Loretta Young Movies
Born Gretchen Young, her family moved to Hollywood and she began appearing (at age four) as a child extra in movies, as did her sisters (one of whom later became known as actress Sally Blane). At 14, she got a small supporting role in Naughty but Nice (1927), which led to a screen contract. She moved quickly from teenager to ingénue to leading lady roles, appearing in many films and successfully making the transition to the sound era. By the mid-'30s, she was an established star, usually cast in decorative roles in routine programmers. For her work in The Farmer's Daughter (1947) she won the Best Actress Oscar, and was nominated again for Come to the Stable (1949). After a consistently busy screen career of 25 years, she retired from films in 1953 to host the TV series The Loretta Young Show, a weekly half-hour teleplay; she appeared in about half of the show's episodes, winning three Emmy Awards. Since the early '60s, she has devoted most of her energies to Catholic charities. She has been married twice. In 1930, she made headlines when, at age 17, she eloped with actor Grant Withers. However, the marriage was annulled after a year. She later married producer and writer Thomas Lewis, from whom she eventually separated. She authored the memoir The Things I Had to Learn (1961). After NBC unlawfully broadcast her TV shows abroad, she sued the network in 1972 and won 600,000 dollars. ~ All Movie Guide- 1932
A very young Loretta Young stars in this domestic drama in which a naïve department store clerk falls for an inveterate gambler. The clerk, Buster Green, falls in love with handsome Wallie Dennis (Norman Foster) at a dance and marries him after a whirlwind romance. But their wedded bliss is ruined by Wallie's gambling habit and a pregnant Buster is forced to return to the Mayfield Department Store counter. In an effort to salvage her crumbling marriage, Buster plays on a dark horse to win the Big Race but is cheated out of her prize by unscrupulous bookie Martie Happ (Noel Madison). An angered Wallie picks a fight with Happ and is arrested by the police. Buster, meanwhile, delivers a baby girl and Wallie, who has been released due to the happy circumstances, bets that their next child will be a boy. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Winnie Lightner, (more)
- 1932
Hatchet Man is a dated but fascinating film set amidst the "tong wars" in San Francisco's Chinatown. Tong hatchet man Wong Low Get (Edward G. Robinson) is required to kill his boyhood friend Sun Yet Sen (J. Carroll Naish). Sen is resigned to his fate, but extracts a promise that Wong will look after Sen's daughter Toya San, and marry the girl when she grows up. Played as an adult by Loretta Young, Toya San weds Wong, now an influential Chinatown figure. But the girl is secretly in love with Harry En Hai (Leslie Fenton), a disreputable young half-caste. When Wong learns of the affair, he sends Toya and Harry packing, and is ostracized by the community for not fighting for his honor. Harry is deported to China for drug-dealing, taking Toya with him and ultimately deserting her. Wong trails the pair to China, where he finds that Toya has been sold into prostitution. He intends to use his hatchet to kill Harry, but is talked out of the murder by Toya. But before Wong and Toya leave for America, Harry En Hai accidentally receives his comeuppance from the one-time "hatchet man." Well acted and powerfully directed, Hatchet Man would hardly qualify as "politically correct" these days, since virtually every Asian character is portrayed by a Caucasian. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young
- 1932
A huge box office success and a key film in James Cagney's rise to stardom, this drama stars Cagney as Matt Nolan, a gritty New York City cab driver who is being squeezed by a monopolistic taxi trust which uses force to run him and other independent cabbies away from the most profitable locations. Nolan joins forces with Pop Riley (George Kibbee), whose cab is smashed by a truck when he refuses to cooperate with the syndicate. Kibbee is sent to prison for shooting at the truck driver. Nolan is dating his daughter, Sue (Loretta Young), and they enter a Peabody dance contest at a local nightclub. Cagney dances on screen for the first time, and so does George Raft as Willie Kenny, another dancing tough guy who was a friend of Cagney's, who pushed Warner Bros. to give Cagney the role. Nolan marries Sue Riley, and she tries to get him to cool down. But the taxi trust goons kill his brother Danny (Ray Cooke), and Nolan goes on a rampage. In several filmed gun battles, live machine-gun bullets are used, as they were in Cagney's famed The Public Enemy. This is the last time Cagney allowed that. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1932
In this comedy, a hard-working husband loses his job and his wife becomes the bread winner. The husband feels demeaned by his new role and takes a mistress to regain his lost manhood. The chastened wife eventually returns to the daily drudgery of home so her hubby can feel important and manly again. Marital bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Norman Foster, (more)
- 1932
Life Begins is an episodic Warner Bros. programmer about one unusually busy night in a maternity ward. Loretta Young is the central character, a convicted murderess who has been impregnated by her gangster boyfriend. She is moved to the hospital to give birth, sharing ward space with hard-boiled Glenda Farrell, who's willing to sell her unborn child, and several other mothers-to-be from various walks of life. Under the benign supervision of head nurse Aline MacMahon, most of the babies are born safely, though the repentant Young dies in the process. Based on a play by Mary McDougal Axelson, Life Begins was remade as A Child Is Born (1940), which was not nearly as effective (or as frank) as the original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Eric Linden, (more)
- 1931
In this romantic comedy, a milquetoast bookworm finds his life transformed when he takes the advice of a fortune teller and travels to Central America. There he finds a distressed young woman about to be sold into marriage. His attempts to rescue her change him into a swashbuckling hero. In the end they marry. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Loretta Young, (more)
- 1931
Loretta Young briefly contemplates using her sexual allure to get ahead in business in this sometimes frank but ultimately old-fashioned comedy-drama from Warner Bros. Packing her new husband, bandleader Johnny Saunders (Frank Albertson), off to Paris, Claire McIntyre (Young) sets her sight on her boss, wolfish advertising maven Robert J. Clayton (Ricardo Cortez). The latter's clumsy attempt to seduce the girl is interrupted by an enraged Johnny, however, and Claire comes to her senses. But Clayton doesn't take no for an answer and concocts a plan to sabotage the union. Big Business Girl was based on a College Humor magazine story by Patricia Reilly and H.N. Swanson. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Frank Albertson, (more)
- 1931
In this comedy drama set in a small town, a milque-toast gets a backbone and stands up to his overbearing wife. Only one of his daughters is on his side. The family is amazed and shocked by his sudden change. At first they rebel, but when he defies his wife and allows his good daughter to marry the grocery boy she loves, they finally come to respect him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Grant Withers, (more)
- 1931
Even before the Fox Studios merged with 20th Century Productions in 1935, the company was dedicated to the proposition that three leading ladies were better than one. The "Three Girls Lost" of the title are played by Loretta Young, Joyce Compton and Joan Marsh. Lovely Loretta and wisecracking Joyce do all right by themselves when they leave their home town for wicked old Chicago. Alas, Joan falls in with thieves and sharpsters, forcing the other two girls to help her out. Of particular interest is the presence in the cast of 24-year-old John Wayne, amusingly miscast as a well-groomed socialite. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, John Wayne, (more)
A rather bleak comedy-drama from Frank Capra, Platinum Blonde basically starts where Capra's later and much more buoyant It Happened One Night (1934) ends: the marriage between a brash newspaperman and a society dame. But where the latter comedy was enhanced by the director's patented optimism, Platinum Blonde, produced at the height of the Great Depression, expresses no faith in a common ground between the classes. Star reporter Stew Smith (Robert Williams) falls in love with the sister (Jean Harlow) of his latest victim (Donald Dillaway). They marry despite the misgivings of Ann Schuyler's blue-nosed mother (Louise Closser Hale) and Stew's cynical colleagues ("Ann Schuyler's in the blue book. You're not even in the phone book!"). Unable to stand life in a gilded cage for long, Stew upsets the Schuyler mansion by inviting his friends to a wild and woolly party. Returning home unexpected in the middle of the drunken revelry, Ann lays down the law and Stew bolts -- right into the arms of girl reporter Gallagher (Loretta Young), whom he has loved all along without realizing it. Jean Harlow is surprisingly realistic as the callous society girl but Robert Williams' wisecracking reporter comes across as rather grating. An up-and-coming comic lead, Williams died after an operation for appendicitis on November 3, 1931, less than a month after Platinum Blonde had premiered to mostly positive reviews. Ironically, Loretta Young, who received top billing, had demanded to star in this film when it was still known as "Gallagher," the name of her character. Harlow, needless to stay, stole the limelight completely and Capra changed the title much to Young's chagrin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Robert Williams, (more)
Hoping to benefit from the popularity of the 1927 silent version of P.C. Wren's Beau Geste, RKO Radio reunited the earlier film's star Ralph Forbes and director Herbert Brenon for 1931's Beau Ideal, again adapted from a Wren novel. Something of a sequel to Beau Geste, the story concerns the efforts by Foreign Legionnaire Otis Madison (Lester Vail) to locate his childhood chum John Geste (Forbes). The two men are reunited in the Arabian desert, where Geste is doing penance in a stockade reserved for discredited Legionnaires. With Otis's help, Geste redeems himself by squashing a native uprising fomented by a duplicitous Emir (George Regas). Ultimately, our hero returns to England and the arms of heroine Loretta Young -- but not before a close call with a slinky seductress (Leni Stengel), appropriately nicknamed "The Angel of Death." Beau Ideal was a flop to the tune of $330,000, and as a result the exploits of the Geste family would not again be dramatized for the screen until the 1939 remake of Beau Geste. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank McCormack, Ralph Forbes, (more)
- 1931
Previously filmed in 1915 and 1920, Sir Gilbert Parker's novel The Right of Way was exhumed once more in 1931. Conrad Nagel stars as Conrad Steele, a Canadian lawyer saddled with a nagging wife (Olive Tell) and a lazy brother-in-law (William Janney). When the latter steals some of Conrad's money, the lawyer searches for the boy, ending up in a tough waterfront saloon. Rendered unconscious in a barroom brawl, Conrad loses his memory and wanders into the Canadian Northwoods where he falls in love with pretty postmistress Rosalie (Loretta Young). Perfectly content in his "new" life, Conrad is understandably aghast when his memory returns. He dutifully returns to his former wife -- and that's all that can be said here without revealing the climactic plot twist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Conrad Nagel, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1931
Originally titled Upper Underworld, The Ruling Voice stars Walter Huston as a powerful underworld chieftain who covers his crooked activities in a cloak of respectability. Cold-blooded in all business matters, Huston cares only for the welfare of his beloved daughter Loretta Young, whom he has been careful to shield from his criminal cohorts. When she learns the truth, Young angrily walks out of her father's life, a blow compounded when his "trusted" henchman Dudley Digges betrays him. In a last-ditch effort at redemption, Huston puts his own life on the line to rescue his daughter from her rival-gangster kidnappers. The final shot in The Ruling Voice is a gem, with the newspaper bearing the headline of Huston's downfall being used to wrap a dead fish. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Huston, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1930
17-year-old Loretta Young is as cute as all get out in Road to Paradise. This compensates for the fact that Young isn't quite up to the dramatic demands of the script. She plays a dual role, as a society deb and her twin sister. Looking for thrills, Young ties up with a couple of crooks (Raymond Hatton and George Barraud), and ends up robbing her own sister's house. Ms. Young's leading man is the personable Jack Mulhall, in one of his last sizeable talkie roles. Road to Paradise was adapted by F. Hugh Herbert from a play by Dodson Mitchell and Zelda Sears. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, George Barraud, (more)
- 1930
Ronald Colman plays the "black sheep" of a wealthy British family, sent to South Africa so that he'll be as far away from home as possible. Broke again, Colman auctions off his belongings and heads for London to the less-than-open arms of his father (Frederick Kerr). He begins to dally with a saucy actress (Myrna Loy), but soon his attentions shift to a young heiress (Loretta Young) engaged to a nobleman. The heiress manages to set Colman on the straight and narrow, so he renounces his wastrel ways and settles down--but not before breaking up the girl's upcoming wedding. Based on a play by Frederick Lonsdale, Devil to Pay is dated only in its subject matter; on a purely technical level, the film hardly betrays its age at all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1930
In this mystery, a man and woman have been corresponding through a "personal" column under the names Lord Strawberries and Lady Grapefruit. When the man's neighbor is found dead upstairs, he and the lady are the prime suspects of a police inspector, who has his own very good reason for blaming them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Grant Withers, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1930
The difference between social classes provides the basis for this comedy. The trouble begins when a drunken sot wanders into the fancy home of a woman who is hosting a gala dinner. She had invited 13 guests, and so hired Blankely's, a professional company to send her a sophisticated 14th guest. Naturally she mistakes the drunk for the hired guest and invites him to dine. Mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Barrymore, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1930
Edward Knoblock's warhorse theatrical piece Kismet, first filmed in 1920, resurfaced as a talkie in 1930. Repeating the role he'd created on stage in 1911, Otis Skinner stars as Hajji, the wily Baghdad beggar who goes from rags to riches to rags again to riches again in the space of 24 hours. Outwitting the evil wazir (Sidney Blackmer), Hajji manages to install himself in the royal palace, romance the wazir's gorgeous "head wife," and arrange the marriage between his own daughter (Loretta Young) and the caliph's son (David Manners). Though well on in years, Skinner conveys much of the effortless charisma which had endeared him to audiences since the turn of the century. Kismet was remade in 1944 with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich; the popular Broadway musical version was brought to the screen in 1955, with Howard Keel as Hajji. The subsequent film versions have kept the 1930 Kismet out of television circulation, denying future generations the pleasure of watching the legendary Otis Skinner in action. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Otis Skinner, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1930
The Truth About Youth is the third film version of Henry V. Esmond's play, When We Were Twenty-One. Richard Dane (David Manners) is turning twenty-one, and his guardian, Dick Carewe (Conway Tearle) has arranged a nice surprise party for him. Unfortunately, Richard (nicknamed "Imp") never shows up for the party, as he is celebrating in his own wild and free way. This includes visiting a nightclub where the seductive Kara (Myrna Loy) holds forth. Kara has a habit of toying with the affections of young men until she gets bored with them -- which is usually when their money runs out. Not knowing that Richard has no money, Kara quickly becomes involved with him. This does not sit well with Carewe, who hopes to arrange a marriage between his Richard and the sweet, simple Phyllis (Loretta Young), daughter of his housekeeper. Unbeknownst to Carewe, however, Phyllis is in love with him, despite the fact that he is much older than she. Matters become complicated when Richard marries Kara, only to be thrown out by her when she discovers his true financial status. Carewe continues his efforts to bring Richard and Phyllis together, but Phyllis finally makes her true feelings known, and she and Carewe finally get together. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, David Manners, (more)
- 1930
A young woman stands to inherit a million bucks in this comedy. The deal is thus: her aunts will give her a cool million if she can stay out of trouble and marry a reputable man with a clean background whom her benefactors approve of. The girl eagerly advertises for her mate, and she finds a handsome fellow with whom she falls in love. The trouble is the man is a gigolo and the aunties most definitely do not approve. Fortunately for him, his buddies intervene and threaten to make public an embarrassing incident involving the ladies and a certain raided cafe. They quickly change their minds and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., (more)
- 1929
This college musical chronicles the travails of a college football star who wants to quit playing. To stop him, the conniving coach enlists the aid of a flirtatious co-ed who tries to use her many charms to coerce the lad into staying on the team. She succeeds and the boy falls deeply in love with her. When she realizes that he is serious, she stops seeing her latest beau, and the professes her love to the football player. This inspires him to go on and win the big game. Songs include: "One Minute Of Heaven," "I Gotta Have You," "Hello Baby," "Huddlin'." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Loretta Young, (more)
- 1929
Basically a filmed vaudeville presentation, The Show of Shows was Warner Bros.' entry in the "all star, all talking, all singing and all dancing" sweepstakes of 1929. Though slightly better than MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929, the Warners entry pales in comparison to Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 and Paramount on Parade, due mainly to the film's master of ceremonies, the insufferable Frank Fay. Some of the individual acts seen in Show of Shows were pretty good, notably Winnie Lightner's delightful Singing in the Bathtub (a spoof of Hollywood Revue of 1929's Singin' in the Rain) and John Barrymore's brilliant rendition of Richard III's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry VI. Also easy to take was "Floradora Sextette," featuring such luminaries as Myrna Loy, Patsy Ruth Miller and cross-eyed comedian Ben Turpin, and "Eight Sister Acts," including such Hollywood siblings as Dolores and Helene Costello, Sally Blane and Loretta Young and Shirley Mason and Viola Dana (also teamed in this number are Ann Sothern and Marion Byron, who were not sisters). But for the most part, the acts are on a par with "Skull and Crossbones," a boring production number showcasing entertainer Ted Lewis, and "Recitations," a one-joke affair in which three different anecdotes (related by Frank Fay, Louis Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton and Bea Lillie) are melded into one. Show of Shows was originally released in two-color Technicolor but now exists only in black in white, save for the "Chinese Fantasy" number featuring crooner Nick Lucas and Warner Bros. contractee Myrna Loy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1929
In this actioner, a sea captain saves a Shanghai whore who is being tossed out of town. He puts her on board and heads out to sea; unfortunately, the ship sinks and the two are trapped on a lifeboat until they are found by a ship filled with tough mutineers whom the hero quickly fights, thereby saving the other ship's captain and daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, (more)
