George Cooper Movies

Crime reporter George Melville (Joel McCrea) arrogantly repeated accurate predictions about jewel robberies. He befriends Claire (Jean Arthur), who involves him in a mysterious adventure. Later, George meets producer Blackton Gregory (Reginald Owen), who reveals Claire is an actress hired by other reporters who wanted to show George up. She's starring in a play Gregory is producing, but only as a cover for a tunnel he's having henchmen dig to an art gallery. Gregory is really Belaire, a master thief who everyone but George thinks is dead, so when Claire, now falling in love with George, innocently gives Belaire key information, he uses it against George. To Claire's dismay, this leads to George being fired and, apparently, going nuts. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Laura Bailey (Winifred Bryson) is the mistress of wealthy George Belmont (Charles Clary), and she is scared of losing her meal ticket. She goes to a psychic, Professor Gregorious (Eric Mayne), who tells her he sees death and disaster lurking around her. Shortly thereafter, Laura's sister, Sylvia (Lucille Ricksen), runs off with Belmont's son, Hugh (John Harron, the brother of Griffith protégé Robert Harron). Belmont is furious because he thinks that Laura orchestrated the elopement. He offers his mistress 20 thousand dollars to separate her sister from Hugh, but she refuses. When Belmont is found murdered, Laura becomes a suspect, as does Slug Gorman (George Cooper), a thug found nearby. They're convicted before the real killer is sussed out by the district attorney (Clarence Geldert). ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

MGM contractee Dorothy Sebastian paid a brief visit to Tiffany-Stahl to star in this bit of South Seas exotica. Unable to pay for her passage when she sails to the tropics to meet her mail-order husband, Dorothy Ryan (Sebastian) assumes the identity of a wealthy passenger who is presumed to have died. Rather enjoying the preferential treatment she receives, Dorothy continues the masquerade when she arrives at her destination. She forgets all about her husband-to-be and falls in love with local aristocrat John Rice (Larry Kent). The party comes to an end when the woman whom Dorothy is pretending to be suddenly shows up, very much alive and very angry. Disgraced in the eyes of John's family, Dorothy wanders into the jungle where she is captured by the natives and sentenced to be burned at the stake. She is spared this grisly fate by John Rice, who still loves her despite her deception. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An espionage drama set in the early 20th century, Ever in My Heart stars Barbara Stanwyck as a New England naif who marries a German citizen (Otto Kruger). In 1915, Stanwyck and her husband suffer a brace of blows: The death of their son, and the sinking of the Lusitania, the latter incident sparking a wave of anti-German sentiment. Hounded out of their small town by the angered citizens, Stanwyck and Kruger move to Europe, where the husband voluntarily leaves his wife to join the Kaiser's army. In 1917, Stanwyck, working as a canteen volunteer in France, discovers that her once pro-American husband is now a German spy. To save him from a firing squad, she poisons his wine, then kills herself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Johnny Mack Brown stars in Flames as a cocksure young firefighter named Charlie. After rescuing a cat from a burning building, Charlie and his pal Fishy (George Cooper) try to make time with the cat's pretty owners, Pat (Noel Francis) and Gertie (Marjorie Beebe). After a plenitude of comic byplay, our hero gets down to business again by battling a blaze in the firetrap apartment building next door to Pat's place. Since the film was directed by cinematographer Karl Brown, it should be no surprise that Flames is far more interesting visually than verbally. TV prints of Flames bear the reissue title The Fire Alarm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The six-year-old son of director B. Reeves Eason, Breezy Eason Jr., was killed by a runaway truck during the filming of this silent Western. Little Breezy played Pard, the adopted son of drifter Santa Fe (Harry Carey). The latter gets a job as porter in a Caliente bank, where he discovers that the banker (Alan Hale) is actually the leader of a gang of outlaws. The villain frames Johnny Harron, Carey's young friend, in a robbery and both Harron and Carey are later captured by the outlaw gang. They escape via a subterranean river and arrive in town just in time to save the sheriff (George Nichols) from an angry mob. Carey reveals himself as a special agent sent to catch the villainous Hale, and, with the assistance of the U.S. Cavalry, charges the bandit's lair. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this, its third cinema incarnation, David Belasco's hoary old Girl of the Golden West received the full swagger treatment from the otherwise lady-like Ann Harding as the gun-toting saloon belle who falls for a handsome outlaw (James Rennie). Again, the story's climax is the dramatic poker game between Harding and Sheriff Jack Rance, the stakes of which is the outlaw's freedom. Unfortunately, Miss Harding insisted that her husband, phlegmatic stage actor Harry Bannister, play the sheriff, a casting decision that somewhat upset the story's apple cart. A Broadway veteran but a cinematic novice, Bannister reportedly insisted on lecturing director John Francis Dillon on the finer aspects of art in general and film-making in particular. Needless to say, Mr. Bannister's screen career, like his marriage to Ann Harding, proved short-lived. The "Girl" herself, however, enjoyed incredible stamina and would experience two subsequent remakes: a lavish 1938 musical version starring (of course) Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy (with Walter Pidgeon as Rance) and a 1942 war-time Italian production featuring Isa Pola, Michel Simon and Rossano Brazzi as the leads. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Paul Lukas plays a nightclub headwaiter who rises to fame as a bridge expert. He marries hat check girl Loretta Young, likewise a card fanatic. Lukas and Young find themselves vying for the national bridge championship, which results in the expected frictions. All is forgiven in the climactic scenes, in which silver-tongued radio commentator Roscoe Karns gives a play-by-play of the "big game" while director William Dieterle uses freeze frames and slow motion to beef up the tension. Grand Slam is quite an eye-opener for fans of Loretta Young, who displays an unusually generous amount of thigh in her nightclub outfit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although he was completely eclipsed by his incredibly gifted relative, Sidney Chaplin was a fine farceur who could be almost as funny as brother Charles Chaplin. Here he just about steals the show from a group of other solid players. Blanche (Sylvia Breamer) will inherit her aunt's large estate, providing that she gets married within 24 hours. She chooses to wed John Ingram (Tully Marshall), an old man living at a rest home who is not expected to live much longer. She has been seen by the young, good-looking Thomas Burton (Owen Moore), who has fallen in love with her at first sight. With the help of his valet, Judd (Chaplin), he disguises himself as Ingram, whiskers and all, and marries Blanche himself. Then things get really complicated, since the old man's secretary plans to kill the old man off himself as part of a plot to acquire the fortune. Meanwhile, Blanche has taken the old man home to enjoy his last moments -- but the old man is actually Judd in disguise, while Burton pretends to be his nephew. Finally the real Ingram shows up, amidst much confusion. When the hired gunman sends for his thugs, Judd calls for help from everyone he can think of. The police, firemen, the navy, the army and several dozen others appear on the scene and the crooks are rounded up. When Blanche realizes it was Burton she actually married, she decides to make him her permanent husband. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Warner Bros.' hard-hitting chain-gang movie was a faithful adaptation of the similarly titled autobiography of Robert Elliot Burns. Paul Muni plays World War I veteran James Allen, whose plans of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Flat broke, Allen is forced to pawn his war medals, which have become a glut on the market. When Allen is innocently involved in a restaurant holdup, the police don't buy his story that the robber (Preston S. Foster) had forced him to clean out the cash register, and Allen is sentenced to ten years on a chain gang. The brutal scenes that follow make the later chain-gang movie Cool Hand Luke (1967) look like a picnic in the country. Unable to stand any more, Allen escapes and heads to Chicago. Using an alias, he builds a new life for himself and within five years is the respected president of a bridge-building firm. His landlady (Glenda Farrell), learning about his past, forces Allen to marry her. When he falls in love with another girl (Helen Vinson) and asks for a divorce, his wife turns him over to the authorities. The real-life Robert Elliot Burns was still a fugitive when he wrote his exposé of the chain-gang system; the publication of Burns' book led to the abolishment of that system and an erasure of Burns' sentence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Kenyon Nicholson play Torch Song was the source for the Joan Crawford vehicle Laughing Sinners. Crawford plays nightclub entertainer Ivy Stevens, who loses her zest for living when she's thrown over by her salesman sweetheart Howard Palmer (Neil Hamilton). At her lowest ebb, Ivy is befriended by Salvation Army captain Carl Loomis (yes, that's Clark Gable!). With her faith in God and Mankind renewed, Ivy becomes an "urban missionary," singing on street corners with Loomis and his flock. Alas, she falls from grace when she rekindles her romance with the now-married Howard. The conscience-stricken Ivy quits the Salvation Army, insisting that she's no longer worthy of the organization. But rather than accept her resignation, Carl turns in his uniform and collection plate and pledges eternal devotion to Ivy! And this all happens in a swift 71 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

George Fitzmaurice directed this romantic World War I drama, which was First National Pictures' entry into the epic war/romance genre popular in the late 1920s (The Big Parade, Wings). Colleen Moore stars as the French gamin Jeannine Bertholot who is a good luck charm to a seven-man platoon of the British Air Force that uses the lilac fields of a small French village as their base. Jeannine is the niece of Madame Berthelot (Eugenie Besserer), who lodges and cares for the platoon. After a bumpy start, one of the flyers from the platoon, Philip Blythe (Gary Cooper) falls in love with her. Philip is reluctant to tell Jeannine that he loves her, but one morning before a dangerous mission, he declares his love. During the mission, Philip is shot down, and Jeannine frantically arranges for an ambulance crew to remove Philip's body from the wreckage. But during the rescue operations, Jeannine loses sight of Philip. To find him again, she begins an exhausting search of all the military hospitals, hoping to see Philip for one last time. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide