Karen Morley Movies

A man who unthinkingly sullied the honor of a virtuous girl now must deal with his own ethical downfall in this drama. Willi Kasder (Ramon Novarro) is a lieutenant in the Austrian Army who one night picks up an innocent young woman named Laura Taub (Helen Chandler). Willi shares several drinks with the naive Laura and takes advantage of her; the next morning, she discovers to her horror that he left money for her and has no intention of seeing her again. Emotionally shattered, Laura soon becomes the mistress of Herr Schnabel (Jean Hersholt), a wealthy but corrupt gentleman with a taste for gambling. Willi begins gaming with Schnabel and soon falls deeply in debt; eventually Schabel gives Willi two options: pay the money you owe or kill yourself. Willi tries to find a way out of his dilemma while also hoping to free Laura from the corrupt lifestyle into which he led her. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In the space of 74 minutes, Helen Hayes goes from naïve French country lass to elderly harridan in Sin of Madelon Claudet. Is it any wonder that she won an Academy Award? (She truly deserved this Oscar; the jury is still out concerning her cutesy supporting turn in 1969's Airport, which also copped her the gold statuette). Betrayed by artist Neil Hamilton, Hayes moves on to jewel thief Lewis Stone, who commits suicide to avoid arrest, leaving Hayes to her fate. After ten years in jail for her complicity in Stone's crimes, Hayes turns to the only profession open to her. She walks the streets to raise enough money to support her illegitimate son, who grows up to be Robert Young and who has no idea that Hayes is his mother. Thanks to his mother's anonymous financial support, Young is able to attend medical school, eventually becoming a wealthy doctor. Even allowing for the illogical nature of the plotline and the lachrymose dialogue, the heartrending final scenes of Sin of Madelon Claudet can still raise a lump in the throat after 65 years. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this comedy, a female mayoral candidate promises to rid the town of gangsters. She joined the race in the first place when her daughter got involved with a young mobster who has been framed for a murder. With her manager's assistance, the candidate rallies all the women in town and gets them to stop taking care of their husbands unless the men vote for her. It works like a charm and the woman is elected. ~ Sandra Brennan, 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

Flesh was one of the few big-studio films to deal with the subject of professional wrestling--at least until Hulk Hogan came along in the 1980s. Wallace Beery stars as a thickheaded waiter in a German beer garden who uses his muscles to clear out rowdy patrons. Beery channels his strength into a wrestling career, grappling his way up to the championship. His wife Karen Morley enjoys the creature comforts of Beery's success, but her heart belongs to her ex-lover Ricardo Cortez, and soon Karen is stepping out on her husband. Beery finds out and exacts a terrible revenge on Cortez--just minutes after Karen wises up and realizes she loves Beery after all. John Ford directed Flesh in a heavy Germanic fashion reminiscent of the Emil Jannings "cuckolded husband" melodramas of the 1920s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"So much for Carlotta" muses the head of German Espionage (Lewis Stone), shortly after secret agent Karen Morley is put to death. Morley's successor is exotic dancer Mata Hari (Greta Garbo), an enigmatic woman of Javanese-Dutch ancestry who seldom thinks twice about luring some poor swain to his doom. Assigned to intercept allied war messages, Mata Hari romances garrolous-general Lionel Barrymore. She falls in love for the first and only time in her life when she meets dazzlingly handsome lieutenant Ramon Novarro. Barrymore finds out about the affair and threatens to expose both Mata and Novarro as spies, whereupon Ms. Hari shoots Barrymore dead. She arranges for Novarro to leave the country lest he be implicated in the murder. He is subsequently blinded in an airplane crash, setting the stage for Garbo's now-famous "Let me be your eyes" scene. Mata Hari is tried and sentenced to death, but is permitted a few final precious moments with Novarro, allowing him to go on believing that he is in a military hospital rather than a prison cell, and that his beloved is dying of a mysterious ailment rather than facing a firing squad. The debate still rages among film buffs as to whether Greta Garbo does her own dancing in Mata Hari, or whether that's her double in the long shots. There is no question, however, that the condemned prisoner in the first reel who refuses to betray Mata to his captors is none other than Mischa Auer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Gary Curtis, aka Farnsbarns (Richardo Cortez), is really a former hoodlum hired to retrieve some compromising letters from gold digger Jenny Wren (Karen Morley). She, in turn, announces her retirement, but not before cajoling noted banker Priem Andes (H. B. Warner) into hosting a farewell party at his estate near Crestwood, "El Casa Andes." Also invited are three additional former "clients" of Jenny's: William Jones (Gavin Gordon), Senator Herbert Walcott (Robert McWade) and Eddie Mack (Richard "Skeets" Gallagher), all of whom are unaware of the purpose of the party and are therefore blithely bringing wives and girlfriends along. Also present at the Andes retreat are Jenny's kid sister Esther (Anita Louise),her boyfriend Frank (Matty Kemp, who just happens to be Andes' nephew, Jenny's wry maid Carter (Hilda Vaughn), and the banker's disdainful sister Faith (Pauline Frederick). The retiring gold digger's real purpose is revealed after she regales her former sugar-daddies with the tragic story of how her latest conquest, penniless, young Tom Herrick (Tom Douglas), threw himself off a cliff in the Adirondacks after she turned down his proposal of marriage. Victory, however, proves all too brief and the blackmailing gold digger is soon confronted with what appears to be the unfortunate young suitor's ghost. Soon, darts are flying everywhere, bodies fall, and trapdoors reveal hidden passageways. But Curtis, who arrives in the nick of time accompanied by assorted hoodlum friends, is never fooled by the fake Phantom of Crestwood and can reveal the real murderer shortly before the law arrives. The Phantom of Crestwood was based on the popular NBC "Hollywood-on-the-Air" radio program and the denouement of the film was the winning entry in a country-wide contest. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Completed in mid-1930, Scarface, based on Armitage Trail's novel of the same name, might have been the first of the great talkie gangster flicks, but it was held up for release until after that honor was jointly usurped by Little Caesar and Public Enemy. Paul Muni stars as prohibition-era mobster Tony Camonte, a character obviously patterned on Al Capone (whose nickname was "Scarface"). The homicidal Camonte ruthlessly wrests control of the bootlegging racket from his boss, Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins), and claims Lovo's mistress, Poppy (Karen Morley), in the bargain. But while Poppy satisfies him sexually, Tony has a soft spot in his heart only for his sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak). The film's finale is one of the longest and bloodiest of the 1930s, maintaining suspense and concern for the characters involved even though Muni has deliberately done nothing to make Tony likeable to audience. The grimness of Scarface is leavened by a few choice moments of black humor. Forced to leave a stage production of Rain in order to commit a murder, Tony returns to his theater seat and anxiously asks his buddies how the play came out. Some of the film's funniest moments belong to Vince Barnett as the mentally deficient, illiterate gangster secretary, who at one juncture gets so mad at a caller on the phone that he shoots the receiver. Scarface features a famous "'X' Marks The Spot" logo, inspired by news photos of gangland murders: whenever a character is killed, the letter "X" appears on screen in one form or another. Example: When a rival gangster (played by Boris Karloff) is killed at a bowling alley, the camera cuts to his bowling ball knocking down all the pins -- a strike, denoted, of course, by an "X." Producer Howard R. Hughes couldn't release Scarface until he toned down some of the violence, reshot certain scenes to avoid libel suits, added the subtitle "The Shame of the Nation" to the opening credits, and shoehorned in new scenes showing upright Italian-Americans banding together to wipe out gangsterism. After its first run, Scarface was completely withdrawn from distribution on Hughes' orders; the film would not be seen again on a widespread basis until it was reissued by Universal in 1979, shorn of 8 of its original 99 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Boris Karloff stars as the villainous Dr. Fu Manchu in this wild and wooly -- and wildly racist -- adventure yarn, based on Sax Rohmer's fiction about the personification of the "yellow peril." Sir Nayland Smith (Lewis Stone) of the British Secret Service recruits Sir Lionel Barton (Lawrence Grant) to lead an expedition with Prof. Von Berg (Jean Hersholt) and McLeod (David Torrence) to the Gobi Desert, to find the tomb of Genghis Khan and retrieve the scimitar and golden mask held within. To Barton, these are mere archeological trophies, but Smith has learned that Dr. Fu Manchu also has his designs on them; and if he gets hold of these artifacts, he will use them to cause a rising in the East, and foment a war for the destruction of the white race. The action is fast and furious, resembling a Saturday-morning serial, as Barton is kidnapped and brought to Fu Manchu, who proceeds to torture him to find the location of the tomb. Barton's daughter, Sheila (Karen Morley), replaces her father to guide the expedition, accompanied by her fiancé, Terry Granville (Charles Starrett). They find the tomb and retrieve the sword and mask, and find themselves in the company of Nayland Smith as they try to return to England, and surrounded by enemies on all sides. One man is dead and soon Terry is in the hands of Fu and his sadistic daughter Fah Lo See (Myrna Loy), who proceeds to torture him; Nayland Smith is slowly being lowered into a pit of crocodiles, Von Berg is trapped between moving spiked walls, and Sheila Barton is about to be sacrificed as part of the ritual in which Fu will declare himself the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In 1933, at the height of the bleakness and desperation of the Depression, MGM released this genuine curiosity piece -- directed by comedy (!) director Gregory La Cava -- concerning a Warren G. Harding-like partisan hand-shaker President of the United States who, after seeing a vision, revokes the Constitution, becomes a reigning dictator, and solves all of the nation's problems. Walter Huston plays Judson Hammond, recently elected President of the United States, who treats his elected office as a joke and acts as a dispenser of Party favors. But after an automobile accident, he sees the Archangel Gabriel, who inspires him to declare himself dictator. His first line of business after his conversion is to fire his Cabinet. This leads to impeachment proceedings, but Hammond enters the Senate chamber and takes over the Congress. He then tackles unemployment by meeting with John Bronson (David Landau), the leader of masses of marching unemployed men. When gangster Nick Diamond (Henry C. Gordon) and his goons assassinate Bronson, Hammond uses his brown-shirted storm troopers to blast their way into Diamond's headquarters and blow him away. The President then intimidates the leaders of countries that owe money to the United States to pay their debts then forces them to disarm and pledge world peace. Hammond rapidly becomes the most popular fascist President in United States history. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Based on John Golden's stage play Four Walls, MGM's Straight is the Way offers the monumentally miscast Franchot Tone as tough ex-convict Benny Horowitz, who announces his plans to go straight. This warms the heart of Benny's Jewish mama (May Robson), but his ex-moll Shirley (Gladys George) is unable to join in the happiness, since she is now the mistress of Italian gang boss Monk (Jack LaRue). Despite his efforts to stay out of trouble, Benny is required to bump off Monk before he can lead a clean life. Meanwhile, nominal heroine Bertha (Karen Morley), Benny's stepsister, pines away of unrequited love. The original Four Walls had starred Paul Muni, who was certainly better suited to the ethnicity of the piece than the markedly WASPish Franchot Tone. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This thriller centers around a super detective's attempt to mastermind the perfect crime after he suspects his wife of infidelity. A woman has been blackmailing the man he suspects of messing with his wife. The detective kills this woman and blames the lover. The hapless man is convicted of the crime. Unfortunately, his wife continues to reject him. The despondent detective kills himself, but not before he sends a letter to his peers explaining his evil deed. To appease the censors, the film has an odd ending tacked on: the whole story was really part of a criminologist's novel. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The old Edward Peble play The Littlest Rebel was gussied up in 1935 as a Shirley Temple vehicle. The curly-topped child star plays Virgie Cary, who lives in Southern-Plantation splendor with her dad Herbert (John Boles) and mom (Karen Morley). The family's idyllic existence is shattered when the Civil War breaks out. A captain in the Confederacy, Herbert Cary marches off to the battlefield, leaving his faithful family retainers -- including philosophical old Uncle Billy (Bill "Bojangles" Robinson) -- to watch over Virgie and Mrs. Cary. No one, however, is prepared for the ravages of war, thus Virgie is forced to endure the destruction of her family home and the death of mom after lingering illness. Desperately trying to make his way home for one last reunion with his wife, Herbert is arrested as a Southern spy. Fortunately, Yankee colonel Morrison (Jack Holt) takes a liking to the tenacious Virgie and tries to escort the girl and her father to safety. As a result, Morrison is arrested for desertion, and both he and Herbert are sentenced to be shot. Making her way to Washington in the company of faithful Uncle Billy, Virgie secures a pardon for both her father and Col. Morrison from an avuncular Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.) The stereotypical treatment of black characters in The Littlest Rebel is more offensive than usual, with "happy darkies" nervously pondering the prospect of being freed from slavery and shivering in their boots when the Yankees arrive. But Bill Robinson manges to cut through the color line with his astonishing terpsichorean talents, especially in his closing "challenge dance" with Shirley Temple. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi