Georges Renavent Movies
French stage actor Georges Renavent made his first American film appearance in 1915's Seven Sisters. Fourteen years later, Renavent made an impressive talking-picture bow as the villainous Kinkajou in RKO's musical spectacular Rio Rita. He spent the rest of his Hollywood career playing roles of varying sizes, usually foreign ambassadors and international gigolos. An apparent favorite of producer Hal Roach, Renavent enjoyed a lengthy role in Roach's Turnabout (1940) as Mr. Ram, the ancient Indian god who performs a gender-switch on stars John Hubbard and Carole Landis. Sporadically during the 1930s and 1940s, Renavent managed his own touring Grand Guignol theatrical troupe. Georges Renavent was married to actress Selena Royle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
One of the most frequently telecast films of the 1950s and 1960s, East of Borneo stars Rose Hobart as Linda, the wife of African missionary Dr. Clark (Charles Bickford). Feeling stifled by her unfamiliar surroundings, Linda is further isolated from civilization when her husband runs off into the jungle, believing that his wife has been unfaithful. With grim determination, our heroine heads into the wilds herself in search of Clark, braving all manner of marauding wildlife and human predators. When she finally catches up with her husband, she finds he's been living in comparative luxury as court physician of the Prince of Marudu (Georges Renavent). The End? Not quite -- we've still got a volcano in the offing! East of Borneo achieved latter-day fame when an avant-garde filmmaker got hold of a print of the film, spliced together all of the leading lady's close-ups, and came up with a surrealistic exercise titled Rose Hobart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rose Hobart, Charles Bickford, (more)
- 1930
Le Spectre Vert (The Green Spook) is the French-language version of MGM's The Unholy Night. The original English version was directed by Lionel Barrymore, while the French adaptation was helmed by Jacques Feyder. No changes were made in the plot, which concerned the mysterious methodical murders of several retired British military officers. All of the victims had been members of the same regiment in India, a fact which puts terror in the hearts of the surviving officers. These survivors are gathered together in the home of Lord Montague (Andre Luguet, in the role originally played by Roland Young); the next morning, all the officers except Montague are found strangled. Struggling to solve the mystery and stop the killings is Inspector Ramsay of the Yard (Claude Fleming in the English version, Jules Raucourt in the French), who uses a seance to coerce the guilty party into confessing. Boris Karloff, cast in the small role of a Hindu servant in The Unholy Night, repeated this assignment in Le Spectre Vert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jetta Goudal, Pauline Carton, (more)
- 1930
Dakin Barrolles (played by Edmund Lowe is a criminal who, while escaping from a bank robbery that went wrong, stumbles across a famous banker, Sir John Lasher, and his wife, Xandra. Lasher is deep in his cups, and neither he nor Xandra notice when Barrolles absconds with one of their possessions -- a locket with a picture of the married couple. For once, Barrolles has more in mind than thievery. He has become instantly smitten with banker's wife; planning to escape the police by enlisting in the army, he wants the picture to serve as a reminder of her beauty. During heavy fighting, Barrolles is injured in a mine explosion, and the surgeon who operates on him gives him the face of the man in the locket. By coincidence, Lasher has also joined the war effort and is missing. Xandra arrives to reluctantly take home her husband and is surprised at the change in her husband, who now is clearly in love with her and concerned about her feelings. Now in a position to commit a spectacular bank robbery, Barrolles must decide whether to give in to this temptation or stay with the woman he loves -- and must also worry about what he will do if Scotland Yard finds him or the real Lasher returns. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edmund Lowe, Joan Bennett, (more)
- 1929
Rio Rita, an expensive filmization of the legendary Florenz Ziegfeld-produced Broadway musical of 1928, was the first major production for fledgling RKO Radio Studios. Bebe Daniels plays Rita, an Irish-Mexican girl (with thick Hispanic accent) who oversees a large ranch near the Mexican border. Rita's brother (Don Alvorado) is suspected of being "The Kinkajou," a notorious bandit. On the trail of the Kinkajou, an undercover Texas Ranger (John Boles) falls in love with Rita, much to the chagrin of a wealthy but despotic landowner (Georges Renavent). The villain arranges to make it appear that the Ranger is the Kinkajou, prompting Rita to consent to marriage with the cad in order to save her lover's life. The true identity of the Kinkajou is revealed at a lavish costume party, filmed in early Technicolor. Counterpointing the main plot are the antics of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, comic carryovers from the original Broadway show. Wheeler is in Mexico to arrange a quickie divorce so that he can marry his true love (Dorothy Lee). Woolsey is Wheeler's shady lawyer, who learns too late that he can't make the divorce stick. Wheeler and Woolsey have some of the film's best moments, including a riotous drunk scene and a closing musical number wherein they slap one another as their girlfriends sing inanely into the camera. Rio Rita not only made oodles of money for RKO (it was being regularly reissued throughout the 1930s), but it solidified the popularity of Wheeler and Woolsey, who'd become the studio's biggest comedy stars of the early 1930s. 1929's Rio Rita was withdrawn from circulation when MGM bought the rights for a 1942 remake, this one starring Abbott and Costello. Available only for museum screenings during the past five decades, Rio Rita has recently been released on videocassette, with its rare Technicolor sequence intact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sam Nelson, Bebe Daniels, (more)
- 1919
Theda Bara does her usual vamp turn in this picture, but this time she's a vamp who turns out to have a heart of gold. Her character, Blanchette DuMonde, is known as "the wickedest woman in Paris," and because of this sordid reputation, she is not allowed to serve as a nurse during World War I. So she becomes an Apache dancer instead. A young sculptor is taken with Blanchette and would like her to pose for a statue, but her latest sugar daddy (Eugene Ormonde) won't allow it. Sadly, the sculptor goes to war and comes back home blinded. Meanwhile, Blanchette has dumped her sugar daddy for a ruffian, but she leaves him for the blinded sculptor and is happy taking care of him. Both her ex-boyfriends track her down, and she kills the ruffian. The sugar daddy winds up taking credit for the murder after being upbraided by the blind man, who tells him, "You only saw Blanchette's body. It took a man without eyes to see her soul." The Light was a success after a year's worth of failures for Bara, and it brought life back to her limping career. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1915
An old Hungarian story was the basis for the Marguerite Clark vehicle Seven Sisters. The story takes place in a Budapest household, where it is believed that if one of the younger daughters marries first, her older siblings will be doomed to live out their lives as old maids. The youngest daughter, 5-year-old Clara (played by future leading lady Madge Evans) is hardly of marriageable age, nor are the next two daughters. But the fourth oldest, Mici (Marguerite Clark), is much sought after by potential husbands, driving her older sisters into a frenzy. For their own protection, the older girls arrange for Mici to be shipped off to a convent school, far removed from anyone in trousers. Despite her cloistered existence, Mici manages to escape long enough to attend a masked ball, where she meets and falls in love with Count Horkoy (Conway Tearle). With his help, Mici finds suitable husbands for her older sisters, and everything turns out "Jake." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
