Christian Rub Movies

Suzy is the film in which Cary Grant, overcome by the beauty and vivacity of Jean Harlow, sings her a love ballad! This lighthearted moment aside, Suzy, adapted from a novel by Herbert Gorman is a standard-issue love triangle, set against the tapestry of World War I. Harlow plays a London showgirl, married to Irish engineer Franchot Tone. When foreign spy Benita Hume shoots Tone, mistaking him as a threat against her mission, the terrified Harlow flees into the night, certain that she will be accused of her husband's murder. After the war breaks out, Harlow, believing herself a widow, falls in love with handsome aviator Cary Grant. She marries the well-bred but irresponsible young ace, only to discover that Tone has not been killed after all! This being an idealized World War I film, somebody is going to end up sacrificing his/her life on behalf of somebody else, but we're not about to reveal any more. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Leathernecks Have Landed is an adventure yarn revolving around three boisterous marines. Lew Ayres is the headstrong one, James Ellison the sincere one, and Maynard Holmes the roly-poly comic relief. Holmes is killed in a nightclub brawl for which Ayres gets the blame. The real murderers are smugglers; the disgraced Ayres joins the gang to bring them to justice. Republic Pictures must have been entranced by this plotline, since it popped up virtually scene for scene in four subsequent films over the next six years: Forged Passport (39), Rough Rider's Roundup (39 again!), Girl From Havana (40) and Remember Pearl Harbor (42). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from Norman Krasna's Broadway hit A Small Miracle, Four Hours to Kill is a multi-plotted effort that can best be described as "Grand Hotel goes to the theater." Richard Barthelmess stars as Tony, a condemned murderer, who is handcuffed to Detective Taft (Charles Wilson) while en route to the death house. Tony breaks loose and heads for the theater, where the man who squealed on him is attending a play. As the killer prepares to rub out the stoolie, the action cuts away to the romance between a hatcheck boy (Joe Morrison) and his girlfriend (Helen Mack), which is complicated by the clerk's allegedly pregnant former love (Dorothy Tree). Another subplot involves unfaithful wife Gertrude Michael and her lover Ray Milland. All the various plotlines are knitted together in the climax, wherein Tony closes in on his intended victim. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The old British musical-hall ditty "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" provides the title for this lightweight Ronald Colman vehicle. Colman, playing a refugee Russian prince, is the "man" in question, and the owners of the "broken bank"--that is, the proprietors of the Monte Carlo casino where Colman scored the big win--are anxious to get their money back. They dispatch the beautiful Joan Bennett to lure Colman back into the casino. He falls for her and loses his winnings in the process, but she has pangs of remorse when she learns that Colman had been gambling on behalf of his impoverished countrymen. Bennett joins Colman as he merrily heads off to chase another rainbow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Perhaps the best of Mascot Pictures' feature-film releases, Ladies Crave Excitement is also one of the fastest 69 minutes ever put on film. Norman Foster and Eddie Nugent play Don and Bob, a pair of ace newsreel cameraman for The March of Events, forever keeping one step ahead of their competition. Swept up in the boys' adventures is thrill-seeking heiress Wilma Howell (Evalyn Knapp), who eventually proves to be a valuable member of the team. After a dizzying series of hairbreadth escapes, Don once again scoops his rivals by rounding up a gang of crooks, with the not inconsiderable help of the resourceful Wilma. One interesting aspect of Ladies Crave Excitement is the suggestion that newsreel photographers regularly "stage" events to make things more exciting; in one amusing scene, a storm at sea is re-created on a studio soundstage, as "captain" Christian Rub is doused with bucket after bucket of cold water. Future TV favorites Milburn Stone and Marie Wilson pop up unbilled as a sailor and his date, while perennial Superman villain Herb Vigran appears as a wisecracking photographer. Serving as film editor on Ladies Crave Excitement was director-in-training Joseph H. Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dog of Flanders, the durable novel written in 1872 by the author who signed herself Ouida, was filmed three times, first in 1924 with Jackie Coogan. The second filmization, produced in 1935, stars child actors Frankie Thomas, Helen Parrish and Richard Quine as three poor Flemish youths whose lives are interconnected by a handsome German shepherd (played by "Lightning"). The threesome nurse the abandoned dog back to health; soon afterward, the dog rekindles the creative spark of a reclusive artist, whose painting of the noble hound wins a hefty cash prize. Richard Quine, the third juvenile lead of Dog of Flanders, grew up to become an important Hollywood writer/director of the 1950s. Quine did not, however, work on the 1959 remake of Dog of Flanders--which starred another future filmmaker, David Ladd. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"I'll See You in My Dreams" could well have been the theme music of Peter Ibbetson, the second film version of George du Maurier's 1891 novel. Peter Ibbetson (Gary Cooper) is an architect who, while working on a restoration job for the British Duke of Towers (John Halliday), discovers that The Duchess of Towers (Ann Harding) is actually Mary, his childhood sweetheart. The jealous duke pulls a gun on Ibbetson, but Peter kills him. He is sent to prison for life, certain that he'll never meet his Mary again. But both lovers are reunited in one another's dreams, which connect them spiritually. The years pass, but the aging Peter and Mary remain ever youthful in their dreams. Upon their deaths, they are reunited in the afterlife. Somehow this fragile fantasy works, thanks to the steady guiding hand of director Henry Hathaway. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This drama about corporate treachery was based on the best-selling novel by Alice Tisdale Hobart. Stephen Chase (Pat O'Brien) is a salesman and inventor with an American oil company who is sent to China to reach that nation's untapped market. While Stephen is often told that his company looks after their own and he's selflessly devoted to his job, it becomes evident with time that they're treating him with disrespect. After his fiancée leaves him, Stephen marries a woman he's only just met, Hester (Josephine Hutchinson), because he's already arranged to bring a wife to China. Stephen has designed a new kerosene lamp for the Chinese market, but his rival Swaley (William B. Davidson) is given credit for the product. When Stephen is transferred to another part of China, he accepts even though his wife is expecting a baby; the physical toll of the journey causes Hester to lose the child. Stephen and Hester become close to another American couple, Don and Alice Wellman (John Eldredge and Jean Muir), but when Stephen is ordered to fire Don, he unhesitatingly agrees. After communist forces nationalize the oil firm's holdings, Stephen risks his life to protect $15,000 in company funds. But when he is released from the hospital, Stephen learns that instead of being rewarded, he's been demoted -- and another man was promoted in his place. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The rivalry between two deep-sea diver is chronicled in this adventure. The trouble begins when a young woman inherits one of the diver's boats and promptly hires his rival to help out. At first they swear to stay away from her, but they cannot and many arguments ensue culminating in a fistfight aboard a roller coaster in an amusement park. During the scuffle, one of the men falls and lands in the ocean. He quickly swims away and is presumed dead causing the other man to be arrested for murder. Later a ship filled with gold founders, and the surviving salvager and his new partner must retrieve it with the agreement that they will split the take. Unfortunately, the new partner is avaricious and during the dive attempts to kill the other. Fortunately, the embattled salvager is saved by his ex-partner who was recently released from jail. They defeat their foe, but end up in the hospital where they continue arguing until the woman comes in and announces that she is engaged to the ship's captain. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 1932 Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein Broadway hit Music in the Air was brought to the screen two years later by Fox Studios. Temperamental Bavarian prima donna Frieda (Gloria Swanson) and equally volatile lyricist Bruno (John Boles) spend half their time quarrelling and the other half making love. To arouse each other's jealousy, Frieda and Bruno pair off respectively with music teacher Lessing's (Al Shean) virginal daughter Sieglinde (June Lang) and her schoolmaster fiancee Karl (Douglass Montgomery). The impressionable young couple respond to the attentions heaped upon them until they realize they're being used, whereupon the tables are turned upon the main characters. Though boasting such lilting tunes as "The Song is You" and "I've Told Every Evening Star" and the stylish direction of Joe May (perhaps his best American film), audiences didn't respond to Music in the Air; as a result, star Gloria Swanson vowed for the millionth time to "permanently" retire from pictures, a promise she kept to herself for a whole seven years. Incidentally, one of the screenwriters of Music in the Air was Billy Wilder, who later co-wrote and directed Swanson's 1949 "comeback" feature Sunset Boulevard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A tough youth gang leader learns the true meaning of courage in this moving and thoughtful drama. He is the leader of a troop of boys involved in an elaborate game of "capture the flag." He is idolized by a sickly boy on the block who begs to be allowed to join the leader's group. Eventually the older boy gives in and "enlists" the weakling as a private. Though he treats the young lad with contempt, the boy is so enamored of his hero that he doesn't notice. Eventually the gang's rivals, the "Red Shirts" steal their flag. To prove himself, the sickly boy risks his life and frail health. The allegorical, anti-war story is based on Hungarian playwright Molnar's autobiographical novel. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Czech leading man Francis Lederer made his Hollywood film debut in the appropriately titled Man of Two Worlds. Based on the novel by Ainsworth Morgan, the film casts Lederar as Algo, a naïve Eskimo hunter introduced to civilization by avuncular English sportsman Sir Basil (Henry Stephenson). Unschooled in the ways of British society, Algo falls in love with Joan (Elissa Landi), unaware that her friendliness is merely a courtesy and nothing more. Ultimately disillusioned, the sadder-but-wiser Algo returns to the snowy wastes whence he came. Apparently audiences weren't as captivated by Francis Lederer as RKO Radio had hoped they would be: Man of Two Worlds ended up posting a $220,000 loss at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wallace Beery plays P.T. Barnum in this comic biography of the renowned showman. As the story opens, Phineas Taylor Barnum is operating a dry goods store in New York City with his friend Bailey Walsh (Adolphe Menjou), and he is looking for a way to boost business. He strikes upon the idea of adding a sideshow of human oddities and curious individuals, much to the annoyance of his wife Nancy (Janet Beecher). But the sideshow brings in a large audience, and soon it begins to overtake the retail store; however, Barnum's venture comes to a halt when it is revealed that Zorro The Bearded Lady (May Boley) has fake facial hair,and that Joyce Heth (Lucille LaVerne) wasn't really George Washington's nursemaid, as she claims. Despite this setback, Barnum has developed a taste for show business, and he brings noted English singer Jenny Lind (Virginia Bruce) to the U.S. for a concert tour, where she becomes the toast of New York. Barnum soon becomes infatuated with Lind, and while his attempts to woo her are often fumblingly inept, they're effective enough to alienate Nancy, who leaves him and New York City for good. Between his attempts to romance Lind and his shameless ballyhoo for performing midget General Tom Thumb (George Brasno), Barnum finds himself on Walsh's bad side, who has taken to drinking to ease his anger. After his budding romance with Lind fails, Barnum suffers an even greater indignity when his museum, featuring his sideshow freaks and other wonders and oddities, is burned to the ground by angry rivals. However, Barnum's performers show their loyalty by offering their savings to Barnum to help him rebuild, and Nancy returns to Barnum's side in his moment of need. Walsh also appears, ready to bury the hatchet and show off his latest acquisition -- an elephant named Jumbo who could be used in a traveling act, or perhaps even a circus.... The Mighty Barnum was based on the play by Gene Fowler and Bess Meredyth, who also wrote the screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide