Claude Rains Movies

George Bernard Shaw adapted his own play for the screen in this blithe film version of the romance between Caesar (Claude Rains) and Cleopatra (Vivien Leigh). Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra are merely Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle cast back into ancient times with Caesar doting with admiration and burgeoning love upon Cleopatra and expostulating, "You have been growing up since the Sphinx introduced us the other night." The story is a simple one concerning Caesar instructing Cleopatra on how to act like a queen. But Cleopatra is left cold by Caesar and his blatherings. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In many ways, the history of the cautionary fable Strange Holiday is more fascinating than the film itself. Written and directed by radio's Arch Oboler (of "Lights Out" fame), the story concerns American businessman John Stephenson (Claude Rains), who returns home after an extended vacation to discover that the U.S. has been taken over by a fascist dictatorship. Completed sometime between 1940 and 1942, the film was originally produced by General Motors as a morale-booster for the company's employees (it should be noted that the story insists that the strongest defense against totalitarianism is Big Business!) GM decided not to screen the picture, whereupon Arch Oboler sold the property to MGM. That studio also eventually passed on distributing the film, at which point Oboler and star Claude Rains, forming their own production company, repurchased the film and distributed it on a limited basis in 1945. The following year, Strange Holiday finally received a widespread national release through the auspices of PRC Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

From a novel of the same name by "Elizabeth", the film begins in 1914, with Bette Davis cast as vain, flighty society woman Fanny Trellis. Informed by Jewish-American financier Job Skeffington (Claude Rains) that her brother Trippy (Richard Waring) has stolen money to pay his gambling debts, Fanny marries Job, securing his promise that he won't prosecute her thieving sibling. Angered by Fanny's agreeing to this loveless union, Trippy runs off to join the army, and is killed during World War I. Fanny holds Skeffington responsible for her brother's death, and demands a divorce with a generous cash settlement. Despite Job's oft-repeated belief that "a woman is only beautiful when she is loved," Fanny uses her coquettish beauty to flit indiscriminately from man to man. While on a sailing trip with her latest beau, Fanny comes down with diphtheria. The disease destroys her facial beauty, and before long the shallow Fanny is left completely alone. Her self-centered efforts to reunite all of her old boyfriends for a party is a failure due to her pathetic middle-aged efforts to be kittenish, and the grotesqueness of the mounds of facial makeup she apples. Meanwhile, Skeffington, who has resettled in Europe with his daughter, is captured by the Nazis and placed in a concentration camp. He manages to escape, returning to the US totally blind and utterly penniless. A chastened Fanny comes back to her husband, promising to care for him for the rest of his life. Most TV prints of Mr. Skeffington run 127 minutes; the videocassette and cable TV versions have been restored to the original length. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Forced to flee Paris during the Occupation, the great French leading man Jean Gabin starred in a brace of Hollywood films, the best of which was the first, 20th Century-Fox's Moontide. Cast to type, Gabin plays Bobo, a brooding itinerant dock-worker who gets mixed up in a drunken brawl. Upon awakening, Bobo is convinced that he has killed a man by his mercenary "pal" Tiny (Thomas Mitchell). Despairing at the thought of having committed murder, not to mentioned being blackmailed for the rest of his life by the treacherous Tiny, Bobo is able to find a few fleeting moments of happiness with Anna (Ida Lupino), a suicidal young girl whom he has saved from a watery grave (The intensity of the love scenes may well be due to the allegedly real-life romance between Jean Gabin and Ida Lupino). Novelist John O'Hara adapted the screenplay from a book by actor Willard Robertson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the most beloved American films, this captivating wartime adventure of romance and intrigue from director Michael Curtiz defies standard categorization. Simply put, it is the story of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a world-weary ex-freedom fighter who runs a nightclub in Casablanca during the early part of WWII. Despite pressure from the local authorities, notably the crafty Capt. Renault (Claude Rains), Rick's café has become a haven for refugees looking to purchase illicit letters of transit which will allow them to escape to America. One day, to Rick's great surprise, he is approached by the famed rebel Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), Rick's true love who deserted him when the Nazis invaded Paris. She still wants Victor to escape to America, but now that she's renewed her love for Rick, she wants to stay behind in Casablanca. "You must do the thinking for both of us," she says to Rick. He does, and his plan brings the story to its satisfyingly logical, if not entirely happy, conclusion. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Robert Montgomery plays saxophone-playing boxer Joe Pendleton, who insists upon piloting his own plane, much to the consternation of his manager Max Corkle (James Gleason). Just before a championship bout, Joe's plane crashes. When he revives, he finds he has been whisked away to Heaven by the overanxious Messenger #7013. Checking with the man in charge, one Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), Pendleton discovers that he isn't scheduled to die for another 50 years. Joe heads back to earth, only to learn to his chagrin that his body has been cremated. Mr. Jordan is obliged to find Joe a new body; the "candidate" is a business mogul named Farnsworth, who is in the process of being murdered in his bath by his wife (Rita Johnson) and her lover (John Emery). Joe takes over Farnsworth's body, astonishing the murderers by emerging from the bathroom, very much alive (while Joe still looks like Joe to himself and the audience, he looks like Farnsworth to everyone else). Still desirous of winning the upcoming championship, Joe begins to whip Farnsworth's body into shape, even hiring Max Corkle to manage him. It takes some doing, but Joe convinces Max that he is indeed Joe and not Farnsworth (their scenes together are priceless, far better seen than described). Meanwhile, Joe has fallen in love with Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes), a woman whose father had been ruined by the real Farnsworth. For her sake, he pays back millions of dollars that the crooked Farnsworth had finagled out of his investors. This prompts Mrs. Farnsworth and her lover to kill "Farnsworth" again, and once more Joe Pendleton is without a body. How Mr. Jordan arranges for Joe to win the championship, expose the murderers and walk off arm and arm with Bette is a bit too complex to detail here. Here Comes Mr. Jordan is one of the most consistently clever romantic comedies of the 1940s, and richly deserving of the Oscars won by screenwriters Sidney Buchman, Seton I. Miller and Harry Segall. A sequel, Down to Earth, was filmed in 1947, with Roland Culver as Mr. Jordan; and in 1978, the original Jordan was remade by Warren Beatty as Heaven Can Wait. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A seemingly quiet Midwestern town is the hiding place for a number of sordid secrets in this melodrama based on Henry Bellamann's best-selling novel. Parris Mitchell (Scotty Beckett) is a young boy growing up in the town of King's Row, where he becomes close friends with Cassandra (Mary Thomas), a quiet girl who isn't popular with the other children. Parris is also friends with Louise (Joan Duvalle), a rich girl who looks down on others; Drake (Douglas Croft), a good-natured but self-centered type; and Randy (Ann Todd), a girl with a wild tomboy streak. It's a testimony to Parris' character when Cassandra and Louise both invite him to parties on the same day and he decides to go to Cassandra's, because he's not sure who else might be there for her. However, his friendship with her begins to fade after her father, local psychiatrist Dr. Tower (Claude Rains), decides to withdraw her from public school and tutor her at home instead. Years later, Parris (now played by Robert Cummings) is a promising medical student studying psychiatry with Dr. Tower, and while he's stayed in contact with Cassandra (now played by Betty Field), she remains at a curious emotional distance from those around her. Randy (now played by Ann Sheridan) romances Drake (now played by Ronald Reagan), who has inherited a fortune and is living the high life to the fullest. However, Drake is also involved with Louise (Nancy Coleman), who is not allowed much of a social life by her father, Dr. Gordon (Charles Coburn), and she fears that the more outgoing Randy will steal Drake away from her. When Parris decides to travel to Europe to further his studies, Cassandra asks if she can join him; he's not keen on the idea, but he considers it. He is then shocked to learn that Cassandra has been killed by her father after he learned that she was with child, shortly before taking his own life. Drake, meanwhile, loses his money through a series of unfortunate circumstances and is forced to take a job with the railroad; when he is injured at work, he's taken to Dr. Gordon for treatment. However, the doctor never approved of Drake's romance with Louise and was even more upset when he decided to leave her for Randy; in retaliation, Dr. Gordon amputates Drake's legs, even though his condition in no way justified it. Meanwhile, Parris comes back from Europe and makes the acquaintance of a local resident, Dr. Sandor (Erwin Kalser), while becoming infatuated with his daughter, Elise (Kaaren Verne). He also learns of Dr. Gordon's shocking mutilation of Drake, who is determined to somehow live a normal life despite it all, with Randy by his side. Kings Row was nominated for three Academy Awards (including Best Picture of 1943), and is generally conceded to feature the best performance of Ronald Reagan's Hollywood career; he titled his autobiography Where's the Rest of Me?, after the key line of his most memorable (and challenging) scene in the picture.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This third film version of Maxwell Anderson's play Saturday's Children stars Claude Rains as the impecunious but proud father of a large brood. Rains' daughter Anne Shirley marries idealistic John Garfield, a would-be inventor who works for Shirley's father. Feeling that he's been tricked into marriage, Garfield gives every indication of turning out to be as much "failure" as Rains. Only when Garfield and Shirley are on the verge of breaking up do they realize that material gain is not the only barometer of success in life. Previous filmizations of this story include Saturday's Children (29), starring Corinne Griffith, and Maybe It's Love (35), costarring Ross Alexander and Gloria Stuart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior senator, puts in a call to Governor Hubert "Happy" Hopper (Guy Kibbee) reporting the news. Hopper then calls powerful media magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold), who controls the state -- along with the lawmakers. Taylor orders Hopper to appoint an interim senator to fill out Foley's term; Taylor has proposed a pork barrel bill to finance an unneeded dam at Willet Creek, so he warns Hopper he wants a senator who "can't ask any questions or talk out of turn." After having a number of his appointees rejected, at the suggestion of his children Hopper nominates local hero Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), leader of the state's Boy Rangers group. Smith is an innocent, wide-eyed idealist who quotes Jefferson and Lincoln and idolizes Paine, who had known his crusading editor father. In Washington, after a humiliating introduction to the press corps, Smith threatens to resign, but Paine encourages him to stay and work on a bill for a national boy's camp. With the help of his cynical secretary Clarissa Sanders (Jean Arthur), Smith prepares to introduce his boy's camp bill to the Senate. But when he proposes to build the camp on the Willets Creek site, Taylor and Paine force him to drop the measure. Smith discovers Taylor and Paine want the Willets Creek site for graft and he attempts to expose them, but Paine deflects Smith's charges by accusing Smith of stealing money from the boy rangers. Defeated, Smith is ready to depart Washington, but Saunders, whose patriotic zeal has been renewed by Smith, exhorts him to stay and fight. Smith returns to the Senate chamber and, while Taylor musters the media forces in his state to destroy him, Smith engages in a climactic filibuster to speak his piece: "I've got a few things I want to say to this body. I tried to say them once before and I got stopped colder than a mackerel. Well, I'd like to get them said this time, sir. And as a matter of fact, I'm not gonna leave this body until I do get them said." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Originally designed for exhibition at the 1939 World's Fair, Land of Liberty is a 137-minute compendium of filmclips from past American historical epics. The project was sponsored by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. and supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, who also edited the film with the assistance of his crack Paramount production staff. The narration was written by old DeMille hands Jeannie MacPherson and Jesse Lasky Jr. and spoken by a talented team of uncredited announcers (one of whom sounded suspiciously like old C. B. himself). Clips from such Hollywood productions as America (1924), Abraham Lincoln (1930), Alexander Hamilton (1931), Show Boat (1936), Man of Conquest (1939) and DeMille's own The Plainsman (1936), The Buccaneer (1938) and Union Pacific (1939) are woven together into a chronological continuity, tracing American history from the Revolutionary War to the "present," which is largely represented by newsreel footage of President Roosevelt, the TVA project, and other current personalities and events. In later years, Land of Liberty was redistributed on the classroom circuit, with new footage added from historical dramas of the 1940s and 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

They Made Me a Criminal opens in New York, depicting the latest victory in the ring for Johnny Bradfield (John Garfield), a young boxer who seems headed for a championship. When a reporter finds Bradfield drunk and carousing with women, and learns that the squeaky-clean image that he has cultivated is a complete lie, he threatens to blow the lid off the boxer's real life, and is beaten to death by Bradfield's manager. Bradfield, who was in a drunken stupor during the fight, is framed for the killing by his manager, who rolls him for his wallet, watch, and anything else of value, makes a run for it, and is killed in a fiery car accident. As far as the police are concerned, the case is closed, "Bradfield" having been identified in the wreck by the watch he was wearing. But Johnny Bradfield now has to disappear from New York and anyplace else he's ever been seen, in order to stay "dead." He is sent on his way by his crooked attorney with just a few dollars in his pocket, thumbing rides and walking west. Bradfield collapses one day from exhaustion and near starvation outside of a ranch in Arizona. The ranch is run by May Robson as part of a relief effort to help a group of boys from the New York slums -- Tommy (Billy Halop), Spit (Leo Gorcey), Dippy (Huntz Hall), T.B. (Gabriel Dell), Angel (Bobby Jordan), and Milty (Bernard Punsly) -- keep out of trouble. Identifying himself as "Jack Dorney," he first tries to see what he can get in the way of a free ride from the kids and Tommy's sister, Peggy (Gloria Dickson), who doesn't trust Dorney or his influence over the kids. Meanwhile, back in New York, one police detective, Phelan (Claude Rains), is convinced that the body found in the burned wreck of Johnny Bradfield's car wasn't Bradfield. Phelan is an outcast in his department for having once presented "conclusive" evidence in court against a man who was executed for murder, only to discover later that the man was innocent. He sees this as his chance to redeem himself and his career, and he is such a pariah that his chief gives him permission to follow up leads anywhere he needs to. At the ranch, Dorney takes a genuine liking to the kids, and sees Peggy as a kind of woman he's never known, who has no "angles" in her approach to life. The ranch may have to be sold, however, as there is no more money coming from the church in New York to keep it going. In order to save the ranch and set Peggy and the kids up in a roadside business pumping gas -- an idea of Tommy's -- Dorney decides to enter a prize fight for money against a barnstorming boxer. On the eve of the fight, however, Phelan shows up, drawn by a newspaper photo of Dorney, his face obscured but using the same unusual left-handed boxing stance he used as Johnny Bradfield. Dorney goes into the ring, and finds himself up against a brute who has already flattened two opponents in less than one round each, trying to hide his identity by fighting right-handed. He gets savaged, round after round, until Phelan tells him from ringside that he knows who he is. Free to use his left, Dorney saves himself. Phelan confronts him in the dressing room, and Johnny tells him he'll give him no trouble -- they're about to head back east, with Peggy and the kids trying to thank him, and it dawns on Phelan that possibly this is one case that might better be left "solved" officially the way it is already, even though it means the detective going back to his job as a laughing stock. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide