Akim Tamiroff Movies

Tulio Carminati, who was previously and felicitously teamed with Grace Moore in One Night of Love, co-stars with another splendid operatic singer, Mary Ellis, in Paris in Spring. Ellis plays Simone, who breaks up her long-standing engagement with Paul de Lille (Carminati) because she balks at the notion of marriage. Simultaneously, young lovers Mignon (Ida Lupino) and Albert (James Blakely) split up for the same reason. In desperation, Mignon heads to the Eiffel Tower, intending to leap to her death. She is dissuaded from doing away with herself by Paul, who'd come to the tower with the same thought in mind. The symbiotic relationship between the two couples is played to the hilt, especially when Mignon and Albert conspire to make Simone and Albert jealous. The distinctly American character actor Lynne Overman is bizarrely but effectively cast as a dry-witted French gendarme. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Advertised by Paramount as "Another Lives of the Bengal Lancers," The Last Outpost actually has more in common with two RKO releases, Friends and Lovers and The Lost Patrol. The story takes place during the Kurdistan campaign in WW I. Left to die in the desert, British officer Michael Andrews (Cary Grant) is rescued by intelligence agent John Stevenson (Claude Rains). While recuperating in the base hospital, Andrews falls in love with his nurse Rosemary (Gertrude Michael) -- who happens to be Stevenson's wife! This romantic entanglement is taken care of only after a climatic battle at a remote outpost in the Sudan, with Andrews and a skeleton crew desperately fending off hostile Kurdish tribesmen while awaiting reinforcements. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

China Seas proved that the recently imposed Hollywood production code had little if any effect on the popularity of MGM sex symbols Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Gable plays the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong. Harlow is Gable's ex-main squeeze, a "woman of the world" who books passage on the steamer at the same time that another of Gable's former loves, aristocratic Rosalind Russell, shows up. Wallace Beery plays Gable's supposedly lovable first mate, who is actually in league with a gang of pirates who plan to steal the gold shipment being carried in the hold of the steamer. Harlow tumbles to Beery's secret, but is unable to convince Gable, who is sore at Harlow for mean-mouthing Russell. Out of pique, Harlow casts her lot with the crooked Beery, but when the pirates attack the steamer, she returns to Gable's side. A subplot involves the regeneration of ship's mate Lewis Stone, who has been cashiered out of the navy for cowardice and who redeems himself during the final battle. Based on a novel by Crosbie Garstin, China Seas is a programmer at heart, but is decked out with full A-picture trappings by MGM producer Irving Thalberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first of MGM's phenomenally profitable Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy musicals, Naughty Marietta takes several beneficial liberties with the libretto of the original Victor Herbert operetta. MacDonald plays an 18th-century French princess who escapes an arranged marriage by posing as a "cake girl," a mail-order bride sent to the New World to marry a colonist. En route, MacDonald and the other brides are captured by pirates, but are rescued by mercenary Eddy and his roistering companions. To avoid marrying some lowly farmer or frontiersman, simon-pure MacDonald intimates that she is a woman with a "history," which makes her attractive to the glitterati of old New Orleans. Only Eddy sees through MacDonald's feigned "naughtiness," and in the end claims her for his own. The most memorable of the Herbert songs retained for the film version of Naughty Marietta was "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life", which remained one of Jeanette MacDonald's signature tunes ever afterward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like many 1930s Warner Bros. films, Black Fury drew its inspiration from the headlines. The story is adapted from a true-life incident from 1929, wherein a striking Pennsylvania coal miner was beaten to death by three company detectives; this served as the focus for Henry R. Irving's stage play Bohunk as well as Judge M. A. Musmanno's story Jan Volkanik, both of which were woven into Black Fury's screenplay. Using a Polish accent so thick one can cut it with scissors, Paul Muni plays an illiterate miner, happy in his job and his company-town surroundings until his girl Karen Morley deserts him for policeman William Gargan. A disconsolate, drunken Muni stumbles into a labor meeting, where his loud, unthinking outbursts win him the leadership of the new miner's union. When the company locks out the strikers and brings in scabs, the angry miners hold the thick-headed Muni responsible. Fellow miner John Qualen, Muni's best friend, is then killed by a gang of rampaging hired goons. Vowing to "feex" the situation, Muni kidnaps head goon Barton MacLaine and takes him into the bowels of the mine with several sticks of dynamite in tow. Muni threatens to blow himself, MacLaine, and the mine to smithereens unless management comes to terms with the union. Thanks to overwhelming public support, the owners capitulate, and Muni is the hero of the hour. Though it seemed uncompromising in 1935, Black Fury obviously pulls its punches when seen today; for example, it is suggested that the mine owners are guiltless regarding violence against the strikers, laying blame on the hired detectives, who are shown to be in the employ of a crook who plays both sides against the other. Even allowing for this, Black Fury is one of the most powerful of Warners' "social conscience" films. Although the Academy gave Muni a Best Supporting Actor nod for this film, the AMPAS database indicates that it wasn't an "official nomination" - he was a write-in candidate, and came in second. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A follow-up to the highly successful Bolero, this lively romantic drama stars George Raft as Joe Martin, a Cuban-American dancer who lives and works in Havana with his lovely partner Goldie Allen until a bad case of varicose veins forces impacts his career. One night, the beauteous gringa heiress Diane Harrison (Carole Lombard) comes to the club. Joe is immediately smitten. His interest takes a less fleshly turn when he learns that she owns a yacht. When Diane compliments Joe on his moves, her escort gets jealous and a fight ensues. Joe finds himself jobless and flees to the jungle where he learns the rumba from the exotic Carmelita (Margo). He loves the dance and predicts that it will be the next fad. To promote it, he and Margo open a new club in Havana. The place is a smash. Diane returns, is wowed by both Joe and the dance and offers to bring back to his native New York. But Joe came to Havana after ratting on a gangster and if he returns, will surely die. Still, he and Margo decide to take the risk and their choice results in romance. The spectacular dance numbers were choreographed by the famed dance team Veloz and Yolanda. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Reckless is a delightfully breezy screwball comedy from the same director (Victor Fleming) and star (Jean Harlow) responsible for the celebratedBombshell (itself a film à clef loosely based on Clara Bow) -- with the added appeal of William Powell. One can readily see the chemistry between the two stars at work, which would lead to their impending marriage at the time of Harlow's death a year later. The sets for the Broadway number that Harlow's Mona Leslie performs in are also extraordinary. Mona Leslie (Jean Harlow) is an up-and-coming Broadway actress, dancer, and singer, who leads a happy-go-lucky, freewheeling lifestyle; bailed out of jail by family friend Ned Riley (William Powell), a sports promoter who loves Mona but won't slow down his lifestyle long enough to give her the satisfaction of admitting it, she performs in a bizarre "benefit" show, only to discover that she has an audience of one, wealthy admirer Bob Harrison (Franchot Tone). He declares his love for her and a romance does develop, but when he proposes marriage, he discovers that his upper-crust set won't accept a showgirl as one of their blue-blood crowd.

Their romance leads to a marriage and desperate unhappiness for all concerned, most of all Harrison, whose basic neurotic nature gets worse as the marriage deteriorates. When Harrison takes his own life, Riley and Mona find themselves accused of every foul deed possible, and when Mona gives birth to a son, a legal battle ensues over custody of the child, with Harrison's family claiming that she is unfit. Finally, Mona decides to fight back -- she gets Harrison's family to stand down by giving up any claim to her late husband's money, but she must now contend with the nation's self-appointed moral guardians. No producer will take the risk of backing a show with Mona in it, but she finally gets a helping hand from Ned Riley. The movie has a few too many changes in tone, which detracts from the verisimilitude. The whole story is a film à clef based on the tragic romance between torch singer Libby Holman and tobacco heir Smith Reynolds (which also provided fodder for such à clef films as Brief Moment, Sing, Sinner, Sing, and Written on the Wind) -- and Harlow's singing is obviously dubbed, just as her dancing is doubled. Also, the songs -- except for the final two numbers -- don't quite fit with the melodrama, and the Damon Runyon-esque comic antics feel completely out of left field at times. But when she and Powell are onscreen together, the film just lofts into the air, past all of those flaws. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the 1925 stage hit The Grand Duchess and the Waiter (previously filmed in 1926), Here is My Heart has been subtly reshaped into a Bing Crosby vehicle. Der Bingle plays J. Paul Jones, a wealthy radio crooner (what a stretch!) who falls in love with icy Russian princess Alexandra (Kitty Carlisle). Unable to get close to her through diplomatic channels, Jones disguises himself as a waiter and gains access to her lavish suite. When it turns out that Alexandra and her relatives are broke and in danger of being evicted, our hero secretly buys the entire hotel to preserve his beloved's regal reputation. Ultimately of course the Princess falls in love with him -- and only then does she discover that the humble hotel waiter has been her benefactor all along. The songs include the enduring favorites "Love is Just Around the Corner" and "It's June in January." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though it's also a "bus" picture, MGM's Fugitive Lovers is as different from Columbia's It Happened One Night as oil and water. Escaping from her gangster boyfriend Legs (Nat Pendleton), chorus girl Letty (Madge Evans) boards a Greyhound bus bound for California. Likewise a passenger -- albeit a non-paying one -- is Porter (Robert Montgomery), a fugitive from justice. As the bus rolls ever onward, hero and heroine are inexorably drawn together, despite the looming twin threats of arrest and/or extermination. The already incredible plotline takes an even more bizarre turn when Porter is obliged to rescue a group of children who've been trapped in a snowbound school bus somewhere in the Rockies. Fugitive Lovers is fascinating on two levels: as a showcase for the directorial excesses of Richard Boleslawski (this picture has more offbeat camera angles than Citizen Kane) and for the comedy relief of Ted Healy and his Stooges (Curly, Larry and Moe -- with Curly as the unofficial leader of the group!) The scene in which Moe Howard tries to make time with Madge Evans is worth the admission price in itself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ernst Lubitsch directs the 1934 musical comedy The Merry Widow, based on the 1905 operetta by Franz Lehar. In 1885, King Achmed (George Barbier) strives to protect the financial interests of his small, poor kingdom of Marshovia in Central Europe. When the kingdom's wealthiest widow, Sonia (Jeanette MacDonald), goes off to Paris, the king sends the village's greatest lover, Prince Danilo (Maurice Chevalier), off to marry her. The king demands that Danilo must romance and marry Sonia so she will return to the small kingdom with her riches. If he doesn't succeed, he'll be arrested. While in Paris, Danilo is distracted from his royal task when he finds himself in the company of many lovely Parisian women. Unbeknownst to him, one of the ladies is really Sonia pretending to be an escort girl. After a dance number and some songs, the Ambassador (Edward Everett Horton) announces that they are to be married. When Sonia refuses to marry Danilo, he is arrested and sent back to the small kingdom. Eventually Sonia returns to Marshovia, where she visits him in jail. She testifies on his behalf and they are finally married. The Merry Widow was filmed several other times, including the 1925 silent version directed by Erich Von Stroheim and the1952 version starring Fernando Lamas as Danilo. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama, set backstage at the theater, a fading, but still egotistical Hungarian star and his actress wife who has quietly endured his constant domination for years, move from Budapest to New York where they lead an impoverished life until their luck changes and they are given the leads in a famed young playwright's newest play. The old actor becomes an immediate hit. When he later learns that his wife has a crush on the playwright he is upset. The playwright doesn't mind though and quickly writes another play designed especially for her. It is a major hit, but the actress leaves the show in order to save her marriage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A conflict between the Serbs and the Hungarians provides the framework of this drama that centers on a love triangle between a Serbian mayor and his closest friend, a Hungarian officer. The story begins as the Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated at Sarajevo. The trouble between them begins when the officer begins an affair with the mayor's wife, but in the end, the husband gives up his own life to save them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The French Foreign Legion is the setting for this episodic adventure yarn. Victor Jory plays a Legion doctor falsely accused of murdering his commander over the love of Loretta Young. Jory escapes prosecution by heading for parts unknown, but when a deadly illness strikes his old fort, he returns to aid his comrades. He is arrested, but clears himself of the murder charge and ends up with Young. Devil's in Love is distinguished by the surprise appearance of Bela Lugosi, who shows up unbilled as a relentless prosecuting attorney in the courtroom scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide