Hooper AtchleyFilmography

Honeymoon Lodge

Actors: David Bruce, June Vincent, Rod Cameron, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: Honeymoon Lodge is a musical variation on the old Awful Truth plotline. Divorce-bound Bob and Carol Sterling (David Bruce, June Vincent) make a last-ditch attempt to avoid their legal breakup by restaging their mountain-resort honeymoon. Things get complicated when a rancher named Big Boy (Rod Read More

Black Hills Express

Actors: Don "Red" Barry, Wally Vernon, Ariel Heath, William Halligan

Synopsis: Black Hills Express gets off to a powerful start, as hero Lon Walker (Don "Red" Barry) and his sidekick Deadeye (Wally Vernon) pick through the bloody remains of a stagecoach holdup-massacre. Vowing to catch the varmints responsible, Walker is impeded by a crooked sheriff (Jack Rockwell) and a Read More

G-Men vs. the Black Dragon

Synopsis: A typical war time Republic Pictures serial, G-Men vs. the Black Dragon featured the combined efforts of three allied operatives -- Rex Bennett of the USA (Rod Cameron), Vivian Marsh of the British Secret Service (Constance Worth, an Australian) and Chang Sing (Roland Got) of the Chinese Read More

War of the Wildcats

Actors: John Wayne, Martha Scott, Albert Dekker, George "Gabby" Hayes, Marjorie Rambeau

Synopsis: In Old Oklahoma is better known today by its reissue title, War of the Wildcats. John Wayne heads the cast as oil man Dan Somers, who carries on a bitter feud with his crooked rival Hunk Gardner (Albert Dekker). Furthering the animosity between the two men is schoolteacher-turned-novelist Read More

The Song of Bernadette

Actors: Jennifer Jones, Charles Bickford, Gladys Cooper, Vincent Price, Lee J. Cobb

Synopsis: The Song of Bernadette is a reverent recounting of the life of St. Bernadette of Lourdes. As a teen-aged peasant girl growing up in the tiny French village of Lourdes in the 19th century, Bernadette (Jennifer Jones) experiences a vision of the Virgin Mary in a nearby grotto. At least, she believes Read More

Mission to Moscow

Actors: Walter Huston, Ann Harding, Oscar Homolka, Gene Lockhart, George Tobias, Eleanor Parker

Synopsis: More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Read More

Three Hearts for Julia

Actors: Ann Sothern, Melvyn Douglas, Lee Bowman, Richard Ainley, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: Hoping to achieve a brilliant career as a violinist, Julia Seabrook (Ann Sothern) divorces her husband Jeff (Melvyn Douglas), feeling as though he's holding her back. But Jeff is still in love with Julia, and he's willing to move Heaven and Earth to get her back. Meanwhile, David Torrance (Lee Read More

Sweet Rosie O'Grady

Actors: Betty Grable, Robert Young, Adolphe Menjou, Virginia Grey, Reginald Gardiner, Phil Regan

Synopsis: In this semi-remake of Love is News (37), Betty Grable stars as a Gay-Nineties Bowery saloon singer. Ever seeking an opportunity for advancement, Grable heads to London, becomes a highbrow musical comedy "artiste", and concocts a scheme to land a wealth duke (Reginald Gardiner). Her plan is foiled Read More

Fingers at the Window

Actors: Lew Ayres, Laraine Day, Basil Rathbone, Walter Kingsford, Miles Mander

Synopsis: A fun though abortive bid to pair crime-solving duo Lew Ayres and Laraine Day for a series of thrillers, this murder mystery benefits from good performances by the leads. The plot involves a series of axe murders in Chicago being perpetrated by the patients of an insane asylum, all of whom have Read More

Are Husbands Necessary?

Actors: Ray Milland, Betty Field, Patricia Morison, Eugene Pallette, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: In providing the "synopsis" for Are Husbands Necessary?, one best-selling film source says merely "And what about this film?" There's more to the story than that, of course--but not much. The film was based on Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, a novel by Frank Davis. Ray Milland and Betty Field play a warring Read More

In Old California

Actors: John Wayne, Binnie Barnes, Helen Parrish, Patsy Kelly

Synopsis: With its slight resemblance to Destry Rides Again (1939) -- probably not entirely coincidental -- this rousing Western from Republic Pictures remains a joy throughout. John Wayne plays Tom Craig, a mild-mannered druggist from Boston who opens a shop in wild and woolly Sacramento shortly before the Read More

Quiet Please, Murder

Actors: George Sanders, Gail Patrick, Richard Denning, Lynne Roberts, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: A public library at night is the setting for this fast-moving crime caper. George Sanders is a gentleman crook specializing in selling forgeries of rare books. In the company of phony policemen, Sanders enters the library unmolested and pilfers a priceless Shakespeare folio in order to expedite Read More

Gentleman Jim

Actors: Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, John Loder

Synopsis: Maybe Errol Flynn was never the war hero that he often played, but he was a capable boxer, and Gentleman Jim makes full use of this skill. Flynn stars as Jim Corbett, the 19th-century American pugilist who introduced "scientific" methods to bare-knuckle boxing. Originally an office clerk, Corbett Read More

Rings on Her Fingers

Actors: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Laird Cregar, Spring Byington, John Shepperd

Synopsis: Director Rouben Mamoulian completed a three-picture 20th Century Fox deal with this airy comic romance that attempted to ape the story and style of the previous year's The Lady Eve (1941) but without that film's success. While vacationing in Southern California, accountant John Wheeler (Henry Fonda Read More

In the Navy

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Dick Powell, Claire Dodd, The Andrews Sisters

Synopsis: The third of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's starring films, In the Navy was released second; Universal had just made a bundle off Abbott and Costello's Buck Privates, and the studio wanted another "service" comedy put into circulation in a hurry. Abbott and Costello share over-the-title billing Read More

Johnny Eager

Actors: Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Van Heflin, Robert Sterling

Synopsis: Robert Taylor toughened up his image considerably with this gangster movie, which was unusual both in its plot and origins, having come from MGM, which was generally not known for its crime movies. Taylor plays a parolee who is pretending to follow the straight-and-narrow as a hardworking cabbie Read More

The Little Foxes

Actors: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson, Patricia Collinge, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: Playwright Lillian Hellman first wrote of the horrible Hubbard family in her 1939 play The Little Foxes. In this lavish 1941 film version, Bette Davis takes over for Broadway's Tallulah Bankhead in the role of conniving turn-of-the-century Southern aristocrat Regina Hubbard Giddens. Regina's Read More

Repent at Leisure

Actors: Kent Taylor, Wendy Barrie, George Barbier, Thurston Hall, Charles Lane

Synopsis: In this romance, a wealthy young heiress marries an avaricious foreigner to please her father and then dreams of finding herself an all-American boy who falls in love her and not her fortune. Not surprisingly, her marriage falls apart and soon afterward, she falls in love with and marries a fellow Read More

Honky Tonk

Actors: Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Frank Morgan, Claire Trevor, Albert Dekker, Marjorie Main

Synopsis: The marvelous rapport between stars Clark Gable and Lana Turner makes MGM's Honky Tonk seem far more substatianal than it really is. About to be tarred and featherd by an angry mob, frontier con artists Candy Johnson (Gable) and his pal Sniper (Chill Wills) manage to make a quick getaway via Read More

Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc. [Serial]

Synopsis: In yet another full-length version of an earlier serial, Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd) is out to get the bizarre Ghost, a dastardly member of the vigilante group known only as the Council of Eight. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide Read More

Adventures of Red Ryder [Serial]

Synopsis: Fred Harmon's popular comic strip and radio hero Red Ryder came to the screen in this above-average Republic serial directed by the team of William Witney and John English. Don Barry, until this film mainly playing villains, was cast in the title-role, a rancher organizing the local land owners in Read More

The Gay Caballero

Actors: Cesar Romero, Sheila Ryan, Robert Sterling, Chris-Pin Martin, Janet Beecher

Synopsis: The Cisco Kid attempts to prove that reports of his death are greatly exaggerated in this western programmer. Cisco (Cesar Romero) and his sidekick Gordito (Chris-Pin Martin) ride into town to discover that the word on the street is that the great Cisco Kid has died -- and what's worse, before his Read More

I Love You Again

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Frank McHugh, Edmund Lowe, Donald Douglas

Synopsis: Those popular MGM co-stars William Powell and Myrna Loy take a break from their usual Thin Man duties to star in the zany comedy I Love You Again. The film opens with Loy prepared to divorce her dull businessman husband Powell. A blow on the head causes Powell to remember his former life as a Read More

Saga of Death Valley

Actors: Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes, Don "Red" Barry, Doris Day, Frank M. Thomas

Synopsis: Roy Rogers is forced to chase down his own kid brother in this exemplary Republic Pictures oater produced and directed by Joseph Kane. Roy Rogers Sr. (Lane Chandler) is brutally murdered by nasty Ed Tasker (Frank M. Thomas), who takes off with the only witness to the killing, Rogers' youngest son Read More

The Lady's from Kentucky

Actors: George Raft, Ellen Drew, Hugh Herbert, ZaSu Pitts, Louise Beavers

Synopsis: The "Lady" of the title is horse-farm owner Penelope Hollis (Ellen Drew), but during the first half of this film, bookie Marty Black (George Raft) only has eyes for Penelope's prize two-year-old. After losing his gambling joint, Marty finds himself with half ownership of the horse as his sole Read More

Honeymoon in Bali

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Madeleine Carroll, Allan Jones, Akim Tamiroff, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: My Love for Yours is the alternate title for Paramount's Honeymoon in Bali. Madeline Carroll pulls a "Rosalind Russell" as a hard-shelled businesswoman with no time for romance. Fred MacMurray is determined to melt down her resistance, hoping to do so during a vacation to Nassau. Carroll almost Read More

The Mystery of Mr. Wong

Actors: Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Dorothy Tree, Lotus Long, Morgan Wallace

Synopsis: The second film in the mystery series about a Chinese sleuth, this one concerns the theft of the "Eye of the Daughter of the Moon," the largest star sapphire in the world, which is stolen from China and turns up in the possession of an unscrupulous gem collector, who receives a death threat Read More

Mountain Rhythm

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, June Storey, Maude Eburne, Ferris Taylor

Synopsis: The action content of Republic's Gene Autry musical westerns was considerably enhanced by veteran director B. Reeves "Breezy" Eason, as demonstrated by the mile-a-minute Mountain Rhythm. True, there's a plot, with Autry coming to the rescue of elderly Maude Eburne, who is in danger of losing her Read More

The Chicken Wagon Family

Actors: Jane Withers, Leo Carrillo, Marjorie Weaver, Spring Byington, Kane Richmond

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Barry Benefield, Chicken Wagon Family affords nearly equal screen time to child star Jane Withers and veteran character actor Leo Carrillo. Tired of living in the boonies, itinerant merchant J. P. B. Fiffany (Carrillo) packs his family into his ramshackle wagon and sets out for Read More

Too Busy to Work

Actors: Jed Prouty, Spring Byington, Ken Howell, George Ernest, June Carlson

Synopsis: Too Busy to Work is not a remake of the 1932 Will Rogers film of the same name-but it is a partial remake of Rogers' 1935 vehicle Doubting Thomas. This standard entry in the "Jones Family" series finds the Jones women trying to convince Pa Jones (Jed Prouty) that he's spending too much time at Read More

East Side of Heaven

Actors: Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, Mischa Auer, Irene Hervey, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his roommate, dour doorman Mischa Auer, Crosby offers care and shelter to the infant until he can locate the parents. The baby brings in some unwanted publicity for Crosby, which Read More

Pirates of the Skies

Actors: Kent Taylor, Rochelle Hudson, Lucien Littlefield, Ray Walker, Stanley Andrews

Synopsis: In this drama, a waitress leaves her husband after getting sick of being alone while her husband, a commercial pilot, plies his trade. To be near her, he quits his job and joins the state police air service. Unfortunately, he becomes mixed up in an interdepartmental rivalry between road-bound and Read More

Cipher Bureau

Actors: Leon Ames, Charlotte Wynters, Joan Woodbury, Donald Dillaway, Tenen Holtz

Synopsis: This spy thriller is centered upon the actions of the Cipher Bureau, a part of a government agency devoted to intercepting and decoding secret messages. The protagonist must destroy a ring of thinly disguised German spies. The film contains a lot of interesting information about how codes are Read More

Condemned Women

Actors: Louis Hayward, Anne Shirley, Esther Dale, Lee Patrick

Synopsis: In this drama, a falsely convicted woman falls in love with the prison psychologist who tries to liberate her. She ended up in prison to protect her boyfriend who was just about to finish law school. The doctor and patient tryst in the prison furnace room. When he is not around, the woman must Read More

Hunted Men

Actors: Mary Carlisle, Lloyd Nolan, Lynne Overman, J. Carrol Naish, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: Hunted Men is part of Paramount's unofficial B-picture series based on the J. Edgar Hoover book Persons in Hiding. Lynne Overman stars as a middle-class family man whose even-keel lifestyle is shattered when he brings home an affable stranger (Lloyd Nolan) to dinner. The stranger turns out to be Read More

Gangster's Boy

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Lucy Gilman, Robert Warwick, Louise Lorimer, Tommy Wonder

Synopsis: Too old to play the cute MGM urchin any longer, 16-year-old Jackie Cooper signed with Monogram for a group of above-average programmers. Gangster's Boy was the second of this series, all of which followed a predestined pattern of shame and redemption. Young Cooper is a high-school honor student Read More

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper, Edward Everett Horton, David Niven, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: The great Ernst Lubitsch directed this farce (written by Charles M. Brackett and Billy Wilder) about a free-wheeling millionaire, Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper), who enjoys getting married but has a hard time staying married: he's had seven wives and is looking for number eight. He thinks he may Read More

Test Pilot

Actors: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Test Pilot is one of those irresistible MGM potboilers of the 1930s that coast along on sheer star power. Clark Gable plays a courageous test pilot, who compromises his achievements with his frequent bouts of drinking. Gable's mechanic, Spencer Tracy, does what he can to keep his boss out of Read More

Say It in French

Actors: Ray Milland, Olympe Bradna, Irene Hervey, Janet Beecher, Mary Carlisle

Synopsis: In this comedy, an American golf pro falls in love with a woman while visiting France; before long they are married and in the US. Upon their arrival, they are dismayed to discover that the golfer's parents have arranged for him to marry a wealthy socialite so they can use her money to support Read More

Mr. Wong, Detective

Actors: Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Evelyn Brent, Maxine Jennings, Lucien Prival

Synopsis: The first of six Mr. Wong whodunits, Mr. Wong Detective presented Boris Karloff as pulp writer Hugh Wiley's Oxford-educated Oriental sleuth. Wong is visited by Simon Dayton (John Hamilton), an industrialist fearing for his life. Dayton and his partners Meisle (William Gould) and Wilk (Hooper Atchley Read More

Little Tough Guy

Actors: Billy Halop, Helen Parrish, Robert Wilcox, Marjorie Main, Gabriel Dell

Synopsis: The first of the "splinter" groups to emerge from the Dead End Kids was the Little Tough Guys, consisting of veteran Dead-Enders Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Bernard Punsly and David Gorcey (Hally Chester and Billy Benedict would also appear in this new grouping from time to time). Read More

Having Wonderful Time

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Peggy Conklin, Lucille Ball, Lee Bowman

Synopsis: Based upon Arthur Kober’s play (which was subsequently musicalized onstage as Wish You Were Here, Having Wonderful Time stars Ginger Rogers as Teddy Shaw, a typist who goes to a summer camp for a little rest and relaxation. She’s also getting away from Emil (Jack Carson), whose interest in Teddy Read More

The Old Barn Dance

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Helen Valkis, Sammy McKim

Synopsis: An enjoyably silly Gene Autry romp, this music Western had an early ecological message: Horse-power instead of tractors. Or at least tractors manufactured by greedy Thornton Farming Equipment. Having lost his horse-trading business to Thornton (Ivan Miller), Autry signs with Helen Valkis' local Read More

Trade Winds

Actors: Fredric March, Joan Bennett, Ralph Bellamy, Ann Sothern, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Joan Bennett plays a young woman who believes she's killed bigtime crook Sidney Blackmer. She changes her hair color from blonde to brunette and escapes from San Francisco to parts unknown. Police detective Fredric March is hired to track down Bennett, which he does in the company of two Read More

One Hundred Men and a Girl

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Adolphe Menjou, Leopold Stokowski, Mischa Auer, Eugene Pallette, Alice Brady

Synopsis: The girl is teenaged singing sensation Deanna Durbin; the one hundred men are out-of-work musicians. Still in her "little miss fix-it" stage, Durbin connives to help the musicians crack the big time. The person Durbin is most concerned with is her father (Adolphe Menjou) the 100th and most Read More

The Firefly

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Allan Jones, Warren William, Billy Gilbert, Henry Daniell

Synopsis: In this adaptation of the operetta by Rudolf Friml, secret agent Nina Maria Azara (Jeannette MacDonald) is working undercover for the King of Spain as a singer known as the "Mosca del Fuego" or "Firefly." Her mission is to uncover Napoleon's plot to invade Spain before it is too late. This film Read More

Border Cafe

Actors: Harry Carey, John Beal, Armida, George Irving, Leona Roberts

Synopsis: The cattle rustlers in Border Cafe, a modern-day western from the RKO B-unit, are Eastern gangsters headed by none other than that old reprobate J. Carrol Naish. After having landed in jail for drunken driving for the umpteenth time, young Bostonian Keith Whitney (John Beal callously leaves his Read More

A Day at the Races

Actors: Groucho Marx, Marx Brothers, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones, Maureen O'Sullivan, Leonard Ceeley, Margaret Dumont

Synopsis: A Day at the Races was the Marx Brothers' follow-up to their incomparable A Night at the Opera. Groucho Marx is cast as Hugo Z. Hackenbush, a veterinarian who passes himself off as a human doctor when summoned by wealthy hypochondriac Emily Upjohn (Margaret Dumont) to take over the financially 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

Love and Hisses

Actors: Walter Winchell, Ben Bernie, Simone Simon, Bert Lahr, Joan Davis

Synopsis: Before sitting down to watch Love and Hisses, it's important to know that columnist Walter Winchell and bandleader Ben Bernie were engaged in a phony but highly publicized feud in the late 1930s. For the purposes of this film, the source of the Winchell-Bernie contretemps is pretty nightclub Read More

Saratoga

Actors: Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Frank Morgan, Walter Pidgeon

Synopsis: Jean Harlow offers her final screen performance in this witty and -- in retrospect -- quite moving racetrack comedy-drama co-starring Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon. When her father dies shortly after losing his horse farm to Duke Bradley (Gable), Carol Clayton (Harlow) refuses the handsome Read More

Roarin' Lead

Actors: Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Robert Livingston, Max "Alibi" Terhune, Christine Maple, Hooper Atchley

Synopsis: The Three Mesquiteers take on a group of frontier fascists in the zippy series entry Roarin' Lead. This being Season One of the "Mesquiteers" series, the heroic threesome is played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan (as Tucson Smith), Robert Livingston (Stony Brooke), and Max Terhune (Lullaby Joslin). Read More

Portia on Trial

Actors: Walter Abel, Frieda Inescort, Neil Hamilton, Heather Angel, Ruth Donnelly

Synopsis: Lady lawyer Portia Merryman (Frieda Inescourt) defends woebegone Elizabeth Manners (Heather Angel), who is on trial for shooting her lover Earle Condon (Neil Hamilton). Ironically, Portia herself had once had an affair with Earle's father, powerful publisher John Condon (Clarence Kolb). She has a Read More

The Return of Jimmy Valentine

Actors: Roger Pryor, Charlotte Henry, Robert Warwick, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: Impressed by the popularity of radio program about the exploits of legendary safecracker Jimmy Valentine, advertising man Gary Howard (Roger Pryor) posts a huge reward for anyone who knows the whereabouts of real Valentine, who is technically still a fugitive from justice. Following a lead, Howard Read More

Navy Born

Actors: William Gargan, Claire Dodd, Douglas Fowley, George Irving, Dorothy Tree

Synopsis: A naval officer gets more than he bargained for when he adopts a recently orphaned young boy, the son of his late best friends. Despite the resistance of the lad's surviving relatives, who worry that growing in the Navy will be hard on the boy, the officer loves and takes good care of the boy. At Read More

Hearts in Bondage

Actors: James Dunn, Mae Clarke, David Manners, Charlotte Henry, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: First-time director Lew Ayres performs miracles on a tiny budget in the Civil War drama Hearts in Bondage. The story offers a romanticized version of the events leading up to the battle between the "ironclads" Monitor and Merrimac. Northern naval officer Kenneth (James Dunn), the nephew of Monitor Read More

Rose Bowl

Actors: Eleanore Whitney, Tom Brown, Larry "Buster" Crabbe, William Frawley, Ben Baker

Synopsis: Actual footage of the 1936 Rose Bowl game is cleverly (if not seamlessly) integrated into the action of this sports-oriented comedy. Longtime chums Paddy O'Reilly (Tom Brown) and Dutch Schultz (Benny Baker) may be heroes of the high-school gridiron, but they're persona non grata with the girls Read More

The Crime Patrol

Actors: Ray Walker, Geneva Mitchell, Herbert Corthell, Hooper Atchley, Wilbur Mack

Synopsis: In this crime drama a young boxer joins the police department so he can use their high-quality gymnasium. In time, he comes to like law enforcement. He also falls in love. During the film's climax he breaks up a neighborhood mob, saves two cops in a hostage situation, and wins his girl. ~ Sandra Read More

The Gorgeous Hussy

Actors: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Melvyn Douglas

Synopsis: The Gorgeous Hussy purports to be based on the life of Margaret "Peggy" O'Neill, the controversial wife of early 19th-century politician John Eaton, who served as cabinet minister during the Andrew Jackson presidency. Snubbed by the Washington elite because of her questionable background as a Read More

And So They Were Married

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Mary Astor, Edith Fellows, Jackie Moran, Donald Meek

Synopsis: When widower Stephen Blake (Melvyn Douglas) and divorcee Edith Farnham (Mary Astor) are the only guests at a snowed-in mountain resort, sports director Snirley (Romaine Callender) and hostess Alma Peabody (Dorothy Stickney) try to promote a romance between Stephen and Edith. However, Stephen's son Read More

Wife vs. Secretary

Actors: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, May Robson, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: Magazine publisher Clark Gable is happily married to Myrna Loy. Clark's devoted, super-efficient secretary Jean Harlow may have once harbored a secret desire for her boss, but she's perfectly content with boyfriend James Stewart. Accompanying Gable on a crucial business trip, Jean answers the Read More

Ace Drummond [Serial]

Synopsis: Ostensibly based on the life of World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, whose smiling visage opened each of the 13 chapters, this fanciful serial depicted the travails of a globe trotting airline company. It seems that a villain known only as The Dragon (Arthur Loft) is determined to sabotage Read More

Rumba

Actors: George Raft, Carole Lombard, Lynne Overman, Margo, Monroe Owsley

Synopsis: A follow-up to the highly successful Bolero, this lively romantic drama stars George Raft as Joe Martin, a Cuban-American dancer who lives and works in Havana with his lovely partner Goldie Allen until a bad case of varicose veins forces impacts his career. One night, the beauteous gringa heiress Read More

Star of Midnight

Actors: William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: This barely-disguised but effective riff on The Thin Man (1934) stars that film's lead, William Powell, opposite Ginger Rogers instead of Myrna Loy. Clay Dalzell (Powell) is a suave attorney fonder of solving crimes than trying cases. His elegant girlfriend, Donna (Rogers) hopes that Clay will 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

The New Frontier

Actors: John Wayne, Muriel Evans, Murdock MacQuarrie

Synopsis: John Wayne goes up against a nasty vice lord in this, his second Western under the new Republic Pictures banner. Hired against his father's wishes to lead a wagon train, John Dawson (Wayne) at first battles then befriends the outlaw Kit (Al Bridge) and his gang, whom he supplies with food. The Read More

Mad Love

Actors: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy, Sara Haden

Synopsis: In his first American film, Peter Lorre portrays egg-bald Dr. Gogol. A brilliant and highly respected surgeon, Gogol would give up everything he has in life for the love of Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake), star of the Parisian Horror Theatre. But Yvonne is deeply in love with her husband, concert Read More

O'Shaughnessey's Boy

Actors: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, George "Spanky" McFarland, Henry Stephenson, Sara Haden

Synopsis: Another of MGM's Wallace Beery-Jackie Cooper assault on the tear ducts, O'Shaugnessy's Boy casts Beery as oafish but lovable circus animal trainer Windy O'Shaughnessy. Believing himself happily married to acrobat Martha (Sara Haden), Windy is shocked to discover that Martha has walked out on him Read More

Behind Green Lights

Actors: Norman Foster, Judith Allen, Sidney Blackmer, Purnell Pratt, Theodore Von Eltz

Synopsis: Ruthless criminal attorney Raymond Cortell (Sidney Blackmer) is not above bending and twisting the law to suit his purposes, making him a well-paid pariah amongst his peers. Practically the only person who believes that Cortell's tactics are ethical is his faithful assistant Mary (Judith Allen) Read More

Two for Tonight

Actors: Bing Crosby, Joan Bennett, Mary Boland, Lynne Overman, Thelma Todd

Synopsis: Based on an obscure stage comedy, the Paramount musical Two for Tonight stars Bing Crosby as would-be composer and playwright Gilbert Gordon. Hired by music publisher Alexander Myers (Maurice Cass) to write a musical for temperamental stage star Lilly Bianca (Thelma Todd), Gordon is less than Read More

The Sagebrush Troubador

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Barbara Pepper, Frank J. Glendon, Denny Meadows

Synopsis: Given a title like Sagebrush Troubadour, it virtually went without saying that the star of this 1935 western was singing cowboy Gene Autry. This entry surprisingly downplays its musical content in favor of a murder-mystery storyline. Working undercover, federal agent Autry and his pal Smiley Burnette Read More

The Trumpet Blows

Actors: George Raft, Adolphe Menjou, Frances Drake, Sidney Toler, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Once the audience accepts the notion than George Raft and Adolphe Menjou are Mexican brothers, the rest of Paramount's Trumpet Blows is easy to take. A retired bandit, Pancho Montez (Menjou) wants to settle down to a quiet life. This proves impossible when his headstrong young sibling Manuel Read More

The Westerner

Actors: Tim McCoy, Marion Shilling, Hooper Atchley, John Dilson

Synopsis: A rather weak entry in Tim McCoy's Columbia oeuvre, this Western was released to smaller venues in December of 1934, but not widely shown until 1936. McCoy, a rather stolid type of cowboy hero, is rather miscast as a rodeo performer competing for the affection of Juanita Barnes (Marion Shilling) Read More

Mystery Mountain [Serial]

Actors: Ken Maynard, Tarzan the Horse, Verna Hillie, Edward Earle, Lynton Brent

Synopsis: In the first of two proposed serials for Mascot Pictures, Western hero Ken Maynard goes up against a murderous fiend known as "the Rattler." Wearing a strange disguise consisting of eye glasses, a fake nose, and crepe-hair mustache, the Rattler, aka "the Menace of the Mountain," attempts to Read More

Stamboul Quest

Actors: Myrna Loy, George Brent, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: The real-life career of the notorious female spy known as "Fraulein Doktor" inspired several films of the 1930s. Stamboul Quest stars Myrna Loy as a seductive espionage agent, working on behalf of the Kaiser in 1915 Istanbul. American medical student George Brent crosses Loy's path, and the two Read More

Speed Wings

Actors: Tim McCoy, Evelyn Knapp, William Bakewell, Vincent Sherman, Hooper Atchley

Synopsis: Speed Wings is another 1934 "eastern" from western star Tim McCoy. This time, the star is cast as Tim, a devil-may-care stunt pilot. The various subplots include the emotional travails of young Jerry (Billy Bakewell), who vows to give up flying when he sees his best pal "crack up" before his very Read More

Chained

Actors: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Otto Kruger, Stuart Erwin, Una O'Connor

Synopsis: Joan Crawford is at her most glamorous (a different outfit and hairdo in each scene!) in the romantic melodrama Chained. Crawford plays Diane Lovering, the mistress of prominent Manhattan businessman Richard Field (Otto Kruger). Though she really isn't in love with him, she feels obligated to Read More

The Prescott Kid

Actors: Tim McCoy, Alden Chase, Hooper Atchley

Synopsis: Filmed at the Columbia ranch in ten days in September of 1934, this Tim McCoy Western did not enjoy a wide release until October of 1936, at which time the star had left Columbia in favor of small-time Puritan Pictures. McCoy played cowboy Tim Hamlin who arrives in a town plagued by a gang of Read More

I Can't Escape

Actors: Onslow Stevens, Lila Lee, Russell Gleason, Otis Harlan, Hooper Atchley

Synopsis: Ex-convict Steve Nichols (Onslow Stevens) may be a free man, but it looks like he'll never be able to escape the onus of his past life. Unable to get a legitimate job, Steve decides to become as crooked as everyone imagines him to be. Before he makes this terrible mistake, however, the truth about Read More

Against the Law

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Sally Blane, Arthur Hohl, George Meeker

Synopsis: After briefly enjoying an "A" budget as Mae West's vis-a-vis in Belle of the Nineties, Johnny Mack Brown returned to the "B"-picture mills with Columbia's Against the Law. Brown plays ambulance driver Steve Wayne, whose devotion to his interne pal Bert Andrews (George Meeker) supersedes all else Read More

Gun Justice

Actors: Ken Maynard, Hooper Atchley, Walter Miller, Jack Rockwell

Synopsis: In this western, a band of avaricious men kill a rancher in order to take over his land. The dead man's nephew was slated to inherit the ranch, but he has vanished so the outlaws hire another to impersonate the heir. Trouble ensues when the real heir, a state ranger, appears, gets his revenge, and Read More

Big Time or Bust

Actors: Regis Toomey, Gloria Shea, Edwin Maxwell, Walter Byron, Nat Carr

Synopsis: Tower Films' Big Time or Bust is strictly small time, though not bad at all within it own limits. Regis Toomey plays a vaudeville high-dive artist, deeply in love with his wife and assistant (Gloria Shea). Thanks to the financial aid of a playboy (Walter Byron), the acrobat's wife skyrockets to Read More

After Tonight

Actors: Constance Bennett, Gilbert Roland, Edward Ellis, Sam Godfrey

Synopsis: Released in Great Britain as Sealed Lips, this WWI melodrama stars Constance Bennett as Carla, aka Russian spy "K-14." Though there's no room for romance in her line of work, Carla falls in love all the same with Austrian captain Rudi (Gilbert Roland). When he discovers that she's working for the Read More

The Three Musketeers [Serial]

Synopsis: Adapted from Alexander Dumas's novel, this adventure is about a trio of Foreign Legion friends who confront the Devil of the Desert. Three Musketeers is the last of actor John Wayne's three serials for Mascot Studios. It was later edited down to just below feature length and released as the 1946 Read More

Drum Taps

Actors: Dorothy Dix, Charles Stevens, Al Bridge, Harry Semels

Synopsis: Produced by Poverty Row company KBS (formerly Sono Art-World Wide), this above-average B-Western starred Ken Maynard as an embattled rancher who gets assistance from the Boy Scouts (Troop No. 107, Los Angeles Council), headed, in this instance, by Ken's real-life brother, Kermit Maynard. Along Read More

Scarlet River

Actors: Billy Butts, Betty Furness, Tom Keene

Synopsis: In Scarlet River, Tom Keene plays "himself," a cowboy movie star, on location in the Wide Open Spaces for his latest epic. The locals chortle and guffaw at these picture people posing as genuine Westerners, but Keene proves his worth by rescuing Dorothy Wilson from villainous ranch foreman Read More

Lawyer Man

Actors: William Powell, Joan Blondell, Helen Vinson, Alan Dinehart, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: William Powell is a poor East Side lawyer who works his way up the ladder to assistant prosecutor. He isn't too particular how he uses and misuses the law, much to the dismay of his faithful secretary (Joan Blondell). Powell's downfall comes when he falls for a shady lady (Claire Dodd) who Read More

The Sphinx

Actors: Lionel Atwill, Sheila Terry, Theodore Newton, Paul Hurst, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: A brutal murder has been committed, and an eyewitness has placed wealthy philanthropist Jerome Breen (Lionel Atwill) at the scene of the crime. The prosecution's case hinges on the witness's insistence that Breen approached him and asked for the correct time. But the defense proves beyond a shadow Read More

Gambling Ship

Actors: Cary Grant, Benita Hume, Roscoe Karns, Glenda Farrell, Jack LaRue

Synopsis: A professional gambler masquerading as a businessman boards a train and sets off across the country. During the journey he meets a lovely, wealthy young woman. This drama follows what happens after she (also a gambler in disguise) persuades him to buy a financially sinking gambling ship. At first Read More

Birthday Blues

Actors: Dickie Moore, George "Spanky" McFarland, Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Kendall McComas, Jacquie Lyn

Synopsis: A superb combination of belly laughs and pathos, the "Our Gang" comedy "Birthday Blues" was originally released on November 12, 1932. When their pennypinching father (Hooper Atchley) refuses to buy a birthday gift for their long-suffering mother (Lillian Rich), brothers Dickie Moore and Spanky Read More

Fighting for Justice

Synopsis: A standard Tim McCoy Western from Columbia Pictures, Fighting for Justice featured the stalwart McCoy as a cowboy whose late father was cheated out of his ranch by an unscrupulous tax attorney, Trout (Hooper Atchley). Falsifying the Bar A Ranch tax records, Trout, who is in league with Bull Read More

Trouble in Paradise

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Ernst Lubitsch used Laszlo Aladar's play The Honest Finder as a springboard for one of his most delightful early-'30s Paramount confections. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins play Gaston and Lily, a pair of Parisian thieves, both disguised as nobility, who decide to rob lovely perfume company Read More

Gold

Actors: Jack Hoxie, Alice Day, Jack Clifford, Hooper Atchley

Synopsis: The second of six sound Westerns starring Jack Hoxie and produced by poverty row company Majestic, this film, like most B-Westerns at the time, features long stretches of what for all intents and purposes is silent action briefly interrupted by somewhat awkward dialogue sequences. Jack (Hoxie) and Read More

Hat Check Girl

Actors: Sally Eilers, Ben Lyon, Ginger Rogers, Monroe Owsley, Arthur Pierson

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Rian James, Hat Check Girl stars Sally Eilers as the title character, a pert little number named Gerry Marsh. Despite her lowly station in life, Gerry manages to fall in love with millionaire playboy Buster Collins (Ben Lyon). The fly in the ointment is blackmailing newspaper Read More

If I Had a Million

Actors: Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, W.C. Fields, Charlie Ruggles, George Raft, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Based on a story by Robert Andrews, If I Had a Million is a multipart comedy-drama employing Paramount's top directorial and acting talents. Refusing to leave his fortune to his grasping relatives, dying millionaire Richard Bennett selects several people at random from the phone book and bestows Read More

Local Badman

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Sally Blane, Hooper Atchley, Edward Hearn

Synopsis: Rest assured that star Hoot Gibson is not the "local badman" of the title. He is, however, accused of being a desperado by a pair of unscrupulous bankers. Hoot, you see, is a railroad detective, and the crooks are up to their necks in a train insurance scam. But the old Hooter isn't as slow on the Read More

Rasputin and the Empress

Actors: John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Ralph Morgan, Diana Wynyard

Synopsis: It's hard to separate fact and fancy from the many accounts of what happened on the set when all three of the fabulous Barrymores -- Ethel, John and Lionel -- appeared together for the only time in Rasputin and the Empress. As for the end result, John offers the subtlest (!) performance as Russian Read More

The Midnight Warning

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Claudia Dell, Huntly Gordon, John Harron, Hooper Atchley

Synopsis: Inspired, it was stated at the time, by a real event, this minor but well-made Poverty Row mystery features Claudia Dell as Enid Van Buren, a young girl who checks into Apartment A at the Clarendon Arms Hotel with her brother, Ralph, and fiancée Erich (John Harron). But Ralph mysteriously 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

Hell's House

Actors: Charles Grapewin, Junior Coughlan, Junior Durkin, Pat O'Brien

Synopsis: Bette Davis was on loan from Universal when she appeared in this little juvenile delinquent melodrama from independent producer B.F. Zeidman. Although Davis earned above-title billing (along with Pat O'Brien), Junior Durkin is the real star, a teenager who is sent to juvenile prison after being Read More

The Dude Bandit

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Gloria Shea, Hooper Atchley, Neal Hart

Synopsis: As he had so many times before, Hoot Gibson pretended to be a dimwit in this low-budget Western, his penultimate for penny-pinching producer M.H. Hoffman. Naturally, Gibson, as Ace Cooper, only pretends to be cowardly and stupid in order to investigate the mysterious killing of Dad Mason (Gordon Read More

Spirit of the West

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Doris Hill, Hooper Atchley, Al Bridge, Lafe [Lafayette] McKee

Synopsis: In his third Allied Pictures release of 1932, veteran screen cowboy Hoot Gibson played his favorite role, that of a happy-go-lucky rodeo rider. This time, Gibson plays Johnny Ringo, a former lawman turned rodeo champ who returns to the old homestead to find his brother Bud (longtime Gibson Read More

Near the Trail's End

Actors: Jay Morley, Hooper Atchley, Si Jenks

Synopsis: Poor Marion Shockley finds herself the victim of both a robbery and a kidnapping in this obscure but quite well-made Poverty Row Western starring the diminutive Bob Steele. After saving Jane Rankin (Shockley) from her kidnappers, Johnny Day (Steele) is elected Cactus town marshal but what at first Read More

Men in Her Life

Actors: Lois Moran, Charles Bickford, Victor Varconi, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: In this drama, a woman with dubious past finds herself blackmailed when she makes plans to marry a senator's son. She finds salvation with a bootlegger who offers to take care of the excursionist. Unfortunately, he chooses to kill the fellow, gets caught, and is put on trial. Now the woman must Read More

Millie

Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, Lilyan Tashman, Robert Ames, Joan Blondell, John Halliday

Synopsis: Yet another variation on the already then-ancient Madame X theme, this early talkie stars Helen Twelvetrees in the title role, a small-town girl marrying a New York City businessman (James Hall). The union produces a daughter, but ends when Millie catches her husband with a mistress (Marie Read More

Arizona Terror

Actors: Ken Maynard, Lina Basquette, Hooper Atchley, Michael Visaroff, Nena Quartaro

Synopsis: Apart from the fact that screenwriter John Francis Natteford named his lead heavy "Cole Porter," this Ken Maynard Western from low-budget producer Tiffany is regulation sagebrush fare. The nasty Mr. Porter (Hooper Atchley) is in the business of buying cattle from the ranchers, only to kill the men Read More

Sundown Trail

Actors: Tom Keene, Marion Shilling, Nick Stuart, Hooper Atchley, Stanley Blystone

Synopsis: In this western, a cowboy and an eastern city-slicker find they are co-inheritors of a ranch. The genteel woman loathes the West and is appalled by the rough and tumble ways of the cowboy. Later after he saves their ranch from cattle rustlers, she changes her tune and they fall in love. ~ Sandra Read More

The Secret Witness

Actors: Una Merkel, William Collier, Jr., ZaSu Pitts, Purnell Pratt, Clyde Cook

Synopsis: Rita La Roy has good reasons to hate her philandering husband, Hooper Atchley, in this low-budget but sumptuous-looking art deco mystery directed by comedy specialist Thornton Freeland. The cool and calculated Miss La Roy isn't the only person with a grudge against the nasty Atchley, however; in Read More

Clearing the Range

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Sally Eilers, Hooper Atchley, George Mendoza

Synopsis: In the first of eight Hoot Gibson Westerns produced by poverty row company Allied, The Hooter sets out to avenge the murder of his brother (Edward Hearn), the town banker. Pretending to have no interest in revenge, Gibson is derided for cowardice. Unbeknownst to the townsfolk, however, the young Read More

Branded Men

Actors: Ken Maynard, June Clyde, Irving Bacon, Billy Bletcher

Synopsis: Ken Maynard's Branded Men wasn't up to the standards of his previous Range Law, but it was still better than the usual "B"-western of the era. On this occasion, hero Maynard is travelling in the company of pint-sized comedy relief Billy Bletcher (later the voice of the Big Bad Wolf and Black Pete Read More

Ladies' Man

Actors: William Powell, Kay Francis, Carole Lombard, Gilbert Emery, Olive Tell

Synopsis: A Rupert Hughes novel was the source for this soulless but sophisticated comedy-drama. William Powell is a charming roue who lives off the gifts given to him by lonely married women. In exchange, he escorts them around town (among other services) when their husbands aren't looking. The only woman Powell Read More

The Santa Fe Trail

Actors: Richard Arlen, Rosita Moreno, Mitzi Green, Junior Durkin

Synopsis: Paramount star Richard Arlen heads a strong cast in this early talkie western about a sheepherder falsely accused of killing an Indian. Luckily for the hero, two little children (Mitzi Green and Junior Durkin) witnessed the murder and can point the sheriff in the direction of the true culprit. The Read More

Love at First Sight

Actors: Norman Foster, Doris Rankin, Lester Cole

Synopsis: In this musical, two producers find backing for their Broadway debut and must then find someone to star in it. One of the producers spies a lovely night club singer and falls in love with her. He naturally thinks she is the best woman for the part. She would like to be in the show, but she also Read More

Love at First Sight

Synopsis: The plot of this Essanay comedy hinges on a practical joke. The prankish friends of the hero decide to "set him up" with the least likely candidate for matrimony. Amazingly, the mismatched couple immediately fall in love. Realizing that they were intended to be the butt of a joke, hero and heroine Read More

Fighting for Justice

Actors: Paul Weigel, Art Acord

Synopsis: Jailed for a robbery he didn't commit, Bullets Bernard (Art Acord) enlists an alcoholic jailhouse lawyer (Paul Weigel) to defend him. The lawyer sobers up just enough to be effective, and Bernard is set free -- not a minute too soon. It turns out his girlfriend Shirley (Vane Truant) has been Read More