William Powell
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.
William Powell was a dapper gentlemen whose career transcended the silent screen to the sound screen. He appeared in many movies first as a villain, then as a detective, and later as a wealthy aristocratic type. Myrna Loy followed a similar career. She often played exotic seductresses in her early films, then transitioned to motherly roles. Both found a hit when they appeared together in The Thin Man, which became a the longest running movie series starring a famous pair in history.
Actress Sharon Stone hosts this documentary about the life and career of 1930s sex symbol Jean Harlow. Included are clips from many of her films, photos and stories about her life before she became a movie star, and accounts of her troubled personal life, including a domineering mother, the failure of her three marriages and the suicide of her second husband.
This tribute to Myrna Loy is organized chronologically with a few photographs, many film clips, a handful of personal appearances, and a detailed commentary delivered on camera by Kathleen Turner. Turner walks us through Loy's career as a dancer and an actress miscast as an exotic. She comes into her own as a grown-up women: shrewd, funny, decorous, and sexy - in "Manhattan Melodrama" and "The Thin Man." Her volunteer work during World War II, later stage work, and progressive politics come in for admiration as well. It's her style - seen best in her roles as a wife of charm and independence - that's captured and celebrated here.
Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.
In this tribute to her frequent co-star and longtime love, Katharine Hepburn hosts a behind-the-scenes look at Spencer Tracy's personal and professional life that features intimate personal accounts, interviews and clips from his most acclaimed work on the silver screen.
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.
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
Mr. Roberts is as an officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a non-commissioned Navy ship run by the bullying Captain Morton.
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
Young David, orphaned en route to California, falls into the hands of medicine-show rascal Baltimore Dan. Years later, now a trained thief, he's adopted by eccentric 'Doc' Brown, retired miner and pharmacist. Doc and David become fast friends in their scenic outdoor rambles. But when they discover a hidden treasure, the idyllic interlude gives way to more troubles and a strange coincidence.
Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston resident becomes angry when the census forgets to record her presence. Another sketch chronicles the achievements of African Americans while still another pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas.
Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids. Fortunately, he is able to convince studio head Melville Crossman to cast him in the adaptation of a hit Broadway show. Crossman has one condition: Slade must travel to New York and convince the female star of the stage production to join the film. Slade goes, but, when he eyes the winsome Julie Clarke, he hatches a different scheme.
Catherine Sykes disappears after a midnight drive with Professor Andrew Gentling . When she's presumed murdered, his friend Martha convinces him that he's a prime suspect and should investigate before he's arrested.
As told to a psychiatrist: Mr. Peabody, middle-aged Bostonian on vacation with his wife in the Caribbean, hears mysterious, wordless singing on an uninhabited rock in the bay. Fishing in the vicinity, he catches...a mermaid. He takes her home and, though she has no spoken language, falls in love with her. Of course, his wife won't believe that thing in the bathtub is anything but a large fish. Predictable complications follow in rather tame fashion.
A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.
A bumbling, long-winded and crooked Southern senator, considered by some as a dark horse for the Presidency, panics his party when his tell-all diary is stolen.
Society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles investigate a murder in a jazz club.
A former reporter comes back home after serving in the army during World War I and finds that it's much more difficult to find work than he expected. Desperate, one day he crashes a wedding attended by many of the city's rich and powerful, meets a beautiful girl named Kay who turns out to be his ticket to meeting those rich and powerful people, and he soon manages to land a job on a newspaper. He gets caught up in the "make money at all costs" game, but receives a rude awakening when the stock market crashes in 1929.
The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.
Frank Morgan is hired to put together a movie using odds and ends from the MGM vaults. He does so by splicing together a string of completely unrelated short subjects and musical numbers, interspersed with a repeated loop of a scene from some melodrama. (Contains in their entirety the shorts, "Musical Masterpieces," "Our Old Car," and "Badminton," as well as clips from other projects)
On a trip to visit his parents, detective Nick Charles gets mixed up in a murder investigation.
The beautiful wife of a tweedy astronomer becomes convinced that her astrologer's prediction of a new dream man in her life will come true.
This short celebrates the 20th anniversary of MGM. Segments are shown from several early hits, then from a number of 1944 releases.
Joan Lyons and her friend Patricia Drew are autograph hounds spending most of their day bumping into, and having tea, with the likes of Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. Based on misinformation from a meddling old-maid governess, Miss Featherstone, Joan also devotes some time to working on the no-problem marriage of her parents to the extent of hiring Dr. Hercules, the strong man from a side show to pay attention to her mother in order to make her father jealous, despite the good advice received from Walter Pidgeon.
A French diplomat who's recovered from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.
Circumstance, an old flame and a mother-in-law drive a happily married couple to the verge of divorce and insanity.
High society sleuths Nick and Nora Charles run into a variety of shady characters while investigating a race-track murder.
Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.
This short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.
This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America. A mother and daughter go to town to buy a new dress. In the dress shop window is a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie. We then go to Hollywood and visit Adrian, MGM's chief of costume design, and see how multiple copies of a single clothing pattern are produced. The film ends with short segments of several MGM features.
An MGM short showing how materials are shipped by boat 'From the Ends of the Earth' to Hollywood. Featuring footage from the MGM films being made at the time. Such as The Women, Thunder Afloat, Siren of the Tropics, Ninotchka, Northwest Passage, and At the Circus.
Not even the joys of parenthood can stop married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles from investigating a murder on a Long Island estate.
A Butler (Powell) gets elected to the Hungarian parliament where he opposes his master's government.
Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.
A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.
A chic jewel thief in England falls in love with one of her marks.
Several behind the scenes aspects of the movie-making business, which results in the enjoyment the movie going public has in going to the theater, are presented. They include: the production of celluloid aka film stock, the materials used in the production of which include cotton and silver; construction crews who build sets including those to look like cities, towns and villages around the world; a visit with Jack Dawn who demonstrates the process of creating a makeup design; the screen testing process, where many an acting hopeful gets his/her start; the work of the candid camera man, the prying eyes behind the movie camera; a visit with Adrian, who designs the clothes worn by many of the stars on screen; and a visit with Herbert Stothart as he conducts his musical score for Conquest (1937). These behind the scenes looks provide the opportunity to get acquainted with the cavalcade of MGM stars and their productions that will grace the silver screen in the 1937/38 movie season.
Relations between Dr. 'Brad' Bradford and ex-wife Paula are surprisingly romantic. They divorced because Brad hated being dragged into murder mysteries, to which mystery writer Paula is addicted. But through horse trainer Mike North, Brad is embroiled in the case of a jockey who died of "heart failure" during a race. As they pursue clues, Paula pursues Brad for remarriage, and assorted hoods pursue the Bradfords.
Lavish biography of Flo Ziegfeld, the producer who became Broadway's biggest starmaker.
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.
Nick and Nora Charles investigate when Nora's cousin reports her disreputable husband is missing, and find themselves in a mystery involving the shady owners of a popular nightclub, a singer and her dark brother, the cousin's forsaken true love, and Nora's bombastic and controlling aunt.
When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.
When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
A husband and wife detective team takes on the search for a missing inventor and almost get killed for their efforts.
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
When the Manhattan investment firm of Sherwood Nash goes broke, he joins forces with his partner Snap and fashion designer Lynn Mason to provide discount shops with cheap copies of Paris couture dresses.
After tricking him into marriage, a woman tries to win the love of her philandering husband.
A former government agent in France, who has failed at an assignment and been disavowed, is deported back to the USA, where he can only find work at a low-rent detective agency. He soon gets involved with a woman with ties to a crooked gambling club owner, who is a client of his agency.
Philo Vance, accompanied by his prize-losing Scottish terrier, investigates the locked-room murder of a prominent and much-hated collector whose broken Chinese vase provides an important clue.
Gar Evans is a con artist, who pretends to be the owner of a "Golden Gate Artificial Rubber Company", and he is looking for investors. Finding them is relatively easy, but it becomes difficult when those want to see the inventor of the synthetic rubber...
A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer facing execution meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing, each without knowing the other's secret.
A gentleman thief charms a Viennese baron's wife and also conducts a daring daylight robbery of a jewellers.
Idealistic attorney Anton Adam makes headlines when he successfully prosecutes a prominent New York racketeer named Gilmurry. Adam's sudden renown attracts the attention of high-profile legal eagle Granville Bentley, who asks Adam to become a partner in his law firm. But Adam's rising career takes a nosedive when he's framed by Gilmurry and a sexy actress in a trumped-up breach of promise suit. The only constant in Adam's life is the loyalty and unrequited love of his secretary Olga.
A woman's life falls to pieces when she's caught cheating on her husband.
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."
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.
William Foster, a slick attorney who stays within the law, but specializes in representing crooks and shady characters. He's adept at keeping them out of jail, winning acquittals, and having decisions reversed, thus springing criminals out of prison. He is romantically involved with dancer Irene Manners, who is two-timing him, although she wants to marry him. She kills a man driving while out with her other man, Jack Defoe, who takes the blame. Unfortunately, a ring Foster had just given Irene is found at the crime scene. Foster ends up defending Jack, but when the ring is found, he thinks he is protecting Irene, so pleads guilty to jury tampering.
Gardoni, a down-on-his-luck vaudeville performer, is taken in by a fellow performer, a clown who has a bicycle riding act. Gardoni shows his appreciation by stealing the clown's act and his girlfriend, whom he marries.
John Nelson, a well-to-do businessman, is escorting a woman he knows as Ethel Barry to the door of her apartment suite when a man steps out of the shadows and angrily demands to know where she has been. The embarrassed Nelson excuses himself and goes to his rooms in the same hotel. The woman rushes into his apartment followed by the man who met her in the hall. The man threatens her with violence and Nelson comes to her defense. In the ensuing fight, the man is knocked out of the window and falls to his death to the pavement many stories down. He is charged with the killing and his only witness that can prove self-defense for him has disappeared, and can not be found.
A ruthless, crooked stockbroker is murdered at his luxurious country estate, and detective Philo Vance just happens to be there; he decides to find out who killed him.
'Natural' Davis (William Powell) is a respected gambler who follows a ruthless code of honour with those who cheat against him. His wife Alma (Kay Francis) wants to divorce him because of his addiction and lifestyle but they agree on a reconciliation and 2nd honeymoon together and 'Natural' promises to give up gambling. However, his plans change when his brother 'Babe' (Regis Toomey) arrives in town.
This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors (including Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Schertzinger and Edmund Goulding). The cast features Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Jean Arthur, William Powell, Maurice Chevalier, Kay Francis, Buddy Rogers, Jack Oakie, Stuart Erwin and Nancy Carroll.
Charming Sinners was a stilted adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play The Constant Wife. Robert Miles (Clive Brook) starts the ball rolling when he falls in love with Anne-Marie Whitley (Mary Nolan), the best friend of his own wife Kathryn (Ruth Chatterton). In retaliation, Kathryn begins a flirtation with her former boyfriend Karl Kraley (William Powell). After reels and reels of verbal fencing, the status quo is re-established, and Robert and Kathryn are reunited.
A beautiful showgirl, name "the Canary" is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and with that she ends up dead. But who killed "the Canary". All the suspects knew and were used by her and everyone had a motive to see her dead. The only witness to the crime has also been 'rubbed out'. Only one man, the keen, fascinating, debonair detective Philo Vance, would be able to figure out who is the killer. Written by Tony Fontana
Philo Vance investigates when a murderer preys upon members of a wealthy family on New York's Upper East Side.
Fay Wray plays a beautiful showgirl who falls for a rich Park Avenue guy played by Phillips Holmes. William Powell is a producer in love with Miss Wray, but he won't use his influences to take any advantages.... as usual, he's a perfect gentleman. Pointed Heels was supposed to have been a vehicle for "boop-boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane, but by the time the film was released, Kane's role was reduced to a supporting part.
An Englishman (Richard Arlen) fights in the Sudan after receiving white feathers of cowardice from his fiancee (Fay Wray) and friends.
The Vanishing Pioneers is a 1928 silent western film directed by John Waters and starring Jack Holt. Holt's son, Tim makes his screen debut in this film The film is now lost. Parts of the film were shot in Zion National Park and Springdale, Utah.
A petty thief (Clive Brook) just robs the very rich at speakeasies, and gets away with it because the rich don't want the bad publicity, finally is caught and sent to Sing Sing. After good behavior, he gets an emergency permission for a return home, so that he may save his daughter from the hands of her disreputable mother (Baclanova). However, he must first promise not to kill his wife while he is out of prison.
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
A rich but hypochondriac heiress inherits a sanitarium. What she doesn't know is that it is a front for bootleggers, and a hideout for criminals on the run from the law.
A 1928 silent film crime drama produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures, directed by Josef von Sternberg from an original screen story and starring George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent.
The film is about a desert-bound member of the French Foreign Legion who exposes a betrayer to the Legion and is then sent on a mission among the Arabs to conclude the signing of a crucial peace treaty.
After being dismissed for imitating his boss's voice on radio, former Assistant District Attorney Richard Deming witnesses a store robbery and is taken captive by the criminals. Suspected of the crime, he is sought by the police, but his sweetheart, Marie, convinced of his innocence, enlists the help of two friends, a newspaper reporter and a half-witted detective. Hoping to win the girl's favor, the two go to the gangsters' hideout, encounter a violent gang war, and accidently set off a case of police tear bombs. The police, summoned by Marie, arrive just in time to save the kidnaped attorney.
Paramount's first all-talking picture, Interference was dismally directed by Roy Pomeroy, whose lofty status as the studio's "technical wizard" did not necessarily qualify him to be a director. Evelyn Brent heads the cast as scheming Deborah Kane, who sets out to blackmail Faith Marley (Doris Kenyon), the above-reproach wife of Sir John Marlay.
The second and last of Eddie Cantor's silent vehicles, Special Delivery casts the wide-eyed comedian as a hapless mailman. While going through his swiftly appointed rounds, Eddie stumbles upon a gang of crooks who are planning a large-scale confidence scam. He exposes the villains and wins the love of heroine Madge (Jobyna Ralston). Though Cantor was a fine physical comic, he didn't truly score in films until the arrival of talkies allowed his fans to hear as well as see him. Special Delivery was directed by "William Goodrich," who in reality was comedian Fatty Arbuckle, hoping to stage a comeback after the sex scandal that destroyed his career.
The daughter of a desert chief kidnaps a member of the French Foreign Legion in the hopes of wooing him.
An American banker goes to a small Balkan country looking to invest his bank's money and shore up the country's weak economy in order to maximize the return on their investment. Towards that end he befriends the country's king and they come up with a scheme to get the Crown Prince married, a prospect not particularly appealing to the Crown Prince--until he sees the beautiful cabaret dancer the pair has picked for him to marry.
Nevada is a 1927 movie based upon a Zane Grey novel and starring Gary Cooper, Thelma Todd, and William Powell. This lavish Western film was remade in 1944 as an early Robert Mitchum B-picture, the only time Cooper and Mitchum played the same role. This movie still survives in a complete copy, but the films appearance is not the best, do probably to poor preservation, it's possible to make out scenes, but not as well as other highly restored silent films. This was a very early western role for Gary Cooper, but his fame in western would be more noticeable in talking pictures.
New York is a 1927 American drama silent film directed by Luther Reed and written by Barbara Chambers, Becky Gardiner and Forrest Halsey. The film stars Ricardo Cortez, Lois Wilson, Estelle Taylor, William Powell, Norman Trevor and Richard "Skeets" Gallagher. The film was released on January 30, 1927, by Paramount Pictures.
Love's Greatest Mistake is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by A. Edward Sutherland and starring Evelyn Brent. The film is now lost.
Desert Gold is a 1926 silent American Western film directed by George B. Seitz. According to silentera.com the film survives while Arne Andersen Lost Film Files has it as a lost film. Portions of the film were shot near Palm Springs, California.
Sea Horses is a 1926 American drama silent film directed by Allan Dwan and written by Becky Gardiner, James Shelley Hamilton and Francis Brett Young. The film stars Jack Holt, Florence Vidor, William Powell, George Bancroft, Mack Swain, Frank Campeau and Allan Simpson. The film was released on February 22, 1926, by Paramount Pictures. It is considered a lost film.
Michael "Beau" Geste leaves England in disgrace and joins the infamous French Foreign Legion. He is reunited with his two brothers in North Africa, where they face greater danger from their own sadistic commander than from the rebellious Arabs.
A young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his education. He returns to his island after his father dies to try to stop a revolution.
Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.
A movie actress, mistakenly thinking she has killed a fellow actor, goes on the run and finds herself taken in by a Kentucky mountain family. A lost film.
After a stormy six year marriage, Barnaby Powers divorces his wife Richmiel. She returns home, taking their young son Oliver with her. Barnaby follows her, to ask for custody of the boy, but meets and falls in love with Richmiel's pretty and sensitive cousin Ledda. Complications ensue.
The Beautiful City is a 1925 American drama film starring Richard Barthelmess, Dorothy Gish and William Powell. For their mother's sake, a man takes the blame for a robbery committed by his brother and his brother's gangster boss.
Perhaps best known as the dapper, urbane, martini-swilling leading man of the 1930s THIN MAN films, William Powell's first film role in Hollywood came by way of this fast-paced crime drama produced by B.P. Schulberg for his own independent production company. Powell, who welcomed the chance to play a sympathetic character after being typecast in villainous roles, plays star newspaper reporter Scott Seddon. Seddon is hired by the paper's editor to infiltrate a gambling ring that is trying to blackmail his daughter, Lola (Clara Bow). While Lola falls for Seddon, he in turn falls for Rita (Alyce Mills), a gang member toughened by the hard knocks of her early childhood.
"Too Many Kisses" stars Richard Dix as the playboy son of a New York industrialist. Dix's father (Frank Currier) wants Dix to get away from his many girlfriends and buckle down to work, so Currier sends Dix to an obscure village in Spain to find samples of a rare mineral. When Dix gets to Spain, he runs afoul of the local police chief, played by William Powell in an excellent performance. Powell is remembered for the suave leading roles he played in the sound era, but in silent films he was typecast as a villain. In "Too Many Kisses", Powell has a secret which he tries to keep Dix from discovering.
Dangerous Money is a lost 1924 silent film drama produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Frank Tuttle and starred popular Bebe Daniels.
In Renaissance Florence, a Florentine trader meets a shipwrecked stranger, who introduces himself as Tito Melema, a young Italianate-Greek scholar. Tito becomes acquainted with several other Florentines, including Nello the barber and a young girl named Tessa. He is also introduced to a blind scholar named Bardo de' Bardi, and his daughter Romola. As Tito becomes settled in Florence, assisting Bardo with classical studies, he falls in love with Romola.
Under the Red Robe is a 1923 silent historical drama directed by Alan Crosland based upon the Stanley Weyman novel Under the Red Robe. The film marks the last motion picture appearance by stage actor Robert B. Mantell who plays Cardinal Richelieu and the only silent screen performance of opera singer John Charles Thomas.
Charles Abbott is implicated in the death of his friend Escobar, brother to the woman he loves.
Mary Tudor falls in love with a new arrival to court, Charles Brandon. She convinces her brother King Henry VIII to make him his Captain of the Guard. Meanwhile, Henry is determined to marry her off to the aging King Louis XII of France as part of a peace agreement.
Sherlock Holmes is a master at solving the most impenetrable mysteries, but he has his work cut out for him on his latest case. Prince Alexis is accused of a theft that he insists he didn't commit. The evidence is stacked against him, but Holmes' trusted friend, Dr. Watson, vouches for the prince. As the famed detective investigates, he's brought face to face with his most devious adversary yet -- Professor Moriarty.
