Donald Meek Movies

This tuneful campus comedy features aging star John Barrymore as a sly, blustery Southern governor with his eye on the Senate (aka Louisiana's Huey Long). He sees opportunity knocking when he learns how desperate his constituents have become to build their miserable state college football team into winners. He figures that if the team wins, so will he. To this end, he surreptitiously recruits a number of burly professional wrestlers to pose as football players. Unfortunately his chief opponent is running a similar racket with a rival university. When the governor's trickery is revealed on the eve of the big game, things look bleak until a quick-thinking coed shows up to save the day. The story is also titled Hold That Girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Goddbye Broadway is wrapped up by two stage & screen veterans, Alice Brady and Charles Winninger. The stars play vaudevillians Molly and Pat Malloy, who are suckered into investing $4000 in a ramschackle New England hotel. After a variety of predictable but amusing complications, the Malloys turn the tables on the sharpsters (Jed Prouty and Frank Jenks) who unloaded the property on them. Radio fans will enjoy seeing comedian Tommy Riggs, whose squeaky-voiced "Betty Lou" alter ego was a major airwaves attraction throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Directed by Leo McCarey's brother Raymond, Goodbye Broadway is based on James Gleason's 1927 stage comedy The Shannons of Broadway, previously filmed in 1929. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).

Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A newspaper reporter vies with his arch rival, who is also his girl friend, for the scoop on a recent bank robbery. The race nearly destroys their relationship until he saves her from the evil crooks. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Allegedly based on two factual works, Bouck White's The Book of Daniel Drew and Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons, RKO's The Toast of New York is a largely fanciful account of the career of 1870s financier "Jubilee Jim" Fisk. As played by Edward Arnold in his usual "tycoon" mode, Fisk was a likable scoundrel who finagled his way into the upper rungs of Wall Street as much for fun as for profit. The film conveniently ignores Fisk's involvement with the infamous Tweed Ring, and skims over his complicity in 1869's "Black Friday," one of the most disastrous events in American economic history. We are also offered a sanitized version of Fisk's notorious mistress Josie Mansfield, who as played by Frances Farmer is an apple-cheeked lass who regards Fisk only as a loyal friend. Cary Grant is along for the ride as "Nick Boyd," a thinly disguised version of Fisk's actual partner in crime Ned Stokes. Too costly to post a profit, Toast of New York is nonetheless fine non-think entertainment, kept alive by a superb supporting cast ranging from Donald Meek as Daniel Drew and Clarence Kolb as Cornelius Vanderbilt to such bit players as Laurel & Hardy perennial James Finlayson, who plays the inventor of a self-tipping hat! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The true story of one of Ireland's leading political figures of the late 19th Century inspired this biographical drama. Charles Stewart Parnell (Clark Gable) is a politician and activist whose tireless work towards the cause of Irish independence has earned him the nickname "the Uncrowned King of Ireland." After a fund-raising trip to the United States, Parnell is introduced to Katie O'Shea (Myrna Loy), whose husband Willie O'Shea (Alan Marshall) is running for Parliament. In truth, Katie and Willie's marriage is on its last leg; she despises him, but he refuses to give her a divorce, in part because Katie's wealthy Aunt Bea (Edna Mae Oliver) is willing to pay him to keep his distance. Willie hopes that a friendship between Katie and Parnell could be a stepping stone towards an endorsement from Parnell -- which, given his popularity, would make a massive difference in the polls. However, as Parnell continues to rally support for a free Ireland, he finds he's fallen in love with Katie, and she is also strongly attracted to him. When Willie learns of their romance, he makes a devious proposal to Parnell -- with an independent Irish state seemingly imminent, and with Parnell the likely leader, Willie demands a high office within his administration, or otherwise he'll tell the world about Parnell's affair with a married woman, which could end his career and set the cause of Irish freedom to a halt. Parnell was an infamous box-office disappointment in its day, and Gable's significant other Carole Lombard was said to have loved teasing him about the film; it's failure led Gable to pledge he'd never make another costume picture, though he later relented when Gone With The Wind came along. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this screwball comedy, Valentine Ransome (Barbara Stanwyck) is an heiress who falls for Jonathan Blair (Herbert Marshall), a carefree playboy who owns part of a large steamship line. However, Valentine doesn't especially like Jonathan's brassy fiancé, Carol Wallace (Glenda Farrell), and thinks he needs to start taking a more serious attitude about his money and his investments. To teach Jonathan a lesson (and get closer to him in the process), Valentine arranges to buy enough stock in the shipping company that she's the majority owner, and begins giving him orders about how things should be done. Jonathan isn't about to stand for that, and set off for a cruise on one of his ships, with Carol in tow and every intention of having the ship's captain marry them. But Jonathan's sidekick Butch (Eric Blore) doesn't like Carol any more than Valentine, and seizes every available opportunity to throw a spanner into the works. The same year that the versatile Barbara Stanwyck starred in this comic trifle, she received an Oscar nomination for her dramatic work in the movie Stella Dallas. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

More ambitious than its budget will permit, Three Legionnaires details the misadventures of comrades-in-arms Chuck (Robert Armstrong), Jimmy (Lyle Talbot) and Grant (Donald Meek). In the days just following the Armistice, American doughboys Chuck and Jimmy separate themselves from the rest of their platoon and stumble into a remote Russian town. Falling in love with White Russian princess Sonia (Anne Nagel), our heroes attempt to rescue her from the Bolsheviks, enlisting the aid of crackpot scientist Grant. Stanley Fields makes a convincing Russian general, while wrestler "Man Mountain" Dean is at least a visually imposing presence as a Soviet peasant who breaks down walls when he can't find the door. On the other hand, there's French-accented Fifi D'Orsay as local Slavic tootsie Olga, who's about as convincing as a set of wooden teeth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Everybody's Old Man looks like a stray Will Rogers project, temporarily shelved when Rogers was killed in a 1935 plane crash. Rogers' old pal Irvin S. Cobb assumes the title role; he plays a business executive who takes a year off to reflect on things when a close friend dies suddenly. Insinuating himself into his late friend's household, Cobb manages to straighten out the dead man's irresponsible offspring. He does the job so well that he's invited to stay on indefinitely. Everybody's Old Man bears a marked resemblance to the 1933 George Arliss vehicle The Working Man -- as well it should, since the 1936 film is a remake of the earlier picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After It Happened One Night, Claudette Colbert seemed to make a career out of playing plucky heiresses with minds of their own, which sums up her character well in this romantic comedy. When her wealthy father goes broke, Jeanette Desmereau (Claudette Colbert) decides she should find a job of her own, applying for work as a writer at a magazine edited by hot-headed Cyrus Anderson (Fred MacMurray). Jack Bristow (Robert Young), one of the staffers, tells Cyrus about Jeanette's misfortunes, and while he's not initially swayed by this tale of woe, Cyrus buckles under and hires her, primarily because Jack has lobbied strongly for her (which might have something to do with the fact he finds her attractive). While Jeanette and Cyrus don't get along well at first, when the irresistible force meets the immovable object, something has to give and before long the two fall in love. Cyrus and Jeanette make tentative plans to marry, but when Jeanette decides to do Cyrus a favor and clean up his very sloppy bachelor apartment, Cyrus becomes furiously angry and calls off the wedding. After this, Jeanette is just as angry with Cyrus and Jack, waiting in the wings, steps in; she impulsively decides to marry Jack, and they hit the road for Indiana for a date with the Justice of the Peace. Cyrus realizes just how big a mistake he has made, and points his motorcycle toward Indiana to stop the marriage before it's too late. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Having turned down the opportunity to produce Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), MGM's Louis B. Mayer had second thoughts when the Capra film swept the 1935 Oscars ceremony. Mayer hastily commissioned an It Happened One Night wannabe titled Love on the Run, tailored for the talents of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable (who, of course, had starred in the Capra picture, and had copped one of those Oscars). Gable and Franchot Tone play rival journalists Michael Anthony and Barnabas Pells, who travel the length and breadth of Europe to outscoop one another. Crawford portrays madcap heiress Sally Parker, who is engaged to marry fortune-hunting Prince Igor (Ivan Lebedeff). Whereas in It Happened One Night the heroine (Claudette Colbert) linked up with Gable in order to expedite her elopement with the wrong man, in Love on the Run Crawford seeks out Gable's help to escape her impending marriage with Prince Igor. The two stars combine their flight across Europe with business, dogging the trail of international aviator Baron Spandermann (Reginald Owen), whom Anthony suspects of being a spy. Pells goes along with Anthony and Parker, and soon all three of them are tied up (literally, in Pells' case) with an espionage ring. While it is Clark Gable who ends up with Joan Crawford at fadeout time, it was Franchot Tone who claimed her as his bride in real life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A remake of the French comedy Monsieur Sans-Gene, One Rainy Afternoon gets under way when film-actor Phillippe Martin (Francis Lederer) heads to a darkened Parisian movie theater for a romantic rendezvous with his married sweetheart Yvonne (Countess Live de Margaret). But our hero sits in the wrong seat and kisses the wrong young lady: Monique Pelerin (Ida Lupino), the daughter of a powerful publisher Joseph Cawthorn. This innocent mistake snowballs into a national scandal, fomented by the hatchet-faced president (Eily Malyon) of the Purity League, with Phillippe earning the onus of "The Kissing Monster." It all culminates in one of those zany courtroom trails which proliferated in screwball comedies of the 1930s, wherein Phillippe defends himself by insisting that it is in a Frenchman's nature to be romantic, even with perfect strangers -- and as a result he becomes an international hero! One Rainy Afternoon was the first of a handful of United Artists talkies personally produced by studio vice-president Mary Pickford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide