Anita Page Movies

Narrated by Anjelica Huston, this cable-TV documentary offered an up-close and personal look at the life and career of quintessential movie queen Joan Crawford. From her humble beginnings as MGM contract starlet Lucille LaSeuer, Crawford climbed to the top with a heady combination of talent, tenacity, glamour, hard work -- and obsessive, manipulative ruthlessness, both onscreen and off. Written off as "box-office poison" in the early '40s, Crawford confounded her detractors by changing studios and staging a spectacular comeback, winning the Academy Award for her performance in Warner Bros.' Mildred Pierce. She managed to hold on to her stardom well into the 1970s, plunging headlong into the horror genre with such masterworks as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? -- not to mention such dogs as Berserk! and Trog. In private life, Crawford married several times (her union with Pepsi Cola executive Alfred Steele briefly but memorably transformed her into a high-pressure businesswoman) and enjoyed the favors of dozens of men along the way. She also "enjoyed" a reputation as a domestic tyrant, allegedly insisting upon an immaculately clean home and holding her children in the grip of horrified fascination. In addition to excerpts from Crawford's classic (and not-so-classic) films, the documentary includes interviews with such interested parties as the actress' first husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., her directors (George Cukor and Vincent Sherman), her costars (Anita Page and Cliff Robertson), her biographer Bob Thomas -- and, inevitably, her stepdaughter, Christina Crawford, whose warts-and-all biography Mommie Dearest yielded one of the most campily outrageous biopics in movie history. Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star debuted August 1, 2002 over the Turner Classic Movies cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I Have Lived takes place in a New York penthouse, a Broadway theater, and a seedy speakeasy, though not necessarily in that order. Alan Dinehart essays one of his rare leading roles as Thomas Langley, a brilliant playwright whose career has taken off like a skyrocket. Experiencing an attack of hubris, Langley decides to cast an unknown in his next play. His selection is the gorgeous Jean St. Clair (Anita Page), a woman with a tawdry past. Wanna bet that the opening-night audience will give the young actress a standing ovation despite her checkered history? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Renowned animal-trainer Clyde Beatty plays himself as a circus owner in this adventure that centers on an enthusiastic youth who idolizes Beatty. The story's highlight is a fight with the lions and tigers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A wealthy theatrical producer entices a desperately poor young woman to visit his penthouse. The innocent girl doesn't realize that the lecherous fellow is planning to do much more than have a drink with her. Fortunately, her friend the grocery boy isn't so naive and manages to arrive in the nick of time. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

"Are you listening?" was the catchphrase of early-1930s radio personality Tony Wons. Though Wons does not appear in the 1932 MGM programmer Are You Listening?, the film is concerned with the burgeoning broadcast industry. William Haines plays a wise-cracking radio writer who is tricked into confessing on the air that he murdered his wife. Whenever an actor normally associated with comedy roles plays a murderer (either actual or implied) in a film, it's usually a sign that his studio contract has come to an end. Such was the case of Are You Listening?, which proved to be William Haines' swan song at MGM, where he'd been employed since 1925. Perhaps as a going-away present, J.P. McEvoy's script contrives to give Haines three leading ladies: Madge Evans, Anita Page and Karen Morley (nobody outside the industry knew that Haines was in fact a homosexual, and MGM was determined to keep it that way). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maggie Warren (Marie Dressler) is the matriarch of a banking family who has run the Warren Bank for years, until she turns it over to her son John (Norman Foster) to run, following his marriage to Helen (Anita Page). Maggie and Helen's mother Lizzie (Polly Moran) don't really get along that well, but they tolerate each other -- barely -- for the sake of the children and grandchildren. Then comes the stock market crash, and the Great Depression, and the wave of bank failures -- and a rumor that starts a run on Maggie's bank, just as her son has lost all of the personal bonds, with which she had always secured the depositors' holdings against such an emergency, in a get-rich-quick scheme that collapsed. It takes every bit of personal persuasiveness that Maggie can muster, along with a lot of luck, to keep the bank afloat, and Lizzie -- whose own holdings may have gone up in smoke with the rest of the bank's assets -- won't stop needling her. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama that was considered utterly scandalous in its day, an impoverished, beautiful young ghetto girl quickly learns that she can get to Easy Street on her back. Her indecent journey begins when a scout discovers her working in a department store. He gets her signed up to a modeling agency where she soon becomes the mistress of the owner. He gives her plenty of money and a nice place to live. She tries to share the money with her family, but they strongly disapprove of the means by which she is "earning" it. The young model later falls in love with an Argentine tycoon who proposes, but is unable to marry her because he must hastily return to Buenos Aires to attend to personal matters. He asks that she wait for him. She wants to, but finds herself seduced by the lure of her other lover's money and so moves in with him. When the tycoon finally returns and finds out, he is utterly devastated and tragedy ensues for the girl. There are two prints of the film around: one features a happy ending, while in the other, the tragedy continues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this slapstick comedy set in a posh beauty salon, the owner asks her matronly sister, a postman's wife, to come and visit. She does, and brings her lovely daughter along with her. This creates problems when the fiancé of the owner's daughter falls in love with the daughter of her sister. Fortunately, it is revealed that the man is a grade-A cad and both of the girls are saved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Buster Keaton's talkie debut (discounting his non-speaking guest appearance in Hollywood Revue of 1929) was Free and Easy, an uneven but generally amusing comedy with a Hollywood setting. When pretty Elvira (Anita Page) of Gopher City, Kansas wins a beauty contest, her prize includes a trip to Tinseltown and a screen test at MGM. Appointing himself protector of Elvira and her formidable mother (Trixie Friganza), gas-station attendant Elmer Butts (Keaton) accompanies them to California. Once they've arrived, Elmer manages to disrupt the daily MGM routine, stumbling into films in progress, knocking over sets and breaking props, and finding himself taking a screen test in which he repeatedly blows the single line "The queen has swooned" ("The sween has quooned", "The coon has sweened") over and over. Meanwhile, latin-lover film star Lorenzo (Robert Montgomery) sets his sights on innocent Elvira, attempting to seduce her while Elmer's back is turned. But Lorenzo turns out to be a good guy -- in fact, his real name is Larry, and he's a Kansas boy himself -- and he arranges for Elvira to get her big break. In a surprise turnaround, Elvira doesn't win a contract, but Elmer and Elvira's mom become popular musical-comedy stars! The film is studded with guest appearances by such MGM contractees as directors Cecil B. DeMille, Lionel Barrymore, Fred Niblo, and actors Gwen Lee, John Miljan, William Haines, Karl Dane and Keaton's then-girlfriend Dorothy Sebastian. Free and Easy was also filmed in French, Spanish and German-language versions, with Keaton speaking his words phonetically in all three. The film was remade as Pick a Star in 1937, and as Abbott and Costello in Hollywood in 1945. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM house director Clarence Brown's first all-talkie, this pleasantly innocuous comedy drama stars William Haines as Jack Kelly, a carefree sailor picking up innocent Alice Brown (Anita Page) at a Ladies' Uplift Society Dance. Their whirlwind romance, however, ends abruptly when the girl's mother (Edythe Chapman) throws the sailor out of her home because of his profession. Alice, who has had enough of her mother's tyranny, follows him and, before shipping out, Jack helpfully secures her a room for the night by pawning her fox stole. Returning after a tour of duty, the chastened sailor finds his girl working as a taxi dancer and physically forces her to return to home and hearth. With her parents' wholehearted approval, Alice suggests that Jack marry her -- "a second time," as she fibs -- before a preacher. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Based on a play by Floyd Dell and Thomas Mitchell, Little Accident stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as bridegroom-to-be Norman Overbeck. On the eve of his wedding to Madge (Sally Blane), Norman is visited by his first wife Isabel (Anita Page), who tells him that he's just become a father. Stuck with a kid on his hands, our hero is forced to postpone the wedding and "play daddy." He comes to like the job so much that he ends up marrying Isabel all over again -- but not before a long and drawn-out custody battle. Considerably toned down from the original play (in which the baby was illegitimate), Little Accident is a bit too antiseptic for its own good. The film was remade under the same title as a "Baby Sandy" vehicle in 1939, then again as the Gary Cooper starrer Casanova Brown in 1944. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This landmark MGM backstage musical of the early sound era about broken dreams on the Great White Way features a bevy of standards by the songwriting team of Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown. Freed later became unit producer of the legendary Freed Unit at MGM, which is the reason many of the tunes from Broadway Melody --""You Were Meant For Me"", "Broadway Melody", ""The Wedding of the Painted Doll""-- later appeared in Freed's seminal MGM musical Singin' in the Rain. The nominal story concerns midwestern sister act The Mahoney Sisters --Queenie (Anita Page) and Hank (Bessie Love)-- who come to New York to try to make it big on Broadway. Hank's song-and-dance man boyfriend Eddie (Charles King) has promised the gals a part in the new Broadway revue in which he is soon to appear. When Hank and Queenie come to see him, Hank is pleasantly surprised at the way Queenie has filled out. Soon enough, Eddie is making advances to Queenie. Queenie is attracted to Eddie too, but she doesn't want to steal her sister's boyfriend. So she Queenie takes up with a lecherous playboy, leaving it to Hank to put all the confused love relationships in perspective. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This cookie-cutter William Haines vehicle was filmed in part at the Indianapolis Speedway. As usual, Haines plays a fresh young braggart, in this instance a cocky racecar driver. Somewhere along the line, he falls in love with Anita Page, the daughter of an airplane manufacturer. After a dash in the clouds with Page and her pop, Haines comes back to earth, determined to win the Big Race for the sake of his crusty old mentor Ernest Torrence. Although villain John Miljan tries to sabotage Haines' chances, our hero triumphs -- but not until after the usual meal of "humble pie" that all of Haines' characters were required to ingest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide