Chester Morris Movies
Chester Morris was the son of actors William Morris and comedienne Etta Hawkins; Morris' siblings, Adrian and Wilhelmina, later became performers as well. Reportedly in silent films at the age of nine, Morris' certified Broadway debut, at 15, was in Lionel Barrymore's The Copperhead; that same year (1917), Morris graduated from the New York School of Fine Arts. He billed himself as "the youngest leading man in the country" -- which, at 17, he may very well have been. He was Oscar-nominated for his first talking-picture role in Alibi (1929). Morris spent the 1930s alternating between tough-guy stuff like The Big House (1930) and tux-and-tails assignments in films like The Divorcee (1930). From 1940 through 1949, Morris starred as Boston Blackie in a lively series of Columbia B-pictures, a role which gave him opportunities to indulge his fondness for elaborate makeups and sleight-of-hand. During the 1950s, Morris headlined the touring companies of several Broadway plays, including Detective Story and Advise and Consent; he also hosted the syndicated TV anthology Captured. Chester Morris died of a barbiturate overdose while he was starring in a Bucks County Playhouse production of Caine Mutiny Court Martial; his last film, The Great White Hope, was released shortly after his death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1930
This war drama, set in WW I Germany, is based on a novel by Arnold Zwieg. The story follows the harrowing trials of an escaped Russian POW trying to return to his home country. Along the way the Germans recapture him. Because he wears the dog tag of a late Russian spy, the innocent protagonist is immediately executed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Betty Compson, (more)
- 1930
Norma Shearer earned an Academy Award for playing the not so gay divorcée in this pre-Code offering based, loosely, on Ex-Wife, a 1929 Ursula Parrott novel. Shearer is Jerry, a socialite who marries handsome Ted (Chester Morris) after a whirlwind courtship. But Ted is not exactly the faithful type and after three years of what she in her naïveté considered marital bliss, Jerry learns of his affair with Janice (Mary Doran). "It meant nothing," Ted assures her but Jerry is devastated and decides to investigate adultery for herself by sleeping with Ted's best friend, Don (Robert Montgomery). When she discovers that the old double-standard still applies, Jerry announces that henceforth Ted, and only Ted, is no longer welcome in her bed. After a string of lovers who mean little or nothing to her, Jerry falls for an old flame, Paul (Conrad Nagel), but when she understands the effect their affair has on Paul's poor disfigured wife, Dorothy (Helen Johnson, aka Judith Wood), Jerry returns to Ted, who still loves her despite it all. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Norma Shearer, Chester Morris, (more)
- 1930
Vallery Grove (Dolores Costello) may be high up the social ladder, but she hasn't a penny to her name thanks to her family's improvidence. Vallery is in love with Don Warren (Chester Morris), but he rejects her because of her present financial woes. Though she still loves Don, she marries Owen Mallory (Jack Mulhall) on the rebound, making her Mrs. Vallery Mallory (sounds like a joke on Laugh-In). Eventually Vallery realizes that Owen's the only man for her -- whereupon the fickle Don, now married himself, returns to the scene, demanding at gunpoint that Vallery dump her husband and return to him. The silliness of the plotline was forgotten by film fans in the light of the film's central gimmick: A revolving nightclub, which makes a complete 360-degree turn without mussing the hair of a single drunken patron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Costello, Chester Morris, (more)
- 1929
In this courtroom drama, a man is sentenced to death for jealously murdering the man who flirted with his wife. Unfortunately, the condemned man is innocent. He is saved from the chair by the revelation that the real murderer is the governor's son. The innocent man and his wife are soon reunited. Unfortunately for the killer, his father is so devastated by his son's action that he kills him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., (more)
- 1929
Basically a filmed vaudeville presentation, The Show of Shows was Warner Bros.' entry in the "all star, all talking, all singing and all dancing" sweepstakes of 1929. Though slightly better than MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929, the Warners entry pales in comparison to Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 and Paramount on Parade, due mainly to the film's master of ceremonies, the insufferable Frank Fay. Some of the individual acts seen in Show of Shows were pretty good, notably Winnie Lightner's delightful Singing in the Bathtub (a spoof of Hollywood Revue of 1929's Singin' in the Rain) and John Barrymore's brilliant rendition of Richard III's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry VI. Also easy to take was "Floradora Sextette," featuring such luminaries as Myrna Loy, Patsy Ruth Miller and cross-eyed comedian Ben Turpin, and "Eight Sister Acts," including such Hollywood siblings as Dolores and Helene Costello, Sally Blane and Loretta Young and Shirley Mason and Viola Dana (also teamed in this number are Ann Sothern and Marion Byron, who were not sisters). But for the most part, the acts are on a par with "Skull and Crossbones," a boring production number showcasing entertainer Ted Lewis, and "Recitations," a one-joke affair in which three different anecdotes (related by Frank Fay, Louis Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton and Bea Lillie) are melded into one. Show of Shows was originally released in two-color Technicolor but now exists only in black in white, save for the "Chinese Fantasy" number featuring crooner Nick Lucas and Warner Bros. contractee Myrna Loy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Director Roland West was a moody and mysterious Hollywood character, who insisted upon making his pictures in utter secrecy and filming only at night. This may explain the overall foreboding atmosphere of Alibi, West's first talking picture. Chester Morris portrays a ruthless gangster who must establish an alibi after pulling off a warehouse robbery. Regis Toomey and Pat O'Malley are the detectives assigned to get the goods on Morris. Full of vicious bravado when he's on top of a situation, Morris turns into a craven coward when he's trapped--but not before coldbloodedly gunning down true-blue policeman Toomey, who then launches into one the longest and most lachrymose death scenes in the history of movies. Alibi was based on the play Nightstick, written by John Wray, J.C. Nugent and Elaine Sterne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Harry Stubbs, (more)
- 1929
Although Broadway star Hal Skelly never quite made it in films, it wasn't for lack of trying. In Woman Trap, Skelly is cast against type as hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray (Chester Morris) is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resolve in the least. The barely relevant title is a reference to "heroine" Kitty Evans (Evelyn Brent), the wife of a minor gang functionary. Screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, presumably on a dare, makes a brief appearance as a crime reporter. Woman Trap was an expansion of a one-act vaudeville sketch by Edwin Burke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hal Skelly, Chester Morris, (more)
- 1925
Cecil B. DeMille's century-hopping extravaganza The Road to Yesterday begins in the present (1925, that is). Wealthy Joseph Schildkraut can't understand why his wife Jetta Goudal is so cold to him. Goudal senses that Schildkraut had once done her dirt....in a previous life. Likewise unhappily married are William Boyd and Vera Reynolds. All four principals are on an express train which crashes. While unconscious, the foursome flash back to their previous existences in Elizabethan England. Schildkraut was then a knight, Goudal a gypsy, and Boyd and Reynolds were royal hangers-on. Just as Schildkraut is about to burn Goudal at the stake, the four protagonists return to the present. Armed with the knowledge of their past misdeeds, the lovers all vow to set things right in their current lives. Nobody believed The Road to Yesterday back in 1925 (any more than anyone believes it today), but everybody enjoyed it for what it was: a slam-bang piece of pure entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Schildkraut, Jetta Goudal, (more)
- 1923
This drama glorified the lowly postman, which probably warmed the heart of Will H. Hays, the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association -- he was a former postmaster general. Dan O'Brien (Brandon Tynan) loyally stays at his mailman job, even when his pal Michael O'Hara (Charles McDonald) offers him a chance to go into business. O'Hara's son Tom (Chester Morris) secretly marries the O'Brien's adopted daughter Peggy (Faire Binney). When O'Brien retires, his pension isn't enough to live on, so his son Terrence (William Collier Jr.) gets a job at the post office to help out. O'Brien allows Brady (Tom Blake) to spend the night at his house, and he gratefully leaves some money. But Brady is a mail robber and the cash is marked, so O'Brien is arrested. Brady and one of his associates attempt to rob a mail train, but Terrence, who is clerking, stops them. Brady escapes, however, and attempts yet another robbery. Once again, he is foiled by Terrence. Finally he confesses and clears O'Brien's name. O'Brien is officially thanked by the postmaster general, and when the marriage between Peggy and Tom is revealed, it brings the two families together again. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Carr
- 1918
Based on a novel by Frank L. Packard, The Beloved Traitor stars Mae Marsh as Mary Garland, a resident of a Maine fishing village. In love with Judd Minot (E.K. Lincoln), a handsome fisherman with a gift for sculpting, Mary is forced to tearfully remain on the sidelines when Judd is discovered by wealthy New York art patron Henry Bliss (George Fawcett) and whisked off to the Big City. It doesn't take long for success to go to Judd's head, and soon he is galavanting around with Bliss' somewhat loose-moralled daughter Myrna (played by future gossip queen Hedda Hopper). Apprised of the situation, Mary rushes to New York, determined to "rescue" her former sweetie. A deft blend of comedy and drama, Beloved Traitor was Mae Marsh's fifth vehicle for producer Samuel Goldwyn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Girlish Gladys Leslie doesn't exactly imitate Mary Pickford in this Thanhouser film, it's more like she personifies the cliché idea of what Pickford was thought to be: effervescent and overly childish. In reality, Pickford's characterizations were far more varied and interesting than anything Leslie offers here. Marcia (Leslie) can't stand Quincy (Isabel Vernon), her stern governess. When her parents (Thomas Curran and Jean Arthur) go on a trip abroad and leave her behind, Marcia doesn't want to be left alone with Quincy, so she changes places with the governess' orphaned niece, Jane. Jane goes to boarding school while Marcia goes to an orphanage, where she is adopted by Benton (Justus Barnes), a farmer. His son, Dave (Ray Hallor), the family black sheep, becomes her pal and a romance blossoms. Dick (Chester Morris), a friend from the city, comes to visit and he and Dave become rivals for Marcia. She finally chooses Dave. She uses her wiles to keep him from winning a promotion at work that would send him to the big city because she prefers life on the farm. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
