Helen Lynch Movies

Elmer and Elsie was adapted from To the Ladies, a play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Former movie tough guy George Bancroft is uncharacteristically cast as Elmer Beebe, mildly henpecked husband of frail but formidable Elsie Beebe (Frances Fuller, in the role originated on Broadway by Helen Hayes). In the company of his pal John Kincaid (George Barbier), likewise wed to a browbeating wife, Elmer expansively espouses the theory that a woman should "know her place" and stay out of her husband's affairs. But when he tries to practice this theory at home, our hero meets strong resistance from Elsie, who has become convinced that hot-shot Rocky Cott (Roscoe Karns) will lead her hubby to financial success. It's a cute bit of domestic whimsy, but hardly a landmark in the career of George Bancroft. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Much of this drama is comprised of newsreel footage. It chronicles the exploits of a luckless college prize-fighter attempting to go professional. Unfortunately he is exploited by his dishonest manager. The innocent pugilist is eventually befriended and assisted by a pretty reporter who helps free him from his wicked manager. During the big fight, the fighter takes a real lickin' when he discovers that the reporter has not come to the fight. This is a very early talkie. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Romance of the Underworld was adapted from a barnstorming stage piece by Paul Armstrong. Forced by circumstance into a life of sin and deprivation, Judith Andrews (Mary Astor) ends up as a "hostess" in a seedy dance hall. She is rescued by her kind-hearted employer Stephen Ransome (John Boles), and together the newlyweds carve out a new and decent life for themselves. Their happiness is threatened when a figure from their past, slimy racketeer Derby Dan Manning (Ben Bard), tries to blackmail the unfortunate couple. In a climax that would not have been possible in the Production Code-dominated 1930s, Derby Dan is foiled by sympathetic detective Burke (Robert Elliot), who slyly arranges for the villain to be bumped off by one of his own underworld buddies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Having grown up under the thumbs of her two maiden aunts, 17-year-old Joan Hastings (Marceline Day) has never had a boyfriend. This seems due to change when Joan meets handsome garage mechanic Bill (Rex Lease), but their budding romance is squashed by the overbearing aunties. Fed up with being treated like a hothouse orchid, Joan runs off to San Francisco, where she becomes a successful model with the help of wealthy Curtis Barstow (Owen Moore). Joan assumes that Barstow's interest in her is entirely platonic, but he proves otherwise when he gets her alone in his mountain cabin. Fortunately, faithful Bill happens to be strolling by at just the right moment to rescue Joan from her would-be seducer. This sublimely predictable yarn was based on a serialized magazine story by Hazel Livingston. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Popular film lore has it that The Jazz Singer was the film that established the talkie as the pre-eminent film medium in 1927. But it was Al Jolson's follow-up film, The Singing Fool that actually introduced the sound film to the general film-going population of the United States and it was the popularity of The Singing Fool that paved the way for the wide-acceptance of sound features. Jolson plays Al Stone, a singing waiter at Blackie Joe's cafe, who writes a hit song and sky-rockets to success as a Broadway headliner. Looking ahead to unlimited success, Al falls in love with scheming golddigger Molly Winton (Josephine Dunn), whom he marries. When Molly gives him a son, Sonny Boy (Davey Lee), Al is beside himself with love for his cutey-pie offspring. But when Molly deserts him for small-time gangster John Perry (Reed Howes) and takes Sonny Boy with her, Al is heartbroken. His spirit shattered, Al becomes a bum and, after a time, regains his singing waiter job at Blackie Joe's. Back at the dive, Grace (Betty Bronson), a cigarette girl secretly in love with Al, convinces him to make a comeback. Al struggles and regains his confidence and hits the stage like a trouper -- even when he hears that his beloved Sonny Boy has died in a hospital ward. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The principal lady in Ladies of the Mob is jazz-baby Clara Bow. After her father is executed, Bow goes to heck in a handbasket, consorting with the riffiest raff of the underworld riff-raff. Upon falling in love with her partner in crime Richard Arlen, Bow vows to set him on the straight and narrow path (where did this plot twist come from?) To dissuade him from a life of crime, Bow shoots Arlen--whereupon he immediately reforms, as does she! Who cared in 1928 if Ladies of the Mob made any sense? It had Clara Bow, and that was enough. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Personable Owen Moore starred in this romantic comedy from Warner Bros. featuring Dolores Costello. About to marry his uncle's pretty ward, Herbert Willis (Moore) finds his bride-to-be, Doris (Kathryn Perry), completely taken in by dashing newcomer Hugh Fraser (John Miljan). Herbert, meanwhile, meets and falls in love with Molly Devoe (Costello), and a double wedding seems a strong possibility. Unfortunately, Hugh and Molly are strongly attracted to each other and elope on the night of the planned event. In an effort to save an increasingly muddled situation, Sir Reginald Knight (Claude Gillingwater) persuades his nephew Herbert to wed Doris, and the youngsters actually live happily ever after. Surprisingly, this rather sophisticated concoction was directed by Henry Lehrman, nicknamed "Pathé," a veteran farceur mainly remembered for slapstick comedies. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Underworld opens with a series of title cards setting its mood, telling of "a great city in the dead of night...streets lonely...moon clouded...buildings as empty as the cave dwellings of a forgotten age." Suddenly an explosion shatters the façade of a bank building, and the title cards announce that crime kingpin Bull Weed (George Bancroft) has "closed another account." Bull emerges from the wreckage carrying his swag, but while making his getaway, he spots a derelict (Clive Brook) wandering past, a potential witness, despite his apparent inebriated state. Instead of killing him, Weed knocks him cold, throws him in his car, and takes off, intending to figure out later what to do with his unexpected "guest." Weed turns out to be a man of many parts -- greedy and a brute when it comes to getting or keeping what he wants, but with a soft spot for the underdog, and also smart enough to recognize the importance of some knowledge that he doesn't possess. He takes a liking to the erudite but totally dissolute man, christening him "Rolls Royce" and keeping him around as an elegant stooge, advisor, and sometime driver. The man is only too happy to be taken off the streets and set up in an apartment with a full library of books at his disposal, and the two men's relationship is harmonious and mutually beneficial -- the former derelict has a home, and the crime boss gets smart advice.

Bull Weed and Rolls Royce's meeting is our introduction to the world of Weed, in which he runs much of what he surveys, but not without challengers. His most notable rival is vicious hood "Buck" Mulligan (Fred Kohler), who doesn't like Weed and also covets his girlfriend, "Feathers" McCoy (Evelyn Brent). Rolls Royce is also drawn to Feathers, who is, in turn, attracted to the gentle, witty man; however, out of decency to Bull, who has been a benefactor in his own way to both of them, they agree to stay away from each other. This drives Rolls Royce back to the bottle part of the time. Weed and Mulligan finally have it out during the underworld's annual drunken bacchanal, a wildly expressionistic sequence that must have seemed all the more dazzling and compelling to audiences in 1927, in the middle of the Prohibition Era. Mulligan tries to take advantage of his rival's passing out in a stupor by having his way with Feathers, but Bull awakens with help from Mulligan's jealous girlfriend and Rolls Royce, and proceeds to rescue Feathers and finish Mulligan -- an act that gets him charged with murder, convicted, and sentenced to die. Feathers and Rolls Royce, with the help of Bull's gang, try to help him break out on the eve of his execution, but their plan fails. Bull manages to escape on his own, though, and goes seeking revenge against Feathers and Rolls Royce, whom he believes have betrayed him. Just as Bull is about to pull out his gun, however, he discovers that Feathers and Rolls Royce had always played it straight with him, and even if they are attracted to each other, they never did anything about it, out of respect for him. He lets them go and surrenders to the police. Admonished by the head of the arresting squad that his break only gained him two hours, he smiles, saying those two hours were worth it for what he found out.

A masterpiece of the silent era that still holds up as an exciting and engrossing movie over 70 years later, and which is properly regarded as the first modern American gangster movie, Underworld has elements that anticipate such sound classics as Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, and a final shoot-out similar to those in Angels With Dirty Faces (co-starring Bancroft) and Each Dawn I Die. Director Josef von Sternberg and cinematographer Bert Glennon actually manage to convey sound with pure visuals in the suspenseful jailbreak scene, and, overall, they produced a beautifully stylized film, visually expressionistic but sentimental in tone and story. The script, by Ben Hecht -- a veteran Chicago reporter -- also crawls with allusions to real-life figures, Bull Weed being a highly sanitized stand-in for Al Capone, and "Buck" Mulligan a composite of Capone's Northside mob rival Dion O'Bannion and his eventual successor, O'Bannion gang member George "Bugs" Moran. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Yet another amiable Hoot Gibson western in which the somewhat bumbling star is caught up in, of all things, a Chinese Tong war in San Francisco. Soon enough he is falsely accused of a crime and must hightail it back to Arizona, accompanied along the way by the children (Jackie Morgan, Turner Savage and Billy Kent Schaeffer) of his friend (comic sidekick George Ovey). The foursome hides out at the ranch of Col. Savery (Emmett King) until Gibson manages to win first prize in a sweepstakes and eventually saves the colonel from foreclosure and clear his own name. Always more at ease with comedy than heavy dramatics, Gibson is this time dangerously close to being upstaged by three adorable tots. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

My Own Pal takes Tom Mix out of his customary western surroundings and plunks him in the middle of New York City. Joining a travelling rodeo, Tom O'Hara (Mix) and his beloved pinto Fritz are whisked off to the Big Apple, where he takes up residence in a theatrical boardinghouse. Here he renews his acquaintance with Alice Derring (Olive Borden), whose honor he had previously defended on the eastbound train. It so happens that Alice is the daughter of a New York police chief, thus she's able to enter Tom and Fritz in an upcoming police riding tournament, leading to a job on the force as a mounted officer. In this capacity, our hero captures a fleeing jewel thief by lassoing the miscreant's motorcycle. Barely pausing for breath, Tom spends the final reel rescuing Alice from her kidnappers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Smouldering Fires is a first-rate silent "soap opera," immaculately performed by its superb cast and brilliantly directed by Clarence Brown. Pauline Frederick plays a highly efficient middle-aged business executive, whose motto is "Let No Man Be Necessary to You." She discards this edict when she falls in love with her much-younger employee Malcolm McGregor. Though McGregor sincerely loves Frederick, her younger sister Laura LaPlante assumes that the man is a fortune hunter. After Frederick and McGregor are wed, LaPlante comes to realize that her new brother-in-law is sincere. She also realizes uncomfortably that she has fallen in love with McGregor, and he with her. Out of consideration for Frederick, the younger couple keeps their mutual attraction secret, and promise each other not to act upon their feelings. But Frederick eventually figures out the situation. Magnanimously, she declares that the marriage was a mistake, and that she'll seek a divorce before anyone is hurt. The aftermath of this triangular situation is subtly hinted at by a carefully arranged medium shot of the three principals. Never stooping to cliché or wallowing in phony sentimentality, Smouldering Fires is an honest tale about realistic people with genuine emotions. Most available prints are from the American release version; the slightly longer European version is even better, with some remarkably mature (albeit non-lurid) setpieces. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tourist Mary Brown (Dorothy Devore) spends Three Weeks in Paris -- which looks suspiciously like the Warner Bros. backlot. The question: will Mary return home with her virtue intact? A better question: Does she want to? During her tenure in the City of Light, our heroine is wooed by continental lothario Duc de la Porte (Gayne Whitman) and rakish American Bruce Gordon (John Patrick). Chances are, however, that she'll end up with all-around good guy Oswald Bates (Matt Moore). The screenplay for Three Weeks in Paris was penned by one Darryl Francis Zanuck, whose best years definitely lay ahead of him. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi