John Carradine Movies
Though best known to modern filmgoers as a horror star, cadaverous John Carradine was, in his prime, one of the most versatile character actors on the silver screen. The son of a journalist father and physician mother, Carradine was given an expensive education in Philadelphia and New York. Upon graduating from the Graphic Arts School, he intended to make his living as a painter and sculptor, but in 1923 he was sidetracked into acting. Working for a series of low-paying stock companies throughout the 1920s, he made ends meet as a quick-sketch portrait painter and scenic designer. He came to Hollywood in 1930, where his extensive talents and eccentric behavior almost immediately brought him to the attention of casting directors. He played a dizzying variety of distinctive bit parts -- a huntsman in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a crowd agitator in Les Miserables (1935) -- before he was signed to a 20th Century Fox contract in 1936. His first major role was the sadistic prison guard in John Ford's Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), which launched a long and fruitful association with Ford, culminating in such memorable screen characterizations as the gentleman gambler in Stagecoach (1939) and Preacher Casy ("I lost the callin'!") in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Usually typecast as a villain, Carradine occasionally surprised his followers with non-villainous roles like the philosophical cab driver in Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938) and Abraham Lincoln in Of Human Hearts (1938). Throughout his Hollywood years, Carradine's first love remained the theater; to fund his various stage projects (which included his own Shakespearean troupe), he had no qualms about accepting film work in the lowest of low-budget productions. Ironically, it was in one of these Poverty Row cheapies, PRC's Bluebeard (1944), that the actor delivered what many consider his finest performance. Though he occasionally appeared in an A-picture in the 1950s and 1960s (The Ten Commandments, Cheyenne Autumn), Carradine was pretty much consigned to cheapies during those decades, including such horror epics as The Black Sleep (1956), The Unearthly (1957), and the notorious Billy the Kid Meets Dracula (1966). He also appeared in innumerable television programs, among them Twilight Zone, The Munsters, Thriller, and The Red Skelton Show, and from 1962 to 1964 enjoyed a long Broadway run as courtesan-procurer Lycus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Though painfully crippled by arthritis in his last years, Carradine never stopped working, showing up in films ranging from Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) to Peggy Sue Got Married (1984). Married four times, John Carradine was the father of actors David, Keith, Robert, and Bruce Carradine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1930
This simple tale of peace-loving hillbillies defeating a gang of outlaws was based on a story by Joseph Hergesheimer and was a huge box-office hit when it was first released as a silent film in 1921. This 1930 sound remake closely follows the original story. The Kinemon family, who live in a mountain village, have a long-running feud with the Hatburn clan. The Hatburns are a marauding band of thieves and convicts led by Esther (Joan Peers) and Amos (Henry B. Walthall). The youngest member of the Kinemon clan is David (Richard Cromwell), who dreams of becoming a mailman. The Hatburns begin stealing from the village's mail. David, defying the wishes of his parents, goes off on his own to get back a stolen mailbag, directly confronting the Hatburns and ultimately outsmarting and defeating them. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Cromwell, Noah Beery, Sr., (more)
- 1931
While on a riverboat traveling on the Mississippi River, Ayres finds out that his father is an impostor and that man actually killed his real father. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lew Ayres, Anita Louise, (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
- 1932
Forgotten Commandments is a well-meaning but clumsy attempt to explore the consequences of communism. The story takes place at a Russian university where religious discussion is forbidden. A priest risks his life to espouse the Ten Commandments, but he is killed by a hedonistic scientist (Irving Pichel) who writes up his own set of "pagan" commandments--which leads to an overall loosening of morals at the university. The scientist comes to grief when his own mistress (Sari Maritza) takes the "new" commandments to heart and begins an affair with a married man (Gene Raymond). The sole highlight of Forgotten Commandments is a "flashback" sequences to Moses' flight from Egypt, lifted bodily from the Cecil B. DeMille silent epic The Ten Commandments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sara Maritza, Gene Raymond, (more)
- 1932
Director Cecil B. DeMille returned to Paramount Pictures for this typically epic production, which became his first box office hit after the close of the silent era. Fredric March stars as Roman Prefect Marcus Superbus, a noble military leader of the year 64 A.D. Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) has just burned down the city and blamed the conflagration on Christians, which has exacerbated anti-Christian sentiment. Marcus encounters a beautiful young Christian woman, Mercia (Elissa Landi), pleading with soldiers over the arrest of her beloved stepfather Titus (Arthur Hohl). The Prefect intervenes on her behalf, hoping for romance. Mercia rebuffs him, however, so Marcus attempts to humiliate her by sentencing her to live with a lesbian (Joyzelle Joiner), who has even less luck seducing the chaste Mercia. The Empress Poppaea (Claudette Colbert) desires Marcus for her own bed and becomes jealous of Mercia. When Nero orders that Christians are to be fed to the lions in the arena, Poppaea seizes the opportunity to get rid of her romantic rival, though Marcus pleads in vain with Nero to spare her life. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, (more)
- 1933
Cecil B. DeMille's This Day and Age was perhaps the most Draconian entry in Hollywood's early-1930s "vigilante" film cycle. Richard Cromwell heads a group of civic-minded teenagers in a small midwestern town. When a lovable old tailor (Harry Green) is murdered by a notorious gangster (Charles Bickford), Cromwell and his pals demand justice. But the local government is terrified by the influential gangster; in fact, many of the city fathers are on the take. Enraged, the kids take matters in their own hands. In the near-fascist climax, a mob of teenagers kidnap Bickford, spirit him away to the city dump, and suspend him over a pit of rats until he confesses to the murder! This Day and Age was the sort of Depression-engendered film of desperation that all but vanished once Franklin Roosevelt was elected. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Bickford, Judith Allen, (more)
Previously filmed in 1923, Zane Grey's To the Last Man manages to pack plenty of A-level production values into what was essentially a B-picture budget. In the years following the Civil War, Kentucky man Lynn Hayden (Randolph Scott) moves his family to Nevada, partly to start life anew, but mostly to leave behind the bloody family feud between the Haydens and the Colbys. This, alas, is not to be: once in Nevada, Hayden lands in the middle of a war between cattlemen and sheepherders -- a war involving the same two families. The film's title is grimly accurate: virtually no one is left standing at the end of the film. The superb supporting cast includes Esther Ralston as heroine Ellen Colby (seen to excellent advantage in a semi-nude swimming sequence!), Jack LaRue and Noah Beery Sr. as the slimy villains, and Shirley Temple in a small part. In addition to its many other plusses, To the Last Man introduces a novel method of billing the actors: each player is introduced by name as he or she appears on-screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Randolph Scott, Esther Ralston, (more)
- 1933
William Faulkner's bestseller Sanctuary was so taboo in some circles that Hollywood couldn't even use the title when making the first film version. Thus, Paramount's adaptation of Sanctuary went out as The Story of Temple Drake, fooling no one who could read. Miriam Hopkins plays the title role, the promiscuous daughter of a Southern judge. Temple will do anything for a thrill, which plays right into the hands of a gang of kidnappers. Coerced into a pickup date at a roadhouse, Temple is held for ransom by the lascivious Trigger (Jack LaRue) and his mob. She is raped by Trigger, whereupon she kills him. One of Trigger's earlier murders is pinned on a hapless half-wit (Irving Pichel). Called to testify in the murder trial by her former boyfriend (William Gargan), the prosecuting attorney, Temple not only confesses to Trigger's killing, but proclaims to one and all that she secretly enjoyed the rape. Even though this hot material was considerably toned down from the novel (where the villain raped Temple with a corncob!), The Story of Temple Drake was one of many films responsible for incurring the wrath of the "clean up Hollywood" brigades--resulting in the restrictive Production Code of 1934. Sanctuary was remade under its original title in 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miriam Hopkins, Jack LaRue, (more)
- 1933
A mysterious stranger, his face swathed in bandages and his eyes obscured by dark spectacles, has taken a room at a cozy inn in the British village of Ipping. Never leaving his quarters, the stranger demands that the staff leave him completely alone. Working unmolested with his test tubes, the stranger does not notice when the landlady inadvertently walks into his room one morning. But she notices that her guest seemingly has no head! The stranger, one Jack Griffin, is a scientist, who'd left Ipping several months earlier while conducting a series of tests with a strange new drug called monocane. He returns to the laboratory of his mentor, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers), where he reveals his secret to onetime partner Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan) and former fiancee Flora Cranley (Gloria Stuart). Monocane is a formula for invisibility, and has rendered Griffin's entire body undetectable to the human eye. Alas, monocane has also had the side effect of driving Griffin insane. With megalomanic glee, Griffin takes Kemp into his confidence, explaining how he plans to prove his superiority over other humans by wreaking as much havoc as possible. At first, his pranks are harmless; then, without batting an eyelash, he turns to murder, beginning with the strangling of a comic-relief constable. When Kemp tries to turn Griffin over to the police, he himself is marked for death. Despite elaborate measures taken by the police, Griffin is able to murder Kemp, considerately taking the time to describe his homicidal methods to his helpless victim. After a reign of terror costing hundreds of lives, Griffin is cornered in a barn, his movements betrayed by his footsteps in the snow. Mortally wounded by police bullets, Griffin is taken to a hospital, where he regretfully tells Flora that he's paying the price for meddling into Things Men Should Not Know. As Griffin dies, his face becomes slowly visible: first the skull, then the nerve endings, then layer upon layer of raw flesh, until he is revealed to be Claude Rains, making his first American film appearance. So forceful was Rains' verbal performance as "The Invisible One" that he became an overnight movie star (after nearly twenty years on stage). Wittily scripted by R.C. Sherriff and an uncredited Philip Wylie, and brilliantly directed by James Whale, The Invisible Man is a near-untoppable combination of horror and humor. Also deserving of unqualified praise are the thorouhgly convincing special effects by John P. Fulton and John Mescall. With the exception of The Invisible Man Returns, none of the sequels came anywhere close to the quality of the 1933 original. Trivia alert: watch for Dwight "Renfield" Frye as a bespectacled reporter, Walter Brennan as the man whose bicycle was stolen, and John Carradine as the fellow in the phone booth who's "gawt a plan to ketch the h'invisible man." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, (more)
- 1934
The first cinematic teaming of horror greats Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi is a bizarre, haunting, and relentlessly eerie film that was surprisingly morbid and perverse for its time. Peter (David Manners) and Joan Allison (Julie Bishop) are honeymooning in Budapest when they meet mysterious scientist Dr. Vitus Verdegast (Lugosi) aboard a train. When the trio's bus from the train station gets into an accident, the young couple accompanies Verdegast to the castle of the spectral Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff), an architect and the leader of a Satanic cult. Poelzig's treachery in World War I caused the deaths of thousands of his and Verdegast's countrymen, as well as Verdegast's own internment as a prisoner of war. While Verdegast was detained, Poelzig married first his wife, who later died, then his daughter. Now Verdegast has come back for retribution, and the honeymooners are trapped in the two men's horrifying battle of wits. Corpses preserved in glass cases, frightening Satanic rituals, and a climactic confrontation in which one of the characters is skinned alive add to the film's pervasive sense of evil and doom, along with the stark black-and-white photography by John Mescall that makes Poelzig's futuristic mountaintop mansion even more disturbing. Karloff and Lugosi are both excellent, with Lugosi doing a rare turn as a good guy, albeit one who has gone off the rails. Having little to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, The Black Cat has grown in stature over the years and is now widely regarded as the masterpiece of director Edgar G. Ulmer and one of the finest horror films ever made. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, (more)
- 1934
Dry-goods store owner Tillie Prescott (ZaSu Pitts) has promised to marry meek barber Chris Peterson (El Brendel), but he won't marry her until his business has grown successful enough to allow him to get a second chair in his barber shop -- and it's been 10 years, and he's not any closer to getting that second chair. Then, one day, an acting troupe gets stranded in town, and out-of-work showgirl Lulu White (Pert Kelton) sets herself up in Chris's barber shop doing manicures. Lulu knows a lot of the angles, including how to get men to do what she wants most of the time, and suddenly every male in town is eager to get his nails manicured (and hang around for a shave and haircut) just to get near Lulu. Chris's second chair seems like a real possibility, but Tillie gets jealous of Lulu, and is tricked by a smooth-talking salesman (Skeets Gallagher) into signing with a big retail chain that forces her out of the store she founded. Meanwhile, local wise-guy Duke Slater (James Gleason) gets led on by Lulu and decides he's going to set right what's happened to Tillie, and teach Lulu a lesson in the bargain. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- ZaSu Pitts, James Gleason, (more)
Film historian William K. Everson once observed that the secret to the success of Cecil B. DeMille's 1934 Cleopatra is that DeMille subtly reshaped the known historical events into a contemporary "gold-digger makes good" scenario. Exhibiting the same determination with which Barbara Stanwyck sleeps her way to the top in 1933's Baby Face, Queen Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) uses her feminine wiles to become sole ruler of Egypt. By turns kittenish and cold-blooded, Cleopatra wraps such otherwise responsible Roman worthies as Julius Caesar (Warren William, who wittily plays his role like one of his standard ruthless business executives) and Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon) around her well-manicured little finger. To emphasize the "contemporary" nature of the film, DeMille adds little modernistic touches throughout: The architecture of Egypt and Rome has a distinctly art-deco look; a matron at a social gathering clucks "Poor Calpurnia...well, the wife is always the last to know"; and, after Caesar's funeral, Mark Anthony is chided by an associate for "all that 'Friends, Romans, Countrymen' business!" Cleopatra's barge scene and her suicide from the bite of a snake marked two of the most memorable sequences in DeMille's career. Remarkably, for all the enormous sets and elaborate costumes, Cleopatra came in at a budget of $750,000 -- almost $40 million less than the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudette Colbert, Warren William, (more)
This greatest of all Frankenstein movies begins during a raging thunderstorm. Warm and cozy inside their palatial villa, Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton), and Shelley's wife Mary (Elsa Lanchester) engage in morbidly sparkling conversation. The wicked Byron mockingly chastises Mary for frightening the literary world with her recent novel Frankenstein, but Mary insists that her horror tale preached a valuable moral, that man was not meant to dabble in the works of God. Moreover, Mary adds that her story did not end with the death of Frankenstein's monster, whereupon she tells the enthralled Byron and Shelley what happened next. Surviving the windmill fire that brought the original 1931 Frankenstein to a close, the Monster (Boris Karloff) quickly revives and goes on another rampage of death and destruction. Meanwhile, his ailing creator Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) discovers that his former mentor, the demented Doctor Praetorius (Ernst Thesiger), plans to create another life-sized monster -- this time a woman! After a wild and wooly "creation" sequence, the bandages are unwrapped, and the Bride of the Monster (Elsa Lanchester again) emerges. Alas, the Monster's tender efforts to connect with his new Mate are rewarded only by her revulsion and hoarse screams. "She hate me," he growls, "Just like others!" Wonderfully acted and directed, The Bride of Frankenstein is further enhanced by the vivid Franz Waxman musical score; even the film's occasional lapses in logic and continuity (it was trimmed from 90 to 75 minutes after the first preview) are oddly endearing. Director James Whale was memorably embodied by Ian McKellen in the Oscar-winning 1998 biopic Gods and Monsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, (more)
- 1935
Richard Boleslawski directed this lavish adaptation of Victor Hugo's oft-filmed epic novel. Fredric March stars as Jean Valjean, who is hauled into prison for stealing a loaf of bread. After ten years at hard labor, he escapes from the merciless prison but the years have taken their toll and Valjean is now a hard and embittered man. Valjean regains his compassion after the kindly Bishop Bienveenu (Cedric Harwicke) refuses to prosecute him for the theft of his candlesticks. Under an assumed name, Valjean becomes a widely liked and respected mayor. He devotes his life to helping others and adopts a young girl as his own. But the town's chief of police, Javert (Charles Laughton) is suspicious about the mayor and one day, after Valjean lifts a wagon off of a man, Javert remembers Valjean from his days on the prison galley. Javert sets out to uncover the mayor's true identity, but Valjean beats him to it -- when a man who claims to be Valjean is put on trial, Valjean appears at the court and reveals his secret. But before he is arrested, he escapes with his adopted daughter Eponine (Frances Drake) to Paris. In Paris, he assumes yet another identity. Eponine falls in love with student radical Marius (John Beal) and Javert, assigned to Paris to keep an eye on the revolutionaries, latches onto Valjean's trail once again. As Paris simmers in revolution, Valjean and Javert reveal themselves to each other for a final confrontation. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Charles Laughton, (more)
- 1935
Ronald Colman plays Robert Clive, a true-life 18th century Britisher who works up the ranks to become leader of Britain's military forces in India. Though produced on a superficially lavish scale, the film inexpensively sidesteps several of Clive's more famous battles with Indian insurrectionists, relegating them to offscreen events described by subtitles. The notorious Sepoy Mutiny "Black Hole of Calcutta" incident, hardly a costly event to recreate, is faithfully presented. In real life, Clive was ruined by a trial in the House of Commons, after which he suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide. The film tactfully closes on the trial and Clive's reunion with his faithful wife (Loretta Young). Typically jingoistic in its "White Man's Burden" approach to East Indian affairs, Clive of India is best viewed in context of the time it was filmed (1935), when the sun still hadn't set on the British Empire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, (more)
- 1935
The great wilderness explorer Daniel Boone has many exciting adventures in this family-oriented outdoor actioner that primarily centers on the big man's attempts to quell an Indian uprising and capture the ornery villain who has been stirring up all the trouble. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George O'Brien, Heather Angel, (more)
- 1935
In this comedy, a waitress at a local lunch counter inadvertently foils a bank robbery and finds herself turned into a national heroine by an eager-beaver reporter. Unfortunately, her sudden notoriety causes gangsters to abduct her. The plucky waitress not only manages to talk them into returning her, she also convinces them to go straight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- ZaSu Pitts, Hugh O'Connell, (more)
- 1936
In this murder comedy, a young woman is no sooner acquitted of poisoning her father when she finds herself suspected of poisoning another. A pushy, over-eager reporter attempts to badger her into a confession, but he changes his tune after he falls in love with her. This results in the loss of his job. The man is then determined to prove that the girl is innocent. After much searching, he succeeds in finding the real killers and clearing his true-love's names. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frances Dee, Brian Donlevy, (more)
Previously filmed as a vehicle for Baby Peggy Montgomery in 1922, Laura E. Richard's Captain January was warmed up as a Shirley Temple picture 14 years later. Temple plays Star, a child of divorce who is looked after by crusty-but-lovable lighthouse keeper Captain January (Guy Kibbee). Truant officer Agatha Morgan (Sara Haden) determines that the Captain is not providing Star with suitable surroundings or a proper education, and before long our sobbing heroine is whisked away to a boarding school. She is rescued by kindly Mr. and Mrs. Morgan (George Irving and Nella Walker), distant relatives who try to provide the girl with a decent home, but the poor child still yearns for the company of Captain January and his friends Paul (Buddy Ebsen) and Nazro (Slim Summerville). All ends happily when January and his two chums are hired as crew members on the Morgans' yacht. One of Shirley Temple's best films, Captain January would be memorable if only for her singing-dancing duet with Buddy Ebsen, "At the Codfish Ball." Thanks to a legal loophole, the film has lapsed into public domain, joining A Little Princess as the most accessible of Temple's vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Temple, Guy Kibbee, (more)
Maxwell Anderson's blank-verse play Mary of Scotland was adapted for the screen by Dudley Nichols and directed with a surprising paucity of verve by John Ford. Katharine Hepburn, in one of the "icy" roles that would later earn her the onus of "box office poison", stars as Mary Stuart, who serves as the Queen of Scotland until she is jealously put out of the way by her British cousin, Queen Elizabeth I (Florence Eldredge). Sold out by the Scots nobles, Mary is sentenced to the chopping block for treason. Elizabeth is willing to pardon Mary if only the latter will renounce all claims to the British throne, but Mary refuses, marching to her death with head held high (the Mary/Elizabeth confrontation scene was purely the product of Maxwell Anderson's imagination; in real life, the two women never met). RKO contractee Ginger Rogers dearly coveted the role of Queen Elizabeth, but the studio refused to allow her to play so secondary a role. To prove to the RKO executives that she would be ideal for the part, Ginger secretly arranged for a screen test, in which she was convincingly made up as Elizabeth (even to the point of cutting her hair into a high-foreheaded widow's peak). Contemporary reports indicate that Ginger's audition was brilliant; still, RKO would not consider casting her in the part, so the role of Elizabeth went to Florence Eldridge, the wife of Fredric March, who was cast in Mary of Scotland as Mary's fearless protector the Earl of Bothwell. On the whole, Mary of Scotland is a snoozefest, save for the scenes featuring Douglas Walton as Mary's cowardly husband Darnley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katharine Hepburn, Fredric March, (more)
Maxwell Anderson combined the Sacco-Vanzetti story with elements of the still-unsolved disappearance of Judge Crater, and the result was the blank-verse theatrical piece Winterset. Burgess Meredith, Margo and Eduardo Cianelli repeat their Broadway roles, respectively playing the grown son of an executed political radical, the woman who loves and stands by Meredith, and a menacing gangster with plenty to hide. 15 years after the execution, Meredith endeavors to clear his father's name, and to that end seeks out the judge (Edward Ellis) who presided over the trial, now a drunken, guilt-ridden derelict. Screenwriter Anthony Veiller remove most of Anderson's flowery dialogue and substituted a happy ending for the original play's cynically tragic denouement. Neither of these changes hurt the property, and in fact were heartily endorsed by Maxwell Anderson himself. But depression-era audiences, too wrapped in their own current problems to shed tears over the long-dead Sacco and Vanzetti, stayed away from Winterset in droves. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burgess Meredith, Margo, (more)
Warner Baxter plays Dr. Samuel Mudd, American history's most famous victim of circumstance. In 1865, Dr. Mudd, a known Confederate sympathizer, sets the broken leg of a mud-caked stranger who stumbles into his home. The injured man turns out to be John Wilkes Booth, and Mudd is accused of conspiring to murder President Lincoln. Sentenced to hang with the genuine conspirators, Mudd finds his sentence commuted to life imprisonment at the very last moment. He is shipped to Shark Island, a brutal penal colony. Subject to the cruelties of a guard (John Carradine) who hates Mudd because of his "complicity" in Lincoln's death, the doctor suffers the torments of the damned, while outside Shark Island his wife (Gloria Stuart) campaigns desperately to get her husband pardoned. During a Yellow Fever breakout on Shark Island, Dr. Mudd performs heroically to save the survivors. For his humanitarian efforts, Mudd is finally released and reunited with his wife. While the script glosses over the fact that Dr. Mudd had never been officially pardoned by the US government (the pardon wouldn't be granted until years after this film was made), Prisoner of Shark Island strives long and hard to exonerate the man for whom the phrase "your name is mud!" was coined. Dr. Samuel Mudd's story was retold in the 1952 feature Hellgate, with Sterling Hayden as a (fictional) doctor, and in the 1980 TV movie The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd, starring Dennis Weaver in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, (more)
- 1936
The real "message to Garcia" was delivered by an American lieutenant to Cuban rebel General Garcia, asking for the General's help in the Spanish-American war. The fact that the lieutenant made his way to Garcia in absolute safety was ignored in 20th Century-Fox's Message to Garcia--which is just as well, since otherwise the movie would have been eight minutes long. In the film version, lieutenant John Boles is guided through the treacherous Cuban jungle by Barbara Stanwyck, doing her best to convince us that she's an Hispanic senorita. Also along for the trip is renegade marine Wallace Beery, who may not be as friendly as he seems. Fighting off Spaniards and spies at every turn, Boles successfully completes his mission. As history, Message to Garcia is about as reliable as the Hearst newspaper dispatches which triggered the Spanish-American war in the first place. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Beery, Barbara Stanwyck, (more)
- 1936
- NR
This lavish Shirley Temple starrer is set in New York, sometime in the 1850s. While lovable pickpocket "Professor" Eustace Appleby works the crowd, his talented granddaughter Dimples (Temple) dances for pennies. Dimples demands that Appleby stop his thieving ways, but every time he tries to follow the straight and narrow, he comes out the loser (most memorably when he's hoodwinked by a dapper con man played by John Carradine). While Dimples entertains at the home of society matron Mrs. Caroline Drew (Helen Westley), Appleby pilfers several valuable objects. This time he's caught with the goods, but Dimples gallantly takes the blame. Touched by this, Mrs. Drew adopts the little girl, enabling her to find success on the legitimate stage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Temple, Frank Morgan, (more)
Marlene Dietrich stars as the noble Domini Enfilden in this third film version of Robert Hichens' 1904 novel. After caring for her dying father, Domini is told by her Mother Superior (Lucille Watson) that she should go to the Algerian desert to rest and seek sanctuary. On her way to the town of Beni-Mora, Domini meets the ill-tempered and mysterious Boris Androvsky (Charles Boyer), a Trappist monk who has forsaken his vows and also seeks the Algerian desert for salvation. Domini is attracted to this moody monk, but continues on. Her desert guide, Batouch (Joseph Schildkraut), takes Domini to a cabaret, where a riot breaks out during a production number. Boris re-appears to rescue her from the trashed club. Domini and Boris fall in love, marry, and travel to the desert for their honeymoon. There the newlyweds encounter a unit of the French Foreign Legion, whose commander, De Trevignac (Alan Marshal), holds a secret to Boris's past. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marlene Dietrich, Charles Boyer, (more)
