Jill Esmond

Synopsis:
Once a Lady is a 1931 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Guthrie McClintic and starring Ruth Chatterton, Ivor Novello and Jill Esmond. The film, produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures, is a remake of the Pola Negri silent film Three Sinners (1928). The film was the final attempt by British matinée idol Novello to establish himself in Hollywood. Anna Keremazoff, a Russian living in Paris, leaves her beloved city and her bohemian lifestyle to marry Briton Jimmy Fenwick after she becomes pregnant by him. When the couple arrives at the Fenwick estate in Kent, Anna candidly tells Jimmy’s snobbish family she is pregnant. Shocked by Anna’s lack of decorum, Jimmy’s priggish aunt and mother begin a slow campaign against her free spirit.Read More »

Edna May Oliver’s success in this film helped convince RKO to cast her in The Penguin Pool Murder as Hildegarde Withers, which led to a brief series.

Plot Synopsis:
Edna May Oliver portrays a society dowager called for jury duty on a murder trial wherein a pretty young woman is accused of killing her older husband. She takes her job quite seriously, and soon is playing both “prosecutor” and “DA” with judge and witnesses alike. In this unorthodox but highly entertaining fashion, Ms. Oliver gets to the truth and exposes the genuine murderer before the final fade-out. Incidentally, despite the title, there are gentlemen on the jury, but all eyes are on the formidable Ms. Oliver. Ladies of the Jury was remade in 1937 as We’re on the Jury, with Helen Broderick in the Edna May Oliver role. by Hal EricksonRead More »

A rich family, the Hillcrests, is fighting against the speculator, Hornblower, who sends away poor farmers to build factories on their lands. When Mrs. Hillcrest finds out that Chloe Hornblower was a prostitute, she uses this secret to blackmail the speculator and force him to stop his businessRead More »