Willard Robertson Movies

Actually this film should have been titled "Here Comes Jimmy Cagney Again, so Duck!". James Cagney is a bantam-cock sailor who runs up against chief petty officer Pat O'Brien. Seems that Cagney and O'Brien had come to blows early in the film when O'Brien stole Cagney's date at a dance hall. O'Brien resents both Cagney and Cagney's attentions towards O'Brien's sister (Gloria Stuart). The animosity intensifies when O'Brien court-martials Cagney for going AWOL. But all passions are spent when Cagney heroically rescues his shipmates from a raging fire. Here Comes the Navy proved to Jimmy Cagney's fans that he could still deliver the goods even with the tighter movie censorship imposed in 1934. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1949 20th Century-Fox melodrama of the same name, Columbia's 1934 Whirlpool stars Jack Holt as a shifty carnival promoter. He is incarcerated for a major crime just after learning that his wife is pregnant. Released after twenty years behind bars, Holt is anxious to make contact with his daughter (Jean Arthur), who knows nothing of his existence. This benighted reunion leads to tragedy for Holt, which he shoulders manfully (no one ever caught Jack Holt crying, no sir). Jean Arthur gave her best performance to date in Whirlpool, though her gift for comedy would remain untapped for a few years more. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The career of dance instructor Sally (Jean Parker) comes to an abrupt end when she is crippled in an accident on the eve of her wedding. Sally's far-from-supportive fiancé (Paul Page) walks out on her, but good old Jimmie (James Dunn), who has loved her all along, offers to marry her and help shoulder the burden of her handicap. This in itself would make a good story, but MGM got nervous an added a gangster subplot. Interspersing their usual never-fail comedy relief are Una Merkel and Stu Erwin, who might have starred in this picture had it been made by any other studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An interesting precursor to such films as The Petrified Forest and Bus Stop, Heat Lightning takes place in a remote California-desert gas station-café. Several strange characters pass through the establishment's portals during one fateful 24-hour period, including cad-and-bounder George (Preston S. Foster). Resourceful proprietress Olga (Aline MacMahon) tries to remain detached throughout but is forced to take drastic action when George threatens to seduce and abandon her own sister Myra (Ann Dvorak). Glenda Farrell, one of Warners' most reliable players, is surprisingly wasted in a glorified bit role; even further down the cast list as "Husband and Wife" are 2-reel comedy star Edgar Kennedy and future Oscar winner Jane Darwell (talk about an odd couple!) Heat Lightning was based on a stage play co-scripted by George Abbott. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A weak-willed gambler's compulsion destroys his life in this dramatic character study. In the beginning, he is seen working as a cashier at a small-time Ohio track and then moving into a boardinghouse. There he falls in love with his disapproving landlady's daughter, who ignores her mother's advice and marries him. On their wedding day, he vows to never gamble again, and they move to Chicago where he begins working in a fleabag hotel. Later he is offered the chance to helm a dog track in California. They move and it doesn't take long before he is back to his old tricks. The wife is secretly distraught, but she tries to look the other way until her husband's sleazy ex-girl friend shows up and starts making trouble. Things go from bad to worse when he and the tart win big at a casino and the angry wife uses the cash to leave him. She tells him she has gone home to Ohio and will not take him back until he cleans up his act. He really tries, but it is to no avail and after more struggles, wins, and terrible losses, the story ends on a dark note. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Lee Tracy once again plays a Winchellesque newspaper reporter in Universal's I'll Tell the World. More interested in his sex life than his career, news hawk Brown (Tracy) nonetheless agrees to cover the activities of a European archduke (Onslow Stevens) on behalf of his wire service. To circumvent rival reporter Briggs (Roger Pryor), Brown adopts a variety of disguises, and while travelling under an alias he makes the acquaintance of Jane (Gloria Stuart), a princess posing as an American tourist. The finale is a melange of romance, international intrigue, and journalistic double-crosses, culminating in Brown saving Jane's kingdom from revolution. The 1945 Universal minimusical I'll Tell the World is not a remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A pre-stardom Bette Davis struggles mightily as the "other woman" in this rather obvious divorce court drama from Warner Bros. George Brent stars as William Reynolds, a hardworking but markedly unmotivated office manager whose wife, Nan (Ann Dvorak), manages to make ends meet with the little she's got. Enter Patricia Berkeley (Davis), a high-powered advertising exec, with whom William falls madly in love. Does he leave the little wife for the glamorous co-worker? Well almost, but all bets are off when young Buddy Reynolds (Ronnie Cosbey) is hit by a car and nearly killed. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

If you can accept blonde, blue-eyed Marion Davies disguising herself in blackface, chances are you'll swallow the rest of Operator 13. Davies plays a Belle Boyd-like actress who agrees to become a Northern spy during the Civil War. She assumes the identity of an octoroon servant and heads into Southern territory. Marion meets dashing Confederate captain Gary Cooper, and instantly falls in love with him. Later, she assumes the disguise of a Southern belle to prevent Cooper from recruiting Southern sympathizers in the north. This time Cooper falls for Davies, which makes it hard for her to carry out her mission. After several more reels of espionage and romantic interludes, including a gently kinky sequence in which Cooper and Davies are handcuffed together, the lovers part company, promising to meet again when the war is over. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An espionage drama set in the early 20th century, Ever in My Heart stars Barbara Stanwyck as a New England naif who marries a German citizen (Otto Kruger). In 1915, Stanwyck and her husband suffer a brace of blows: The death of their son, and the sinking of the Lusitania, the latter incident sparking a wave of anti-German sentiment. Hounded out of their small town by the angered citizens, Stanwyck and Kruger move to Europe, where the husband voluntarily leaves his wife to join the Kaiser's army. In 1917, Stanwyck, working as a canteen volunteer in France, discovers that her once pro-American husband is now a German spy. To save him from a firing squad, she poisons his wine, then kills herself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

What isn't Heroes for Sale about? Within its 71-minute time frame, this film (co-written by "professional cynic" Wilson Mizner) tackles such issues as disenfranchised war veterans, misguided hero worship, drug addiction, the Depression, capitalism, labor relations and communism. Richard Barthelmess plays a wounded war hero whose hospital stay has turned him into a morphine junkie. He wanders from town to town looking for work during the Depression, only to be turned away with a "we've got our own to watch out for!" Eventually, Barthelmess befriends millionaire-in-the-making Robert H. Barrat, who has invented a revolutionary washing machine. Becoming Barrat's partner, Barthelmess attempts to quell a strike by workers who've been stirred up by Red agitators. With all this going on, Barthelmess still finds time to romance Loretta Young. Heroes for Sale is very much a product of its time, though its entertainment value has remained solid for well over six decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This earnest, socially-conscious road drama centers on two California teenagers who find their comfortable lives thrown into turmoil during the Great Depression. To find work for themselves, the adventurous lads sneak aboard a Chicago-bound train. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

This well-wrought drama chronicles the rise and fall of a midwestern family dynasty from the mid 1800s through the Great Depression. Most of the tale centers on a young Dakota farm boy whose grand schemes and ambition lead him on a cattle drive to Texas. From there he hooks up with the owner of a major Chicago slaughterhouse and then falls in love with his new partner's beautiful daughter. They marry and after the youth figures out how to use refrigerated train cars to ship his beef, begin living the lives of the nouveau riche. When his partner dies, he leaves the young man his considerable fortune making him an instant meat-packing magnate. With a good wife, two beautiful children and a terrific home, life for him couldn't be better. Unfortunately, his self-centered wife is discontent. Thinking her husband's profession is preventing her from becoming a true society dame, she begins badgering him to selling the meat business and becoming a more respectable stockbroker. Unfortunately, her attempted machinations fall on deaf ears and the resulting frustration drives her insane. The tycoon's son has his own troubles with his beautiful blue-blooded wife and brokerage business that is destroyed when the market crashes in 1929. His father, who did eventually sell the meat business and invest in his son' brokerage, is also nearly wiped out. In order to support his wife and save face, the son begins embezzling. Unfortunately he gets caught. When he learns that his own wife has betrayed him, the despondent youth is beyond help and tragedy ensues for both the son and his elderly father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Given the usual pedestal upon which mothers were placed by MGM head Louis Mayer, it's all the more amazing that Mayer gave the go-ahead for Another Language. Louise Closser Hale plays a domineering matriarch who controls the lives of her grown, married sons, using a fabricated heart condition to keep them in line. Helen Hayes marries youngest son Robert Montgomery, only to sit by in mute horror as Mother exerts her authority over her timorous offspring at a weekly family get-together. At the end, only Hayes and Montgomery's nephew John Beal have the courage to break the apron strings, but not without the formidable opposition of Monster Mom. Based on the Broadway play by Rose Franken, Another Language represented the screen debut of Margaret Hamilton, recreating the supporting role she'd played on stage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide