1931-1940

“Then I won’t be a girl. And I won’t be weak and I won’t be silly. I’ll be a boy and rough and hard. I won’t care what I do. Don’t worry! I’m ready for anything.”
– Sylvia (Katharine Hepburn)

Sylvia Scarlett is a 1935 romantic comedy film starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, based on The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett, a novel by Compton MacKenzie. Directed by George Cukor, it was notorious as one of the most famous unsuccessful movies of the 1930s. Hepburn plays the title role of Sylvia Scarlett, a female con artist masquerading as a boy to escape the police. The success of the subterfuge is in large part due to the transformation of Hepburn by RKO make-up artist Mel Berns.Read More »

Quote:
Shanghai Drama was originally released in France in 1938 under the title Le Drame de Shanghai. Director G. W. Pabst, best known for the erotic classics Diary of a Lost Girl and Pandora’s Box, seems artistically subdued in this standard tale of pre-WW2 intrigue. The villains are the Japanese, who inveigle a group of exiled White Russians to aid in the subjugation of China. Trapped in the web of deceit is nightclub chanteuse Kay (Christine Mardayne), whose efforts to break away from a sinister Black Dragon-like society are doomed to failure. The film’s only ray of hope is manifested in the character of Kay’s daughter Vera (Suzanne Dempers), who is afforded the opportunity to start life anew with journalist Franchon (Raymond Rouleau). allmovie.comRead More »

imdb:
Laurel and Hardy, rat trap salesmen who are unable to do business in Switzerland, having no money to pay for lunch end up working for the hotel where a composer, who has run away from his wife, has taken refuge.Read More »

A nightclub dancer marries into society and has to contend with her jealous sister-in-law.Read More »

Storyline
In 1854, the patriarch Patrick O’Leary of the O’Leary family dies in an accident nearby Chicago while traveling amid-western prairie. His wife Molly O’Leary raises her three sons alone working as laundress. Her son Jack becomes an idealistic lawyer; Dion is a gambler; and Bob helps his mother in the laundry business and marries local Gretchen (June Storey) in the old area known as The Patch. Dion meets the singer Belle Fawcett in the cabaret owned by Gil Warren and they fall in love with each other and become lovers. They also open a business of their own to compete with Gil that becomes their enemy. However Gil invites Dion to join the politics with him but Dion plots a scheme with tragic consequences.Read More »

A one-night fling during World War I results in a young girl getting pregnant. Years later, she meets him again. Now a successful businessman, he doesn’t even remember her, but tries to seduce her.Read More »

imdb:
When the wealthy Consul General Winterfeld discovers that his son Jørgen is in love with the raven girl Aurora, he is not happy. Instead of giving Jørgen money for a wedding, Winterfeld instead suggests a bet: If Jørgen can go a month without arguing with Aurora, he will get a million. If not, his father will be allowed to find him a more suitable party.Read More »

Having fallen from grace at Paramount, musical comedy star Nancy Carroll retreated to Columbia Pictures, known in 1935 as “the Port of Missing Stars.” Though Carroll does no singing in Columbia’s Atlantic Adventure, she is still a charming and delightful screen presence. The actress is cast as Helen, the oft-neglected fiancee of hotshot reporter Dan Miller (Lloyd Nolan). When he tries to keep his appointments with Helen, Dan is fired by his newspaper. Hoping to get back in the good graces of his boss, Dan boards an ocean liner in pursuit of the man responsible for the murder of the District Attorney. It must needs be that Helen is also on board this ship, as is a gang of jewel thieves, leading to more than a few perilous situations for the hero and heroine. Silent film comedian Harry Langdon, who like Nancy Carroll was considered a fading star in 1935, is hilarious as Dan’s photographer pal Snapper.Read More »

Quote:
Hotel manicurist Regi Allen is a cynical gold-digger who meets her match in Theodore ‘Ted’ Drew III, the penniless scion of a once-wealthy family who is himself about to marry for money. After a date with Ted, she lets him sleep on her couch when he’s too drunk to get any further. But what is she to think when he wants to extend the arrangement?Read More »