Charles Winninger Movies
Born with show business in his blood, Charles Winninger was nine years old when he joined his parents' vaudeville act, the Winninger Family Novelty Company. The troupe appeared at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, then spent the next sixteen years touring the provinces. Going out as a "single" in 1909, Winninger trod the boards as a monologist, dialectician, singer, dancer, dramatic actor and master of ceremonies. He made his Broadway debut as a German comic in 1912's Yankee Girl Company. Three years later, he launched his film career at the L-KO comedy studios. The character-actor phase of his Hollywood years began in 1924, though at the time he was still more committed to the stage than film. In 1927, he scored one of his biggest Broadway successes as Cap'n Andy in Showboat, a role he repeated with gusto in the 1936 film version. Except for occasional Dutch-comic turns in such films as Soup to Nuts (1930) and Friendly Enemies (1945) Winninger was generally seen in talkies in "foxy papa" or roguish-reprobate roles. His own favorite screen part was Deanna Durbin's roving-eyed millionaire father in Three Smart Girls (1936) and its three sequels. Winninger's performance as the drink-sodden, grudge-bearing general practitioner in Nothing Sacred (1937) is perhaps his finest cinematic hour, with his portrayal of Iowa farmer Abel Frake in State Fair (1945) running a close second. Usually billed at the top of the supporting cast list, Winninger was afforded a rare starring role as Judge Priest in John Ford's wonderful The Sun Shines Bright (1953). On TV, Winninger co-starred in the 1956 sitcom The Charles Farrell Show as Farrell's dad, and guested as Fred Mertz' down-and-out vaudeville partner in the "Mertz and Kurtz" episode of I Love Lucy. Charles Winninger was at one time married to Broadway favorite Blanche Ring, meaning that he was briefly the brother-in-law of silent screen star Thomas Meighan and comedienne Charlotte Greenwood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1931
Flying High was a nonsensical Broadway musical hit of 1930 starring Bert Lahr. The film version, made one year later by MGM, made a few efforts to "cinematize" the stage original, but the focus was on Lahr, re-creating his Broadway performance virtually verbatim -- except for his famous (and notorious) gag sequence involving a urinalysis! Lahr plays the goofy inventor of an "aerocopter" flying machine, who is compelled to prove the efficiency of his invention in a slapstick cross-country airmail delivery race. While Lahr's original Broadway co-star Kate Smith does not appear in the film, he was more than amply matched comedically by Charlotte Greenwood. The musical numbers for Flying High were choreographed by Busby Berkeley; one of his more engaging routines was later excerpted for the 1934 Ted Healy/Three Stooges two-reeler Plane Nuts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bert Lahr, Charlotte Greenwood, (more)
- 1931
In the space of 74 minutes, Helen Hayes goes from naïve French country lass to elderly harridan in Sin of Madelon Claudet. Is it any wonder that she won an Academy Award? (She truly deserved this Oscar; the jury is still out concerning her cutesy supporting turn in 1969's Airport, which also copped her the gold statuette). Betrayed by artist Neil Hamilton, Hayes moves on to jewel thief Lewis Stone, who commits suicide to avoid arrest, leaving Hayes to her fate. After ten years in jail for her complicity in Stone's crimes, Hayes turns to the only profession open to her. She walks the streets to raise enough money to support her illegitimate son, who grows up to be Robert Young and who has no idea that Hayes is his mother. Thanks to his mother's anonymous financial support, Young is able to attend medical school, eventually becoming a wealthy doctor. Even allowing for the illogical nature of the plotline and the lachrymose dialogue, the heartrending final scenes of Sin of Madelon Claudet can still raise a lump in the throat after 65 years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helen Hayes, Neil Hamilton, (more)
- 1931
William Boyd is one of the stars of the Paramount western Gun Smoke -- only it's not the same William Boyd who later essayed the role of Hopalong Cassidy, but another actor who billed himself as William "Stage" Boyd. The plot was a familiar one to western devotees of the early 1930s: a bunch of urban gangsters, forced out of the Big City when the cops put the screws in, head to Idaho to continue their crooked activities in the Wide Open Spaces. Unfortunately, the bad guys, headed by Kedge Davas (Boyd), haven't reckoned with the resourcefulness of cowboy hero Brad Farley (Richard Arlen) and his saddle pals. Farley and company organize a vigilante group to purge the territory of the gangsters, adopting tactics that might in any other circumstances be considered fascistic. The unspeakable Davas finally comes to a well-deserved end when he falls from a mountain top (a cinematic tour de force for cinematographer Archie J. Stout). It may seem hopelessly hokey and outdated in synopsis form, but Gun Smoke is as entertaining in the 1990s as it was six decades earlier; indeed, a recent screening of the film in the small Idaho resort community of Ketchum earned a standing ovation from the audience. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, (more)
