77% (1) Broken Lullaby 76 min, [Drama] [Ernst Lubitsch] [24 Jan 1932]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 77%, External Reviews
Awards: 1 nomination.
Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Louise Carter, Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes
Writer: Maurice Rostand (play), Reginald Berkeley (adaptation), Samson Raphaelson (screenplay), Ernest Vajda (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A young French soldier in World War I is overcome with guilt when he kills a German soldier who, like himself, is a musically gifted conscript, each having attended the same musical conservatory in France. The fact that the incident occurred in war does not assuage his guilt. He travels to Germany to meet the man's family.
Rotten Tomatoes: This serious drama was a real departure for filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch who is best known for his sophisticated, frothy comedies. It was the only serious talkie he ever made and is set in post-WWI Germany, Lubitsch's native country, where a guilt-ridden young French veteran has come to find the family of a soldier he killed. He wants them to forgive him, and surprisingly, they do.
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71% (1) The Criminal Code 97 min, PASSED, [Crime, Drama, Romance] [Howard Hawks] [03 Jan 1931]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Boris Karloff, Constance Cummings, Phillips Holmes, Walter Huston
Writer: Martin Flavin (from the stage play by), Fred Niblo Jr. (adaptation), Seton I. Miller (adaptation)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: A wily D.A.(Brady) gets a 10 year conviction of a young 20 year old (Robert Graham)who he knows killed a man in self defense. Years later Brady becomes warden of the prison holding Graham. When Brady realizes that 6 years of working in the prison jute mill has pushed Graham to the breaking point, he gives him a chance- a new job as his valet. Graham responds well and earns the respect of both the warden and his beautiful daughter. Graham's mettle is put to the test when he stumbles onto a prison murder committed by his cell-mate. He must choose between the criminal code of silence and the warden's strong persuasion to reveal the killer.
Rotten Tomatoes: Howard Hawks' early sound prison melodrama, based on a play by Martin Flavin, already contains his stylistic signature of over-lapping dialogue -- a technique he would greatly expand upon in the next ten years. Walter Huston is district attorney Brady, who quickly convicts Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) of murdering a man who was harassing his girlfriend. Brady is later made the warden of the prison where Robert is held. Brady tries to make friends with Robert, but Robert will have no dealings with the new warden. Nevertheless, Brady, who thinks Robert is a decent man who became embroiled in extraordinary circumstances, gives Robert a job as his chauffeur. As he drives with Brady's daughter Mary (Constance Cummings), the two fall in love. Meanwhile, things heat up back at the prison, where crazed killer Ned Galloway (Boris Karloff) kills the squealer Runch (Clark Marshall). Robert knows Ned killed Runch, but refuses to tell Brady. Brady reluctantly sends Robert to solitary confinement to get him to give up the murderer's name, but Robert holds out on him.
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68% (1) Her Man 85 min, [Drama] [Tay Garnett] [21 Sep 1930]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Actors: Helen Twelvetrees, James Gleason, Marjorie Rambeau, Phillips Holmes
Writer: Tom Buckingham (photoplay), Tay Garnett (story), Howard Higgin (story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, Spanish Country: USA
Plot: Paris bargirl with tough "protector" falls for young sailor.
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66% (1) An American Tragedy 96 min, APPROVED, [Crime, Drama, Romance] [Josef von Sternberg] [22 Aug 1931]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 66%, External Reviews
Actors: Frances Dee, Irving Pichel, Phillips Holmes, Sylvia Sidney
Writer: Theodore Dreiser (novel), Samuel Hoffenstein (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Having just reached adulthood, Clyde Griffiths has always lamented his lot in life, he the only son of poor missionaries. He has gotten a peripheral view of society life, to which he aspires, in his work as a bellhop at an upscale hotel. If being truthful to himself, he would admit that he lacks moral strength, he often taking the easiest but perhaps not the most ethical path to protect himself. Forced to move from place to place out of circumstance, he ends up in Lycurgus, New York working at the Samuel Griffiths Collar and Shirt factory, Samuel Griffiths his paternal uncle. Not knowing his uncle or his family, Clyde only wants a chance to get ahead, not expecting anything else from his wealthy relations. After an apprenticeship, Clyde ends up as the foreman in the stamping department. Despite a company rule forbidding foremen to fraternize with staff, especially those working in the same department, Clyde begins an affair, a clandestine one out of necessity, with Roberta Alden, who works in the stamping department under him. Their love is an obsessive one, made all the more powerful due to its clandestine nature. That changes for Clyde when he meets, through his wealthy relations, society maiden Sondra Finchley, the two who immediately fall in love with each other. The extra draw of Sondra over Bert is Sondra's standing in society. By this time, Bert informs him that she is pregnant with his child, she pressuring him to do right by her in getting married. Wanting to be with Sondra instead, Clyde contemplates murdering Bert by drowning her in a lake, he knowing that she doesn't know how to swim. Although Clyde is ultimately unable to commit this act of murder and will do right in marrying Bert, he, due to that lack of moral strength, nonetheless is caught in a resulting tragic situation for all involved.
Rotten Tomatoes: Given a cushy company job by wealthy relatives and about to romance their lovely daughter, a misguided young man accidentally kills a co-worker he's impregnated, spurned by all but the girl he loves when he is tried for murder. An adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's fact-based novel of crime and tragedy.
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64% (1) Men Must Fight 72 min, PASSED, [Drama, Sci-Fi, War] [Edgar Selwyn] [17 Feb 1933]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 64%, External Reviews
Actors: Diana Wynyard, Lewis Stone, May Robson, Phillips Holmes
Writer: C. Gardner Sullivan (screen play), S.K. Lauren (from the play by), Reginald Lawrence (from the play by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Laura is a nurse at the Front in World War I. She meets and falls for a young flyer named Geoffrey. On his first mission, Geoffrey is shot down and taken to the hospital where Laura works. Within days he succumbes to his injuries. Faced with the fact that she is with Geoffrey's child, she accepts the proposal of Ed Seward who still wants to marry her. Laura vowes that her new son will never fight in a war again. Jumping ahead it is 1940 and Robert, who is Geoffrey's son, meets Peggy Chase on a Ship steaming across the Atlantic. Ed Seward, who is now the Secretary of State, has adverted War by drafting a peace treaty with a belligerent country called Eurasia. However, before the treaty can be signed, Eurasia has the envoy assassinated and both sides escalate. At home, Laura campaigns for Peace, Ed stands with the country and will fight and Robert declares that he will not fight. In doing so, Robert loses Peggy and sees his family break apart.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this film, a remarried war widow's attempts to raise her son to be a pacifist are thwarted when a second world war (this film was made well before WWII) erupts. Up until then, her new husband supported his wife's crusade, but he becomes a strong supporter in the fight.
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62% (1) Great Expectations 102 min, [Drama, Romance] [Stuart Walker] [22 Oct 1934]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 62%, External Reviews
Actors: Florence Reed, Henry Hull, Jane Wyatt, Phillips Holmes
Writer: Charles Dickens (novel), Gladys Unger
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Nine year-old orphan 'Pip' Pirrip lives with his harridan older sister and her hen-pecked but good-natured blacksmith husband Joe Gargery in rural, Regency-Period Britain. While visiting his mother's grave near the moors, Pip is set upon by Abel Magwitch, an escaped convict from a prison ship whose intimidating appearance causes Pip to steal food and drink from the Gargeries on his behalf. Although Magwitch had initially threatened Pip, a bond quickly forms between the hardened criminal and the boy, so when the convict is recaptured, he admits to stealing the food, but does not implicate his young accomplice. Shortly thereafter Pip receives an invitation from Mrs. Havisham, a wealthy recluse living in a crumbling mansion to play with her niece Estella. He finds her haughty and cruel but becomes attracted to her beauty as his visits continue. Some time later the Gargeries receive a visit from the condescending lawyer Mr. Javers, who offers Pip an education and allowance that will allow Pip to be free of the grinding poverty of rural England and give him access to the opportunity and sophistication that only London can offer, all at the expense of an anonymous benefactor. As Pip grows to be a young man, he naturally contemplates his sponsor's identity and wonders if it may be the wealthy Miss Havisham.
Rotten Tomatoes: Twelve years before David Lean's definitive filmization of Dickens' Great Expectations, Hollywood had a go at the novel, with mixed results. The story is the familiar one of young Pip (George Breakstone as a boy, Phillips Holmes as an adult) whose future wealth is assured through the auspices of a mysterious benefactor. It turns out that Pip's "guardian angel" is condemned convict Magwich (Henry Hull), repaying a favor the lad had done for him years earlier. The film is a faithful if rather rushed adaptation of the Dickens original, encompassing within its 100-minute running time such unforgettable characters as the vindictive recluse Miss Havisham, the arrogant Estella, the likeable blacksmith Joe Gargery and Joe's less likeable wife. Henry Hull is overly mannered as Magwich and Florence Reed is distressingly dull as Miss Havisham, but Jane Wyatt and Alan Hale are perfectly cast as Estella and Gargery, respectively. Francis L. Sullivan, playing lawyer Jaggers, repeated the role in the 1946 David Lean film. And if you pay close attention, you'll spot Walter Brennan as one of Magwich's fellow convicts. The 1934 Great Expectations is neat and precise, but nowhere near as inspired as the celebrated remake.
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