Herbert Rawlinson Movies

In this comedy, an amnesiac takes off with a young woman. This causes the woman's father to hire a detective to find them. Real mayhem ensues when a nightclub owner/gangster gets involved. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The overlong but absorbing MGM "B" melodrama Mad Holiday stars Edmund Lowe as vacationing movie idol Philip Trent. Tired of starring in murder mysteries, Trent discovers he can't escape typecasting even on an ocean voyage: one of the passengers is murdered in our hero's cabin. The killing is tied in with a stolen diamond and a seemingly unending supply of suspects. To avoid being arrested himself, Trent teams up with pretty detective novelist "Peter" Dean (Elissa Landi) to solve the mystery. As Trent's wisecracking press agent Mert Morgan, Ted Healey has a wonderful moment when he stumbles over a corpse and asks nonchalantly, "What's the matter with him, he crocked?" ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Preston S. Foster is the "hero" of The People's Enemy only in the sense that his is the largest male role. Foster plays a detestable gangster who works his way up to millionaire status. To gain a veneer of respectability, he marries lovely Lila Lee. But when the going gets rough, he deserts both his wife and his young daughter (Sybil Elaine). Upon Foster's arrest, noble and upright Melvyn Douglas is on hand to comfort Lee and her child. The People's Enemy was independently financed by Select Productions and released through RKO Radio Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The title refers to those special government agents who go undercover to flush out criminal gangs. In his second starring role, Fred MacMurray plays a government man who travels incognito as he trails a team of crooks from Brooklyn to Kansas. Lynne Overman is MacMurray's easygoing partner, who (naturally) is rubbed out by the hoods. MacMurray inveigles his way into the gang and brings them to justice--the ones who survive, that is. Released at the very beginning of Hollywood's G-Man cycle, Men without Names was instrumental in securing more prestigious acting assignments for Fred MacMurray. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed on location in Atlantic City, Convention Girl is the story of Babe Laval (Rose Hobart), whose job it is to keep out-of-town conventioneers entertained during their visits to the New Jersey resort town. Though Babe has a tough veneer, she's a good girl at heart, hoping someday to escape the lecherous clutches of "tired businessmen" in favor of true love. A likely candidate for romance is gambler Bill Bradley (Weldon Heyburn), but Babe will have nothing to do with him because of his shady profession. After an embarrassing episode with soap-tycoon Ward Hollister (Herbert Rawlinson), however, Bill looks a lot more appealing to our heroine. The supporting cast includes perennial western heroine Nell O'Day, as a convention girl who nearly loses her virtue, and comedian Shemp Howard in a "straight" role as a petty thief. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Vaudeville performer George Dwight (Roger Pryor) finds himself stranded in the small town of Walkerville, and talks his way into a job at a music store owned by Sally Upton (Mary Brian). Dwight's personality and piano playing, and his way with plugging a song help make the store a success, but his real goal is a shot at the big time as a songwriter, and he gets it when he sells one of his compositions. That sends him running to New York -- much to Mary's disappointment -- and he manages to wangle a job with a pair of Broadway producers. Over the next couple of years, working closely with leading lady Elsie Warren (Lillian Miles), George Dwight becomes one of the most successful songwriters on the Great White Way, and when he and Elsie tire of the manipulations of their bosses, they decide to break away so that George can produce his work himself. This gives him the chance to write in a more serious mode than he's ever had the opportunity to do before, something that Elsie isn't thrilled with -- George wants to do a show that's not only popular, but also important, with memorable music and an important message. Sally walks back into his life in the midst of the production, and now he wants to resume the romance that she'd hoped would blossom in Walkerville. But he's soon beset by problems when his former producers try to steal the production out from under him, and he's forced to go to a professional gambler, Nick Pappacroplis (Leo Carrillo) to rescue the show. And just when it looks like he's got his chance, along comes Nick's friend Sport Powell (Herbert Rawlinson), who has eyes for Sally and his own designs on the production. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

John Ince, the brother of pioneering Hollywood mogul Thomas Ince, was producer, director and star of The Hour of Reckoning. The plot concerns an elderly inventor, whose precious blueprints are appropriated illegally by the crooked owner of a safe-manufacturing company. The villain's honest business manager finds out about his boss' skullduggery but is unable to do anything about it. Things come to a perilous pass when the owner's son, who is engaged to the manager's daughter, is locked in the safe, for which only the manager has the combination. For the sake of his daughter, the manager releases the boy, whereupon the dishonest owner suddenly has a change of heart and pays the inventor a generous sum for those blueprints. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Little Jackie Coogan, Charlie Chaplin's famous The Kid(1921), starred in this action melodrama from MGM as a young bugler whose stepmother (Claire Windsor) attempts to supplant the mother who only lives in his memory. According to the Motion Picture New Booking Guide, The Bugle Call, which apparently no longer exists, was set in a frontier cavalry post in the 1870s and also dealt with "Indians and adventure." Handsome Herbert Rawlinson played the romantic lead, with Tom O'Brien as a no-nonsense cavalry sergeant and Nelson McDowell and Sarah Padden as weather-beaten frontier types. The Bugle Call was directed by Edward Sedgwick, formerly of Hoot Gibson Westerns. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

A love-starved wife (Priscilla Dean) hires a dim-witted delivery man (Stan Laurel) to make love to her and revive the waning interest of her eccentric artist husband (Herbert Rawlinson). As might be expected, the makeshift gigolo manages to foul things up, disastrously confusing the identities of the husband and a family friend and ultimately reuniting the couple in spite of himself. This very early effort of the Laurel and Hardy team has them working very much out of character and mostly on their own as members of the "Hal Roach Comedy All-stars" along with once-prestigious dramatic performers Rawlinson and Dean. The focus is on the rubber-limbed Stan (who pulls off an inspired pantomime sequence illustrating the Biblical story of Sampson and Delilah), with Hardy in the supporting part of the estranged couple's irate butler. Stan and Ollie do manage to tangle a bit in vigorous slapstick involving fumbled paint cans and another fiasco in which Hardy is ordered to bathe and groom a severely skittery Laurel. The plot is a rough warm-up of sorts for one of the more mature duo's last sound shorts, The Fixer Uppers(1934). ~ Rovi

Set during the turn of the century, The Belle of Broadway starts out in Paris, where celebrated stage star Madame Adele (Edith Yorke) is making her debut in "DuBarry." During the performance, Mme. Adele's musician husband abruptly walks out of the theater, never to return. The husband takes their young son to America, where he grows into manhood. Meanwhile, Mme. Adele's career goes into sharp decline, and by 1926 she is eking out a miserable existence as a bit player. A Broadway theatrical agent who recalls the actress' glory days tells Adele that he would stage a revival of "DuBarry" in a minute -- if only Adele could recapture her lost beauty. While all this is going on, young drama student Marie Duval (Betty Compson) happens to don one of Adele's old costumes -- and her resemblance to the faded star is so striking that a scheme is hatched to pass off Marie as Adele in the newly staged "DuBarry." Soon Marie is besieged by Adele's former admirers, who can't believe that their onetime idol has retained her good looks for lo these 30 years. When one of these admirers, the Count De Parma (Armand Kaliz), makes clear his intentions to seduce Marie, the girl is saved by the timely arrival of handsome young Paul Merlin (Herbert Rawlinson) -- who, of course, turns out to be Mme. Adele's long-lost son. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Not long after their honeymoon, Mr. Randolph and Mrs. Randolph (Herbert Rawlinson and Elaine Hammerstein) begin having a series of arguments. The latest is over a cat: She loves the creatures, he doesn't. One day Randolph is chasing a cat away from his yard and his neighbor, Mrs. Bradin (Dorothy Phillips), informs him that it is hers. The two start talking, bringing on the jealous wrath of Mrs. Randolph. More trouble ensues when Randolph's car breaks down and Mrs. Bradin offers to give him a ride. They are arrested for speeding and Mrs. Randolph is so furious that her husband has to go live at his club. Back home, Mrs. Randolph begins an affair with Mr. Bradin (Robert Cain) to get even, and invites Mrs. Bradin over to catch them. Mrs. Bradin, however, informs her that Bradin is always having affairs. Eventually Mrs. Randolph realizes she's being foolish and she and her husband are reconciled. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Awarded a higher budget than usual, Edward Laemmle, yet another relative of studio founder Carl Laemmle, directed this melodrama based on The Flower of Napoli by Gerald Beaumont. Herbert Rawlinson plays Tom Conlin, an Irish cop in an Italian neighborhood who falls in love with Tita (Madge Bellamy), the daughter of Satori (Cesare Gravina), the local florist. But although she returns Tom's affection, Tita keeps the handsome cop at an arm's length, because she mistakenly believes him to be married. But when the girl is kidnapped by Carlo Guido (André de Beranger), she is rescued by Tom, who proves to be very much eligible after all. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

This overwrought program drama was given a racy title to promote the up-and-coming Clara Bow, but all it really did for her career was keep her face in the public eye. Patricia Webster (Bow) feels that she is being neglected by her boyfriend, Rodney Adams (Herbert Rawlinson), who spends more time with his airplanes than he does with her. Since Patricia is a lively young flapper (in other words, a typical Bow character), she takes out her frustrations by attending a wild party held by Victor Ashley (Earle Williams). The partygoers encourage Patricia and another flapper to put on boxing gloves for a match just as Adams walks in. As a result, the couple breaks up and Patricia runs away from home. She goes to a roadhouse where she is disgraced when it is believed she is rooming with Ashley. Distraught, she throws herself into the Niagara Falls rapids. Adams leaps in to save her, and his fellow aviators fly over with a rope ladder to rescue them both. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi