian tea room in Boston. There she meets Douglas Wyman (Robert Frazer) and falls in love with him. When he takes her to his lodge in the woods he admits that he is already married to a faithless wife (Bonnie Hill). Peggy refuses to have anything to do with him and escapes from the lodge. She is caught in a storm and becomes very ill. While she is recuperating, she reads a newspaper item that says Wyman is being tried for the murder of his wife. Since she was killed on the night that he was with Peggy, she rushes down to the courtroom and willingly ruins her good name by admitting she was with him. Wyman is freed and he and Peggy unite. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Elaine Hammerstein stars in this Columbia picture, which trade magazine Motion Picture News admitted was "an average program attraction." Helen Merritt (Hammerstein) is the daughter of a proud but impoverished Southern Colonel (William V. Mong). They have gone north to New York, where Helen works as a secretary to John Randall (Charles Clary). She has a romance with one of Randall's other employees, Jack Wayne (Forrest Stanley). Randall, determined to have Helen for himself, sends Wayne to Mexico and then makes a false report of his death. Helen and her father go to Randall's Long Island estate, where he pressures her into marrying him. Just after they are wed, Wayne returns. That night, Randall is found murdered, and both Helen and Wayne suspect each other of doing the deed. The housekeeper accuses Helen, but then admits that she is actually the killer. With the evil Randall gone, Helen and Wayne are free to be together. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This standard but solid programmer was put out by a company called C.B.C., a Poverty Row studio derisively called "Corned Beef and Cabbage." Later in the decade, the company would change its name to Columbia, and, under the leadership of tough, plain-spoken mogul Harry Cohn, it would become a real force in the movie industry. When opera diva Julia Montfort (Irene Rich) marries Frank Travers (Albert Roscoe), she gives up her career and becomes a housewife. Travers loses his job. Julia saves them from the poorhouse by returning to the stage for impresario Sam Hermann (Willard Louis). To save her husband's dignity, she creates a job for him, but he's actually paid out of her salary. Because of an argument he overhears, Travers becomes suspicious of his wife's faithfulness. Eventually the truth comes out and the couple's relationship is saved. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This drama -- slightly sensational and moralistic -- was typical of the feature fare put out by low-budget film company C.B.C., which became better known (and a better company) a few years later as Columbia. Irene Rich stars as Megan Daye, who, after divorcing her husband, Gilbert Ames (Lewis Dayton), takes back her maiden name and goes to work for the ridiculously rich and domineering Mrs. Harbours (Josephine Crowell). Ames marries Viola, a telephone operator (Eileen Percy), and runs into his ex-wife when meeting with Mrs. Harbours, who happens to be his client. Viola, meanwhile, meets up with her old friend, Victor Fleming (Philo McCullough), and it's quite possible that his character's name was no accident. The director Victor Fleming was already known for his macho, womanizing ways. Viola and Fleming go off sailing and they are drowned. Now that he is conveniently a widower, Ames is able to patch things up with Megan and they reconcile. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In spite of its Poverty Row location, C.B.C. -- which later became better known as Columbia -- put out some quality pictures. This drama sported an excellent cast and an well-written screenplay by Lenore Coffee. Cynical broker Frederick Arnold (Phillips Smalley) sets out to prove that "all women are mercenary." The focus of his experiment is Marjorie (Eva Novak), the wife of Jack Baldwin (Bryant Washburn), a modest clerk. Arnold meets Baldwin and shows him how to play the market. As the former clerk amasses a fortune, his wife goes about spending it as quickly as possible. Marjorie also associates with a Bohemian crowd, and refuses to listen to Baldwin's pleas to change. Arnold, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Marjorie and tries to ruin Baldwin. This backfires, however, and Baldwin winds up even richer. Seduced by his newfound wealth, Baldwin finds himself in trouble when both he and Marjorie are caught in a raid at a roadhouse -- both of them with somebody other than their legal spouses. Arnold finally reveals his plan, and the Baldwins come to their senses. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The real draw of this suspenseful drama was the yacht race and the motor boat chase, which included a hydroplane. No one cared much about the plot, but here it is anyway: Wealthy Lawrence Bradbury (a miscast Dustin Farnum) owns a transatlantic line which is being plagued by silk thieves. When he weds his fiancee, Constance (Ethel Gray Terry), he doesn't realize that her brother Ned (Maurice "Lefty" Flynn) is a detective who's on the case (as a matter of fact, the audience isn't apprised of this, either). Constance can't tell him because she is duty bound to keep Ned's profession secret. Bradbury comes to suspect that both his brother Jim (Fred Thomson) and Constance are part of the gang, but finally after a load of complications the truth comes out. The small role of Helen Palmer is one of Aileen Pringle's first appearances in a major studio film. In fact no one seemed to get the name of the future star of Three Weeks correct -- it ranges from Adele Pringle (Motion Picture News) to Eileen Pringle (Film Daily). ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide