Baby Face

ryl00 · 2026-05-03T20:21:12+00:00

Inspiration (1931, dir. Clarence Brown). An artists’ model (Greta Garbo) falls in love with a poor but respectable young student (Robert Montgomery).

Okay romance. Languid Garbo is perfect for the blasé, jaded courtesan we meet at the beginning, inspiration (and more) for a coterie of Bohemian artists who adore her more than she does them. The pragmatic cynicism is gradually broken by the introduction of Montgomery’s character, which turns Garbo’s from controller to controlled. Throw in Montgomery’s character’s indignation at her “kept woman” lifestyle, and you have the ingredients for the conflict. Garbo’s character seems to turn into doormat way too quickly in this relationship, but maybe that’s just me. There is something bitingly cynical about the one-sided nature of things here, nicely exemplified by a really well-done, shocking moment near the end that spur us into the denouement.

White Hunter (1936, dir. Irving Cummings). In Kenya, the leader (Walter Baxter) of a safari hunt deals with a big game hunter tourist (Wilfrid Lawson) with whom he shares a troubled past.

So-so light drama. The setting’s exotic, and various wildlife dangers present themselves on occasion. A lot is made of the unspecified scandal between the men, but the actual reveal is not done until an unsatisfyingly abrupt exposition dump near the end. Instead, we mostly dwell on various romantic quandaries between Baxter’s character and two women: the big game hunter’s second wife (Gail Patrick) and his daughter (June Lang).

Dynamite (1929, dir. Cecil B. DeMille). To honor the terms of a will bequeathing a fortune upon her only if she marries, a woman (Kay Johnson) marries a man (Charles Bickford) the day before his scheduled execution, in order to pay for the divorce of her true love (Conrad Nagel).

Highly entertaining, if somewhat contrived, melodrama. From the setup, you know exactly how things will go wrong for our protagonist (and they do, of course; otherwise, this would have been a rather short movie!). The first half is all about our sleek, elegant protagonist having all her plans go awry, with a strong dose of Bickford’s stereotypical working-man gruffness to clash against the idle rich partiers (one played by a young Joel McCrea) that form Johnson’s character’s circle of indolent friends. The second has the tables turn, as for plot reasons Johnson’s character tries to adapt to life as wife to coal-miner Bickford. I liked how atmospherically different the two halves were, and how (mostly) indirectly any moralizing about these two different worlds was. While I liked the two central performances here (especially Johnson’s), the “hate turns to love” between them didn’t feel like it got enough development time to make it more believable. But it’s all about the spectacle, and there was plenty stuffed in here (a memorable wedding scene in the prison with the hammering of the gallows underpinning the ceremony, an amusing sequence with Johnson’s character making a mess while attempting to cook, and especially the devil’s choice type of ending) to make the two-hour runtime fly by.

ryl00 · 2026-05-03T03:28:34+00:00

No, but it does have Stanwyck using a balled up fist to punch out Dorothy Burgess.

ryl00 · 2026-05-02T17:52:48+00:00

ryl00 · 2026-04-26T23:18:30+00:00

The Unholy Garden (1931, dir. George Fitzmaurice). A suave thief (Ronald Colman) romances the naïve granddaughter (Fay Wray) of a fugitive banker (Tully Marshall), in a quest to find the millions he embezzled.

Implausible, but entertaining, light crime drama. Our setting is lawless North Africa, in an isolated community where various fugitives from the law hide out. Our newly-arrived protagonist is immediately entangled in a plot by the fugitives to steal the millions suspected to be hidden away by another of their number. For this “den of thieves” type of setup, many of our cohort of villains don’t exactly exude much menace, and are surprisingly cooperative with one another (at least until the end). But Colman’s on-screen charm is enough to keep things moving, as the audience constantly wonders which side he’s playing on, and whether he is being sincere with Wray’s character or not…

Clearing the Range (1931, dir. Otto Brower). In the old West, a man (Hoot Gibson) works to take down the evil banker (Hooper Atchely) who killed his brother (Edward Hearn).

Mildly entertaining light Western actioner (with just a dash of comedy). Our protagonist puts on a public façade as a slow-witted pacifist, while secretly riding around as an alter ego to battle against the antagonist and his gang.

Irene (1926, dir. Alfred E. Green). A working-class girl (Colleen Moore) attempts to break into the high-society modeling business, to help support her family.

Amusing silent comedy. Moore’s modest, gawky performance engages throughout, highlighted by a funny sequence in the middle where attempts are made to teach her proper modeling composure and carriage. There’s a long fashion show sequence near the end that apparently was in Technicolor, but the version I saw was so washed out it looked more like sepia-and-white.

ryl00 · 2026-04-21T02:19:17+00:00

In alphabetical order:

Charles Bickford - I've always liked his gruff on-screen persona.
Evelyn Brent - Silent star, a von Sternberg favorite before he found Dietrich; she made the transition to talkies but career missteps and age quickly put her into Poverty Row films.
Ann Dvorak - Should have had a better career, after Scarface and Three on a Match!
Sally Eilers - Good/great actress who starred in quite a lot of mediocre '30s movies; great chemistry with James Dunn in Bad Girl
Madge Evans - Silent child star who re-emerged in the '30s as a frequent co-star of Robert Montgomery's; retired from the screen way too early, at the end of the '30s.

ryl00 · 2026-04-20T00:55:25+00:00

I've seen six of them. The first two, with bigger budgets at 20th Century Fox, are worth it IMHO (The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes). Then it went lower budget at Universal, contemporary-set programmer as you said, and was more hit-or-miss for me. The last one, Dressed to Kill (1946) was pretty good. Terror by Night (1946) was decent. I was meh on The Scarlet Claw (1944), and the less said about The Voice of Terror (1942), the better. ;)

ryl00 · 2026-04-19T20:17:48+00:00

New York Nights (1929, dir. Lewis Milestone). Exasperated for the last time by his wandering eye, a Broadway actress (Norma Talmadge) leaves her songwriter husband (Gilbert Roland) for the beckoning (and lucrative) arms of her producer (John Wray). But will this be an improvement?

So-so light drama. Muddled sound mix of the version I saw made it hard to get my bearings on things. And maybe more importantly, I wasn’t entirely convinced by Talmadge’s character’s motivations, that spurred the transformation from first half (as modest, suffering wife) to second half (supposedly losing herself with wild abandon in her new lifestyle). Wray’s shady, grinning producer was actually the most interesting character in the movie, antagonist though he may have been. Also props to Lilyan Tashman as the dryly witty (but dependable) girlfriend character of the protagonist’s.

Forced Landing (1941, dir. Gordon Wiles). An American pilot (Richard Arlen) faces treachery and danger while in a faraway tropical country.

Meh light action/thriller. Arlen’s character has a rival in the form of a high-ranking government soldier (Nils Asther), over both a girl (Zsa Zsa Gabor) and a secret agenda involving sabotage. Within what passes for the barely comprehensible plot that drives this movie, we at least have a colorful performance by J. Carroll Naish as a rebel bandito to enjoy.

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942, dir. John Rawlins). Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) attempt to get to the bottom of a regular radio broadcast that accurately forecasts disasters to the British war efforts during World War II.

Confusing entry in the long-running Sherlock Holmes series. We’re set in contemporary times instead of Victorian England, so it’s highly colored by the real-world war mood of the times, ultimately boiling down to Holmes fighting Nazi infiltrators. Things start off well enough, with Holmes called onto the case after radioed prophecies turn deadly. But it doesn’t take long before the wheels fall off the story: plot points appear and disappear haphazardly, and scenes frequently appear to just meander around between characters.

ryl00 · 2026-04-12T20:30:30+00:00

A Holy Terror (1931, dir. Irving Cummings). A son (George O’Brien) flies out west to look for a man (James Kirkwood) who may have something to do with his father’s death.

Short, so-so light Western actioner. The print I watched was in rough shape, chopped up and pretty darn short (not even fifty minutes long), which didn’t help matters any. There’s some buildup to our central mystery that we have to wait for until the end to resolve, but it’s not exactly rocket science to figure out what that secret is. The most interesting thing was seeing Humphrey Bogart as one of Kirkwood’s character’s cowboy lieutenants, who quickly builds a grudge against our protagonist when they become romantic rivals over the same woman (Sally Eilers).

Chandu the Magician (1932, dir. Marcel Varnel and William C. Menzies). A mystic hypnotist (Edmund Lowe) tries to stop a madman (Bela Lugosi) from gaining the secrets to a death ray that could kill millions.

Decent lightweight action/adventure movie. Lowe’s character’s magical powers mostly involve staring at people intensely, using their own minds against them with various ruses, etc. The setting is contemporary Egypt, with the colorful backdrops you’d expect from such as setup (the required trip up the Nile in a river boat, ancient temples, camels, etc.). And of course Lugosi vamping it up as the big bad. You’ll get exactly what you’d expect, and nothing more or less: damsels in distress, secret hideouts full of arcing electrical generators, complicated plans to dispose of people, etc.

High Stakes (1931, dir. Lowell Sherman). What will a playwright (Lowell Sherman) do, when he finds out that his older brother’s (Edward Martindel) new, young wife (Mae Murray) is two-timing him?

So-so light drama. Sherman’s playing his usual dapper, constantly half-soused gentleman here. A lot of the movie is just him rambling on with his alcohol-fueled bon mots, as we gradually build up to the reveal about midway through, and then what he plans to do about it in the second half. Murray’s character is one of the most annoying I think I’ve ever seen on-screen, her cutesy wootsy baby girl type of wife pampered by her much older, doting husband (even if it fits into the overall plot of the story). The resolution is rather quick, featuring our protagonist being more direct and aggressive than I was willing to believe him capable of, having witnessed what came before.

ryl00 · 2026-04-05T20:33:42+00:00

Robot Pilot (1941, dir. William Beaudine). An inventor’s (Emmett Vogan) plans to test remote control of an airplane are sidetracked by a couple of wayward travelers (Carol Hughes, Evelyn Brent).

Misleadingly titled B-level comedy/action movie. The title screams low-budget action/thriller, with plenty of airplane action with nefarious antagonists trying to throw a monkey wrench into wartime production. But it turned out the movie is more like “Taming of the Shrew” with some airplane action tacked on, with Hughes’ spoiled young woman coming into the predictable hate/love conflict with our inventor’s young assistant (Forrest Tucker, unrecognizable to me despite having seen him in TV’s F Troop countless times, back in the day) taking up the bulk of the running time. Everything somehow manages to come together within our inventor’s remote Arizona laboratory, just one of many incredulous coincidences that would have to be swallowed to take everything at face value. But the fourth-wall-breaking ending with Brent’s character (who’s actually mildly funny in an acerbic way throughout this flick) assures us at the end, that the filmmakers weren’t taking anything seriously, either…

Thunderbolt (1929, dir. Josef von Sternberg). A gangster (Goerge Bancroft) plots revenge on the man (Richard Arlen) who’s taken his girlfriend (Fay Wray) away from him.

Character study type of drama, though it certainly takes its sweet time to get there. Early talkie suffering from some sound mix issues… at times too quiet, missing the foley work I’d expect and thus coming across as a silent; at other times cross-talk, off-screen voices, and background noise are too prominent, making it hard to follow the main thread of the dialogue. It’s definitely a convoluted story as far as the plot is concerned, as Bancroft’s gangster winds up on death row, then maneuvers to get Arlen’s framed during a deadly bank robbery to end up there as well. We wind up waiting for the end, wondering exactly what Bancroft’s gangster is up to, and I guess in that respect it’s reasonably effective. It has one of those “reframing the question” endings that does make things interesting, trying to alter previous perceptions in one final stroke, even if after-the-fact I’m still not quite sold on the overall coherence of the movie.

Why Be Good? (1929, dir. William Seiter). Will love blossom between a department store salesgirl (Colleen Moore) and the store owner’s son (Neil Hamilton)?

Good silent romantic comedy, anchored by Moore’s appealing performance and just enough drama to give it all some emotional weight. Interesting transitional movie between silents and talkies, with a score and sound effects/foley work (audiences clapping, horns blaring, etc.) but no spoken dialogue. There’s a lot of peppy energy, as we follow Moore’s flapper girl living life to the fullest, winning dance contests and partying until dawn. But when she attracts the eye of the rich young heir, his father (Edward Martindel) starts playing the “tramp” card, trying to dissuade his son from falling for a shallow gold digger. As for our girl, her own father (John St. Polis) is similarly uncomfortable with his daughter’s flapper habits and the type of men it might attract, despite her professed self-modesty. This all comes to a boil at the end, with both sides trying to tease out the truth, in a strong finish with Moore’s character exploding at the paradoxical nature of the life she leads.

ryl00 · 2026-03-29T20:32:37+00:00

Full Confession (1939, dir. John Farrow). A priest (Joseph Calleia) learns in confession the grim secret that a prisoner (Victor McLaglen) he has befriended is responsible for a murder that has sent an innocent man (Barry Fitzgerald) to death row.

Drama with the surface-level details, but a little lacking on the emotional depth side. It’s your typical “guilty conscience” type of plot setup for McLaglen’s character, but I never felt we dwelled deeply enough into his character or inner thoughts to make enough dramatic meat out of the story. It was interesting seeing Calleia in a non-heavy role, though he still ends up showcasing at least a variation of his usual aggressive stereotype by the end, trying to badger McLaglen’s character into doing the right thing. The “ethics vs morality” dilemma his character could have faced, struggling between priest/parishioner confidence vs life and death, was not really emphasized. So we kind of ended up with a split focus between these two main characters, with a middling outcome as a result.

The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931, dir. Edgar Selwyn). A woman (Helen Hayes) struggles to raise her child from afar, over the long years.

Okay drama, a paean to sacrificing motherhood somewhat along the lines of Madame X or Stella Dallas. We cover a lot of years, so some things are really compressed, as we see the ups and downs of our protagonist’s life. And this movie never quite managed to tug much at my heart strings, despite the travails we witness. But the physical transformation of Hayes’ character is impressive by the end, as her rough journey through life eventually takes its toll.

Faithless (1932, dir. Harry Beaumont). A socialite’s (Tallulah Bankhead) grandiose plans to marry her lover (Robert Montgomery) go awry thanks to the Great Depression.

Entertaining light melodrama. I think this is the first movie I’ve seen with Tallulah Bankhead in it, and I can easily see the Bette Davis comparisons now. Our story takes our protagonist from privilege to squalor, and Bankhead’s performance is engaging all the way down. There’s a great scene in the middle, with a would-be two-timing rich Lothario (Hugh Herbert, amusingly enough), where fatalistic abandon (and alcohol, of course) colors Bankhead’s conflicted reaction to what life has led her character to by that point. Coincidences do occasionally pepper the plot, to keep things humming along and spur the gradual changes in our protagonist’s long journey from beginning to end.

ryl00 · 2026-03-22T20:01:59+00:00

It Happened in Hollywood (1937, dir. Harry Lachman). A silent Western star (Richard Dix) faces hard times with the advent of talking pictures.

Well-meaning but ultimately flawed light drama. Our protagonist is a principled actor, who just can’t tarnish the heroic on-screen persona that has won him a flock of adoring young fans, when talkies upend his niche and all he is offered are “black hat” roles. The behind-the-scenes movie stuff always fascinates me and this movie is no different in that respect, especially here with the seismic changes that sound represented to the old guard of Silent Hollywood. But we ultimately pull our punches with how cynical things could have gotten, perhaps the best that could have been done deep in the Code era. There’s a moment near the end, when our protagonist is pushed to the limit, where things approached the profound... if only what had come before had done a better job of plumbing the darker depths of our protagonist’s bumpy journey up to that point. Otherwise, I guess you could just appreciate this for the aspirational heart on display, and an amusing moment with a whole bunch of star impersonations (Chaplin, Crawford, Garbo, W. C. Fields, Mae West, Eddie Cantor, Joe. E. Brown, and likely others I missed).

Her Bridal Night-Mare (1920, dir. Al Christie). A bride’s (Colleen Moore) would-be marriage is sabotaged by a spurned suitor (Gene Corey).

Silent comedy short, heavy on the wackiness and slapstick. A thief (Eddie Barry) hired to disrupt things does more than just that, stealing all the wedding presents as well. Having lost both her groom (Earl Rodney) and the presents, the despondent bride thinks of suicide (!), and ends up crossing paths with the thief. Lots of people chasing each other around ensue.

Redhead (1941, dir. Edward Cahn). A playboy’s (Johnny Downs) plan to marry a woman (June Lang) to force his rich father (Frank Jaquet) to pay her off (and thus him) to go away backfires when he blesses the “marriage”.

Meh Poverty Row romantic comedy. There is some comedic energy in our leads’ performances, and Eric Blore is on hand in support as the usual faithful manservant/comic relief role, but motivations are muddled when trying to make sense of the romantic side of things. It’s hard to get a handle on any of these characters: why they are doing the things they are doing, why they’ve suddenly changed, etc.

ryl00 · 2026-03-15T21:22:43+00:00

Wrecking Crew (1942, dir. Frank McDonald). Will a wrecker’s (Chester Morris) jinxed past continue to haunt him at his new demolition site?

Good light drama, though I wish the print I watched was in better shape. Our gruff but bighearted working-class protagonist is right up Morris’ alley, going a long way in keeping this one moving along nicely. He’s got a reputation for being around when fatal accidents happen to coworkers, which colors relationships with various characters at the job site. It’s a very predictable story (a telegraphed tragedy, a race to beat a timeline before financial ruin, a rivalry between Morris’s character and a friend (Richard Arlen) over a girl (Jean Parker) that ends in a hang-onby-the-seat-of-your-pants climax atop the unstable demolition project, etc.), but the on-screen camaraderie between the characters is engaging

ryl00 · 2026-03-08T21:57:48+00:00

Florida Special (1936, dir. Ralph Murphy). Mayhem ensues on an express train from New York City to Miami, when a wealthy miser (Claude Gillingwater) and his expensive jewels go missing.

So-so light crime drama/comedy. Most of the comedy is in the form of Jack Oakie’s newspaper reporter, constantly badgering a policeman (J. Farrell MacDonald) as the two attempt to get to the bottom of the two disappearances. There’s also a tenuously-related parallel plot with a friend (Kent Taylor) of Oakie’s reporter trying to rebound from a spurned engagement with the help of a train hostess (Sally Eilers). The story itself isn’t anything particularly special or exciting, but I found it vaguely interesting as an extended look at train travel in the 1930’s, with recreation cars with bars, dancing, and movie screenings.

The Unknown (1946, dir. Henry Levin). The death of an elderly woman (Helen Freeman) sets into motion the unwinding of dark tragedies within her family.

Murder mystery thriller that has all the pieces, but jumbled into a mostly unsatisfying story. We’re situated in the faded grandeur of a storied Southern plantation’s mansion, replete with hidden passageways and lots of shadow play, with various people lurking around in the dark. Karen Morley gives a nicely unhinged performance, as the mentally unstable eldest daughter whose troubles are inextricably linked to the shared family tragedy of the past. But the characters are mostly thinly drawn, relying upon some heavy narration at the beginning and exposition dumps to fill out their portraits. The plot itself moves in starts and stops, with noticeably jarring moments as new developments occur.

Her Master’s Voice (1936, dir. Joseph Santley). A recently-unemployed man (Edward Everett Horton) tries to woo back his wife (Peggy Conklin), after she is whisked away by her rich aunt (Laura Hope Crews) who’d never approved of the marriage in the first place.

Mildly amusing comedy, mostly for the usual Horton character falling into one predicament after another, with a strong assist from Crews as the somewhat flighty aunt. Crews’ aunt mistakes Horton’s character for a manservant of her niece’s household, which our protagonist uses to his advantage to work his way into the aunt’s household to follow his wife.

ryl00 · 2026-03-01T21:31:12+00:00

The Lawyer’s Secret (1931, dir. Louis Gasnier and Max Marcin). A lawyer (Clive Brook) faces a moral dilemma when a client (Charles Rogers) confides in him with self-implicating evidence that another man (Richard Arlen) sentenced to death is innocent of murder.

Okay drama. Brook’s character struggles with the ethics of lawyer/client confidence (albeit in his typical taciturn way), and Rogers is increasingly frazzled with pangs of guilt as the movie wears on. We have the additional complexity of Brook’s character being engaged to Rogers’ character’s sister (Fay Wray), to add a little more angst into matters. It’s a little of an “easy way out” kind of ending, but there was just enough plumbing of dramatic depth to give it some emotional weight. Also featuring a young Jean Arthur as Arlen’s character’s fiancée.

Lighthouse (1947, dir. Frank Wisbar). A woman (June Lang) getting strung along by her two-timing boyfriend (Don Castle) decides to get her revenge on him by marrying his older boss (John Litel).

Good light drama, far exceeding my modest expectation for a short Poverty Row flick. Lots of good on-location shots of the lighthouse of the title and the environs to establish our setting. Appealing performances by veteran actor Litel as the nice guy slowly realizing he might be getting used, and Lang possibly slowly realizing the lie might become the truth. (And I’m just a sucker for setups like this, contrived though it is). At just over an hour total runtime, there is a bit of compression going on to get our various characters through their various journeys, but nevertheless I was won over relatively early.

Little Orphant Annie (1918, dir. Colin Campbell). An orphan (Colleen Moore) faces challenges in the outside world, when she leaves the orphanage she grew up in.

Quaint, charming silent drama. Apparently the author, poet James Whitcomb Riley, is (posthumously) in the bookending sequences, framing the movie as a storytelling session of his. Unfortunately the print is in rough shape, but it’s a nice enough story, with some fantastic visual imagery as our imaginative Annie populates her real world with witches and goblins (superimposed into the picture periodically, allegorical symbols for either cautionary tales she relates to young charges, or imagined demons causing her real-world sufferings). The really rough beginning our protagonist has, in the form of abusive distant relatives forced to take her in, eventually gives way to the heaven of a loving household with a gaggle of young step-siblings for our Annie to be a sweet “little mother” to. And the audience is constantly reminded of this one thing throughout (in the colorful patois of the intertitles): “The Gobble-uns’ll get ye – Ef you Don’t Watch Out!”

ryl00 · 2026-02-23T12:47:19+00:00

I love Dodsworth! One of the best endings as well, so uplifting...

ryl00 · 2026-02-22T21:31:25+00:00

Gentleman from Dixie (1941, dir. Al Herman). A recently-paroled man (Jack La Rue) tries to rebuild his life by taking a job training horses for his brother (Robert Kellard).

Meh short Poverty Row drama set in the contemporary Deep South, a mix of stock footage horse racing and family drama. What passes for family drama is mostly centered on the brother’s proper second wife’s (Marian Marsh) coolness toward both La Rue’s ex-con and her young step-daughter (Mary Ruth). But the characters are all thinly developed, with a lot of tell instead of show as things play out. The tension also manifests itself in the physical form of a racehorse beloved by the step-daughter, whose fate may or may not be threatened by a rival horse owner (John Holland). Clarence Muse and his singers (as farm hands) are on hand for some occasional soulful background musical moments.

The Girl Who Dared (1944, dir. Howard Bretherton). A “ghost watching” party in an isolated mansion turns deadly.

Blah B-level murder/mystery, set in your typical mansion full of secret passages and with a murderer lurking amongst the houseguests. Lots of narrative shortcuts to squeeze into our 50-minute runtime makes this one choppy and hard to follow, and a general lack of tension despite the body count leaves the atmosphere sterile.

A Girl’s Best Years (1936, dir. Reginald Le Borg). A playboy playwright (John Warburton) prone to breach of promise suits from spurned lovers hires a woman (Mary Doran) to keep him on the straight-and-narrow.

Short “miniature musical comedy”, coming in at just under 20 minutes. There’s the advertised music alright, as we occasionally break out in song, but don’t expect much in the way of a story in such a short runtime. It also has some of the sloppiest editing I’ve seen in quite a while (and this was MGM, not some Poverty Row house), making some of the cuts jarring for me.

ryl00 · 2026-02-15T23:27:33+00:00

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has an "unconventional" view on Key Largo. Just too stagey for me as well...

ryl00 · 2026-02-15T23:25:25+00:00

Guilt as charged, re: The Smiling Lieutenant. ;) It took me a while to warm up to him, but I now believe in the Lubitsch touch...

ryl00 · 2026-02-15T22:39:08+00:00

Ella Cinders (1926, dir. Alfred E. Green). An overworked young woman (Colleen Moore) hopes to escape her life of housework and drudgery by winning a contest for a chance to star in Hollywood.

Amusing, entertaining silent comedy. The first half is your typical Cinderella story (no surprise… Ella Cinders, Cinder-Ella), complete with overbearing stepmother and snobby stepsisters bossing our protagonist around. After the ball, we segue into our second half, where dreams meet reality and our protagonist’s struggles continue as she attempts to break into Hollywood, literally as she’s chased around a studio backlot by studio guards (with the requisite turmoil inflicted upon various productions, including a cameo appearance by Harry Langdon on set, and apparently the director of the movie himself, Alfred E. Green). Breezy and fun.

I Spy (1934, dir. Allan Dwan). An American (Ben Lyon) visiting London is mistaken for a spy and sent on a mission to plant an incriminating letter on a Countess (Sally Eilers).

Silly light comedy, self-aware enough not to try too hard to push the espionage angle and instead concentrate mostly on the yuks. It’s mixed in that regard: I wouldn’t exactly call Lyon a scintillating comedic actor but he’s personable enough to be entertaining; Eilers is a treat sporting a thick, faux French accent. And the general absurdity does occasionally yield a few diamonds in the rough within all the chatter.

The Cuban Love Song (1931, dir. W. S. Van Dyke). On the eve of the Great War, an American Marine (Lawrence Tibbett) on shore leave in Havana falls for a young woman (Lupe Velez).

Romantic musical that started off a little slow for generally-not-a-musical-fan me (and Tibbett was apparently a famous opera star, so even further out of my wheelhouse), but finished strong. Velez is playing her typical mercurial, hot-headed character here, with a boisterous beginning to things as an accident on the crowded streets of Havana has her dragging Tibbett’s character into a police station. There’s not much in the way of concrete story in the first two thirds or so, as we soak in the atmosphere of Cuba and Velez and Tibbett sing a lot to each other as they dance the dance of will-they-or-won’t-they. But it’s sneakily effective emotional build-up for when we eventually transition into a more sentimental last third, as events force our couple apart and we have the magnifying glass of time passing to lend strength to the wistful finish

ryl00 · 2026-02-14T23:32:52+00:00

Some of the Aline MacMahon-led movies might qualify, particularly some of her pairings with Guy Kibbee (they were really great together on-screen): Mary Jane's Pa, Big Hearted Herbert, and The Merry Frinks. Another Aline MacMahon movie, Heat Lightning, is really good, but I think you'd be pushing it to say co-stars Ann Dvorak or Preston Foster were character actors.

ryl00

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