Willard Mack Movies

Previously filmed in 1928, the old Willard Mack stage melodrama The Noose was updated and streamlined in 1936 as I'd Give My Life. Hoping that his son Nick (Tom Brown) will follow in his footsteps, jaded gangster-gambler Buck Gordon (Robert Gleckler) arranges to have the boy thrown into reform school. The kid is saved from a life of crime when Buck's ex-wife (Janet Beecher) marries Governor Bancroft (Sir Guy Standing). Enraged that his plans have been thwarted, Buck blackmails his former wife, threatening to reveal her shady past to her present husband. Rushing to his mother's defense, Nick shoots and kills Buck then refuses to explain his motives -- even as he is sentenced to hang for his crime. Frances Drake co-stars as Nick's sweetheart Mary, the role played on Broadway by Barbara Stanwyck. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this handsomely-staged adaptation of the story by Emile Zola, Anna Sten plays Nana, a woman of the streets who is spotted by noted theatrical producer Gaston Greiner (Richard Bennett). Greiner is so impressed by Nana's beauty that he gives her a part in his latest revue. Almost overnight, Nana is the toast of Paris and a star of the highest magnitude; however, fame and fortune brings her little happiness, as two brothers, Lt. George Muffat (Phillips Holmes) and Col. Andre Muffat (Lionel Atwill), both vie for her affections, leading to a bitter rivalry that ends in tragedy. Russian actress Anna Sten was brought to America as a protégé of producer Samuel Goldwyn, who sought to make Sten the "next Garbo." The resounding box office failure of Nana and Sten's next two vehicles led Goldwyn to drop her contract two years after bringing her to Hollywood, though she continued to work sporadically in films for another 25 years. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Broadway to Hollywood is a through-the-years saga about a show business family. Frank Morgan and Alice Brady play vaudeville headliners of the 1880s whose fame is eclipsed by their son (played as a youth by Jackie Cooper, then as an adult by Russell Hardie). Morgan and Brady are reduced to bit roles in a musical starring their son and his wife (Madge Evans). Alas, Sonny spoils it all by drinking and philandering, while his wife dies in a freak accident. After Hardie is killed in World War One, Morgan and Brady raise Hardie's son, who grows from Mickey Rooney to Eddie Quillan and becomes a temperamental movie star. Grandpa Morgan gives Quillan a remonstrative on-set speech about professionalism, then drops dead as his chastened grandson goes back to work. Broadway to Hollywood is principally a showcase for several elaborate musical numbers originally filmed for MGM's abandoned 1930 extravaganza The March of Time. While the plotline veers towards the ridiculous, comedy buffs are advised to stick with the film for an uncredited appearance by Moe and Curly of the Three Stooges, both dressed in bizarre clown makeup and speaking in weird German accents. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this comedy, a convict uses his skills as a masseur and a fight manager to get out of prison and become the private gym coach for a powerful oil magnate. When the instructor's little brother gets involved with his employer's daughter and they learn that the oil baron is trying to pull off shenanigans with the government all heck breaks loose so the ex-con enlists the aid of two other former inmates to help him set things right. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Clark Gable went from supporting actor to star in the space of one year with Sporting Blood, adapted from a novel by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan. Gable is top-billed as a gambling house proprietor named Rid Riddell. When the owner of a prize thoroughbred loses heavily in Riddell's establishment, he is forced to give up the horse to the gambler as security. Rid enters the horse in several honest races, then pulls the animal during a crucial race in order to collect big money on the losses; then he plans to dope up the horse to assure future wins. But when the horse loses, the gambler, deeply in debt to mobsters, transfers ownership to one of his female dealers (Madge Evans), and then drops out of the plotline. Clark Gable isn't really the lead in Sporting Blood--actually he's something of a rat--but he's the one whom everybody in the audience remembers long after the final fadeout. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this Academy Award-winning film, Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) is a hotshot Californian lawyer from a well-to-do family, whose main failing is his indulgence in alcohol. After winning a case for mobster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), Stephen brings his client along to a party at his parents' house for a little celebrating. However, when they arrive at their destination, Ace manages to steal the heart of Stephen's wild daughter, Jan (Norma Shearer), and the two run off together, much to the family's dismay. Stephen struggles to win his foolhardy daughter back from the clutches of her lowlife boyfriend, as she defies her father at every turn. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

In her final starring role, silent screen diva Mae Murray plays Dolly, a young gold digger who manages to trap a rich widower, Dick (Edward Martindel). Although the couple seems happy enough, Dick's alcoholic brother, Joe (Lowell Sherman), becomes suspicious of the girl's motives and suspicion gives way to certainty when he spots Dolly embracing one Louis DeSalta (Leyland Hodgson), supposedly a stranger. Leaving the booze behind, Joe sets a trap for Dolly and DeSalta, who are made to confess. High Stakes was directed by its star, Lowell Sherman, who also cast the entertainingly over-the-top Murray in the comedy Bachelor Apartment (1931). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Sparring landladies provide the focus of this comedy. The two women are constantly competing to take in the most boarders at their respective homes. Though outwardly jealous rivals, the women are actually best friends. The competition gets more intense when one woman's daughter falls for the other's son. Now the women, who have secretly made a killing playing the stock market, try to see which one can put on the fanciest wedding. In the end, the couple weds and the women renew their friendship. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

At the height of his activity as Hollywood's foremost producer of 2-reel comedies, Hal Roach developed the urge to direct a feature film and thus went down the street to MGM to helm the rip-roaring adventure yarn Men of the North. Gilbert Roland stars as Louis LaBey, a French-Canadian trapper who falls in love with Nedra (Barbara Leonard), daughter of a wealthy gold-mine owner. Hampering Louis' romance is the fact that he is suspected of a series of daring daylight robberies, wherein gold messengers are robbed of their cargo. It turns out that he is guilty, but through an 11th-hour plot twist it is proven that Louis was actually only stealing from himself! Men of the North was also filmed in Spanish, German, French and Italian-language versions, with Gilbert Roland repeating his role in the Spanish adaptation, and John Reinhardt, Andre Luguet and Franco Corsaro respectively starring in the other versions. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Writer/director/actor Willard Mack took one look at the blockbuster stage play Broadway and said to himself "I can do that, and at half the price." The result was Voice of the City, in which Mack does what amounts to a carbon copy of Thomas Jackson's performance as the detective protagonist of Broadway. The plotline involves Robert Ames, a young man wrongly accused of murder. At first, Mack relentlessly pursues Ames, but once convinced of the boy's innocence, the detective uses as many dirty tricks as he can muster to pin the blame on the real killer, gangster John Miljan. Opera star Geraldine Farrar once described Willard Mack as "brilliant--but a lousy writer." Not exactly lousy, Mack did however worship at the altar of banality in Voice of the City. Trivia note: This film's leading lady was Sylvia Field, wife of Broadway star Ernest Truex and later the first Mrs. Wilson on the TV sitcom Dennis the Menace. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on Olympia, a 1928 Ferenc Molnar stage soufflé, His Glorious Night has gone down in history as having more or less single-handedly caused the downfall of silent-screen matinee idol John Gilbert, whose ardent declarations of "I love you, I love you" to an overly inert Catherine Dale Owen were parodied twenty-odd years later in MGM's otherwise highly apocryphal Singing in the Rain (1952). Owen, from the Broadway stage, plays Princess Orsolini, who refuses an arranged marriage in favor of dallying with Kovacs (Gilbert), a dashing cavalry officer. But on the advice of her mother (stage luminary Nance O'Neil), the princess reluctantly informs Kovacs that she cannot love the offspring of a peasant. In revenge, the latter indulges in a bit of blackmail, but true love wins out in the end -- to the energetic strains of Franz Von Suppé's "Light Cavalry Overture". Rumors to the contrary, the problem was not with Gilbert's voice but with screenwriter Willard Mack's overly florid dialogue, which might have been fine as subtitles but sounded downright embarrassing to audiences when spoken by a cast suffering from the stilted direction of a microphone-conscious Lionel Barrymore. His Glorious Night was rather more successful in three foreign-language versions: Olimpia featuring Maria Alba and José Crespo, Olympia with Nora Gregor and Theo Schall, and Si L'empereur Savait Ça featuring Françoise Rosay and André Luguet. The story was remade by director Michael Curtiz in 1960 as A Breath of Scandal starring Sophia Loren and John Gavin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi