The Palm Beach story 1942 - A delirious screwball romance

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IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: Preston Sturges
Main Cast: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee

"The Palm Beach Story is yet another satirical gem from director Preston Sturges, who gives the story a cynical edge sharper than in other screwball comedies. In 1942, even as the Great Depression was giving way to the war-time economy of World War II, poking fun at the idle rich continued to be a popular comic motif. The film's title is less meaningful to current audiences than it was to moviegoers of the 1940s, when train travel was the most frequent way that people got between cities, and the wealthy of the eastern seaboard rode trains each winter to the warm shores of Palm Beach, Florida. The performances in The Palm Beach Story are uniformly strong, with such non-comic actors as Joel McCrea and Mary Astor showing the diversity of their talents. Claudette Colbert gives one of the best performances of her career, though it is often overshadowed by her work in It Happened One Night." - www.allmovie.com

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The Maltese falcon 1941 - The first film noir

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IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: John Huston
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Sydney Greenstreet

"Adapting Dashiell Hammett's novel - and staying as close to the original story as the Production Code allowed - first-time director John Huston turned The Maltese Falcon into a movie often considered the first film noir. In his star-making performance as Sam Spade, Humphrey Bogart (taking over from George Raft) embodied the coolly ruthless private eye who recognizes the dark side of humanity, in all its greedy perversity, and who feels its temptations, especially when they are embodied by a woman. While Huston's mostly straightforward visual approach renders The Maltese Falcon an instance of early noir more in its hardboiled attitude than in the chiaroscuro style common to other films noirs, the collection of venal characters, colorfully played by Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Elisha Cook, Jr.; Mary Astor's femme fatale; and Bogart's morally relativistic Spade pointed the way to the mid-1940s flowering of noir in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), Otto Preminger's Laura (1944), and Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep (1946). A critical as well as popular success, The Maltese Falcon was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay, establishing Huston as a formidable dual talent and Bogart as the archetypal detective antihero who can be as unscrupulous as the next guy but also adheres to his own personal code of honor." - www.allmovie.com

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Holiday 1930 - The first film version of the classic Philip Barry comedy

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IMDB rating: 7,0

Director: Edward H. Griffith
Main Cast: Ann Harding, Mary Astor, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Ames, Hedda Hopper

"Ann Harding and Robert Ames starred in the first screen adaptation of Philip Barry's play -- remade eight years later in a much more famous version with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, directed by George Cukor. This version is a little closer to the source, in terms of the nature of some of the characters, and has a charm all of its own, especially in the Oscar-nominated performance by Harding, an actress who deserves to be better remembered than she is. The supporting characters, especially Edward Everett Horton (who was also in the remake) as Nick Potter, are a little less 'housebroken' than they were in the 1938 version, and the result is some edges and sparks that didn't show up in the Cukor version, for all of its virtues. On the down side, the movie was done in 1930, early in the sound era, and at times displays the somewhat static visual nature of most talkies from that period." - www.allmovie.com

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The little giant 1933 - Full of laughs and wonderful moments

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IMDB rating: 7,1

Director: Roy Del Ruth
Main Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, Helen Vinson, Russell Hopton

"Retiring bootlegger Edward G. Robinson wishes to go straight and has recently become, as he puts it, 'positively crawling with culture'. 'Ever seen anything like that before?' He inquires of former henchman Russell Hopton, proudly displaying a newly obtained abstract. 'Not since I've been off cocaine', comes the deadpan answer. Ah, yes, nothing beats pre-production code Warner Bros. for tough talk or, for that matter, for spoofing its own blockbusters. And a spoof Little Giant certainly is, what with Robinson turning his Little Caesar character upside-down and inside out. That the comedy is still funny today is not only due to Robinson's virile performance but also to writers Robert Lord and Wilson Mizner, who took a topical event, the repeal of the 18th amendment, and created one of the era's livelier parodies." - 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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Behind office doors 1931 - An outstanding Astor performance

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021649/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,3

Director: Melville W. Brown
Main Cast: Mary Astor, Robert Ames, Ricardo Cortez, Catherine Dale Owen

"Mary Astor plays a receptionsit at a paper mill company. She has her eye on Robert Ames, a young salesman with the company. When the boss is forced to retire, Mary Astor pushes for Robert Ames to take the job, and when he does, Mary is promoted to being his secretary. She is secretly in love with him, only he never seems to notice. As he rises in the company Mary Astor is constantly by his side, giving good business advice as well as advice in his personal life. When Ames marries someone else, Astor is so upset he quits, and the company begins to fall apart.
The film features some adulterous situations, 'free love', a man smacking a woman on the rear (plus she isn't his wife), sexy lingerie, a smart and conniving career girl who smokes and drinks and likes men (Mary Astor), references to hashish, wild parties and lots of sexually-charged banter! However, and this is very odd, but midway through the film the pre-code trashy elements mostly disappear."

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The hurricane 1937 - Classic South Sea adventure with terrific special effects

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029030/?ref_=nv_sr_2
IMDB rating: 7,3

Directors: John Ford, Stuart Heisler
Main Cast: Dorothy Lamour, John Hall, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey

"Though dated and in places a bit silly, The Hurricane still gets high marks and comes out on top. Truth to tell, Hurricane would rate highly if for no other reason than because its climactic title sequence is one of the most stunning put on film. While listed as a John Ford film, this sequence was actually directed by Stuart Heisler (with the undeniable and invaluable help of special effects wizards James Basevi and R.O. Binger). Make no mistake about it: this sequence is a real humdinger. Even many decades later, it packs a real, thrilling punch. Now, things are not always so enthralling leading up to the hurricane; this is a film with definite ups and downs, and the melodramatic story is not always as engaging as you might wish. Too, the male lad, Jon Hall, though physically impressive, doesn't really convince as an island native. But the rest of the cast is solid, filled with notable players such as Thomas Mitchell, C. Aubrey Smith, Mary Astor, Raymond Massey and the eternally-saronged Dorothy Lamour. They keep your interest when the story sags here and there." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-hurricane-v23941/

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The Kennel murder case 1933 - The model of the whodunit genre

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024210/
IMDB rating: 6,9

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: William Powell, Mary Astor, Eugene Pallette, Ralph Morgan

"Often (and accurately) described as a model of the whodunit genre, The Kennel Murder Case stars William Powell, making his fourth screen appearance as S. S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance.
Directed with crispness and efficiency by the reliable Michael Curtiz, the film is a good example of the high production standards of Warner Bros. in its post-silent era. The script is a solid whodunit packed with interesting characters, well-performed and impeccably cast. Much of the verbosity of S. S. Van Dine's novel is missing from Kennel Murder Case, making for a briskly told story." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-kennel-murder-case-v27085

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