Bob Stevenson Movies
- 1934
In this melodrama filmed on location in Hawaii, a sugar plantation manager finds himself falling in love with a native girl, but instead of committing to her, he marries a socially prominent young woman from San Francisco. The spoiled girl does not easily adapt to the rigors of plantation life and she gets terribly bored. She is just about to give in to the romantic overtures of a persistent native when her former lover shows up. The husband gets jealous and is about to attack him when the wife sets fire to the cane field. The husband's native lover saves him from death. Afterward, his wife leaves to be with her old flame, and the manager is free to be with the woman he's loved all along. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virginia Cherrill, Mona Maris, (more)
- 1934
Student Tour looks like an MGM musical two-reeler that was expanded to feature length as it went along. Charles Butterworth and Jimmy Durante are teamed respectively as fey philosophy professor Lippincott and brash athletic coach Hank. The two comics shepherd a co-ed college rowing team on a world tour, with orders to keep the team's rowdy captain Bobby (Phil Regan) out of trouble. Lackluster leading lady Maxine Doyle co-stars as Ann, a plain-jane who takes off her glasses at a Monte Carlo masquerade ball and wins BMOC Bobby for her very own. Ann also brings the story to a rousing conclusion by substituting for the cockswain in the climatic rowing race, urging the team to victory with a peppy song-and-dance. Nelson Eddy also shows up to sing "The Carlo," a pulsating number obviously inspired by "Bolero." The film's giddy highlight is "Taj Mahal," in which a group of pretty students (including a young Betty Grable) go swimming in the pool of the famous Indian shrine! According to studio publicity, a crop of genuine college coeds were hired to play the students in Student Tour, but to the trained eye they sure look like standard Hollywood extras and bit players. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jimmy Durante, Charles Butterworth, (more)
- 1934
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
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Marion Davies, (more)
This fifth film version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island boasts an all-star MGM cast, headed by Wallace Beery as Long John Silver and Jackie Cooper as Jim Hawkins. The screenplay, by John Lee Mahin, John Howard Lawson and Leonard Praskins, remains faithful to the Stevenson original...up to a point. The story begins when drunken old sea dog Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore) drags himself into the seaside pub managed by Jim and his mother (Dorothy Peterson). After Billy is killed by the scurrilous Blind Pew (William V. Mong) and his henchmen, Jim discovers that the deceased ex-pirate carries a treasure map on his person. Together with Dr. Livesey (Otto Kruger) and Squire Trelawny (Nigel Bruce), Jim books passage on a ship captained by Alexander Smollett (Lewis Stone); their destination is the "treasure island" depicted on the map. Smollett doesn't like the voyage nor the crew, and not without reason: ship's cook Long John Silver has rounded up the crew from the dregs of the earth, fully intending to mutiny and claim the treasure for himself. A further plot complications awaits both treasure-seekers and pirates in the person of half-mad island hermit Ben Gunn (Chic Sale) who's already found the treasure and has stashed it away for himself. Towards the end, the plot strays from the Stevenson version in detailing the ultimate fate of ruthless-but-lovable Long John Silver. While consummately produced, Treasure Island suffers from overlength and a mannered performance by Jackie Cooper. Disney's 1950 remake with Robert Newton and Bobby Driscoll is far more satisfying. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, (more)
