Michael Curtiz Movies
Michael Curtiz was one of Hollywood's most prolific and colorful directors. Born to a well-to-do Jewish family in Budapest, he ran away from home at age 17 to join a circus, then trained for an acting career at the Royal Academy for Theater and Art. He worked as a leading man at the Hungarian Theatre before directing stage plays and then films. His first cinematic effort was Az Utolsó Bohém (1912), which was also the first feature-length film ever made in Hungary. Curtiz soon moved on to the more progressive Danish film industry, returning to his homeland in 1914 and serving a year in the Austro-Hungarian infantry before resuming his film career. While it may be arguable that Curtiz was Hungary's finest director, he was certainly its busiest, making no fewer than 14 films in 1917, most of which starred his first wife, actress Lucy Dorraine. When the Hungarian film industry was nationalized by the new communist government in 1919, Curtiz packed his bags and headed for Sweden, France, Germany, and Austria. He directed 21 European pictures in a seven-year period, including the epic Sodom and Gomorrah (1923), which was also the film debut of Walter Slezak.In 1926, Curtiz was brought to Hollywood by Warner Bros.; going along for the ride was the director's second wife, actress Lili Damita, who later married Curtiz's frequent star Errol Flynn. (The director's third and final wife was screenwriter Bess Meredyth). Curtiz's first few American films were stylish but only moderately expensive. But not so 1929's Noah's Ark, a super-spectacular production which bombed at the box office but also firmly established Curtiz as a "prestige" director. It also set the standard for an utter lack of concern for the well-being of actors; several extras died during the climactic flood sequence, reportedly because Curtiz, hoping to incur genuine panic in his performers, had failed to inform them that they'd be deluged with tons of water. Most leading actors despised the dictatorial filmmaker, but were willing to work with him time and again due to his uncanny knack for turning out top-notch movies. While his detractors have noted that Curtiz's much-praised visual style was due more to Warner's team of cinematographers and art directors than to the director himself, few can deny that his films were among the best and most profitable that the studio ever turned out. Listing his greatest sound films would require a book, in itself, but a representative cross-section of Curtiz's creative contributions of the 1930s and '40s include: Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), Casablanca (1942, and for which he won an Oscar), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), Night and Day (1946), and Life With Father (1947). Even in his professional dotage, he was responsible for one of the biggest box-office successes of the mid-'50s, White Christmas (1954). Curtiz died in 1962, one year after completing his final film, The Comancheros with John Wayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Often (and accurately) described as a model of the whodunit genre, The Kennel Murder Case stars William Powell, making his fourth screen appearance as S. S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance. This time the story involves intrigue at the Long Island kennel club. The murder victim is Robert H. Barrat, who works overtime making himself a much-hated target in the first ten minutes. With the aid of a Doberman, Vance solves not only Barrat's murder but a follow-up killing designed to deflect attention from the killer. The suspects include Mary Astor, Ralph Morgan, Jack LaRue, Helen Vinson, Paul Cavanaugh and Arthur Hohl, all of whom have "done it" from time to time in other murder mysteries (movie buffs, however, will have little trouble spotting the killer; the person in question has probably been the hidden murderer in more films than any other member of the Screen Actor's Guild). Kennel Murder Case was William Powell's last "Philo Vance" film; it would be remade in 1940 as Calling Philo Vance, with James Stephenson as Vance and a new World War II angle added to the plot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Powell, Mary Astor, (more)
- 1933
The Mystery of the Wax Museum begins in London in the 1920s. Lionel Atwill plays Ivan Igor, a brilliant sculptor who manages a wax museum. Regarding his historical creations as his friends, Igor refuses the entreaties of his business partner, Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell), to turn his labor-of-love museum into a more profitable "house of horror." Worth responds by setting fire to the museum, hoping to collect the insurance; as Igor looks on in horror, his effigies of Marie Antoinette, Queen Victoria, et al. grotesquely melt to the floor. Flash-forward to 1933: New York City is plagued by several disappearances -- not only of live people, but of recently deceased corpses from the morgue. Hard-boiled girl reporter Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell) browbeats her long-suffering editor Jim(Frank McHugh) into investigating these disappearances. Florence rooms with Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray), the girlfriend of Ralph Burton (Allen Vincent), who works as a technician at a new midtown wax museum. This about-to-open attraction is run by Igor, who had survived the London fire but is now confined to a wheelchair. Igor's old enemy Worth is also in New York, his fingers in several crooked pies. It appears to Florence (and the audience) that somehow Worth is involved in the recent rash of disappearances; the guilty party could also be playboy George Winton (Gavin Gordon), Florence's boyfriend, who is deeply in debt to Worth. But once Igor decides that Charlotte is the living image of Marie Antoinette, the audience becomes uncomfortably suspicious that all those incredibly life-like statues in his museum are actually the paraffin-coated bodies of the missing people. Igor tips his hand when a terrified Charlotte, promised "eternal life" by being "transformed" into an Antoinette effigy, begins punching and clawing at his face -- revealing his countenance to be a mask, covering his hideously burned and gnarled features. Thus, the stage is set for the climactic race to prevent the strapped-down Charlotte from being permanently encased in wax. Long thought lost, The Mystery of the Wax Museum was rediscovered in Jack Warner's personal film collection in 1970. Its two-color Technicolor had faded to the point of monochrome, but fortunately its original hues were preserved by dedicated AFI technicians. The film was remade (and considerably simplified) as the 1953 3-D extravaganza House of Wax, with Vincent Price in the Atwill role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, (more)
- 1933
Ruth Chatterton tears up the screen in this fast-paced, lusty comedy. Alison Drake is an automobile magnate, a hard-nosed, hardboiled business woman making dozens of important decisions a day. In her private life, however, she is passionate and bold in her pursuit of male companionship, which she frequently finds among the ranks of her own employees and executives; the problem is that these men can't abide the fact that back at work, she's all business again; and she keeps having to get their long, mopey faces out of her presence by transferring them elsewhere. Then she meets Jim Thorne (George Brent), a gifted engineer who is attracted to Drake but isn't a callow, cowtowing yes-man, and isn't awed by her millions. After a few awkward encounters, they find a balance in their lives together, or so she thinks, until he proposes marriage. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, (more)
- 1933
Sent to Sing Sing prison, influential crook Spencer Tracy is unregenerate and refuses to adhere to the rules. While in solitary confinement, Tracy reconsiders his attitude. Thanks to the correctional facility's compassionate warden (Arthur Byron), Tracy becomes a model prisoner, even refusing to participate in a jailbreak. The warden sets up a special program permitting selected prisoners a degree of freedom and even suggests allowing an occasional furlough. When Tracy's girl friend (Bette Davis) is hurt in an auto accident, he is given a 24 hour pass to visit her. It's a test case--if Tracy doesn't return, the warden will be discredited and replaced. While on the "outside," Tracy learns that his old rival (Louis Calhern) was responsible for his girl's injuries. Davis shoots the rival, who in turn fingers Tracy as the one responsible; the convict thus risks execution upon returning to the arms of the law. Based on the book by real-life Sing Sing warden Lewis E. Lawes, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing was remade in 1940 as Castle on the Hudson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, (more)
- 1933
Famous author Kenneth Bixby (Warren William) would like to jump-start his romance with ex-sweetheart Julie (Genevieve Tobin). There are, however, at least two people who'd prefer that Bixby stick to writing and stay away from Julie. One is Julie's husband Harvey Wilson (Hugh Herbert); the other is Bixby's loyal secretary Anne (Joan Blondell), who's been carrying a torch for her boss for years. It all winds up in a cross-country chase, with everybody suspiciously tailing everybody else. Based on a play by George Haight and Allan Scott, Goodbye Again was dutifully remade under a different title by the Warner Bros. "B" unit in the early 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Genevieve Tobin, (more)
- 1933
In this melodrama, the wife of a wealthy man abruptly leaves him and sets sail for Cuba leaving him to hire a gumshoe to find out why. The girl left because she was being blackmailed for $50,000 by her former ex-husband who claims that they were never legally divorced. Before heading to Cuba for a hasty divorce, the distraught wife tells all to her sister-in-law. Meanwhile the detective is aboard the same ship as the wife and as he gets to know her cannot help but fall in love with her. The detective doesn't realize that her ex-husband is also on board, but she does and is happy about it because she wants to see if she can get her ex (not a US citizen) barred from reentry. Back at home, the sister-in-law tells her increasingly suspicious brother the truth about the situation and he immediately flies to Cuba to get there just in time for the exciting conclusion. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kay Francis, George Brent, (more)
- 1932
In this strange, convoluted tale, a hotel clerk ends up pregnant and alone after she has a brief fling with a wealthy playboy. Shortly after her daughter's birth, she hooks up with a criminal. She does not realize that the good-hearted bellboy with whom she works secretly loves her. When the criminal inadvertently involves her in a murder, an eager-beaver reporter, who also grows to lover her, hatches a clever scheme to save her and win her hand. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Dvorak, Lee Tracy, (more)
- 1932
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
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Dorothy Jordan, (more)
- 1932
In this WW II drama, the commander of the French cruiser Lafayette is sunk by a German U-boat. Following the rescue of the survivors, the commander undergoes an investigative hearing to determine his culpability in the sinking. He didn't know it at the time, but his philandering young wife was trysting with a handsome young officer and ended up stuck on the cruise. The woman survived the incident. To save her husband's career, she tearfully admits her adultery in court. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lil Dagover, Walter Huston, (more)
- 1932
A Bavarian orphan, raised by a wealthy family, grows up to become a promising physician (Richard Barthelmess). Meanwhile, the privileged young man (Norman Foster) with whom Barthelmess has grown up fails to make the grade at medical school. When Foster bungles an operation, Barthelmess nobly accepts the blame, thereby ruining his own career. The truth comes out after several scenes in which self-sacrificing Barthelmess is pilloried by all those who'd once loved and trusted him. Alias the Doctor reportedly features Boris Karloff as an autopsy surgeon, though in most existing prints the role credited to Karloff is played by John St. Polis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Marian Marsh, (more)
- 1932
Fay Wray screams when she first lays eyes on Lionel Atwill in Doctor X, but don't let that fool you. Atwill plays Fay's father this time around, and he may very well not be the diabolical "Moon Murderer" whom the police are seeking. Dr. Xavier (Atwill) maintains a research lab in a remote Long Island estate. The police suspect that one of Xavier's assistants--all "second-chancers" whose previous misdemeanors range from botched experiments to cannibalism!--is the mysterious murderer who strikes only when the moon is full. Newspaper reporter Lee Tracy sneaks into the estate to get a swell scoop, whereupon he falls in love with Fay. In trying to help the authorities, Xavier stages an elaborate trap for the Moon Murderer, with his daughter as the willing bait. The killer (we won't tell you who it is, but you'll figure it out anyway) reveals himself by coating his body with "synthetic flesh", which gives him supernatural powers. Based on a play by Howard C. Comstock and Allen C. Miner, Doctor X was originally filmed in two-color Technicolor; available for years only in black and white, the film was restored to its full tinted state in the 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lionel Atwill, Lee Tracy, (more)
- 1931
The second of three versions of James Oliver Curwood's pulp fiction drama of a mountie and his separated-at-birth prey stars Charles Bickford as both Sgt. Conniston and accused murderer John Keith. The latter is persuaded to prove his innocence by impersonating his captor, who has conveniently died from a "frosted heart." Everyone at the Mountie outpost likes the "new" Conniston, especially the dead mountie's girlfriend, Miriam (Evelyn Knapp), who just happens to be the daughter of the commandant (David Torrence). This idyll, however, is rudely interrupted when a jealous rival (Walter McGrail) reveals that Conniston has a wife and child stacked away in faraway England, a development that forces Keith to show his hand. River's End had been filmed in 1920 as a vehicle for Lewis Stone and would be remade in 1940 starring Dennis Moore. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bickford, Evelyn Knapp, (more)
- 1931
In this light-hearted musical, an early color film, a successful actress tires of the bustle and hustle of her tawdry life and settles down to what she thinks is the blissful mundaneness of married life. Unfortunately, the actual drudgery of wifedom takes her by surprise and domestic turmoil ensues. Songs include: "Nobody Cares If I'm Blue", "I'm Crazy for Cannibal Love", "Song of the Congo", ""You're an Eyeful of Heaven"". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1931
More of a follow-up than a sequel to 1931's popular Svengali, this drama centers on the attempts of a club-footed and insanely bitter dance instructor to cling to his protege. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, (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)
- 1931
In this WW I comedy, several young men decide to join the army. Each one has his own reason for joining up. Songs include: "Forever," "Qui, Qui," "Honey Boy," "Ja, Ja, Ja," "Side by Side." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lotti Loder, Harry Langdon, (more)
- 1930
Whatever rapport comedian Frank Fay enjoyed with Broadway audiences invariably evaporated when he appeared on film. In The Matrimonial Bed, Fay is his usual overbearing self as Adolphe, a small-town husband who is rendered an amnesiac in a train crash. Five years pass, during which time Adolphe marries Southern belle Sylvaine (Lilyan Tashman). In the meantime, Wife Number One Juliette (Florence Eldridge), believing her husband dead, has also remarried, to Gustave (James Gleason). One afternoon, she walks by a neighborhood barbershop, where Adolphe is now working -- and it isn't hard to guess what happens next. The fact that Frank Fay and director Michael Curtiz were constitutionally incapable of getting along undoubtedly hurt the overall effectiveness of this otherwise passable farce. Matrimonial Bed was remade in 1941 as Kisses for Breakfast, where it was frankly much funnier; on the other hand, the earlier film does contain a surprising amount of "gay" humor which still elicits chuckles when seen today. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Fay, Lilyan Tashman, (more)
- 1930
Comedian Frank Fay and director Michael Curtiz reportedly despised one another at sight, and their mutual animosity tends to seep through every frame of Under a Texas Moon. The vainglorious Fay is cast as Don Carlos, a gay caballero ("gay" meaning "carefree") whose serenades every senorita he meets. When a group of ranchers post a $7000 dollar reward for the capture of the Bad Man of the Pool (Fred Kohler), a notorious bandit, Don Carlos passes himself off as a daring cattle rustler and promises to bring the Bad Man to heel within 10 days. Characteristically, he spends nine of those ten days romancing such lovelies as Raquella (Raquel Torres), Lolita (Myrna Loy) and Dolores (Armida). All of this was played for laughs, but Frank Fay's special brand of quiet put-down humor didn't play quite as well on screen as it did on stage. Under a Texas Moon was originally released in Technicolor, but try finding a color print today. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Fay, Raquel Torres, (more)
- 1930
Mammy features Al Jolson as the star of a travelling minstrel show, appearing in a small Southern town. Jolson falls in love with an actress in the troupe (Lois Moran), but she loves another. One of Jolson's fellow minstrels (Lowell Sherman) is shot backstage, and it is assumed thanks to several plot convolutions that Jolson is guilty of the deed. He heads for the hills, but returns to the show, his reputation restored but his love for the actress unrequited. Maudlin in the extreme, Mammy is salvaged by several enjoyable songs by Irving Berlin and by its Technicolor photography (though most TV prints are black and white). The film's fascination with modern viewers rests with the presence of Al Jolson--and with the casual use of profanity during his confrontation scene with Lowell Sherman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Al Jolson, Lois Moran, (more)
- 1929
This drama opens with a most disturbing scene as a jilted lover places a gun to his head and pulls the trigger. Fortunately, he is but an actor in a play and the gun is but a prop. His co-star is a beautiful young woman. A young man is utterly in love with the actress and after the show visits her and presents her with an arm-load of fragrant blossoms. He then invites her to meet his wealthy family in Philadelphia. The family, who lives in an ancient mansion, prove to be a very strange lot. The father is a stern and dour fellow. Grandpa is a lascivious old coot. She also meets an assortment of snobs and perverts. Upon meeting her, they immediately assume that she is a gold digger. Soon the family lawyer offers her a large amount of money for the love letters the young man had written her. She accepts the money and then gives it to the boy to keep him on the straight and narrow. Her good deeds are finally made apparent to the dour patriarch who begins courting her and eventually marries her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Costello, Ralph Graves, (more)
- 1929
Although there was little love lost between star Dolores Costello and director Michael Curtiz, the two Warner Bros. contractees collaborated on several films, including the early-talkie Madonna of Avenue A. Costello plays Maria Marton, an expensively educated young miss who has been led to believe that her mother Georgia (Louise Dresser) is a high-society doyenne. Our heroine is in for quite a shock when she learns that her sainted mom is actually the blowzy proprietress of a seedy dime-a-dance joint. Among the scriptwriters of Madonna of Avenue A was one Mark Canfield, a pseudonym for Warner's scriptwriter/producer Darryl F. Zanuck. The film's plot would be reworked several times, most memorably as the 1953 Doris Day vehicle Lullaby of Broadway. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Costello, Louise Dresser, (more)
- 1929
In this romance set in Russia, a fisherman's daughter is jilted by her true love and instead marries a baron. Time passes and the two men meet each other in Siberia where they have both been exiled. When the poorer man has the opportunity to come home, he changes places with the baron so that he can return to his wife. Unbeknownst to him, she has gone to the frozen wasteland to search for him. Instead she meets her old love, and they soon find themselves once again involved. The distraught baron tries to get revenge by killing himself. The lovers then are united at last. The film was created with two different happy endings. In one, the couple returns to their home and live in freedom. In the other, they remain together in captivity. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Costello, Grant Withers, (more)
- 1929
The 1929 Wall Street crash was still two months in the future when Warner Bros.' Gamblers was released in the late summer of 1929. Jason Robards Sr. and George Fawcett play Carvel Emerson Jr. and Emerson Sr., father-and-son stock manipulators who "gamble" their firm's assets on a risky proposition. The plot is spiced up by the fact that Emerson Jr. is the former sweetheart of Catherine Darwin (Lois Wilson), the wife of diligent district attorney James Darwin (H.B. Warner). When Emerson Jr. is caught investing money that doesn't belong to him, he is indicted on a swindling charge, giving Darwin a golden opportunity to prosecute his romantic rival in court. A surprise plot twist in the last reel hardly compensates for the film's overall predictability. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- H.B. Warner, Lois Wilson, (more)
- 1928
Directed by a young Michael Curtiz, this Warner Bros. epic had aspirations of becoming another Intolerance (1916). In the end, Curtiz' treatise of man's inhumanity to man was ironically sabotaged by the enormous success of yet another studio release, the groundbreaking The Jazz Singer (1927). Basically a quaint romantic melodrama set during World War I, Noah's Ark opens with American George O'Brien falling in love with German Dolores Costelllo while travelling on the Orient Express on the eve of war. The train wrecks and the two seek shelter at a nearby hostelry. Russian military officer Noah Beery tries to molest Miss Costello but is repulsed by O'Brien. The three meet again near the end of the war in a little French village, where Beery accuses Costello, now Mrs. O'Brien, of being a German spy. Placed before a firing squad, Dolores is saved in the nick of time by her husband, a member of the squad.The Germans use this very moment to bomb and all are soon entombed in the basement of a demolished building. Comparing the war with the Biblical account of the Flood, screenwriters Anthony Coldeway and Darryl F. Zanuck flash back to Miriam (Costello) and Japheth (O'Brien) at the festival of Jaghut. The climactic Flood (the filming of which brought Miss Costello a severe case of pneumonia) pulls out all the stops and is magnificent in UCLA's lovingly restored print. After the deluge, the story shifts back to war-torn France, where Costello and O'Brien are rescued by the Red Cross on the eve of the Armistice. Ready to be released, Warner Bros. withdrew the film in order to add several scenes of dialogue, considered a necessity after the unprecedented reception of The Jazz Singer. The results were doleful: Ever so often, Noah's Ark comes to a screetching halt as the characters leave the realm of silent movies to speak stolid lines of dialogue. The cumbersome Vitaphone sound-on-disc made for pedestrian drama as everyone were forced to speak slowly and enunciate carefully. Dolores Costello, Warners' blonde leading lady and the off-screen Mrs. John Barrymore, suffered the most and would see her flourishing career all but evaporate. But UCLA's restoration of Noah's Ark proves once and for all that the rumors of Miss Costello having trouble with sibilants were highly exaggerated. It was Costello's line-reading of "Merthy, merthy, have you no thisther of your own?" in Tenderloin (1928) that supposedly sealed her fate in talkies. But even though the restored Noah's Ark shows little sign of the dreaded lisp, the hapless Miss Costello is visibly ill at ease before the microphone and her stilted dialogue, by Coldeway, is of no help whatsoever. "Part-talkies" like Noah's Ark were mercifully only a stop-gap measure; by the time of M-G-M's Broadway Melody (released June 6, 1929), "all-talking, all-dancing" features had already freed themselves from the constraints of early sound technology. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Costello, George O'Brien, (more)
