Toby Wing Movies

In this comedy, a dull statistician changes his life after winning a pile of money after successfully determining the number of beans in a barrel. He decides to do something novel with the prize and ends up buying a barrel factory. He encounters trouble when the nearby pickle factory is threatened by a shyster attempting to close it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Contrary to popular belief, the Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald Technicolor confection Sweethearts is not based on the 1913 Victor Herbert operetta of the same name (though most of Herbert's songs remain intact), but a Dorothy Parker-Alan Campbell brainstorm about a popular Broadway singing duo, starring in a long-running production of Sweethearts. The early portions of the film take place during a purported presentation of the Herbert piece, with Eddy and MacDonald singing their hearts out and Ray Bolger providing comic relief. We then segue into a long sequence wherein producer Frank Morgan, celebrating Sweethearts's six-year run, insists that Eddy and MacDonald attend a lavish party, where the weary performers are called upon to continue singing throughout the evening. Hoping for a few moments alone after escaping the party, Eddy and MacDonald are besieged at their apartment by friends, co-workers, hangers-on and sponging relatives. Seeking peace and quiet, the couple agrees to leave Sweethearts for the comparative calm of Hollywood. But their entourage, fearing that they'll lose their meal ticket if Eddy and MacDonald leave New York, arrange to inaugurate two profitable road companies of Sweethearts by contriving to split up the loving couple. Cleverly sidestepping the sugary sweet sentimentality that one might expect from an MGM musical of the era, the delightful Sweethearts is hampered only by its overlength. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Carole Lombard stars as Helen Bartlett, a compulsive liar who always tips the audience to an oncoming whopper by sticking her tongue in her cheek. Helen is married to a Kenneth Bartlett, a scrupulously honest lawyer whose integrity has always held him back professionally. Hoping to help Kenneth get ahead, Helen confesses to a murder she obviously didn't commit, confident that he'll get her off and make his reputation. But things don't go exactly as planned, thanks largely to a mysterious eccentric named Charley (John Barrymore), who assures the heroine over and over that she'll "fry." Once considered a prime example of screwball comedy, True Confession is now regarded by film buffs as one of Carole Lombard's worst pictures: it wasn't much better when remade by Betty Hutton in 1946 as Cross My Heart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this countrified musical, a wealthy man and his daughter try to promote the singing career of a talented hillbilly and his always smiling friend. They meet when the rich man's car breaks down while travelling across the South. The father brings the young crooner to his radio station. The singer and the daughter are obviously attracted to each other and this dismays the greedy station manager who wanted the girl to marry his son. To ensure that she does, he conspires to silence the handsome hillbilly. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Produced by M.H. Hoffman's Liberty Pictures, School for Girls is based on Reginald Wright Kauffman's story Our Undisciplined Daughters. It all begins when innocent heroine Annette Eldridge (Sidney Fox) gets mixed up with a slimy jewel thief. Taking the rap for her boyfriend, Annette ends up doing a three-year stretch in a girl's reformatory, where she's subjected to the sadistic excesses of brutal matron Miss Keeble (Lucille La Verne) (the same actress who later provided the voice of the Wicked Queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). Thankfully, young prison-board appointee Gary Waltham (Paul Kelly) dedicates himself to helping Annette -- and by extension, the rest of the unfortunate female inmates. The supporting cast of School for Girls reads like a "B"-picture Who's Who: Lona Andre, Russell Hopton, Kathleen Burke, Fred Kelsey, Edward Le Saint, and former silent-film favorites Anna Q. Nilsson, Charles Ray, Myrtle Stedman and Helene Chadwick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on an obscure stage comedy, the Paramount musical Two for Tonight stars Bing Crosby as would-be composer and playwright Gilbert Gordon. Hired by music publisher Alexander Myers (Maurice Cass) to write a musical for temperamental stage star Lilly Bianca (Thelma Todd), Gordon is less than thrilled to discover that he must complete the job in one week. As he toils away at his task, our hero becomes convinced that he's in love with the troublesome Lilly, causing heartache for his erstwhile sweetheart Bobbie Lockwood (Joan Bennett). The magnificent Mary Boland commands the audience's attention as Gordon's much-married mother. Elements of the plot of Two for Tonight were later satirized in the 1979 spoof Movie Movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Back in the 1930s, the "Search for Beauty" contests were designed