THE PONY EXPRESS – Betty Compson, Ricardo Cortez
The Pony Express (1925)
Direction: James Cruze
Screenplay: Walter Woods; from Woods and Henry James Forman’s story
Cast: Betty Compson, Ricardo Cortez, George Bancroft, Ernest Torrence, Wallace Beery, Al Hart
The Pony Express is a rousing James Cruze Western depicting the founding of the Pony Express with a backdrop of political ambitions concerning a senator’s plans to get California to secede from the United States so he can build his own empire.
A great cast and Cruze’s direction keep this one interesting — even though Ricardo Cortez in a period film seems woefully out of place and pretty Betty Compson’s role is more or less that of an ingenue, merely requiring her to look good while reacting to the things going [...]
by Andre Soares | November 2, 2009
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Tags: Betty Compson, Cinesation 2009, Classic Movies, Ernest Torrence, Film Reviews, George Bancroft, James Cruze, Ricardo Cortez, Silent Films, The Pony Express, Wallace Beery
Best Films – 1934
Norma Shearer in The Barretts of Wimpole Street
FILM
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
d: Sidney Franklin; scr: Ernest Vajda, Claudine West, Donald Ogden Stewart
The Count of Monte Cristo
d: Rowland V. Lee; scr: Philip Dunne, Dan Totheroh, Rowland V. Lee
The Gay Divorcee
d: Mark Sandrich; scr: George Marion Jr., Dorothy Yost, Edward Kaufman
Hide-out
d: W. S. Van Dyke; scr: Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich
The Merry Widow
d: Ernst Lubitsch; scr: Samson Raphaelson, Ernest Vajda
Fredric March, Evelyn Venable in Death Takes a Holiday
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Broadway Bill
d: Frank Capra; scr: Robert Riskin
Death Takes a Holiday
d: Mitchell Leisen; scr: Maxwell Anderson, Gladys Lehman
Gold
d: Karl Hartl; scr: Rolf E. Vanloo
Here Comes the Navy
d: Lloyd Bacon; scr: Earl Baldwin, Ben Markson
Maskerade / Masquerade in Vienna
d: Willi Forst; scr: [...]
by Andre Soares | April 3, 2009
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Tags: Albert Hackett, Alice White, Anna May Wong, Anton Walbrook, Best Films, Broadway Bill, Buster Crabbe, Charles Laughton, Classic Movies, Claudette Colbert, Constance Bennett, Easy to Love, Ernest Vajda, Ernst Lubitsch, Etienne Girardot, Fay Wray, Four Frightened People, Frances Goodrich, Frank Capra, Franz Planer, Genevieve Tobin, Ginger Rogers, Gold, Heinz Ruhman, Helen Lowell, Here Comes the Navy, Hide-out, Imitation of Life, James Cagney, Jean Arthur, Jeanette MacDonald, Karl Hartl, Lloyd Bacon, Louise Beavers, Marian Nixon, Mark Sandrich, Mary Astor, Mary Boland, Norma Shearer, Peter Lorre, Philip Dunne, Ramon Novarro, Ray June, Robert Montgomery, Rowland V. Lee, Samson Raphaelson, Sidney Franklin, The Affairs of Cellini, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Gay Divorcee, The Merry Widow, The Most Precious Thing in Life, Viva Villa!, W. S. Van Dyke, Wallace Beery, We're Rich Again
Marie Dressler III: Wallace Beery, Polly Moran Comedies
Wallace Beery, Marie Dressler in Min and Bill
Marie Dressler II: Silent Films, Movie Stardom
How did Marie Dressler react to her newfound stardom?
Marie basked in her success. She had been through enough trials in life — points when she couldn’t get a job — and so she was more than ready for fame and adoration. I think audiences loved that they could give that to her, too. It made them feel good to shower her with love, because she took it so gratefully and graciously. She was the loving grandmother that her fans wanted to protect and comfort, while she comforted, amused, and moved them in return.
Her stardom also points to something missing from modern movies. In the 1930s and into [...]
by Andre Soares | February 23, 2008
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Tags: Classic Movies, Interviews, Louis B. Mayer, Marie Dressler, Matthew Kennedy, Min and Bill, Polly Moran, Wallace Beery
