Cosmo Kyrle Bellew Movies

After spending time working as dialogue director on a number of films, Carol Reed made his directorial debut as co-director of It Happened in Paris. Based upon a French play by Yves Mirande, Paris stars John Loder as Paul, the artistically-inclined son of an American millionaire. Serious about his work, he has moved to Paris, where he can find inspiration and study the masters. While there, he finds inspiration of a different sort in the form of the beautiful Jacqueline, played by Nancy Burne. Thinking that his wealth is a handicap, Paul lies and pretends that he is poor. In time-honored fashion, this causes some complications, but eventually all is revealed and the two lovers are set on the course to living happily ever after. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Apparently inspired by Noel Coward's Bitter Sweet, Beloved is a lush, lachrymose musical romance set in Vienna, South Carolina and New York City. John Boles stars as Austrian composer Carl Hausmann, whose musical career is very nearly cut short during the 1848 revolution. Carl is whisked off by his mother (Dorothy Peterson) to the American South, where he establishes a respectable reputation in the years just prior to the Civil War. Forced to relocate to New York with his new bride Lucy (Gloria Stuart), Carl languishes professionally for several years, then gives up composing to support his wife and child as a music teacher. Tragedy strikes once more during the Spanish American War, when the Hausmann's son is killed. Carl and Lucy invest all their love in their grandson Eric (Morgan Farley), a Gershwin type who grows up to become a jazz musician in the post-WWI era. As Eric grows richer and more successful, the Hausmanns continue to live in genteel poverty, with Carl all the while struggling to finish the symphony he began so many years before. After an unpleasant episode in which Eric accuses Carl of "stealing my stuff," our nonagenarian protagonist finally hears his symphony in a radio broadcast arranged by his chastened grandson. Contented at last, Carl peacefully passes on. Ironically, leading lady Gloria Stuart was far more attractive when she really reached her 80s than when she was heavily made up as an old woman in Beloved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama set within an Irish hospital, a handsome young physicician is pursued by two women. He is attracted to one of them, but as she has expensive taste he does not feel he can afford to be with her. The other woman is a manipulator and tricks him into an engagement with a kiss. The poor physician is utterly confused and so heads into the country to help with a typhoid epidemic. As soon as it is halted, he finds that he himself has the dread disease. All his colleagues believe he is a goner, but true love prevails and the first one takes care of him until his health is restored. Often cited as the first "talkie" to feature a primarily Irish cast. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Conway Tearle stars as Jack Norton, a diamond smuggler operating in South America who is strong-armed into participating in a blackmail scheme. Norton is to obtain several compromising photos of Margaret Townsend (Billie Dove), the wife of American consulate Charles Townsend (Sidney Blackmer). The plan collapses when the "hero" falls in love with Margaret. As one of several "comeback" attempts for silent-film beauty Billie Dove, The Lady Who Dared was a flop. As another argument in favor of a stronger Motion Picture Production Code, it was unfortunately a success. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the early days of sound film, one of Warner Bros.' big box-office draws was the aging stage actor George Arliss and, in Disraeli, Arliss scored his biggest box-office hit. He is at his best as the foxy British prime minister (in a role he created on-stage and re-created earlier in a 1921 silent film version of the same play). The film concerns the machinations of Disraeli in his efforts to secure the Suez Canal for England. After his liberal opponent Gladstone defeats Disraeli's attempt to raise a line of credit to buy the Suez Canal, Disraeli retires to his country estate to plot a new strategy. When he intercepts a coded telegram from an Egyptian potentate indicating Egyptian financial problems and a willingness to make a deal on the canal, Disraeli jumps on the chance to secure funding from the Bank of England but is denied the credit. Searching for another funding source, he obtains the services of international banker Hugh Meyers (Ivan Simpson). However, when Disraeli's emissary arrives in Cairo with a check to purchase Suez, it is discovered that Meyer has gone bankrupt. Now Disraeli must enlist all his charm and wiles to persuade the Bank of England to honor the bad check. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

MGM contractee Dorothy Sebastian paid a brief visit to Tiffany-Stahl to star in this bit of South Seas exotica. Unable to pay for her passage when she sails to the tropics to meet her mail-order husband, Dorothy Ryan (Sebastian) assumes the identity of a wealthy passenger who is presumed to have died. Rather enjoying the preferential treatment she receives, Dorothy continues the masquerade when she arrives at her destination. She forgets all about her husband-to-be and falls in love with local aristocrat John Rice (Larry Kent). The party comes to an end when the woman whom Dorothy is pretending to be suddenly shows up, very much alive and very angry. Disgraced in the eyes of John's family, Dorothy wanders into the jungle where she is captured by the natives and sentenced to be burned at the stake. She is spared this grisly fate by John Rice, who still loves her despite her deception. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director James W. Horne, best known today for his Laurel and Hardy comedies, called the shots on the inexpensive "emotional" drama Black Butterflies. Heroine Dorinda Maxwell (Jobyna Ralston) enters into a marriage of convenience, even though she cannot abide her new husband. In so doing, she is separated from her true love, David Goddard (Robert Frazer). Fate and the scriptwriters contrive to keep hero and heroine apart for the balance of the picture; at one point, Goddard is blinded in an auto accident. All turns out OK in the end except for the "heavy" of the piece, vampish Kitty Perkins (Mae Busch, likewise a future Laurel and Hardy "regular"), who must pay for her sins with her life. Black Butterflies reaches three possible endings, opting at last for the weakest of the three. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Magic Flame is little more than a showcase for Samuel Goldwyn's "hottest" screen team, Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky. Based on King Harlequin, a novel and play by Rudolph Lothar, the film casts Colman as a travelling circus clown who happens to bear a startling resemblance to the no-good King of a mythical European principality. The King (also played by Colman, of course), develops a yen for the Clown's sweetheart, trapeze artist Vilma Banky. While trying to rescue the girl from the royal castle, the Clown is forced to kill the King. As inevitably as night follows day, the Clown is then obliged to take the King's place on the throne. As gentle and generous as his "predecessor" was cruel and corrupt, the Clown becomes immensely popular with his subjects, who are more willing to allow him to marry a "commoner" like Banky. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide