Francis Lederer Movies

German filmmaker G.W. Pabst's late-silent classic Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) stars the hauntingly beautiful Louise Brooks as libertine dancer Lulu. Ever out for the "main chance," Lulu persuades her wealthy lover Dr. Schön (Fritz Kortner) to marry her. But in a fit of jealous rage, he pulls a gun, a scuffle ensues, and she shoots him. Eventually escaping to London with the doctor's moonstruck son Alwa (Francis Lederer), Lulu takes up residence with her "adopted" father Schigolch (Carl Götz), where she is reduced to walking the streets, with tragic consequences. Pandora's Box (based on two works by the controversial German writer Franz Wedekind) exudes smoky sensuality in every frame; regarded now as a masterpiece, the film received surprisingly scathing reviews, with most of the critical broadsides aimed at Louise Brooks (this was long before Brooks graduated from just another pretty Hollywood starlet to Cult Goddess). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This silent-screen classic, like many others produced near the end of the silent era, was both a theatrical extravaganza boasting an original orchestral score and an item which languished in obscurity for many years. When Carlo Piccardi took what was left of the score by Maurice Jaubert and re-created it, the existing footage was restored and paired with a new orchestral performance which was shown in Paris in 1988. The film's story concerns the travails of a woman who has been living quite comfortably as the mistress of a colonel in the Tsar's army in Russia. However, she eventually encounters a penniless young lieutenant and falls madly in love with him, as he does with her. Despite her best intentions of remaining with the colonel, and his intention to avoid trouble with his fellow soldiers, they cannot forswear this relationship, and tragedy is the inevitable result. The title refers to a moving incident in the story, and translates as "the wonderful lie of Nina Petrovna." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Also known as Hai Tang, this exotic melodrama was filmed in both German and English-language versions. The title character, played by Anna May Wong, is a dancer in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Hay Tang is offered a life of luxury by a powerful Russian Grand Duke, but she turns him down, preferring the love of a lowly lieutenant in the Imperial army. The Grand Duke responds by threatening dire consequences for the lieutenant, whereupon Hay Tang finds herself on the horns of a dilemma. Just then, the girl's brother appears with gun in hand, shooting and wounding the Duke. To save her brother from execution, Hay Tang promises unswerving sexual devotion to the Duke -- while the lieutenant waits longingly at home, waiting and longing for his sweetheart's return. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Susanne Macht Ordnung (Susanne Cleans Up) top-bills Truus von Alten in the title role. Ostensibly orphaned, boarding-school resident Susanne believes that her parents are still alive. Determining to find out the identity of her father and mother, she greets the male half of five different married couples with a "Hello, Papa!" This has the negative result of breaking up each couple. Thus it is that Susanne "cleans up" her mess by arranging for the five couples to meet "by accident" in the same nightclub. Once again, Szoeke Szakall (aka S. Z. Sakall) steals everything but the cameras. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ginger Rogers and Francis Lederer share equal billing -- and near-equal screen time -- in this amiable RKO programmer. Lederer plays Karel Novak, an incredibly naïve Czech immigrant who is taken under the wing of streetwise New York chorus girl Sylvia Dennis (Rogers). With the help of lovable cop-on-the-beat Murphy (J. Farrel McDonald), Sylvia hides Karel from the immigration authorities and ultimately falls in love with him. In addition to Karel's illegal-alien status, the plot is complicated by a crooked lawyer (Arthur Hohl) and a group of well-meaning welfare workers who endeavor to place Sylvia's kid brother Frank (Jimmy Butler) in a foster home. Usually cast in insincere roles, Francis Lederer is at his most sympathetic and likable in Romance in Manhattan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Pursuit of Happiness was adapted from the risque stage comedy by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall. Set during the American revolution, the film centers around the quaint 18th century custom of "bundling"--that is, having unmarried men and women share the same bed during cold weather, albeit fully clothed and with a wooden plank separating the bedmates. Joan Bennett is the American heroine, an innkeeper's daughter, and Francis Lederer the Hessian hero, who has deserted the English cause to experience American freedom--most notably the bundling practice. As Bennett's parents, Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland perform their usual domestic comedy in period costume. TV Guide listings frequently confuse the 1934 Pursuit of Happiness with an altogether different 1971 TV-movie of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A remake of the French comedy Monsieur Sans-Gene, One Rainy Afternoon gets under way when film-actor Phillippe Martin (Francis Lederer) heads to a darkened Parisian movie theater for a romantic rendezvous with his married sweetheart Yvonne (Countess Live de Margaret). But our hero sits in the wrong seat and kisses the wrong young lady: Monique Pelerin (Ida Lupino), the daughter of a powerful publisher Joseph Cawthorn. This innocent mistake snowballs into a national scandal, fomented by the hatchet-faced president (Eily Malyon) of the Purity League, with Phillippe earning the onus of "The Kissing Monster." It all culminates in one of those zany courtroom trails which proliferated in screwball comedies of the 1930s, wherein Phillippe defends himself by insisting that it is in a Frenchman's nature to be romantic, even with perfect strangers -- and as a result he becomes an international hero! One Rainy Afternoon was the first of a handful of United Artists talkies personally produced by studio vice-president Mary Pickford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romance, a secretary is awarded a legacy. Later she meets a male secretary who begins protecting her from an avaricious baron endeavoring to steal her money. The two rivals engage in fisticuffs, and the secretary loses. Fortunately, he wins the love of the girl. He then reveals that his actually a millionaire himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Paramount's screwball comedy Midnight is the first collaboration between director Mitchell Leisen and screenwriting duo Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. The film merges Brackett and Wilder's early emphasis on repartee and masquerade with ex-costume designer Leisen's flair for high style and sophistication. American Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert), a wily ex-showgirl, must impersonate Hungarian royalty in order to infiltrate the Parisian jet set. Midnight begins during a midnight rainstorm as Eve arrives penniless at Paris' Gare de L'Est, owning only the gold lamé gown on her back. She attracts the attention of Hungarian cab driver, Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), but walks out on their budding romance; Eve will no longer make the mistake of dating for love rather than money. Instead, she finds shelter from the downpour by crashing a socialite's late-night soirée using a pawnticket and a pseudonym, the Baroness Czerny (the cab driver's surname). There, Eve meets aristocrat Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore), who entices her with a place in society if she agrees to remain disguised as the Baroness and seduce his wife's playboy lover. Meanwhile, Tibor Czerny has not given up his search for Eve. When he locates her whereabouts and discovers the fact that she is using his name, Tibor also travels to the Flammarion estate -- to win back Eve, and to pose as her husband, the Baron. What ensues is quintessential screwball comedy, full of deception, love, quadruple entendre, and outright farce. Midnight remains Leisen's most heralded directorial effort, as well as one of Brackett and Wilder's earliest successes. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

This cautionary pre-World War II drama stars Joan Bennett as an American girl who falls in love and marries a German (Francis Lederer) in 1938. At first he seems charming, but Joan discovers that her husband is slowly being seduced by the Nazi Party. Determined to leave, Bennett is forced to battle Lederer for custody of their child, whom the husband plans to raise as a budding Fascist. The Nazi is foiled by his father(Otto Kruger), who crushes Lederer's "iron will" by informing his son that his own mother was Jewish. At 77 minutes, The Man I Married cuts out all slack, and the result is a taut, exciting melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

First filmed in 1928, Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-winning novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey is given a ponderous treatment in this 1944 remake. Like the novel, the film begins at the end, with the collapse of a rope bridge in 18th century Peru. The story then flashes back to the lives of the five unfortunates killed in the collapse. Among the five are singer-turned-couresan Michaela (Lynn Bari), her obsequious Uncle Pio (Akim Tamiroff), feuding twin brothers Manuel and Estaban (both played by Francis Lederer) and the envious Marquesa (Nazimova). Trying to make sense of the lives and deaths of the five is sensitive young priest Brother Juniper (Donald Woods). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This drama is an updated version of Ulmer's 1944 film Bluebeard. It is set in New York and follows the exploits of an eccentric Parisian painter who has come to New York to escape a controversy surrounding his work. The trouble stems when the model he has used in all his work is found floating dead in the Seine. Later, his New York model is also found dead. When a second model is also found dead, her sister impersonates a model to prove his guilt. Instead she falls in love with him and helps to clear his name. (Interestingly, in the original, he was the killer.) ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide