Paul Porcasi Movies
A former opera singer in his native Sicily, bull-necked, waxed-moustached character actor Paul Porcasi made his screen bow in 1917's Fall of the Romanoffs. Porcasi flourished in the talkie era, playing innumerable speakeasy owners, impresarios, chefs, and restaurateurs. The nationalities of his screen characters ranged from Italian to French to Greek to Spanish; most often, however, he played Greeks with such onomatopoeic monikers as Papapopolous. Porcasi's best-remembered film roles include Nick the Greek in Broadway (1929), the obsequious garment merchant in Devil in the Deep (1932), dour border guard Gonzalez in Eddie Cantor's The Kid From Spain (1932), and the apoplectic apple vendor ("Hey! You steal-a!") in King Kong (1933). Paul Porcasi was also starred in the first three-strip Technicolor short subject, La Cucaracha (1934), wherein his face turned a deep crimson after he ingested one too many hot chili peppers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1931
Advertised variously as a "musical romance" and an "operetta style drama", Children of Dreams was the last of three Warner Bros. musicals written directly for the screen by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story revolves around a group of singing migrant workers, laboring away in a Western apple orchard. One of the more talented of the workers, pretty Molly Standing (Margaret Schilling), manages to achieve fame and fortune as an opera star. This turn of events was reportedly inspired by the career of real-life diva Anna Case, who is about the only New York stage personality not seen in this picture. Children of Dreams offers a few amusing turns by vaudevillian Tom Patricola and by Show Boat's original "Captain Andy," Charles Winnigner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Gregory, Tom Patricola, (more)
- 1931
The trials of being a doctor's wife are presented in this drama. The story centers upon the problematic marriage of one couple. Their troubles begin when the doctor makes a housecall to a seductive woman with designs upon him. His suspicious wife follows him and spies on him. She thinks they are getting romantic when he is actually trying to extricate himself from his predatory patient. She decides to get revenge with his best friend, but nothing happens. The doctor later finds out that she saw him. He then becomes suspicious because it is she who is now seldom home. He confronts his friend about the alleged adultery. The friend becomes distraught and tries to kill himself. The doctor operates to save his friend's life. He then discovers that his wife has been taking nursing classes so she could work beside her husband and see him more often. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Baxter, Joan Bennett, (more)
The George du Maurier novel Trilby, about a hypnotist who controls a female musician, was originally filmed as Trilby, a 1920s silent. In the 1931 talkie, the emphasis shifts from the music student to the teacher, Svengali. John Barrymore gives a scenery-chewing performance as Svengali, who is originally seen tutoring Honori (Carmel Myers). Trilby (Marian Marsh) is making her living as a nude model, but she wants to use her musical talents to earn money and hopes to settle down with Billee (Bramwell Fletcher). Unfortunately, his upper-class family simply wouldn't approve. Svengali falls for Trilby and starts teaching her music while manipulating her hypnotically. Eventually, she becomes so dependent on him that she can't perform outside of his presence. This film became so well-known that the word "Svengali" became incorporated into the English language, meaning "someone who, with evil intent, tries to persuade another to do what is desired." A British version of the film was released in 1955. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, (more)
- 1931
In this crime drama, a moll tells her imprisoned gangster lover that she is leaving him for another whom she really loves. He is a wealthy boy who marries her without knowledge of her past life. The happy couple soon has a baby. Their happiness is destroyed when the gangster escapes from prison and goes out looking for revenge on his ex-moll. When her hubby's parents discover the truth about her they are appalled and enraged. They strongly pressure her to give up the baby and leave her husband forever. Her husband goes to Paris for a divorce and the woman becomes a nightclub singer. Trouble ensues when the gun-toting gangster shows up to shoot her down. Fortunately a fast-shooting detective is there and kills the gangster first. Later her husband comes back from Paris and decides that he doesn't care about her past. The little family is happily reunited. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mae Clarke, James Hall, (more)
- 1931
Howard Hawks' early sound prison melodrama, based on a play by Martin Flavin, already contains his stylistic signature of over-lapping dialogue -- a technique he would greatly expand upon in the next ten years. Walter Huston is district attorney Brady, who quickly convicts Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) of murdering a man who was harassing his girlfriend. Brady is later made the warden of the prison where Robert is held. Brady tries to make friends with Robert, but Robert will have no dealings with the new warden. Nevertheless, Brady, who thinks Robert is a decent man who became embroiled in extraordinary circumstances, gives Robert a job as his chauffeur. As he drives with Brady's daughter Mary (Constance Cummings), the two fall in love. Meanwhile, things heat up back at the prison, where crazed killer Ned Galloway (Boris Karloff) kills the squealer Runch (Clark Marshall). Robert knows Ned killed Runch, but refuses to tell Brady. Brady reluctantly sends Robert to solitary confinement to get him to give up the murderer's name, but Robert holds out on him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, (more)
- 1931
Silent screen star John Gilbert had a tough time adapting to the talkies--not due to his voice, as is commonly believed, but because his type of florid romantic fare was no longer popular. Gentleman's Fate attempted to alter Gilbert's image by casting him as a bootlegger...albeit a reluctant one. A wealthy socialite, Gilbert learns to his chagrin that he has been financed by his supposedly dead father (Ernest Torrence), a notorious rum runner. Ruined socially, Gilbert joins the rackets himself, vying with his brother (Louis Wolheim) for control of the bootlegging territory. The love of a good woman (Leila Hyams) leads Gilbert to attempt to break up the racket, but he loses his life in the process. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Gilbert, Louis Wolheim, (more)
- 1931
Based on a novel by Geoffrey Barnes, Party Husband is a weak-tea drawing room comedy utterly dependant upon the charms of its stars. Dorothy Mackaill and James Rennie play Laura and Jay, a thoroughly modern married couple who vow to give each other full and unbridled freedom in extramarital matters. Unfortunately, Jay abuses the privilege when he sleeps with his wife's best friend (Mary Doran). Shortly afterward, Laura slips off for a night alone with her boss Horace Purcell (Donald Cook), only to inform her would-be lover that she's merely trying to teach her husband a lesson. The untimely appearance of Laura's mother (Helen Ware) serves only to further complicate this ticklish situation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dorothy Mackaill, James Rennie, (more)
- 1930
This melodrama follows the lives of three sisters. One dies while giving birth, another gets married and goes to the US, and the last one gets involved with a Viennese musician. The two survivors become wealthy, and seem to forget about their impoverished mother back in Italy. Unbeknownst to any of the parties, the money the good daughters send home is being taken by a third party. That person's identity is discovered when the women and their spouses come to Italy to visit. They later leave the poor woman with a nice retirement fund. Songs include: "Italian Kisses" (L. Wolfe Gilbert, Abel Baer), "Lonely Feet," "Hand in Hand," "Keep Smiling," "Won't Dance," "Roll on Rolling Road," "What Good are Words," "You Are Doing Very Well" (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Dresser, Tom Patricola, (more)
- 1930
Like so many campaigners before him, Gary Cooper joins the Foreign Legion to "forget." At a smoky cabaret in Morocco, Cooper meets café entertainer Marlene Dietrich (making her American film debut). A woman with a very checkered past, Dietrich toys with the callow Cooper, but eventually falls hopelessly in love with him, even to the extent of throwing over wealthy Adolphe Menjou. The now-famous final image of Morocco finds la Dietrich, decked out in her cabaret finery and wearing high heels, heading after Cooper's regiment across the desert with the rest of the "camp followers." There is considerably more to the story than that, but these bare-bones details should be enough to entice anyone familiar with the exotic eroticism of the Josef von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich vehicles. Should you need more enticement, let us inform you that Morocco is the film in which Marlene Dietrich, dressed in a man's tuxedo for her nightclub act, kisses a female patron squarely on the lips. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, (more)
- 1930
In this crime drama, a down-on-his-luck attorney with connections to a diamond thief is framed for the thief's murder by the owner of the night club whose roof the body was found on. The attorney's daughter sets out to prove her father's innocence and gets a job singing at the club, becoming a local celebrity. With the help of an undercover reporter masquerading as a drunk, she proves that the night club owner was the real murderer, and he is killed in the end. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dorothy Revier, Raymond Hatton, (more)
- 1930
This drama is set during the mid Twenties when gangsters were a bit more genteel than their 1930s counterparts. Based on a true story, it profiles the experiences of a young gangster who, after getting caught during a robbery is given a choice: he can either go to prison or join the military and fight. He chooses the military. There he becomes a hero. But when he returns home, he immediately returns to gangster life. Trouble ensues when he falls for an aristocratic woman with a daughter. Their happiness is interrupted by an old enemy who kidnaps the girl. The protagonist successfully saves the girl and kills his enemy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen, (more)
- 1930
The life of merchant seamen is realistically portrayed in this adventure.
The story centers around two sailors who find their friendship tested when both have the opportunity to become captain. Their relationship is further strained when they fall for the same female. They get a chance to prove their seamanship when their ship is assaulted by a terrible storm. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The story centers around two sailors who find their friendship tested when both have the opportunity to become captain. Their relationship is further strained when they fall for the same female. They get a chance to prove their seamanship when their ship is assaulted by a terrible storm. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Bancroft, Jesse Royce Landis, (more)
- 1930
Metropolitan Opera diva Grace Moore made her film debut in MGM's A Lady's Morals. The film purports to be the biography of "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind, who was ballyhooed to stardom by 19th-century showman P.T. Barnum (Wallace Beery, who'd re-create the role in 1934's The Mighty Barnum). Most of the story, however, is given over to the fabricated romance between Lind (Moore) and young composer Paul Brandt (Reginald Denny), who gives her up when stricken with blindness. As if this wasn't trouble enough, Lind loses her voice at the height of her career; she regains her golden throat, but Paul is lost to her forever. Grace Moore sings seven songs during the film's amazingly brief (75-minute) running time, two of them operatic classics. The anemic box-office showing of A Lady's Morals and her follow-up vehicles briefly squelched Grace Moore's hopes for film stardom, but a few years later she enjoyed enormous success in a series of Columbia musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Grace Moore, Reginald Denny, (more)
- 1929
This early musical features several song-and-dance numbers in the midst of a story about underworld criminals. Nick (Paul Porcasi), who runs the Paradise Night Club, is murdered by Steve (Robert Ellis), a bootlegger. Billie Moore (Merna Kennedy), a hoofer at the club, witnesses the killing but stays mum about the dirty business until she finds out Steve's next target is Roy (Glenn Tryon), her dancing partner. Billie is determined to tell her story to the police before Roy winds up dead, but Steve isn't about to let that happen and kidnaps her. No synopsis of this film is complete without a mention of the then-remarkable camera crane, which director Paul Fejos had designed specifically for use on Broadway, allowing unusually fluid movement and access to nearly every conceivable angle. It could travel at 600 feet per minute and enlivened the visual style of any number of other films on the 20th Century Fox lot over the next several years. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Tryon, Evelyn Brent, (more)
- 1926
Injured in a small European kingdom during a revolution, American soldier-of-fortune Bob Howard (Richard Dix) lies in a hospital bed, his face swathed with bandages. Assuming that Bob is her country's long-lost prince, Princess Eleana (Alyce Mills) nurses him back to health. So long as Bob's identity remains a mystery, the peasants are willing to cease their revolt, but when the truth is revealed they proceed as planned and topple the royal family from power. Rather than be upset by this turn of events, Eleana is delighted; now that she's a "commoner," she can marry the handsome, unwrapped Bob without worrying about protocol. Former Keystone comic Chester Conklin shows up as Howard's sidekick, who turns out to be the real prince. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Dix, Alyce Mills, (more)
