Margaret Mann Movies

In this grim drama, a conniving young man is brought up on charges of reckless driving. To "prove" his innocence and good character, he goes to a nursing home and adopts an old woman whom he presents as his loving mother. Unfortunately for him, she really gets into her role and when he falls in love with a seductive, shady lady, the old lady does all she can to protect him from her; this includes getting him tossed in jail and shooting the young trollop. Afterward, the old lady must stand trial. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Honolulu detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) spends an eventful weekend at an English country estate in this fog-bound series entry. Young Neil Howard (Ray Milland) has been accused of murder, but family friend Geoffrey Howard (Alan Mowbray) expresses the hope that Chan will be able to locate the genuine killer. The weapons this time include a set of poison darts, while a series of cryptic notes provide vital clues to Chan and his Scotland Yard counterpart Sgt. Thacker (E.E. Clive), who insists upon calling the humble oriental sleuth "Mr. Chang" throughout the picture. Crucial to the plot's development is a fox hunt, predating a similar sequence in John Huston's The List of Adrian Messenger by nearly 30 years. At 79 minutes, Charlie Chan in London is the longest of Fox's Chan series -- unnecessarily so, since the identity of the "surprise killer" is obvious from reel one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Russell plays a construction engineer who is held responsible for the collapse of a bridge. The actual culprit is the boss' weakling son Charles Spere, who bought defective materials in hopes of pocketing the rest of the building budget. Loyally, Russell covers for Spere, then drops out of sight. Later on, he resurfaces in a small western town, where his girlfriend Helen Ferguson recognizes him but refuses to turn him in. By and by, Russell is cleared, and a happy ending is had by all-except, presumably, that wimpy cake-eater Spere. The employer's wife is played by Margaret Mann, later immortalized as "Grandma" in the early-talkie Our Gang comedies Helping Grandma and Fly My Kite (both 1931). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This prison film features an inventive escape from Alcatraz. They do it by planning a phony wedding in a prison chapel. The fugitives are soon captured by a brave hero who stops them by crashing his car into their getaway plane. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Long though lost, Four Sons reemerged in the 1960s, proving anew that the silent films of director John Ford were every bit as accomplished as his talkies. More "Germanic" in tone and texture than later Ford films, Four Sons is the story of the Bernle family of Bavaria. Mother Bernle (Margaret Mann) dotes upon her four sons Joseph (James Hall), Johann (Charles Morton), Franz (Francis X. Bushman Jr.) and Andres (George Meeker), but is powerless in guiding their destinies. When WW I breaks out, her sons march off to the front: one of the boys fights for the AEF, the others for the Kaiser. The film's most poignant sequence takes place on the battlefield, when one of the sons stumbles upon his mortally wounded brother. Though the dying man's plaintive cries are heard on the Fox Movietone soundtrack, the scene itself is effectively played in pantomime. An updated version of Four Sons, wherein the locale was switched from Bavaria to Czechoslovakia, was filmed in 1940, starring Don Ameche, Alan Curtis, Robert Lowery and George Ernest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Constance Talmadge was at the peak of her career when she made this comedy; she was also near the end of her career. The star would only make a handful of films after this one before retiring in lieu of switching over to talkies. Helen Weyringer (Talmadge), a nice but slightly dowdy housewife, has a sister, La Perry (also Talmadge), who is a notorious dancer. When Helen has an argument with her husband Joseph (Ronald Colman), she walks out on him. She runs into her sister and they plot to vamp Joseph and teach him a lesson. Posing as La Perry, Helen flirts outrageously with Joseph until he can no longer resist her charms. Joseph's friend Robert (George K. Arthur) falls for her too. After much trickery, Helen as La Perry convinces Joseph to run away with her. Only then does he discover that he has been carrying on with his wife. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Will Rogers stars as Judge William "Billy" Priest, the common-sense Kentucky jurist created by humorist Irvin S. Cobb. The Judge's easygoing manner bothers many of the self-righteous good citizens of his small 19th-century hometown, imperiling his chances for re-election. The anecdotal plot boils down to a single storyline involving orphaned Anita Louise, reclusive David Landau (secretly Louise's father), and young attorney Tom Brown.The testimony that saves Landau from a murder charge is delivered by Civil War veteran H.B. Walthall, whose stirring loyalty to the Confederacy inspires everyone in town to organize an impromptu parade! Some of the best scenes are highlighted by Will Rogers' affectionate rapport with stereotyped black-actors Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel, though these scenes are frequently removed from TV showings of Judge Priest due to their undeniably racist overtones. If you haven't guessed by the first frame of the film that John Ford was the director, you'll recognize Ford's personal stamp the moment Will Rogers kneels by his wife's grave and carries on a warm conversation with his long-departed bride. Ford would remake (and improve upon) Judge Priest in 1953 as The Sun Shines Bright, with Charles Winninger as the judge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This follow-up to RKO Radio's near-perfect adaptation of Little Women was produced by small but enterprising Mascot Pictures (the forerunner to Republic). Erin O'Brien-Moore and Ralph Morgan star as Jo March and Professor Bhaer, the characters played by Katharine Hepburn and Paul Lukas in Little Women. Now married, Jo and the Professor decide to establish a school for wayward boys, hoping to guide the kids towards the proper paths in life. The supporting cast includes what "B"-film historian Don Miller described as "just about every child player in Hollywood" ranging from cherubic Dickie Moore as Demi to tough-guy Frankie Darro as Dan (future director Richard Quine can also be spotted amongst the boys). Louisa May Alcott devotees have always felt that Little Men is inferior to Little Women; the same, alas, can be said about the two novels' respective film versions, though Mascot's Little Men comes to life whenever satanic-visaged Gustaf Von Seyfertitz, cast as a vindictive reformatory supervisor, oils his way onto the screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior senator, puts in a call to Governor Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee) reporting the news. Hopper then calls powerful media magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), who controls the state -- along with the lawmakers. Taylor orders Hopper to appoint an interim senator to fill out Foley's term; Taylor has proposed a pork barrel bill to finance an unneeded dam at Willet Creek, so he warns Hopper he wants a senator who "can't ask any questions or talk out of turn." After having a number of his appointees rejected, at the suggestion of his children Hopper nominates local hero Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), leader of the state's Boy Rangers group. Smith is an innocent, wide-eyed idealist who quotes Jefferson and Lincoln and idolizes Paine, who had known his crusading editor father. In Washington, after a humiliating introduction to the press corps, Smith threatens to resign, but Paine encourages him to stay and work on a bill for a national boy's camp. With the help of his cynical secretary Clarissa Sanders (Jean Arthur), Smith prepares to introduce his boy's camp bill to the Senate. But when he proposes to build the camp on the Willets Creek site, Taylor and Paine force him to drop the measure. Smith discovers Taylor and Paine want the Willets Creek site for graft and he attempts to expose them, but Paine deflects Smith's charges by accusing Smith of stealing money from the boy rangers. Defeated, Smith is ready to depart Washington, but Saunders, whose patriotic zeal has been renewed by Smith, exhorts him to stay and fight. Smith returns to the Senate chamber and, while Taylor musters the media forces in his state to destroy him, Smith engages in a climactic filibuster to speak his piece: "I've got a few things I want to say to this body. I tried to say them once before and I got stopped colder than a mackerel. Well, I'd like to get them said this time, sir. And as a matter of fact, I'm not gonna leave this body until I do get them said." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The excellent box-office returns for the previous Laurel & Hardy comic operas The Devil's Brother and Babes in Toyland encouraged Hal Roach to cast the team in still another operatic adaptation, a self-styled "comedy version" of William Balfe's The Bohemian Girl. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play members of a gypsy tribe wandering through middle Europe sometime in the early 19th century. As if he hasn't got enough trouble trying to train dimwitted Stan to be a "first-class pickpocket," Ollie is also saddled with a faithless wife (Mae Busch), who is in love with dashing gypsy robber captain Devil's Hoof (Antonio Moreno). While trying to break into the palace of gypsy-hating Count Arnheim (William P. Carleton), Devil's Hoof is captured and flogged. In retaliation, Ollie's wife kidnaps Arnheim's little daughter Arline (Darla Hood of "Our Gang" fame) and leaves the child in Ollie's care, explaining that the baby is his ("I didn't want to tell her who her father was until she was old enough to stand the shock!") Twelve years later, Arline (now played by Jacqueline Wells) has grown into a beautiful young woman who's forgotten all about her aristocratic childhood, except whenever she dreams "she dwelt in marbl'd halls" (from the song of the same name). By coincidence, Arline one day finds herself wandering around the grounds of her ancestral home. She is captured by the Captain of the Guards (James Finlayson) and sentenced to be flogged, whereupon her foster-daddy Ollie and her drink-besotted Uncle Stanley race to her rescue. There's a happy ending for Arline, but not for Stan and Ollie, who wind up the picture with one of their famous "physical distortion" gags. A troubled production, The Bohemian Girl had to be extensively reshot and re-edited after previews because of the sudden (and still unsolved) death of co-star Thelma Todd, who was originally cast as the Gypsy Queen. It was decided out of respect for Todd to retain only one of her musical numbers and to refilm the rest of her scenes with other actors; as a result, Bohemian Girl is one of the patchiest and most uneven of the Laurel & Hardy features. Fortunately, Stan and Ollie's scenes are well up to par, especially the classic bit wherein Stan inadvertently becomes progressively drunker as he tries to bottle a cask of bubbling wine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Even though World War I had just reached its end, the war films kept coming. While The Heart of Humanity had a similar plot to D.W. Griffith's Hearts of the World, it was by no means some cheap knock-off. Director Alan Holubar worked hard (sometimes too hard for this post-war era) to make the battle scenes as authentic as possible. The story centers around Nanette (Dorothy Phillips), an American girl living in a small Canadian village, who is in love with John Patricia (William Stowell), the eldest of five brothers. The war interrupts their romantic idyll, as everyone goes overseas to Belgium and France. Nanette becomes a Red Cross nurse and is terrorized by the evil Prussian Lt. von Eberhard (Erich Von Stroheim, who played a similar, but smaller role in Hearts of the World). It is up to John to save her from the Hun's advances. It was in this film that Von Stroheim, who had become famous for his wicked portrayals of German officers, was billed as "The Man You Love to Hate." This was his first movie for Universal; he would be both director and star of the next one, Blind Husbands. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This truly offbeat filmization of Jean Bart's stage drama The Man Who Reclaimed His Head has been misleadingly released to TV as part of the "Shock Theater" package, even though the film is more melancholy than horrific. At the height of WW I, the trembling, near-lunatic Paul Verin (Claude Rains) arrives at police headquarters, carrying an ominously heavy handbag. Before revealing the bag's gruesome contents, he relates his tragic story in flashback. At one time a promising writer, Verin was married to the beautiful and ambitious Adele (Joan Bennett), who pushed and prodded him to advance himself. Accordingly, he sold his "head" -- that is, his integrity -- to powerful publisher Henri Dumont (Lionel Atwill), ghostwriting Dumont's anti-war editorials. By the time he realized that the hypocritical Dumont had himself sold out to the pro-war business interests, Verin had lost his wife and child to the scheming publisher. Driven mad on the battlefield, he made his way back to Dumont's mansion, exacting a horrible but appropriate revenge (hence the film's title). The Man Who Reclaimed His Head was remade in 1945 as Strange Confession -- with the pacifist angle completely removed! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This preachy film, based on the book by John Arthur Nelson, also uses quotes from former president Woodrow Wilson's book, The New Freedom. Wilson's book supported several ideas, including profit-sharing and social equality, which were considered radical -- and perhaps almost communistic -- at the time. Unfortunately, this drama often seems more like a lecture about these concepts instead of entertainment. After World War I, Peter Manning, a mill owner (Alfred Allen), becomes a greedy capitalist and the workers rebel at his harsh treatment of them. Their leader is John McPherson (Pell Trenton), who is in love with Fanning's daughter, Mary (Norris Johnson). When Fanning loses his mill, the workers take it over with the financial help of a group of farmers. In the end, Fanning sees the error of his ways and blesses the union between his daughter and McPherson. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide