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Mary Astor

April 12, 2022 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Prepared by Daniel B Miller

Mary Astor (born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke; May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) was an American actress.

She is best remembered for her role as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s. She eventually changed to talkies. At first her voice was considered too masculine and she was off the screen for a year. She appeared in a play with friend Florence Eldridge, and the film offers came in, so she was able to resume her career in talking films.

Four years later her career was nearly destroyed due to scandal. In 1936 Astor was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband, in a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to greater success on screen, eventually winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Great Lie (1941).

Astor was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to work in film, television and on stage until her retirement in 1964. Astor was the author of five novels.

Her autobiography was a bestseller, as was her later book, A Life on Film, which was about her career. Director Lindsay Anderson wrote of her in 1990 that “when two or three who love the cinema are gathered together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played”.

Early life

Astor was born in Quincy, Illinois, the only child of Otto Ludwig Langhanke (October 2, 1871 – February 3, 1943) and Helen Marie de Vasconcellos (April 19, 1881 – January 18, 1947).

Both of her parents were teachers. Her father, a German man from Berlin, emigrated to the United States in 1891 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen; her American mother was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, and had Irish and Portuguese roots. They married on August 3, 1904 in Lyons, Kansas.

Otto Ludwig Langhanke, Mary Astor’s father

Astor’s father taught German at Quincy High School until the U.S. entered World War I. Later on, he took up light farming. Astor’s mother, who had always wanted to be an actress, taught drama and elocution. Astor was home-schooled in academics and was taught to play the piano by her father, who insisted she practice daily. Her piano talents came in handy when she played piano in her films The Great Lie and Meet Me in St. Louis.

In 1919, Astor sent a photograph of herself to a beauty contest in Motion Picture Magazine, becoming a semifinalist. When Astor was 15, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, with her father teaching German in public schools. Astor took drama lessons and appeared in various amateur stage productions. The following year, she sent another photograph to Motion Picture Magazine, this time becoming a finalist and then runner-up in the national contest. Her father then moved the family to New York City, in order for his daughter to act in motion pictures. He managed her affairs from September 1920 to June 1930.

A Manhattan photographer, Charles Albin, saw her photograph and asked the young girl with haunting eyes and long auburn hair, whose nickname was “Rusty”, to pose for him. The Albin photographs were seen by Harry Durant of Famous Players-Lasky and Astor was signed to a six-month contract with Paramount Pictures. Her name was changed to “Mary Astor” during a conference between Paramount Pictures chief Jesse Lasky, film producer Walter Wanger, and gossip columnist Louella Parsons.

Silent movie career

A 1924 publicity photo of Astor from Stars of the Photoplay

Astor’s first screen test was directed by Lillian Gish, who was so impressed with her recitation of Shakespeare that she shot a thousand feet of her.

She made her debut at age 14 in the 1921 film Sentimental Tommy, but her small part in a dream sequence wound up on the cutting room floor.

Sentimental Tommy (1921) Dir: John S Robertson

Paramount let her contract lapse. She then appeared in some movie shorts with sequences based on famous paintings. She received critical recognition for the 1921 two-reeler The Beggar Maid. Her first feature-length movie was John Smith (1922), followed that same year by The Man Who Played God. In 1923, she and her parents moved to Hollywood.

The Beggar Maid (1921) Dir: Herbert Blache

After appearing in several larger roles at various studios, she was again signed by Paramount, this time to a one-year contract at $500 a week.

After she appeared in several more movies, John Barrymore saw her photograph in a magazine and wanted her cast in his upcoming movie. On loan-out to Warner Bros., she starred with him in Beau Brummel (1924).

Beau Brummel (1924) Dir: Harry Beaumont

Mary Astor and John Barrymore in Beau Brummel (1924)

The older actor wooed the young actress, but their relationship was severely constrained by Astor’s parents’ unwillingness to let the couple spend time alone together; Mary was only seventeen and legally underage.

It was only after Barrymore convinced the Langhankes that his acting lessons required privacy that the couple managed to be alone at all. Their secret engagement ended largely because of the Langhankes’ interference and Astor’s inability to escape their heavy-handed authority, and because Barrymore became involved with Astor’s fellow WAMPAS Baby Star Dolores Costello, whom he later married.

In 1925, Astor’s parents bought a Moorish style mansion with 1 acre (4,000 m²) of land known as “Moorcrest” in the hills above Hollywood. The Langhankes not only lived lavishly off of Astor’s earnings, but kept her a virtual prisoner inside Moorcrest.

Moorcrest is notable not only for its ornate style, but its place as the most lavish residence associated with the Krotona Colony, a utopian society founded by the Theosophical Society in 1912.

Moorcrest Estate

The 6,432-square-foot gated estate was designed by philosophical architect Marie Russak Hotchener and built in 1921, combining Moorish, Gothic and Art Nouveau architectural influences to striking effect

Built by Marie Russak Hotchener, a Theosophist who had no formal architectural training, the house combines Moorish and Mission Revival styles and contains such Arts and Crafts features as art-glass windows (whose red lotus design Astor called “unfortunate”), and Batchelder tiles.

Moorcrest, which has since undergone a multimillion-dollar renovation, remains standing. Before the Langhankes bought it, it was rented by Charlie Chaplin, whose tenure is memorialized by an art glass window featuring the Little Tramp.

Astor’s parents were not Theosophists, though the family was friendly with both Marie Hotchener and her husband Harry, prominent TS members.

Marie Hotchener negotiated Astor’s right to a $5 a week allowance (at a time when she was making $2,500 a week) and the right to go to work unchaperoned by her mother.

The following year when she was 19, Astor, fed up with her father’s constant physical and psychological abuse as well as his control of her money, climbed from her second floor bedroom window and escaped to a hotel in Hollywood, as recounted in her memoirs.

Marie Rusak Hotchener (born Mary Ellen Barnard)

Hotchener facilitated her return by persuading Otto Langhanke to give Astor a savings account with $500 and the freedom to come and go as she pleased.

Nevertheless, she did not gain control of her salary until she was 26 years old, at which point her parents sued her for financial support. Astor settled the case by agreeing to pay her parents $100 a month. Otto Langhanke put Moorcrest up for auction in the early 1930s, hoping to realize more than the $80,000 he had been offered for it; it sold for $25,000.

Don Juan (1926) Dir: Alan Crosland

Mary Astor in Don Juan (1926)

Mary Astor and John Barrymore in Don Juan (1926)

Cast and crew of Don Juan (1926)

Astor continued to appear in movies at various studios. When her Paramount contract ended in 1925, she was signed at Warner Bros.

Among her assignments was another role with John Barrymore, this time in Don Juan (1926).

She was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1926, along with Mary Brian, Dolores Costello, Joan Crawford, Dolores del Río, Janet Gaynor, and Fay Wray.

WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1926

On loan to Fox Film Corporation, Astor starred in Dressed To Kill (1928), which received good reviews.

Dressed to Kill (1928)

Edmund Lowe and Mary Astor in Dressed to Kill (1928)

Ben Bard in Dressed t o Kill (1928)

That same year, she starred in the sophisticated comedy Dry Martini at Fox. She later said that, while working on the latter, she “absorbed and assumed something of the atmosphere and emotional climate of the picture.”

She said it offered “a new and exciting point of view; with its specious doctrine of self-indulgence, it rushed into the vacuum of my moral sense and captivated me completely.”

When her Warner Bros. contract ended, she signed a contract with Fox for $3,750 a week. In 1928, she married director Kenneth Hawks at her family home, Moorcrest.

Dry Martini (1928) Dir: Harry D’Arrast

Mary Astor and Albert Conti in Dry Martini (1928)

Mary Astor and Matt Moore in Dry Martini (1928)

He gave her a Packard automobile as a wedding present and the couple moved into a home high up on Appian Way, a small hilltop street in Laurel Canyon above the Sunset Strip. Their address was 8803 Appian Way.

Other celebrities who lived at different times on this short street include Errol Flynn and his French wife Lili Damita (8946 Appian Way); Ida Lupino (8761); fashion designer Jean Louis [Berthault] (8761); Ginger Rogers(8782); German composer Rudolf Friml (8782); Gypsy Rose Lee (8815 Appian Way); Carole King (8815); Courteney Cox (8815).

As the film industry made the transition to talkies, Fox gave her a sound test, which she failed because the studio found her voice to be too deep. Though this was probably due to early sound equipment and the inexperience of technicians, the studio released her from her contract and she found herself out of work for eight months in 1929.

Mary Astor and Kenneth Hawks on their Wedding Day

New beginnings

Astor took voice training and singing lessons in her time off, but no roles were offered. Her acting career was then given a boost by her friend, Florence Eldridge (wife of Fredric March), in whom she confided.

Eldridge, who was to star in the stage play Among the Married at the Majestic Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, recommended Astor for the second female lead. The play was a success and her voice was deemed suitable, being described as low and vibrant.

She was happy to work again, but her happiness soon ended. On January 2, 1930, while filming sequences for the Fox movie Such Men Are Dangerous, Kenneth Hawks was killed in a mid-air plane crash over the Pacific.

Astor had just finished a matinee performance at the Majestic when Florence Eldridge gave her the news. She was rushed from the theatre to Eldridge’s apartment; a replacement, Doris Lloyd, stepped in for the next show. Astor remained with Eldridge at her apartment for some time, then soon returned to work.

Newspaper article on Kenneth Hawks’ death

Shortly after her husband’s death, she debuted in her first “talkie”, Ladies Love Brutes (1930) at Paramount, which co-starred friend Fredric March.

Ladies Love Brutes Dir: Rowland W Lee (1930)

George Bancroft and Mary Astor in Ladies Love Brutes (1930)

Mary Astor and Fredric March in Ladies Love Brutes (1930)

While her career picked up, her private life remained difficult. After working on several more movies, she suffered delayed shock over her husband’s death and had a nervous breakdown.

During the months of her illness, she was attended to by Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, whom she married on June 29, 1931.

Mary Astor and Dr Franklyn Thorpe

That year, she starred as Nancy Gibson in Smart Woman, playing a woman determined to retrieve her husband from a gold-digging flirtation.

The clever dialogue, played against the trappings of a lavish mansion, involves another man who is obviously in love with Astor’s character.

This wealthy lord, at the behest of Gibson, attracts the attention of the gold-digger during lazy days at the manor. The husband, initially set upon divorcing Nancy and marrying the intruder “Peggy Preston”, is dismayed to find Peggy attracted to the newcomer because of his extraordinary wealth. All done in a civil, but cunning, manner.

Smart Woman Dir: Gregory La Cava (1931)

Mary Astor and Johnny Halliday in Smart Woman (1931)

Mary Astor in Smart Woman (1931)

In May 1932, the Thorpes purchased a yacht and sailed to Hawaii. Astor was expecting a baby in August, but gave birth in June in Honolulu. The child, a daughter, was named Marylyn Hauoli Thorpe: her first name combined her parents’ names and her middle name is Hawaiian. When they returned to Southern California,

Mary Astor with her baby Marylin Hauoli Thorpe in 1932

Astor freelanced and gained the pivotal role of Barbara Willis in MGM‘s Red Dust (1932) with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.

Red Dust Dir: Victor Fleming (1932)

Clark Gable and Mary Astor in Red Dust (1932)

Jean Harlow and Mary Astor in Red Dust (1932)

In late 1932, Astor signed a featured player contract with Warner Bros. Meanwhile, besides spending lavishly, her parents invested in the stock market, which often turned out unprofitable.

While they remained in Moorcrest, Astor dubbed it a “white elephant”, and she refused to maintain the house. She had to turn to the Motion Picture Relief Fund in 1933 to pay her bills. In 1933, she appeared as the female lead, Hilda Lake, niece of the murder victims, in The Kennel Murder Case, co-starring with William Powell as detective Philo Vance.

The Kennel Murder Case Dir: Michael Curtiz (1933)

Mary Astor and William Powell in The Kennel Murder Case (1933)

Film critic William K. Everson pronounced it a “masterpiece” in the August 1984 issue of Films in Review.

Unhappy with her marriage, she took a break from movie-making in 1933 and went to New York alone. While there, enjoying a whirlwind social life, she met the playwright George Kaufman and they had an affair, which she documented in her diary.

George S Kauffman

Mary Astor Diary

Scandals

A legal battle drew press attention to Astor in 1936. Dr. Franklyn Thorpe divorced Astor in April 1935, and a custody battle resulted over their four-year-old daughter, Marylyn.

Los Angeles Examiner 14/07/1936

Thorpe threatened to use Astor’s diary in the proceedings, which told of her affairs with many celebrities, including George S. Kaufman. The diary was never formally offered as evidence during the trial, but Thorpe and his lawyers constantly referred to it, and its notoriety grew. Astor admitted that the diary existed and that she had documented her affair with Kaufman, but maintained that many of the parts that had been referred to were forgeries, following the theft of the diary from her desk.

The diary was deemed inadmissible as a mutilated document, and the trial judge, Goodwin J. Knight, ordered it sealed and impounded. In 1952, by court order, Astor’s diary was removed from the bank vault where it had been sequestered for 16 years and destroyed.

Astor had just begun work as Edith Cortwright, opposite Walter Huston in the title role of Dodsworth as news of the diary became public. Producer Samuel Goldwyn was urged to fire her, as her contract included a morality clause, but Goldwyn refused and the movie was a hit.

Dodsworth (1936) Dir: William Wyler

MBDDODS EC001 — DODSWORTH, Walter Huston, Mary Astor, 1936

MV5BMjE3NDAzMDUyMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNzAzMjM4NA@@._V1_ — Dodsworth (1936) Directed by William Wyler Shown from left: Walter Huston, Mary Astor

Mary Astor and Walter Huston in Dodsworth (1936)

Mid-career

Ultimately, the scandals caused no harm to Astor’s career, which was actually revitalized because of the custody fight and the wide publicity it generated; Dodsworth (1936), with Walter Huston, was released to rave reviews, and the public’s acceptance assured the studios that she remained a viable commercial property.

In 1937, she returned to the stage in well-received productions of Noël Coward‘s Tonight at 8:30, The Astonished Heart, and Still Life. She also began performing regularly on radio.

Some of her best movies were yet to come, including The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), John Ford‘s The Hurricane (1937), Midnight (1939) and Brigham Young (1940).

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) Dir: John Cromwell

Mary Astor in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

Mary Astor and Raymond Massey n The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

Mary Astor and Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

The Hurricane (1937) Dir: John Ford – Poster

C Aubrey Smith and Mary Astor in The Hurricane (1937)

Raymond Massay and Mary Astor in The Hurricane (1937)

Brigham Young: Frontiersman (1940) Dir: Henry Hathaway

Mary Astor in Brigham Young: Frontiersman (1940)

Midnight (1939) Dir: Mitchell Leisen

Mary Astor and John Barrymore in Midnight (1939)

Claudette Colbert, Francis Lederer, Mary Astor and John Barrymore in Midnight (1939)

Francis Lederer and Mary Astor in Midnight (1939)

In John Huston‘s The Maltese Falcon (1941), Astor played scheming temptress Brigid O’Shaughnessy. The film also starred Humphrey Bogart and featured Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. This was to become her most memorable role.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) Dir: John Huston

Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

John Huston, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart – publicity shot for The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Peter Lorre, Mary Astor and Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

MALTESE FALCON, THE (1941) — Medium shot of Mary Astor as Bridgid O’Shaughnessy/Miss. Wonderly/Miss. LaBlanc and Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, who wears hat/fedora.

Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Another noteworthy performance was her Oscar-winning role as Sandra Kovak, the selfish, self-centered concert pianist, who willingly gives up her child, in The Great Lie (1941). George Brent played her intermittent love interest, but the film’s star was Bette Davis.

The Great Lie (1941) Dir: Edmund Goulding

Bette Davis and Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)

Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)

Bette Davis and Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)

Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)

Davis wanted Astor cast in the role after watching her screen test and seeing her play Tchaikovsky‘s Piano Concerto No. 1. She then recruited Astor to collaborate on rewriting the script, which Davis felt was mediocre and needed work to make it more interesting. Astor further followed Davis’s advice and sported a brazenly bobbed hairdo for the role.

The soundtrack of the movie in the scenes where she plays the concerto, with violent hand movements on the piano keyboard, was dubbed by pianist Max Rabinovitch. Davis deliberately stepped back to allow Astor to shine in her key scenes. As a result of her performance, Astor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, thanking Bette Davis and Tchaikovsky in her acceptance speech. Astor and Davis became good friends.

Bette Davis and Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)

Astor was not propelled into the upper echelon of movie stars by these successes, however.

She always declined offers of starring in her own right. Not wanting the responsibility of top billing and having to “carry the picture,” she preferred the security of being a featured player.

In 1942, she reunited with Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet in John Huston‘s Across the Pacific.

Across the Pacific (1942) Dir: John Huston

Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor in Across the Pacific (1942)

Though usually cast in dramatic or melodramatic roles, Astor showed a flair for comedy as The Princess Centimillia in the Preston Sturges film, The Palm Beach Story (1942) for Paramount.

The Palm Beach Story (1942) Dir: Preston Sturges

Mary Astor in The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Mary Astor and Joel McCrea in The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Mary Astor, Claudette Colbert and Rudy Vallee in The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Claudette Colbert an Rudy Vallee in The Palm Beach Story (1942)

In February 1943, Astor’s father, Otto Langhanke, died in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital as a result of a heart attack complicated by influenza. His wife and daughter were at his bedside.

That same year, Astor signed a seven-year contract with MGM, a regrettable mistake.

She was kept busy playing what she considered mediocre roles she called “Mothers for Metro.”

After Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), the studio allowed her to debut on Broadway in Many Happy Returns (1945). The play was a failure, but Astor received good reviews. On loan-out to 20th Century Fox, she played a wealthy widow in Claudia and David (1946).

Meet Me in St Louis (1944) Dir: Vincente Minelli

Tom Drake, Mary Astor and Leon Ames in Meet Me in St Louis (1944)

Mary Astor and Margaret O’Brien in Meet Me in St Louis (1944)

Lucille Bremer, Mary Astor and Judy Garland in Meet Me in St Louis (1944)

Mary Astor on the set of Meet Me in St Louis (1944)

Claudia and David (1946) Dir: Walter Lang

Mary Astor in Claudia and David (1946)

Mary Astor and Dorothy McGuire in Claudia and David (1946)

Mary Astor and Robert Taylor in Claudia and David (1946)

She was also loaned to Paramount to play Fritzi Haller in Desert Fury (1947) playing the tough owner of a saloon and casino in a small mining town.

Desert Fury (1947) Dir: Lewis Allen

Lisabeth Scott and Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)

Burt Lancaster, Lisbeth Scott, John Hodiak and Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)

Lisbeth Scott, John Hodiak and Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)

Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)

Burt Lancaster, Mary Astor and Lisbeth Scott in Desert Fury (1947)

Before Helen Langhanke died of a heart ailment in January 1947, Astor said she sat in the hospital room with her mother, who was delirious and did not know her, and listened quietly as Helen told her all about terrible, selfish Lucile.

After her death, Astor said she spent countless hours copying her mother’s diary so she could read it and was surprised to learn how much she was hated. Back at MGM, Astor continued being cast in undistinguished, colorless mother roles. One exception was when she played a prostitute in the film noir Act of Violence (1948).

Act of Violence (1948) Dir: Fred Zinnemann

Van Heflin and Mary Astor in Act of Violence (1948)

Act of Violence (1948) Lobby Card

Mary Astor and Berry Kroeger in Act of Violence (1948)

Act of Violence (1948) Dir: Fred Zinnemann

The last straw came when she was cast as Marmee March in Little Women (1949).

She later described her disappointment with her cast members and the shoot in her memoir My Story: An Autobiography: “The girls all giggled and chattered and made a game of every scene. Taylor was engaged, and in love, and talking on the telephone most of the time (which is fine normally, but not when the production clock is ticking away the company’s money). June Allyson chewed gum constantly and irritatingly, and Maggie O’Brien looked at me as though she were planning something very unpleasant.”

Little Women (1949) Dir: Mervyn LeRoy

Mary Astor in Little Women (1949)

Margaret O’Brien, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor, June Alyson and Elisabeth Taylor in Little Women (1949)

June Alyson and Mary Astor in Little Women (1949)

Margaret O’Brien, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor, June Alyson and Elisabeth Taylor in Little Women (1949)

Astor found no redemption in playing what she considered another humdrum mother and grew despondent. The studio wanted to renew her contract, promising better roles, but she declined the offer.

Middle years

At the same time, Astor’s drinking was growing troublesome. She admitted to alcoholism as far back as the 1930s, but it had never interfered with her work schedule or performance. She hit bottom in 1949 and went into a sanitarium for alcoholics.

In 1951, she made a frantic call to her doctor and said that she had taken too many sleeping pills. She was taken to a hospital and the police reported that she had attempted suicide, this being her third overdose in two years, and the story made headline news. She maintained it had been an accident.

Mary Astor and Sandra Dee in Stranger in My Arms (1959)

That same year, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous and converted to Roman Catholicism. She credited her recovery to a priest, Peter Ciklic, also a practicing psychologist, who encouraged her to write about her experiences as part of therapy. She also separated from her fourth husband, Thomas Wheelock (a stockbroker she married on Christmas Day 1945), but did not actually divorce him until 1955.

In 1952, she was cast in the leading role of the stage play The Time of the Cuckoo, which was later made into the movie Summertime (1955), and subsequently toured with it. After the tour, Astor lived in New York for four years and worked in the theater and on television.

Her TV debut was in The Missing Years (1954) for Kraft Television Theatre. She acted frequently in TV during the ensuing years and appeared on many big shows of the time, including The United States Steel Hour, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Rawhide, Dr. Kildare, Burke’s Law, and Ben Casey.

Mary Astor and Doro Merande in Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Episode: Mrs Herman and Mrs Fenimore (1958)

Mary Astor in Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Episode: Mrs Herman and Mrs Fenimore (1958)

Mary Astor and Franchot Tone in Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Episode: The Impossible Dream (1959)

Mary Astor in Dr Kildare “Operation Lazarus” (Season 1 Episode 33)

Mary Astor in Rawhide – Episode: Incident Near the Promised Land (1961)

In 1954, she appeared in the episode “Fearful Hour” of the Gary Merrill NBC series Justice in the role of a desperately poor and aging film star who attempts suicide to avoid exposure as a thief. She also played an ex-film star on the Boris Karloff-hosted Thriller, in an episode titled “Rose’s Last Summer.”

Mary Astor signed still from Thriler – Episode: Rose’s Last Summer (1960)

Mary Astor in Thriler – Episode: Rose’s Last Summer (1960)

Mary Astor signed still from Thriler – Episode: Rose’s Last Summer (1960)

She starred on Broadway again in The Starcross Story (1954), another failure and returned to Southern California in 1956. She then went on a successful theatre tour of Don Juan in Hell directed by Agnes Moorehead and co-starring Ricardo Montalban.

Astor’s memoir, My Story: An Autobiography, was published in 1959, becoming a sensation in its day and a bestseller. It was the result of Father Ciklic urging her to write. Though she spoke of her troubled personal life, her parents, her marriages, the scandals, her battle with alcoholism, and other areas of her life, she did not mention the movie industry or her career in detail.

Mary Astor autobiography – My Story: An Autobiography (1959)

In 1971, a second book was published, A Life on Film, where she discussed her career. It too became a bestseller. Astor also tried her hand at fiction, writing the novels The Incredible Charley Carewe (1960), The Image of Kate (1962), which was published in 1964 in a German translation as Jahre und Tage, The O’Conners (1964), Goodbye, Darling, be Happy (1965), and A Place Called Saturday (1968).

Mary Astor – My Life on Film (1971)

She appeared in several movies during this time, including A Stranger in My Arms (1959). She made a comeback in Return to Peyton Place (1961) playing Roberta Carter, the domineering mother who insists the “shocking” novel written by Allison Mackenzie should be banned from the school library, and received good reviews for her performance. According to film scholar Gavin Lambert, Astor invented memorable bits of business in her last scene of that film, where Roberta’s vindictive motives are exposed.

Mary Astor in Return to Peyton Place (1961)

Final years and death

After a trip around the world in 1964, Astor was lured away from her Malibu, California home, where she was gardening and working on her third novel, to make what she decided would be her final film.

Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)

She was offered the small role as a key figure, Jewel Mayhew, in the murder mystery Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, starring her friend Bette Davis. She filmed her final scene with Cecil Kellaway at Oak Alley Plantation in southern Louisiana. In A Life on Film, she described her character as “a little old lady, waiting to die.” Astor decided it would serve as her swan song in the movie business. After 109 movies in a career spanning 45 years, she turned in her Screen Actors Guild card and retired.

Olivia De Havilland, Mary Astor and William Walker in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Astor later moved to Fountain Valley, California, where she lived near her son, Tono del Campo (from her third marriage to Mexican film editor Manuel del Campo), and his family, until 1971.

That same year, suffering from a chronic heart condition, she moved to a small cottage on the grounds of the Motion Picture & Television Country House, the industry’s retirement facility in Woodland Hills, California, where she had a private table when she chose to eat in the resident dining room.

She appeared in the television documentary series Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980), produced by Kevin Brownlow, in which she discussed her roles during the silent film period. After years of retirement she had been urged to appear in Brownlow’s documentary by a former sister-in-law Bessie Love who also appeared in the series.

Astor died on September 25, 1987, at age 81, of respiratory failure due to pulmonary emphysema while in the hospital at the Motion Picture House complex.

Grave of Mary Astor at Holy Cross Cemetery

She is interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Astor has a star for motion pictures on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6701 Hollywood Boulevard.

She has been quoted as saying, “There are five stages in the life of an actor: who’s Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who’s Mary Astor?” Several other actors, among them Jack Elam and Ricardo Montalban, have been quoted as saying this.

Radio appearances

Year	Program	Episode/source
1941	Gulf Screen Guild Theatre	No Time for Comedy^[17]

Bibliography

My Story: An Autobiography (1959)
The Incredible Charlie Carewe (1963)
The O’Conners (1964)
Goodbye Darling, Be Happy (1965)
The Image of Kate (1966)
A Place Called Saturday (1968)
Life On Film (1969)
Sorel, Edward (2016). Mary Astor’s Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936. Liveright Publishing. ISBN 9781631490231.^[18]
Egan, Joseph (2016). The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s. Diversion Publishing. ISBN 9781682302996.

References

^ Jump up to:^a ^b Thomas, Bob (September 26, 1987). “‘Maltese Falcon’ star Astor dies at 81”. Kansas, Salina. The Salina Journal. p. 8. Retrieved February 20, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d “Mary Astor Not Actress by Accident; Career Planned”. Montana, Butte. The Montana Standard. August 24, 1936. p. 5. Retrieved February 20, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
Jump up^ Lindsay Anderson “Mary Astor”, Sight and Sound, Autumn 1990, reprinted in Paul Ryan (ed) Never Apologise: The Collected Writings, 2004, London: Plexus, pp. 431–36, 431
Jump up^ Distinguished Americans & Canadians of Portuguese Descent
Jump up^ [1]
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c “Mary Astor Dies at 81 – A ‘Maltese Falcon’ Star”. Los Angeles Times. (September 26, 1987) Accessed on August 14, 2007.
Jump up^ Mary Astor, 81, Is Dead; Star of ‘Maltese Falcon’
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Mary Astor Profile
Jump up^ Trivia – Mary Astor scandal
Jump up^ Mary Astor, “A Life on Film”, Dell Publishing 1967, New York pp. 125–127
Jump up^ Sorel, Edward (September 14, 2016). “Inside the Trial of Actress Mary Astor, Old Hollywood’s Juiciest Sex Scandal. Vanity Fair, September 2016, retrieved December 6, 2016.
Jump up^ “Justice“. The Classic TV Archive. Retrieved February 8, 2011.
Jump up^ Brownlow, Kevin; Gill, David (1980). Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film. (video). Thames Video Production.
Jump up^ Mary Astor at Find a Grave
Jump up^ “Walk of Fame Stars, Mary Astor”. walkoffame.com. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016. Retrieved December 1,2016.
Jump up^ Astor, Mary. A Life on Film. Dell Publishing Company, 1969
Jump up^ “Abel, Walter”. radioGOLDINdex. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
Jump up^ “Woody Allen Reviews a Graphic Tale of a Scandalous Starlet” by Woody Allen, The New York Times, December 22, 2016

Mary-Astor

External links

Actors, Articles, Home, Pre Code Films

Loretta Young

February 10, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Prepared by Daniel B Miller

Loretta Young (January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress and singer.

Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She won the 1948 Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the 1947 film The Farmer’s Daughter and received an Oscar nomination for her role in Come to the Stable in 1949.

Young moved to the relatively new medium of television, where she had a dramatic anthology series, The Loretta Young Show, from 1953 to 1961. The series earned three Emmy Awards and was rerun successfully on daytime TV and later in syndication.

In the 1980s, Young returned to the small screen and won a Golden Globe for her role in Christmas Dove in 1986. Young, a devout Roman Catholic,^[1]^[2] worked with various Catholic charities after her acting career.^[1]^[3]

Early life

Loretta Young

She was born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah, the daughter of Gladys (née Royal) and John Earle Young.^[4]^[5] At confirmation, she took the name Michaela. When she was two years old, her parents separated, and when she was three, her family and she moved to Hollywood. Her sisters Polly Ann and Elizabeth Jane (better known as Sally Blane) and she worked as child actresses, but of the three, Gretchen was the most successful.

The Primrose Ring (Robert Z Leonard, 1917) – Loretta Young’s First Film Role

Young’s first role was at the age of three, in the silent film The Primrose Ring. During her high-school years, she was educated at Ramona Convent Secondary School. She was signed to a contract by John McCormick (1893–1961), the husband and manager of the actress Colleen Moore, who saw the young girl’s potential.^[6] The name Loretta was given to her by Moore, who later explained that it was the name of her favorite doll.^[7]

Loretta Young aged 14

Loretta Young aged 15

Loretta Young aged 14

Career

Film

Young was billed as Gretchen Young in the silent film Sirens of the Sea (1917). She was first billed as Loretta Young in 1928, in The Whip Woman. That same year, she co-starred with Lon Chaney in the MGM film Laugh, Clown, Laugh. The next year, she was named one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.^[8]

Sirens of the Sea (Allen Holubar, 1917) billed as Gretchen Young

The Whip Woman (Allan Dwan, 1928) first billed as Loretta Young

Laugh Clown Laugh (Herbert Brenon, 1928) Loretta Young with Lon Chaney

Her silent films were followed up by a string of very successful Pre Code features. They included The Squall (Alexander Korda, 1929), Three Girls Lost (Sidney Lanfield, 1931), The Right of Way (Frank Lloyd, 1931), Platinum Blonde (Frank Capra, 1931), The Way of Life AKA They Call It Sin (Thornton Freeland, 1932), Taxi (Roy Del Ruth, 1932), Play Girl (Ray Enright, 1932), Working Wives AKA Week-End Marriage (Thornton Freeland, 1932), The Devil’s In Love (William Dieterle, 1933).

Young excelled in two seminal Pre Code films – Heroes for Sale (William Wellman, 1933) and Employees’ Entrance (Roy Del Ruth, 1933) and her deeply emotional performances helped her in becoming a major studio star.

Loretta Young in Squall (Alexander Korda, 1929)

Loretta Young with John Wayne in Three Girls Lost (Sidney Lanfield, 1931)

Loretta Young with Conrad Nagel in The Right Of Way (Frank Lloyd, 1931)

Loretta Young with Robert Williams and Jean Harlow in Platinum Blonde (Frank Capra, 1931)

Loretta Young with George Brent and Una Merkel in They Call It Sin AKA The Way of Life (Thornton Freeland, 1932)

Loretta Young with James Cagney in Taxi (Roy Del Ruth,1932)

Loretta Young with Norman Foster and Winnie Lightner in Play Girl (Ray Enright, 1932)

Loretta Young with Norman Foster and Aline MacMahon in Working Wives AKA Week-End Marriage (Thornton Freeland, 1932)

Loretta Young with Victor Jory and Vivienne Osborne in The Devil’s In Love (William Dieterle, 1933)

Loretta Young with Richard Barthelmess and Aline MacMahon in Heroes For Sale (William Wellman, 1933)

Employees’ Entrance (1933) Directed by Roy Del Ruth Shown: Warren William, Alice White

Loretta Young with Warren William and Wallace Ford in Employees’ Entrance (Roy Del Ruth, 1933)

In 1930, when she was 17, she eloped with the 26-year-old actor Grant Withers; they were married in Yuma, Arizona. The marriage was annulled the next year, just as their second movie together (ironically entitled Too Young to Marry) was released.

Loretta Young and Grant Withers

The Second Floor Mystery (Roy Del Ruth, 1930) Loretta Young and Grant Withers

Loretta Young and Grant Withers

In 1935, she co-starred with Clark Gable and Jack Oakie in the film version of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, directed by William Wellman.

Loretta Young and Clark Gable in Call of the Wild (William Wellman, 1935)

During World War II, Young made Ladies Courageous (1944; reissued as Fury in the Sky), the fictionalized story of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. It depicted a unit of female pilots who flew bomber planes from the factories to their final destinations. Young made as many as eight movies a year.

Ladies Courageous AKA Fury in the Sky (John Rawlins, 1944)

Ladies Courageous AKA Fury in the Sky (John Rawlins, 1944)

In 1947, she won an Oscar for her performance in The Farmer’s Daughter. That same year, she co-starred with Cary Grant and David Niven in The Bishop’s Wife, a perennial favorite. In 1949, she received another Academy Award nomination for Come to the Stable. In 1953, she appeared in her last theatrical film, It Happens Every Thursday, a Universal comedy about a New York couple who move to California to take over a struggling weekly newspaper; her costar was John Forsythe.

Loretta Young with her Academy Award for The Farmer’s Daughter (HC Potter, 1947

Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter (HC Potter, 1947)

Cary Grant, Loretta Young and Monty Woolley in the movie “The Bishop’s Wife”.

Loretta Young in The Bishop’s Wife (Henry Koster, 1947)

Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (Henry Koster, 1949)

Loretta Young in It Happens Every Thursday (Joseph Pevney, 1953)

Television

Young hosted and starred in the well-received half-hour anthology television series Letter to Loretta (soon retitled The Loretta Young Show), which was originally broadcast from 1953 to 1961.

She earned three Emmy awards for the program. Her trademark was a dramatic entrance through a living-room door in various high-fashion evening gowns. She returned at the program’s conclusion to offer a brief passage from the Bible or a famous quote that reflected upon the evening’s story.

(Young’s introductions and concluding remarks were not rerun on television because she legally stipulated that they not be, as she did not want the dresses she wore in those segments to make the program seem dated.) The program ran in prime time on NBC for eight years, the longest-running primetime network program hosted by a woman up to that time.^{[citation needed]}

Ancient Egypt Photograph – The Loretta Young Show, Aka Letter To by Everett

The program was based on the premise that each drama was in answer to a question asked in her fan mail. The title was changed to The Loretta Young Show during the first season (as of the episode of February 14, 1954), and the “letter” concept was dropped at the end of the second season. Towards the end of the second season, Young was hospitalized as a result of overwork, which required a number of guest hosts and guest stars; her first appearance in the 1955–56 season was for the Christmas show. From then on, Young appeared in only about half of each season’s shows as an actress and served as the program’s host for the remainder.

Minus Young’s introductions and conclusions, the series was rerun as the Loretta Young Theatre in daytime by NBC from 1960 to 1964. It also appeared in syndicationinto the early 1970s, before being withdrawn.

In the 1962–1963 television season, Young appeared as Christine Massey, a freelance magazine writer and the mother of seven children, in The New Loretta Young Show, on CBS. It fared poorly in the ratings on Monday evenings against ABC‘s Ben Casey. It was dropped after one season of 26 episodes.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1990s, selected episodes from Young’s personal collection, with the opening and closing segments (and original title) intact, were released on home video, and frequently were shown on cable television.^{[citation needed]}

On the set of The Loretta Young Show

Awards

In 1988, she received the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women, who through their endurance and the excellence of their work, helped to expand the role of women in the entertainment industry.^[9]

Young has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for her work in television, at 6135 Hollywood Boulevard, and the other for her work in motion pictures, at 6100 Hollywood Boulevard.^[10] In 2011, a Golden Palm Star on the Walk of Stars, in Palm Springs, California, was dedicated to her.^[11]

Personal life

Young was married to the actor Grant Withers from 1930 to 1931.

From September 1933 to June 1934, she had a public affair with Spencer Tracy, her co-star in Man’s Castle.^[12] She married the producer Tom Lewis in 1940; they divorced bitterly in the mid-1960s.

Lewis died in 1988. They had two sons, Peter Lewis (of the San Francisco rock band Moby Grape) and Christopher Lewis, a film director. Young married the fashion designer Jean Louis in 1993. He died in 1997. Young was godmother to Marlo Thomas (daughter of the TV star Danny Thomas).^[13]

With Grant Withers in Too Young To Marry (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931)

With Spencer Tracy in Man’s Castle (Frank Borzage, 1933)

With Tom Lewis on their wedding day

With Tom Lewis and children

With her last husband Jean Louis

Pregnancy by Clark Gable

Young and Clark Gable were the romantic leads of the 1935 Twentieth Century Pictures film The Call of the Wild, which was filmed early in that year. Young was then 22 years old, while Gable was 34 and married (to Maria “Ria” Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham). During the filming, Gable impregnated Young.

Loretta Young with Clark Gable

For the next 80 years, those who knew of Gable’s paternity widely assumed the pregnancy to be the result of an affair between the two. However, in 2015, Linda Lewis, Young’s daughter-in-law (and Christopher Lewis’s wife) stated publicly that, in 1998, Young told Lewis that Gable had raped her and that, though the two had flirted on set, there had been no affair and no intimate contact save for that one incident.^[14]

Young had not revealed the information before to anyone. According to Lewis, Young only stated it after having learned of the concept of date rape; she had previously always believed that it was a woman’s job to fend off men’s amorous advances and had felt the fact that Gable had been able to force himself on her was thus a moral failing on her part.^[14]

Loretta Young with Clark Gable

Young, her sisters and her mother came up with a plan to hide the pregnancy and then pass off the child as an adopted child.^[14] Young did not want to damage her career or Gable’s, and she knew that, if Twentieth Century Pictures found out about the pregnancy, they would try to pressure her to have an abortion, which Young, a devout Catholic, considered a mortal sin.^[14]

When the pregnancy began to show, Young went on a “vacation” to England, and several months later returned to California. Shortly before the birth, she gave an interview from her bed, covered in blankets, stating that her long movie absence was due to a condition she had had since childhood. Young gave birth to Judith Young on November 6, 1935, in a house that she and her mother owned in Venice, California. Young named Judith after St. Jude, because he was the patron saint of (among other things) difficult situations.^[14]

Loretta Young and her daughter Judith

Three weeks later, Young returned to moviemaking. After several months of living in the house in Venice, Judy was transferred to St. Elizabeth’s, an orphanage outside Los Angeles. When she was 19 months old, her grandmother picked her up, and Young announced to gossip columnist Louella Parsons that she had adopted the infant.

Few in Hollywood were fooled by the ruse, and the child’s true parentage was widely rumored in entertainment circles. Young refused to confirm or comment publicly on the rumors until 1999, when Joan Wester Anderson wrote Young’s authorized biography. In interviews with Anderson for the book, Young stated that Judy was her biological child and the product of a brief affair with Gable.^[15] The child was raised as Judy Lewis,^[16] taking the last name of Young’s second husband.

Loretta Young and Judith Lewis in 1960s

Judy Lewis wrote in her autobiography, Uncommon Knowledge, that some people made fun of her because of the prominent ears she had inherited from her father. She states that at seven she had an operation to “pin back” her large ears and that her mother always had her wear bonnets as a child.

In 1958, Lewis’s future husband, Joseph Tinney, told her “everybody” knew that Gable was her biological father. The only time she remembered Gable visiting her was once at her home when she was a teenager; she had no idea he was her biological father.

Loretta Young, Clark Gable and Judy Lewis

Several years later he appeared on The Loretta Young Show after Young had been in hospital for several months. Lewis was an assistant and was right behind her mother when she noticed Gable. They never had a relationship, and she never saw him again.^[17]Several years later, after becoming a mother herself, Lewis finally confronted her mother, who privately admitted the truth, stating that Judy was “a walking mortal sin.”^[18]

Linda Lewis said the family stayed silent about the date rape claim until after both Loretta Young and Judy Lewis had died.^[14]

Judy Lewis

Politics

Young was a lifelong Republican.^[19] In 1952, she appeared in radio, print, and magazine ads in support of Dwight D. Eisenhower in his campaign for President.

She attended his inauguration in 1953, along with Anita Louise, Louella Parsons, Jane Russell, Dick Powell, June Allyson, and Lou Costello, among others.

She was a vocal supporter of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in their presidential campaigns in 1968 and 1980, respectively.^[20] Young was also an active member of the Hollywood Republican Committee, with her close friend Irene Dunne and Ginger Rogers, William Holden, George Murphy, Fred Astaire, and John Wayne.^[21]

Loretta Young with John Wayne, Lew Cody and Joan Marsh – promo for Three Girls Lost (Sidney Lanfield, 1931)

Later life

From the time of Young’s retirement in the 1960s until not long before her death, she devoted herself to volunteer work for charities and churches with her friends of many years: Jane Wyman, Irene Dunne, and Rosalind Russell.^[22] She was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California.^[23] Young briefly came out of retirement to star in two television films, Christmas Eve (1986) and Lady in the Corner (1989).

Loretta Young with Judy Lewis attending a charitable event

She won a Golden Globe Award for the former and was nominated again for the latter.^[24]

In 1972, a jury in Los Angeles awarded Young $550,000 in a lawsuit against NBC for breach of contract. Filed in 1966, the suit contended that NBC had allowed foreign television outlets to rerun old episodes of The Loretta Young Show without excluding, as agreed by the parties, the opening segment in which Young made her entrance. Young testified that her image had been damaged by portraying her in “outdated gowns.” She had sought damages of $1.9 million.^[25]

Loretta Young in Christmas Eve (1986)

Loretta Young in Lady in the Corner (1989)

Death

Young died of ovarian cancer on August 12, 2000, at the home of her half-sister, Georgiana Montalbán^[26] (the wife of the actor Ricardo Montalban), in Santa Monica, California.

She was interred in the family plot in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Her ashes were buried in the grave of her mother, Gladys Belzer.^[27]^[28] Her elder sisters had both died from cancer, as did her daughter, Judy Lewis, on November 25, 2011, at the age of 76.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1917	The Primrose Ring	Fairy	Lost; uncredited
1917	Sirens of the Sea	Child	As Gretchen Young
1919	The Only Way	Child on operating table
1921	White and Unmarried	Child	Uncredited
1921	The Sheik	Arab child	Extant; uncredited
1927	Naughty but Nice	Bit part	Lost; uncredited
1927	Her Wild Oat	Bit by ping pong table	Extant; uncredited
1928	The Whip Woman	The Girl	Lost
1928	Laugh, Clown, Laugh	Simonetta	Extant; made at MGM
1928	The Magnificent Flirt	Denise Laverne	Lost; made at Paramount Pictures
1928	The Head Man	Carol Watts	Lost
1928	Scarlet Seas	Margaret Barbour	Lost (Vitaphone track of music and effects survives)
1929	Seven Footprints to Satan	One of Satan’s victims	Extant; uncredited
1929	The Squall	Irma	Extant, in Library of Congress
1929	The Girl in the Glass Cage	Gladys Cosgrove	Lost
1929	Fast Life	Patricia Mason Stratton	Lost (Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film and Television)
1929	The Careless Age	Muriel	Lost
1929	The Forward Pass	Patricia Carlyle	Lost
1929	The Show of Shows	“Meet My Sister” number	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	Loose Ankles	Ann Harper Berry	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	The Man from Blankley’s	Margery Seaton	Lost (Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film and Television)
1930	Show Girl in Hollywood		Extant, in Library of Congress; uncredited
1930	The Second Floor Mystery	Marion Ferguson	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	Road to Paradise	Mary Brennan/Margaret Waring	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	Warner Bros. Jubilee Dinner	Herself	Short subject
1930	Kismet	Marsinah	Lost (Vitaphone soundtrack discs at UCLA Film and Television)
1930	War Nurse	Nurse	Extant; made at MGM; uncredited (Young’s scenes deleted)
1930	The Truth About Youth	Phyllis Ericson	Extant, in Library of Congress
1930	The Devil to Pay!	Dorothy Hope	Extant; produced by Samuel Goldwyn; released by United Artists
1931	How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 8: “The Brassie”	Herself	Short subject
1931	Beau Ideal	Isobel Brandon	Extant; made at RKO
1931	The Right of Way	Rosalie Evantural	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	The Stolen Jools	Herself	Short subject
1931	Three Girls Lost	Norene McMann	Extant
1931	Too Young to Marry	Elaine Bumpstead	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	Big Business Girl	Claie “Mac” McIntyre	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	I Like Your Nerve	Diane Forsythe	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	The Ruling Voice	Gloria Bannister	Extant, in Library of Congress
1931	Platinum Blonde	Gallagher
1932	Taxi!	Sue Riley Nolan	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	The Hatchet Man	Sun Toya San	Extant, in Library of Congress; original title The Honorable Mr. Wong
1932	Play-Girl	Buster “Bus” Green Dennis	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	Week-End Marriage	Lola Davis Hayes	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	Life Begins	Grace Sutton	Extant, in Library of Congress
1932	They Call It Sin	Marion Cullen	Extant, in Library of Congress^[29]
1933	Employees’ Entrance	Madeleine Walters West	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Grand Slam	Marcia Stanislavsky	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Zoo in Budapest	Eve	Extant
1933	The Life of Jimmy Dolan	Peggy	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Heroes for Sale	Ruth Loring Holmes	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	Midnight Mary	Mary Martin
1933	She Had to Say Yes	Florence “Flo” Denny	Extant, in Library of Congress
1933	The Devil’s in Love	Margot Lesesne	Extant
1933	Man’s Castle	Trina	Extant
1934	The House of Rothschild	Julie Rothschild
1934	Born to Be Bad	Letty Strong
1934	Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back	Lola Field
1934	Caravan	Countess Wilma
1934	The White Parade	June Arden
1935	Clive of India	Margaret Maskelyne Clive
1935	Shanghai	Barbara Howard
1935	The Call of the Wild	Claire Blake
1935	The Crusades	Berengaria, Princess of Navarre
1935	Hollywood Extra Girl	Herself	Short subject
1936	The Unguarded Hour	Lady Helen Dudley Dearden
1936	Private Number	Ellen Neal
1936	Ramona	Ramona
1936	Ladies in Love	Susie Schmidt
1937	Love Is News	Toni Gateson
1937	Café Metropole	Laura Ridgeway
1937	Love Under Fire	Myra Cooper
1937	Wife, Doctor and Nurse	Ina Heath Lewis
1937	Second Honeymoon	Vicky
1938	Four Men and a Prayer	Miss Lynn Cherrington
1938	Three Blind Mice	Pamela Charters
1938	Suez	Countess Eugenie de Montijo
1938	Kentucky	Sally Goodwin
1939	Wife, Husband and Friend	Doris Borland
1939	The Story of Alexander Graham Bell	Mrs. Mabel Hubbard Bell
1939	Eternally Yours	Anita
1940	The Doctor Takes a Wife	June Cameron
1940	He Stayed for Breakfast	Marianna Duval
1941	The Lady from Cheyenne	Annie Morgan
1941	The Men in Her Life	Lina Varsavina
1941	Bedtime Story	Jane Drake
1942	A Night to Remember	Nancy Troy
1943	China	Carolyn Grant
1943	Show Business at War	Herself	Short subject
1944	Ladies Courageous	Roberta Harper	Famously “a clef” biopic of the WWII WASPs, pioneering women pilots
1944	And Now Tomorrow	Emily Blair
1945	Along Came Jones	Cherry de Longpre
1946	The Stranger	Mary Longstreet
1947	The Perfect Marriage	Maggie Williams
1947	The Farmer’s Daughter	Katrin “Katy” Holstrum	Academy Award for Best Actress
1947	The Bishop’s Wife	Julia Brougham
1948	Rachel and the Stranger	Rachel Harvey
1949	The Accused	Dr. Wilma Tuttle
1949	Mother Is a Freshman	Abigail Fortitude Abbott
1949	Come to the Stable	Sister Margaret	Nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress
1950	Key to the City	Clarissa Standish
1951	You Can Change the World	Herself	Short subject
1951	Cause for Alarm!	Ellen Jones
1951	Half Angel	Nora Gilpin
1951	Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards	Herself	Short subject
1952	Paula	Paula Rogers
1952	Because of You	Christine Carroll Kimberly
1953	It Happens Every Thursday	Jane MacAvoy
1986	Christmas Eve	Amanda Kingsley
1989	Lady in the Corner	Grace Guthrie
1994	Life Along the Mississippi	Narrator (voice)

Radio appearances

Year	Program	Episode/source
1940	The Campbell Playhouse	Theodora Goes Wild^[30]
1945	Cavalcade of America	Children, This Is Your Father^[30]
1947	Family Theater	“Flight from Home”^[30]
1950	Suspense	“Lady Killer”^[30]
1952	Lux Radio Theatre	“Come to the Stable“^[31]
1952	Family Theater	“Heritage of Home”^[32]

References

^ Jump up to:^a ^b Laufenberg, Norbert B. (2005). Entertainment Celebrities. Trafford Publishing. p. 863. ISBN 1-4120-5335-8.
Jump up^ Davis, Ronald L. (2001). Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 47. ISBN 0-8061-3329-5.
Jump up^ Lowe, Denise (2005). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women In Early American Films, 1895–1930. Psychology Press. p. 585. ISBN 0-7890-1843-8.
Jump up^ Leading Ladies The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era. New York: Chronicle, 2006
Jump up^ Spicer, Christopher J. “Clark Gable: Biography, Filmography, Bibliography”. Books.google.ca. p. 113. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ “Loretta Young”. Loretta Young. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ “Loretta Young Biography”. Bookrags.com. 2010-11-02. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ Lowe, Denise (2005). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films, 1895–1930. Routledge. p. 67. ISBN 0-7890-1843-8.
Jump up^ [1] Archived June 30, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
Jump up^ “Walk of Fame Stars: Loretta Young”. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016. Retrieved October 13, 2016.
Jump up^ “Palm Springs Walk of Stars by Date Dedicated” (PDF). Palmspringswalkofstars.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-10-13. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ Curtis (2011), p. 210 for the beginning of the affair, pp. 213 and 215 for the public nature of the relationship, p. 235 for the breakup.
Jump up^ “Loretta Young – (Movie Promo) by Marlo Thomas”. Tcm.com. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Petersen, Anne Helen. “Clark Gable Accused of Raping Co-Star”. BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ Anderson, Joan Wester (November 2000). Forever Young: The Life, Loves, and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend: The Authorized Biography of Loretta Young. Thomas More Publishing. ISBN 978-0883474679.
Jump up^ アンジェリカルートとは. “アンジェリカルートとは”. Judy–lewis.com. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ Lewis, Judy (May 1994). Uncommon Knowledge. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0671700195.
Jump up^ Interview with Judy Lewis. Girl 27 (documentary), 2007.
Jump up^ Dick, Bernard. Hollywood Madonna: Loretta Young. pp. 197– 201.
Jump up^ Dick, Bernard. Hollywood Madonna: Loretta Young. p. 202.
Jump up^ Epstein, Edward (1986). Loretta Young: An Extraordinary Life. pp. 215–16.
Jump up^ “Classic Hollywood 101: The BFF’s of Classic Hollywood”. Classichollywood101.blogspot.com. 2010-07-09. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ “Our History | Church of the Good Shepherd”. Goodshepherdbh.org. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ “Awards for Loretta Young”. IMDb.com. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ “Loretta Young Wins $559,000 Damages”. Oakland Tribune. January 18, 1972. p. 12.
Jump up^ “Elegant Beauty Loretta Young Dies”. bbc.co.uk. 2000-08-12. Retrieved 2 May2010.
Jump up^ Gary Wayne. “Holy Cross Cemetery, Part 2: Stars’ Graves”. Seeing-stars.com. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
Jump up^ Loretta Young at Find a Grave
Jump up^ They Call It Sin at the American Film Institute Catalog
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d “Those Were the Days”. Nostalgia Digest. 39 (1): 32–41. Winter 2013.
Jump up^ Kirby, Walter (March 23, 1952). “Better Radio Programs for the Week”. Decatur Daily Review. p. 44. Retrieved May 21, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
Jump up^ Kirby, Walter (February 17, 1952). “Better Radio Programs for the Week”. Decatur Daily Review. p. 40. Retrieved June 1, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.

Cinematheque Live, Film Collector's Club, Home, Pre Code Films

Her First Affaire (1932)

February 4, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD

Her First Affaire (1932)

Director: Allan Dwan

Cast: Ida Lupino, George Curzon, Diana Napier, Harry Tate, Muriel Aked, Arnold Riches, Kenneth Kove, Helen Haye, Roland Culver

71 min

Her First Affaire is a 1932 British drama film directed by Allan Dwan and starring Ida Lupino, George Curzon and Diana Napier.^[1] It was based on a play by Merrill Rogers and Frederick J. Jackson.

Plot

A headstrong young girl falls completely for a writer of trashy novels, and insinuates herself into his household, all to the chagrin of her erstwhile fiancé.He conspires with the author’s wife to show the girl how foolish she’s been.

Cast

Ida Lupino – Anne
George Curzon – Carey Merton
Diana Napier – Mrs Merton
Harry Tate – Major Gore
Muriel Aked – Agatha Brent
Arnold Riches – Brian
Kenneth Kove – Professor Hotspur
Helen Haye – Lady Bragden
Roland Culver – Drunk
Melville Gideon – Melville Gideon

References

Jump up^ “Her First Affaire (1932)”. BFI. Retrieved 3 May 2016.

Film Collectors Corner

Watch Her First Affaire Now – You Tube Instant Video

Blu Ray

Not released on Blu Ray

DVD

Not released on DVD

Cinematheque Live, Film Collector's Club, Home, Pre Code Films

Saturday Night Kid, The (1929)

February 3, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

The Saturday Night Kid (1929)

Director: A Edward Sutherland

Cast: Clara Bow, Jean Arthur, James Hall, Jean Arthur, Edna May Arthur, Charles Sellon, Ethel Wales, Jean Harlow

63 min

The Saturday Night Kid is a 1929 American Pre-Code romantic comedy film about two sisters and the man they both want. It stars Clara Bow, Jean Arthur, James Hall, and in her first credited role, Jean Harlow. The film was based on the play Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em (1926) by George Abbott and John V. A. Weaver. The movie still survives. The film was preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding by Clara Bow biographer David Stenn.

Plot

Set in May 1929, the film focuses on two sisters – Mayme (Clara Bow) and Janie (Jean Arthur) – as they share an apartment in New York City. In daytime, they work as salesgirls at the Ginsberg’s department store, and at night they vie for the attention of their colleague Bill (James Hall) and fight over Janie’s selfish and reckless behavior, such as stealing Mayme’s clothes and hitchhiking to work with strangers.

Bill prefers Mayme over Janie and constantly shows his affection for her. This upsets Janie, who schemes to break up the couple.

One day at work, Bill is promoted to floorwalker, while Janie is made treasurer of the benefit pageant. Mayme, however, is not granted a promotion, but gets heavily criticized for constantly being late at work by the head of personnel, Miss Streeter (Edna May Oliver).

Cast

Clara Bow as Mayme
Jean Arthur as Janie
James Hall as William ‘Bill’ Taylor
Edna May Oliver as Miss Streeter
Hyman Meyer as Ginsberg
Charles Sellon as Lem Woodruff
Ethel Wales as Lily Woodruff
Jean Harlow as Hazel
Leone Lane as Pearl

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Journey’s End (1930)

February 2, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

Journey’s End (1930)

Director: James Whale

Cast: Colin Clive, Ian Maclaren, David Manners, Billy Bevan, Anthony Bushell, Robert Adair, Charles K Gerrard, Tom Whiteley

120 min

Journey’s End is a 1930 British-American war film directed by James Whale. Based on the play of the same name by R. C. Sherriff, the film tells the story of several British army officers involved in trench warfare during the First World War. The film, like the play before it, was an enormous critical and commercial success and launched the film careers of Whale and several of its stars.

The following year there was a German film version Die andere Seite directed by Heinz Paul starring Conrad Veidt as Stanhope and Wolfgang Liebeneiner as Raleigh. The film was banned just weeks after the Nazis took power in 1933.

In 1976, the play was adapted again as Aces High with the scenario shifted to the British Royal Flying Corps. The play was adapted for film again with its original title and scenario in 2017.

Plot

On the eve of a battle in 1918, a new officer, Second Lieutenant Raleigh (David Manners), joins Captain Stanhope’s (Colin Clive) company in the British trench lines in France. The two men knew each other at school: the younger Raleigh hero-worshipping Stanhope, while Stanhope has come to love Raleigh’s sister.

But the Stanhope whom Raleigh encounters now is a changed man who, after three years at the front, has turned to drink and seems close to a breakdown. Stanhope is terrified that Raleigh will betray Stanhope’s decline to his sister, whom Stanhope still hopes to marry after the war.

An older officer, the avuncular Lieutenant Osborne (Ian Maclaren), desperately tries to keep Stanhope from cracking. Osborne and Raleigh are selected to lead a raiding party on the German trenches where a number of the British forces are killed, including Osborne. Later, when Raleigh too is mortally wounded, Stanhope faces a desperate time as, grief-stricken and without close friends, he prepares to face another furious enemy attack.

Cast

Colin Clive as Captain Denis Stanhope
Ian Maclaren as Lieutenant Osborne
David Manners as Second Lieutenant Raleigh
Billy Bevan as Second Lieutenant Trotter
Anthony Bushell as Second Lieutenant Hibbert
Robert Adair as Captain Hardy
Charles K. Gerrard as Private Mason
Tom Whiteley as Sergeant Major
Jack Pitcairn as Colonel
Werner Klingler as German prisoner
Gil Perkins as Sergeant Cox
Leslie Sketchley as Corporal Ross

Production

When Howard Hughes made the decision to turn Hell’s Angels into a talkie, he hired a then-unknown James Whale, who had just arrived in Hollywood following a successful turn directing the play Journey’s End in London and on Broadway, to direct the talking sequences; it was Whale’s film debut, and arguably prepared him for the later success he would have with the feature version of Journey’s End, Waterloo Bridge, and, most famously, the 1931 version of Frankenstein. Unhappy with the script, Whale brought in Joseph Moncure March to re-write it. Hughes later gave March the Luger pistol used in the film.^[1]

With production delayed while Hughes tinkered with the flying scenes in Hell’s Angels, Whale managed to shoot his film adaptation of Journey’s End and have it come out a month before Hell’s Angels was released. The gap between completion of the dialogue scenes and completion of the aerial combat stunts allowed Whale to be paid, sail back to England, and begin work on the subsequent project, making Whale’s actual (albeit uncredited) cinema debut, his “second” film to be released.^{[citation needed]}

References

Notes

Jump up^ Curtis 1998, p. 86.

Bibliography

Curtis, James. James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters. Boston: Faber and Faber,1998. ISBN 0-571-19285-8.
Dolan, Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. ISBN 0-86124-229-7.
Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. “A Viewer’s Guide to Aviation Movies”. The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
Orriss, Bruce. When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II. Hawthorne, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. ISBN 0-9613088-0-X.
Osborne, Robert. 65 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards London: Abbeville Press, 1994. ISBN 1-55859-715-8.
“Production of ‘Hell’s Angels’ Cost the Lives of Three Aviators.” Syracuse Herald, December 28, 1930, p. 59.
Robertson, Patrick. Film Facts. New York: Billboard Books, 2001. ISBN 0-8230-7943-0.

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From Hell To Heaven (1933)

January 31, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

From Hell To Heaven (1933)

Director: Erle C Kenton

Cast: Carole Lombard, Jack Oakie, Adrienne Ames, Sidney Blackmer, David Manners, Sidney Blackmer, Verna Hillie, Shirley Gray, Rita La Roy, Donald Kerr, Berton Churchill, Nydia Westman

67 min

From Hell to Heaven is a 1933 American Pre-Code drama film. It was directed by Erle C. Kenton, and features an ensemble cast including Carole Lombard, Jack Oakie, Adrienne Ames and Sidney Blackmer.

Synopsis

A group of people from several walks of life gather to watch a horse race.

Cast

Carole Lombard as Colly Tanner
Jack Oakie as Charlie Bayne
Adrienne Ames as Joan Burt
David Manners as Wesley Burt
Sidney Blackmer as Cliff Billings
Verna Hillie as Sonnie Lockwood
James Eagles as Tommy Tucker
Shirley Grey as Winnie Lloyd
Bradley Page as Jack Ruby
Walter Walker as Pop Lockwood
Berton Churchill as Toledo Jones
Cecil Cunningham as Mrs. Chadman
Nydia Westman as Sue Wells

Production and reception

From Hell to Heaven was Paramount‘s effort to replicate the success of Grand Hotel (1932), which had won the Academy Award for Best Picture for MGM the year before.^[1] Reviews were favorable; Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times wrote, “It is not as ambitious a picture as Grand Hotel, but it is interesting.”^[2]

References

Jump up^ Swindell, Larry (1975). Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard. New York: William Morrow & Company. p. 127. ISBN 978-0688002879.
Jump up^ Ott, Frederick W. (1972). The Films of Carole Lombard. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0806502786.

From Hell To Heaven 9

From Hell To Heaven 5

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It Pays To Advertise (1931)

January 31, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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It Pays To Advertise (1931)

Director: Frank Tuttle

Cast: Norman Foster, Carole Lombard, Richard Skeets Gallagher, Eugene Pallette, Lucien Littlefield, Judith Wood, Louise Brooks, Morgan Wallace, Tom Kennedy, Frank Tuttle

63 min

It Pays to Advertise is a 1931 American pre-Code comedy film, based on the play of the same name by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter C. Hackett, starring Norman Foster and Carole Lombard, and directed by Frank Tuttle.^[1]

Plot

Rodney Martin sets up a soap business to rival his father. With the help of an advertising expert and his secretary, Mary, he develops a successful marketing campaign. His father ends up buying the company from him, while Rodney and Mary fall in love.^[2]

Cast

Norman Foster as Rodney Martin
Carole Lombard as Mary Grayson
Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher as Ambrose Pearle
Eugene Pallette as Cyrus Martin
Lucien Littlefield as Adams
Judith Wood as Countess de Beaurien (credited as Helen Johnson)
Louise Brooks as Thelma Temple
Morgan Wallace as L. R. McChesney
Tom Kennedy as Perkins
Marcia Manners as Miss Burke
Frank Coghlan Jr. as Office Boy (credited as Junior Coghlan)
John Howell as Johnson
John Sinclair as Window Cleaner

Reception

The film received positive reviews. Photoplay wrote that it has “plenty of speed and lots of laughs”, and praised the “perfect cast”.^[2]

References

Jump up^ The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:..It Pays to Advertise
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Ott, Frederick W. (1972). The Films of Carole Lombard. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press. pp. 80–81. ISBN 978-0806502786.

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Laughter (1930)

January 30, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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Laughter (1930)

Director: Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast

Cast: Nancy Carroll, Fredric March, Frank Morgan, Glenn Anders, Diane Ellis, Ollie Burgoyne, Leonard Carey, Eric Blore

85 min

Laughter is a 1930 American pre-Code film directed by Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast and starring Nancy Carroll, Fredric March and Frank Morgan.^[1]

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story.^[2]

A copy has been preserved at the Library of Congress.^[3]

In 1931, a German-language version called Die Männer um Lucie was released starring Liane Haid and Lien Deyers. This film is considered lost.

Plot

Peggy is a Follies dancer who forsakes her life of carefree attachments in order to meet her goal of marrying a millionaire. Alas, her elderly husband, broker C. Morton Gibson, is a well-meaning bore, and soon Peggy begins seeking entertainment elsewhere.

A year after their marriage, three significant events occur almost simultaneously. Peggy’s former boyfriend, Paul Lockridge, a composer and pianist who is in love with her and seems to have a funny quip for every occasion, returns from Paris.

She reunites with him as he offers her his companionship as a diversion from her stuffy life. Also, Ralph Le Saint, a young devil-may-care sculptor who is still in love with Peggy, plans his suicide in a mood of bitterness, and Gibson’s daughter, Marjorie, returns from schooling abroad. Marjorie is soon paired with Ralph, and the romance that develops between them is paralleled by the adult affair between Peggy and Paul.

Ralph and Marjorie’s escapades result in considerable trouble for Morton, while Paul implores Peggy to go to Paris with him, declaring “You are rich–dirty rich. You are dying. You need laughter to make you clean,” but she refuses. When Marjorie plans to elope with Ralph, Peggy exposes the sculptor as a fortune hunter; and, dejected, he commits suicide. As a result, Peggy confesses her unhappiness to Gibson, then joins Paul and laughter in Paris.

References

The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:Laughter
Jump up^ Osborne, Robert (1994). 65 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards. London: Abbeville Press. p. 27. ISBN 1-55859-715-8.
Jump up^ Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congressp.101 c.1978 by the American Film Institute

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Virtue (1932)

January 28, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

Virtue (1932)

Director: Edward Buzzell

Cast: Carle Lombard, Pat O’Brien, Ward Bond, Shirley Grey, Mayo Methot, Jack LaRue, Williard Robertson, Jessie Arnold

68 min

Virtue is a 1932 Pre-Code American romance film starring Carole Lombard and Pat O’Brien.

Plot

New York City streetwalker Mae (Carole Lombard) is placed on a train by a policeman and told not to come back. However, she gets off, taking the cab of Jimmy Doyle (Pat O’Brien), who doesn’t think much of women. She slips away without paying the fare. Her friend and fellow prostitute, Lil (Mayo Methot), advises her to find honest work.

The next day, Mae goes to the cab company to pay Jimmy. They start arguing, but they are attracted to each other. He gets her a job as a waitress. By coincidence, Gert (Shirley Grey), another former prostitute who knows her, also works at the restaurant.

Jimmy and Mae soon marry, but Mae doesn’t tell her new husband about her past. After a honeymoon at Coney Island, the happy couple are met at Mae’s apartment by a policeman who mistakes Jimmy for Mae’s latest “client”. Jimmy shows him their marriage license to clear up the trouble, then leaves to think things over. He returns the next day, ready to try to make the marriage work.

Jimmy has saved $420 of the $500 he needs to become a partner in Flannagan’s gas station. However, Gert begs Mae to lend her $200 for a doctor. Despite her misgivings, Mae gives it to her. The next day, she learns that Gert has lied to her. When Jimmy tells her that the gas station owner needs money and is willing to settle for what he already has, Mae begins searching desperately for Gert.

Mae finally finds her and slaps her around until she promises to get her the money the next night. However, Gert has given the money to her boyfriend Toots (Jack La Rue), who is also Lil’s pimp. When Gert tries to steal the $200 from his wallet, Toots catches her and accidentally kills her. He hides the body, then watches from hiding as Mae shows up, finds the money and leaves.

The police arrest Mae for the crime because she left her bag behind in Gert’s apartment. However, a distrusting Jimmy had been following Mae and knows a man was with Gert. He learns that it was Toots, but when he confronts him, Lil gives Toots an alibi. Jimmy goes to the district attorney to report what he knows. Lil convinces Toots to go to the district attorney to lodge a complaint against Jimmy. Lil reveals herself to be Mae’s true friend, admitting that Toots lied and exonerating Mae.

Jimmy goes to the gas station to tell Flannagan he no longer wants to buy into the partnership. He sees Mae pumping gas under a Doyle & Flannagan sign. They argue and reconcile.

Cast (in credits order)

Carole Lombard as Mae
Pat O’Brien as Jimmy Doyle
Ward Bond as Frank
Shirley Grey as Gert Hanlon
Mayo Methot as Lil Blair
Jack La Rue as Toots O’Neil
Willard Robertson as Detective MacKenzie
Edwin Stanley as District Attorney

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Broadway (1929)

January 27, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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Broadway (1929)

Director: Paul Fejos

Cast: Glenn Tryon, Evelyn Brent, Merna Kennedy, Thomas E Jackson, Robert Ellis, Otis Harlan, Paul Porcasi, Marion Lord, Fritz Field, Leslie Fenton, Arthur Housman

104 min

Broadway is a 1929 film directed by Paul Fejos from the play of the same name by George Abbott and Philip Dunning. It stars Glenn Tryon, Evelyn Brent, Paul Porcasi, Robert Ellis, Merna Kennedy and Thomas E. Jackson.^[1]

This was Universal’s first talking picture with Technicolor sequences. The film was released by the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray and DVD with Paul Fejo’s Lonesome on August 2012.

Plot

Roy Lane and Billie Moore, entertainers at the Paradise Nightclub, are in love and are rehearsing an act together. Late to work one evening, Billie is saved from dismissal by Nick Verdis, the club proprietor, through the intervention of Steve Crandall, a bootlegger, who desires a liaison with the girl.

“Scar” Edwards, robbed of a truckload of contraband liquor by Steve’s gang, arrives at the club for a showdown with Steve and is shot in the back. Steve gives Billie a bracelet to forget that she has seen him helping a “drunk” from the club. Though Roy is arrested by Dan McCorn, he is later released on Billie’s testimony.

Nick is murdered by Steve. Billie witnesses the killing, but keeps quiet about the dirty business until she finds out Steve’s next target is Roy. Billie is determined to tell her story to the police before Roy winds up dead, but Steve isn’t about to let that happen and kidnaps her. Steve, in his car, is fired at from a taxi, and overheard by Pearl, he confesses to killing Edwards. Pearl confronts Steve in Nick’s office and kills him; and McCorn, finding Steve’s body, insists that he committed suicide, exonerating Pearl and leaving Roy and Billie to the success of their act.

Cast

Glenn Tryon as Roy Lane
Evelyn Brent as Pearl
Merna Kennedy as Billie Moore
Thomas E. Jackson as Dan McCorn
Robert Ellis as Steve Crandall
Otis Harlan as ‘Porky’ Thompson
Paul Porcasi as Nick Verdis
Marion Lord as Lil Rice
Fritz Feld as Mose Levett
Leslie Fenton as ‘Scar’ Edwards
Arthur Housman as Dolphin
George Davis as Joe
Betty Francisco as Mazie
Edythe Flynn as Ruby
Florence Dudley as Ann

Production

Director Fejos designed the camera crane specifically for use on this movie, allowing unusually fluid movement and access to nearly every conceivable angle. It could travel at 600 feet per minute and enlivened the visual style of this film and others that followed.

Preservation status

Both the silent version and the talking version of Broadway are extant, but the surviving talking version is incomplete. The color sequence at the end survives in color and in sound. In 2013, Broadway was restored by The Criterion Collection and released on DVD and Blu-ray.

References[edit]

^ Jump up to:^a ^b “Broadway“. Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved 2015-11-24.

Broadway 12

Broadway 10

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Going Spanish (1934)

January 26, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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Going Spanish (1934)

Director: Al Christie

Cast: Bob Hope, Leah Ray, Frances Halliday, Jules Epailly, Vicki Cummings, William Edmunds, Godoy’s Spanish Band

19 min

Going Spanish (1934) is an American short comedy film featuring the film debut of Bob Hope and directed by Al Christie. The short comedy co-stars Leah Ray and Jules Epailly. Released by Educational Pictures, the film premiered on March 2, 1934, and is also known as Bob’s Busy Day (American recut version).^[1]

Plot

While on vacation in the South America nation of Los Poachos Eggos, Bob (Bob Hope) passes through the village of Los Pochos Eggos. His car collides with that of the mayor of the village. The mayor becomes enraged and he begins tearing Bob’s car to pieces. Bob retaliates and takes his car apart as well.

According to the village tradition, on one day each year, any crime is forgiven provided that the criminal sing a song afterward. Bob could have been arrested, but instead he happened to appear in town on the appropriate day. Later in the film, Bob woos Senorita (Leah Ray) and begins to make the mayor jealous. Each time an offense is committed, the mayor declares “This means war.”

Cast

Bob Hope as Bob
Leah Ray as Senorita
Frances Halliday as Mother
Jules Epailly as Mayor of Los Pochos Eggos
Vicki Cummings as Bob’s Girl
William Edmunds as Gaucho
Godoy’s Argentine Band as Musical Ensemble

Reception

The film was very unsuccessful and was panned by critics. Shortly after it was released, the bank robber John Dillingerwas at large. Hope told Walter Winchell that he had starred in the film and then added “When they catch Dillinger, they’re going to make him sit through it twice.”

After Hope made this comment, Christie and Educational terminated Hope’s contract. Hope then starred in his second and third short films, Soup for Nuts (Universal Studios, 9 July 1934) and Paree, Paree (Warner Brothers, 8 September 1934).

References

Jump up^ IMDB entry

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Three Broadway Girls (1932)

January 25, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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Three Broadway Girls AKA The Greeks Had A Word For Them (1932)

Director: Lowell Sherman

Cast: Joan Blondell, Madge Evans, Ina Claire, David Manners, Lowell Sherman, Phillips Smalley, Sidney Bracey, Ward Bond, Betty Grable, Creighton Hale, Barbara Weeks

79 min

The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932), also known as Three Broadway Girls, is a pre-Code comedy film directed by Lowell Sherman, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and released by United Artists. It stars Joan Blondell, Madge Evans, and Ina Claire and is based on the play The Greeks Had a Word for It by Zoë Akins.

The studio originally wanted actress Jean Harlow for the lead after her success in Red-Headed Woman (1932), but she was under contract to Howard Hughes, and he refused to loan her out.

The movie served as inspiration for films like Three Blind Mice (1938), Moon Over Miami (1941), and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Also Ladies in Love (1936) has a similar pattern and produced like “Three Blind Mice” by Darryl F. Zanuck.^{[clarification needed]}

Plot

Jean, Polaire, and Schatze are ex-showgirls who put their money together in order to rent a luxurious penthouse apartment. They are out to get wealthy boyfriends by dressing and acting like millionaires themselves. Jean shows herself to be determined and ruthless, leaving the other girls behind. The other two are more sensitive and trustworthy but only one woman will be able to find a rich husband. Which is she?

Cast

Joan Blondell – Schatzi
Madge Evans – Polaire
Ina Claire – Jean Lawrence
David Manners – Dey Emery
Lowell Sherman – Boris Feldman
Phillips Smalley – Justin Emery
Sidney Bracey – The Waiter
Ward Bond – Taxi Driver

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Hook, Line And Sinker (1930)

January 24, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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Hook, Line And Sinker (1930)

Director: Edward F Cline

Cast: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, Ralph Harolde, Jobyna Howland, Natalie Moorhead, Hugh Herbert, George F Marion

75 min

Hook, Line and Sinker is a 1930 American Pre-Code slapstick comedy directed by Edward F. Cline from a screenplay by Ralph Spence and Tim Whelan. It was the third starring vehicle for the comedy team of Wheeler & Woolsey (Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey), and also featured Dorothy Lee. It would be one of the largest financial successes for RKO Pictures in 1930.

Plot summary

Two fast-talking insurance salesmen — Wilbur Boswell and J. Addington Ganzy — help penniless socialite Mary Marsh to turn a dilapidated hotel, which was willed to her, into a thriving success. They soon run into trouble, however, in the form of two sets of rival gangsters who want to break into the hotel safe; also, Mary’s mother, Rebecca Marsh, wants her to marry wealthy lawyer John Blackwell, although Mary has fallen in love with Wilbur.

And while she takes an instant dislike to Wilbur, Rebecca falls for Ganzy. Adding to the complications is the fact that Blackwell is actually in league with the gangsters. The finale involves nighttime runarounds and a shoot-out in the hotel. During the pitched battle between the rival gangs and the police, Boswell and Ganzy save the jewels, after which Ganzy marries Rebecca, and then gives away Mary at her marriage to Wilbur.

Cast

Bert Wheeler – Wilbur Boswell
Robert Woolsey – Addington Ganzy
Dorothy Lee – Mary Marsh
Jobyna Howland – Rebecca Marsh
Ralf Harolde – John Blackwell (Buffalo Blackie)
William B. Davidson – Frank Dukette (Duke of Winchester)
Natalie Moorhead – Duchess Bessie Von Essie
George F. Marion – Ritz De La Rivera Bellboy
Hugh Herbert – Hotel House Detective
Stanley Fields – McKay

(Cast list as per AFI database)^[2]

Reception

The film made a profit of $225,000,^[4] and would be one of the top two money earners for RKO Radio Pictures in 1930.^[4]

Notes

In 1958, the film entered the public domain in the USA due to the copyright claimants failure to renew the copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.^[5]

References

Jump up^ “Hook, Line and Sinker: Technical Details”. theiapolis.com. Retrieved August 6, 2014.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d “Hook, Line and Sinker: Detail View”. American Film Institute. Retrieved April 16, 2014.
Jump up^ Richard Jewel, ‘RKO Film Grosses: 1931-1951’, Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1, 1994, p. 55
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Jewell, Richard B.; Harbin, Vernon (1982). The RKO Story. New York: Arlington House. p. 24. ISBN 0-517-546566.
Jump up^ Pierce, David (June 2007). “Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain”. Film History: An International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 25165419. OCLC 15122313. See note #60, pg. 143.

Hook Line And Sinker 7

Hook Line And Sinker 9

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Sin Of Nora Moran, The (1933)

January 24, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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The Sin Of Nora Moran (1933) AKA Voice From The Grave

Director: Phil Goldstone

Cast: Zita Johann, John Miljan, Alan Dinehart, Paul Cavanagh, Claire Du Brey, Sarah Padden, Henry B Walthall, Otis Harlan, Aggie Herring, Cora Sue Collins, Ann Brody

65 min

The Sin of Nora Moran is a 1933 American film directed by Phil Goldstone. The film is also known as Voice from the Grave (American reissue title).

The painting for the movie poster was by Peruvian Alberto Vargas, who was working in the United States and later became known for his images of the “Vargas Girls.” This poster is frequently named as one of the greatest movie posters ever made.^[1]

Plot summary

Nora Moran, a young woman with a difficult and tragic past, is sentenced to die for a murder that she did not commit. She could easily reveal the truth and save her own life, if only it would not damage the lives, careers and reputations of those whom she loves.

Cast

Zita Johann as Nora Moran
John Miljan as Paulino
Alan Dinehart as District Attorney John Grant
Paul Cavanagh as Governor Dick Crawford
Claire Du Brey as Mrs. Edith Crawford
Sarah Padden as Mrs. Watts
Henry B. Walthall as Father Ryan
Otis Harlan as Mr. Moran
Aggie Herring as Mrs. Moran
Cora Sue Collins as Nora Moran, as a Child
Joseph W. Girard as Captain of Detectives
Ann Brody as Matron
Rolfe Sedan as Stage Manager

References

1. The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever, Premier Magazine

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Don’t Bet On Love (1933)

January 23, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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Don’t Bet On Love (1933)

Director: Murray Roth

Cast: Ginger Rogers, Lew Ayres, Charley Grapewin, Shirley Grey, Tom Dugan, Merna Kennedy, Lucille Gleason, Robert Emmett Connor

62 min

Don’t Bet on Love is a 1933 American comedy film directed by Murray Roth and written by Howard Emmett Rogers, Murray Roth and Ben Ryan. The film stars Lew Ayres, Ginger Rogers, Charley Grapewin, Shirley Grey, Tom Dugan and Merna Kennedy. The film was released on July 1, 1933, by Universal Pictures.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Plot

Molly Gilbert won’t accept a marriage proposal from Bill McCaffery unless he promises to quit betting money on horse races. He gives her his word, but Molly is miffed when she realizes he wants to honeymoon in Saratoga, New York due to its proximity to the racetrack.

Behind her back, Bill unethically uses money from his dad Pop McCaffery’s plumbing business to continue gambling. He gets on a hot streak, winning $50,000, then buys a horse of his own, cheats by disguising a faster horse as his, then loses all his money. Bill agrees to become a plumber, pleasing Molly.

Cast

Lew Ayres as Bill McCaffery
Ginger Rogers as Molly Gilbert
Charley Grapewin as Pop McCaffery
Shirley Grey as Goldie Williams
Tom Dugan as Scotty
Merna Kennedy as Ruby ‘Babe’ Norton
Lucile Gleason as Mrs. Gilbert
Robert Emmett O’Connor as Edward Shelton

References

Jump up^ “Don’t Bet on Love (1933) – Overview”. TCM.com. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
Jump up^ F.S.N. (1933-07-31). “Movie Review – Don t Bet on Love – Crazy Over Horses”. NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
Jump up^ “Don’t Bet on Love”. Afi.com. Retrieved 2016-01-06.

Don t Bet On Love 9

Don t Bet On Love 5

Don t Bet On Love 10

Don t Bet On Love 11

Don t Bet On Love 12

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Dixiana (1930)

January 22, 2018 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

Dixiana (1930)

Director: Luther Reed

Cast: Bebe Daniels, Everett Marshall, Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Joseph Cawthorn, Jobyna Howland, Dorothy Lee, Ralf Harolde, Bill Robinson

100 min

Dixiana (1930) is a lavish American pre-code comedy, musical film directed by Luther Reed and produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures.

The final twenty minutes of the picture were photographed in Technicolor. The film stars Bebe Daniels, Everett Marshall, Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Joseph Cawthorn, Jobyna Howland, Ralf Harolde, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (in his film debut) and Dorothy Lee.

The script was adapted by Luther Reed from a story by Anne Caldwell. The Technicolor sequences were considered lost for years but were re-discovered in 1988 and subsequently included in the restored DVD. At the end of 1958, the film entered the public domain (in the USA) due to RKO’s failure to renew their copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.^[3]

This is the film in which composer Max Steiner received his first screen credit for orchestration. Additionally, it was Wheeler & Woolsey‘s third film; however, as they were not yet an official “team”, they were still billed separately.

Plot

Dixiana Caldwell and her friends, Peewee and Ginger, are circus performers in the antebellum South. When Dixiana falls in love with a young Southern aristocrat, Carl Van Horn, she leaves the circus where she is employed and, with Peewee and Ginger, accompanies Carl to his family’s plantation in order to meet Van Horn’s family. At first thrilled with the news of their impending nuptials, Carl’s father and stepmother, Cornelius and Birdie Van Horn, throw a lavish party for the couple. However, Peewee and Ginger inadvertently disclose Dixiana’s background as a circus performer, creating a scandal for the elder Van Horns.

Asked by the stepmother to leave in disgrace, Dixiana and her friends return to New Orleans, seeking to gain re-employment from her former employer at the Cayetano Circus Theatre, but they are regretfully refused by him, due to way she had departed. Desperate, she takes employment at a local gambling hall, run by Royal Montague, who also has personal designs on Dixiana. As part of his plan, he intends to financially ruin Carl and his family and use Dixiana to accomplish that purpose.

Things come to a head when Dixiana is crowned Queen of the Mardi Gras. When Montague absconds with her, Carl challenges him to a duel, but, when a disguised Dixiana shows up in his stead, she tricks Montague into revealing his nefarious plans. Carl and Dixiana are reunited.^[4]

Cast

Bebe Daniels as Dixiana Caldwell
Everett Marshall as Carl Van Horn
Bert Wheeler as Peewee
Robert Woolsey as Ginger Dandy
Joseph Cawthorn as Cornelius Van Horn
Jobyna Howland as Birdie Van Horn
Dorothy Lee as Poppy
Ralf Harolde as Royal Montague
Edward Chandler as Blondell
George Herman as Contortionist
Raymond Maurel as Cayetano
Bruce Covington as Company porter
Bill Robinson as Specialty Dancer
Eugene Jackson as Cupid

(Cast list as per AFI database)^[1]

Reception

Reviewer Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times wrote of the singing, “…one wishes there was more of it and less of the somewhat futile attempt at a story” and noted that Bill Robinson “…gives an excellent exhibition of tap dancing, which won a genuine round of applause” and concluded, “The early glimpses of the circus theatre … lead one to expect more than one is apt to get out of this production.”^[5]

The film reunited the director and most of the cast of RKO’s most successful film of the year before, Rio Rita, but lackluster performances and direction, as well as a glut of movie musicals led to the film being one of RKO’s biggest disappointments of 1930. The film lost an estimated $300,000.^[2]^[6]

References

^ Jump up to:^a ^b “Dixiana: Detail View”. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on August 6, 2014. Retrieved September 20, 2016.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Richard Jewel, ‘RKO Film Grosses: 1931-1951’, Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1, 1994 p57
Jump up^ Pierce, David (June 2007). “Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain”. Film History: An International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 25165419. OCLC 15122313.
Jump up^ Bradley, Edwin M. (January 1, 2004). “Chapter 7: 1929-1930”. The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography of 171 Features, 1927 through 1932. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 192–195. Retrieved 2015-02-08.
Jump up^ Mordaunt Hall (September 5, 1930). “The Screen: Dixiana (1930)”. New York Times.
Jump up^ Jewell, Richard B.; Harbin, Vernon (1982). The RKO Story. New York: Arlington House. p. 29. ISBN 0-517-546566.

Color end sequence in Dixiana (1930)

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Indiscreet (1931)

December 20, 2017 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

Indiscreet (1931)

Director: Leo McCarey

Cast: Gloria Swanson, Ben Lyon, Monroe Owsley, Barbara Kent, Arthur Lake, Maude Eburne, Henry Kolker, Nella Walker

92 min

Indiscreet is a 1931 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Leo McCarey and starring Gloria Swanson and Ben Lyon. The screenplay by Buddy G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson, based on their story Obey That Impulse, originally was written as a full-fledged musical, but only two songs – “If You Haven’t Got Love” and “Come to Me” – remained when the film was released.^[1] The film is available on DVD.

Plot

The plot of the United Artists release centers on fashion designer Geraldine Trent (Swanson), who takes up with novelistTony Blake (Lyon) after leaving her former beau Jim Woodward because of his many indiscretions with other women.

Tony has indicated he has no interest in dating a woman with a past, so Geraldine remains mum about her affair with Jim, until her younger sister Joan arrives and announces she’s engaged—to Jim. Madcap complications ensue as Geraldine tries to keep her secret from Tony while convincing her sister to rid herself of her womanizing fiancé in favor of simple country boy Buster Collins.^[2]

Cast (in credits order)

Gloria Swanson as Geraldine ‘Gerry’ Trent
Ben Lyon as Tony Blake
Monroe Owsley as Jim Woodward
Barbara Kent as Joan Trent
Arthur Lake as Buster Collins
Maude Eburne as Aunt Kate
Henry Kolker as Mr Woodward
Nella Walker as Mrs Woodward

Principal production credits

Producers ….. Lew Brown, Buddy G. DeSylva, Ray Henderson
Music Supervision ….. Alfred Newman
Cinematography ….. Gregg Toland, Ray June
Art Direction ….. Richard Day
Costume Design ….. René Hubert

Critical reception

In May 1931 in The New York Times, film critic Mordaunt Hall gave Indiscreet a mixed review:

It may have its off moments so far as the few serious incidents are concerned, but when it stoops to farce, there is no denying its jollity . . . on the whole, it is a well-worked out entertainment, wherein gusts of merriment cause one to overlook its occasional flaws . . . Now and again the film sobers up, but the director and the authors have solved a way of inoculating it with further mirth, and even at the end there is a streak of fun that is almost Chaplinesque.^[3]

References

Jump up^ Indiscreet at the New York Film Annex
Jump up^ The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:Indiscreet
Jump up^ Hall, Mordaunt (1931). “THE SCREEN; A Merry Miss Swanson”, film review, The New York Times, May 7, 1931; retrieved October 6, 2017.

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Thirteenth Guest, The (1932)

December 8, 2017 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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The Thirteenth Guest (1932) AKA Lady Beware

Director: Albert Ray

Cast: Ginger Rogers, Lyle Talbot, J Farrell MacDonald, Paul Hurst, Erville Anderson, Ethel Wales, James Eagles, Eddie Phillips

69 min

The Thirteenth Guest is a 1932 American pre-Code mystery comedy thriller film, released on August 9, 1932. The film is also known as Lady Beware in the United Kingdom.

It is based on the 1929 novel by crime fiction writer Armitage Trail^[1] best known for writing the novel Scarface,^[2] on which the 1932 movie was based. The novel was again brought to the silver in screen in 1943 as Mystery of the 13th Guest.^[3]

Plot summary

Marie Morgan (Ginger Rogers) has been lured to an old abandoned house by a false note from a friend, and is in jeopardy although she doesn’t yet realize it. As she sits at the table inside, she thinks back to the banquet held there 13 years earlier, when she was a little girl.

Only 12 of 13 guests had attended, and the manor’s owner, the Morgan family patriarch, who was then dying, has since passed on. The chance to claim the bulk of the estate fortune has resulted in an ongoing campaign of murder by someone targeting the original 12 guests, whose dead bodies are being left at the table in the same seats they had occupied originally.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
	Ginger Rogers	…	Lela / Marie Morgan
	Lyle Talbot	…	Phil Winston
	J. Farrell MacDonald	…	Police Capt. Ryan
	Paul Hurst	…	Detective Grump
	Erville Alderson	…	Uncle John Adams
	Ethel Wales	…	Aunt Jane Thornton
	James Eagles	…	Harold ‘Bud’ Morgan
	Crauford Kent	…	Dr. Sherwood (as Craufurd Kent)
	Eddie Phillips	…	Thor Jensen
	Frances Rich	…	Marjorie Thornton
	Phillips Smalley	…	Uncle Dick Thornton

References

Trail, Armitage (1929). The Thirteenth Guest (First ed.). Whitman. ASIN B000KD7C8U.
Jump up^ Trail, Armitage (1930). Scarface (1ST ed.). D.J. Clode. ASIN B00085TELI.
Jump up^ The Thirteenth Guest, msnbc.com; accessed August 3, 2015.

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Klondike (1932)

December 7, 2017 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

Klondike (1932) AKA The Doctor’s Sacrifice

Klondike is a 1932 American Pre-Code film directed by Phil Rosen. The film is also known as The Doctor’s Sacrifice in the United Kingdom. It was silent film star Priscilla Dean‘s final film.

Plot summary

A doctor, Lyle Talbot as Dr. Robert Cromwell, is charged with murder, when a patient dies, after an experimental operation to remove a brain tumor.

His pilot friend, Frank Hawks as Donald Evans, convinces him to start a new life; and, they plot their course, across the Bering Strait. The weather blows them off course; and, they end up in Alaska.

There the doctor is faced with a new dilemma. Mark, Henry B. Walthall as Mark Armstrong, the Father of Jim, Jason Robards Sr. as Jim Armstrong, a man crippled by a similar brain tumor, begs the doctor to attempt the operation. When the doctor refuses, he accuses him of wanting his son to die, because he’s in love with Jim’s fiancée, Thelma Todd as Klondike.

“Doc” acquiesces, at Klondike’s insistence. Although, having none of the facilities of a hospital. He believes that the operation is less likely to succeed, the longer it is delayed.

The operation seems to be a partial success. But, now, Jim will do anything to keep “Doc” from taking Klondike back to the States with him, even using his genius, with electricity, to electrocute him.^[1]

Cast

Thelma Todd as Klondike
Lyle Talbot as Dr. Robert Cromwell
Henry B. Walthall as Mark Armstrong
Jason Robards Sr. as Jim Armstrong
Priscilla Dean as Miss Porter
Tully Marshall as Editor Hinman
Pat O’Malley as Burke
Myrtle Stedman as Miss Fielding
Ethel Wales as Sadie Jones
George ‘Gabby’ Hayes as Tom Ross
Frank Hawks as Donald Evans

Production

The film was remade as Klondike Fury (1942).^[2]

References

Jump up^ “The Doctor’s Sacrifice (1932) : Plot Summary”. IMDb.com. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
Jump up^ “Klondike Fury (1942)”. IMDb.com. Retrieved 2015-11-05.

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Probation (1932)

December 6, 2017 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

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Probation (1930) AKA Second Chances

Director: Richard Thorpe

Cast: Clara Kimball Young, Betty Grable, John Darrow, Sally Blane, J Farrell MacDonald, Eddie Phillips, David Rollins

67 min

Probation (also known as Second Chances) is an American Pre-Code 1932 film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Clara Kimball Young and Betty Grable.^[1] The film was distributed by the Chesterfield Motion Pictures Corporation.

Synopsis

Ruth (Betty Grable) is a minor who is running with an uptown, older man; Ruth’s brother Nick, (John Darrow), is unaware of kid sisters activities.

Ruth is turned into the Juvenile authorities by the well meaning Mrs. Humphries, (Clara Kimball Young). Nick finds the man in their apartment and proceeds to be arrested for beating up the man, who runs away before Nick is arrested.

Nick is taken to Night Court and remanded to the custody of the judges, (J. Farrell MacDonald), niece, Janet, for six months as her chauffeur. Janet, (Sally Blane), is the fiancé of Allen, (Eddie Phillips), who is coincidentally the man who was beaten up by Nick.

Betty Grable is on the verge of becoming a superstar, in the 1940s.^[2]^[3]

Cast

Sally Blane as Janet
John Darrow as Nick
J. Farrell MacDonald as Uncle George
Clara Kimball Young as Mrs. Humphries
Eddie Phillips as Allen
David Rollins as Alec
Matty Kemp as Berl
David Durant as David
Betty Grable, as Ruth

References

Jump up^ “Probation”. IMDB.Jump up^ “Probation”. American Film Institute. Retrieved 30 July 2013.Jump up

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Danger Lights (1930)

December 5, 2017 Film Dialogue Leave a comment

Pre Code Hollywood Season: FD Cinematheque

Danger Lights (1930)

Director: George B Seitz

Cast: Louis Wolheim, Robert Armstrong, Jean Arthur, Hugh Herbert, Frank Sheridan, Robert Edeson, Alan Roscoe, Willam P Barley

74 min

Danger Lights is a 1930 American Pre-Code drama film, directed by George B. Seitz, from a screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman. It stars Louis Wolheim, Robert Armstrong, and Jean Arthur.

The plot concerns railroading on the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, and the movie was largely filmed along that railroad’s lines in Montana. The railway yard in Miles City, Montana was a primary setting, while rural scenes were shot along the railway line through Sixteen Mile Canyon, Montana. Additional footage was shot in Chicago, Illinois. The film was the first ever shot in the new Spoor-Berggren Natural Vision Process.

Synopsis

Louis Wolheim plays the boss of the railroad yard in Miles City, Montana. The film opens with a landslide across the tracks in Montana, and a repair crew is dispatched to clear the tracks. Several hobos are lounging nearby and are put to work helping the repair crew. One of the hobos, played by Robert Armstrong, is discovered to have been a former railroad engineer who lost his job due to insubordination. He is given a new job for the railroad by the yard boss, but quickly falls in love with the boss’s fiancée, played by Jean Arthur.

Jealousy grows between the two over the affections of Arthur with both of them attempting to win her in marriage. Things come to a head during a fight in the railroad yard between the two, during which Wolheim is hit by a train and injured. To save his life, Armstrong must transport him in record time to Chicago for surgery.

Cast

Louis Wolheim as Dan Thorn
Robert Armstrong as Larry Doyle
Jean Arthur as Mary Ryan
Hugh Herbert as Professor
Frank Sheridan as Ed Ryan
Robert Edeson as Tom Johnson
Alan Roscoe as Jim
William P. Burt as Chief Dispatcher
James Farley as Joe Geraghty

Notes

Danger Lights was filmed during a period when some movie studios were experimenting with various widescreen film formats. As part of this trend, two versions of the film were created. One used standard 35mm film and Academy ratio, the other used an experimental 65mm widescreen format at a 2:1 aspect ratio. This latter process was called “Natural Vision” and was invented by film pioneers George Kirke Spoor and P. John Berggren. The Natural Vision print of the film was reportedly screened at only two theaters (the only two with the equipment necessary to show the film), the State Lake Theater in Chicago and the Mayfair Theater in New York, and no copies of it are known to exist today. Danger Lights would be the only film created using this process, and the entire effort to move to wide screen would be shelved for several decades due to the increased costs of both production and presentation.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Historically significant footage

Danger Lights features rare footage of a tug of war between two steam locomotives, actual documentary footage of the activities in the Miles City yard, and what is believed to be the only motion picture footage of a dynamometer car from the steam railroad era in the USA. Similar footage may have existed in MGM’s Thunder(1929), with Lon Chaney but that film is now lost.

The portion of the film that was filmed in Montana was part of the electrified Rocky Mountain Division of the railroad, with the 3000 volt direct current trolley and the 100,000 volt alternating current “highline” plainly visible in several shots. Despite the fact that the railroad often touted the power and reliability of its straight electric locomotives, none are seen in the film.

In 1958, the film entered the public domain in the USA due to the copyright claimants failure to renew the copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.^[4]

Danger Lights was edited down to 55 minutes for television broadcast; this version is freely available for download. In 2009 Alpha Video released the original 74 minute version^[1] on DVD.

References

^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e “Danger Lights: Detail View”. American Film Institute. Retrieved April 16, 2014.
Jump up^ Coles, David (March 2001). “Magnified Grandeur”. The 70mm Newsletter. Retrieved August 6, 2014.
Jump up^ Jewell, Richard B.; Harbin, Vernon (1982). The RKO Story. New York: Arlington House. p. 30. ISBN 0-517-546566.
Jump up^ Pierce, David (June 2007). “Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain”. Film History: an International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 25165419. OCLC 15122313. See Note #60, pg. 143

Contents

Early life

Silent movie career

New beginnings

Scandals

Mid-career

Middle years

Final years and death

Radio appearances

Bibliography

References

External links

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Contents

Early life

Career

Film

Loretta Young in The Farmer’s Daughter (HC Potter, 1947)

Loretta Young in Come to the Stable (Henry Koster, 1949)

Television

On the set of The Loretta Young Show

Awards

Personal life

With Grant Withers in Too Young To Marry (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931)

Pregnancy by Clark Gable

Politics

Later life

Death

Filmography

Radio appearances

See also

References

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Her First Affaire (1932)

Plot

Cast

References

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The Saturday Night Kid (1929)

Plot

Cast

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Journey’s End (1930)

Contents

Plot

Cast

Production

References

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From Hell To Heaven (1933)

Contents

Synopsis

Cast

Production and reception

References

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