Edmund Breese Movies

An Edgar Wallace yarn was the basis for the uncharacteristic Warner Bros. melodrama Return of the Terror. Hoping to escape prosecution for a series of poison murders, Dr. Redmayne (John Halliday) feigns insanity at his trial. The audience knows that Redmayne is innocent, so when he escapes from the asylum and a new rash of murders breaks out, the good doctor is instantly scratched off the suspect list. But this time the audience has been led up the garden path, as proven in the over-the-top finale. The presence of Mary Astor and Frank McHugh in the cast reassures the audience that this is indeed a Warner production and not something out of Universal or Monogram. Return of the Terror is a remake of The Terror (1928), the studio's first all-talking horror film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family business, but Baxter would rather spend his time at the racetrack. He buys a nag named Broadway Bill and tries to build the horse into a winner--if he doesn't bankrupt himself first. Only Baxter's sister-in-law Myrna Loy and black stable hand Clarence Muse have faith in Broadway Bill. The horse wins a crucial race, but dies suddenly at the finish line. Baxter is comforted and given encouragement by Loy, who is now his sweetheart, Vinson having long since washed her hands of her "irresponsible" husband. Broadway Bill was remade by Capra as Riding High (1950), utilizing generous portions of stock footage and even going so far as to rehire several of the original film's cast members (Douglass Dumbrille, Clarence Muse, Charles Lane, Raymond Walburn, Margaret Hamilton, Frankie Darro) to recreate their roles and match up their scenes from the earlier production. Long withheld from distribution due to Riding High, Broadway Bill was made available for videocassette in the mid-1980s. Keep an eye out for Lucille Ball as a blonde telephone operator and Alan Hale Sr. as a racetrack announcer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few studios ground out as many aviation melodramas as Columbia. In Above the Clouds, Robert Armstrong stars as Scoop Adams, an ace newsreel cameraman whose love affair with the bottle all but destroys him professionally. Scoop manages to get his photographer pal Dick (Richard Cromwell) fired as well, but he promises to restore Dick's reputation, some way or another. He gets his chance while covering a dirigible wreck (some three years before the Hindenburg), saving the day for both Dick and himself. The outcome of the plot hinges on a telephoto lens, a relatively new device in 1934. Dorothy Wilson hangs around in the obligatory but hardly necessary role of the love interest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fifth film version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island boasts an all-star MGM cast, headed by Wallace Beery as Long John Silver and Jackie Cooper as Jim Hawkins. The screenplay, by John Lee Mahin, John Howard Lawson and Leonard Praskins, remains faithful to the Stevenson original...up to a point. The story begins when drunken old sea dog Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore) drags himself into the seaside pub managed by Jim and his mother (Dorothy Peterson). After Billy is killed by the scurrilous Blind Pew (William V. Mong) and his henchmen, Jim discovers that the deceased ex-pirate carries a treasure map on his person. Together with Dr. Livesey (Otto Kruger) and Squire Trelawny (Nigel Bruce), Jim books passage on a ship captained by Alexander Smollett (Lewis Stone); their destination is the "treasure island" depicted on the map. Smollett doesn't like the voyage nor the crew, and not without reason: ship's cook Long John Silver has rounded up the crew from the dregs of the earth, fully intending to mutiny and claim the treasure for himself. A further plot complications awaits both treasure-seekers and pirates in the person of half-mad island hermit Ben Gunn (Chic Sale) who's already found the treasure and has stashed it away for himself. Towards the end, the plot strays from the Stevenson version in detailing the ultimate fate of ruthless-but-lovable Long John Silver. While consummately produced, Treasure Island suffers from overlength and a mannered performance by Jackie Cooper. Disney's 1950 remake with Robert Newton and Bobby Driscoll is far more satisfying. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frequently misidentified as Ladies Must Love, this Universal musical represents one of the few screen appearances of Broadway luminary June Knight. The plot is the old one about three gold-digging girls who team up to fleece a millionaire of his millions. The girls are Jeannie (Knight), Dot (Sally O'Neil) and Peggy (Dorothy Burgess): their victim is a wealthy young blade named Bill (Neil Hamilton). Not surprisingly, Jeannie scotches the plan by falling in love with Bill for real. Based on a play by William Hurlbut, Ladies Must Love was the first American film for legendary German director Ewald Andre DuPont. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood responded to the exigencies of the Depression with such glorious nonsense as International House. The plot is motivated by a revolutionary television device called the Radioscope, which its Chinese inventor (Edmund Breese) is offering to the highest bidder. All interested parties are obliged to converge at International House, an ultra-modern hotel in the bustling Chinese community of Wu Hu. Among those parties is American envoy Stu Erwin, Russian general Bela Lugosi (a hilarious, pratfalling performance), the general's ex-wife Peggy Hopkins Joyce (a much-married showgirl of the era, who like Zsa Zsa Gabor was famous for being famous), and that celebrated aviator Professor Quail, better known as W.C. Fields. The lunacy begins even before Fields arrives, thanks to the antics of the hotel's doctor George Burns and nurse Gracie Allen. When Erwin comes down with the measles (he is always struck down by a childhood disease whenever he's about to marry his fiancee Sari Maritza), the hotel is quarantined. The guests make the most of their enforced stay by watching the many variety acts broadcast over the radioscope device: Rudy Vallee, singing a love song to his megaphone; Baby Rose Marie (the same), belying her 11 years by belting forth a hotcha jazz number; radio humorists Stoopnagle and Budd, showing off their own goofy inventions; and Cab Calloway, singing a paean to marijuana titled "Reefer Man" (only in recent years has this peppy number been seen with any regularity on television). There's also an elaborate production number on the dance floor of the hotel, featuring Sterling Holloway and a bevy of beauties dressed as cups and saucers. Once Fields drops in via his art-deco autogyro, the film is firmly in his pudgy hands. Erwin outbids the others for the radioscope, while Fields escapes in his aircraft with Peggy Hopkins Joyce in tow (she keeps insisting that she's sitting on something, whereupon Fields replies "I lost mine in the stock market"). A truly unique filmgoing experience, International House is a must-see for any aficionado of 1930s musical comedies. PS: The film's now-famous "outtake," showing Fields calmly advising the cast and crew not to panic while the set is rocked by a California earthquake, was actually staged several days after the genuine quake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romance, an ambitious young career woman is slated to marry a wealth man until she gets into a fender-bender and meets a poor fellow with whom she falls instantly in love. She soon jilts her fiance in favor of him. She later discovers that her new love is the errant son of a wealthy family who eventually welcome him and his new bride back into the fold. Happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Golddigging Verna Wilson (Natalie Morehead) files suit against married millionaire John Randolph (Montague Love) for breach of promise. On the verge of collecting $100,000 in "hush money," Verna discovers that her former lover (Roy D'Arcy) has broken out of jail and is heading after her with blood in his eye. Frantically, she books passage on an ocean liner bound for Europe. During the voyage, Verna is confronted by another man -- Dick Randolph (Jack Mulhall), son of the disgraced millionaire. Not long afterward, Verna's ex-lover catches up with her . . . and the result, inevitably is murder. But who done it (and who is it "done" to?) Love Bound was also released as Murder on the High Seas and Souls for Sale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

This adaptation of the Puccini opera jettisons all the music and retains only David Belasco's timeworn libretto. American actress Sylvia Sidney plays Japanese maiden Cio-Cio San, while Cary Grant is the dashing American navy lieutenant Pinkerton. The girl and the officer have a brief affair, resulting in a child. Cio-Cio San blissfully awaits the return of Pinkerton, who arrives back in Japan with his American wife in tow. The heartbroken Japanese girl bids farewell to her callous lover, then commits hara-kiri. The absence of Puccini's brilliant music makes the plot contrivances of Madame Butterfly seem creakier than ever, though Sylvia Sidney--in real life a New York Jewish girl-- is moderately convincing as the Oriental heroine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Henry Harrison Kroll's novel Cabin in the Cotton was an attack on wealthy southern landowners who exploited their sharecroppers. While the landowners still don't come off too well in Warner Bros.' film version of Kroll's novel, the film tries to avoid stepping on powerful toes, even composing an opening-title disclaimer pointing out that both sides of the issue had arguments in their favor. Richard Barthelmess, 23 going on 45, plays a sharecropper's son who wants to improve his lot with a college education. Land baron Berton Churchill advises Barthelmess' father to get those "silly ideas" out of our hero's head, lest he forget his place. Bette Davis plays Churchill's seductive daughter, whose influence with daddy enables Barthelmess to rise to the position of Churchill's bookkeeper. When Barthelmess discovers that Churchill is cooking the books, Churchill counters that Barthelmess wouldn't have any chance to advance himself without the largess of the landowners. He even tries to get Barthelmess to inform on those field workers who plan to organize a union. A potentially bloody confrontation between the workers and management is quelled by Barthelmess, who manages to wangle compromises from both sides. The only thing Barthelmess loses is Davis, but he is compensated by the affections of longtime sweetheart Dorothy Jordan. Nobody really remembers the plot complications in Cabin in the Cotton; to most viewers, the film is memorable only for Bette Davis' classic line "Ah'd love to kiss ya, but ah jest washed ma hair." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide