If I Had a Million
An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.
Ernst Lubitsch
Grover Jones
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Norman Taurog
Norman Z. McLeod
H. Bruce Humberstone
James Cruze
Stephen Roberts
William A. Seiter
William Slavens McNutt
Casts & Crew
Gary Cooper
Charles Laughton
George Raft
Jack Oakie
Richard Bennett
Charles Ruggles
Alison Skipworth
W.C. Fields
Mary Boland
Roscoe Karns
May Robson
Irving Bacon
Berton Churchill
Joyce Compton
Cecil Cunningham
Frances Dee
Bess Flowers
Blanche Friderici
Wynne Gibson
Lillian Harmer
Samuel S. Hinds
Tom Kennedy
Lucien Littlefield
Grant Mitchell
Gail Patrick
Tempe Pigott
Gene Raymond
Tom Ricketts
Willard Robertson
Also Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Thief Gaston Monescu and pickpocket Lily are partners in crime and love. Working for perfume company executive Mariette Colet, the two crooks decide to combine their criminal talents to rob their employer. Under the alias of Monsieur Laval, Gaston uses his position as Mariette's personal secretary to become closer to her. However, he takes things too far when he actually falls in love with Mariette, and has to choose between her and Lily.
A happily married woman sees a psychoanalyst and develops doubts about her husband.
A prince from a small kingdom courts a wealthy widow to keep her money in the country.
Andre and Colette Bertier are happily married. When Colette introduces her husband to her flirtatious best friend, Mitzi, he does his best to resist her advances. But she is persistent, and very cute, and he succumbs. Mitzi's husband wants to divorce her, and has been having her tailed. Andre gets caught, and must confess to his wife. But Colette has had problems resisting the attentions of another man herself, and they forgive each other.
Professor Stock and his wife Mizzi are uhappily married. The professor, suspicious of his wife, hires a detective to spy on her in hopes of obtaining a divorce. Mizzi sets her sights on seducing Dr. Franz Braun, the new husband of her good friend Charlotte. Dr. Braun's colleague, Dr. Mueller, who has his eye on Charlotte, sees this as his opportunity. Through a misunderstanding, Charlotte thinks that her husband is interested in Miss Hofer, and asks Mizzi to keep him occupied... around and around the circle goes in Lubitsch's refined comedy of mistaken infidelity.
Somewhere in Southern Bavaria Xaver wants to marry Gretel, but her father Kohlhiesel wants his elder daughter Liesel to marry first. The problem is, nobody wants to marry her, because she's too brutal. Seppel suggests, that he should marry Liesel first, get rid of her and then he can marry Gretel...
Also Directed by Norman Taurog
Elvis plays Ross Carpenter, a fishing guide/sailor who loves his life out on the sea. When he finds out his boss is retiring to Arizona, he has to find a way to buy the Westwind, a boat that he and his father built. He is also caught between two women: insensitive club singer Robin and sweet Laurel.
Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.
Pin-up photographer, who doesn't want to get pinned down, comes up against a girl who won't take no for an answer.
Father Flanagan raises funds, helps a disabled boy, and saves an older boy from reform school.
A woman in London unexpectedly inherits a Texas ranching fortune, and takes a transatlantic voyage to collect her fortune, not suspecting two men aboard both plan on winning her hand before she reaches America. One is a gambler interested in her money, and the other, a rich man looking for a wife. The rich man's friend, meanwhile, believes the heiress is actually a gold-digger.
The weirdest alien of the galaxy pays a visit to Earth... Jerry Lewis is Kreton, a childish alien who, against his teacher's will leaves his planet to visit the Earth, and lands in the backyard of a famous television journalist who doesn't believe in U.F.O's and aliens. Wanting to study humans but not able to fully understand them, Kreton makes a mess out of it, generating a lot of comic situations. Written by Alessio Quirino
The first of two films pairing western/serial/action-film leading man Rex Lease (who also sings and dances here) and dialect comedian and comic writer Benny Rubin.
A newsman (Walter Pidgeon) falls in love on Cape Cod with the judge (Rosalind Russell) his angry boss (Edward Arnold) expects him to discredit.
Too bad for presidential hopes of banker T.K. Blair; his party feels he has too little flair for savoir faire. But at a medicine show, the party bosses find Blair's double: huckster Doc Varney. Of course, they scheme to make Varney T.K.'s public spokesman; at first, he even fools Blair's girlfriend Felicia, providing a romantic complication. As election eve approaches, the conspirators face the problem of what to do with Varney...who has difficult decisions of his own to make.
A government official staying in a hotel puts some important secret papers in the hotel safe. A ring of spies out to get the papers manages to steal them from the safe, and a lady government agent enlists the help of the hotel's bumbling bellhop in getting back the papers and breaking up the spy ring.
Also Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Madcap couple George and Marion Kerby are killed in an automobile accident. They return as ghosts to try and liven up the regimented lifestyle of their friend and bank president, Cosmo Topper. When Topper starts to live it up, it strains relations with his stuffy wife.
Four stowaways get mixed up with gangsters while running riot on an ocean liner.
Italy 1757, Pippo Popolino, a lowly tailor, disguises himself as the great Casanova in order to romance the attractive widow Francesca. He little suspects what awaits him... Locked into the incongruous role by the desperation of the real Casanova's creditors, Pippo must journey to Venice on a delicate mission far beyond his capabilities.
After he inherits some money, Harold Bissonette ("pronounced bis-on-ay") decides to give up the grocery business, move to California and run an orange grove. Despite his family's objections and the news that the land he bought is worthless, Bissonette packs up and drives out to California with his nagging wife Amelia and children.
Shy milkman Burleigh Sullivan accidentally knocks out drunken Speed McFarlane, a champion boxer who was flirting with Burleigh's sister. The newspapers get hold of the story and photographers even catch Burleigh knock out Speed again. Speed's crooked manager decides to turn Burleigh into a fighter. Burleigh doesn't realize that all of his opponents have been asked to take a dive. Thinking he really is a great fighter, Burleigh develops a swelled head which puts a crimp in his relationship with pretty nightclub singer Polly Pringle. He may finally get his comeuppance when he challenges Speed for the title.
Street-smart Maisie from Brooklyn lands a job at an airplane assembly plant during WWII and falls in love with handsome pilot "Breezy" McLaughlin. Breezy, however, falling in love with and getting engaged to Maisie's conniving roommate Iris, doesn't realize she's using him and it's up to Maisie to convince him.
A scatterbrained heiress opens her home to a succession of unemployed actors and vaudeville performers, then decides to produce her own show, much to the consternation of her father, her sister and her sister's boyfriend, who is actually after the young girl's money.
Married songwriters almost split up while putting on a big show.
Sailors and spies mingle in between the acts at Hattie's nightclub in the Canal Zone.
Three sisters find romance in post-Civil War Indiana.
Also Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
Get ready for a Gold Medal murder mystery! This "tense, thrilling mystery" ('California Congress of Parents and Teachers') pits Charlie Chan against international spies who are using the Berlin Olympic games as the perfect cover...for cold-blooded murder!
While Charlie is distracted with the birth of his first grandchild, son Jimmy impersonates his father in order to investigate a murder aboard a freighter in the harbor.
Glamorous Lorry Jones, the toast of a Missouri military canteen, has become "engaged" to almost every serviceman she's signed her pin-up photo for. Now she's leaving home to go into government service (not, as she fantasizes, to join the USO). On a side trip to New York, her vivid imagination leads her to True Love with naval hero Tommy Dooley; but increasingly involved Musical Comedy Complications follow.
A sexy golddigger lands who she thinks is a wealthy big-game hunter from a royal family. What she doesn't know is that not only is he not wealthy, nor a big-game hunter nor from a royal family, but he's only a butler. Complications ensue as he tries to keep up the pretense.
This 1934 Warner Bros. screwball comedy-- featuring three Manhattan couples, two lost overcoats, and one sheep named Eloise--all converging in a hotel in Reno. With Glenda Farrell, Ruth Donnelly, Guy Kibbee, Donald Woods, Margaret Lindsay, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh, Louise Beavers and Hobart Cavanaugh.
Michael Howland, a stern hanging judge, is assigned to take over a chaotic prison. There Michael imposes a strict regime of discipline on the inmates. He is similarly rigid and harsh with his own two children Tommie and Anne. However, his son Tommie Howland eventually ends up incarcerated in his father's prison.
A comedy featuring Morris in a dual role as a dumb twin and a star football player, and a smart twin studying to become a college professor. They both are smitten with Kay Merrill as well. Of course, gamblers are also involved.
The City of Stars is structured as a "coming attractions" promo within the fictional framework of an Eastern editor (vaudeville actor Broderick O'Farrell) arriving in Los Angeles to meet with Universal's advertising manager. The sceneic resources of the studio are showcased throughout, with a "See America First" wagon visible in one scene, and a scattering of panoramic shots of Universal City and the Universal zoo.
Marine James Murfin, is unaware of Icelandic customs. When he flirts with Katina her Icelandic family take his actions as a proposal of marriage to Katina. Desperately wanting out, James gets his buddy to help him.
A young couple's marriage is threatened by the husband's love of horses and the racetrack circuit.
Also Directed by James Cruze
Arthur T. Ryan, a hitchhiker, gets a ride from haughty, society girl Glenda Wynant and her fiance, wealthy J. F. Van Avery after he helps them to replace the top of their convertible when it begins to rain. As they approach a bridge, Art notices a few stalled cars, and when the storm worsens, the bridge washes away, leaving Art, Glenda, Van and several others stranded in a canyon.
In this crime drama, an undercover cop infiltrates a powerful New York based crime syndicate.
Button Gwinett Brown is a freshman congressman on a mission to rid Washington of corruption. He quickly runs afoul of the powerful Senator Norton...
An embellished account of the 1813 expedition by famed frigate U.S.S. Constitution--a.k.a. "Old Ironsides"--against the Barbary pirates then terrorizing American shipping, focusing on the crew and passengers of a fictional merchant ship, The Esther, who fall afoul of the same pirates and thus become involved with the Constitution's mission.
After losing their Missouri home during the Great Depression, the Skitch family pulls up stakes and heads west to California to begin life anew. Comedy, released in 1933.
A silent romantic adventure melodrama (from the play and novel by Richard Harding) about a womanizer who follows a beautiful Hispanic woman to her home country and his adventures there. He ends up helping her father become dictator of the entire country, and is rewarded with marriage to her and he is named Minister of Finance!
Hard-boiled underworld melodrama, with gang wars and gunfights, in which criminal lawyer turns prosecutor to avenge a friend's death.
Lost film.
The Fighting Coward (1924)
The Enemy Sex (1924)
Also Directed by Stephen Roberts
Lige Conley is a newspaper reporter covering a demonstration of a new invention to some money-men. The inventors boss wants to get the credit for the device and crosses the wires so that it doesn't work right. Lige's sweetheart is the daughter of the inventor, and Lige sets out to help out.
When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
Al St. John starring in "Hot or Cold (1928)", a Mermaid Comedies.
Civilized wife doesn't protest when husband runs off with uncivilized professional golfer pretending to be civilized.
In Mexico, a former bandit settles down and picks out a beautiful young dancer to be his wife. His younger brother also comes home after having spent years in the U.S., and falls in love with his brother's intended fiancé. Rather than cause problems, the younger brother goes to Mexico City to become a matador. While there, he gets word that the police, who have been hunting his brother, have finally captured him.
Comedy starring one of the most prolific but underrated comedians of the silent era, Al St John.
Released in mid-1929, HONEYMOONIACS was the last silent "Mermaid" comedy from legendary producer Jack White (according to David N. Bruskin's superb book on the White Brothers--Jack, Jules, and Sam). It features the great rubber-faced comedian and writer Monte Collins (who somewhat resembles Jim Varney facially, or so I think) as a man with his bride (Betty Boyd) on a train during their honeymoon.
Life and activity at a hotel. Slapstick-style.
Elna Curry, once a concert pianist, develops an unfounded jealousy of neighbor, Trudie Morrow. Elna who suffers from neurasthenia, believes that Trudie is having an affair with her husband, John, and vows revenge on Trudie. John explains to Trudie Elna's condition and plan. Trudie, being good-hearted tells John that she'll move. One evening, John returns late from work to discover Elna dead. John burns Elna's suicide note to protect Trudie. This results in John being charged for murder and put on trial.
Nominally about attempts to steal a gold mine, the movie starts out with the air of a realistic comedy, then immediately descends into a series of perfectly timed gags which made me goggle at their improbability -- not the sort of thing you normally think of in a slapstick comedy. Very quickly the unerring ability of ropes to loop themselves around tree roots, stopping Al from plummeting to his death or an explosion to drop him on a bull came to make me goggle again.
Also Directed by William A. Seiter
Football player John Kent tags along as Huck Haines and the Wabash Indianians travel to an engagement in Paris, only to lose it immediately. John and company visit his aunt, owner of a posh fashion house run by her assistant, Stephanie. There they meet the singer Scharwenka (alias Huck's old friend Lizzie), who gets the band a job. Meanwhile, Madame Roberta passes away and leaves the business to John and he goes into partnership with Stephanie.
Gangsters, nightclubs and the Roaring '20s.
A city girl on a bus tour of the West encounters a handsome rodeo cowboy who helps her forget her simpy city suitors.
President McKinley asks Lt. Richard L. Perry to go underground to identify some obviously very well briefed Mid-Western bank robbers based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Susan is about to be married, but the wedding may get called off after her fiancé summons three former beaus. Each reveals a different portrait of Susan: one describes her as a naive country girl who reluctantly becomes an actress, another paints a picture of a gay party girl and and the third describes a serious intellectual.
An officer of the French Military is in love with a shop girl, but his aristocratic father wants him to marry in his class and convinces the girl that marriage would be a mistake. The officer goes off to war and she becomes an opera star.
A wife decides to take revenge when she learns her husband has been unfaithful.
Mirian Wilkins, teen-age daughter of Senator Wilkins, starts a Society for the Rahabilitation of Criminals and, without the approval or knowledge of the Senator, elects him to the position of honorary president. When a new gardener, Bacter, of the family turns out to be an notorious ex-convict who was sentenced to prison by Senator Wilkins when he was a judge, Wilkins is about to fire him until his daughter point out that would be an unwise decision considering the position her father held on her society. Further complications arise involving a fuss-budget banker, Albert, a former suitor of Miriam's older, married sister, plus some domestic misunderstandings between Baxter and his wide, and the older sister and her husband.
A teenager with permissive parents gets too caught up in wild parties and the fast life.