Frank Morgan

A New York tramp (Jolson) falls in love with the mayor’s amnesiac girlfriend after rescuing her from a suicide attempt.Read More »

Charles Collins stars in Dancing Pirate as a dance teacher from Boston who is tricked into joining a band of pirates, leading him to be fitted for a noose in California. Compared to “Douglas Fairbanks in his most acrobatic days,” Collins catches a break when the mayor’s daughter (Steffi Duna) demands the hanging be postponed until he teaches her to waltz.

Dancing Pirate earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Dance Direction and was billed as “the first dancing musical in 100% new Technicolor.”Read More »

Synopsis:
When a brash movie theatre owner needs usherettes for his Budapest cinema, he recruits young Luisa Ginglebusher from a nearby orphanage. Encouraged by her kindly guardian to “spread your wings,” Lu naively embarks on her quest to live the life of a fairy tale angel. Quickly encountering the debonair wolves that roam the sidewalks of Hungary, Lu randomly chooses a man to play the role of her husband: Dr. Max Sporum, a humble and idealistic lawyer. As Lu’s simple ruse grows hopelessly complicated, the dreamy-eyed girl refuses to abandon the charade, determined to evade one suitor’s wiley grasp, provide Max the prosperity he so deserves, and allow the opportunity for true love to enter her life.Read More »

Plot: Homer Macauley remains in a small town looking after his widowed mother and younger brother. Homer’s older brother is fighting the war in Europe. Written by AnonymousRead More »

Casanova Brown is about to marry for the second time. The first just didn’t have the stars aligned up properly, or something like that. But old flames are rekindled in unexpected ways…Read More »

The third and definitive film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s fantasy, this musical adventure is a genuine family classic that made Judy Garland a star for her heartfelt performance as Dorothy Gale, an orphaned young girl unhappy with her drab black-and-white existence on her aunt and uncle’s dusty Kansas farm.

Dorothy yearns to travel “over the rainbow” to a different world, and she gets her wish when a tornado whisks her and her little dog, Toto, to the Technicolorful land of Oz. Having offended the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), Dorothy is protected from the old crone’s wrath by the ruby slippers that she wears.Read More »

The Budapest department store run by Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan) is a happy little society of salesclerks, where assistant manager Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and salesgirl Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) don’t at all see eye to eye. But in secret pen-pal letters they’re madly in love with one another, each hardly guessing who their mysterious secret admirer might be.Read More »

Plot: Johnny Riggs, a con man on the lam, finds himself in a Latin-American country named Patria. There, he overhears a convent-bred rich girl praying to her guardian angel for help in managing her tangled business affairs. Riggs decides to materialize as the girl’s “angel”, gains her unquestioning confidence, and helps himself to the deluded girl’s millions. Just as he and his partner are about to flee Patria with their booty, Riggs realizes he has fallen in love with the girl and returns the money, together with a note that is part confession and part love letter. But the larcenous duo’s escape from Patria turns out to be more difficult than they could ever have imagined. Written by Dan NavarroRead More »

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A brisk romantic/comedy Joan Crawford vehicle capably directed by W.S. Van Dyke and gamely written but not one of the better scripts by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It’s from the short story “Claustrophobia” by A. Carter Goodloe. It’s the usual class warfare Joan Crawford film of that era with the good looking actress dressed chic and defending her free-spirited upper-class superficial lifestyle in her argumentative romance with the commoner Brian Aherne, who thinks the high society crowd are idlers and lightweights.

Bored heiress Kay Bentley (Joan Crawford) travelling with her dad (Frank Morgan) on his yacht meets on the Greek island of Naxos handsome Irish archaeologist Terry O’Neill (Brian Aherne), who’s on an archaeological dig for the Pygmalion statue. Learning that he thinks very little of the society jet set Kay tells Terry she’s Ann Morrison, the secretary of Mr. Bentley. They kiss and he falls madly in love, surpisingly following the attractive secretary to New York where he hopes to marry her. Learning the truth, the two have a spat but nevertheless grow fonder of each other.Read More »