Gordon WestcottFilmography

Go into Your Dance

Actors: Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Helen Morgan, Patsy Kelly

Synopsis: Broadway legend Al Jolson and his second wife Ruby Keeler costarred in this thin backstage musical. In keeping with Jolson's earlier starring films, the plotline is melodramatic to the point of risibility. Jolson plays an irresponsible performer whose unprofessional antics incur the wrath of Read More

A Night at the Ritz

Actors: William Gargan, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins, Dorothy Tree, Erik Rhodes

Synopsis: There's nary a serious moment in the loopy Warner Bros. programmer A Night at the Ritz. William Gargan stars as Duke Regan, a hot-shot hotel publicity agent. Fired from several jobs, Duke is given one last chance by the Ritz-Carlton. Improvising quickly, he promotes his future brother-in-law Read More

Going Highbrow

Actors: Guy Kibbee, ZaSu Pitts, Edward Everett Horton, Ross Alexander, June Martel

Synopsis: Consigned to the Warner Bros. "B" unit in the mid-1930s, director Robert Florey must have had a high old time trying to inject some visual dynamics into such unprepossessing projects as Going Highbrow. Guy Kibbee and ZaSu Pitts star as Mr. and Mrs. Matt Upshaw, a nouveau riche couple clearly Read More

This Is the Life

Actors: Jane Withers, John McGuire, Sally Blane, Sidney Toler, Gloria Roy

Synopsis: Marshall Neilan had fallen from the top ranks of directors by the time he helmed the Jane Withers vehicle This is the Life, but he still had it in him to deliver a first-rate job. Withers is cast as pint-sized vaudeville artiste Geraldine Revier. Tired of being professionally exploited by her Read More

Front Page Woman

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns, June Martel, Dorothy Dare, Joseph Crehan, Walter Walker, Winifred Shaw

Synopsis: Front Page Woman was one of those bread-and-butter vehicles that forced Bette Davis to go on strike against Warner Bros., demanding more worthwhile scripts. On its own terms, the film is a briskly entertaining newspaper yarn about two warring reporters (Davis and George Brent). In their efforts to Read More

The White Cockatoo

Actors: Jean Muir, Ricardo Cortez, Ruth Donnelly, Minna Gombell, Walter Kingsford

Synopsis: Based on a mystery novel by Mignon Eberhart, The White Cockatoo concerns three mysterious murders at a French chateau. The villain seems determined to bump off all the friends and relatives of Sue Talley (Jean Muir) and Jim Sundean (Ricardo Cortez), hoping thereby to get his (or her) hands on the Read More

Two Fisted

Actors: Lee Tracy, Roscoe Karns, Grace Bradley, Kent Taylor, Gail Patrick

Synopsis: Two Fisted is based on the James Gleason-Richard Taber stage play Is Zat So?, previously filmed under its original title in 1927. Lee Tracy stars as fast-lipped fight manager Hay Hurley, while Roscoe Karns co-stars as slow-witted pugilist Chick Moran. Flat broke, Hay and Chick take servant jobs in Read More

I've Got Your Number

Actors: Joan Blondell, Pat O'Brien, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Completed just before the Production Code went into effect, I've Got Your Number is delightfully racy, risque entertainment. Pat O'Brien is all wisecracks and left hooks as Terry, a troubleshooter for the New York telephone company. Terry puts his talents -- and his eavesdropping skill -- to good Read More

Fog over Frisco

Actors: Bette Davis, Donald Woods, Margaret Lindsay, Lyle Talbot, Hugh Herbert

Synopsis: Cited by film historian William K. Everson as one of the fastest-moving crime melodramas of the 1930s (if not the fastest) Fog Over Frisco still manages to leave viewers breathless. Top-billed Bette Davis plays giddy heiress Arlene Bradford, whose perverse fascination with gangsters gets her mixed Read More

Kansas City Princess

Actors: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong, Hugh Herbert, Osgood Perkins

Synopsis: Kansas City Princess came at the tail end of the "gold-digger" movie cycle. The inevitable Joan Blondell plays Rosie, a saucy-eyed manicurist who takes it on the lam when she loses a diamond entrusted to her by her gangster boyfriend Dynamite (Robert Armstrong). With nary a dime between them Read More

Six-Day Bike Rider

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Maxine Doyle, Frank McHugh, Gordon Westcott, Arthur Ayleswofth

Synopsis: A popular fad of the early 1930s provided the framework for this Joe E. Brown romp. Hoping to impress his girlfriend Phyllis (Maxine Doyle), champion bicyclist Wilfred Simpson (Brown) enters a bike-racing marathon at Madison Square Garden. Newsreel shots of genuine six-day races are incorporated Read More

6 Day Bike Rider

Murder in the Clouds

Actors: Lyle Talbot, Ann Dvorak, Gordon Westcott, Robert Light, George Cooper

Synopsis: Lyle Talbot stars as "Three Star" Halsey, a hotshot West Coast aviator with a reputation for recklessness. Time and time again, Halsey promises his stewardess sweetheart Judy Wagner (Ann Dvorak) that he'll stop taking risks, and time and again he breaks his word. After several misadventures Read More

Registered Nurse

Actors: Bebe Daniels, Lyle Talbot, John Halliday, Irene Franklin, Sidney Toler

Synopsis: In this sudsy hospital melodrama, a married nurse finds herself falling in love with one of two surgeons when her husband goes mad and needs an operation. One of the surgeons regards his pursuit a lark, while the other harbors genuine affections for the nurse. At first, she is attracted to the Read More

The Circus Clown

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Patricia Ellis, Dorothy Burgess, William Demarest, Donald Dilloway, Gordon Westcott

Synopsis: Joe E. Brown plays a dual role in Circus Clown, as would-be circus entertainer Happy Howard and his rustic old father. When dad, a former circus man himself, disapproves of Happy hitting the sawdust trail, the boy does so anyway, smitten by a beautiful female bareback rider. So naïve is our hero Read More

Call It Luck

Actors: Pat Paterson, Herbert Mundin, Charles Starrett, Gordon Westcott, Georgia Caine

Synopsis: Before retiring from films to become Mrs. Charles Boyer, actress Pat Paterson was a popular and appealing Fox Studios leading lady. In Call it Luck, Paterson plays Pat Laurie, the daughter of humble London cabbie Herbert Bigglewade (Herbert Mundin). Thanks to a winning sweepstakes ticket, Pat is Read More

The Case of the Howling Dog

Actors: Warren William, Mary Astor, Helen Trenholme, Allen Jenkins, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: Two wealthy neighbors, who make no secret of despising one another, both claim that they're married to Bessie Foley (Mary Astor). When one of the claimants is murdered, Bessie is the prime suspect. Brilliant defense counsel Perry Mason (Warren William), whose spacious offices look like something Read More

Fashions of 1934

Actors: Bette Davis, William Powell, Veree Teasdale, Reginald Owen, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Now known simply as Fashions, the lavish Warner Bros. musical Fashions of 1934 stars the unlikely but copacetic team of William Powell and Bette Davis. It all begins when genial con artist Sherwood Nash (Powell) transfers his base of operations from New York to Paris. Sensing that the fashion Read More

Dark Hazard

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Genevieve Tobin, Glenda Farrell, Robert H. Barrat, Gordon Westcott

Synopsis: A weak-willed gambler's compulsion destroys his life in this dramatic character study. In the beginning, he is seen working as a cashier at a small-time Ohio track and then moving into a boardinghouse. There he falls in love with his disapproving landlady's daughter, who ignores her mother's Read More

Man Killer

Actors: William Powell, Margaret Lindsay, Ruth Donnelly, Gordon Westcott, James Bell

Synopsis: Romance throws a spanner into the works of a con game in this light drama. Donald Free (William Powell) is a private detective whose career in on the skids. Dan Hogan (Arthur Holh) is another, less scrupulous shamus who persuades Free to help him frame Janet Reynolds (Margaret Lindsay), a wealthy Read More

Heroes for Sale

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Loretta Young, Aline MacMahon, Gordon Westcott, Robert H. Barrat

Synopsis: What isn't Heroes for Sale about? Within its 71-minute time frame, this film (co-written by "professional cynic" Wilson Mizner) tackles such issues as disenfranchised war veterans, misguided hero worship, drug addiction, the Depression, capitalism, labor relations and communism. Richard Barthelmess Read More

Voltaire

Actors: George Arliss, Doris Kenyon, Margaret Lindsay, Theodore Newton, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: The life and times of one of France's most influential authors and philosophers receives the romantic treatment from director John G. Adolphi. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide 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

He Learned About Women

Synopsis: In this comedy, a childlike playboy inherits the family fortune and gets himself a worldly butler who teaches him how to behave in a manner befitting his wealth and social station. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The World Changes

Actors: Paul Muni, Mary Astor, Aline MacMahon, Donald Cook, Alan Dinehart

Synopsis: This well-wrought drama chronicles the rise and fall of a midwestern family dynasty from the mid 1800s through the Great Depression. Most of the tale centers on a young Dakota farm boy whose grand schemes and ambition lead him on a cattle drive to Texas. From there he hooks up with the owner of a Read More

Footlight Parade

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: The last--and to some aficionados, the best--of choreographer Busby Berkeley's three Warner Bros. efforts of 1933, Footlight Parade stars James Cagney as a Broadway musical comedy producer. Cagney is unceremoniously put out of business when talking pictures arrive. To keep his head above water Read More

The Crime of the Century

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Wynne Gibson, Stuart Erwin, Frances Dee, David Landau

Synopsis: This unique thriller chronicles the exploits of a doctor who will do almost anything to please his young, second wife. She wants more money. He arranges to get it by hypnotizing a bank official and making him extract $100,000 from the vault. The doctor then plans to murder him and then rob him. Read More

Lilly Turner

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Frank McHugh, Ruth Donnelly, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: This weepie, adapted from a play by Philip Dunning and George Abbott, is a vehicle for Ruth Chatterton as the titular Lilly. Her sufferings begin when she marries a man who later turns out to be a bigamist. She has their baby but marries another man so the child can have a father. The new husband Read More

Convention City

Actors: Joan Blondell, Adolphe Menjou, Dick Powell, Mary Astor, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: Practically every member of the Warner Bros. stock company except Glenda Farrell shows up in the rowdy, raunchy pre-Code comedy Convention City. Joan Blondell plays Nancy Lorraine, an enterprising lass who is employed by a big-city hotel as a "hostess" for out-of-town conventioneers. She spends a Read More

Heritage of the Desert

Actors: Randolph Scott, Sally Blane, John Farrell MacDonald, David Landau, Vince Barnett

Synopsis: This second filming of Zane Grey's novel (first brought to the screen by Paramount in 1924 with Bebe Daniels as the female lead) gave Randolph Scott his first starring role. Rancher Adam Naab (J. Farrell MacDonald) owns a spread that includes the only way out of the valley where gang-leader Judson Read More

Guilty As Hell

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen, Richard Arlen, Ralph Ince, Adrienne Ames

Synopsis: Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe carry their pugnacious Quirt-and-Flagg relationship into the murder mystery genre in Paramount's Guilty as Hell. Actually, there's very little mystery involved, since the audience is informed at the outset that dignified Dr. Tindall (Henry Stephenson) is responsible Read More

The Devil and the Deep

Actors: Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, Cary Grant, Julie Compton

Synopsis: A mentally unstable naval officer goes mad with jealousy when his wife's recent lover shows up as a lieutenant on the submarine he commands. It is the smell of cheap perfume that arouses the husband's suspicions, and he plans to confront the lieutenant in the sub. The wife follows him there Read More

Love Me Tonight

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Charlie Ruggles, Charles Butterworth, Myrna Loy

Synopsis: One of the most technically accomplished and sophisticated movie musicals of the 1930's, Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight (1932) had a profound effect on the shape of the musical genre (especially the films of Vincente Minnelli), and remains a candidate for best movie musical ever made, some Read More

Merrily We Go to Hell

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March, Adrianne Allen

Synopsis: If only Merrily We Go To Hell was as interesting as its title! To escape an arranged marriage, heiress Joan Prentice (Sylvia Sidney) elopes with reporter Jerry Corbett (Fredric March). Unfortunately, Corbett is not only irresponsible, but also an abusive drunkard. To make matters worse, predatory Read More

Enemies of the Law

Actors: Mary Nolan, Johnny Walker, Lou Tellegen, Harold Healy, Alan Brooks

Synopsis: This shoddy "B"-picture represents one of the few talkie appearances by former Broadway matinee idol Lou Tellegen. Mary Nolan heads the cast as lady cop Florence Vinton, who goes undercover to get the goods on rival gangsters Eddie Swan (Tellegen) and Larry Marsh (Johnny Walker). Just at the point Read More

Queen Kelly

Actors: Gloria Swanson, Seena Owen, Walter Byron, William Von Brincken, Madge Hunt

Synopsis: Though filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim's notorious profligacy had made him virtually unhirable in the US by 1929, screen-star Gloria Swanson still had faith in him. She poured a great deal of her own money in Von Stroheim's last silent film, Queen Kelly, and agreed to play the leading role to insure Read More