to scout the hinterlands of America and England for beautiful girls and handsome men who might qualify as movie contractees -- though most the winners were drawn from the ranks of Hollywood residents. These contests, coupled with a play by Schuyler E. Gray and Paul R. Milton, formed the basis for this 1934 comedy. Real-life "Search for Beauty" winners Larry "Buster" Crabbe and Ida Lupino (both of whom had already appeared in a few films) head the cast in this story of a contest staged by a two-bit "physical culture" magazine. When the winners, Don Jackson (Crabbe) and Barbara Hilton (Lupino), realize that they've been hired exclusively to pose in bathing suits for the pin-up trade, they leave for the greener pastures of a legitimate health farm. The magazine's crooked publishers try to extort money from Don and Barbara, but they're foiled by a local justice of the peace (Frank McGlynn Sr.) who turns out to be an agent of the U.S. Department of Justice! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Philip Wylie, a writer best known for his "anti-Momism" work A Generation of Vipers, was responsible for the Paramount "leg show" Come on Marines. Lucky (Richard Arlen) and Spud (Roscoe Karns) are among the Marine troops dispatched from San Diego to the Philippines to rescue a group of "shipwrecked children." Upon their arrival, the leathernecks are both amazed and delighted to discover that the "children" are a bevy of gorgeous 18-year-old debutantes, among them such promising starlets as Ida Lupino, Toby Wing and Clara Lou (later Anne) Sheridan. The sort of silly escapist film that regularly confounds the "auteur" devotees of director Henry Hathaway, Come On, Marines was obviously made for the sole purpose of showing off its pulchritudinous female cast members in various states of undress. The film's giddy high point is leather-clad Grace Bradley's hotcha dance solo, performed before a collection of floor-length mirrors! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Romance throws a spanner into the works of a con game in this light drama. Donald Free (William Powell) is a private detective whose career in on the skids. Dan Hogan (Arthur Holh) is another, less scrupulous shamus who persuades Free to help him frame Janet Reynolds (Margaret Lindsay), a wealthy woman with a taste for gambling living in Paris. Free goes along with the scheme, but things become complicated when he begins falling in love with her. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The end of prohibition spells the end of business as usual for Chicago gangster Bugs Ahearn (Edward G. Robinson in this delightful spoof of mob melodramas from Warner Bros. Paying off their latest moll, Edith (Shirley Grey, Bugs and chief lieutenant Al Daniels (Russell Hopton) grab their ill-gotten gains and go west, hoping to crash polo playing Santa Barbara society. Bugs acquires a rental mansion and a high class girlfriend, Polly Cass (Helen Vinson), but the estate actually belongs to kind but down-on-her-luck socialite Ruth Wayburn (Mary Astor) -- whom the former mobster retains as his social secretary -- while Polly and her relatives prove to be bigger crooks than he ever was. The Little Giant was reportedly filmed in 18 days on a budget of $197,000. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Baby Face is a good example of the kind of spitfire lead female characters that appeared in the cinema of pre-code Hollywood. Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck) works as a barmaid in her father's factory-town saloon where she learns to deal with the unwanted advances of male customers. When her father dies, she moves to New York City with her maid, Chico (Theresa Harris), to become a ruthless gold digger. First she meets office boy Jimmy McCoy (a young John Wayne in an uncharacteristically clean-cut role) who helps her get a job at the Gotham Trust Company. From there, she seduces and discards various men (George Brent, Donald Cook, Henry Kolker) as she sleeps her way to the top of the company. Jealously between the men causes a murder scene, so Lily takes her furs and jewels and moves to Paris with Chico. The production code censors tacked on an ending that featured Lily giving away her money and returning to her home town with Brent. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Having tackled a wagon train in the immensely popular The Covered Wagon (1922), James Cruze directed this would-be epic centered on the famed Pony Express. This time, however, audiences stayed away in droves. Cruze's old-fashioned staging was foremost to blame. He portrayed pretty vistas but little movement in his epics and Pony Express of course even lacked the novelty aspects that had made "Wagon" a box-office success. Austrian-born Ricardo Cortez starred as a gambler who joins the delivery service during the time of California's impending statehood. There is the obligatory Indian attack and a nasty villain played to the hilt by George Bancroft. Still and all, this silent version is superior in almost all aspects to the even more slow-moving 1953 remake starring Charlton Heston. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide