Morning glory 1933 - Hepburn's wonderful Oscar-winning performance

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IMDB rating: 6,6

Director: Lowell Sherman
Main Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Adolphe Menjou, Mary Duncan, C. Aubrey Smith

"Katharine Hepburn won her first Oscar for her portrayal of Eva Lovelace, a small-town community-theatre actress who comes to New York dreaming of theatrical stardom. She amuses producer Adolphe Menjou and playwright Douglas Fairbanks Jr. with her naively pretentious prattle, but neither man takes her too seriously. Both, however are attracted to Eva: Menjou has a brief affair with her, but she yearns for the more reserved Fairbanks. Partly out of sympathy, Fairbanks arranges for Eva to understudy the troublesome star (Mary Duncan) of Menjou's latest production. When the star walks out on opening night, Eva goes on in her stead, and is universally hailed as a brilliant new find. Backstage after her triumph, Eva is warned not to let her sudden success go to her head lest she become a 'morning glory': a briefly spectacular 'bloomer' that withers and dies within a very short time. Proof of this warning is Eva's maid, a middle-aged woman who had also been an instant star years earlier. But Eva is too intoxicated by the thrill of realizing her life's dream; embracing her weeping maid, Eva declares to the world that she doesn't care if she is a morning glory. The film fades as Eva shouts defiantly 'I'm not afraid! I'm not afraid!' Adapted from a stage play by Zoe Akins, Morning Glory was remade in 1957 as Stage Struck, with Susan Strasberg as Eva Lovelace." - www.allmovie.com

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Flying down to Rio 1933 - Historically important for its star making pairing of Astaire & Rogers

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IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Thornton Freeland
Main Cast: Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire

"The top-billed stars in the extravagant RKO musical Flying Down to Rio are Dolores Del Rio and Gene Raymond. Forget all that: this is the movie that first teamed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. We're supposed to care about the romantic triangle between aviator/bandleader Raymond, Brazilian heiress Del Rio and her wealthy fiance Raul Roulien, but the moment Fred and Ginger dance to a minute's worth of 'The Carioca', the film is theirs forever. Other musical highlights include Rogers' opening piece 'Music Makes Me' and tenor Roulien's lush rendition of 'Orchids in the Moonlight'. Then there's the title number. The plot has it that Del Rio' uncle has been prohibited from having a floor show at his lavish hotel because of a Rio city ordinance. Astaire and Raymond save the day by staging the climactic 'Flying Down to Rio' number thousands of feet in the air, with hundreds of chorus girls shimmying and swaying while strapped to the wings of a fleet of airplanes. It is one of the most outrageously brilliant numbers in movie musical history, and one that never fails to incite a big round of applause from the audience - no matter what the date is. Together with King Kong, Flying Down to Rio saved the fledgling RKO Radio studios from bankruptcy in 1933. The film was a smash everywhere it played, encouraging the studio to concoct future teamings of those two stalwart supporting players Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers." - www.allmovie.com

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Tiger shark 1932 - The root of all the remakes

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IMDB rating: 6,5

Director: Howard Hawks
Main Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Richard Arlen, Zita Johann, Leila Bennett, J. Carrol Naish

"Legend has it that director Howard Hawks filmed Tiger Shark for Warner Brothers while on a fishing trip in Hawaii. Despite the off-handed nature of the production, the film - based on the play, They Knew What They Wanted - still manages to touch upon many of Hawks' signature themes. There's a morally complex love triangle, an examination of trust and loyalty, and the impending doom of an outside instrument of death (the sharks). Tiger Shark's driving story line is delivered in a typically Hawksian, no-nonsense style; the fishing scenes are highly charged and very realistic, significant for a film made in the 1930s. Two years after his breakthrough role in Little Caesar (1930), Edward G. Robinson proves his versatility as the Portuguese tuna boat skipper with a bitter, resentful side. Warner Bros. would unofficially remake Tiger Shark several times over the next ten years; while the professions of the two leading male characters would change, the basic 'triangle' plot remained the same." - www.allmovie.com

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Red dust 1932 - Gable & Harlow get torrid in the Tropics

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IMDB rating: 7,4

Director: Victor Fleming
Main Cast: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond, Mary Astor, Donald Crisp, Tully Marshall

"Red Dust was lensed almost entirely on MGM's back lot; even so, we are utterly convinced that the film takes place in Indochina. Even more importantly, the audience never doubts for one moment that the relationship between 'hero' Clark Gable and 'heroine' Jean Harlow has gone far beyond the meaningful-glances stage.
Gable plays the overseer of a rubber plantation, whiling away the hot, lonely nights with his drunken assistant Tully Marshall. Donald Crisp, another of Gable's cohorts, arrives by boat with stranded prostitute Jean Harlow in tow. Gable wants no part of Harlow at first, telling her that she's history the moment the next boat to Saigon shows up. But Gable and Harlow are, in the parlance of the time, made for each other. After the inevitable affair, Harlow leaves, just as engineer Gene Raymond shows up to participate in the construction of a bridge. Raymond has brought along his seemingly proper wife Mary Astor; it isn't long, however, before Astor is throwing herself at the not altogether unwilling Gable. Raymond is such a good egg that Gable feels ashamed of himself for enjoying Astor's favors. When Harlow returns, Gable goes back to her, which drives the already unstable Astor completely off her trolley. She shoots Gable in a fit of jealous rage. Hearing the shot, Raymond rushes in. Proving that she's 'aces', Harlow quickly covers up for Astor, insisting that it was she who shot Gable. None the wiser, Raymond returns to the mainland with Astor, while Gable and Harlow end up in each other's arms for keeps.
Fairly 'hot' even by pre-code standards, Red Dust has gained legendary status thanks to rumors concerning Jean Harlow's famous bathing scene in a shaved barrel; according to rumor, footage still exists of Harlow totally au naturel (some stories go as far as to claim that the overseas version of Red Dust shows Gable and Harlow 'doing it'.) A heavily laundered remake of Red Dust, Mogambo, appeared in 1954, again with Clark Gable in the lead, but this time with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly in the Harlow and Astor roles, respectively." - www.allmovie.com

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