Tag: Frank McHugh

Footlight Parade (1933)

Footlight Parade (1933). 102 minutes. Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Starring James Cagney (as Chester Kent), Joan Blondell (as Nan Prescott), Ruby Keeler (as Bea Thorn), Dick Powell (as Scott Blair), Frank McHugh (as Francis), Ruth Donnelly (as Harriet Bowers Gould), Guy Kibbee (as Silas Gould), Hugh Herbert (as Charlie Bowers), Claire Dodd (as Vivian Rich), Renee Whitney (as Cynthia Kent), Paul Porcasi (as George Apolinaris), and Barbara Rogers (as Gracie). Musical numbers directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Music by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, and Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal.

It is hard to believe that the pre-Code Footlight Parade is James Cagney’s first musical film. The actor, who became a superstar because of the gangster film The Public Enemy (1931), had actually trained as a singer and dancer on Broadway before making the leap to movies. But Footlight Parade is not merely notable for being Cagney’s debut as a tap-dancing featured player. It is an outstanding work … Read the rest

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). 77 minutes. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Starring Lionel Atwill (as Ivan Igor), Fay Wray (as Charlotte Duncan), Glenda Farrell (as Florence Dempsey), Frank McHugh (as Jim), Allen Vincent (as Ralph Burton), Gavin Gordon (as George Winton), Arthur Edmund Carewe (as Professor Darcy), Edwin Maxwell (as Joe Worth), Matthew Betz (as Hugo), and Monica Bannister (as Joan Gale). Art direction by Anton Grot.

Mystery of the Wax Museum is a notable pre-Code horror film about a mad sculptor and his menagerie of ghoulish statues. While less well known today than its contemporaries Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932), nevertheless it was a commercial hit in its time and has since made a place for itself in history as one of the best of the two-strip Technicolor movies. This limited but spirited color scheme infuses the wax museum setting with beauty, vivacity, and even a certain amount of sex appeal. True, the kitsch and … Read the rest

Smarty (1934)

Smarty (1934). 65 minutes. Directed by Robert Florey. Starring Joan Blondell (as Vicki Wallace Thorpe), Warren William (as Tony Wallace), Edward Everett Horton (as Vernon Thorpe), Frank McHugh (as George Lancaster), Claire Dodd (as Nita), Joan Wheeler (as Mrs. Bonnie Durham), Virginia Sale (as Vicki’s maid), and Leonard Carey (as Tony’s butler).

We live in an era where filmmakers deliberately produce raunchy comedies that exceed the limits of good taste in an effort both to thrill their target audiences and to be thought of as cutting edge. But I find most modern comedies rather tepid when it comes to the task of truly offending me. For something that has more punch, I have to look back to the pre-Code era, the time before Hollywood’s internal censorship office began enforcing the moral guidelines known collectively as the Production Code. Smarty, a late pre-Code movie, is about as far away from being a politically correct comedy as you can get, … Read the rest