Charles B. MiddletonFilmography

The Last Bandit

Actors: Adrian Booth, Forrest Tucker, Andy Devine, Jack Holt

Synopsis: Republic's program westerns of the 1940s fell into two categories: the Saturday-matinee fare of Roy Rogers, Allan "Rocky" Lane et. al., and the more adult-oriented William Elliot vehicles. In The Last Bandit, Elliot and Forest Tucker play a couple of James-like bandit brothers, Frank and James Read More

Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin'

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Penny Edwards, Joe Besser

Synopsis: Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin' starts off on a tense note as a struggling man is led through the streets of a western town, presumably headed for his own execution. Within a few minutes, however, we discover that the "victim" is a reluctant trainee for an upcoming foot-race between the feuding Read More

Jiggs and Maggie in Court

Station West

Actors: Dick Powell, Jane Greer, Agnes Moorehead, Burl Ives, Tom Powers

Synopsis: Station West may look like a western, but it sure sounds like a contemporary film noir. Dick Powell stars as Haven, a government private investigator assigned to investigate the murders of two cavalrymen. Travelling incognito, Haven arrives in a small frontier outpost, where leggy saloon singer Read More

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Actors: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Louise Beavers, Melvyn Douglas, Reginald Denny, Jason Robards, Sr., Lex Barker

Synopsis: Fed up with crowded big-city living, advertising executive Mr. Blandings (Cary Grant) decides to seek out a big, roomy house in the country. Armed with more enthusiasm than common sense, Blandings causes many a headache for his lawyer/business manager Melvyn Douglas, who tries to keep the costs Read More

Jack Armstrong: The All-American Boy [Serial]

Synopsis: When scientific mastermind Jack Armstrong is kidnapped by a devious fiend determined to discover the secrets of atom-powered motors, our hero must escape the island fortress of his nefarious captor in this thrilling cliffhanger starring John Hart and Rosemary La Planche. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Read More

The Sea of Grass

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Walker, Melvyn Douglas, Phyllis Thaxter

Synopsis: Usually associated with erudite, urbane comedies, the legendary screen team of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy goes intensely dramatic in the expensive western Sea of Grass. Tracy plays cattle baron Colonel James Brewton, who staunchly opposes opening the western frontier to homesteaders. Read More

Welcome Stranger

Actors: Don Beddoe, Bing Crosby, Lillian Bronson, Joan Caulfield, Barry Fitzgerald, Frank Faylen, Elizabeth Patterson, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: A curmudgeonly small-town doctor resents the presence of a new younger physician and his newfangled ways. He is especially dismayed by the new doctor's tendency to sing, a behavior the older fellow deems inappropriate. When the new doc meets a pretty young school teacher, romantic sparks fly. Read More

Unconquered

Actors: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, Boris Karloff, Katherine de Mille, Ward Bond

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's first postwar production, the $5 million Technicolor historical spectacular Unconquered lacks only the kitchen sink. The story begins in England in the 1760s, as Abigail Martha Hale (Paulette Goddard), unjustly accused of a crime against the Crown, is sentenced by the Lord Chief Read More

Wyoming

Actors: Roy Barcroft, John Carroll, George Cheseboro, Dick Curtis

Synopsis: Promoted from Republic B westerns to "A" productions, William "Wild Bill" Elliot found himself in the sort of roles previously essayed by John Wayne, Richard Dix and Errol Flynn. In the Republic "special" Wyoming, Elliot plays Charles Alderson, a wealthy Wyoming Territory ranch owner who takes an Read More

The Pretender

Actors: Ernie S. Adams, John Bagni, Alan Carney, Catherine Craig

Synopsis: Albert Dekker plays a crooked investment agent who embezzles a large sum from an estate, hoping to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress (Catherine Craig). The girl is already engaged, so Dekker arranges to have the fiance killed. The hit man's only means of identifying the victim-to-be Read More

Road to Rio

Actors: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Gale Sondergaard, Frank Faylen

Synopsis: Road to Rio was the first of three "Road" pictures jointly produced by stars Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. On the run from the law again, musicians Bob and Bing stow away on an ocean liner. They try to come to the rescue of heiress Dorothy Lamour, who is doomed to an arranged marriage to caddish George Meeker Read More

The Killers

Actors: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker, Jeff Corey, Sam Levene, Jack Lambert

Synopsis: The Killers uses Ernest Hemingway's short story as a springboard for a complex film noir. Two mysterious men (William Conrad and Charles McGraw) muscle their way into a small town and kill an aging boxer (Burt Lancaster, making his screen debut), who offers no resistance and seems to be welcoming Read More

How Do You Do?

Actors: Bert Gordon, Harry Von Zell, Cheryl Walker, Frank Albertson, Ella Mae Morse

Synopsis: How Dooo You Do? offers two refugees from radio's Eddie Cantor Show, Bert Gordon and Harry Von Zell, as an erstwhile comedy team. The film's title is a catchphrase of Gordon's, who gained famed in the 1940s as "The Mad Russian". Seeking refuge from their fans, Gordon and Von Zell head to Desert Read More

Northwest Trail

Synopsis: Produced by Gower Gulch maverick Robert L. Lippert and filmed in not-so-glorious two-strip Cinecolor near Idyllwild, California, this Northwest Mounted melodrama starred the veteran Bob Steele as a rather surly mountie who, against his own better judgment, is persuaded to escort a patronizing Read More

Spook Busters

Actors: Richard Alexander, Billy Benedict, Tanis Chandler, Chester Clute, Gabriel Dell

Synopsis: The first of the Bowery Boys' "haunted house" comedies, Spook Busters casts the boys as recent graduates of Exterminators' School. Setting up headquarters in Louie's Sweet Shop, Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and their pals are hired by Mr. Brown (Chester Clute) to rid a forbidden old Read More

The Town Went Wild

Actors: Freddie Bartholomew, Jimmy Lydon, Edward Everett Horton, Tom Tully, Jill Browning

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, two warring neighbors are aghast when their respective daughter and son fall in love and plan to marry. Despite their parents' objections they begin planning and getting the legal paper work done; it is then they learn they could be brother and sister. Fortunately, the Read More

Strangler of the Swamp

Actors: Robert H. Barrat, Rosemary La Planche, Blake Edwards, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: In this low-budget thriller, a ferry captain named Douglas (Charles Middleton) is accused of a murder he did not commit and is eventually executed for the crime. Douglas' ghost begins to walk the marshlands he once called home, searching for revenge against those who wronged him. Beautiful Maria (Rosemary LaPlanche Read More

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, James Craig, Frances Gifford, Agnes Moorehead, Morris Carnovsky

Synopsis: An earnest rural melodrama set among Norwegian immigrants in Wisconsin, Our Vines Have Tender Grapes is a slightly updated version of George Victor Martin's 1940 novel. Edward G. Robinson stars as Martinius Jacobson, a farmer devoted to his wife Bruna (Agnes Moorehead) and precocious Read More

Captain Kidd

Actors: Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Barbara Britton, John Carradine, Reginald Owen, Gilbert Roland

Synopsis: It's every man for himself when Charles Laughton bites into the role of infamous 17th century pirate captain William Kidd. Hoping to further increase his ill-gotten gains, Captain Kidd inveigles King William III (Henry Daniel) into appointing him the "patriotic" protector of a valuable treasure Read More

Who's Guilty?

Actors: Tim Ryan

Synopsis: Undoubtedly inspired by Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, filmed the same year by United Artists as And Then There Were None, this 15 chapter serial told the drawn-out story of a family who is about to be decimated, one by one, by a mysterious master criminal. Just like in the classic Christie Read More

Black Arrow

Synopsis: The presumed son of a Navajo Indian chief goes in search of the men who killed his father in this average serial produced by Columbia Pictures. The young man, Black Arrow, allies himself with pretty Adele Jergens in his search for the killers, a couple of evil carpetbaggers. In the 15th and final Read More

Kismet

Actors: Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, James Craig, Edward Arnold, Florence Bates, Hugh Herbert

Synopsis: Oriental Dream is the TV title for the 1944 Technicolor version of Kismet. Ronald Colman plays Hadji, "king of beggars" in the days of the Arabian Nights. Posing as a prince, Colman woos Marlene Dietrich, the favorite wife of the evil Wazir (Edward Arnold). Meanwhile, Colman's daughter Joy Ann Page Read More

Desert Hawk

Synopsis: A 15 chapter Columbia serial, The Desert Hawk employed camels instead of horses and bedouins rather than cowboys, but remained a "Western" at heart. Gilbert Roland played Kasim, the honorable Caliph of Abad who is kidnapped by his evil identical twin, Hasson (also Roland). Kasim manages to get Read More

Hangmen Also Die!

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Anna Lee, Gene Lockhart, Dennis O'Keefe

Synopsis: Hangmen Also Die is set in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation. Czech loyalist Brian Donlevy assassinates the vicious Gestapo leader Heydrich, then goes into hiding. The wounded patriot is sheltered by history professor Walter Brennan, who is already under surveillance by the Nazis thanks to Read More

Two Weeks to Live

Actors: Chester Lauck, Norris Goff, Franklin Pangborn, Kay Linaker, Irving Bacon

Synopsis: The title of this "Lum 'N' Abner" comedy isn't explained until the film is half over. Chester Lauck and Norris Goff repeat their radio characterizations of Lum and Abner, proprietors of the Jot-Em-Down Store in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. This time, the boys journey to Chicago, where Abner hopes to Read More

The Black Raven

Actors: George Zucco, Wanda McKay, Noel Madison, Robert Randall, Byron Foulger

Synopsis: The Black Raven is one of a trio of PRC horror-melodramas starring George Zucco. The title refers to a remote country inn, presided over by the sinister Mr. Bradford (Zucco). During a dark and stormy night, the Black Raven becomes the gathering place for an escaped convict (I. Standford Jolley) Read More

Batman [Serial]

Actors: Michael Vallon, Lewis Wilson, John Maxwell, Douglas Croft, Karl Hackett, J. Carrol Naish, Ted Oliver, George Cheseboro

Synopsis: Bob Kane's 1939 Detective Comics superhero The Batman came to the screens in serial form courtesy of Columbia Pictures and producer Rudolph C. Flothow. In time-honored serial fashion, Flothow chose Lewis Wilson for the title role, a relative newcomer, but one with an amazing facial resemblance to Read More

Men of San Quentin

Actors: J. Anthony Hughes, Eleanor Stewart, Dick Curtis, Charles B. Middleton, Jeffrey Sayre

Synopsis: Director William "One Take" Beaudine puts his all-character-actor cast through their paces in Men of San Quentin. J. Anthony Hughes plays a prison guard who tries to put new reforms into effect when he becomes a warden. Naturally, Hughes' efforts are undercut by a handful of hardbitten cons and Read More

Perils of Nyoka

Synopsis: Nyoka Gordon (Kay Aldridge) leads an expedition into the most remote part of the Libyan desert in search of her father, Professor Henry Gordon (Robert Strange), who disappeared while seeking out the long-lost golden tablets of Hippocrates. The tablets, among other attributes, are reputed to Read More

The Mystery of Marie Roget

Actors: Patric Knowles, Maria Montez, Maria Ouspenskaya, John Litel, Edward Norris

Synopsis: The Mystery of Marie Roget is more faithful to its Edgar Allan Poe original than most Universal films of its ilk, even though the Poe story and the film aren't exactly twins. Based on the factual unsolved 1842 murder of one Mary Rogers, the film stars Maria Montez as the unfortunate heroine, a Read More

Western Union

Actors: Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore, Barton MacLane, John Carradine

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox's Western Union was loosely based on a story by Zane Grey. The basic historical facts behind the connecting of telegraph wires between Omaha and Salt Lake City serve as a backdrop for a fictional story straight out of Manhattan Melodrama. Randolph Scott and Barton MacLane are cast Read More

The Shepherd of the Hills

Actors: John Wayne, Betty Field, Harry Carey, Beulah Bondi, James Barton

Synopsis: Harold Bell Wright's bestselling novel The Shepherd of the Hills had been previously filmed in 1919 and 1928 before Paramount offered the first talkie version in 1941. In one of his least typical roles, John Wayne plays a young Ozark backwoodsman forsworn to kill his father, who years earlier Read More

Jungle Man

Synopsis: Buster Crabbe is a doctor, accompanying a shipment of fever serum to a remote jungle village. The ship is torpedoed by a U-Boat. Crabbe and his girlfriend Sheila D'Arcy are marooned on a small island. When D'Arcy falls ill to jungle fever, Crabbe heroically dives into the ocean to retrieve the Read More

Belle Starr

Actors: Gene Tierney, Randolph Scott, Dana Andrews, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox mixed together elements of its own Jesse James and Selznick's Gone with the Wind, and the resultant brew was Belle Starr. Looking precisely nothing like the real Belle, Gene Tierney plays the title role, whom the screenplay suggests was the daughter of a Southern aristocrat. When Read More

Wild Bill Hickok Rides

Actors: Constance Bennett, Bruce Cabot, Warren William, Betty Brewer, Walter Catlett

Synopsis: It's hard to believe that Wild Bill Hickok Rides is a Warner Bros. picture-and harder still to believe that Constance Bennett deigned to star in the film. Wavering uncomfortably between comedy and drama, this patchwork western features Bruce Cabot as Wild Bill Hickok, who on this occasion goes on Read More

Sergeant York

Actors: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, Ward Bond, Margaret Wycherly, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: When World War I hero Alvin York agreed to sell the movie rights to his life story to Warner Bros., it was on three conditions: (1) That the film contains no phony heroics, (2) that Mrs.York not be played by a Hollywood "glamour girl" and (3) That Gary Cooper portray York on screen. All three Read More

Wild Geese Calling

Actors: Henry Fonda, Joan Bennett, Warren William, Ona Munson, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: Wild Geese Calling is one of those 20th Century-Fox star vehicles which used to pop up all the time on TV before the Carsons, Lenos and Lettermans rendered "The Late Late Show" obsolete. Set in Oregon and Alaska at the turn of the century (the last century, that is), the film stars Henry Fonda as Read More

Chad Hanna

Actors: Henry Fonda, Dorothy Lamour, Linda Darnell, Guy Kibbee, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: Henry Fonda plays Chad Hanna, a New York country bumpkin of the mid-nineteenth century who joins a travelling circus. He falls in love with beauteous bareback rider Dorothy Lamour, but she spurns him. Chad Hanna then finds himself attracted to another runaway, country girl Linda Darnell. Though Read More

Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise

Actors: Sidney Toler, Marjorie Weaver, Lionel Atwill, Robert Lowery

Synopsis: Though the 1931 Fox release Charlie Chan Carries On apparently no longer exists, modern viewers can get a general idea of the film's quality by taking a look at its 1940 remake, Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise. On the verge of revealing the identity of an international murderer, a Scotland Yard man Read More

