Purnell Pratt Movies
Stocky, pinch-faced actor Purnell B. Pratt made his first film appearance in 1914, and his last in 1941, the year of his death. Pratt appeared as publisher John Bland in the very first version of George M. Cohan and Earl Derr Biggers' Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917), co-starring with Cohan himself. He made a smooth transition to talkies with such 1929 efforts as Alibi and... (read more) Thru Different Eyes. Many of his more famous roles, notably the stern policeman father of criminal-in-the-making Tom Powers in Public Enemy (1931), and the New York mayor in the Marx Brothers' Night at the Opera (1935), were uncredited. In 1935, Purnell B. Pratt became the latest in a long line of actors to play district attorney Francis X. Markham in the Philo Vance mystery The Casino Murder Case (1935). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Life Begins for Andy Hardy
1941
Number ten in MGM's heart-warming (and immensely profitable) "Andy Hardy" series was the 1941 entry Life Begins for Andy Hardy. Upon his graduation from high school,...
Ringside Maisie
1941
Broke and stranded once more, golden-hearted showgirl Maisie Revere (Ann Sothern) finds herself in upstate New York in general proximity with a prizefighting camp. She meets...
Pot O' Gold
PG 1941
James Stewart once classified Pot O' Gold as his worst film, though this may have stemmed from his reported inability to get along with his costar Paulette Goddard (who...
Grand Ole Opry
1940
Though they may seem as corny as Kansas in August when seen today, the Weaver Brothers and Elviry was one of the most popular music-and-comedy aggregations on the Country-Western...
Second Fiddle
1939
Sonja Henie, the Norwegian skating star, reportedly played second fiddle to no one at Fox in the late '30s, and this backstage musical extravaganza is all Henie....
My Wife's Relatives
1939
My Wife's Relatives is an easy-to-take entry in Republic's "Higgins Family" series. It all begins when Joe Higgins (James Gleason), business manager of a prosperous...
Colorado Sunset
1939
Gene Autry goes up against another "protection" racket in this tuneful series entry, which also features country & western singer Patsy Montana and the CBS-KMBC Texas...
Rosalie
1938
More burdened with leaden production numbers than plot, Rosalie took Sigmund Romberg and George Gershwin's 1928 Broadway hit, threw out most of the songs, including...
Come on Rangers
1938
This Roy Rogers musical western (his second starring vehicle for Republic) concerns itself with a group of Texas Rangers, forced to disband when Texas is admitted the...
Forlorn River
1937
Paramount's "Zane Grey" series continued rolling onward with 1937's Forlorn River. Larry "Buster" Crabbe, a regular in the Grey films, stars as Nevada, who in the company...
Join the Marines
1937
This service comedy from the Republic Studio mills was perhaps the most aggressively titled of the "Marine Corps" film cycle of the mid-1930s (Come on Leathernecks, Pride...
Let's Make a Million
1937
In this comedy, a WWI veteran gets married after receiving his bonus money from the government. His meddlesome aunts then attempt to tell him how the tidy sum should be spent. He...
Murder Goes to College
1937
A sort of follow-up to the studio's earlier College Scandal, Paramount's Murder Goes to College once again combines homicide with higher learning. When the titular murder...
King of Gamblers
1937
Akim Tamiroff, Paramount Pictures' resident crime lord, runs all illegal gambling activities in a major city. Reporter Lloyd Nolan struggles to get the goods on...
The Plainsman
1937
One is immediately aware that The Plainsman is a Cecil B. DeMille production in the opening scene, wherein President Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.), on the verge...
High, Wide and Handsome
1937
High, Wide and Handsome almost defies classification: Perhaps it's best referred to as a historical musical western comedy melodrama. Irene Dunne plays an itinerant circus...
Under Suspicion
1937
Jack Holt stars as Robert Bailey, a Henry Ford-like auto industrialist who decides to give his millions away to various charitable causes. Naturally, this arouses hostility...
Night of Mystery
1937
A remake of 1929's The Greene Murder Case, Paramount's Night of Mystery was the first "Philo Vance" thriller not to use the words "Murder Case" in the title. The story is...
Wives Never Know
1936
In this bedroom farce, a writer rails against marriage and touts the benefits of staying single. He then convinces his friend that only relationships based on struggle and strife...
Dancing Feet
1936
Dancing Feet stars Joan Marsh as Judy, a society deb who lands a job as a dime-a-dance girl to spite her wealthy grandfather (Purnell Pratt). While her fiancé Peyton...