Vivien OaklandFilmography

Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20's

Actors: Jay Jackson, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Vivien Oakland, Glenn Tryon

Synopsis: Five of Laurel and Hardy's best features from the silent film era are compiled in this collection by Robert Youngson. Included are From Soup To Nuts, Wrong Again, The Finishing Touch, and iberty. On hand are legendary comic foils like James Findlayson and Edgar Kennedy, both masters of the "slow Read More

Bunco Squad

Actors: Robert Sterling, Joan Dixon, Ricardo Cortez, Douglas Fowley, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: RKO's Bunco Squad stars Robert Sterling as Sgt. Steve Johnson, a big-city detective dedicated to tracking down con artists. His current target is a gang of slicksters who are running a successful seance racket. Wealthy Jessica Royce (Elizabeth Risdon) is on the verge of bequeathing her fortune to Read More

The Secret Fury

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Robert Ryan, Jane Cowl, Paul Kelly, Philip Ober

Synopsis: The Secret Fury works best if one is willing to suspend one's disbelief from the outset. Claudette Colbert stars as Ellen, a famed concert pianist who, on the day of her wedding, is accosted by a stranger who insists that she's already married to someone else. Ellen is willing to laugh this off Read More

Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman

Actors: Susan Hayward, Lee Bowman, Eddie Albert, Marsha Hunt, Carl Esmond

Synopsis: A woman struggles to reassemble her broken life in this drama that features Susan Hayward in her first starring role. The woman started out as a night-club singer, but abandoned her career after marrying a budding radio star. At first she does everything she can to insure his success, but when he Read More

Borrowed Blonde

Synopsis: It's a case of mistaken identity after the boss thinks that his meek employee is married to his pretty next-door neighbor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Magnificent Doll

Actors: Erville Alderson, Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Robert H. Barrat, George Barrows, Burgess Meredith, Joe Forte, Horace McNally, Peggy Wood, Henri Letondal

Synopsis: Director Frank Borzage and star Ginger Rogers both came acropper in the lavish but dull historical biopic Magnificent Doll. The usually ebullient Rogers seems encased in wax as Dolly Madison, first lady of the United States in the early 19th century. The story begins as young Washington socialite Read More

The Locket

Actors: Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum, Gene Raymond, Ricardo Cortez, Sharyn Moffett

Synopsis: Setting something of a record for flashbacks within flashbacks, The Locket recounts the mental disintegration of bride-to-be Laraine Day. As a child, Day was accused of stealing a locket at a fancy party. She has spent her life getting even for this false accusation by becoming a kleptomaniac and Read More

Night and Day

Actors: Cary Grant, John Alvin, Eve Arden, Alexis Smith, Monty Woolley, Herman Bing, Paul Cavanagh, Jane Wyman, Tom D'Andrea, Dorothy Malone

Synopsis: Faced with the challenge of writing a screenplay based on the life of fabulously wealthy, fabulously successful composer Cole Porter, one Hollywood wag came up with a potential story angle: "How does the S.O.B. make his second million dollars?" By the time the Porter biopic Night and Day was Read More

The Man Who Walked Alone

Actors: Dave "Tex" O'Brien, Kay Aldridge, Walter Catlett, Isabel Randolph

Synopsis: In this comedy drama a war hero returns home following a medical discharge and ends up entangled with a young woman speeding away from her wedding day in her fiance's car. Seeing the soldier, she gives him a ride and explains her predicament. Things get sticky when the cops capture them and accuse Read More

Utah

Actors: Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes, Peggy Stewart

Synopsis: Most cowboy leading men have only a single leading lady: in Utah, Roy Rogers is literally surrounded by delectable females, including his perennial movie (and real-life) sweetheart Dale Evans. The plot concerntrates on actress Dorothy Bryant (Evans), who inherits a ranch in (where else?) Utah. Read More

The Girl Who Dared

Synopsis: Lorna Gray, shortly before changing her professional name to Adrian Booth, plays the title character in Republic's The Girl Who Dared. Gray is one of several vacationers who makes a side trip to a remote island in Georgia. It isn't long before one of the tourists is murdered. As an act of Read More

Laugh Your Blues Away

Actors: Jinx Falkenburg, Bert Gordon, Douglass Drake, Isobel Elsom, Roger Clark

Synopsis: Jinx Falkenburg supplies the music and beauty and Bert Gordon provides the chuckles in Columbia's Laugh Your Blues Away. In his standard "Mad Russian" characterization ("How do you doooooo!"), Gordon plays an unemployed actor who poses as one Count Boris Rascalnikoff at the home of Texas cattleman Read More

The Man in the Trunk

Actors: Lynne Roberts, George Holmes, Raymond Walburn, J. Carrol Naish, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: Man in the Trunk is a variation on the "Topper" theme, with Raymond Walburn carrying the weight of the film as a restless ghost. Ten years before the story proper gets under way, bookie Jim Cheevers (Walburn) is murdered and his body is stuffed in a trunk. When the trunk is opened, all that Read More

A Chump at Oxford

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Forrester Harvey, Wilfred Lucas, Forbes Murray, Peter Cushing

Synopsis: Back at Hal Roach Studios for the first time since 1938's Block-Heads, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star in the uneven but generally rewarding A Chump at Oxford. The boys are cast as street-sweepers who hope to better their lot in life by attending night school. Fate intervenes when Stan and Ollie Read More

Island of Lost Men

Actors: Anna May Wong, J. Carrol Naish, Eric Blore, Ernest Truex, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: Anna May Wong and J. Carroll Naish, so memorably teamed in Paramount's Dangerous to Know, are costarred once more in Island of Lost Men. Naish plays ruthless jungle plantation owner Gregory Prin, who runs his domain like a dictatorship and treats his workers little better than slaves. Into Prin's Read More

Slander House

Actors: Adrienne Ames, Craig Reynolds, Esther Ralston, George Meeker, Pert Kelton

Synopsis: An excellent cast elevates the quality of this ultra-cheap independent effort. Adrienne Ames stars as Helene, the owner of a posh beauty salon and reducing parlor. Most of Helene's clients are from the society's upper crust, but that doesn't prevent them from dishing out vitriolic gossip with Read More

Edgar Kennedy Slow Burn Festival

Synopsis: A comedy video, with three short films with 30s entertainer Edgar Kennedy, from his Average Man series: Poisoned Ivory (1934), Edgar Hamlet (1935), and A Clean Sweep (1938). ~ All Movie Guide 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

There's That Woman Again

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Virginia Bruce, Margaret Lindsay, Stanley Ridges, Gordon Oliver

Synopsis: There's That Woman Again was the second and last entry in Columbia's own spin on MGM's "Thin Man" series. Virginia Bruce and Melvyn Douglas star as Sally and Bill Reardon, husband-and-wife private eyes (Bruce took over from Joan Blondell, who costarred with Douglas in 1938's There's Always a Read More

Double Danger

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Whitney Bourne, Samuel S. Hinds, Donald Meek, Paul Guilfoyle

Synopsis: It's Double Danger for detective-story writer Robert Crane (Preston Foster) whenever he pursues his "secret life" as a suave jewel thief. Eluding police commissioner David Theron (Samuel S. Hinds) at every turn, Crane intends to snatch the famed Konjer diamonds from under the nose of jeweler Read More

Way Out West

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynne, James Finlayson, Rosina Lawrence, Stanley Fields

Synopsis: Prospectors Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy head to the western town of Brushwood Gulch, two men on a top-secret mission. The boys have been entrusted by their recently deceased partner Cy Roberts with a deed to a valuable gold mine, to be delivered in person to Roberts' daughter Mary (Rosina Lawrence Read More

Amateur Crook

Actors: Joan Barclay, Jack Mulhall, Vivien Oakland, Jimmy Aubrey

Synopsis: In trying to help Betsy (Joan Barclay), who has stolen a diamond her father left for collateral with loan sharks Crone (Monte Blue) and Jaffin (Jack Mulhall), artist Jimmy Baxter (Herman Brix) soon finds himself up to his neck in trouble. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide Read More

Roaring Speedboats

Synopsis: Roaring Speedboats is the TV title for the inexpensive 1937 indie Mile a Minute Love. William Bakewell stars as an inventor who develops a high-powered boat engine. Bakewell, of course, created this wonder machine to benefit mankind-and, incidentally, to win an upcoming motorboat race. But a group Read More

Crime Afloat

Actors: William Bakewell, Arletta Duncan, Duncan Renaldo, Vivien Oakland, Wilfred Lucas

Synopsis: This poverty-row epic stars William Bakewell as Bob, inventor of a futuristic motorboat engine. Bob's new device may be the salvation for the failing shipping business run by Drexel (Wilfred Lucas), the father of Bob's sweetheart Wynne (Arletta Duncan). But villainous Count Ribalto (Duncan Read More

The Bride Walks Out

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Raymond, Robert Young, Ned Sparks, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: Newlywed Carolyn Martin (Barbara Stanwyck) has been raised to expect the finer things in life, but these are things that can't be provided by her working-stiff husband Michael (Gene Raymond). Hoping to supplement the family coffers, Carolyn offers to take a job, but the chauvinistic Michael won't Read More

Lady Luck

Actors: Patricia Farr, William Bakewell, Duncan Renaldo, Iris Adrian

Synopsis: In this drama, a manicurist is mistaken for the winner of a large sweepstakes and finds herself pursued by fortune hunters. One of them wants to marry her for the publicity and a stage contract. The trouble really begins when the real winner shows up. She is more than happy to let the manicurist 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

Rendezvous at Midnight

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Valerie Hobson, Catherine Doucet, Irene Ware, Helen Jerome Eddy

Synopsis: Rendezvous at Midnight shifts from "low" to "drive" when corrupt city commissioner Myles Crawford (Arthur Vinton) is murdered. His assistant, Bob Edmonds (Ralph Bellamy), originally assigned to investigate the commissioner's administration, now tries to solve his murder. The prime suspect is Read More

Money Means Nothing

Actors: Wallace Ford, Gloria Shea, Edgar Kennedy, Maidel Turner, Betty Blythe

Synopsis: Money Means Nothing to tire salesman Kenneth (Wallace Ford), mainly because he doesn't have any. But when Kenneth falls in love with wealthy Julie (Gloria Shea), he feels obliged to support her in the manner to which she is accustomed. Thus, when a shipment of tires is hijacked, Kenneth is Read More

The Defense Rests

Actors: Jack Holt, Jean Arthur, Nat Pendleton, Arthur Hohl, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: A sleazy lawyer is the focus of this courtroom drama. His favorite technique is to teach his female clients how to use their bodies provocatively in court to sway the jury. Without a doubt, his methods are successful. Unfortunately, his female assistant is offended by the tactics and threatens to Read More

Neighbors' Wives

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Tom Moore, Vivien Oakland, Mary Kornman, Cyril Ring

Synopsis: In this romantic melodrama, a woman tries to protect her sister-in-law from the advances of a bad boy out to take advantage of her (which would also prevent an ensuing scandal from tainting her cop-turned-lawyer husband), but goes too far and kills the man. Her husband thinks she has been cheating Read More

Only Yesterday

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, John Boles, Edna May Oliver, Billie Burke, Jimmy Butler, Benita Hume, Reginald Denny

Synopsis: Distantly related to Frederick Lewis Allen's non-fiction book of the same name, Only Yesterday uses fictional characters to trace the years between 1917 and 1929. Wealthy New Yorker John Boles recalls a long-ago affair with southern belle Margaret Sullavan. She gave birth to his child without ever Read More

They Just Had to Get Married

Actors: George "Slim" Summerville, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Veree Teasdale, Fifi D'Orsay

Synopsis: In this comedy a maid and a butler work for a very rich man. The trouble begins when their employer dies and leaves his estate to them. Once he is gone, they are free to finally marry. Unfortunately, they do not enjoy being wealthy, and they must lose everything and break up before they get back Read More

Scram!

Synopsis: It's a rainy night and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are faced with a particularly ill-tempered judge Rychard Cramer. He'd love to throw them in the clink for vagrancy, but since the jail is full, he gives them just one hour...to leave town. Out on the street, they encounter a drunk (perennial Read More

The Tenderfoot

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Ginger Rogers, Lew Cody, Vivien Oakland, Robert Greig

Synopsis: George S. Kaufman's sturdy stage comedy The Butter and Egg Man was the inspiration for no fewer than four Warner Bros. talkie versions. The first of these was The Tenderfoot, starring Joe E. Brown as a wealthy but naive cowboy alone in the Big Apple. The producers of a down-and-out musical revue Read More

Cock of the Air

Actors: Chester Morris, Billie Dove, Matt Moore, Walter Catlett, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy a demanding French actress is upset because she has not recently received the proper adulation from WW I Allies. To calm her down, a meeting is arranged between the actress and a charming Army official in Italy. Initially both of them resist the artificially designed Read More

The Age for Love

Actors: Charles Starrett, Lois Wilson, Edward Everett Horton, Mary Duncan, Adrian Morris

Synopsis: Producer Howard R. Hughes intended to use Age for Love to prove that his current flame, silent-film leading lady Billie Dove, would be a smash hit in talkies. Beautiful Dove plays a working girl who consents to marry Charles Starrett, on the condition that she not be expected to bear children. Read More

Gold Dust Gertie

Actors: Winnie Lightner, Chic Johnson

Synopsis: Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson's final film for Warner Bros. is as much a vehicle for comedienne Winnie Lightner as it is for the venerable vaudeville team. The premise: Gertie (Lightner) marries Harlan (Johnson), then divorces him to marry Guthrie (Olsen), Harlan's partner in a bathing-suit Read More

Many a Slip

Actors: Joan Bennett, Lew Ayres, George "Slim" Summerville, Ben Alexander, Virginia Sale

Synopsis: Young Joan Bennett and Lew Ayres make an attractive couple in the Universal programmer Many a Slip. Because of her imperious attitude, beautiful young debutante Pat Coster (Bennett) can't find a boy friend until Jerry Brooks (Ayres) comes along. Anxious not to lose Jerry, Pat leads him to believe Read More

A House Divided

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

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

A Lady Surrenders

Actors: Conrad Nagel, Genevieve Tobin, Basil Rathbone, Rose Hobart, Carmel Myers

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a husband gets on with his life after his wife goes to Europe to get a divorce. Thinking the deed done, the husband marries another. Unfortunately, his first wife returns and tells him that she never went through the procedure and that she has no intention of ever freeing him. Read More

Back Pay

Actors: Corinne Griffith, Grant Withers, Montagu Love, Hallam Cooley, Vivien Oakland

Synopsis: In this melodramatic early sound-film an innocent country gal tires of her dull pastoral life and equally boring beau so she heads for the big city in search of adventure. Instead she finds herself the kept woman of a rich war profiteer. Deep down, she still loves the country boy who has been Read More

The Floradora Girl

Synopsis: One of the most delightful of Marion Davies' early talkies, The Floradora Girl is set in New York at the turn of the century. The star plays Daisy Dell, one of the members of the original Floradora Sextette ("O Tell Me, Pretty Maiden") She spends several seasons on stage in this capacity, during Read More

Oh! Sailor, Behave!

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, based on a failed Broadway play, two American sailors are stationed in Naples to find a wooden legged thief. Songs include: "Love Comes in the Moonlight," "Leave a Little Smile," "Tell Us Which One Do You Love," "Highway to Heaven," and "The Laughing Song." ~ Sandra Read More

The Florodora Girl

Actors: Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, Walter Catlett, Louis John Bartels, Ilka Chase

Synopsis: In this comedy, set during the 1900s, a Florodora girl slowly falls for a gentle millionaire. Songs include: "My Kind Of Man," "Pass The Beer And Pretzels," "Swingin' In The Lane," and a Technicolor stage sequence of "Tell Me Pretty Maiden." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Matrimonial Bed

Actors: Frank Fay, Lilyan Tashman, James Gleason, Florence Eldridge

Synopsis: Whatever rapport comedian Frank Fay enjoyed with Broadway audiences invariably evaporated when he appeared on film. In The Matrimonial Bed, Fay is his usual overbearing self as Adolphe, a small-town husband who is rendered an amnesiac in a train crash. Five years pass, during which time Adolphe Read More

Personality

Actors: Sally Starr, Johnny Arthur, Vivien Oakland, John T. Murray

Synopsis: An ambitious young groom makes foolish choices to impress his bride in this drama. To provide her with the posh lifestyle he believes she deserves, the fellow first bluffs his way into a high-paying job he is unqualified for and then proceeds to buy a total household on credit. Unfortunately, when Read More

The Time, The Place and the Girl

Actors: Grant Withers, Betty Compson, Gertrude Olmstead, James Kirkwood, Vivien Oakland

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, an egotistical ex-college football star had little time for a plain-jane coed while he was in school. When they later find work at the same investment house, he finally begins to notice her, especially since she excels at the job. The boss is about to fire him when he Read More

In the Headlines

Synopsis: While investigating a double murder, reporters Grant Withers and Marian Nixon fall in love. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

That's My Wife

Synopsis: Mrs. Magnolia Hardy (Vivien Oakland) is fed up with her husband Oliver Hardy and his permanent houseguest Stan Laurel. Even though Ollie points out that Uncle Bernal will cut them out of his will if she leaves, she walks out anyway. Naturally, Uncle Bernal chooses just this time to pay his nephew Read More

We Faw Down

Synopsis: Laurel and Hardy want to slip out of the house and play poker. Their wives want them to stay home, so they make up a story about having to meet their "boss" at the Orpheum Theatre. On the way to the poker game, they run into two women who have lost a hat under an automobile. While they attempt to Read More

The Man in Hobbles

Actors: Lila Lee, John Harron, Lucien Littlefield, Sunshine Hart

Synopsis: The "man in hobbles" (a reference to his unique trousers) is young professional photographer John Harron. Upon marrying Lila Lee, Harron is taken aback when Lee's large and obnoxious family moves into the couple's tiny honeymoon cottage. Virtually squeezed out of his own home, Harron sullenly Read More

Wedding Bells

Actors: Raymond Griffith, Hallam Cooley, Iris Stuart, Vivien Oakland

Synopsis: This Raymond Griffith vehicle casts the debonair, top-hatted comedian as Algernon Schuyler Van Twitter, perennial "best man" at all his friends' weddings. To save his pal Tom Milbank (Hallam Cooley) from public disgrace, Algy tries to get his hands on some incriminating love letters in the Read More

Redheads Preferred

Actors: Raymond Hitchcock, Marjorie Daw, Cissy Fitzgerald, Vivien Oakland, Charles A. Post

Synopsis: Fabled Broadway musical comedy star Raymond Hitchcock heads the cast of this amiable programmer. Though Hitchcock is top-billed as Henry Carter, the plotline proper is set in motion by Theodore von Eltz, cast as conservative businessman John Morgan. In order to land an important client (Read More

Mighty Like a Moose

Actors: Charley Chase, Vivien Oakland

Synopsis: In one of his best silent films, Charley Chase plays homely Mr. Moose, whose buck teeth make him a laughingstock. But Mrs. Moose (Vivien Oakland) isn't any better off -- her nose really does rival a moose's. Each of them decide to have plastic surgery and surprise their unsuspecting mate. The Read More

Tony Runs Wild

Synopsis: Tom Mix's faithful horse Tony portrays a wild stallion in this average Mix western in which the hero saves a girl (Jacqueline Logan) from a stampeding herd of wild horses. The ungrateful wench, however, challenges her savior to tame the leader of the horses (Tony), which he promptly does. The Read More

The Rainbow Trail

Actors: Tom Mix, Anne Cornwall, George Bancroft, Lucien Littlefield, Mark Hamilton

Synopsis: A sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage (1925), The Rainbow Trail proved one of silent screen star Tom Mix's finest films. Mix appears as John Shefford, a nephew to Jim Lassiter, the character he had played in "Riders." The heroic Shefford not only manage to free his uncle from the sealed off Read More

Teaser

Actors: Laura La Plante, Pat O'Malley, Hedda Hopper, Walter McGrail, Byron Munson

Synopsis: Laura La Plante stars in this light comedy, directed by her future husband, William Seiter (the couple were wed in 1927 and divorced in 1933). Ann Barton (La Plante) is working at a cigar store when she is adopted by her aunt, Margaret Wyndham (Hedda Hopper). Margaret moves Ann to New York with Read More

Madonna of the Streets

Actors: Alla Nazimova, Milton Sills, Claude Gillingwater, Courtenay Foote, Tom Kennedy

Synopsis: Alla Nazimova had been away from the screen for over a year when she made this drama, and she was paid well under half her former salary. To add box-office value, she was given Milton Sills as a co-star, but even so, the film did not do well either in film receipts or reviews. Reverend John Morton Read More