86% (2)  Peter Pan  105 min,  [Adventure, Fantasy, Family]  [Herbert Brenon]  [29 Dec 1924]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 73%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 100%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 win.
Actors:  Betty Bronson, Cyril Chadwick, Ernest Torrence, Esther Ralston, George Ali, Mary Brian
Writer:  J.M. Barrie (play), Willis Goldbeck (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  N/A    Country:  USA
Plot:  Peter Pan, the kid who doesn't want to grow up, arrives at the Darling home searching for his shadow. He meets the Darling children and takes them to Never-Never Land, where they will fight against Capt. Hook and his pirate ship and crew. At the end the children will be back in their warm beds.
Rotten Tomatoes:   When Paramount bought the rights to the delightful James M. Barrie story, every actress in Hollywood wanted the role of Peter Pan, made famous on the stage by Maude Adams. Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, and even Gloria Swanson thought they were perfect for the role, but Barrie's own choice was Betty Bronson, a virtual unknown. The story is familiar to nearly everyone. When Mr. and Mrs. Darling (Cyril Chadwick and Esther Ralston) go to a party, they leave their children -- Wendy (Mary Brian), Michael (Philippe de Lacey), and John (Jack Murphy) -- in the care of their dog, Nana. But Peter (Bronson) shows up with the fairy, Tinker Bell (Virginia Brown Faire), and they take the children to Never Never Land. They have a series of adventures with the Lost Boys and defeat Captain Hook (Ernest Torrence) and his band of pirates. Finally, the children return home to Mrs. Darling, who is overjoyed to have them back. She adopts the Lost Boys and offers to take Peter in too, but he refuses to grow up and flies away after promising to visit Wendy every year. An interesting side note -- although she had no involvement in casting Brian as Wendy, Ralston had discovered her a couple of years earlier while judging a beauty contest.
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85% (2)  The Virginian  91 min,  PASSED,  [Western]  [Victor Fleming]  [09 Nov 1929]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 70%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 100%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Gary Cooper, Mary Brian, Richard Arlen, Walter Huston
Writer:  Owen Wister (by), Kirk La Shelle (by), Grover Jones (adapted by), Keene Thompson (adapted by), Howard Estabrook (screen play), Edward E. Paramore Jr. (dialogue)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Molly Wood arrives in a small western town to be the new schoolmarm. The Virginian, foreman on a local ranch, and Steve, his best fiend, soon become rivals for her affection. Steve falls in with bad guys led by Trampas, and the Virginian catches him cattle rustling. As foreman, he must give the order to hang his friend. Trampas gets away, but returns in time for the obligatory climactic shootout in the streets.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Gary Cooper, as a lanky Wyoming ranch and foreman, places his gun on a poker table after being insulted by one of the gamblers and intones, "If you want to call me that . . . smile." That much quoted line's origin is in this early sound version of the Owen Wister novel, The Virginian, directed by Victor Fleming. When the Virginian meets his old friend Steve (Richard Arlen), he gives him a job on his crew at the Box H Ranch near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Newly arrived in town is the new schoolmarm, Molly Wood (Mary Brian), and both men take notice. Afterwards, in a saloon, The Virginian encounters the evil Trampas (Walter Huston), and the two get into an argument over a dancer. The Virginian calls Trampas' bluff but, although Trampas backs down, he seethes inside. Afterwards, following a christening party, The Virginian walks Molly back home, and a friendship grows between the two that burgeons into love. But when Steve joins up with Trampas and his gang of rustlers and is captured by a posse, The Virginian is forced to supervise Steve's lynching. After that, Molly spurns The Virginian. However, when The Virginian is wounded, Molly forgets all that, and nurses him back to health. They decide to finally marry, but Trampas interferes with their plans --Trampas wants The Virginian to leave town, and he is out gunning for him.
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80% (2)  The Front Page  101 min,  TV-PG,  [Comedy]  [Lewis Milestone]  [04 Apr 1931]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 68%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 92%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 2 wins.
Actors:  Adolphe Menjou, Edward Everett Horton, Mary Brian, Pat O'Brien
Writer:  Ben Hecht (by), Charles MacArthur (by), Bartlett Cormack (adaptation), Charles Lederer (additional dialogue)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Hildy Johnson, newspaper reporter, is engaged to Peggy Grant and planning to move to New York for a higher paying advertising job. The court press room is full of lame reporters who invent stories as much as write them. All are waiting to cover the hanging of Earl Williams. When Williams escapes from the inept Sheriff, Hildy seizes the opportunity by using his $260 honeymoon money to payoff an insider and get the scoop on the escape. However, Walter Burns, the Post's editor, is slow to repay Hildy back, hoping that he will stay on the story. Getting a major scoop looks possible when Hildy stumbles onto the bewildered escapee and hides him in a roll-top desk in the press room. Burns shows up to help. Can they keep Williams' whereabouts secret long enough to get the scoop, especially with the Sheriff and other reporters hovering around?
Rotten Tomatoes:   This film stars Adolphe Menjou as Chicago newspaper editor Walter Burns and Pat O'Brien as his star reporter Hildy Johnson. Hildy is on the verge of getting married and retiring from Burns' dirty tabloid, but he agrees to cover one last story: the politically-motivated execution of convicted cop killer Earl Williams.
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83% (1)  Brown of Harvard  85 min,  [Drama, Romance]  [Jack Conway]  [02 May 1926]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 83%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Francis X. Bushman Jr., Jack Pickford, Mary Brian, William Haines
Writer:  Joseph Farnham (titles), Donald Ogden Stewart (adaptation), Rida Johnson Young (play), Andrew Percival Younger (scenario)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for the affections of Mary Abbott, a professor's daughter.
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77% (1)  Man on the Flying Trapeze  66 min,  PASSED,  [Comedy]  [Clyde Bruckman, W.C. Fields]  [03 Aug 1935]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 77%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Grady Sutton, Kathleen Howard, Mary Brian, W.C. Fields
Writer:  Ray Harris (screen play), Sam Hardy (screen play), W.C. Fields (from a story by), Sam Hardy (from a story by)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Ambrose Wolfinger wants the afternoon off (his first in twenty-five years) to go to a wrestling match. He tells his boss that he must attend his mother-in-law's funeral. The afternoon is no joy. He tries to please a policeman, assist a chauffeur, chase a tire, and ends up getting hit by the body of a wrestler thrown from the ring. A series of mishaps leads his boss to send floral tributes to the house and notify the papers of the death (due to poisoned liquor). His shrewish wife, judgmental mother-in-law, and good-for-nothing brother-in-law add to his burdens. In the end he enjoys their fawning loyalty, a raise in pay, and his first vacation.
Rotten Tomatoes:   W.C. Fields plays Ambrose Wolfinger, the henpecked husband to end all henpecked husbands. A widower, Ambrose married a second time only to provide a mother for his pretty daughter (Mary Brian). What he got was an overbearing harpy of a wife (Kathleen Howard), a fussy and imperious mother-in-law (Vera Lewis) and a shiftless brother-in-law (Grady Sutton). Ambrose plans to attend a much-awaited wrestling match, but can't get the day off of work. He lies for the first time in his life, telling his boss that his mother-in-law has died. En route to the wrestling meet, Ambrose suffers one mishap after another, from a string of traffic tickets to an encounter with a runaway tire. He gets to the match just in time to miss the whole thing, and ends up bruised and battered on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, his home is being deluged with flowers, offered in sympathy for his "dead" mother-in-law who is very much alive but not amused. When his boss discovers the deception, he fires Ambrose. The poor man returns home to face the cold stares of his wife's family. They goad and harass him until he can stand no more: when brother-in-law insults his daughter, Ambrose punches him out (a scene that always results in audience cheers) and tells everyone else where to go. Soon after, his anxious ex-boss calls up; only Ambrose can decipher the important messages left behind on his cluttered desk, and would Ambrose like to come back to work? His loyal and loving daughter negotiates a hefty salary hike for Ambrose, and the film ends with Our Hero assuming his proper role as head of the household, with his obnoxious in-laws literally left out in the rain. An uproarious "worm turns" farce, Man on the Flying Trapeze was an expanded version of 1932 Mack Sennett two-reeler, Too Many Highballs, and a partial remake of Fields' own silent feature Running Wild (27).
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69% (1)  Hard to Handle  78 min,  APPROVED,  [Comedy, Romance]  [Mervyn LeRoy]  [28 Jan 1933]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 69%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Allen Jenkins, James Cagney, Mary Brian, Ruth Donnelly
Writer:  Robert Lord (screen play), Wilson Mizner (screen play), Houston Branch (original story)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Small time con artist Lefty Merrill has co-organized a crooked dance marathon and set-up his girlfriend to win the prize money. When his partner disappears with money before the contest is over, he's forced to come up with a series of cons to help pay it back.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Hard to Handle stars James Cagney as a fast-talking promoter who pounces upon every current fad and foible to make a quick buck. He promotes marathon dances (where spectators feel cheated because no one drops dead), crash diets, reducing creams and treasure contests, finagling his way into the confidence of high rollers and money men. In a cute "inside" joke harking back to a choice Cagney moment in The Public Enemy, our hero at one point takes up the promotion of grapefruits! Like most conners, Cagney isn't aware when he is being conned himself, and he falls victim to his marathon-dance business partner, who absconds with the winnings. The contest winner is pretty Mary Brian, whose mother (Ruth Donnelly) tries to extract payment by forcing Cagney to marry her daughter. He does, but only after eight reels of high-pressure wheeling and dealing. In the tradition of Jimmy Cagney's other early-1930s, Hard to Handle is socked over by the energetic insouciance of its star.
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59% (1)  The Street of Forgotten Men  76 min,  PASSED,  [Crime, Drama]  [Herbert Brenon]  [24 Aug 1925]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 59%,   External Reviews
Actors:  John Harrington, Mary Brian, Neil Hamilton, Percy Marmont
Writer:  George Kibbe Turner (story), John Russell (adaptation), Paul Schofield (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  N/A    Country:  USA
Plot:  Easy-Money Charley, the best fake crippled beggar in New York, loses his beloved dog and adopts a dying prostitute's daughter to fill the empty place in his heart. But his fellow crooks and dissemblers mock him for sentimentality, and he disowns the child in order to bring her up secretly in the safety of a distant suburb. He brings her up as a young lady in ignorance of her true history or of his; but when he discovers that her affections have taken an unexpected slant, it brings about an end to their tranquil life, a crisis of conscience, and an opportunity for the sinister 'White-Eye' to take a hand...
Rotten Tomatoes:   Easy Money Charlie (Percy Marmont) is a con man who promises fellow huckster Portland Fancy (Juliet Brenon) he will care for her daughter Fancy Vanhern (Mary Brian) when she dies. Charlie sends the girl to a high-class finishing school. When she falls for the successful attorney Philip Peyton (Neil Hamilton), Charlie pretends to be dead to allow her to marry the man of her dreams. Watch for screen siren Louise Brooks in her film-debut as a moll.
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