Tag: Victor Moore

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

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"Make Way for Tomorrow" (1937) featured image

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937). 92 minutes. Directed by Leo McCarey. Starring Victor Moore (as Barkley “Pa” Cooper), Beulah Bondi (as Lucy “Ma” Cooper), Thomas Mitchell (as George Cooper), Fay Bainter (as Anita Cooper), Barbara Read (as Rhoda Cooper), Maurice Moscovitch (as Max Rubens), Elisabeth Risdon (as Cora Payne), Minna Gombell (as Nellie Chase), Porter Hall (as Harvey Chase), Ray Meyer (as Robert Cooper), Ralph Remley (as Bill Payne), Louise Beavers (as Mamie), Paul Stanton (as Mr. Horton), and Dell Henderson (as Ed Weldon).

You may have already heard about the Depression-era film Make Way for Tomorrow, even if you have never seen it. Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris called it “the most depressing movie ever made,” and Orson Welles told Peter Bogdanovich that “it would make a stone cry.” It has not achieved the commercial success or popular recognition of other critically acclaimed films of its time but is today considered to be an overlooked classic, an unflinching look … Read the rest

Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)

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Gold Diggers of 1937

Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936). 101 minutes. Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Starring Dick Powell (as Rosmer Peck), Joan Blondell (as Norma Perry), Glenda Farrell (as Genevieve Larkin), Victor Moore (as J. J. Hobart), Lee Dixon (as Boop Oglethorpe), Osgood Perkins (as Morty Wethered), and Charles D. Brown (as Tom Hugo). Musical sequences directed by Busby Berkeley. Music and lyrics by Harry Warren, Al Dubin, Harold Arlen, and E. Y. Harburg.

Generally speaking, it is hard not to like a Gold Diggers movie. Even though this is the fifth iteration of the franchise, stars Dick Powell and Joan Blondell remain cute and perky throughout, and the music, in particular the songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, is first rate. Much like the other Gold Diggers movies, Gold Diggers of 1937 (released in 1936) makes a special appeal to Depression-weary cinema-goers by explicitly referring to the economic circumstances of the times and to the individual characters’ financial predicaments; but its … Read the rest