Miriam Seegar Movies

In this melodrama, a sleazy plastic surgeon from Chicago bungles an operation and causes the amputation of his patient's legs. Naturally, she takes the quack to court. Unfortunately she loses the case. The enraged patient then fatally shoots the doctor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Inspired in part by the sensational Snyder-Gray murder case (which was also the source of The Postman Always Rings Twice), The Famous Ferguson Case casts an unflattering light on the journalist "feeding frenzy" attending such crimes. A wealthy banker named Ferguson is found murdered, and his bound-and-gagged wife (Vivienne Osborne) is rescued by the police. It appears at first that the murderer was an unknown burglar, but the cops think otherwise, hypothesizing that Mrs. Ferguson actually conspired with her lover Judd Brooks (Leon Waycoff, aka Leon Ames) to murder her husband. The small town where the murder occurred suddenly becomes the center of a media circus, with reporters from all over the country grasping and clawing for a "hot scoop." At first, hard-boiled girl reporter Maizie Dickson (Joan Blondell) is no better than the rest of the journalist jackals, but she soon becomes disillusioned at the manner in which the truth has been crushed to earth by her insensitive brethren. She also has her heart broken when her husband, likewise a reporter, uses his assignment as an excuse to sleep around. The relentless media blitz eventually drives Mrs. Ferguson (whose guilt or innocence is never completely established) to kill herself and also ruins the lives of everyone around her. Once considered a relic of its period, The Famous Ferguson Case grows more timely with each passing year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lion and the Lamb takes place in Columbia Pictures' idea of London. Upon returning home after a long absence, globetrotting playboy Dave (Walter Byron) finds that he's inherited an Earldom. Thanks to a case of mistaken identity, however, Dave is intercepted en route to his ancestral estate by a criminal gang, headed by Moriarty look-alike Tottie (Montague Love). Perceived to be a notorious criminal, Dave is ordered to kidnap heiress Madge (Miriam Seegar). Managing to escape from the gang, Dave sets about to rescue Madge and foil the villains. The basic story, by workhorse wordsmith E. Roberts Oppenheim, is a good one, deserving of better treatment than it receives here. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lily Damita, an actress best known today for her tempestuous marriage to screen idol Errol Flynn, is the Dietrich-like heroine in RKO Radio's The Woman Between. Damita plays a knockout French modiste who marries the much-older widower O.P. Heggie. She immediately incurs the wrath of Heggie's grown children (Lester Vail, Miriam Seegar), who suspect that Damita married the old coot for her money. She didn't, but she does eventually tire of Heggie, ending up running off with her handsome "stepson" Vail. In an incredible climactic about-face, our heroine decides to remain faithful to Heggie after all, apparently for no other reason than RKO's fear of the Hollywood censors. Director Victor L. Schertzinger also wrote the film's theme song, Close to Me. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romance, the family chauffeur tells no one that he is really a decorated war hero. He does this to stay away from bootleggers and to keep the besotted daughter of his employer away from him. In the end, the hapless driver can no longer resist the charms of the enamored girl and romance ensues. When she learns that they are really from the same social class, marriage ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Clancy (Charles Murray) is a pugnacious Irish-American plumber in partnership with parsimonious Scotsman Andy MacIntosh (Lucien Littlefield). Though tight with a dollar himself, Clancy accidentally begins playing the stock market, and before he knows what's happening he's become a millionaire. His efforts to entertain the cream of high society are both disastrous and hilarious, and by the time he's lost all his money in the Wall Street crash, Clancy is more than happy to team up with MacIntosh again. The obligatory romantic subplot is handled as unobtrusively as possible by Miriam Seeger and Edward Nugent. Clancy in Wall Street represented little more than an extension of Charlie Murray's standard Hibernian characterizations in the "Cohens and Kellys" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The old Winchell Smith-Victor Mapes stage comedy The Boomerang was the source for the Richard Dix vehicle The Love Doctor. Dix plays Dr. Gerald Sumner, an expert on romantic relationships. The story inevitably evolves into a case of "physician heal thyself" when Sumner falls head over heels in love with pretty nurse Virginia Moore (June Collyer). Typical comedy situations include the old one about the hero being caught without his trousers when the heroine comes a-calling. Some crackling good dialogue by Guy Bolton, Herman Mankiewicz and J. Walter Ruben helps this creaky early talkie over its rough spots. Billed last in The Love Doctor is Gale Henry, a once-popular star of comedy shorts here making one of her only talkie appearances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1917 and 1925, the evergreen George M. Cohan-Earl Derr Biggers stage mystery Seven Keys to Baldpate was remade as a talkie in late 1929 (and there were still three more remakes to come). Richard Dix stars as novelist William Magee, who's having trouble completing his latest manuscript. Promising his agent (Crauford Kent) that he'll finish the book within 24 hours if only he gets some peace and quiet, Magee heads off to the Baldpate Inn -- for which he thinks he holds the only key. Unfortunately, the mildewed old inn turns into a hotbed of intrigue as several mysterious characters, all bearing duplicate keys, intrude upon Magee's solitude in search of $200,000 in stolen bonds. In the course of the long, long night, a woman is seemingly murdered and a crooked sheriff lays claim to the money himself before Magee takes a hand in matters -- and then, the owner of the seventh key to Baldpate shows up. Even after repeated viewings, the film's double surprise ending holds up beautifully. Beyond bringing a classic theatrical piece to the talkie screen, Seven Keys to Baldpate served an important technical purpose: RKO Radio Pictures used the film to test out its new repertoire of sound effects, ranging from rolling thunder to realistic gunfire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide