Mischa Auer Movies

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).

Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this frothy comedy-drama, a businesswoman owns a successful service bureau for the filthy rich. Her service does everything from handling mundane finances to putting on weddings. Her most recent client wants her to prevent his rube of a nephew from coming to New York to visit him. She does her best and in the end, falls in love with the bumpkin after charming him away from his countrified girl friend. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

An early Technicolor musical that concentrates on the fashions of the late 1930s, this film was reissued under the title All This and Glamour Too. The top models of the era, including several who are advertising household products, are in the cast. The plot centers around a chic boutique, whose owner, George Curson (Warner Baxter), tries hard to please his customers while keeping peace with his unhappy wife. A wealthy young woman, Wendy Van Klettering (Joan Bennett), decides to take a job as a model at the fashion house, just to amuse herself, but her presence annoys Curson, who must put together the best possible show to compete with rival fashion houses at the Seven Arts Ball. The film includes several hit songs, including the Oscar-nominated "That Old Feeling" by Sammy Fain and Lew Brown. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this romance, a secretary is awarded a legacy. Later she meets a male secretary who begins protecting her from an avaricious baron endeavoring to steal her money. The two rivals engage in fisticuffs, and the secretary loses. Fortunately, he wins the love of the girl. He then reveals that his actually a millionaire himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this musical set in swingin' Manhattan, an heiress plans a ballet in the famous Moonbeam ballroom located atop a 100-story skyscraper. Unfortunately, the attending audience is quite bored until someone starts the place swinging. Musical numbers include: "Blame It on the Rhumba," "Where Are You?" "Jamboree," "Top of the Town," "I Feel That Foolish Feeling Coming On," "There's No Two Ways About It," "Fireman Save My Child" (Harold Adamson, Jimmy McHugh). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Film collectors take note: Hal Roach's Pick a Star is not a Laurel and Hardy picture, though the popular comic duo does make a brace of amusing cameo appearances halfway through the film. A remake of Buster Keaton's Free and Easy, this is the story of how small-town gas-station owner Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley) tries to help his sweetheart Cecilia Moore (Rosina Lawrence) realize her ambition to become a movie star. At the behest of travelling entrepreneur Stone (Russell Hicks), Jenkins organizes a talent contest, the first prize being a trip to Hollywood and a screen test. When Stone turns out to be a crook and skips town with the proceeds of the contest, Cecilia is heartbroken, but Joe promises to go to Hollywood himself and make the right connections to assure her rise to stardom. Alas, the best Joe can manage in Tinseltown is a busboy job at the Colonial Club, a fact he tries to conceal from Cecilia and her wisecracking sister Nellie (Patsy Kelly) when they unexpectedly arrive in California as guests of movie-matinee idol Rinaldo Lopez (Mischa Auer). In desperation, Joe pretends to be a nightclub entertainer, but when this ruse is revealed, Cecilia angrily walks out on him, accompanying Rinaldo first to his movie studio and then to his apartment. Naturally Rinaldo has seduction on his mind, but innocent Cecilia doesn't realize this until Joe storms into the apartment with blood in his eye. Ashamed for his lascivious behavior, Rinaldo arranges for Cecilia to have a screen test for producer Klawheimer (Charles Halton). At the last moment, Cecilia suffers an attack of "camera fright," but Joe gently coaches her through her test, and there's a happy ending for all concerned -- even for sister Nellie, who's been relentlessly cynical about the storyline from first scene to last. Cast as "movie stars," Laurel and Hardy show up briefly in the movie-studio scenes to participate in a reciprocal-destruction sequence with their old screen nemesis Walter Long, and to perform an amusing musical routine with "dueling" harmonicas. Pick a Star has been reissued as Movie Struck, while the Laurel & Hardy scenes were released separately to TV as the ersatz two-reeler A Day at the Studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This light-hearted musical romance follows the exploits of Nikki Martin (Lily Pons), a beautiful French opera star who stows away on an ocean liner in hopes of escaping her jealous fiancee. Once aboard, she joins an American swing band and falls in love with its leader (Gene Raymond), who, after hearing her sing, eventually comes to reciprocate her feelings. That Girl From Paris received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Sound, and includes musical highlights such as, "Seal It With a Kiss," "The Blue Danube," "Una Voce Poco Fa," and "The Call to Arms." Directed by Leigh Jason, this movie also features actors Mischa Auer, Frank Jenks, Lucille Ball and Jack Oakie. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Deanna Durbin, the teenaged soprano who literally saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy, made her feature-film debut in Three Smart Girls. Durbin, Nan Grey and Barbara Read play three wealthy young sisters, living with their divorced mother (Nella Walker) in Europe. The girls learn that their father (Charles Winninger) has made plans to remarry. Correctly sensing that the bride-to-be (Binnie Barnes) is a fortune hunter, the sisters head to Manhattan to save Daddy from himself. Durbin is the primary architect in reuniting her parents, but not before satisfying her fans with several arias. Three Smart Girls not only spawned a sequel (Three Smart Girls Grow Up), but even a 2-reel Three Stooges parody titled Three Dumb Clucks! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the landmark "screwball" comedies of the 1930s, My Man Godfrey offers the radiant Carole Lombard in her definitive performance as flighty young heiress Irene Bullock, who on a society scavenger hunt stumbles on Godfrey (William Powell), an erudite hobo residing in the city dump. Godfrey becomes the family's butler, much to the dismay of Irene's father Alexander (Eugene Pallette), who thinks his household is crazy enough without another apparent lunatic under his roof. Halfway through the film, we discover that Godfrey isn't a penniless bum at all, but the scion of a wealthy Boston family. Having been burned by an unhappy romance, Godfrey dropped out of life, taking up residence in the dump. Here his faith in humanity was restored by his fellow indigents, who managed to survive and remain optimistic despite the worst deprivations. Meanwhile, however, he wants to straighten out the Bullock family, who he feels are a basically decent bunch beneath all their pretensions and eccentricities -- and along the way, of course, Irene determines that Godfrey will be her husband. While Godfrey's ultimate "solution" to the exigencies of the Depression seems more of a placebo, My Man Godfrey is all in all a totally satisfying jolt of 1930s-style wish fulfillment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a boy's love for his loyal dog, helps him survive in a hard cruel world. The trouble begins with the boy's dog-hating wealthy father. Not wanting to part with his beloved pooch, the boy runs away and gets mixed up with gangsters. After several mishaps, the boy and his dog end up holed up in the woods with the fugitive gang leader. The cops are after the leader, and the gang members want to collect the huge reward offered by the boy's father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Gay Desperado is a 1936 musical lampooning the then-popular gangster pictures. Leo Carrillo plays a genial Mexican bandit, Pablo Braganza, who gets nowhere until he and his amigos begin studying gangster techniques -- courtesy of Hollywood movies. Selecting kidnapping as his crime of choice, Pablo snatches opera star Chivo (Nino Martini) simply because he likes his singing. But the bold bandito gets in over his head when he abducts a troublesome heiress, Jane (Ida Lupino), and her nerdy fiancé, Bill (James Blakely). Chivo hopes to extract a huge ransom for Jane's return, but the girl is more trouble than she's worth. All ends happily when Pablo engineers a romance between Jane and Chivo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical comedy, a pacifistic song-and-dance man is compelled to don a military uniform for one of his acts. Before he can blink, he finds himself fighting in Germany. Later he is tossed into jail after being accused of being an enemy spy. He escapes and somehow manages to capture a strategic hill; he is then awarded the prestigious Croix de Guerre for his heroism. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide