Claire McDowell Filmography

Are These Our Parents?

Actors: Helen Vinson, Lyle Talbot, Ivan Lebedeff, Noel Neill, Richard Byron

Synopsis: This 1940s drama implies that children do indeed learn what they live as it tells the story of a teenage girl who runs away from her posh boarding school to be with her ne'er-do-well, blue-collar boy friend because she believes her wealthy parents do not care about her. Soon the idle kids are Read More

The Youngest Profession

Actors: Virginia Weidler, Edward Arnold, John Carroll, Ann Ayars, Marta Linden

Synopsis: In this charming episodic comedy, a giddy group of adolescent girls form a movie-star fan club. Their favorite pastime is collecting the autographs of major stars. Led by their determined president, the gals stalk the streets and train stations of New York in search of big-name stars. Their Read More

Black Market Rustlers

Actors: Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Dennis Moore, Max "Alibi" Terhune, Evelyn Finley, Steve Clark

Synopsis: In the tradition of Cowboy Commandos, the Range Busters (Ray Corrigan, Dennis Moore, and Max Terhune) take on Black Market Rustlers in this wartime western. The film's villains busy themselves by stealing cattle, then selling the meat on the black market for ridiculously exorbitant prices. The Read More

Reap the Wild Wind

Actors: Ray Milland, John Wayne, Paulette Goddard, Raymond Massey, Robert Preston

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's Technicolor historical spectacle Reap the Wild Wind was to have starred Gary Cooper, but Cooper's prior commitment to Goldwyn's Pride of the Yankees compelled DeMille to recast the leading role with John Wayne. The film, set in the mid-19th century, centers around Key West Read More

Lady Scarface

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Frances Neal, Judith Anderson, Mildred Coles, Eric Blore

Synopsis: A partial remake of 1936's Wanted: Jane Turner, Lady Scarface is a seedy but entertaining tour de force for the great Judith Anderson. Embittered over the ugly facial scar which covers the left side of her face, a woman named Slade becomes a criminal mastermind. The cops have no idea that Read More

Idiot's Delight

Actors: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Edward Arnold, Charles Coburn, Joseph Schildkraut, Burgess Meredith

Synopsis: Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Idiot's Delight starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway. Set in a lavish alpine hotel bordering an Italian air base, the story throws together several disparate people, each in his or her own way affected by the World War that threatens to Read More

Thunder Afloat

Actors: Wallace Beery, Chester Morris, Virginia Grey, Douglas Dumbrille, Carl Esmond

Synopsis: Thunder Afloat is set during the first world war. Wallace Beery plays an veteran tugboat captain who harbors a grudge against younger ex-pal Chester Morris. When Morris joins the navy as an officer, he runs across Beery, who resparks the feud. Both men bury the hatchet and work shoulder to Read More

Stand up and Fight

Actors: Wallace Beery, Robert Taylor, Florence Rice, Helen Broderick, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: Directed with customary haste by Woody Van Dyke, Stand Up and Fight is an excellent dual vehicle for veteran Wallace Beery and up-and-coming Robert Taylor. Set in the American west in the mid-19th century, the story concerns the efforts of empire-building Blake Cantrell (Taylor) to construct a Read More

Miracles for Sale

Actors: Robert Young, Florence Rice, Frank Craven, Henry Hull, Lee Bowman

Synopsis: Merlini the Magician, Clayton Rawson's crime-solving illusionist, has been singularly ill-used by Hollywood, having appeared in a mere two films, "starring" in only one. Miracles for Sale compounds the oversight by rechristening Merlini as "Michael Morgan", in the person of Robert Young. The Read More

Three Comrades

Actors: Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan, Franchot Tone, Robert Young, Guy Kibbee, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades represented one of the few successful screenwriting efforts of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in Germany in the years just following World War I, the film stars Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone and Robert Young as three battle-weary, thoroughly Read More

Two-Fisted Sheriff

Actors: Charles Starrett, Barbara Weeks, Bruce Lane, Allan Sears

Synopsis: In this western, a lawman tries to help prove that his friend did not commit murder. He rides in and saves his pal from a lynch mob. Soon afterward, the accused takes off and the sheriff loses both his job and his community's respect. He must now prove that he and his friend are innocent. He finds Read More

High, Wide and Handsome

Actors: Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Dorothy Lamour, Elizabeth Patterson, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: High, Wide and Handsome almost defies classification: Perhaps it's best referred to as a historical musical western comedy melodrama. Irene Dunne plays an itinerant circus performer who marries oilman Randolph Scott. The couple heads to Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859, where Scott is among the Read More

Small Town Girl

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Robert Taylor, Binnie Barnes, Andy Devine, James Stewart

Synopsis: One Horse Town is the TV title for MGM's 1936 version Small Town Girl (the new title was bestowed to avoid confusion with the 1953 remake). Robert Taylor plays an irresponsible playboy who is arrested in a backwater town for drunken driving. While intoxicated, Taylor proposes to local girl Janet Gaynor Read More

August Week-End

Actors: Valerie Hobson, Paul Harvey, Betty Compson, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Chesterfield Films, one of the busiest (though not necessarily one of the best) poverty-row operations of the 1930s, was responsible for the amiable comedy August Week-End. 19-year-old Valerie Hobson is top-billed, but the film's real star is G. P. Huntley Jr., playing a British business Read More

Murder by Television

Synopsis: One of Bela Lugosi's least remembered films, this ultra low-budget whodunit with science fiction overtones features the murder of a professor who had recently perfected the new invention of television. Suspects are plentiful and include Bela Lugosi's rivaling academician Dr. Perry. Alas, the good Read More

It Happened One Night

Actors: Claire McDowell, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas

Synopsis: Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s Read More

Imitation of Life

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Ned Sparks, Louise Beavers, Fredi Washington, Rochelle Hudson

Synopsis: The first of two film version of Fannie Hurst's novel, 1934's Imitation of Life chronicles the friendship between two women--one white (Claudette Colbert), one black (Louise Beavers). Colbert is a widow with a baby daughter who hires Beavers, who also has a daughter, as a housekeeper. Colbert is a Read More

Two Heads on a Pillow

Actors: Dorothy Appleby, Mary Forbes, Edward Martindel, Claude King

Synopsis: Surprisingly original for an independent production, Two Heads on a Pillow is a fascinated precursor to the more celebrated Tracy-Hepburn vehicle Adam's Rib. Neil Hamilton and Miriam Jordan a play couple of young lawyers who fall in love and marry. Thanks to her mother's interference, the couple Read More

Journal of a Crime

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Dodd, George Barbier, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: A Hollywood version of Jacques Deval's 1933 French drama Un Vie Perdue, Journal of a Crime stars Ruth Chatterton as Françoise Moliet, a proud Parisian who refuses to divorce her playwright husband Paul (Adolphe Menjou), even though he is rather publicly dallying with the star of his latest Read More

African Incident

By Appointment Only

Actors: Lew Cody, Aileen Pringle, Sally O'Neil, Edward Morgan, Edward Martindel

Synopsis: When a patient dies of heart failure, society doctor Michael Travers (Lew Cody), takes an interest in her 14-year-old daughter Judy (Sally O'Neil), whom he makes his ward. Against the wishes of his fiancée, socialite Diane Manners (Aileen Pringle), Michael leaves for an extended business trip to Read More

Central Airport

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Sally Eilers, Tom Brown, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: Aerial footage distinguishes this romantic-triangle melodrama set among pilots in a flying circus. Jill (Sally Eilers) loves Jim (Richard Barthelmess), but he insists that fliers shouldn't marry, so the disappointed Jill marries his younger brother Neil (Tom Brown) instead. The resulting tensions Read More

Wild Boys of the Road

Actors: Frankie Darro, Dorothy Coonan, Rochelle Hudson, Anne Hovey

Synopsis: Still thought-provoking and moving after all these years, this earnest socially conscious and road-drama offers a realistic view that resonated with Depression-era audiences and offered them a message of hope with Roosevelt's New Deal, something most critics of the day found over-simplified and Read More

Paddy, the Next Best Thing

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Warner Baxter, Walter Connolly, Harvey Stephens, Mary McCormick

Synopsis: At age 26, Janet Gaynor was still playing "gamin" roles in such musical trifles as Paddy, the Next Best Thing. Gaynor stars as a spirited Irish lass whose older sister (Margaret Lindsay) is about to marry a wealthy gent (Warner Baxter). Fully aware that Sis doesn't love the man, Gaynor sacrifices Read More

The Working Man

Actors: George Arliss, Bette Davis, Hardie Albright, John Farrell MacDonald, Theodore Newton

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, a wealthy shoe magnate is bored with his life. The trouble really begins when his chief rival dies. His company was on the brink of financial ruin and now the bored shoemaker finds himself without even the joy of competition to motivate him. The fellow decides to take a Read More

It's Tough to Be Famous

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mary Brian, Oscar Apfel, Walter Catlett, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Undoubtedly inspired by Charles Lindbergh's unprecedented sudden fame (but not the ensuing tragedy), Mary McCall's 1932 novel The Goldfish Bowl was turned into a satirical comedy-drama featuring an engaging Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as a navy captain thrust into the limelight after saving his crew 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

Cornered

Synopsis: Not the best of Tim McCoy's 16 Westerns for Columbia (1931-1932), Cornered, directed by action specialist B. Reeves Eason, was also far from the worst, with plenty of fast riding and shooting to please the small fry. McCoy played Sheriff Tim Laramie whose best friend, Moody Pearson (Niles Welch) Read More

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Actors: Marian Nixon, Ralph Bellamy, Mae Marsh, Louise Closser Hale, Alphonse Ethier

Synopsis: Originally filmed with Mary Pickford in 1917, the Kate Douglas Wiggin children's classic Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm was remade as a talkie in 1932. Though a bit long in tooth to play the leading character, Marian Nixon (replacing a recalcitrant Janet Gaynor) makes a charming Rebecca. Placed in the Read More

The Phantom Express

Synopsis: It is all but impossible to dislike a film as gloriously corny as The Phantom Express. The title is derived from an early scene in which veteran engineer Smokey North (J. Farrell McDonald) wrecks his own train while trying to avoid a head-on collision with another. Suddenly, the other train 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

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

The Second Floor Mystery

Actors: Grant Withers, Loretta Young, H.B. Warner, Claire McDowell, Sidney Bracey

Synopsis: In this mystery, a man and woman have been corresponding through a "personal" column under the names Lord Strawberries and Lady Grapefruit. When the man's neighbor is found dead upstairs, he and the lady are the prime suspects of a police inspector, who has his own very good reason for blaming Read More

Mothers Cry

Actors: Dorothy Peterson, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Edward Woods, Evelyn Knapp

Synopsis: The pain of raising children alone is presented in this tragedy that centers on the failure of a widowed mother of four bratty children to raise her children correctly. Each of them grows up to a sad adult life. One daughter endures a grim May-December marriage. One son, a talented architect, must Read More

Young Desire

Actors: Mary Nolan, Ralf Harolde, Mae Busch

Synopsis: Released in both silent and sound versions, this lurid melodrama from Universal was based on the 1924 play Carnival by William R. Doyle. Mary Nolan, whose demure name hid a rather volatile personality, played Helen Herbert, a sideshow dancer falling for handsome socialite Bobby Spencer (Leon Read More

Brothers

Actors: Bert Lytell, Dorothy Sebastian, William Morris, Richard Tucker, Maurice Black

Synopsis: An early talkie from then-poverty row company Columbia Pictures, Brothers features popular silent screen actor Bert Lytell in a dual-role. Separated at birth, orphaned twins Bob and Eddie grow up on either side of the tracks, one adopted by a washerwoman (Jessie Arnold), the other by a wealthy Read More

Wild Company

Actors: Frank Albertson, H.B. Warner, Joyce Compton, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: This drama is set during Prohibition and follows the exploits of a spoiled brat with overly permissive parents. He soaks them for as much money has he can get and then squanders the money in an illicit speak-easy where he has fallen for the lovely singer. Unfortunately, she is a gangster's moll. Read More

Redemption

Actors: John Gilbert, Conrad Nagel, Eleanor Boardman, Renée Adorée, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Based on Leo Tolstoy's The Living Corpse, Redemption was originally scheduled as John Gilbert's first talkie, but was held from release until distribution of his second, One Glorious Night. The official reason, as handed down by the MGM publicity hacks, was that Gilbert's efforts to tackle a role Read More

The Big House

Actors: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: Not the first of the prison pictures, but the one that truly put the genre on the map. Playboy Kent (Robert Montgomery), driving drunk, kills a couple of pedestrians and is sentenced to a 10-year manslaughter term. His cellmate is forger Morgan (Chester Morris), a tough but essentially decent con; Read More

Quitter

Actors: Ben Lyon, Fred Kohler, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Although a humble stable boy, Ben Lyon is a whiz when it comes to medical know-how. This endears Lyon to his boss, Fred Kohler Sr., who taps the hero's services as a horse doctor. Lyon also has a talent for music, and this wins him the affections of Kohler's girlfriend Dorothy Revier. A flashback Read More

Silks and Saddles

Actors: Marian Nixon, Richard Walling, Mary Nolan, Otis Harlan, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: The racetrack provides the setting of this drama that tells the tale of a jockey who throws a race to impress a sexy girl. Later, the jockey redeems himself to his former employer and the boss's daughter, who has loyally loved him all along, by riding a dangerously spirited horse that no one else Read More

When Dreams Come True

Actors: Claire McDowell, Helene Costello, Ernest Hilliard, Rex Lease, Emmett C. King, George Periolat, Danny Hoy

Synopsis: A typical silent outdoors melodrama from poverty row producer Trem Carr and action director Duke Worne, this film starred Helene Costello, the sister of Dolores Costello. She played Caroline Swayne, a girl from the horsey set whose wealthy father (George Periolat) prohibits her from dating Ben (Rex Lease Read More

Four Devils

Actors: John Farrell MacDonald, Anders Randolf, Claire McDowell, Jack Parker, Philippe DeLacy

Synopsis: The circus provides the backdrop for this melodrama that chronicles the lives of four children raised within the big top. Two of them have grown to be lovers. Though they appear inseparable, trouble ensues when a usurper takes the girl away. The picture is considered a lost work -- no copies are Read More

Marriage by Contract

Actors: Patsy Ruth Miller, Lawrence Gray, Robert Edeson, Shirley Palmer

Synopsis: Marriage by Contract was produced and directed by John M. Stahl for his own Tiffany-Stahl Studio. Although only a part-talkie, the film represented the sound debut of Patsy Ruth Miller, here cast as Margaret, one of the longest-suffering heroines in screen history. Having entered into a contract Read More

The Tragedy of Youth

Actors: Warner Baxter, Patsy Ruth Miller, Claire McDowell, Harvey Clark

Synopsis: Neglected by shallow husband Dick (William Collier Jr.), young bride Paula Wayne (Patsy Ruth Miller) seeks male companionship outside the marital nest. She soon finds it in the form of mature lover Frank Gordon (Warner Baxter). Upon learning of his wife's infidelity, Dick attempts suicide Read More

Don't Marry

Actors: Lois Moran, Neil Hamilton, Henry Kolker, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: According to most sources, actress Lois Moran was the model for Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Never a great actress, Lois was always effervescent and willing to please, as proven in the jazz-age comedy Don't Marry. Stuck with a prudish boyfriend (Neil Hamilton, later Read More

Winds of the Pampas

Actors: Edwards Davis, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: This family drama set in Argentina was filmed at low-budget Tec-Art Studios in Hollywood by fringe filmmakers Arthur Varney and Ralph Cloninger. The latter also headed a "no-name" cast as Don Rafael Casandos, the son of Argentinean rancher Don José (Harry Holden). The latter is engaged in a Read More

The Auctioneer

Actors: George Sidney, Doris Lloyd, Sammy Cohen, Marian Nixon, Gareth Hughes

Synopsis: Jewish comedian George Sidney stars as the title character in The Auctioneer. Sidney also doubles as a pawnbroker, which allows for a steady stream of colorful supporting characters. Our hero's lifestyle undergoes a radical shake-up when he takes over the mansion of a millionaire. He manages to Read More

Cheaters

Actors: Pat O'Malley, Helen Ferguson, George Hackathorne, Alphonse Ethier, Max Davidson

Synopsis: The Cheaters are reformed crooks Helen Ferguson and George Hackathorne. Now gainfully employed in a fancy hotel, Ferguson and Hackathorne are forced to participate in a jewel heist by their former boss. Detective Pat O'Malley suspects that the two thieves are up to their old tricks, but decides to Read More

The Shield of Honor

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Dorothy Gulliver, Ralph Lewis, Nigel Barrie

Synopsis: Shield of Honor is predicated on the fact that, in 1927, several big-city police departments were contemplating formation of their own "airborne" units. Neil Hamilton stars as Jack MacDowell, the L.A. Police Department's very first "fly cop." He gets a golden opportunity to display his aviation Read More

Almost Human

Actors: Vera Reynolds, Ken Thomson, Majel Coleman

Synopsis: This canine comedy-drama is based on The Bar Sinister, a whimsical tale by Richard Harding Davis. The story is told from the point of view of a dog, as he recounts for the benefit of the audience his rise from the streets of the Bowery to the luxurious heights of Park Avenue. Much of the story Read More

A Little Journey

Actors: Claire Windsor, William Haines, Harry Carey, Claire McDowell, Lawford Davidson

Synopsis: Because of his impressive work in Brown of Harvard and Tell It to the Marines, William Haines had just achieved stardom when he was featured in this simple little comedy, based on the play by Rachel Crothers. But he's nearly upstaged by Harry Carey who, without his usual Western gear, makes a Read More

The Taxi Dancer

Actors: Joan Crawford, Owen Moore, William Orlamond, Marc MacDermott, Gertrude Astor

Synopsis: Impoverished Southern belle Joslyn Poe (Joan Crawford) heads to New York, hoping to become a professional dancer. Unable to land work on Broadway, she becomes a taxi dancer in a cheap dive, where her cardsharp boyfriend Lee Rogers (Owen Moore) whiles away his time fleecing the suckers. Hoping to Read More

Tillie the Toiler

Actors: Marion Davies, Matt Moore, Harry Crocker, George Fawcett, George K. Arthur

Synopsis: Marion Davies has the lead role of Tillie in this adaptation of Russ Westover's popular 1920s comic strip. Tillie is bored by both her job as a stenographer and her office romance with Mr. Whipple (George K. Arthur). She's far more interested in another man in the office, Mac (Matt Moore). Mac Read More

The Show-Off

Actors: Ford Sterling, Lois Wilson, Louise Brooks, Gregory Kelly

Synopsis: This first film version of George Kelly's stage comedy The Show Off stars former Keystone Kop Ford Sterling in the title role. Though he's only a thirty-dollar-a-week clerk, Aubrey Piper (Sterling) is an incorrigible braggart, brimming full of grandiose get-rich-quick schemes. Quickly ingratiating Read More

Shamrock Handicap

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Leslie Fenton, John Farrell MacDonald, Louis Payne, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Based on a story by Peter B. Kyne, the long-lost John Ford silent Shamrock Handicap begins in Ireland. Because he refuses to collect rent payments from his impoverished tenants, kindly Irish nobleman Sir Miles Gaffney is in danger of losing his estate. He is forced to sell off part of his racing Read More

Flaming Forest

Actors: Antonio Moreno, Renée Adorée, Gardner James, William Austin, Tom O'Brien

Synopsis: Based on a James Oliver Curwood yarn, the outsized Northwest Mountie adventure The Flaming Forest stars Antonio Moreno as RCMP sergeant David Carrigan. Taking a breather from fighting off Indians, Carrigan must bring headstrong young Roger Audemard (