Peter Evan Thomas Movies
- 1954
In this heartwarming film, a village squire generously offers a large cottage to a poor villager who has a lot of grandchildren. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1941
In the wake of Abbott & Costello's Buck Privates, every studio in Hollywood began cranking out service comedies. Warner Bros.' contribution to this trend was You're in the Army Now, featuring the unlikely but undeniably chucklesome duo of Jimmy Durante and Phil Silvers. The stars are cast as Jeeper and Breezy, erstwhile vacuum-cleaner salesman who stage a demonstration at a local army camp, only to end up in uniform themselves. Thanks to their ineptitude and chronic inability to follow orders, our heroes spend most of their training period in the guardhouse. They try to atone for past misdeeds during maneuvers, only to end up trapped in a remote cabin which teeters perilously on a mountain ledge (the whole routine was borrowed-actually, stolen-from Chaplin's The Gold Rush). Not teamed in the traditional sense, Durante and Silvers are permitted to perform their solo specialties, with both comedians coming out fairly even in terms of laugh delivery. As a bonus, this is the film in which nominal romantic leads Regis Toomey and Jane Wyman performed the longest screen kiss in movie history (Leonard Maltin clocked it at three minutes, five seconds)-a feat that reportedly led Wyman's then-husband Ronald Reagan to wonder aloud why he couldn't keep his wife's interest that long! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jimmy Durante, Jane Wyman, (more)
- 1937
Marlene Dietrich and Robert Donat star in this gripping melodrama about the Russian revolution, based on the novel by James Hilton. Donat plays A.J. Fothergill, a British interpreter in St. Petersburg who is ordered to leave Russia after writing an article that criticized the czar. Fothergill meets a British secret agent who can arrange for him to stay in Russia if he will agree to spy for England and monitor revolutionary groups trying to depose the czar. Fothergill infiltrates a group planning to kill Russian nobleman Vladinoff (Herbert Lomas); the radicals bomb Vladinoff's coach, but he and his daughter, Alexandra (Marlene Dietrich) escape unharmed. Fothergill is arrested and sent to Siberia. When the monarchy is deposed during the Russian Revolution in 1917, Alexandra is arrested by Communist forces and put on trial. Fothergill is freed from prison with his friend Axelstein (Basil Gill), and they are now revolutionary heroes. Alexandra must go to Petrograd to face trial and Fothergill is chosen to escort her. When they reach the train station, Fothergill discovers the White Army (fighting to restore the czar) is coming. He leads Alexandra to safety behind the White Army lines, but the Red Army has surrounded the city and Fothergill, smitten with Alexandra, rescues her again before the city is shelled. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat, (more)
- 1937
Raoul Walsh, best remembered for his rough-and-tumble action pictures, made this film on a rare loan-out to a British studio. Jim Tracey (Wallace Ford) is an American gangster who, while on the run from the law, flees to England, where he joins the British army by posing as a Canadian. Jim and his new friend Bert Dawson (John Mills) go through training together, and they both get to know Sally Briggs (Anna Lee), the daughter of their commanding officer. While Jim and Bert vie for Sally's attentions, Jim discovers that his girlfriend Jean Burdett (Grace Bradley) has followed him to England and is threatening to reveal his true identity. Jim ships out to China with his regiment before Jean's word can get too far; it turns out that Sally is also on board the ship, but that bit of good news turns sour when band of Chinese bandits attempt to seize the ship and take Sally with them. O.H.M.S. was also released under the more American-sounding title You're in the Army Now. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Ford, John Mills, (more)
This film from director Harold Young is the second big-screen adaptation of Baroness Emmuska Orczy's 1905 novel The Scarlet Pimpernel. Leslie Howard stars as Sir Percy Blakeney, a British aristocrat who rescues innocent victims of the French Revolution under the guise of The Scarlet Pimpernel while maintaining the identity of a foppish dandy by day. Even his wife, Lady Marguerite Blakeney (Merle Oberon), is unaware of Percy's heroic alter-ego as he and his band of likeminded masked men save countless people from the guillotine. Perhaps the most famous adaptation of the classic book, The Scarlet Pimpernel would later be lampooned in 1966's Don't Lose Your Head. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, (more)
- 1932
In this comedy, a mischievous wife begins tippling too much and hanging out with bogus blue-bloods and an adulterer who wants her. When her husband finds out, he teaches her a lesson. First he hires an actress to pretend to be a call-girl. He then sends the girl to one of the high-society parties to make the wife jealous. The ploy works and the chastened wife returns to her husband and her regular life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
