Paul Lukas Movies

One of the lesser-known directorial efforts of cinematographer Karl Freund, The Countess of Monte Cristo stars Fay Wray as the title character. A lowly extra in a Viennese movie studio, young Janet (Wray) gets fed up with her lot in life. Hoping to have one final fling before trudging off to the poorhouse, Janet steals a fancy automobile and a fur coat from the movie studio and heads off to a coastal resort, where she registers as the Countess of Monte Cristo. Janet's best pal and reluctant travelling companion Mimi (Patsy Kelly) is certain that they'll both be exposed as phonies within a day or so, but our heroine manages to carry off the ruse with great success, even attracting the attentions of two well-heeled gentlemen, Rumowski (Paul Lukas) and The Baron (Reginald Owen). Alas, Janet's holiday comes to an abrupt end when it turns out that her two suitors are actually international jewel thieves! The Countess of Monte Cristo was remade on a considerably reduced budget in 1948. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Horror film icon James Whale directed this well-detailed thriller about a man questioning his wife's honesty after a friend begins to doubt his own. Dr. Paul Held (Frank Morgan) is an attorney who has been asked to come to the aid of his old friend Walter Bernsdorf (Paul Lukas); Bernsdorf has been accused of killing his wife, and he wants Held to defend him in court. Bernsdorf admits to shooting his spouse, but he tells Held that he lost control when he found out his wife was having an affair. Held takes on his friend's case, but as he pours over the facts in the Bernsdorf slaying, he finds himself wondering about the fidelity of his own wife, Maria (Nancy Carroll) -- and begins to seethe with jealousy when he find that she has indeed been sleeping with another man. A Kiss Before The Mirror also features actress Gloria Stuart; James Whale would remake the same story six years later, under the title Wives Under Suspicioun. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Sing, Sinner, Sing is one of several 1930s films based on the notorious, well-publicized romance between nightclub singer Libby Holman and tobacco heir Smith Reynolds (the most recent a clef incarnation of this scandalous affair was 1956's Written on the Wind). The Holman counterpart, torch singer Lela Larson, is played by Leila Hyams, while the Reynolds character, wastrelly millionaire Ted Rendon, is essayed by Donald Dillaway. Told mostly in flashback, the story concerns the events leading up to the murder of Rendon, for which his wife Lela is standing trial. The fact that Paul Lukas, cast as gambling-ship owner Phil Cardia, is given top billing tends to give away a vital plot point. At the time of its release, Sing, Sinner, Sing was thought to be in poor taste for capitalizing on the tawdry Holman-Reynolds affair; seen today, it looks about as tasteless as Bambi. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from a "drawn from life" novel by Sir Phillip Gibbs, Captured is the story of the men in a German POW camp during World War I. Amongst the allied prisoners are Leslie Howard and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (British), and Paul Lukas (French). Adding to the dramatic intensity is the fact that both Howard and Fairbanks had been in love with the same aristocratic young woman before the war. Instead of serving up slam-bang action sequences, the film is more concerned with detailing the Hell of war and the despair of those who fight it. Not quite in the same league as La Grande Illusion or Stalag 17, Captured is nonetheless worth a second glance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anyone who believes that the career of silent screen idol John Gilbert ended because his voice has too high for the talkies hasn't seen this marvelously black comedy. In perhaps his best performance of the sound era (with his supporting role in 1934's The Captain Hates the Sea running a close second), Gilbert plays a rogue who can get away with just about anything because of his charisma and charm -- and his voice suits his character perfectly. Karl (Gilbert) is a chauffeur who goes to work for a Viennese Baron and Baroness (Reginald Owen) and Olga Baclanova) on the day that two of their servants -- head butler Albert (Paul Lukas) and maid Anna (an astonishingly lovely Virginia Bruce) -- are being wed. Almost immediately Karl creates havoc in the household -- he flirts with the innocent, susceptible Anna, blackmails the Baroness, who is having an affair, and seduces the middle-aged head cook, Sophie (Bodil Rosing), only so he can get his hands on her life savings. In spite of his wickedness, there is something magnetic about Karl, and Anna -- who is vaguely dissatisfied with her loving but dogmatic husband -- finally succumbs. But all of his schemes inevitably backfire on him and after Albert gets Sophie's money back, he gladly tosses Karl out of the Baron's mansion. The next we see of him, he is c harming his way into yet another chauffeur position (hinting at a potential sequel that, unfortunately, never came). Gilbert, who wrote the story four years earlier, originally had an appropriately macabre ending -- after a brutal fight, Albert drowns Karl in a vat of wine. When he first came up with the idea, Gilbert had wanted Erich Von Stroheim to direct. By 1932, this was out of the question (MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer had little use for Stroheim). Instead, the highly capable Monta Bell was given the job -sadly, it was one his last directing assignments. During the shoot, Gilbert and Virginia Bruce fell in love and they were married in August, 1932, the month that the film was released. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a frustrated wife, unable to get pregnant by her husband, decides to sleep with another in hopes of finally getting the child she so desperately wants. She ends up having an affair with a brain surgeon. He manages to get her pregnant and after it is born, she claims the child is her husband's. Years pass. One day the boy falls off a horse and is seriously injured. After the surgeon saves his life, the boy's mother confesses that he is the boy's real father, but then she tells him she still wants to stay with her husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, a woman is blamed for another's suicide and ends up deported to Germany. Just as WW I erupts she marries a German commandant's son to keep from being sent to an alien prison camp. While her husband sells classified information to the British in order to pay her way back to England, she has an affair with another officer, causing her husband to kill himself. The young widow then tears up his note to preserve his honor and leaves Germany in the hope that she will again see her lover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Preston Sturges' hit Broadway play Strictly Dishonorable was adapted for the movies in 1931 with virtually all its sexual innuendo intact. In New York City, a young American girl (Sidney Fox) tires of her abusive live-in boy friend. She falls for a roguish Italian singer (Paul Lukas) with a bad reputation, whose interest in her is purely carnal. Burned by her past relationships, the girl determinedly "holds out;" she will capitulate only on her terms, which include a matrimonial commitment. Impressed by the girl's iron will, the singer agrees to marriage, telling himself he is saving her reputation. Cheerfully uninhibited in the best pre-code manner, Strictly Dishonorable was laundered and musicalized for its 1951 remake, which starred Ezio Pinza and Janet Leigh. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An aspiring artist leaves his wife and daughter when he gets a chance to spend a year studying in Paris in this melodrama. Although his wife supports the idea, a year later he returns a bohemian and decides to separate from his family. Later he reconsiders his new life style after his little girl is killed in an auto accident. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Working Girls is a slight, dated, but still entertaining comedy, typical of its era. Louise Adams (Frances Dee) and her friend (Claire Dodd) travel to the city in order to get jobs and hopefully find husbands. There they face the usual complications, but the women persevere and all ends well. The film is notable because its director Dorothy Arzner, was one of the few American women directors of the studio era. Arzner began her career as script-girl where she progressed to film editor. Her editing so impressed Paramount that Arzner was allowed to direct. She went on to have a long career and was the first woman member of the Directors Guild of America. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

The continental-flavored comedy drama Beloved Bachelor was based on a play by Edward H. Peple. Unmarried sculptor Paul Lukas and his two bachelor pals kindheartedly adopt little orphan girl Betty Van Allen. Time passes, and awkward little Van Allen grows up to be lovely and graceful Dorothy Jordan. Lukas and Jordan's feelings towards one another go far beyond familial, but neither dares to cross over the line. When Lukas' fiancee Vivienne Osborne jilts him, he finally comes to grips with the fact that it's Jordan whom he truly loves. Beloved Bachelor is basic Daddy Long Legs stuff, tastefully handled; the film proved a big hit in 1931, much to the relief of financially strapped Paramount Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin (Evelyn Brent) hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff (Paul Lukas) blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wife (Helen Ware) of phlegmatic American businessman Sylvester Corbett (Eugene Pallette). She does what she's told, only to find herself in competition with gentleman thief Courtney Parkes (Clive Brook). Upon falling in love with each other, Lucy and Stavrin mutually decide to reform -- if they can. A French-language version of Slightly Scarlet, titled L'Enigmatique Monsieur Parkes, was filmed in mid-1930, with Adolphe Menjou and Claudette Colbert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide