Robert Riskin Movies

Bank president Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston) has instituted a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but which also irritates his board of directors, as does his claim that an increased money supply will help end the Depression. Elsewhere in the bank, criminal Dude Finlay (Robert Ellis) has coerced head cashier Cluett (Gavin Gordon) into cooperating with a robbery by threatening to reveal Cluett as a habitual gambler. Dickson's neglected wife Phyllis (Kay Johnson), upset that Thomas has forgotten their anniversary, agrees to go out with Cluett, but they're spotted by head teller Matt Brown (Pat O'Brien). Matt goes to Cluett's apartment and convinces Phyllis to leave with him just as the robbery takes place back at the bank. Because he was responsible for locking the vault, Matt is assumed to be in league with the robbers, and he's arrested. News of the robbery leads to frantic depositors demanding their money back from the bank; Dickson cannot talk them out of it, and the bank is running out of money. This gives the board of directors the leverage over Dickson that they've been seeking, and they try to force his resignation. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

When Lt. Bob Denton (John Wayne) tells his girlfriend Evelyn (Laura La Plante) that he has no intention of marrying her, she takes her revenge by romancing Denton's protege and father figure Colonel Bonham (Forrest Stanley). Unbeknownst to Evelyn (La Plante), Denton (Wayne) begins to court Evelyn's younger sister Bonita (June Clyde). It doesn't take long for Denton to fall in love with Bonita (Clyde), and the former ladies man decides to commit to their relationship. Though a reformed Denton secretly marries Bonita, Evelyn finds a way to convince the Colonel that Denton had made illicit advances at her. Feeling angry and betrayed, Colonal Bonham asks for Denton's resignation. Men Are Like That was directed by George B. Seitz and also features actress (Susan Fleming). ~ Tracie Cooper, 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

In this romantic sex-comedy from director Robert Florey, Bette Davis stars as Helen Bauer, a free-spirited, self-sufficient feminist who would rather pursue her career as a graphic artist than settle down and marry Don Peterson (Gene Raymond), the advertising writer she loves, out of fear that marriage will destroy the romance. Eventually, Don wears Helen down and the couple marry. But when the flame quickly burns out, Don begins an affair with a female client. Not to be outdone and without missing a beat, Helen takes up with Nick Malvyn (Monroe Owsley), another ad writer, who by no coincidence also happens to be Don's biggest rival. In light of their respective bouts of infidelity, the couple must consider whether or not they want to give the marriage another shot. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Here Comes the Groom was the second collaboration between director Frank Capra and star Bing Crosby. Though not as "socially relevant" as previous Capra productions, the film is a thoroughly likeable yarn about a happy-go-lucky newspaperman named Pete (Bing Crosby). In order to legally adopt a brace of war orphans, Pete must marry within a week. His plans to wed his longtime sweetheart Emmadel (Jane Wyman) come acropper when she, tired of waiting for him to pop the question, becomes engaged to wealthy Wilbur Stanley (Franchot Tone). Conspiring with Wilbur's cousin Winifred (Alexis Smith), Pete spends the balance of the film trying to win Emmadel back. From all accounts, the set of Here Comes the Groom was a happy one, the conviviality extending to Alexis Smith's willingness to be on the receiving end of several jokes concerning her height (she seems nearly a head taller than Crosby!). The film's best scene is the Bing Crosby-Jane Wyman duet "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," reportedly filmed in one take without post-dubbing. As a bonus, Here Comes the Groom introduces a bright new singing talent, Anna Maria Alberghetti, and is festooned with uncredited guest stars, ranging from Dorothy Lamour to Louis Armstrong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

It took British author James Hilton six weeks to write his visionary novel Lost Horizon. It took director Frank Capra two years-and half of his home studio Columbia's annual budget-to bring it to the screen. After a lengthy preamble, inviting audiences to imagine their own ideas of Utopia, the film opens on a chaotic scene at a Chinese airfield. As hordes of bandits approach, hundreds of refugees scramble to board the last plane out. Only five people make it: Mildly disenchanted Far Eastern diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman), his hotheaded younger brother George (John Howard), embezzler Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), dithery fossil expert Lovett (Edward Everett Horton) and consumptive prostitute Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell). As the plane flies off towards the Himalayas, Robert realizes that he and his fellow passengers are heading in the wrong direction. They are, in fact, being kidnapped-but why? And where to? The plane crash-lands in the snowy Tibetan interior. The pilot is killed, but the passengers are safe. By and by, a strange caravan approaches, led by an enigmatic Chinese named Chang (H. B. Warner). Joining the caravan, Conway and his party are led through a treacherous mountain pass and into a land of temperate weather and dazzling beauty. This is Shangri-La, the idyllic lamasery presided over by the aged, wizened High Lama (Sam Jaffe). In this fertile valley, people are not encumbered by such exigencies as crime, dictators and hatred; instead, everyone is devoted to the pursuit of wisdom and self-improvement-and best of all, the aging process has been slowed to a walk, allowing people to live well past the two-century mark. Though he still does not know why he was brought here, Conway is quicker to adapt to Shangri-La than his wary fellow passengers. He even falls in love with Sondra (Jane Wyatt), an attractive, intelligent young woman. Finally granted an audience with the High Lama, Conway discovers that the old man is actually Father Perrault, the Belgian missionary who founded Shangri-La-over two hundred years earlier. Dying, the High Lama has selected Conway, whose idealism and even-handedness is world famous, to succeed him-and hopefully spread the "love thy neighbor" edict of Shangri-La to the rest of the war-torn world. Conway is willing to assume leadership, but younger brother George, his mind poisoned by spiteful Shangri-La resident Maria (Margo), insists upon escaping to the outside world. The older Conway warns that, despite her youthful appearance, Maria is well past sixty and will surely perish once she leaves Shangri-La; but Maria retorts that the high lama is insane, and that everything he has told Conway is a lie. Disillusioned, Conway agrees to leave with Jack and Maria. The trek back to civilization is a grueling one, especially for Maria, who-true to Conway's prediction-shrivels from age and dies. Appalled that he has been misled, George kills himself. Weeks later, and amnesiac Conway stumbles into a Tibetan mission, where he is rescued and brought back to England. When his memory is restored, however, Conway runs back to Shangri-La, and into the arms of Sondra. When Lost Horizon was shown to preview audiences, it ran nearly three hours-and it was a disaster. In his autobiography, Capra claims to have rescued his pet project by merely burning the first two reels and opening the film with the evacuation scene; In fact, while Capra did remove the film's "flashback" framework, he made most of his cuts in the body of the picture. The release length of Lost Horizon was 132 minutes, pared down to 119 when it when into general distribution. When it was reissued in the 1940s and 1950s, it was rather clumsily pared down to anywhere from 95 to 100 minutes. Only in the mid-1980s was Lost Horizon restored to its original length, with stills used to illustrate certain scenes for which only the soundtrack existed. While not the enormous hit Capra and Columbia had hoped it would be, Lost Horizon was popular enough to allow the name "Shangri-La" enter the household-word category. In 1973, producer Ross Hunter felt the urge to inflict a wretched musical remake onto an unsuspecting public. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Young Joan Bennett and Lew Ayres make an attractive couple in the Universal programmer Many a Slip. Because of her imperious attitude, beautiful young debutante Pat Coster (Bennett) can't find a boy friend until Jerry Brooks (Ayres) comes along. Anxious not to lose Jerry, Pat leads him to believe that she's pregnant. Only after they've exchanged wedding vows does Pat reveal that no baby is forthcoming, whereupon the angry Jerry walks out on her. Trouble is, Pat is now pregnant for real! This is one film in which stars definitely outshine the story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a woman with dubious past finds herself blackmailed when she makes plans to marry a senator's son. She finds salvation with a bootlegger who offers to take care of the excursionist. Unfortunately, he chooses to kill the fellow, gets caught, and is put on trial. Now the woman must choose to risk reputation, and good marriage or tell the truth and save him from the electric chair. Eventually, she chooses the honorable path and happiness ensues all around. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in his life: he just wants enough time to practice his tuba and compose greeting-card doggerel. When Deeds is convinced to move to New York, hard-boiled newspaper reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur) is dispatched to get the inside scoop on "The Cinderella Man." Babe's stories of Deeds' eccentricities and no-nonsense dealings with phonies and poseurs provide excellent headline fodder; but she begins to regret her actions, having fallen in love with the big lug. Deeds ultimately sets up a foundation to dispense his fortune to the country's neediest souls, on the proviso that the recipients do their best to get back on their feet, a turn of events that leads his lawyer John Cedar (Douglas Dumbrille) to try to have him declared insane. By the end of the sanity hearing, the judge (H. B. Walker) declares: "Not only are you sane, but you're the sanest man who ever walked in this courtroom!" A joyously unadulterated hunk of Frank Capra-corn, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was adapted by Robert Riskin from Clarence Buddington Kelland's short story "Opera Hat." In addition to the pleasure of watching the country bumpkin outwit city slickers, the movie is a film buff's dream, boasting one of the best character-actor casts ever assembled for a single film. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the film won Frank Capra his second Oscar (out of three) as Best Director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anxious to remain active in the 1950s, director Frank Capra wanted to prove to Paramount Pictures that he could deliver an "A" picture on a modest budget. To that end, Capra bought the rights of his 1934 film Broadway Bill from Columbia, and remade it under the title Riding High. He then hired many of the supporting actors who'd appeared in Broadway Bill -- including Clarence Muse, Douglass Dumbrille, Ward Bond, Charles Lane and Frankie Darro -- so he could match up his newly shot scenes with stock footage from the earlier film. Capra even kept the musical costs down by having star Bing Crosby sing such public-domain favorites as "Camptown Races" (though there is one delightful original song, "We Ought to Bake a Sunshine Camera" performed without dubbing by Crosby, Muse, and leading-lady Colleen Gray). Crosby steps into the old Warner Baxter role as Dan Brooks, scion of a wealthy family who prefers hanging around racetracks to the responsibilities of his family business. Scheduled for a "proper" marriage to Margaret Higgins (Frances Gifford), the snooty daughter of millionaire J. L. Higgins (Charles Bickford), Dan infinitely prefers the company of Margaret's younger sister Alice (Coleen Gray), who loves horses as much as he. Hoping to declare his financial independence, he pins his future on a racehorse named Broadway Bill. Though not in the same league as Capra's earlier classics, Riding High is lots of fun. It is especially enjoyable for film buffs, thanks to Capra's decision to fill the picture with uncredited celebrity cameo appearances -- including Oliver Hardy, minus Stan Laurel, as an apoplectic horse player. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A minister's daughter finds fame as an evangelist but struggles with her own lack of faith in Frank Capra's impassioned drama. Inspired by the true story of Aimee Semple McPherson, the film follows the rise to prominence of Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck). Disillusioned by the mistreatment of her dying father by his church, Florence grows cynical about religion. She nevertheless retains an intimate knowledge of the Bible and natural flair for preaching, talents put to use by promoter Bob Hornsby (Sam Hardy) in a series of phony revival meetings, complete with staged healings and other stunts. Florence plays along, but she soon comes to take her religious mission more seriously, especially after a blind songwriter John Carson (David Manners) claims that her preaching saved his life. Guilt-ridden Florence decides to go straight, but Hornsby sets out to stop her, seeing her new-found morality -- and her budding romance with John -- as a threat to his lucrative business. Foreshadowing many of his better-known classics, Capra addresses issues about the manipulation of the public and the importance of truth while also presenting an unlikely romance. The film's treatment of religion was considered controversial on its initial release; it now seems justifiably complex but far from critical. The film's most notable element is the intense lead performance from Stanwyck, whose combination of fiery charisma and vulnerability is magnetic and convincing, providing Capra's ambitious drama with a gripping emotional core. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Set during the turn-of-the-century Moro uprising in the Philippines, The Real Glory stars Gary Cooper as an American Marine doctor and David Niven and Broderick Crawford as a pair of rowdy mercenaries. While staving off the insurgent Moros, Cooper must also combat a cholera outbreak. Once this matter is disposed of, Cooper joins Niven and Crawford in attempting to blow up a dam built by the Moros to cut off the American fort's water supply. After all this activity, it's small wonder that Cooper elects to return to private practice in the States with his new bride Andrea Leeds. While The Real Glory never skimps in the action department, the film is somewhat lacking in historical accuracy: the Moros were hardly the bloodthirsty savages depicted herein. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide