Grant Mitchell Movies
The son of a general and a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, Ohioan Grant Mitchell was a lawyer (he certainly looked the part) for several years before going into acting. He made his stage bow at the age of 27, and spent the next quarter of a century as a leading player, often billed above the title of the play. Mitchell was a special favorite of showman George M. Cohan, who wrote a vehicle specifically tailored to Mitchell's talents, The Baby Cyclone, in 1927. Though he reportedly appeared in a 1923 film, Mitchell's movie career officially began in 1932, first in bits (the deathhouse priest in If I Had a Million), then in sizeable supporting roles at Warner Bros. Often cast as the father of the heroine, Mitchell socked across his standard dyspeptic-papa lines with a delivery somewhat reminiscent of James Cagney (leading one to wonder if the much-younger Cagney didn't take a few pointers from Mitchell during his own formative years). While he sparkled in a variety of secondary roles as businessmen, bank clerks and school principals, Mitchell was occasionally honored with a B-picture lead, as in 1939's Father is a Prince. With years of theatrical experience behind him, Mitchell was shown to best advantage in Warners' many adaptations of stage plays, notably A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942). Freelancing in the mid '40s, Grant Mitchell occasionally showed up in unbilled one-scene cameos (Leave Her to Heaven [1945]) and in reprises of his small-town bigwig characterizations in such B-films as Blondie's Anniversary (1947) and Who Killed Doc Robbin? (1948). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1934
A satire on radio crooners, Twenty Million Sweethearts stars Dick Powell as a singing waiter--fake handlebar mustache and all. Publicity man Pat O'Brien discovers Powell and gets him a radio gig, leading to nationwide adulation for the nonplused tenor. All of this jeopardizes Powell's happy marriage to Ginger Rogers, but he proves faithful to her despite the twenty million sweethearts (i.e. female radio fans) referred to in the title. Twenty Million Sweethearts is fitfully amusing, with some of the best moments concentrated at the beginning wherein the Radio Rogues imitate several popular personalities of the airwaves. This film was remade in 1949 as My Dream Is Yours, with Doris Day (!) in the Dick Powell role but with the same "signature" tune, "I'll String Along with You." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pat O'Brien, Dick Powell, (more)
- 1933
Young football hero Jim Fowler (Robert Young) isn't in it for the love of the game. The hardworking young man is simply using the sport as a means to help him pay for school, and doesn't consider it any different from the laundry service he runs in his spare time. Rather than stroking his ego, the constant onslaught of football fanatics and sports reporters disgust Jim (Young) to the extent that his football coach (Joe Sawyer) tells old football chums--Jim's father Ezra (Grant Mitchell) and the father of Jim's girlfriend--about the star player's erratic behavior. The men, being passionate football fans themselves, are saddened by Jim's lackluster attitude towards the game. Convinced that people only respect him because of his skills on the field, Jim distances himself from Joan (Leila Hyams), his girlfriend, and seeks out a woman he believes knows nothing about football or his role in it. To his surprise, however, she not only knows of his career, but blackmails him to throw the game. When he refuses, her husband breaks Jim's hand. Suddenly inspired, Jim refuses to let the coach know about his condition and heroically takes to the field with a new perspective. Regardless of whether the big game is one or lost, Jim realizes that his teammates, being true friends after all, would rather lose with him than win without him. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Young, Leila Hyams, (more)
- 1933
What isn't Heroes for Sale about? Within its 71-minute time frame, this film (co-written by "professional cynic" Wilson Mizner) tackles such issues as disenfranchised war veterans, misguided hero worship, drug addiction, the Depression, capitalism, labor relations and communism. Richard Barthelmess plays a wounded war hero whose hospital stay has turned him into a morphine junkie. He wanders from town to town looking for work during the Depression, only to be turned away with a "we've got our own to watch out for!" Eventually, Barthelmess befriends millionaire-in-the-making Robert H. Barrat, who has invented a revolutionary washing machine. Becoming Barrat's partner, Barthelmess attempts to quell a strike by workers who've been stirred up by Red agitators. With all this going on, Barthelmess still finds time to romance Loretta Young. Heroes for Sale is very much a product of its time, though its entertainment value has remained solid for well over six decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1933
In this comedy, a childlike playboy inherits the family fortune and gets himself a worldly butler who teaches him how to behave in a manner befitting his wealth and social station. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1933
This earnest, socially-conscious road drama centers on two California teenagers who find their comfortable lives thrown into turmoil during the Great Depression. To find work for themselves, the adventurous lads sneak aboard a Chicago-bound train. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frankie Darro, Dorothy Coonan, (more)
- 1933
Aerial footage distinguishes this romantic-triangle melodrama set among pilots in a flying circus. Jill (Sally Eilers) loves Jim (Richard Barthelmess), but he insists that fliers shouldn't marry, so the disappointed Jill marries his younger brother Neil (Tom Brown) instead. The resulting tensions disrupt their lives and careers. Bit-part alert: Watch for John Wayne as Neil's co-pilot. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Sally Eilers, (more)
- 1933
This weepie, adapted from a play by Philip Dunning and George Abbott, is a vehicle for Ruth Chatterton as the titular Lilly. Her sufferings begin when she marries a man who later turns out to be a bigamist. She has their baby but marries another man so the child can have a father. The new husband is alcoholic and so Lilly falls in love with someone else, but when her husband breaks his back protecting her, she elects to stay with him. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, (more)
- 1933
In this boxing drama/murder mystery, an aspiring small-town prizefighter ignores the objections of his pacifistic father, a paraplegic minister, and decides to go for the championship middleweight title in New York city. There the young lad begins experimenting with a variety of vices as he rises to the top of the ranks. The cocky fellow has no idea that he has become so successful because his sister Lillian has been allowing prominent promoter Walter Douglas to share her bed. When the truth is revealed, the angry lad decides to kill Douglas; unfortunately, his sister does it first. The boxer then decides to sacrifice his life to save hers: he takes the rap for the murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Alice White, (more)
- 1933
This drama chronicles the devoted love of a woman who tries to reform her lover, a black marketeer with a compulsive gambling problem. Unfortunately, he is killed by two crooks whom he bilked. Just before he dies, he marries his loyal girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, Nancy Carroll, (more)
Based on the Broadway hit by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, Dinner at Eight is a near-flawless comedy/drama with an all-star cast at the peak of their talents. Social butterfly Mrs. Oliver Jordan (Billie Burke) arranges a dinner party that will benefit the busines of her husband (Lionel Barrymore). Among the invited are a crooked executive (Wallace Beery), who is in the process of ruining Jordan; his wife (Jean Harlow), who is carrying on an affair with a doctor (Edmund Lowe); a fading matinee idol (John Barrymore), who has squandered his fortune on liquor and is romantically involved with the Jordan daughter (Madge Evans); and a venerable stage actress (Marie Dressler), who since losing all her money has become a "professional guest." Nothing goes as planned, due to various suicides, double-crosses, compromises, fatal illness, and servant problems. But dinner is served precisely at eight. The script by Herman Mankiewicz, Frances Marion, and Donald Ogden Stewart is a virtual enclyopedia of witty lines and scenes, right down to the unforgettable closing gag. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, (more)
- 1933
Sent to Sing Sing prison, influential crook Spencer Tracy is unregenerate and refuses to adhere to the rules. While in solitary confinement, Tracy reconsiders his attitude. Thanks to the correctional facility's compassionate warden (Arthur Byron), Tracy becomes a model prisoner, even refusing to participate in a jailbreak. The warden sets up a special program permitting selected prisoners a degree of freedom and even suggests allowing an occasional furlough. When Tracy's girl friend (Bette Davis) is hurt in an auto accident, he is given a 24 hour pass to visit her. It's a test case--if Tracy doesn't return, the warden will be discredited and replaced. While on the "outside," Tracy learns that his old rival (Louis Calhern) was responsible for his girl's injuries. Davis shoots the rival, who in turn fingers Tracy as the one responsible; the convict thus risks execution upon returning to the arms of the law. Based on the book by real-life Sing Sing warden Lewis E. Lawes, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing was remade in 1940 as Castle on the Hudson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, (more)
- 1933
Our Betters is adapted from Somerset Maugham's play about the shallowness and hypocrisy of the idle rich. American heiress Constance Bennett snares a titled British husband (Alan Mobray), but when she discovers that he is merely marrying her for her money, she decides to carry on a few affairs of her own. Going from wide-eyed innocent to bitter cynic, Bennett tries to maneuver her own sister (Anita Louise) into a titled marriage so that the "gravy train" of privileges and sexual liaisons will never end. Bennett ultimately ends up alone and miserable, though she retains her wealth and puts up a good front right to the final fade-out. Maugham's original play was intended to satirize wealthy Americans who buy their way into European society, but the film version of Our Betters is far rougher on the Continental Set than it is on Constance Bennett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Constance Bennett, Gilbert Roland, (more)
Tomorrow at Seven is one of those "you will die at the appointed hour" murder mysteries which flooded the market in the early 1930s. An unknown killer considerately informs his victims-to-be of their imminent demises by mailing them the Ace of Spades-hence his nom-de-murder, "Mr. Ace." Novelist Chester Morris and bumbling detectives Allen Jenkins and Frank McHugh team up to ascertain the true identity of Mr. Ace before he can claim leading lady Vivienne Osborne as his next victim. Tomorrow at Seven was concocted by Ralph Spence, who during the 1920s became famous as the king of the subtitle writers. The film was produced independently by Jefferson Pictures, and distributed by RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, (more)
- 1933
Practically every member of the Warner Bros. stock company except Glenda Farrell shows up in the rowdy, raunchy pre-Code comedy Convention City. Joan Blondell plays Nancy Lorraine, an enterprising lass who is employed by a big-city hotel as a "hostess" for out-of-town conventioneers. She spends a great deal of the film in the company of small-town businessman George Ellerbe (Guy Kibbee), who goes to great lengths to avoid his nagging wife (Ruth Donnelly). Weaving in and out of the proceedings are inveterate practical jokers Goodwin (Frank McHugh) and Hotstetter (Hugh Herbert), who use the convention as an excuse for a three-day binge. The plot rears its ugly head when Nancy finds her affections torn between slick CEO T.R. Kent (Adolphe Menjou) and handsome young salesman Jerry Ford (Dick Powell). The New York Times described it as, "Not a dull foot. One of the few comedies that can truthfully be called positive entertainment." Unfortunately, there are no known surviving prints of Convention City, so it remains one of the era's many "lost films." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjou, (more)
Virtually everybody except President Roosevelt was in the lavish MGM backstage musical Dancing Lady. Joan Crawford stars as Janie Barlow, an impoverished dancer reduced to working in a seedy Manhattan burlesque house. While on a slumming party with his society friend, wealthy young Tod Newton (Franchot Tone) spots Janie in the burleycue chorus line and immediately falls in love with her. When the joint is raided, Tod pays Janie's bail, but she resists his entreaties to become his mistress, promising instead to pay back every cent she owes him "honestly." With Tod's help, Janie is able to secure work in a big-time Broadway musical being staged by Patch Gallegher (Clark Gable), who is certain that the girl is an untalented opportunist and does everything he can to sabotage her audition. When he realizes that the girl "has something," he refuses to admit it but does, grudgingly, hire her for the show. Through a combination of skill and damned hard work, Janie ends up as the star of the show, whereupon Tod, worried that he'll lose the girl to the Great White Way, buys the show and promptly closes it. But Janie, who's fallen in love with Patch, teams with her new sweetheart to restage the show with their own meager savings -- and surprise of surprises, it's a smash hit. Truly an embarrassment of riches, Dancing Lady introduced Fred Astaire to the movie-going public, solidified the popularity of MGM's new tenor Nelson Eddy, and offered a wide berth for the comedy antics of Ted Healy and his Three Stooges -- Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine (Larry, performing his role in a Jewish dialect, has a wonderful double-take bit with a jigsaw puzzle which turns out to be a portrait of Adolf Hitler). As a bonus, the film offers spectacular musical production numbers, not to mention the enduring song hit "Everything I Have is Yours." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, (more)
- 1933
Based on a novel by Phil (State Fair) Stong, The Stranger's Return is one of the most accomplished projects of director King Vidor, and one of the few MGM films of its period to display anything like a "personal touch." Miriam Hopkins stars as a bored Manhattanite who visits her family farm in Iowa. Her grandfather Lionel Barrymore, an irascible Civil War vet, rules over the farm with the help of a drunken but reliable handyman (Stu Erwin). Barrymore's stepdaughter Beulah Bondi and her lazy husband Grant Mitchell are hostile towards Hopkins, a state of affairs not helped when Miriam strikes up a friendship with the farmer husband (Franchot Tone) of a popular local girl (Irene Hervey). Hopkins redeems herself in the eyes of the community through standing by her grandfather when the greedy stepdaughter inaugurates a sanity hearing in order to wrest away his property. Wisely, Hopkins also ends her relationship with Tone, who leaves with his wife to accept a teaching post. In lesser hands, The Stranger's Return would have descended into dime-novel melodrama; thanks to King Vidor's sensitivity towards his characters, and his obvious love of the farmland that sustains them, the film transcends its plottage. The result is a classic awaiting rediscovery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lionel Barrymore, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 1932
Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, Mervyn LeRoy directs the black-and-white 1932 comedy drama Big City Blues. A small-town innocent from Indiana, Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) inherits money and goes to New York to get in all sorts of trouble. He meets up with his cousin Gibby (Walter Catlett), who introduces him to chorus girl Vida Fleet (Joan Blondell). Bud and Gibby then throw a drunken hotel party with bootleg liquor that gets out of hand and a young woman (Josephine Dunn) is hit on the head and accidentally killed. Bud and Vida go gambling and drinking to escape the cops, but they are caught and arrested with everyone else from the party. Eventually, the police find the real killer and release everyone. Bud leaves for Indiana, but plans to go back, get his dog, and marry Vida. Humphrey Bogart appears in a brief uncredited role as Shep Adkins, a guy who gets into a fight with Lyle Talbot during the party. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, (more)
- 1932
Inspired in part by the sensational Snyder-Gray murder case (which was also the source of The Postman Always Rings Twice), The Famous Ferguson Case casts an unflattering light on the journalist "feeding frenzy" attending such crimes. A wealthy banker named Ferguson is found murdered, and his bound-and-gagged wife (Vivienne Osborne) is rescued by the police. It appears at first that the murderer was an unknown burglar, but the cops think otherwise, hypothesizing that Mrs. Ferguson actually conspired with her lover Judd Brooks (Leon Waycoff, aka Leon Ames) to murder her husband. The small town where the murder occurred suddenly becomes the center of a media circus, with reporters from all over the country grasping and clawing for a "hot scoop." At first, hard-boiled girl reporter Maizie Dickson (Joan Blondell) is no better than the rest of the journalist jackals, but she soon becomes disillusioned at the manner in which the truth has been crushed to earth by her insensitive brethren. She also has her heart broken when her husband, likewise a reporter, uses his assignment as an excuse to sleep around. The relentless media blitz eventually drives Mrs. Ferguson (whose guilt or innocence is never completely established) to kill herself and also ruins the lives of everyone around her. Once considered a relic of its period, The Famous Ferguson Case grows more timely with each passing year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Tom Brown, (more)
- 1932
Veteran stage and screen star George Arliss forsakes his biographical roles for domestic comedy in A Successful Calamity. Arliss plays an elderly millionaire saddled with a selfish young second wife (Mary Astor) and a pair of spoiled grown children (William Janney and Evelyn Knapp). To test his family's mettle, Arliss pretends to have gone broke. Just as he suspected they would, his children rally to their father's side and change their ways: The daughter forsakes a fortune hunter (Hardie Albright) for the nice young man she's really in love with (Randolph Scott), while the son applies for a demanding job and performs admirably. Only Arliss' young wife seems to desert him--but even she turns out to be true blue, hocking her jewels to save Arliss from ruin. A Successful Calamity was based on a play by Claire Kummer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Arliss, Mary Astor, (more)
No Man of Her Own represented the only time that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard co-starred in the same picture (at the time the film was made, both were married to other people; their romance and subsequent marriage was several years in the offing). Gable plays a crooked cardsharp who takes it on the lam from the New York constabulary. He hides out in a small town, where he falls in love with librarian Lombard. Endearing himself to Lombard's family, Gable pretends to be an out-of-town broker. He takes his new bride Lombard back to New York, where he resumes his dishonest activities, all the while keeping his one-and-only in the dark. The fly in the ointment is Gable's ex-lover and former partner in crime Dorothy Mackaill, who threatens to expose Gable to the law. Rather than appear to be a cad in his wife's eyes, Gable turns himself in, telling Lombard that he's about to embark on a long business trip. The truth is revealed sometime before the final reel, but Lombard is willing to forgive and forget so long as Gable promises to go straight. Given the usual wiseacre urbanity of Gable's and Lombard's separate starring vehicles, No Man of Her Own seems unusually banal and sentimental. Still, the film is an opportunity not to be missed by latter-day "Golden Age of Hollywood" aficionados. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, (more)
- 1932
Based on a story by Robert Andrews, If I Had a Million is a multipart comedy-drama employing Paramount's top directorial and acting talents. Refusing to leave his fortune to his grasping relatives, dying millionaire Richard Bennett selects several people at random from the phone book and bestows upon each of them a check for one million dollars. The first recipient is henpecked husband Charlie Ruggles, who cheerily enters his former place of employment, a china shop, and smashes every bit of crockery in the place. Prostitute Wynne Gibson uses her money to escape from her sordid lifestyle and finally sleep in a bed all by herself. Forger George Raft finds that he can't convince anyone that his check is genuine, and ends up handing the check to a flophouse manager--who promptly burns it. Husband and wife W.C. Fields and Alison Skipworth, dismayed that their new car has been destroyed by a "road hog," utilize part of their million dollars to purchase a fleet of cars and then smash up every road hog in sight! Convicted murderer Gene Raymond hopes that his million will help finance a new trial, but the execution is carried out on schedule. Newly rich clerk Charles Laughton calmly makes his way through a series of offices, reaches his boss' desk, and delivers a loud Bronx cheer. Gary Cooper, Roscoe Karns and Jack Oakie play three brawling marines who think the check's a joke and sign it over to an illiterate lunch-counter owner. The last million-dollar recipient is May Robson, an elderly woman confined to a dismal nursing home. She spends her money to turn the home into a joyful resort for old people, forcing the formerly repressive nursing-home staffers to earn their paychecks by sitting all day in rocking chairs. The millionaire who started the plot rolling is given a new lease on life by May Robson's example, and he recovers from his "fatal" illness. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, (more)
- 1932
Three on a Match covers approximately 13 years in the lives of girlhood chums Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis) and Vivian Deverse (Ann Dvorak). Having graduated from grammar school together in 1919, the girls stage a reunion ten years later. Hard-boiled Mary is now a chorus girl, level-headed Ruth has a steady job as a secretary, and vixenish Vivian is on the verge of capriciously deserting her wealthy husband Robert Kirkwood (Warren William) and their baby in favor of sexy mob-boss Mike (Lyle Talbot). Several more years pass, during which Mary marries Henry, Ruth is hired as governess for Henry, and Vivian's son and a drug-addicted Vivian become fatally enmeshed in a kidnapping plot involving her own child. In his second Warner Bros. film, tenth-billed Humphrey Bogart essays his first sneering-gangster role. Three on a Match was remade (and considerably laundered) in 1938 as Broadway Musketeers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Warren William, (more)
- 1932
In this comedy, a hard-working husband loses his job and his wife becomes the bread winner. The husband feels demeaned by his new role and takes a mistress to regain his lost manhood. The chastened wife eventually returns to the daily drudgery of home so her hubby can feel important and manly again. Marital bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Norman Foster, (more)
- 1931
Star Witness starts out as a homey family comedy and develops into a rather gutsy thriller. Chic Sale plays a cantankerous Civil War veteran who, while visiting his family, witnesses a gangland shooting. The rest of the family also gets a good look at the gang boss (Ralph Ince) and everyone agrees to testify in court. But the criminals terrorize the father (Grant Mitchell), after failing to bribe him. To insure pa's silence, his son (Dickie Moore) is kidnaped But Grandpa is not easily cowed, and it is he who goes before the jury to expose the crooks. He also engineers the rescue of his grandson (a surprisingly credible sequence). Star Witness was remade as I Am Not Afraid in 1939, with updated dialogue equating American gangsters with Hitler and Mussolini. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Huston, Charles "Chic" Sale, (more)
- 1931
Man to Man refers to the relationship between father John Bolton (Grant Mitchell) and son Michael (Phillips Holmes) -- or least, to the relationship as it should be. After serving a prison sentence for homicide (established by the screenwriters as justifiable), John starts life anew as a small-town barber. When Michael learns the truth about John's past, it causes a rift in the relationship between the two men. But when Michael is accused of embezzlement, John gallantly shoulders the blame, even though he believes his son to be guilty -- while Michael, convinced that his dad stole the money, refuses to recant his confession. Only after the true culprit is exposed are father and son tearfully reunited. Dwight Frye does his patented "Renfield" overacting in a minor role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Grant Mitchell, Lucille Powers, (more)
