


The hotshot newspaper reporter Wallace Cook (Fredric March) tries to get in the good graces of his boss, Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly) by exploiting the "imminent" death of an ailing young woman, Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard). By way of newsprint the doomed young lady becomes the toast of New York City until her health situation is revealed as a hoax. IMHO one of the best comedies that went into Public Domain. The funny story telling by William A. Wellman and the great cast makes this one an highly enjoyable A Class Movie.



Gaby (Hedy Lamarr) arrives in Algiers engaged to a fat, vulgar borderline-loathsome older man who clearly regards her as a trophy bought and paid for. Why she needed this creep isn't clear. What is clear is her falling in love with the jewel thief Pepe Le Moko (Charles Boyer) who abandons the devoted and clinging Ines (Sigrid Gurie) for this right-off-the-boat hothouse beauty. A Parisian police official (Walter Kingsford) is in Algiers determined to collar Pepe.

Directed by Leo McCarey, this 1939 romantic classic is the first and best version of the old warhorse of a fateful shipboard romance between an aimless playboy and a nightclub singer, both engaged but appearing to be destined to reunite on the top floor of the Empire State Building. The elaborate, shot-for-shot 1957 remake again directed by McCarey with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr is much better known, and Warren Beatty even saw fit to remake it yet again with his wife Annette Bening for a 1994 update featuring an 87-year old Katharine Hepburn in her last film role.

The 1934 film was the first film to bring real critical success to its star Bette Davis, her over-the-top, theatrical performance was passed over for a Best Actress Oscar nomination, although she was an unofficial write-in candidate. The RKO film, directed by John Cromwell, tells the story of a club-footed, sensitive artist Philip Carey (Leslie Howard), an Englishman who has been studying painting in Paris for four years, but is advised by his art teacher that his work is mediocre and second-rate, and that he lacks promise.


Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of alcoholic star Norman Maine (Fredric March), is given a test, and is caught up in the Hollywood glamor machine. She and her idol Norman marry; but his career abruptly dwindles to nothing This was also Lana Turner's film debut as an extra.


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