Island of Doomed Men

Actors: Peter Lorre, Rochelle Hudson, Robert Wilcox, Don Beddoe, George E. Stone

Synopsis: Following in the footsteps of Boris Karloff and Charles Laughton, Peter Lorre turns sadist in this routinely made but efficient little potboiler from Columbia Pictures. Lording over Dead Man's Island where he uses paroled convicts as slaves, Stephen Danel frames G-Man Mark Sheldon (Robert Wilcox) Read More

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 07 - The Land of the Dead

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 08 - The Fiery Abyss

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 05 - The Palace of Terror

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 06 - Flaming Death

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 11 - Stark Treachery

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 12 - Doom of the Dictator

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 09 - The Pool of Peril

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 10 - The Death Mist

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 04 - The Destroyer Ray

Gold Rush Maisie

Actors: Ann Sothern, Lee Bowman, George "Slim" Summerville, Virginia Weidler, Mary Nash

Synopsis: This third installment in MGM's "Maisie" series finds eternally stranded showgirl Maisie Revere (Ann Sothern) stuck in a deserted mining camp. Here she links up with Davises, an impoverished migrant family which hopes to strike gold somewhere in the neighboring hills. Their efforts are resisted by Read More

Flash Gordon: The Peril From Planet Mongo

Synopsis: All-American space hero Flash Gordon (played by Larry "Buster" Crabbe) once again does battle with the devious Ming the Merciless (Charles B. Middleton) in this vintage sci-fi adventure. Ming has, as usual, set his sights on conquering the Earth, and has designed a new weapon with this in mind Read More

Rangers of Fortune

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Albert Dekker, Gilbert Roland, Patricia Morison

Synopsis: Fred MacMurray stars as a US Army misfit who, with pals Albert Dekker and Gilbert Roland, roam the west in search of adventure. Arriving in a small town, they befriend the elderly newspaper editor (Arthur Allen) and his young granddaughter (Betty Brewer). The trio learns that the community is Read More

Shooting High

Actors: Jane Withers, Gene Autry, Marjorie Weaver, Robert Lowery, Kay Aldridge

Synopsis: Singing cowboy Gene Autry makes a rare appearance outside his usual Republic Pictures stamping grounds in 20th Century-Fox's Shooting High. Instead of playing "himself" as he usually does, Autry is cast as Will Carson, whose family is engaged in a decades-long feud with the Pritchard clan. The Read More

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 02 - Freezing Torture

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 03 - Walking Bombs

Flash Gordon: The Purple Death From Outer Space

Synopsis: Interstellar good guy Flash Gordon (Larry "Buster" Crabbe) and evil incarnate Ming the Merciless (Charles B. Middleton) do battle once again in this vintage science fiction epic. A strange new plague known as the Purple Death is sweeping the globe and Flash; his girlfriend, Dale Arden (Carol Hughes Read More

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 01 - The Purple Death

Brigham Young

Actors: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Dean Jagger, Brian Donlevy, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: Inspired by the true story of the leader of the Mormon Church, this film features Dean Jagger in the title role. The members of the Church of Latter Day Saints are subjected to religious persecution by the people of Nauvoo, Illinois, where they've settled; so under the leadership of Brigham Young Read More

Santa Fe Trail

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Santa Fe Trail, Errol Flynn's third western, has precisely nothing to do with the titular trail. Instead, the film is a simplistic retelling of the John Brown legend, with Raymond Massey playing the famed abolitionist. The events leading up to the bloody confrontation between Brown and the US Read More

Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe

Synopsis: In this entry in the "Flash Gordon" sci-fi series, the ever wicked Ming causes the dreaded space plague "The Purple Death," to rain down on the inhabitants of Earth. Flash Gordon and his cohorts must fly to the Mongo palaces and save the day. It is a dangerous journey, but somehow the intrepid Read More

Virginia City

Actors: Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, Humphrey Bogart, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Promoted as a follow-up to the popular 1939 western Dodge City (which, indeed, was left wide open for a sequel in its closing scenes), Virginia City bears only surface resemblance to the earlier film. Indeed, the only discerning links between the two pictures are the western setting and the Read More

Abe Lincoln in Illinois

Actors: Raymond Massey, Ruth Gordon, Gene Lockhart, Mary Howard, Dorothy Tree

Synopsis: Raymond Massey plays Abe Lincoln in this moving adaptation of Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Expanded a bit for cinematic purposes, the film traces Lincoln's progress from his days of scrambling for a living as a woodsman, to his courtship of the tragic Ann Rutledge (Mary Howard) Read More

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe [Serial]

Synopsis: Amid the political chaos sweeping across the world in 1939, a new terror arises -- the Purple Death -- and people around the world succumb at random by the hundreds, then thousands, with the identifying symptom being a purple spot on the victim. The authorities are baffled as to the cause or the Read More

The Grapes of Wrath

Actors: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charles Grapewin, Doris Bowden

Synopsis: The adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of dirt-poor Dust Bowl migrants by 4-time Oscar-winning director John Ford starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who opens the movie returning to his Oklahoma home after serving jail time for manslaughter. En route, Tom Read More

$1,000 a Touchdown

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Martha Raye, Eric Blore, Susan Hayward, John Hartley

Synopsis: This film should have been a press agent's dream: Hollywood's two greatest "big mouths," Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye, together in the same picture. Brown and Raye play a show business couple who inherit a near-bankrupt college. They decide to build up the school's scraggly football team in hopes Read More

The Strange Case of Dr. Meade

Actors: Jack Holt, Beverly Roberts, Paul Everton, Noah Beery, Jr., John Qualen

Synopsis: In this drama, a New York physician takes a much-needed vacation down South. Unfortunately, he encounters a nurse working in the backwoods and ends up helping her to combat an epidemic that rages through the mountain communities. The doctor she works for prefers traditional herbs to modern Read More

Jesse James

Actors: Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly, Randolph Scott, Henry Hull, Brian Donlevy

Synopsis: The real Frank and Jesse James were murderous thugs, light years away from the Robin Hood image imposed on them by revisionist dime novelists. But in 1939, 20th Century-Fox wasn't about to build an expensive Technicolor feature around the exploits of a couple of low-lives, thus Jesse James upholds Read More

Blackmail

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Hussey, Gene Lockhart, Bobs Watson, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: Through a miscarriage of justice, John Ingram (Edward G. Robinson) is convicted of a crime he did not commit and sentenced to a long stretch on a chain gang in the deep South. In time, Ingram flees to Oklahoma, where he makes a living fighting oil fires under an assumed name. Several years later Read More

Thou Shalt Not Kill

Actors: Charles Bickford, Owen Davis, Jr., Paul Guilfoyle, Granville Bates

Synopsis: As indicated by its title, Thou Shalt Not Kill is a strange blend of religiosity and crime melodrama. Charles Bickford plays Reverend Chris, a popular neighborhood clergyman who hopes to clear young Allen Stevens (Owen Davis Jr.) from a murder charge. Complicating matters is the fact that the real Read More

The Oklahoma Kid

Actors: James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Rosemary Lane, Donald Crisp, Harvey Stephens

Synopsis: James Cagney stars in the humorous Western The Oklahoma Kid, set during the land rush of 1893. John Kincaid (Hugh Sothern) and his son, Ned (Harvey Stephens), try to settle on a plot of land, but they are met by the villainous Whip McCord (Humphrey Bogart) and his band of miscreants. McCord runs a Read More

The Flying Deuces

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Parker, Reginald Gardiner, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: In their first starring feature away from the Hal Roach studios, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of fish peddlers from Des Moines on a Cook's Tour of Paris. While stopping over at quaint suburban inn, Ollie falls in love with innkeeper's daughter Georgette (Jean Parker). At Stan's Read More

Cowboys from Texas

Actors: Robert Livingston, Raymond Hatton, Duncan Renaldo, Carole Landis, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: In this episode of the Three Mesquiteers series of westerns the trio must help two rival sides involved in a range war settle their differences. The story is set in 1906, and the rivals are homesteaders trying to take advantage of Roosevelt's Reclamation Act and the landowners who oppose the act Read More

Daredevils of the Red Circle [Serial]

Actors: Charles Quigley, David Sharpe, Carole Landis, Miles Mander

Synopsis: Veteran character star Charles B. Middleton ("Ming the Merciless") escapes from a penitentiary after 15 years of imprisonment swearing vengeance on his former partner (Miles Mander) in this action adventure serial efficiently directed by the team of William Witney and John English. Kidnapping his Read More

Captain Fury

Actors: Brian Aherne, Victor McLaglen, Paul Lukas, June Lang, John Carradine

Synopsis: This exciting adventure is set in the rugged Australian outback back when the continent was used as a giant penal colony for criminals of the British empire, and tells the story of a fugitive leader and his band who like Robin of old try to prevent a greedy governor from stealing rancher's land. Read More

Allegheny Uprising

Actors: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, George Sanders, Brian Donlevy, Wilfred Lawson

Synopsis: Films set during America's colonial era seldom did well at the box office, and Allegheny Uprising was no exception. John Wayne and Claire Trevor, stars of the recent western hit Stagecoach, are reteamed herein as 18th
century adventurer James Smith and his spitfire sweetheart Janie. Taking Read More

Way Down South

Actors: Bobby Breen, Alan Mowbray, Ralph Morgan, Clarence Muse, Steffi Duna

Synopsis: Way Down South ranks as among the better Bobby Breen musicals, if only because of its impressive production credits. The film is set in antebellum Louisiana, where young Tim Reid's (Breen) inheritance is highly coveted by crooked attorney Martin Dill (Edwin Maxwell). With the help of kindly Cajun Read More

Wyoming Outlaw

Actors: John Wayne, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Raymond Hatton, Don "Red" Barry, Pamela Blake

Synopsis: Forever keeping apace of current headlines, Republic's "Three Mesquiteers" series came up with the 1939 entry Wyoming Outlaw. The story is based on a true incident, wherein a disgruntled young lawbreaker took refuge in the mountains of Wyoming, successfully eluding a large posse for several days. Read More

Kentucky

Actors: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Douglas Dumbrille, Karen Morley

Synopsis: The blue grass of Kentucky was seen in three-strip Technicolor for the first time in this rambling racetrack drama. Sally Goodwin (Loretta Young) falls in love with Jack Dillon (Richard Greene), but the arrangement is complicated by a decades-old feud. Sally's uncle Peter (Walter Brennan, who won Read More

Strange Faces

Actors: Frank Jenks, Dorothea Kent, Andy Devine, Leon Ames, Mary Treen

Synopsis: After several years' faithful service in supporting parts, Frank Jenks and Dorothea Kent were promoted to leading roles in Universal's Strange Faces. Even so, it is fourth-billed Leon Ames who dominates the film, in the dual role of a notorious gangster and a respectable small-town citizen. Taking Read More

The Law West of Tombstone

Actors: Harry Carey, Tim Holt, Evelyn Brent, Jean Rouverol, Clarence Kolb

Synopsis: Despite its title and its potent lineup of cowboy talent, RKO Radio's The Law West of Tombstone is more comedy than western. The characters are all based on famous frontier characters, with names changed to protect the producers. Harry Carey is cast against type as a blowhard Judge Roy Bean clone Read More

Jezebel

Actors: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Crisp, Fay Bainter

Synopsis: In 1938, Jezebel was widely regarded as Warner Bros.' "compensation" to Bette Davis for her losing the opportunity to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Resemblances between the two properties are inescapable: Jezebel heroine Julie Marsden (Davis) is a headstrong Southern belle not unlike Read More

Flaming Frontiers [Serial]

Synopsis: A partial remake of Universal's Heroes of the West (1932), this 15 chapter serial was based on pulp writer Peter B. Kyne's The Tie That Binds. Burly Johnny Mack Brown played an Indian scout who helps Tom Grant (Ralph Bowman) and his sister Mary (Eleanor Hansen) fight off a gang of outlaws out to Read More

Mars Attacks the World

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles B. Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts

Synopsis: This science fiction film features the revenge of Ming who vowed to destroy the Earth. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Dick Tracy Returns [Serial]

Actors: Ralph Byrd, Lynne Roberts, Charles B. Middleton, Jerry Tucker, David Sharpe

Synopsis: The 15-chapter Republic serial Dick Tracy Returns also represents the return of Ralph Byrd in the role of Chester Gould's stalwart comic-strip detective. For the purposes of the film, Tracy has joined the G-Men in pursuit of criminal mastermind Pa Stark (Charles Middleton) and his killer brood. Read More

The Deadly Ray From Mars

Synopsis: You wouldn't know it from the title, but Deadly Ray From Mars is a feature-length abridgement of the 15-episode serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. Space traveller Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), his lady love Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and scientific genius Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon), blast off for Read More

Slave Ship

Actors: Warner Baxter, Wallace Beery, Elizabeth Allan, Mickey Rooney, George Sanders

Synopsis: This period adventure drama was directed by Tay Garnett and adapted from a story by William Faulkner. The skipper of a slave trading vessel operating along the West African coast in 1860, Captain Jim Lovett (Warner Baxter) is troubled by his flesh-peddling trade. He's marrying the beautiful Nancy Read More

Yodelin' Kid from Pine Ridge

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Betty Bronson, Jack Kirk, LeRoy Mason, Charles B. Middleton, Art Mix

Synopsis: The prolific Jack Natteford wrote this unusual Gene Autry Western -- or, to be accurate, "Eastern" -- which reportedly suffered cuts after censors found it too violent. Gene, as usual, plays Gene Autry, this time the son of a Georgian cattleman (Charles Middleton) waging a war against the areas Read More

Two Gun Law

Actors: Charles Starrett, Peggy Stratford, Hank Bell, Edward J. Le Saint, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: Two Gun Law perpetuated the cinematic winning streak established early in 1937 by western star Charles Starrett and director Leon Barsha. The action never lets up as hero Bob Larson (Charles Starrett) takes on an impressive triumvirate of villains (Charles Middleton, Alan Bridge and Dick Curtis). Read More

We're on the Jury

Actors: Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Philip Huston, Louise Latimer, Vinton Haworth

Synopsis: In this comedy drama (a remake of 1932's Ladies of the Jury), an apparently bubble-headed but mule-stubborn jurist is convinced of the defendant's innocence and refuses to change her verdict. Unlike the others, she listens to her own common sense and looks carefully at the facts and decides that Read More

Souls at Sea

Actors: Gary Cooper, George Raft, Frances Dee, Henry Wilcoxon, Harry Carey

Synopsis: Paramount's answer to Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) also involved mutiny and romance on the high seas. Gary Cooper stars as Nuggin Taylor, first mate on a slave ship in 1842. Ironically, Nuggin is an abolitionist. When a mutiny overthrows the ship's skipper and leaves him in charge, he frees his Read More

The Good Earth

Actors: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly, Tilly Losch, Charles Grapewin

Synopsis: Based on Donald Davis and Owen Davis' stage-adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's sprawling novel, Sidney Franklin's The Good Earth is the story of a Chinese farming couple whose lives are torn apart by poverty, greed, and nature. Paul Muni stars as Wang Lung a hardworking, but poor, farmer who weds Read More

Empty Saddles

Actors: Buck Jones, Louise Brooks, Harvey Clark, Charles B. Middleton, Frank Campeau

Synopsis: Buck Jones both produced and starred in this offbeat Western also featuring silent screen icon Louise Brooks. Hoping to turn it into a profitable dude ranch, drifter Buck Devlin (Buck Jones) purchases the Ranch of Empty Saddles, the former site of a bloody war between cattle ranchers and sheep Read More

Hollywood Cowboy

Actors: George O'Brien, Cecilia Parker, Maude Eburne, Joe Caits, Frank Milan

Synopsis: Movie cowboy Jeffrey Carson (George O'Brien) tries hard to live up to his image in this "backstage western." On location in Wyoming for a picture, Carson -- travelling incognito -- finds himself in the middle of a real-life range war, stirred up by eastern racketeers. When the advice of his Read More

The Last Train from Madrid

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Lew Ayres, Gilbert Roland, Karen Morley, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: Set during the terrible Spanish Civil War, this film avoids political commentary in favor of objectively centering on the plight and personal lives of refugees preparing to board a train that will take them far away from the bloody horrors of war-besieged Loyalist-controlled Madrid. Once safely on Read More

A Son Comes Home

Actors: Mary Boland, Julie Haydon, Donald Woods, Wallace Ford, Roger Imhof

Synopsis: This crime drama is set in the fictional San Francisco eatery, Mary Grady's Chowder House which is presided over by the crusty Mary, a tough broad with a marshmallow heart. One of her regulars is a newspaper reporter who decides to write about the widow Grady's long lost son who disappeared Read More

Song of the Saddle

Actors: Dick Foran, Alma Lloyd, Charles B. Middleton, Addison Richards, Eddie Shubert

Synopsis: The second of singing cowboy Dick Foran's Warner Bros. westerns, Song of the Saddle was a decided improvement on the first (Moonlight on the Prairie). Foran is cast as Frank Wilson Jr., who heads Westward to avenge the long-ago murder of his father (Addison Richards). Frank had witnessed the Read More

Wedding Present

Actors: Joan Bennett, Cary Grant, George Bancroft, Conrad Nagel, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: In this newspaper farce, an editor loses his voice and his job after he tires of being tormented by the practical jokes of one of two reporters. The joker ends up the new editor. Soon after taking the job, his personality changes dramatically and soon he has become a pompous and excessively harsh Read More

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Paramount's first outdoor Technicolor feature, Trail of the Lonesome Pine was the third film version of John Fox Jr.'s novel. Inspired by the Hatfield-McCoy feud, the story is set in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. Outsider Fred MacMurray arrives to clear the path for a new railroad. Read More

Road Gang

Actors: Donald Woods, Carlyle Moore, Jr., Kay Linaker, Harry Cording, Eddy Chandler

Synopsis: Warner Bros' Road Gang is a retread of themes first explored (and stock footage first seen) in the studio's earlier I Am Fugitive From a Chain Gang. The story takes place in an unnamed Southern state, where prisoners are forced to work on chain gangs under appallingly brutal conditions. The local Read More

Jailbreak

Actors: June Travis, Craig Reynolds, Barton MacLane, Dick Purcell, Addison Richards

Synopsis: Jailbreak is a formula Warners "B" with all the attendant stereotypes. Dick Purcell plays a convict accused of murdering a fellow prisoner. Craig Reynolds, a temporarily incarcerated reporter, sets about to prove Purcell's innocence. June Travis is the "girl on the outside," awaiting the release Read More

Show Boat

Actors: Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan

Synopsis: This second film version of the Edna Ferber/Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Show Boat is considered by many film buffs to be the best of the three. Covering nearly four decades (was there ever an Edna Ferber novel that didn't?), the film stars Irene Dunne as Magnolia Hawks, a role she'd Read More

Sunset of Power

Actors: Buck Jones, Dorothy Dix, Charles B. Middleton, Ben Corbett

Synopsis: Sunset of Power is regarded as one of Buck Jones' more meritorious Universal westerns. The heavy of the piece, grim-visaged cattle baron Neil Brannum (Charles B. Middleton), drives everyone around him mercilessly, including his own granddaughter Ruth (Dorothy Dix). In retaliation, a Read More

Spaceship to the Unknown

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles B. Middleton, Priscilla Lawson

Synopsis: In 1936, Universal Pictures created a sensation with Flash Gordon, a 13-part adventure serial based on the popular comic strip of the day about a dare-devil do-gooder in outer space. Flash Gordon: Rocketship is a condensed version of that original serial, compressing the original twelve episodes Read More

Career Woman

Actors: Claire Trevor, Michael Whalen, Eric Linden, Virginia Field

Synopsis: Admidst a sea of melodramatic and unbelievable courtroom dramas, Career Woman is distinguished by its comparative realism. Law school graduate Carroll Aiken (Claire Trevor) is idealistic; her colleague Barry Conant (Michael Whalen) is cynical and mercenary. Despite their ethical differences, they Read More

Ramona

Actors: Loretta Young, Don Ameche

Synopsis: First filmed in 1910, the venerable Helen Hunt Jackson novel Ramona was remade in 1936 in full Technicolor (20th Century-Fox's first such production). Loretta Young plays Ramona, a half-Indian girl raised by a white family in Spanish California. She falls in love with the young man of the Read More

Rocketship

Synopsis: In this sci-fi film, Flash Gordon and friends take on Mongo's sea monster, deadly ray guns, and robots to keep the evil Emperor Ming from destroying Earth. The film is also titled Flash Gordon. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe

Synopsis: In 1936, Flash Gordon was among the most popular comic strip characters in America when Universal Pictures first brought his planet-hopping exploits to the big screen in the 13-episode serial Flash Gordon, one of the most lavishly produced and wildly popular "chapter-plays" of its day. Flash Read More

Behold My Wife

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Gene Raymond, Julie Compton, Laura Hope Crewes, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: A wealthy young heir rebels when his snooty parents refuse to allow him to marry a lovely young secretary. Deciding to teach them a lesson, he goes West where he falls in love and marries the daughter of a Native American chief. He brings her home to meet his parents, who are naturally appalled Read More

Frisco Kid

Actors: James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez, Lili Damita, Donald Woods

Synopsis: Clearly inspired by the success of Goldwyn's Barbary Coast, Warner Bros.' The Frisco Kid stars James Cagney as turn-of-the-century opportunist Bat Morgan. Heading to the gold fields of California, Bat is almost shanghaied in San Francisco but manages not only to escape his would-be captors but Read More

Party Wire

Actors: Jean Arthur, Victor Jory, Helen Lowell, Charles Grapewin

Synopsis: In one of his few movie leading roles, Victor Jory plays an unmarried small-town creamery owner. Jory falls in love with Jean Arthur, daughter of the town's favorite citizen (Charley Grapewin). Jean's former boy friend disconsolately leaves town, leaving behind an unbalanced church budget which Read More

Special Agent

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Ricardo Cortez, Jack LaRue, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: The agent of the title is George Brent, a journalist sent by the Government to get the goods on a crime syndicate. Brent befriends Bette Davis, bookkeeper for suspected crime boss Ricardo Cortez. Bette's cooperation nearly costs her life, but both she and Brent manage a tricky escape during a Read More

Reckless

Actors: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Franchot Tone, May Robson, Rosalind Russell, Ted Healy, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Reckless is a delightfully breezy screwball comedy from the same director (Victor Fleming) and star (Jean Harlow) responsible for the celebratedBombshell (itself a film à clef loosely based on Clara Bow) -- with the added appeal of William Powell. One can readily see the chemistry between the two Read More

In Spite of Danger

Actors: Wallace Ford, Marian Marsh, Arthur Hohl, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: In this actioner, a race car driver is recuperating from an accident when he meets a charming waitress and decides to go into her father's trucking business with him. They soon find themselves conflicting with a competitor; it is the same company that employs the racer that tampered with the Read More

Square Shooter

Synopsis: In this his penultimate Western for Columbia Pictures, Tim McCoy played Tim Baxter, a cowboy returning to the old homestead to prove he did not kill his uncle. Ranch foreman Jed Miller (Charles Middleton) has inherited the ranch but Tim knows the will was forged. He gathers a group of vigilantes Read More

Steamboat Round the Bend

Actors: Will Rogers, Anne Shirley, Irvin S. Cobb, Eugene Pallette, John McGuire

Synopsis: Two of America's most distinguished humorists, Oklahoma's Will Rogers and Kentucky's Irvin S. Cobb, costar in Steamboat Round the Bend. Cobb isn't much of an actor, so it is Rogers who carries the comic weight of this fast-paced slice of Americana. Will uncharacteristically sticks to the script Read More

Red Morning

Synopsis: Poverty-row director Wallace Fox came up in the world a bit when he signed on to helm RKO Radio's Red Morning. Steffi Duna, playing the tomboyish daughter of sea captain Mitchell Lewis, is abandoned on the shores of New Guinea when her dad's crew mutinies and scuttles the ship. Wasting little Read More

The County Chairman

Actors: Will Rogers, Evelyn Venable, Kent Taylor, Louise Dresser, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: George Ade's turn-of-the-century stage success The County Chairman was retailored as a Will Rogers vehicle in 1935. Set in 1904, the film casts Rogers as Jim Hackler, political-party chairman of Tomahawk County, Wyoming. At rise, Hackler is running for county prosecutor against his old political Read More

Hopalong Cassidy Enters

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, James Ellison, Paula Stone, Robert Warwick, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: Filmed in two weeks at Red Rock Canyon and Lone Pine, California, Hop-Along Cassidy was the opener of one of the best -- and most fondly remembered -- B-Western series of all time. Former silent screen star William Boyd regained his lost fame playing the prematurely gray, black-clad hero of Read More

Lone Cowboy

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Lila Lee, John Wray, Addison Richards, Gavin Gordon

Synopsis: Adapted by director Paul Sloan from the novel by Will James, Lone Cowboy is an "outdoors" epic tailored to the talents of young Jackie Cooper. Actually the title character is not played by Cooper but by character actor Addison Richards, cast as a grizzled old rodeo rider named Dobe Jones. Placed Read More

Murder at the Vanities

Actors: Carl Brisson, Victor McLaglen, Jack Oakie, Kitty Carlisle, Gertrude Michael, Dorothy Stickney

Synopsis: The Earl Carroll Vanities, a popular Broadway revue of the 1930s and '40s, is the setting for this murder mystery interspersed with an assortment of variety acts, including Duke Ellington performing "Ebony Rhapsody" and a novelty number called "Marijuana." Victor McLaglen stars as Bill Murdock, a Read More

Whom the Gods Destroy

Actors: Walter Connolly, Robert Young, Doris Kenyon, Scotty Beckett

Synopsis: Inspired by the Titanic tragedy, Whom the Gods Destroy is a tour de force for character actor Walter Connolly. The star is cast as theatrical entrepreneur John Forrester, who finds himself on board an ocean liner crippled in a shipwreck. At first he behaves courageously, but as the ship goes down Read More

Broadway Bill

Actors: Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Walter Connolly, Helen Vinson, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family Read More

The Last Round-Up

Actors: Randolph Scott, Barbara Fritchie, Monte Blue, Fred Kohler, Fuzzy Knight

Synopsis: Zane Grey's frequently-filmed story Border Legion was produced in 1934 under the title The Last Round-Up. Randolph Scott plays Jim Cleve, one of several volunteers keeping the US-Mexican border safe on behalf of American settlers. Ostensibly the hero, Cleve is actually out-heroed by the film's Read More

Massacre

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Ann Dvorak, Dudley Digges, Claire Dodd, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: One of the first major Hollywood films to seriously address America's ongoing mistreatment of its Indian population, Massacre is more admirable for its intentions than its execution. The film was inspired by the activities of John Collier, commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs during Read More

David Harum

Actors: Will Rogers, Louise Dresser, Evelyn Venable, Kent Taylor, Stepin Fetchit

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1915, David Harum is the story of an upstate New York rancher devoted to trotting races. Will Rogers makes no attempt to alter his Oklahoma accent as David Harum, but audiences in the 1930s came to see Rogers and not the character. After several examples of his horse-trading Read More

The St. Louis Kid

Actors: James Cagney, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins, Robert H. Barrat, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: James Cagney manages to retain his pre-Code cockiness within post-Code limitations in the likeable St. Louis Kid. Cagney and Allen Jenkins, Eddie Kennedy, and Buck Willetts play long-distance truck drivers who get entangled in a battle between a crooked trucking firm and striking milk farmers (a Read More

When Strangers Meet

Actors: Richard Cromwell, Arline Judge, Lucien Littlefield, Charles B. Middleton, Hale Hamilton

Synopsis: Based on a story by Zona Gale, When Strangers Meet concentrates on a small, interrelated community separated down the middle by a narrow path. The bungalow-dwelling residents on one side of the path consider their neighbors to be "beneath" them, and vice versa. Tensions come to a boil when a Read More

The Miracle Rider [Serial]

Synopsis: A Texas Ranger (Tom Mix, in his last film) must stop an evil gang leader (Charles Middleton) who is trying to scare Indians from their reservation in order to profit from the land. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Nana

Actors: Anna Sten, Phillips Holmes, Lionel Atwill, Richard Bennett, Mae Clarke

Synopsis: In this handsomely-staged adaptation of the story by Emile Zola, Anna Sten plays Nana, a woman of the streets who is spotted by noted theatrical producer Gaston Greiner (Richard Bennett). Greiner is so impressed by Nana's beauty that he gives her a part in his latest revue. Almost overnight, Nana Read More

The Mystic Hour

Synopsis: A wealthy young playboy becomes involved in the hunt for a master criminal when he catches one of the criminal's henchmen in a woman's bedroom and, at the same time, the criminal is setting his wealthy aunt up for a jewel robbery by posing as a policeman assigned to protect her. He starts to date Read More

Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

Actors: Pauline Lord, W.C. Fields, ZaSu Pitts, Evelyn Venable, Kent Taylor

Synopsis: Frequently and misleadingly advertised as a W.C. Fields vehicle, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch confines the Great Man's appearance to the final two reels. The rest of the picture is a ploddingly paced adaptation of the hoary old Anne Hagan Rice novel about how wonderful it is to be poor. In a Read More

White Woman

Actors: Charles Laughton, Carole Lombard, Charles Bickford, Kent Taylor, Percy Kilbride

Synopsis: In this campy "adult-oriented" drama from the early 1930s, the ruthless manager of a Malaysian rubber plantation marries a singer facing deportation. He offers her a miserable existence of abuse and loneliness. She finds a bright spot with a handsome plantation worker. Unfortunately, her jealous Read More

The Bowery

Actors: Wallace Beery, George Raft, Jackie Cooper, Fay Wray, Pert Kelton

Synopsis: In this rough-and-tumble action comedy, Chuck Connors (Wallace Beery) and Steve Brodie (George Raft) are friendly rivals on New York's Bowery in the 1890s. Connors owns a fancy tavern and looks after a streetwise kid named Swipes McGurk (Jackie Cooper), while Brodie is a daredevil willing to do Read More

Disgraced

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, Bruce Cabot, Adrienne Ames, William Harrigan, Ken Murray

Synopsis: Long-suffering screen favorite Helen Twelvetrees is Disgraced again in this Paramount soap opera. Twelvetrees is cast as Gay Holliday, whose romance with Kirk Underwood Jr. (Bruce Cabot) turns sour when Kirk turns out to be a jerk. A murder inevitably follows, whereupon Gay gallantly takes the Read More

Tomorrow at Seven

Actors: Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: Tomorrow at Seven is one of those "you will die at the appointed hour" murder mysteries which flooded the market in the early 1930s. An unknown killer considerately informs his victims-to-be of their imminent demises by mailing them the Ace of Spades-hence his nom-de-murder, "Mr. Ace." Novelist Chester Morris Read More

Destination Unknown

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, Alan Hale, Russell Hopton, Tom Brown

Synopsis: This film offers melodrama on the high-seas as it follows the miraculous salvation of a becalmed ship filled with bootleg liquor. To make matters worse, they are out of fresh water, the captain and mate drowned during a storm, and the boat is sinking. The bo'sun has taken charge, and the crew is Read More

Big Executive

Actors: Ricardo Cortez, Richard Bennett, Elisabeth Young, Sharon Lynne, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: The Big Executive is Ricardo Cortez, to whom success is less important than the pursuit of success. Having lost as many fortunes as he's gained, Cortez again teeters on the verge of bankruptcy. His principal business rival, who'd like nothing better than to see Cortez standing on a street corner Read More

Pick-Up

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, William Harrigan, Lillian Bond, Clarence H. Wilson

Synopsis: In this romantic drama, an ex-con conceals her criminal past and starts a new life with a kindly cab driver. Together, the two friends leave the city and move to the suburbs where she helps him set up an auto mechanic business. Though they are in love, they cannot marry for she is still legally Read More

Sunset Pass

Synopsis: In this western, a US marshal goes undercover to bust up a bunch of rustlers. The history behind the film is as interesting as the story. Paramount made this during the Depression when the studio was teetering towards bankruptcy. To save money, much of this film was comprised of footage from the Read More

This Day and Age

Actors: Charles Bickford, Judith Allen, Richard Cromwell, Eddie Nugent, Ben Alexander

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's This Day and Age was perhaps the most Draconian entry in Hollywood's early-1930s "vigilante" film cycle. Richard Cromwell heads a group of civic-minded teenagers in a small midwestern town. When a lovable old tailor (Harry Green) is murdered by a notorious gangster (Charles Bickford Read More

Doctor Bull

Actors: Will Rogers, Vera Allen, Marian Nixon, Howard Lally, Berton Churchill

Synopsis: Will Rogers is Dr. Bull, a small-town physician with precious little book learning. This doesn't stop him from ministering to the citizens, often substituting advice and witticisms for pills and sutures. There are those who resist Dr. Bull's everyday doses of common sense and humanity, especially Read More

Duck Soup

Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Raquel Torres

Synopsis: In this 1933 Marx Brothers film, the mythical country of Freedonia is broke and on the verge of revolution. Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont), Freedonia's principal benefactress, will lend the country 20 million dollars if the president withdraws and places the government in the hands of the Read More

Hell's Highway

Actors: Richard Dix, Tom Brown, Louise Carter, Rochelle Hudson, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: Often referred to as an imitation of Warner's legendary prison drama I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), RKO's stirring Hell's Highway was actually released a few months earlier. The two films were in production at the same time, but RKO was determined to beat the competition (which also Read More

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang

Actors: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston S. Foster, Edward McNamara

Synopsis: Warner Bros.' hard-hitting chain-gang movie was a faithful adaptation of the similarly titled autobiography of Robert Elliot Burns. Paul Muni plays World War I veteran James Allen, whose plans of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Flat broke, Allen is Read More

The Hatchet Man

Actors: Loretta Young, Leslie Fenton, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Hatchet Man is a dated but fascinating film set amidst the "tong wars" in San Francisco's Chinatown. Tong hatchet man Wong Low Get (Edward G. Robinson) is required to kill his boyhood friend Sun Yet Sen (J. Carroll Naish). Sen is resigned to his fate, but extracts a promise that Wong will look Read More

The Sign of the Cross

Actors: Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Elissa Landi, Charles Laughton, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Director Cecil B. DeMille returned to Paramount Pictures for this typically epic production, which became his first box office hit after the close of the silent era. Fredric March stars as Roman Prefect Marcus Superbus, a noble military leader of the year 64 A.D. Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) Read More

Too Busy to Work

Actors: Will Rogers, Marian Nixon, Dick Powell, Frederick Burton, Constantine Romanoff

Synopsis: The second film version of Ben Ames Williams' magazine serial Jubilo, and the second to star Will Rogers, Too Busy to Work takes considerably more liberties with the source material than the original 1919 Jubilo. Once again, Rogers is cast as a lovable hobo named Jubilo (after the old spiritual of Read More

Pack up Your Troubles

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Donald Dillaway, Jacquie Lyn, Mary Carr

Synopsis: Drafted into the army during World War I, those muddled misfits Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy make a shambles of Training Camp before being shipped to France. When their best pal Eddie (Donald Dillaway) is killed in battle, Stan and Ollie vow to locate the grandparents of Eddie's orphaned little Read More

Rockabye

Actors: Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Paul Lukas, Walter Pidgeon, Jobyna Howland

Synopsis: Despite a troubled production that witnessed the exits of both leading man (Phillips Holmes) and director (George Fitzmaurice), this tearjerker was a winner at the box office in November of 1932. Constance Bennett plays Broadway diva Judy Carroll who loses custody of a wee orphan after testifying Read More

Silver Dollar

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Bebe Daniels, Aline MacMahon, Jobyna Howland, DeWitt Jennings

Synopsis: The factual story of H.A.W. Tabor and "Baby Doe" was the inspiration of Silver Dollar. Edward G. Robinson plays the Tabor counterpart, a prospector who strikes it rich with a silver mine. Robinson establishes the city of Denver, strongarms his way into political power, buys every creature comfort Read More

Mystery Ranch

Actors: George O'Brien, Cecilia Parker, Charles B. Middleton, Charles Stevens, Forrester Harvey

Synopsis: The comedic sidekick is shockingly done away with in this unusual and highly atmospheric Western from Fox. George O'Brien, of Sunrise (1927) fame, stars as Bob Sanborn, an Arizona ranger assigned to quell a reign of terror instigated by Paradise Valley rancher Henry Steele (Charles Middleton), who Read More

The Phantom President

Actors: George M. Cohan, Claudette Colbert, Jimmy Durante, George Barbier, Sidney Toler

Synopsis: Legendary songwriter and vaudevillian George M. Cohan made his first appearance in a sound film with this satiric musical comedy. Theodore Blair (Cohan) is a politician running for president; while he has talent and intelligence, he's unfortunately as exciting as warm milk, and he is not doing Read More

Breach of Promise

Actors: Chester Morris, Mae Clarke, Mary Doran, Theodore Von Eltz, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: In this drama, a politician must deal with the aftermath of a young girl's damning accusation. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

High Pressure

Actors: William Powell, Evelyn Brent, George Sidney, Guy Kibbee, Evelyn Knapp

Synopsis: Based on Abel Kandel's 1931 play Hot Money, this delightfully daffy comedy from Warner Bros. is a typical example of that studio's turbo-charged dialogue and irreverent attitude. William Powell, at the top of his game here, plays Gar Evans, the "world's foremost promoter," hired by Jewish Read More

The Strange Love of Molly Louvain

Actors: Ann Dvorak, Lee Tracy, Richard Cromwell, Guy Kibbee, Leslie Fenton

Synopsis: In this strange, convoluted tale, a hotel clerk ends up pregnant and alone after she has a brief fling with a wealthy playboy. Shortly after her daughter's birth, she hooks up with a criminal. She does not realize that the good-hearted bellboy with whom she works secretly loves her. When the Read More

A Dangerous Affair

Actors: Jack Holt, Ralph Graves, Sally Blane, Susan Fleming

Synopsis: Two rough-and-ready guys; one beautiful dame; a tough job that has to be done, and "one of us may not come out alive"; the younger guy gets the girl in the end. This could have been the synopsis of virtually every one of the Jack Holt-Ralph Graves vehicles at Columbia, as witness Dangerous Affair. Read More

Caught Plastered

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, Lucy Beaumont, Jason Robards, Sr.

Synopsis: After briefly splitting for a brace of unsuccessful solo ventures, the comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were reunited in one of their best vehicles, Caught Plastered. Bert and Bob are cast as itinerant vaudevillians Tommy and Egbert, who find themselves stranded in a small Midwestern Read More

Ships of Hate

Actors: Lloyd Hughes, Dorothy Sebastian, Charles B. Middleton, Lloyd Whitlock, Ted Adams

Synopsis: Ships of Hate was one of the lesser entries in the "skullduggery-at-sea" genre of the early-talkie era. Hero Bart Wallace (Lloyd Hughes) happens to be on hand when the roughneck crew of the vessel commandeered by the despotic Captain Lash (Charles Middleton) decides to mutiny. Adding to Bart's Read More

Safe in Hell

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, Ralf Harolde, Morgan Wallace, Victor Varconi

Synopsis: A young Barbara Stanwyck was considered for the starring role as the exiled call-girl in this extremely frank pre production-code drama directed by William A. Wellman from a play by Houston Branch). The role eventually went ot Dorothy Mackaill, an evocative British-born veteran adept at playing Read More

Beau Hunks

Synopsis: This Laureland Hardy four-reeler is very loosely based on Beau Gest. It opens with Oliver Hardy singing a sweet love song. He's feeling sentimental because he's about to marry his girl, Jeanie-Weanie who, he tells his friend Stan Laurel, "has been all around the world and everyone loves her." Read More

Sob Sister

Actors: James Dunn, Linda Watkins, Minna Gombell, Howard Phillips, George E. Stone

Synopsis: Three guesses as to the profession of the heroine in Sob Sister. That's right: Jane Ray (Linda Watkins) is a girl reporter, both fearless and foolhardy. Jane's great rival is news-hound Garry Webster (James Dunn), whose love for the girl never gets in the way of his tireless pursuit of "big Read More

A House Divided

Actors: Walter Huston, Kent Douglass, Helen Chandler, Vivien Oakland, Frank S. Hagney

Synopsis: "A house divided against itself cannot stand" declared Abraham Lincoln; proof that a house divided can be repaired is provided in this early talkie effort from director William Wyler. Walter Huston plays alcoholic fisherman Seth Law, who, recently widowed, signs up for a mail-order bride. Ruth Read More

Manhattan Parade

Actors: Winnie Lightner, Charles Butterworth, Walter Miller, Joe Smith, Charles Dale

Synopsis: "There is never a suggestion of subtlety in this tale" was the New York Times' acidic but accurate assessment of the Technicolor comedy Manhattan Parade. Winnie Lightner plays Doris, the wife and business partner of Herbert (Charles Butterworth), owner of a theatrical costume store. When Herbert Read More

Palmy Days

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Charlotte Greenwood, Spencer Charters, Barbara Weeks, George Raft

Synopsis: Eddie Cantor plays Eddie Simpson, a shy and jumpy young fellow who spontaneously bursts into song whenever he gets nervous. He works with the sly Yolando, a phony but successful psychic. The trouble in this lively musical farce begins when Yolando attempts to swindle the owner of the local bakery. Read More

The Miracle Woman

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, Sam Hardy, Beryl Mercer, Russell Hopton

Synopsis: A minister's daughter finds fame as an evangelist but struggles with her own lack of faith in Frank Capra's impassioned drama. Inspired by the true story of Aimee Semple McPherson, the film follows the rise to prominence of Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck). Disillusioned by the mistreatment of Read More

An American Tragedy

Actors: Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney, Frances Dee, Irving Pichel, Frederick Burton, Emmett Corrigan

Synopsis: Though his parents are street evangelists, Clyde Griffiths (Phillips Holmes) grows up in squalor, but not without ambitions. He first works as a bellhop in Kansas City, but when he's the passenger in a car that kills a little girl, Clyde fears he'll be arrested and flees town. His wealthy uncle Read More

Alexander Hamilton

Actors: George Arliss, Doris Kenyon, Dudley Digges, Alan Mowbray, Ralf Harolde

Synopsis: Alexander Hamilton was not precisely the life story of America's first secretary of the treasury--in fact, it doesn't even depict the most portentous moment of Hamilton's life, his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. Instead, Alexander Hamilton concentrates on Hamilton's efforts to pass the "Assumption Read More

Beau Bandit

Actors: Rod La Rocque, Mitchell Lewis, Doris Kenyon, Charles B. Middleton, George Duryea

Synopsis: Latin Lover Rod LaRocque starred as a Mexican Robin Hood in this tepid Western melodrama directed by Lambert Hillyer. With a price on his head, LaRocque's gay desperado comes to the assistance of a fair damsel-in-distress (Doris Kenyon), who is suffering unwanted attention from unscrupulous banker Charles Middleton Read More

Way Out West

Actors: William Haines, Leila Hyams, Cliff Edwards

Synopsis: A pleasant enough western parody starring one of the victims of sound, William Haines, Way Out West is the story of a carnival huckster forced to work on a western ranch in order to repay a couple of cowboys he once fleeced. There's a sandstorm, a fist-fight with the ubiquitous crooked foreman (Charles Middleton Read More

East Is West

Actors: Lupe Velez, Lew Ayres, Edward G. Robinson, Henry Kolker, Mary Forbes

Synopsis: In this romance, men board "The Love Boat" (no, not the TV boat) and set sail for China with the hope of buying a Chinese bride. The hero disembarks and immediately finds himself in the midst of an auction of women. There he spies a beautiful girl being sold by her father. The hero saves her. She Read More

The Far Call

Synopsis: In this romance, a greedy poacher travels to a small island in the Bering sea to rob a seal rookery. There he falls for the governor's daughter who learns that the poacher is the estranged son of a prominent, but dead, citizen. She reveals his true identity to him, and he decides not to kill the Read More

Bellamy Trial

Actors: Leatrice Joy, Betty Bronson, George Barraud, Margaret Livingston, Ken Thomson

Synopsis: Popular silent-screen star Leatrice Joy made an adequate talking-picture debut in MGM's The Bellamy Trial. The film was based on a novel by Frances Noyes Hart, which in turn was allegedly inspired by a true story. Told in flashback form (a la Elmer Rice's On Trial), the story concerns the events Read More

Welcome Danger

Actors: Harold Lloyd, Barbara Kent, Noah Young, Charles B. Middleton

Synopsis: This comedy classic is the sound-film debut of enormously popular and brilliant silent comedian Harold Lloyd. He plays a gentle botany student who must reluctantly succeed his father as chief of police. He does a good job and ends up busting up a ring of drug dealers led by the enigmatic "Dragon." Read More