Carole Lombard
The screen chemistry between Carole Lombard and her two off-screen husbands (Clark Gable and William Powell) is put under a microscope in this video essay by comparing her appearances in NO MAN OF HER OWN and MY MAN GODFREY: films in which she starred with one man onscreen while married offscreen to the other.
Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.
This documentary revisits the making of Gone with the Wind via archival footage, screen tests, insightful interviews and rare film footage.
Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.
A collection of bloopers and outtakes from an enormous selection of Hollywood classic productions spanning from the 1930s through the 1980s.
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Burgess Meredith narrates this insightful MGM-produced documentary about the life and career of Hollywood legend Clark Gable, from his childhood in Ohio, to his star status in Hollywood, and to his romantic life off-screen, including his marriage to Carole Lombard. The film incorporates classic film footage of Gable with interviews of people from his past, including an old classmate from his school days, a former sweetheart, and his press agent. Another treat is the rare home movie footage of Gable and Lombard on a camping trip.
This insightful documentary features some of the major and most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen. It shows how the movie industry changed it's depiction of sex and actresses portrayal of sex from the silent movie era to the present. Classic scenes are shown from the silent movie, True Heart Susie, starring Lillian Gish, to Love Me Tonight (1932), blending sex and sophistication, starring Jeanette MacDonald (pre-Nelson Eddy) and to Elizabeth Taylor in, A Place in the Sun (1951), plus much , much more.
Ken Murray narrates his 16mm home movies shot over 35 years in Hollywood.
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
A collection of behind the scenes and home movies from the golden age of Hollywood.
A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields and Harold Lloyd.
A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953.
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.
Happily married for three years, Ann and David Smith live in New York. One morning Ann asks David if he had to do it over again, would he marry her—and to her shock, he answers, "No". Later that day, they separately discover that, due to a legal complication—they are not legally married.
When visiting San Francisco, Tony Patucci, an ageing winegrower from the Napa Valley, sees waitress Amy Peters and falls in love. Returning home, he persuades his foreman Joe, an incorrigible womanizer, to write her a letter in Tony's name. Tony's courtship by mail culminates with a proposal, and when she requests a picture of him, he sends one of Joe. Amy accepts and goes to Napa to be married. Although horrified to discover that her prospective husband is the portly Tony, she decides to go through with the marriage. However, while Tony is in bed after an accident, Amy and Joe has an affair. Two months later, as Tony plans the wedding, she discovers that she is pregnant. Upon learning this, Tony pummels Joe, who leaves the vineyards. but forgives Amy, and insists that they still be married, But she is unable to forgive herself, so she leaves with the priest who's come to marry them, while Tony looks on, hoping that she will return one day.
A good nurse ruins her career by covering up for her sister's careless mistake.
A wealthy man falls for a widow but is locked into a loveless marriage with a woman who has contrived to convince his parents she is the ideal wife.
This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.
An incognito Hollywood star (Carole Lombard) in Paris meets a penniless nobleman (Fernand Gravet) who follows her to London.
This was one of the annual "blooper" reels screened by the Warners Club, an organization of Warners actors, crew and executives. It was meant to poke fun at the flubs and bloopers that occurred ont the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1938.
When a small-town girl is diagnosed with a rare, deadly disease, an ambitious newspaper man turns her into a national heroine.
Helen and Ken are a pretty strange couple. She is a pathological liar, and he is a scrupulously honest, and therefore unsuccessful lawyer. Helen starts a new job, and when her employer is found dead, all the circumstantial evidence points at her. She is put on trial for murder, and her husband defends her. He thinks she is lying again when she says she didn't do it, and insists she plead that she did, but in self defense. Charlie, a shady, odd character who may or may not know something about what really happened, hangs around the courtroom and jail making rude comments and noises. After Helen is acquitted, he tries to blackmail them.
In Panama, Maggie King meets soldier Skid Johnson on his last day in the army and reluctantly agrees to a date to celebrate. The two become involved in a nightclub brawl which causes Maggie to miss her ship back to the States. Now stranded, she's forced to move in with Skid and his pal Harry. She soon falls in love with Skid. Skid gets a job playing the trumpet at a local club and becomes a big success. Fame and fortune go to his head which eventually destroys his relationship Maggie and his career.
A Swedish princess boards an ocean liner in Europe en route to an acting career in America, and finds herself getting inconveniently attached to a bandleader returning home. To complicate matters, a blackmailer on board apparently knows she is not who she claims to be - and he has his sights set on other passengers with secrets of their own. In the meantime an escaped killer has stowed away under someone else's identity, and is killing again to cover his tracks; five international police detectives on board are heading the investigation to find him. When evidence points to the princess and bandleader, they must find the killer themselves - before he finds them.
Scott is a very rich businessman who hangs out with a snooty, silly Countess, but has the hots for Kay who is already engaged to Bill. Scott pursues Kay like crazy, going so far as to buy Bill's oil company so that he can banish him to Japan, leaving Kay unmoored.
Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a "forgotten man" to win a scavenger hunt, and no one is more forgotten than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks a lesson or two.
A manicurist and an engaged loafer, both planning to marry money, meet and fall in love.
Compilation of lighting and costume tests from various films, most notably Sternberg's The Devil Is a Woman (1935).
Young freewheeling wanderer Jerry Day and his beautiful wife Toni are at odds over their lifestyle. Jerry can't accept responsibility but Toni yearns for a family and a settled life. Then the Days 'rediscover' Jerry's young daughter Pennie, who has been living with his rich deceased wife's family. Pennie appears to be just what Jerry needs to mend his swindling ways and lead a straight life. Despite the responsibility of his new family, Jerry is swayed by the corruptible influence of jewelry thief Felix Evans. When Evans lures Jerry into a job, it puts the continuation of his new family life at risk.
Beautiful high society type Doris Worthington is entertaining guests on her yacht in the Pacific when it hits a reef and sinks. She makes her way to an island with the help of singing sailor Stephen Jones. Her friend Edith, Uncle Hubert, and Princes Michael and Alexander make it to the same island but all prove to be useless in the art of survival. The sailor is the only one with the practical knowhow to survive but Doris and the others snub his leadership offer. That is until he starts a clam bake and wafts the fumes in their starving faces. The group gradually gives into his leadership, the only question now is if Doris will give into his charms.
Mary wants to marriy a gangster because that is where the money is. Unfortunately, the life expectancy and finances of a gangster are unstable.
Oscar Jaffe is a successful Broadway director, Lily Garland his biggest star. When she leaves his direction, his success goes with her. When he recognizes her aboard the Twentieth Century Limited, the train that both of them are riding, he tries to get her back for a new show. But accomplishing that feat isn't as simple as he had thought.
A high living society playboy marries a nightclub singer, and she soon realizes that, though they're genuinely in love, the husband's endless partying completely dominates and is destroying their marriage.
The pilots of a Royal Air Force squadron in World War I face not only physical but mental dangers in their struggle to survive while fighting the enemy.
After her brother's death, Roma Courtney becomes the heiress to his fortune. When fake psychic Paul Bavian claims to have a message from Roma's dead brother, he coaxes Roma into participating in a séance. Although Roma's fiancé, Grant, first believes the séance is nothing more than a scam, he eventually realizes that the vengeful spirit of an executed murderer has possessed Roma's body.
The various residents and occupants of a resort hotel await the outcome of a horse race at a nearby track, as it will affect each of their lives in different ways.
Gong beaters turn on a ruthless jungle trader and the well-dressed blonde who travels with him.
When the boyfriend of a rich, bored socialite dies from a weak heart, she finds herself attracted to the doctor who treated him, a hard-working idealist decidedly different from the usual spoiled society rich kids she is used to.
Babe Stewart, a card cheat who has to go on the lam to avoid a pesky cop, meets a lonely, but slightly wild, librarian, Connie Randall, while he is hiding out. The two get married after Connie wins a coin flip and they move back to the city. Babe continues his gambling/cheating scheme unbeknownst to Connie. When she discovers his "other life", she presures him to quit. Babe feels crowded and tells her that he is leaving for South America. In fact, Babe has decided he wants to go straight and turns himself in to the cops.
Given a second chance after her arrest for prostitution, Mae decides to go straight. Mae is soon befriended by kindly cab driver Jimmy Doyle who gets her work at a diner, where she meets Gert, another former prostitute. Mae and Jimmy fall in love, marry and save to buy a small business. Gert then pleads for money from Mae, which results in her unwitting involvement in a crime. Believing Mae has lied and cheated him, Jimmy threatens to leave her.
A New York fashion model finds herself being pursued by a poor but honest garage mechanic and a rich philanderer.
Despite loving another man, a young woman is talked into marrying a wealthy and boorish prince in order to help her financially-strapped father.
The marriage of an advertising man is jeopardized when he gets a chance to sell a novel he's been working on and quits his job to concentrate on writing. In order to support the family, the wife is forced to take a job as a dancer in a Broadway show. As the marriage begins to fall apart, complications ensue when she discovers that she's pregnant.
A society gigolo goes after a rich mother and her daughter, but tries to find true happiness with his girlfriend, who is neither rich nor in "society."
To prove his thesis that any product--even one that doesn't exist--can be merchandized if it is advertised properly, a young man gets together with his father's savvy secretary to market a non-existent laundry soap. Complications ensue when his "product" turns out to be more successful than even he imagined--and now he has to deliver.
A wealthy New York socialite falls for and marries a cowboy while out West. Her father disinherits her, and after trying to make a go of it as a cowboy's wife, they agree to divorce and she returns back east to her family. However, she soon changes her mind and determines to get her husband back.
A young American girl visits Paris accompanied by her fiancee and her wealthy uncle. There she meets and is romanced by a worldly novelist; what she doesn't know is that he is a blackmailer who is using her to get to her uncle.
The Arizona Kid (Warner Baxter) carries out his mission as a Robin Hood-type bandit while posing as a wealthy and carefree miner. He falls for an eastern girl, Virginia Hoyt (Carole Lombard), accompanied by presumably her brother, Dick Hoyt (Theodore von Eltz), actually her husband. The Kid's mine is raided and two of his friends are killed and he learns that Dick and Virginia are the culprits...
A wealthy family is thrown into turmoil when the daughter falls for the family chauffeur and the son begins to keep company with a chorus girl.
Before handing over a large inheritance, a guardian hires three chorus girls to educate his charge about the "underside" of big-city life.
A busload of passengers gets stranded in a snowstorm and take refuge in an abandoned church, where they run into a mysterious man who may be on the run from the law.
Wilbur is insanely jealous of every man and believes that his wife, Carmelita, is being unfaithful. Billy, his landlord, offers to take out Carmelita to a cafe and have Wilbur follow them to test his wife's fidelity.
This marriage is the second for both Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius McNitt. He is panty-whipped by his social climbing second wife. She has recruited Clifford Figfield to stage and direct a charity pageant, which is more a means for her to hobnob with the social elite, and to nab Larry Lodge, the pageant's leading man, as a husband for her flighty daughter Phyllis, the pageant's leading lady. Larry ends up only having eyes for Sally McNitt, Mr. McNitt's visiting daughter, and she, in turn has eyes for him.
This late-20s gangster movie features Carole Lombard as a young gal who agrees to marry a smooth-talking gangster in exchange for the mob man's pledge to arrange a big-time concert appearance for her violinist boyfriend. The only thing that can save the day for the mis-aligned lovers is a shootout between the cops and the gangland thugs. This film is notable because it is one of the early 'talkies," and uses the newly developing audio technology with abandon. In fact, most of the action takes place off screen and the characters tell the cameras just what's happened. This one's small on sets, big on dialog.
Love triangle in a campus with a blonde girl that really seems to not consider the "other" girl as an obstacle. Who will make it? And actually who cares when parties, sport games and lots of fun are available?
A women's track team is preparing for a big meet against a rival college, but the coach is having trouble getting her team ready. Norma, the team's star, is more interested in slipping out to meet her boyfriend than she is with getting ready for the meet, so Norma and the coach engage in a clash of wills.
A bride and groom are all set to get married, but they can't until the best man shows up. When the best man eventually does show up, he causes a few problems since he ran through some tar just before entering the church. The groom doesn't seem to mind too much, just as long as the best man brought the ring, which he did. But as the wedding proceeds, that sticky tar just can't help but get the best man into one disastrous incident after another, including with the ring. That havoc, which leads into the reception, the wedding night and the honeymoon send off, may end the marriage even before it begins... or at least the couple's friendship with their best man.
Eddie Kehoe is a young vaudeville hoofer who thinks his inability to hit the big time is the fault of stage managers, agents, musicians...everybody but himself. Eddie likes to tell others how good he is, but seldom shows them. Kitty Mayo, an old-time burlesque queen, who is with the McNary Vaudeville Company, advises Eddie to get himself a partner, as his solo abilities can only be stretched so far. He decides to follow her advice and, while in a theatrical supply shop, he sees Rita Carey rehearsing her dancing act that includes a trained duck. Eddie tells Rita he is a good friend of McNary's, and, with him as her partner, her future in show business will be secured. She agrees to join him and Eddie promptly names the act "Eddie Kehoe and Partner". Despite his conceit, Rita likes Eddie, as do others in the troupe, including Cleo a little gold-digger.
Lillia is a small town girl who gets involved with the wrong crowd in Paris. Arrested by police prefect Nigel De Brulier, Lillia agrees to seduce a politically important foreign prince Ernest Hilliard in exchange for her freedom.
Carol runs a restaurant out of her house, while her husband George collects the ferry's tolls. Unbeknownst to Carol, George is allowing his bootlegger brother to use the house as a hiding place for his liquor.
The Smiths open a restaurant, but can’t pay their bills because all of their customers won’t pay their checks.
Friends Billy Trotter and Homer Brown are both traveling salesmen who meet up at a hotel on their travels. Since they last saw each other, Billy has gotten married. Homer is lamenting still being single and thinks that he will never find a woman who will want to be Mrs. Brown. Billy gets one of his old girlfriends, Peggy, a telephone operator, reluctantly to set Homer up with one of her friends. She chooses Jennie, a homebody of a woman who generally spends her evenings playing checkers with her father. Billy and Peggy accompany Homer and Jennie on their date, acting as their chaperons. Billy is able to maneuver Homer and Jennie into getting married that evening. Back at the hotel, a combination of changed hotel rooms, Jennie's angry father, Billy's jealous wife, and a confused hotel detective leads to misunderstandings and complications for all concerned.
There are excellent dramatic performances by Carole Lombard and June Collyer (both of them better known for comedy roles) and a genuinely impressive performance by Don Terry in the lead role, leaving me to wonder why this actor never went on to a significant career.
Mack Sennett comedy short subject spoofing filmmaking, with girls, lions, and limburger cheese.
The Smith's visit San Francisco to attend a horse show only to have their precocious daughter cause some minor comical mishaps and their over-sized canine refusing to obey commands.
Joe Merrill, son of the millionaire owner of a chain of 5 and 10 cent stores, poses as Joe Grant, and takes a job in the stockroom of one of his father's stores, to prove that he can be a success without his father's influence. There he meets stockroom girl Maggie Johnson, and they fall in love. This causes problems, because Mrs. Merrill had planned for her son to marry Millicent Rogers, a high society girl.
The exploits of Brigadier Gerard who helps expose Foreign Minister Talleyrand as a traitor to Napoleon.
May McAvoy is a woman who is blinded in an auto accident and relies on prayer to regain her sight.
Maggie, a headlining comedienne with the Follies, takes a fall off the stage into the orchestra pit and lands on the drum of musician Al Cassidy. One thing leads to another, they fall in love and get married. Al becomes a famous songwriter and Maggie stays home and has children. One day Al is hired to write a big number for Selma Larson, one of the Follies' most beautiful stars, and falls for her.
Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
A gang of crooks led by Holden steals a government code, and Cyril Gordon, a Secret Service agent who bears a strong resemblance to the gang leader, is assigned to recover the stolen documents.
Dan Prentiss is a special undercover agent hired by a mining company to look into a series of gold-shipment robberies.
Oscar has been sent to the plains to make a man of himself, is soon visited by his sister Sybil Estabrook, who travels west along with her maid in tow. Oscar, who has been losing at cards to Victor Dufresne, is forced by him to rob a stagecoach in order to pay off his gambling debts.
Hugh Carver is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. He falls in love with Cynthia Day, a popular girl who loves to party, and finds that it's impossible to please her and still keep up with his studies and athletic training. Soon the two face some difficult decisions.
Wally Griggs is your classic meek, mild bank messenger, destined to a threadbare life of earning 63 dollars a month. At least this is what he seems to be. But when he's not working Griggs is the dashing James Brown, an adventurer and storyteller who is familiar with bank president Halliday. A publisher, fascinated by Brown's wild tales, offers him a deal. Griggs also uses his alter ego to help Mary Oliver, the girl her loves.