- 1931
A naive, wealthy small-town girl, bored with her routine life, falls for a dashing con artist who has come looking for fresh marks to swindle. He soon charms her into faking her prominent father's name on a letter of endorsement, which he presents to the other local merchants. They willingly give him all sorts of goodies and he prepares his escape, but not before conning the girl into becoming his wife. After their wedding night in a sleazy hotel, he abandons her. Fortunately, by the story's end, she is able to reassemble her shattered life and find happiness. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Conrad Nagel, Bette Davis, (more)
- 1931
Advertised variously as a "musical romance" and an "operetta style drama", Children of Dreams was the last of three Warner Bros. musicals written directly for the screen by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story revolves around a group of singing migrant workers, laboring away in a Western apple orchard. One of the more talented of the workers, pretty Molly Standing (Margaret Schilling), manages to achieve fame and fortune as an opera star. This turn of events was reportedly inspired by the career of real-life diva Anna Case, who is about the only New York stage personality not seen in this picture. Children of Dreams offers a few amusing turns by vaudevillian Tom Patricola and by Show Boat's original "Captain Andy," Charles Winnigner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Gregory, Tom Patricola, (more)
- 1931
The patience of a long-suffering wife is finally rewarded in this drama. The devoted wife has known that her husband has been having an affair for years but she has passively allowed it to continue, believing that eventually her husband will come back to her. Her belief is unshakable and when he asks for a divorce, she refuses to grant it causing him to leave her and move in with the other woman. She does allow him to visit the children, but when he comes, she treats him as a guest. Eventually, the mistress kills herself and the errant husband does indeed return to his patient wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clive Brook, Charlie Ruggles, (more)
Directly after his successful screen teaming with Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, Gary Cooper returned to Paramount's "Zane Grey" western series with Fighting Caravans. Cooper is cast as Clint Belmet, a hell-raisin' frontiersman facing a misdemeanor jail term. To avoid arrest, Clint talks French-born Felice (Lily Damita) into posing as his wife. Having successfully eluded the Law, Clint joins a wagon train heading to California, with Felice in tow. He callously tells her that he expects to exercise his "husbandly" prerogative in bed, but changes his tune when he genuinely falls in love with the girl. Eventually, Clint assumes some responsibility for the first time in his life by becoming the wagon train's sole trail guide, rescuing the other passengers from the villainous machinations of gun-runner Lee Murdock (Fred Kohler). Several stock shots and outtakes from Fighting Caravans (retitled Blazing Arrows for television) later showed up in another Zane Grey series entry, Wagon Wheels (1934). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, (more)
- 1931
God's Gift to Women demonstrated conclusively that Warner Bros. would never make a movie star out of Broadway comedian Frank Fay. Portraying a most unlikely Frenchman, Fay pitches woo at every beautiful woman in sight, but falls in love with none of them. When Cupid genuinely strikes him for the first time, Fay is compelled by the girl's father to prove that he's honestly in love with her and not just with her millions. Fay does just that, but it takes ever so long. God's Gift to Women is injured beyond repair by the obnoxious, mannered performance of Frank Fay, and by the fact that Fay and director Michael Curtiz detested each other at first sight. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Fay, Laura La Plante, (more)
Popular Broadway comedian Ted Healy (sort of a Milton Berle without the charm) was tapped for potential movie stardom by Fox Studios, who cast Healy in the wacky semi-musical comedy Soup to Nuts. The film was written by comic-strip artist Rube Goldberg (who also appears in the film), utilizing several of Goldberg's zanier comedy notions, including his incredibly complex "inventions." Healy plays a fireman who comes to the rescue of Mr. Schmidt (Charles Winninger) when the latter's costume shop faces foreclosure. Our hero's get-rich-quick schemes generally come acropper, but all is resolved in the climactic scene wherein Healy and his fellow smoke-eaters rescue Schmidt's daughter Louise (Lucille Browne) and her millionaire sweetheart (Stanley Smith) from a roaring blaze. Only recently made available for reappraisal, Soup to Nuts is of inestimable historical value as the movie debut of Ted Healy's Three "Stooges" Moe Howard (billed as Harry Howard), Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine, here joined for the first and last time by a fourth stooge, the relentlessly unfunny Fred Sanborn. Though somewhat restrained throughout the film, the Stooges enliven several otherwise plodding scenes with their tried-and-true material. The best bits included the gruesome threesome's opening song ("You'll Never Know Just What Tears Are") -- in which they stand stock still and flinch not an inch as Sanborn drops heavy sandbags in their vicinity -- and a hilarious extended routine at a costume party, culminating with Larry's deadpan "elevator dance" ("No steps!"). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ted Healy, Stanley Smith, (more)
- 1926
Summer Bachelors is predicated on a hot-weather ritual which was later satirized to the hilt in George Axelrod's The Seven Year Itch. Every summer, the wives of New York businessmen are bundled off to vacation in the mountains, while their husbands stay behind on their jobs. Naturally, when the cats are away the mice will play, and it's not uncommon for the stay-at-home husbands to dally with other women. Capitalizing on this, heroine Derry Thomas (Madge Bellamy) sets up a club to keep these "summer bachelors" occupied -- and out of trouble. During one club meeting, she meets wealthy Tony Lander (Allan Forrest), whom she assumes is married. Later, while under hypnosis, Derry confesses that she's in love with Tony. Worried that she's breaking up someone's happy home, Derry is relieved to discover that Tony isn't married after all -- though it's a safe bet that he soon will be. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madge Bellamy, Allan Forrest, (more)
- 1926
In 1917, Thomas Meighan played the lead in a film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's The Land of Promise. Nine years later he essayed the same role, Alberta wheat farmer Frank Taylor, in the remake, now titled The Canadian. When she loses her family fortune, Englishwoman Nora Marsh (Mona Palma) comes to Canada to live with her brother Earl (Wyndham Standing) and his wife Gertie (Dale Fuller). Though she tries to acclimate herself to her new Spartan lifestyle, Nora quickly alienates everyone with her inbred snobbishness. Upon hearing Earl's friend Frank (Meighan) making crude jokes about an "ideal wife," Nora insults not only Frank but also Gertie, who demands an apology. Refusing to give Gertie the satisfaction, Nora desperately seeks a way to escape Earl's household -- and this she does by offering her "services" as Frank's wife. The rest of the story concentrates on the tension-laden relationship between Frank and Nora, with both parties too proud and stubborn ever to admit being wrong about anything. Filmed on location in the Canadian Rockies, The Canadian may well be the best film ever directed by William "One Take" Beaudine, who lived long enough to see the picture lauded as a masterpiece during a screening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Meighan, Mona Palma, (more)
- 1924
Although this sentimental tale of the sea came from an original story by Booth Tarkington and its stars were Thomas Meighan and Lois Wilson, it wasn't one of Paramount's better releases for 1924. The Malones are in charge of most of the industries of the coastal town of Oldport, and Jack (Meighan) is the family pet. Jack is the only one in his clan who looks to the sea for a career and he signs on as second mate on the ship Langland. Both Jack and the first mate, Charles Crosby (Cyril Ring), are in love with Patty Thomas (Lois Wilson) and Crosby is very much put out when Jack is promoted over him. A storm blows up at sea and because Captain Clarke (George Fawcett) is drunk, the ship is lost. Crosby claims that Jack was also inebriated and both he and the captain are fired. The villagers back home are all against Jack, except for the children. Jack is ultimately vindicated and his brothers purchase a ship for him. As he sails off, Patty agrees to wait for him. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lois Wilson, Emma Dunn, (more)
