Joel McCrea Movies

Adapted by Lillian Hellman from Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play, Dead End concerns itself with several denizens of New York's East River district. Here the elite and the slum-dwellers rub shoulders due to the close proximity of the riverfront tenements with the East Side luxury hotels. Slum girl Drina Gordon (Sylvia Sidney) tries to prevent her younger brother Tommy (Billy Halop) from wasting his life as a member of the local street gang. Tommy and the other kids idolize Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart), a onetime East- sider who has hit the "big time" as a notorious gangster. Dodging the cops, Martin makes a sentimental journey to the neighborhood to visit his mother (Marjorie Main) and his old girlfriend Francie (Clare Trevor). But Martin's mother coldly tells him to get lost, while Francie reveals herself to be a consumptive prostitute. Despite his depressed state, Martin is still admired by the local kids; this displeases sign painter Dave Connell (Joel McCrea), who hopes to escape the slums via his romance with wealthy Kay Burton (Wendy Barrie). Attempting to kidnap a rich boy who'd earlier been beaten up by the street kids, Martin is prevented from making the snatch by Dave, who shoots Martin down. Receiving a large reward, Dave decides to give the money to Drina so that she can afford a lawyer to defend her brother Tommy, who has wrongfully been accused of masterminding the beating of the rich kid. His outlook on life altered by this unselfish act, Dave gives up his mercenary romance with Kay Burton, choosing instead the poverty-stricken Drina. The film introduces the Dead End Kids--Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey, Gabe Dell, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsley and Bobby Jordan--all of whom were veterans of the Broadway version of Dead End and would be metamorphosed into the East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Crime reporter George Melville (Joel McCrea) arrogantly repeated accurate predictions about jewel robberies. He befriends Claire (Jean Arthur), who involves him in a mysterious adventure. Later, George meets producer Blackton Gregory (Reginald Owen), who reveals Claire is an actress hired by other reporters who wanted to show George up. She's starring in a play Gregory is producing, but only as a cover for a tunnel he's having henchmen dig to an art gallery. Gregory is really Belaire, a master thief who everyone but George thinks is dead, so when Claire, now falling in love with George, innocently gives Belaire key information, he uses it against George. To Claire's dismay, this leads to George being fired and, apparently, going nuts. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Set in the woodlands of Wisconsin, Come and Get It stars Edward Arnold as a logger-turned-lumber tycoon. In his rise to the top, Arnold loses out on a chance for lasting happiness by spurning earthy dance hall girl (Frances Farmer), who marries his best pal (Walter Brennan) on the rebound. Marrying for position rather than love, Arnold becomes a society leader in Milwaukee. His son (Joel McCrea) falls in love with the daughter of Arnold's first love (Frances Farmer plays both mother and daughter). Himself smitten by the daughter, Arnold battles with his son over the girl's affection, only to be shocked back into his senses when the girl reprimands his son, "Don't hit him! He's an old man!" Based on a novel by Edna Ferber, Come & Get It carries two directorial credits: William Wyler was dismissed early on by producer Sam Goldwyn, and when Howard Hawks took over, it was on the proviso that Wyler be given co-directing billing. For his performance as Edward Arnold's Scandinavian cohort, Walter Brennan won the first-ever "best supporting actor" Oscar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lillian Hellman's 1934 Broadway play The Children's Hour was such a hot potato that film producer Samuel Goldwyn was denied Production Code permission to use the play's original title. The reason was the story's lesbian theme, a factor that also blocked The Children's Hour from winning a Pulitzer Prize. In the original story, lifelong friends Martha Dobie and Karen Wright manage an exclusive girl's boarding school. Spoiled rotten student Mary Tilford, angered at being disciplined, fabricates a story that casts a questionable light on the women's friendship. In attempting to defend themselves against the accusations of the little girl's wealthy and powerful aunt, Martha and Karen lose everything in court. By the time the girl has admitted her lie and the aunt has come to apologize, it is too late. After confessing that she has harbored "unnatural" feelings towards Martha, Karen commits suicide. In adapting her play to the screen, Lillian Hellman expertly weeded out all hints of lesbianism, and also eliminated Karen's self-inflicted death ("suicide as a plot solution" was another Production Code no-no). In the revised version, Mary Tilford (played with unbridled venom by Bonita Granville) spreads a rumor that Martha (Miriam Hopkins) has been carrying on an illicit affair with doctor Joseph Cardin (Joel McCrea), the boyfriend of Karen (Merle Oberon). The end result is essentially the same -- the school is destroyed, along with Martha and Karen's reputation -- but Karen manages to survive to fade-out time. In defending the evisceration of her play, Hellman defended herself by noting that her original point was not to force a lesbian subtext down the throats of the audience, but to show how a vicious lie -- any vicious lie -- can have disastrous consequences. While it makes a good story, it is probably not true that, when informed that the leading characters in The Children's Hour were lesbians, producer Goldwyn replied, "Who cares? We'll make them Americans." These Three was refilmed in 1961 by its director William Wyler, under its original title The Children's Hour, with Hellman's original text -- lesbianism and all -- intact; ironically, the censor-ridden earlier film is the far superior version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first major film about psychiatry, Private Worlds stars Claudette Colbert as a psychiatrist with more than a few problems of her own. Colbert's appointment to a top mental hospital is frowned upon by head doctor Charles Boyer, who doesn't have much confidence in woman doctors of any kind. A secondary storyline involves Boyer's sister Helen Vinson, who lusts for a young married doctor (Joel McCrea). The doctor's wife (Joan Bennett) subsequently goes insane in an "off-angled" scene anticipating the techniques of film noir by nearly a decade. Meanwhile, doctors Boyer and Colbert establish a mutual respect which deepens into love. Based on a novel by Phyllis Bottomes, Private Worlds is stronger in its vignettes (including a scene in which Boyer comforts a dying patient by speaking a few words in the patient's native tongue) than in its longer "plot" scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This romantic comedy-drama is set -- typical for producer Samuel Goldwyn at the time -- among the upper class. Joel McCrea plays Brighton Lorrimore, son of a well-to-do American family who returns from a trip abroad with a new wife, Phyllis Manning (Miriam Hopkins). Brighton's parents are dismayed because they had hoped that their son would restore the faltering Lorrimore fortunes with a marriage to society girl Edith Gilbert (Ruth Weston). Although Phyllis urges Brighton to pursue his dream career as a writer, Brighton's mother pushes him unhappily into a finance job, at which he does not excel. Mrs. Lorrimore also schemes to create romantic sparks between her new daughter-in-law and her son's superior, Martin Deering (Paul Cavanaugh), hoping that an affair will improve her son's fortunes and refill the family's coffers. Written by Rachel Crothers from her unproduced play, Spendor (1935) featured the first significant role on screen for actor David Niven. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Half a Sinner is the first film version of the 1925 John E. Hymer-LeRoy Clemens play Alias the Deacon. Berton Churchill re-creates his stage role as an indigent cardsharp who poses as a deacon to fleece the countryside. While going about his business in a small town, he helps straighten out the lives of John (Joel McCrea) and Phyllis (Sally Blane), fellow hoboes whom he'd met while riding the rails. "The Deacon" ends up clearing John of a murder charge before moving on to new vistas and new suckers. The property was remade under its original cognomen Alias the Deacon in 1940, with radio humorist Bob Burns in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Born on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks, Lady Lee (Barbara Stanwyck) rises to prominence as a professional gambler. Though she works in a somewhat shady casino, our heroine enjoys a reputation for utter honesty, refusing all entreaties to turn crooked. Impressed by this quality, wealthy young Garry Madison (Joel McCrea) falls in love with Lady Lee and asks her to become his wife. Madison's friends and family assume that Lady Lee is merely a gold-digger, but she proves them irrefutably wrong when she saves him from a murder charge. According to some sources, Tyrone Power can be spotted in a bit role in this "A-minus" Warner Bros. programmer. Gambling Lady would make an interesting double feature with the later Stanwyck vehicle The Lady Gambles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sidney Howard's once-controversial play about the smothering aspects of Mother Love, The Silver Cord was filmed in 1933 with Laura Hope Crews recreating her stage role. Ms. Crews plays the outwardly selfless mother of Joel McCrea and Eric Linden; Irene Dunne and Frances Dee play the younger women in the lives of the two sons. Irene, an established physician, is quick to see that Ms. Crews' supposed loving relationship with her sons is an obsessive power trip, and that Mother is actually an emasculating monster who can't stand to have any other woman come between her and her offspring. Crews' steamroller tactics lead Frances Dee to attempt suicide, which results in the breakup of her relationship with Linden. Dunne, who loves McCrea and insists he stand on his own feet, is determined that Mother will exert her insidious influence no longer. She persuades McCrea to sever the "silver cord," leaving Crews alone with her weaker son Linden...a fate both richly deserve. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this sassy dramatic comedy, two reform-school girls finally graduate and as soon as they get out decide to board a New Orleans-bound stern-wheeler and rustle up a couple of handsome, wealthy men. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Very loosely based on Booth Tarkington's novel The Plutocrat, Business and Pleasure stars Will Rogers as Earl Tinker, a newly rich Oklahoma razor-blade manufacturer. On the pretext of taking a vacation with his family, Earl journeys to far-off Syria, there to purchase the secret formula for Damascus steel. During the ocean voyage to the middle east, Earl's daughter Olivia (Peggy Ross) falls in love with struggling playwright Lawrence Ogle (Joel McCrea), while a worldly adventuress named Madame Momora (Jetta Goudal) apparently sets her sights on the bashful Earl, much to the dismay of his wife (Dorothy Peterson). In truth, however, Madame Momora is an "industrial spy" in the employ of Tinker's main competitor, and it is her job to prevent Earl from completing his business mission. But our dumb-like-a-fox hero manages to turn the tables with the use of a clever disguise and a few other dexterous diversions. Filmed before the 1931 Will Rogers vehicle Ambassador Bill, Business and Pleasure was released afterward in early 1932, thereby giving audiences the pleasant surprise of seeing Boris Karloff, newly famous thanks to his performance as The Monster in Frankenstein, popping up unbilled as a desert sheik. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide