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.

One Way Passage.1932.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 7 min
Size: 	1.29 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	790x576 
Aspect ratio:  	1.372
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 500 kb/s
BPP: 	0.229
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/978DDFDFEDBA39C/One_Way_Passage.1932.576p.BDRip-AVC.ZONE.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Tay Garnett – One Way Passage (1932) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

When a baroness is present during a robbery at a jewellers in Vienna, she finds the gang’s debonair leader more attractive than either her husband or her lover.

Jewel Robbery.1932DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 8mn
Size: 	945 MiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	720x480 ~> 720x540
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	1 711 Kbps
BPP: 	0.207
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/A52D9867FC9FF71/Jewel_Robbery.1932DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/246D665AEE82A66/Jewel_Robbery.1932DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.srt

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post William Dieterle – Jewel Robbery (1932) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

STRANDED is a lightweight but enjoyable romance starring George Brent and Kay Francis.

A world of girders and cable – that’s where Mack Hale works, supervising the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. In its shadow is a world of hopes and fears. That’s where Lynn Palmer works, aiding travelers stranded in an unforgiving city during the depths of the Depression. In this fast-paced romantic drama directed by two-time Academy Award® winner* Frank Borzage, Kay Francis and George Brent portray a young couple threatened by gangsters eager to muscle in on the construction payroll. The plot is crisp but Stranded is equally engaging as a snapshot of time and place as Lynn does her best for an unwed mother, a destitute boy, four giggling mail-order brides and more bewildered folks grateful for her helping hand.

1.09GB | 1h 12m | 716×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/16557CD0BBAAB2B/Stranded.1935.DVDRip.x264-FuFu.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:French,Spanish (muxed)

The post Frank Borzage – Stranded (1935) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Madge Evans, Kay Francis, C. Aubrey Smith, Polly Moran, Alan Mowbry

Richard Grant (Barrymore) is a successful lawyer who believes that his many years of dealing with crime has taught him how to commit the perfect murder. He’s working for shady cad Gordon Rich (Mowbry) who informs Grant before a dinner party that he intends to marry his daughter, Barbara (Evans). Grant seethes with anger and, after dinner, kills Rich. It’s almost the perfect crime, but Rich’s troubled mistress Marjorie (Francis), becomes suspicious of Grant.

854MB | 1h 09m | 720×540 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/B04BB6354D48065/Guilty.Hands.1931.DVDRip.x264.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:None

The post W.S. Van Dyke – Guilty Hands (1931) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
A distinguished English gentleman has a secret life–he is the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed “The Amateur Cracksman”. When he meets a woman and falls in love he decides to “retire” from that life, but an old friend comes to him with a predicament that entails him committing one last job.

1.14GB | 1h 10mn | 704×528 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/B690DB1FB87B58A/Raffles_(1930)_–_George_Fitzmaurice.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:None

The post George Fitzmaurice & Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast – Raffles (1930) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Tanya, a Russian refugee, is hiding in Rangoon, Burma under the protection of her lover, Tony Evans, a gunrunner working for a weathly underworld leader named Nick. Nick wants to add Tanya to his stable of women in a decadent Rangoon club and intimidates Tony into turning her over to settle a debt. At first the abandoned Tanya refuses to cooperate with Nick, but eventually decides to beat him at his own game and uses sex to gain power. She becomes notorious for her affairs, is re-named “Spot White,” and by blackmailing a British officer, gets passage money out of Rangoon. On the boat to Mandalay, she meets formerly prestigious surgeon Gergory Burton who is now exiled in Burma because of his alcoholism, and they fall in love. Unfortunately, Tony has followed her, and in an attempt to escape the authorities, he frames her for what appears to be his murder. She is arrested, but before the boat docks, Tony comes to Tanya’s cabin and proposes that they open a club like Nick’s, with Tanya as “hostess.” Tanya, desperate to sever her past, poisons Tony, who falls overboard to his death. When they dock in Mandalay, the captain reports that stowaways saw Tony in the hold and it is presumed he escaped in a small boat. Tanya is freed, she confesses her crime to Gregory, and they pledge to start a new life together

Review:
A woman is forced to become a hostess in a Rangoon nightclub until she is deported, blackmails the police commissioner, falls in love with an alcoholic doctor, and murders her former lover who had abandoned her.

In Rangoon gun-running Tony Evans (Ricardo Cortez) owes money to Nick (Warner Oland). Tanya (Kay Francis) loves Tony and has been living on a boat with him; she tells him she is afraid of losing him. They go out to Nick’s restaurant with exotic dancers. Nick invites them to his room to meet merchants. Tanya sings “When Tomorrow Comes.” Tony agrees to sell guns for Nick and goes down river, leaving a note for Tanya. Nick offers her a job as hostess and won’t let her leave. Tanya refuses to eat but decides to make the most of it. As the notorious entertainer Spot White (Some call her Spot Cash.), she receives jewelry. The police commissioner (Reginald Owen) is going to deport her since two men were court martialed because of her; but she shows the medals he gave her and blackmails him for 10,000 rupees.

Tanya as Marjorie Lang takes a boat to Mandalay. When she cuts her hand, a porter sends Dr. Gregory Burton (Lyle Talbot) to her. He treats it with poison and does not charge her. He is going to an epidemic inland from Mandalay. Tanya finds Burton alone drunk and unable to help a sick child who dies. He tells her he killed a man operating while drunk and ran away. He goes two days without drinking and now loves Tanya. She sees Tony, who gets the room adjacent to hers. He wants to make it up to her; but she says she earned her freedom and runs away from him. Tony gets a coded telegram from Nick warning of his impending arrest. Tanya sees Burton carousing. The captain is wired to arrest Tony Evans but finds poison and an open window in his room, suspecting suicide. Tanya denies knowing Tony but then admits she had a drink with him. The captain puts her under arrest, but Burton persuades him to tell the police Evans committed suicide. Tanya tells Burton she was Spot White; but he loves her anyway. She asks him to take her with him to the black-fever country. Tony calls on Tanya and tells her how he faked suicide and hid; he wants her to be a hostess. Tanya gives Tony a drink with poison, saying she loved him but could not go back to being Spot White. Tony falls in the river. Tanya without being suspected leaves the boat with Burton.

This film got by the censors before they cracked down, but it could not be shown again in 1936. Murder in the movies had to be punished. The sex trade, only hinted at by innuendo, drove Tanya to murder. She and Burton, both desperate, planned to risk likely death to help fever victims, suggesting they wanted to redeem themselves and start anew.

— Sanderson Beck (Movie Mirror)

https://nitro.download/view/58A702F17B7A3A1/Mandalay_(1934).mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:(none)

The post Michael Curtiz – Mandalay (1934) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Disgusted by having to pass “pinhead” football heroes in order for his college to soar to football victory, Professor John Hathaway (Don Ameche) takes his leave of Digby College. With his wife Julie (Rosalind Russell) in tow, Hathaway sets out to conquer Manhattan’s literary circles, his scholarly manuscript on the subject of “jealousy” tucked under his arm in the romantic comedy The Feminine Touch (1941).

If Hathaway had his hands full with dimwitted football players at Digby, he is even more flummoxed by the oddballs, neurotics and sexual predators of the literary world. Nevertheless, the beautiful executive Nellie Woods (Kay Francis) takes a shine to Hathaway and wants to publish his book while publisher Elliott Morgan (Van Heflin) tries to make time with Julie.

The crux of this romantic comedy is Julie’s efforts to force her scholarly and aloof husband to show even a trace of jealousy at her pursuit by a love-drunk Morgan. Especially amusing is a surreal Salvador Dali-style dream sequence in which Julie imagines her otherwise disinterested husband punching out his romantic rivals including Morgan in a jealous rage.

Van Heflin came to M-G-M after impressing executives with his stage performance alongside Katharine Hepburn in Philip Barry’s 1939 play The Philadelphia Story in a role Barry reputedly wrote for Heflin. After a year at the Yale School of Drama, Heflin would go on to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar the same year of The Feminine Touch’s release, playing an alcoholic intellectual in Johnny Eager (1942). Van Heflin was pragmatic about his abilities as a Hollywood leading man during his MGM run from 1941-1949. “I just don’t have the looks and if I don’t do a good acting job I look terrible,” he is quoted as saying in The MGM Stock Company: The Golden Era by James Robert Parish and Ronald L. Bowers. Always drawn back to the stage, Heflin appeared in Arthur Miller’s controversial A View from the Bridge, a role which required him to kiss another man on the lips.

Rounding out the well-selected The Feminine Touch cast was Don Ameche, a solid 20th-Century-Fox player who never achieved real movie stardom though he experienced a surprising career rejuvenation in the 1985 Ron Howard extraterrestrial fantasy Cocoon which highlighted a sexual charisma absent from the actor’s earlier roles.

An elegant beauty, Rosalind Russell was the real star of The Feminine Touch displaying her uncanny knack for physical comedy. “Rosalind Russell makes it,” The New York Times opined of Russell in what MGM advertised as its “Ticklish!” comedy.

As Jeanine Basinger noted in A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960 of Russell’s unique comic abilities, “Once she begins to move…something happens. A slightly storkish quality emerges. She’s a big, loosey-goosey kind of woman, exaggerated and inherently comic…She can be both elegant and ridiculous, holding the two qualities together in a single performance.”

In anticipation of contemporary chick flicks, Russell was known for often playing bossy, snappish career women who find their true life’s mission in the film’s final reel. “What I really wanted was to become a dear little housewife,” joked Russell, well aware of the politics of her typecasting as an independent woman operating in a male world, most archetypally as a newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball classic His Girl Friday (1940). It was during that production that her co-star Cary Grant introduced Russell to her future husband, Frederick Brisson. An actress who extended her career into her forties, Russell may be most remembered for her humorous turn first in the Broadway production and later the 1958 screen version of Auntie Mame which garnered Russell her fourth Oscar® nomination.

Russell was a second-tier star groomed by Irving Thalberg in the Myrna Loy mold to keep that first-tier star in check with a possible replacement waiting in the wings. But Russell created a comic persona all her own and managed to branch out with loanouts to studios besides M-G-M. The middle of seven children, Russell attended the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York which eventually led to a profitable contract with M-G-M which offered her more money than the $400-a-week contract first offered by Universal. Her big break arrived in the George Cukor ensemble piece The Women (1939) which had a memorable comic role for Russell as the flamboyant chatterbox Sylvia Fowler, a part she wanted so desperately she made five screen tests to get it.

Writing about The Feminine Touch, The New York Times praised Russell “as flip and adept a comedienne as is currently reading lines in Hollywood…and Miss Russell knows how to deliver them mischievously.” Variety was equally filled with praise for Russell, “she handles the sophisticated material equally as well as the frequent excursions into slapstick.” The trade paper applauded the entire production as “another comedy winner. It’s a major laughgetter, at times smart and at times screwball, and box office from the initial marquee draught to the screen fadeout.”

Russell turned out to be well matched to her onscreen rival, Kay Francis, an actress also known for her ability to dish out attitude and bon mots with the best of them. In 1933, notes Basinger, Francis was making $4,000 a week and starred in five movies. Despite a slight lisp that often had her pronouncing “R”s as “W”s, Francis was considered a consummately elegant and stylish film actress who often appeared on many “Best Dressed” lists. She is perhaps best known as the victim of jewel thieves in the effervescent Ernst Lubitsch film Trouble in Paradise (1932).

W.S. Van Dyke, the director of The Feminine Touch, hailed from a distinguished American family. His actress mother, however, was forced to return to the stage after the premature death of her husband and the young Van Dyke often joined his mother as a child actor on the stage. After stints as a grocery store clerk, waiter, gold prospector, electrician and sailor, among many professions, Van Dyke apprenticed under D.W. Griffith of whom he said “I’m still trying to do the things I learned from him,” before beginning a prolific career as a screenwriter and director of films in a variety of genres.

Known for shooting with economy and speed he became known by the nickname “One-Take Woody.” Van Dyke was also known for salvaging the Robert Flaherty film White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) after the director suffered a creative block. Ultimately Van Dyke turned in a highly praised first sound film for M-G-M praised by directors from Luis Bunuel to D.W. Griffith. Often drawn to adventure plots set in authentic locations, Van Dyke later made the highly successful Johnny Weissmuller/Maureen O’Sullivan jungle adventure Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) but demonstrated his flexibility by also helming a sparkling and sophisticated screen adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novel The Thin Man (1934). Reputedly, Van Dyke, a former Marine Corps. Reserve Major, was the inspiration for King Kong’s (1933) adventurous director Carl Denham.

Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Producer: Joseph L. Mankiewiez
Screenplay: George Oppenheimer, Edmund L. Hartmann, Ogden Nash
Cinematography: Ray June
Production Design: Cedric Gibbons
Music: Franz Waxman
Cast: Rosalind Russell (Julie Hathaway), Don Ameche (John Hathaway), Kay Francis (Nellie Woods), Van Heflin (Elliott Morgan), Donald Meek (Capt. Makepeace Liveright), Gordon Jones (Rubber-Legs Ryan).
BW-98m. Closed captioning.

by Felicia Feaster, TCM

http://nitroflare.com/view/FCB7A8B37693725/The.Feminine.Touch.1941.W.S.Van.Dyke.avi

Language:English

The post W.S. Van Dyke – The Feminine Touch (1941) first appeared on Cinema of the World.