Constance Bennett Movies

Lana Turner takes the lead in the seventh film version of Alexandre Bisson's glossy soap opera. Holly Parker (Turner) is married to respected diplomat Clay Anderson (John Forsythe), but his busy schedule prevents them from seeing each other very often. Distracted and lonely, Holly allows her head to be turned by carefree playboy Phil Benton (Ricardo Montalban), who dies in a freak accident during an assignation. In a panic, Holly contacts her mother-in-law, Estelle Anderson (Constance Bennett) and asks what she should do. Estelle, a joyless woman who has never cared for her daughter-in-law, tells Holly that unless she wants to destroy her husband's life and career, she should flee the country and never return. Tearfully, Holly follows Estelle's advice, leaving behind her young son. Many years later, Holly has fallen on hard times; addicted to drugs, she scrapes out a meager living as a prostitute in a cheap hotel in Mexico. Devious criminal Dan Sullivan (Burgess Meredith) tries to involve Holly in a blackmail scheme; at the last minute, she finds out that Clay is the target, and she kills Sullivan. She cannot afford to hire a lawyer to defend her, so she is assigned a dedicated young public defender, whom she soon recognizes as her son, Clay Anderson, Jr. (Keir Dullea). Not wanting Clay, Jr. to know her true identity, Holly is tried as "Madame X," but she has trouble keeping her composure given the trial and her mixed joy and shame at seeing her son. Madame X was Constance Bennett's first film in 12 years and the last she would ever make; she died of a cerebral hemorrhage shortly after completing her work on the picture, nine months before it was released. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on a story by Paddy Chayefsky, this is the tale of a man who is being forced to retire from his job, at the age of 65, and decides to fight back. Impersonating the head of the company, he sets out to convince them to get rid of their outmoded retirement policy and gives a creditable speech on the dignity of man, gaining national attention. This movie features good performances, but it will probably be remembered more for the bit part played by a young Marilyn Monroe as the boss' secretary. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Angel on the Amazon gives the viewer a pretty good notion of what Lost Horizon or She might have looked like had they been produced by Republic Pictures. Vera Ralston stars as huntress Christine Ridgeway, who embarks on one of her many hunting expeditions in the company of her husband Anthony Brian Aherne. While deep in the jungles of the Amazon, the Ridgeways and their party come across the wreckage of a plane. Among the survivors are pilot Jim Warburton George Brent and Dr. Karen Lawrence Constance Bennett. Warburton is impressed by the fact that, though apparently well on in years, Christine has retained her youthful appearance. Dr. Lawrence eventually discovers the secret of Christine's eternal beauty, which by film's end has atrophied considerably. The rambling screenplay whisks the viewer from Brazil to the Riviera to Pasadena, all courtesy of the Republic back lot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Otto Preminger directed this romantic musical (something of a change of pace for the rather serious-minded director) set in Philadephia in 1876. The upcoming Centennial Exposition is the talk of the town, and sisters Julia (Jeanne Crain) and Edith (Linda Darnell) find themselves romantic rivals when they both fall for Philippe (Cornel Wilde), a suave Frenchman in town for the celebration. Their mother Harriet (Dorothy Gish) might offer more advice if she weren't busy looking after her husband Jesse (Walter Brennan), who is busy tinkering with inventions that he's convinced will make him a rich man. Jerome Kern composed the film's'score and co-wrote several songs, including "Up with the Lark," "The Right Romance," and "All Through the Day." It was the last film work he would complete prior to his death in 1945. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Marlene Dietrich was supposed to have starred in Universal's Sin Town, but the script was not to her liking. Dietrich was replaced by Constance Bennett in the role of a glamorous suspect in a small-town murder. Broderick Crawford and Leo Carrillo costar as a couple of con men who must solve the killing of a newspaper publisher lest they be convicted of the crime. At 75 minutes, the film moves too quickly to pause for such niceties as motivation and logic, but few in the audiences of 1942 complained. Sin Town's three-person writing staff included Richard Brooks, later the director of such "A" pictures as Elmer Gantry and In Cold Blood (though he never did write for Marlene Dietrich). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's hard to believe that Wild Bill Hickok Rides is a Warner Bros. picture-and harder still to believe that Constance Bennett deigned to star in the film. Wavering uncomfortably between comedy and drama, this patchwork western features Bruce Cabot as Wild Bill Hickok, who on this occasion goes on the warpath against despotic land baron Harry Farrel (Warren William). When Hickok's rancher friend is lynched by Farrel's flunkeys, the fur-and bullets-really start to fly. Constance Bennett does her best to convincingly portray gambling-hall proprietress Belle Andrews, but it's an impossibly written role. Critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times summed the whole thing up in a terse single sentence: "Will be remembered as the one in which a Bennett sister slummed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Attempting to Americanize Greta Garbo to appeal to American audiences (since most of the foreign markets for Hollywood product had been cut off due to World War II), M.G.M.'s Two-Faced Woman succeeded in making Garbo angry enough to announce her retirement from the screen. Two-Faced Woman was Garbo's final screen appearance, as the legendary actress slipped into a reclusive existence that lasted until her death. This George Cukor romantic comedy casts Garbo as ski instructor Karin Borg Blake. She gives lessons to wealthy American playboy Larry Blake (Melvyn Douglas), and the two fall in love and marry even though Larry has a girlfriend named Griselda Vaughn (Constance Bennett) waiting for him back in New York. Returning to New York, Karin fears that Griselda will win Larry back. In an effort to foil Larry's imagined dalliance, Karin poses as her own twin sister, Katherine, hoping to get Larry to fall in love with her instead of Griselda. Larry is onto the scheme and plays along with her, pretending to fall in love with Katherine. But this infuriates Karin, who can't believe that her husband would fall in love with her sister, and she storms back to her ski resort. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The exploits of female pilots are followed in this high-flying drama. These women are extremely competitive and will stop at nothing to win their cross-country races. The story centers on one such determined pilot who is forced to leave the race circuit after her plane crashes. To become re-airborne she convinces several people to sponsor her. One wealthy socialite refuses because she is a pilot too. The two women end up competing in the air and on the ground for the love of the same fellow. Because the heroine is so well liked by the other racers, they help her win. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this frothy comedy-drama, a businesswoman owns a successful service bureau for the filthy rich. Her service does everything from handling mundane finances to putting on weddings. Her most recent client wants her to prevent his rube of a nephew from coming to New York to visit him. She does her best and in the end, falls in love with the bumpkin after charming him away from his countrified girl friend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

By 1937, producer Hal Roach was hoping to wean himself away from the Laurel & Hardy-Our Gang slapstick on which he had built his studio's reputation by delving into the "screwball comedy" genre. Roach selected the racy Thorne Smith fantasy novel Topper for adaptation, and the result was one of the most endearingly funny films of the decade. Constance Bennett and Cary Grant play Marion and George Kerby, a wealthy, freewheeling young married couple whose uninhibited lifestyle is the talk of the town. After a particularly bibulous evening on the town, the Kerbys race homeward in their gleaming new roadster. George fails to negotiate a curve, and the car plows into a tree, killing both its occupants. Seconds later, the ghosts of George and Marion emerge from the wreckage, behaving as frivolously as if nothing had happened. Upon realizing that they're dead, the Kerbys also realize that they haven't been immediately snatched up into Heaven. Determining that they're required to perform one good deed before being allowed past the Pearly Gates, George and Marion set about to "liberate" stuffy, sedate, henpecked banker Cosmo Topper (Roland Young). At first resistant to the charms of his invisible benefactors, Topper begins to loosen up and truly enjoy life for the first time. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with Topper's supercilious wife (Billie Burke) nor his long-suffering butler (Alan Mobray), especially during a climactic free-for-all at a vacation resort. Though special effects abound in Topper, most of the humor derives from the embarrassed reactions of Roland Young as he tries to fend off the flirtatious advances of the ghostly Marion and the benignly strongman tactics of the spectral George. Adding to the fun are Eugene Pallette as a flustered house detective and Arthur Lake as a pratfalling bellboy. The musical score by longtime Hal Roach composer Marvin Hatley is perfectly attuned to the zany goings-on (including snatches of background music from Roach's earlier Laurel and Hardy comedies), while Hoagy Carmichael appears briefly on screen to introduce the film's signature tune, "Old Man Moon." Topper proved successful enough to warrant two sequels, as well as a popular TV series of the early 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A stellar Hollywood cast gives an extra boost to the atmospheric British feature Everything is Thunder. The story involves a Canadian POW being hidden by a German citizen during World War I. The surprise herein is that the German is Constance Bennett, one hundred percent sympathetic and (eventually) apolitical. Douglass Montgomery is the prisoner, first discovered in Connie's bathroom while the police scramble through her apartment building. Despite the possibility of being liquidated as a traitor, Ms. Bennett, who has a remarkable propensity for disguise, helps the likeable Montgomery reach the allied lines. The pro-German sentiments in Everything is Thunder (and in the Jocelyn L. Hardy book on which it was based) were not all that uncommon in 1936 Britain; funny, though, how this film disappeared from circulation in 1939. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Affairs of Cellini is based on Edwin Justus Mayer's popular stage play The Firebrand, which in turn was based on the life and times of Renaissance artist/political reactionary Benvenuto Cellini. Fredric March plays the tempestuous, amorous Cellini, who spends as much time in swordplay with jealous husbands as he does in his artist's loft. When the duke of Florence (Frank Morgan) falls for Cellini's beautiful model (Fay Wray), Cellini is presented in court, whereupon he revives an ongoing affair with the duchess of Florence (Constance Bennett). Though a bumbling buffoon, the duke nonetheless holds the power of life and death over everyone in his domain, including Cellini. Thanks to his political activities and his overactive libido, Cellini is nearly executed, but a series of farce-like complications allows the plotline to turn out to the artist's advantage. Though hardly reliable as history, The Affairs of Cellini scores on its comic content, including the hilarious performances of Frank Morgan as the cuckolded duke and Fay Wray as the monumentally stupid artist's model. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Outcast Lady is a heavily censored version of Michael Arlen's once-notorious novel The Green Hat, previously filmed by Greta Garbo as A Woman of Affairs. Constance Bennett is Iris March, a woman cursed by her beauty, doomed to drive everyone around her -- including herself -- to destruction. When her new husband Boy Fenwick (Ralph Forbes) commits suicide on their wedding night, Iris, who's been unfaithful to him, is held responsible, especially when the reason for Fenwick's demise is kept a secret by his snobbish family (He had contacted syphilis in the Arlen original; in the film, he fears exposure of a previous prison term). Realizing that she has brought nothing but sorrow to the Fenwick family, Iris nobly steps into her fashionable touring car and smashes it into a tree. Oddly enough, Iris' death is amusing in retrospect, inasmuch as Constance Bennett would suffer a similar demise at the beginning of 1937's Topper, thereby allowing her to cavort through the rest of the picture as a ghost. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide