Edward Martindel Movies

Lucille Ball stars as the wife of a war correspondent, anxiously awaiting her husband's return. Ball is convinced that hubby (George Brent) is looking forward to feminine companionship after four long years at the front. Imagine her surprise when it looks as though her husband wasn't quite as lonely as she'd thought--thanks to sexy combat photographer Vera Zorina. Ball files for divorce, but the outcome is tipped off by the title: the Lovers come back. Lucille Ball is merely decorative for the most part in this film, though she has one delightful comic scene involving an attempt to smoke a cigar. To avoid confusion with a 1962 Doris Day/Rock Hudson epic of the same name, Lover Come Back was retitled When Lovers Meet for television. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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, Rovi

When a patient dies of heart failure, society doctor Michael Travers (Lew Cody), takes an interest in her 14-year-old daughter Judy (Sally O'Neil), whom he makes his ward. Against the wishes of his fiancée, socialite Diane Manners (Aileen Pringle), Michael leaves for an extended business trip to Europe. Upon his return three years later, the good doctor falls desperately in love with his now fetching teenage ward, and is angered by the news that she is engaged to young Dick Manners (Edward Morgan, Diane's brother. When Judy agrees to delay her upcoming wedding, a furious Dick crashes his car. Badly hurt in the accident, Judy is saved on the operation table by Michael, who begs her forgiveness. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Eric Linden is a bellhop who has the extreme misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in gangster era of Chicago. After witnessing an assassination staged by gangsters, Linden becomes a pawn, being pushed back and forth by corrupt authorities and the mob. Tension mounts as the possibility that the blame for the crime may eventually rest on Linden. ~ Rovi

George Morris (James Hall) is madly in love with his wife Helen (Irene Delroy), but rakish bachelor Paul Wilcox (Lew Cody) and glamorous seductress Joan Whitley (Natalie Morehead) get in the way. After a series of petty squabbles, George links up with Joan, while Helen walks off with Paul. The divorced couple tries to maintain a civilized relationship, but they can't hide the pain. George and Helen eventually patch things up, but not before a series of all-too-well domestic confrontations. Lew Cody provides the film's lighter moments, never talking when drinking will do. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In her final starring role, silent screen diva Mae Murray plays Dolly, a young gold digger who manages to trap a rich widower, Dick (Edward Martindel). Although the couple seems happy enough, Dick's alcoholic brother, Joe (Lowell Sherman), becomes suspicious of the girl's motives and suspicion gives way to certainty when he spots Dolly embracing one Louis DeSalta (Leyland Hodgson), supposedly a stranger. Leaving the booze behind, Joe sets a trap for Dolly and DeSalta, who are made to confess. High Stakes was directed by its star, Lowell Sherman, who also cast the entertainingly over-the-top Murray in the comedy Bachelor Apartment (1931). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

A failure of near epic proportions when first released and an unintentionally funny disaster today, this bizarre operetta almost single-handedly destroyed the musical genre for years to come. Vivienne Segal stars as Dawn, a white girl presumed to be born among the natives in what was once Dutch East Africa. Set in a German prisoner of war camp during World War I, Golden Dawn presents a truce between captors and captives who are facing a common danger: the threat of an uprising among the native African population. The threat becomes almost a certainty when young rubber planter Tom Allen (Walter Woolf King) spends a romantic night with Dawn. That doesn't sit well with Shep Keyes (Noah Beery), a native brute who covets Dawn, despite the fact that she is promised to the god Mulunghu. To quell an almost certain riot among the natives, Tom is sent home to England. The British soon recapture the area and Keyes demands that Dawn be sacrificed to the god Mulunghu to ward off a potentially calamitous drought. Tom, meanwhile, having learned that Dawn is indeed Caucasian, kidnapped by Mooda (Alice Gentle) in childhood and raised as her own, rushes back to the camp just in time to rescue the girl from the evil Keyes. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Legendary Broadway comedian Joe Cook, who was capable of reducing audiences to paroxysms of helpless laughter by telling them what he wasn't going to do that evening, was invariably better than the shows in which he appeared. Fully aware of this, director Frank Capra brought Cook's 1928 stage musical Rain or Shine to the screen, cutting all of its songs and concentrating almost exclusively on the star. The mere wisp of a plot focuses on the tinker-toy travelling circus owned by heroine Joan Peers. Advance-man Cook does his best to stir up business and to avoid the sheriffs and process-servers, but it's an uphill battle. The climactic tent-fire scene is a cinematic tour de force for Capra, who'd improve upon it one year later in The Miracle Woman (1931). While Joe Cook's non-sequitur patter seems more bizarre than funny at times, he is always worth watching, as are his perennial stooges Tom Howard (who looks astonishingly like Robert Woolsey of Wheeler & Woolsey fame) and Dave Chasen (yes, the same Dave Chasen who later became a celebrated Hollywood restaurateur). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based upon an ambitious but unsuccessful stage operetta by Oscar Hammerstein and Vincent Youmans, Song of the West is set in the middle 1800s during the great western Gold Rush. At a fort in Kansas, Lt. Singleton is in love with Virginia, daughter of the fort's Colonel. Singleton encounters Capt. Stanton, who had the misfortune of getting involved in a romantic triangle that produced a bit of a scandal. Stanton quarrels with his rival from that triangle, Davolo, and ends up shooting him. Singleton and the Colonel lock Stanton up and hold him for murder. Stanton escapes, disguises himself as a man of the cloth and hitches up with a wagon train heading for California. As luck would have it, Virginia is part of the wagon train party. Along the way, Stanton and Virginia fall in love. Stanton's guilt over his past haunts him, however, and he worries that he is not good enough for Virginia. He leaves her and is involved in a mishap at a mining camp, after which he re-enlists as a private to avoid deportation and to pay for his sins. Happily, however, he also discovers that Virginia loves him and will always love him, no matter who he is or what he has done. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

