George Breakston Movies

Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: "I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me!" But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the "screwball" comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A tough youth gang leader learns the true meaning of courage in this moving and thoughtful drama. He is the leader of a troop of boys involved in an elaborate game of "capture the flag." He is idolized by a sickly boy on the block who begs to be allowed to join the leader's group. Eventually the older boy gives in and "enlists" the weakling as a private. Though he treats the young lad with contempt, the boy is so enamored of his hero that he doesn't notice. Eventually the gang's rivals, the "Red Shirts" steal their flag. To prove himself, the sickly boy risks his life and frail health. The allegorical, anti-war story is based on Hungarian playwright Molnar's autobiographical novel. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an experienced newspaperman caves in to the constant badgering of his thoughtless family and ends up losing his job. Fortunately, he finds a new niche on the radio. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Samuel Goldwyn's The Dark Angel is a sumptuously produced soap opera with a poignant "Enoch Arden" style denouement. Fredric March, Merle Oberon and Herbert Marshall star respectively as Alan Trent, Kitty Vane and Gerald Shannon, friends since childhood. Though Gerald is deeply in love with Kitty, it is Alan who wins her hand in marriage. But before the wedding can take place, WW I intervenes, and both Alan and Gerald march off with their regiments. Blinded on the battlefield, Alan gallantly pretends to have been killed so that Kitty will not feel obligated to care for him. Eventually, however, she discovers that he's still alive, which leads to the film's most memorable scene, in which the proud Alan painstakingly arranges all the furniture and bric-and-brac in his room to make it seem as though he can still see. Though the film is set in the late teens and early '20s, Merle Oberon is garbed throughout in the latest 1935 fashions -- an endearingly anachronistic Sam Goldwyn trademark. Oscar nominations went to star Oberon and art director Richard Day, with the latter taking home the gold statuette. Adapted by Lillian Hellman and Mordaunt Sharp from a stage play by Guy Bolton (written pseudonymously as H. B. Treveleyen), The Dark Angel was previously filmed by Goldwyn in 1925. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One Horse Town is the TV title for MGM's 1936 version Small Town Girl (the new title was bestowed to avoid confusion with the 1953 remake). Robert Taylor plays an irresponsible playboy who is arrested in a backwater town for drunken driving. While intoxicated, Taylor proposes to local girl Janet Gaynor. She accepts, knowing full well that he wouldn't have popped the question had he been sober. Gaynor spends the rest of the film trying to reform Taylor and to get him to fall in love with her while he's got all his faculties--no small trick, in that her competition is sophisticated Binnie Barnes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third of MGM's Andy Hardy series (discounting the "pilot" film, A Family Affair) stars, as ever, Mickey Rooney as the teenaged protagonist. Andy finds himself in dutch with girlfriend Polly Benedict (Ann Rutherford) when he agrees to escort his best friend's gal, Cynthia Potter (Lana Turner). Having gone out of town, Andy's buddy wants Cynthia kept out of circulation, and pays Andy to make sure she stays that way. Andy is in no position to refuse: he needs the dough to pay for a car he's just purchased. Further complications ensue when Andy falls for a third girl, Betsy Booth (Judy Garland). It is up to Betsy to play little miss fix-it when Andy's romantic entanglements threaten to overwhelm him. (Mickey Rooney could have used a "Betsy Booth" in real life as well!) Originally running shorter than its present 90 minutes, Love Finds Andy Hardy was expanded during filming to showcase the splendid singing talents of Judy Garland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If Judge Hardy and Son had been filmed in the 1990s, it would have been titled Andy Hardy VII. In this latest edition of MGM's "Hardy Family" series, the kindly Judge (Lewis Stone) wrestles with two problems. He must rescue an elderly couple from eviction, and he must cope with his wife's (Fay Holden) life threatening illness. This time around, the romantic entanglements of son Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) take second place to Andy's anguish over his mother's condition. It needs hardly be said that Mom recovers and the family is happy again at fade-out time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real Frank and Jesse James were murderous thugs, light years away from the Robin Hood image imposed on them by revisionist dime novelists. But in 1939, 20th Century-Fox wasn't about to build an expensive Technicolor feature around the exploits of a couple of low-lives, thus Jesse James upholds the mythos, offering us the standard whitewashed version of the James boys. According to Nunally Johnson's irresistibly entertaining screenplay, Jesse (Tyrone Power) and Frank (Henry Fonda) become train and bank robbers to avenge the death of their mother (Jane Darwell), killed at the behest of greedy railroad interests. Once he feels his work is done, Jesse settles down to a life of marital domesticity--only to be shot in the back by cowardly Bob Ford (John Carradine). Frank James is left alive at film's end, paving the way for the 1941 sequel The Return of Frank James. Director Henry King stages the action sequences in glorious outsized fashion, notably the famous bank-robbery scene in which Jesse rides his horse through a plate glass window. The scenes involving both James brothers are stolen hands-down by Henry Fonda, not so much because he was a better actor than Tyrone Power but because his character had all the best lines. Jesse James was filmed largely on location in Missouri, resulting in crowd-control nightmares for the picture's beleaguered assistant directors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of dirt-poor Dust Bowl migrants by 4-time Oscar-winning director John Ford starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who opens the movie returning to his Oklahoma home after serving jail time for manslaughter. En route, Tom meets family friend Casey (John Carradine), a former preacher who warns Tom that dust storms, crop failures, and new agricultural methods have financially decimated the once prosperous Oklahoma farmland. Upon returning to his family farm, Tom is greeted by his mother (Oscar-winner Jane Darwell), who tells him that the family is packing up for the "promised land" of California. Warned that they shouldn't expect a warm welcome in California--they've already seen the caravan of dispirited farmers, heading back home after striking out at finding work--the Joads push on all the same. Their first stop is a wretched migrant camp, full of starving children and surrounded by armed guards. Further down the road, the Joads drive into an idyllic government camp, with clean lodging, indoor plumbing, and a self-governing clientele. When Tom ultimately bids goodbye to his mother, who asks him where he'll go, he delivers the film's most famous speech: "I'll be all around...Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat...Whenever there's a cop beating a guy, I'll be there...And when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build. I'll be there too." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Number ten in MGM's heart-warming (and immensely profitable) "Andy Hardy" series was the 1941 entry Life Begins for Andy Hardy. Upon his graduation from high school, Andy (Mickey Rooney) decides to seek his fortune in New York City without benefit of a college education, much to the consternation of his father Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone). Moving to the Big Apple, Andy lands a job in a stockbroker's office, where he falls in love (at least he thinks it's love) with fickle telephone operator Jennitt Hicks (Patricia Dane). Alas, Andy is unable to cope with life in the fast lane, but it takes the combined efforts of his father and his hometown sweetie Betsy Booth (Judy Garland) to convince him of this fact. For reasons that defy logic, each of Judy Garland's four songs in Life Begins for Andy Hardy were cut from the final release print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director William "One Take" Beaudine puts his all-character-actor cast through their paces in Men of San Quentin. J. Anthony Hughes plays a prison guard who tries to put new reforms into effect when he becomes a warden. Naturally, Hughes' efforts are undercut by a handful of hardbitten cons and jealous fellow guards. His efforts pay off when Hughes is able to quell a prison riot. Men of San Quentin was produced and cowritten by Martin Mooney, a former newspaperman who'd actually "done time" behind bars; its opening theme music was performed by the San Quentin orchestra! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Urubu was one of three documentary features released by United Artists in 1948. Bascially, the film is a record of a recent expedition into Brazil's Motto Grosso jungle. To add a bit of intrigue to the footage, a ficitional yarn concerning the search for a long-missing British explorer is grafted onto the continuity. Once the expedition has reached the Urubu tribe, they are obliged to rescue the explorer's pretty daughter. The ballyhoo boys made much of the fact that many of the native tribeswomen seen in Urubu were wearing next to nothing, a balm for adolescent National Geographic devotees everywhere. The film was produced and directed by former child actor George Breakston. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide