Helen WareFilmography

Sadie McKee

Actors: Joan Crawford, Gene Raymond, Franchot Tone, Edward Arnold, Esther Ralston

Synopsis: MGM's Sadie McKee is a superb example of how the "committee" system of moviemaking in the 1930s could sometimes yield unexpected delights. It all begins when Sadie McKee (Joan Crawford) is brought to big bad old New York by glib vaudevillian Tommy (Gene Raymond), only to be unceremoniously dumped Read More

That's Gratitude

Actors: Frank Craven, Mary Carlisle, John Buckler

Synopsis: Frank Craven, the actor-playwright best known for his performance as The Stage Manager in the original Broadway production of Our Town, was star, screenwriter and director of Columbia's That's Gratitude. The avuncular Craven plays fly-by-night stage producer Bob Grant, who inadvertently saves the Read More

Flaming Gold

Actors: William "Stage" Boyd, Pat O'Brien, Mae Clarke, Rollo Lloyd, Helen Ware

Synopsis: With William Boyd in the cast, one would think that Flaming Gold was a "Hopalong Cassidy" western -- and one would be wrong. Boyd and Pat O'Brien play Dan Manton and Ben Lear, wildcat oil men at large in Mexico. Dan and Ben continually run afoul of a powerful oil cartel, determined to put our Read More

Romance in Manhattan

Actors: Francis Lederer, Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Butler, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Ginger Rogers and Francis Lederer share equal billing -- and near-equal screen time -- in this amiable RKO programmer. Lederer plays Karel Novak, an incredibly naïve Czech immigrant who is taken under the wing of streetwise New York chorus girl Sylvia Dennis (Rogers). With the help of lovable Read More

Girl Missing

Actors: Ben Lyon, Glenda Farrell, Mary Brian, Peggy Shannon, Lyle Talbot

Synopsis: The missing girl in this weak whodunit from Warner Bros. is redheaded Peggy Shannon, once seen as the successor of "It Girl" Clara Bow. Shannon plays Daisy Bradford, a chorine who mysteriously disappears after dallying with millionaire Henry Gibson (Ben Lyon). Not only has Daisy gone missing, the Read More

Ladies They Talk About

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston S. Foster, Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Burgess, Lillian Roth

Synopsis: One of the earliest girls-in-prison yarns, Ladies They Talk About has everything but Ida Lupino as the warden--and had she been in Hollywood at the time, she would probably be here as well. Gun moll Barbara Stanwyck is thrown into San Quentin (which looks more like a summer resort than a house of Read More

She Had to Say Yes

Actors: Loretta Young, Regis Toomey

Synopsis: In this comedy, a hard-working secretary is often too busy taking prospective buyers out on the town to pay much attention to her fiancé. In the end, she drops the jealous fellow in favor of another who seems to be a better prospect. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Keyhole

Actors: Kay Francis, George Brent, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: In this melodrama, the wife of a wealthy man abruptly leaves him and sets sail for Cuba leaving him to hire a gumshoe to find out why. The girl left because she was being blackmailed for $50,000 by her former ex-husband who claims that they were never legally divorced. Before heading to Cuba for a Read More

The Warrior's Husband

Actors: Elissa Landi, Marjorie Rambeau, Ernest Truex, David Manners, Helen Ware

Synopsis: In this racy (for 1933) satire set in 800 BC, an overbearing band of Amazon women rule their men with an iron fist. They live in the land of Pontus. Their buxom queen is married. Like all Pontus men, her spouse is an utter panty-waist in the face of his women. Still things are going well in the Read More

Morning Glory

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Adolphe Menjou, Mary Duncan, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Katharine Hepburn won her first Oscar for her portrayal of Eva Lovelace, a small-town community-theatre actress who comes to New York dreaming of theatrical stardom. She amuses producer Adolphe Menjou and playwright Douglas Fairbanks Jr. with her naively pretentious prattle, but neither man takes Read More

The Night of June 13

Actors: Clive Brook, Lila Lee, Charlie Ruggles, Gene Raymond, Frances Dee

Synopsis: A multi-character drama set in a suburban neighborhood, The Night of June 13th takes place in four households. One of these is inhabited by unhappy husband Clive Brook, who is accused of murdering his wife. Actually, she has committed suicide, but those neighbors who could provide Brook with an Read More

The Command Performance

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Una Merkel, Helen Ware, Albert Gran, Lawrence Grant

Synopsis: Based on a stage play by C. Stafford Dickens, Command Performance is also beholden to The Prisoner of Zenda and other Ruritanian romances of that ilk. Neil Hamilton stars as Peter Fedor, a stage actor who bears a striking resemblance to Prince Alexis of Kordovia (also Neil Hamilton). Getting into Read More

The Reckless Hour

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Conrad Nagel, Walter Byron, H.B. Warner, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: In this drama, a hard-working New York model abandons her family values for the love of a suave, handsome man who offers her the moon, but ends up leaving her with a baby and a very bitter aftertaste. She then becomes cynical, and angry at all men until a sensitive, gentle artist helps her through Read More

I Take This Woman

Actors: Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Helen Ware, Lester Vail, Charles Trowbridge

Synopsis: Based on a Mary Roberts Rinehart novel, I Take This Woman stars Carole Lombard as the spoiled daughter of a wealthy rancher. Lombard impulsively marries cowhand Gary Cooper, a poverty-stricken employee of her father. Cooper insists that they live on his income in a tiny shack; Lombard gives this Read More

Party Husband

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, James Rennie, Dorothy Peterson, Donald Cook, Mary Doran

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Geoffrey Barnes, Party Husband is a weak-tea drawing room comedy utterly dependant upon the charms of its stars. Dorothy Mackaill and James Rennie play Laura and Jay, a thoroughly modern married couple who vow to give each other full and unbridled freedom in extramarital Read More

One Night at Susie's

Actors: Billie Dove, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Helen Ware, Tully Marshall, James Crane

Synopsis: In this comedy, a boarding house owner becomes the confidant and advisor to a number of troubled gangsters and racketeers. She has troubles of her own, when her foster son takes the rap for a murder his girlfriend committed. As the young man was an aspiring playwright, his girlfriend tries to get Read More

Abraham Lincoln

Actors: Walter Huston, Una Merkel, Kay Hammond, Jason Robards, Sr., Ian Keith

Synopsis: To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel Read More

Tol'able David

Actors: Richard Cromwell, Noah Beery, Sr., Joan Peers, Henry B. Walthall, Tom Keene

Synopsis: This simple tale of peace-loving hillbillies defeating a gang of outlaws was based on a story by Joseph Hergesheimer and was a huge box-office hit when it was first released as a silent film in 1921. This 1930 sound remake closely follows the original story. The Kinemon family, who live in a Read More

Slightly Scarlet

Actors: Evelyn Brent, Clive Brook, Paul Lukas, Helen Ware

Synopsis: Passing herself off as a countess, glamorous Lucy Stavrin (Evelyn Brent) hobnobs with the rich and famous along the French Riviera. Aware that Lucy is a phony, jewel-thief Malatroff (Paul Lukas) blackmails Lucy into helping him steal the valuable necklace owned by the young wife (Helen Ware) of Read More

She's My Weakness

Actors: Arthur Lake, William Collier, Sr., Lucien Littlefield, Alan Bunce

Synopsis: Two former Fox contractees star in RKO Radio's She's My Weakness, a flat adaptation of Howard Lindsay and Bertrand Robinson's play Tommy. Hero Tommy Mills (Arthur Lake) would like to marry his sweetie Marie Thurber (Sue Carol), but first he's got to get on his feet financially. Attempting to sell Read More

Speakeasy

Actors: Paul Page, Lola Lane, Henry B. Walthall, Helen Ware, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: Much of this drama is comprised of newsreel footage. It chronicles the exploits of a luckless college prize-fighter attempting to go professional. Unfortunately he is exploited by his dishonest manager. The innocent pugilist is eventually befriended and assisted by a pretty reporter who helps free Read More

The Virginian

Actors: Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, Chester Conklin, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Gary Cooper, as a lanky Wyoming ranch and foreman, places his gun on a poker table after being insulted by one of the gamblers and intones, "If you want to call me that . . . smile." That much quoted line's origin is in this early sound version of the Owen Wister novel, The Virginian, directed by Victor Fleming Read More

Half Way to Heaven

Actors: Jean Arthur, Paul Lukas, Helen Ware, Oscar Apfel

Synopsis: In this murder mystery, set in a carnival, a performer loses her boyfriend, a trapeze artist, when his partner "accidently" misses him during an aerial act. The young woman knows full well that the jealous partner deliberately missed him, but she is afraid so she jumps aboard a train and flees Read More

New Year's Eve

Actors: Mary Astor, Charles Morton, Earl Foxe

Synopsis: In this drama, an unemployed young woman who must support her younger brother pays a visit to a gambler who wants her body. However, he is murdered during her visit, and she is charged with the crime. But, the real killer is unmasked and dies in an accident, and her old flame shows up to romance Read More

Napoleon's Barber

Actors: Otto Matieson, Natalie Golitzin, Frank Reicher, Helen Ware, Philippe DeLacy

Synopsis: Director John Ford made his talking-picture debut with the 3-reel (32-minute) Fox "featurette" Napoleon's Barber. Faithfully adapted from a vaudeville sketch by Arthur Caesar, the film is little more than a shaggy-dog story about an anarchistic French barber (Frank Reicher) who regales his Read More

Soul-Fire

Actors: Lee Baker

Synopsis: Eric Fane (Richard Barthelmess) studies music in Paris, but his parents (Lee Baker and Effie Shannon) call him home and ask him to give it up to go into business. He refuses and returns to France. He gets involved with Rhea, a Russian princess (Carlotta Montery), is swept up by the Parisian Read More

Mark of the Beast

Actors: Robert Ellis, Warner P. Richmond, Madelyn Clare, Helen Ware

Synopsis: Thomas Dixon, who wrote The Clansmen (which became Birth of a Nation), wrote and directed this melodrama. Dr. David Hale (Robert Ellis) is a student of psychoanalysis fascinated by the sleepwalking habits of his sweetheart, Ann Page (Madelyn Clare). Page comes under the power of her subconscious Read More

Beyond the Rainbow

Actors: Virginia Lee, Diana Allen, Jimmy Harrison

Synopsis: If her scenes had not ended up on the cutting-room floor, this uneven drama would have been the film debut of Clara Bow (later on, when she was a star, the scenes would be put back in and the picture re-released). How Bow was cut out in the first place is a mystery, since her role was pivotal to Read More

Fascination

Actors: Mae Murray, Creighton Hale, Charles Lane, Emily Fitzroy, Vincent Coleman

Synopsis: For a while, Mae Murray and her then-husband, director Robert Z. Leonard, were an unstoppable team. They had their own production company, and this comedy-drama followed in the wake of the massively successful Peacock Alley. Murray plays Dolores de Lisa, the Spanish-American daughter of the Read More

Colorado Pluck

Actors: William Russell

Synopsis: A naive Colorado rancher falls prey to a predatory female in this melodrama written and directed by former Chicago journalist Jules G. Furthman. William Russell, the Fox company's top Western ace at the time, starred as Colorado Jim, who falls for scheming Angela Featherstone (Margaret Livingston) Read More

The Deep Purple

Synopsis: Director Raoul Walsh made a very busy version of the melodrama by Paul Armstrong and Wilson Mizner. But even if he tries to stuff too much into six reels, the acting by star Miriam Cooper (who was also Walsh's wife) stood out. Cooper is Doris Moore, a country girl who is conned by two crooks Read More

Haunted Pajamas

Synopsis: Harold Lockwood stars in this confusing, but nevertheless amusing comedy. Richard Hudson (Lockwood) has a friend in China, who, as a prank, sends him a pair of silk pajamas. But they're not just any old pajamas, they're magic, and transform the wearer into someone else. When Hudson puts them on Read More

Secret Love

Synopsis: Secret Love was based on The Lass of Lowries, a story by Frances Hodgson Burnett (of Little Lord Fauntleroy fame). The story is set in a Lancashire coal-mining community, where bibulous, bullying miner Don Lowrie (Jack Curtis) holds the rest of the villagers in thrall. Lowrie's daughter Joan (Helen Ware Read More