In this musical, a naive entertainer is sent to Paris by a Broadway producer who wants her return with a more sophisticate, "French" persona. She does, and debuts again on Broadway as "Fifi D'Auray." She then finds herself wooed by a young mobster, and a rich man. She chooses the former until she realizes that he is a crook. In the end, she loses both men. Songs include: "If I Can't Have You," "You Can't Believe My Naughty Eyes," "Ophelia Will Fool You," and "Pilly Pom Pom Plee." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

After literally inventing the movie musical with The Jazz Singer, Warner Bros. purchased the motion picture rights to the evergreen Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein II 2nd operetta The Desert Song. Although the results looked like a photographed stage play (a common failing of early-talkie songfests), the unforgettable Romberg-Hammerstein tunes (The Riff Song, One Alone, the title number) more than carried the day. John Boles stars as The Red Shadow, the Robin Hood-like leader of the Riffs and the bane of the existence of General Bierbieu (Edward Martindel). The good General has another cross to bear in the form of his nerdish, lily-livered son Pierre, who is likewise despised by heroine Margot (Carlotta King). Little does anyone suspect that the wimpy Pierre and the dashing Red Shadow are one in the same! Myrna Loy is exotica personified as the Red Shadow's native sweetheart Azuri (her navel-exposing harem outfits must be seen to be believed), while comedy relief is supplied by "nance" comedian Johnny Arthur as effeminate reporter Benny Kidd, and Louise Fazenda as Benny's rambunctious assistant Susan. Partially filmed in Technicolor, this version of The Desert Song, and its 1943 remake, were long withheld from distribution due to the rather lukewarm 1953 version, likewise produced by Warner Bros., which starred Gordon MacRae and Kathryn Grayson. A "pocket" version of The Desert Song, the 2-reel musical The Red Shadow, was released by Warners' short-subject subsidiary Vitaphone in 1933, with Alexander Gray and Bernice Claire in the leading roles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Forty-five-year-old Irish tenor John McCormack made his screen debut in Song o' My Heart. Fans of McCormack would have been satisfied if their idol had simply sung his way through the film's 85 minutes, but Fox Studios insisted on a plotline. The star plays Sean O'Callaghan, a world-renowned singer who gives up his career when his sweetheart Mary O'Brien (Alice Joyce) is forced to marry another. Years later, Mary is deserted by her husband and eventually dies of grief. Still carrying a torch for his lost love, Sean assumes the task of looking after Mary's two children. The kids are played by 11-year-old Tommy Clifford and 19-year-old Maureen O'Sullivan, the latter also making her first film appearance. Lensed partly on location in Ireland, the film provides plenty of opportunity for good old-fashioned blarney, as well as moments of honest sentiment, as when McCormick sings his signature tune "Little Boy Blue" (one of eleven musical highlights). It's hardly a coincidence that Song o' My Heart was released just before St. Patrick's Day, 1930. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this comedy, a salesgirl falls in love with a wealthy heir to the store in which she works. At first his father opposes their nuptials because he is unsure of her "virtue." He creates an elaborate test at a local roadhouse. The woman passes with flying colors and marital bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi