Discover Top Posts Tagged with #doris lloyd

Beatrice Lillie and Doris Lloyd in Exit Smiling (1926)

Tarzan, der Affenmensch < Alternativtitel: Tarzan, der Herrscher des Urwalds / Tarzan, der Mann aus dem Urwald > (Tarzan the Ape Man)

Abenteuerfilm ; USA ; 1932 ; SW ; Regie: W. S. Van Dyke ; Drehbuch: Cyril Hume, Ivor Novello ; Produktion: Bernard H. Hyman, Irving Thalberg für MGM ; Musik: George Richelavie ; Kamera: Clyde De Vinna, Harold Rosson ; Schnitt: Tom Held, Ben Lewis ; Darsteller: Johnny Weissmüller, Maureen O’Sullivan, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith, Doris Lloyd, Forrester Harvey, Ivory Williams

#W. S. Van Dyke #Irving Thalberg #Edgar Rice Burroughs #Johnny Weissmüller #Maureen O’Sullivan #Neil Hamilton #C. Aubrey Smith #Doris Lloyd #Forrester Harvey #Abenteuerfilm #Pulp

Looking Forward (1933) Clarence Brown

February 2nd 2026

#looking forward #1933 #clarence brown #lewis stone #lionel barrymore #elizabeth allan #benita hume #colin clive #Halliwell Hobbes #Lawrence Grant #Doris Lloyd #Viva Tattersall #Douglas Walton #phillips holmes #service yesterday's rich #pre-code

Kind Lady

There’s great satisfaction in watching the chickens come home to roost. That’s why the well-made play has remained popular for going on two centuries. Throw in a good cast, and you’ve got a winning combination. John Sturges’ KIND LADY (1951, TCM), the second film version of Edward Chodorov’s popular melodrama suffered a bit from being compressed to under 90 minutes, but it has strong leads. The piece had previously done well by Grace George (twice, in fact), Aline McMahon on screen and Fay Bainter on television. Here it shows off Ethel Barrymore in all her regal beauty. The early, lighter scenes, even give you a hint of the grace and charm that made her a star on stage.

Barrymore is a wealthy older woman whose kindness to a down-on-his-luck painter (Maurice Evans) leads to his moving in with a sick “wife” (Betsy Blair) and two married friends (Keenan Wynn and Angela Lansbury). They take over the household, hold Barrymore and her maid (Doris Lloyd) prisoner in their rooms and start selling off the estate’s priceless antiques and paintings.

If you only know Sturges from his later war films and westerns, you may be surprised to realize he was also an expert at suspense and film noir. Sturges increases tension with careful camera placement and increasing use of shadows. Cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg even make the physically slight Evans look threatening. There’s also a good score by David Raksin, who amps up the suspense while playing on the film’s setting around Christmas time. With the script truncated to fit a 78-minute running time, however, there are things not followed through, like Evans’ efforts to get Barrymore to sign power of attorney to him. And toward the end, the film briefly moves out of the house, which cuts the tension. We don’t want to see those characters. We want to see the victims and the schemers. When it comes back to the house, however, it delivers a very satisfying finale.

Barrymore pulls this off beautifully, particularly considering she was ill during production and had to work shorter days. She’s warm and regal in the early scenes and falls apart perfectly under Evans’ threats. As an actress, she’s always thinking, always alive. Something as simple as hiding a portrait with incriminating evidence becomes a great acting lesson. She’s particularly matched by Evans and Lansbury, the former appropriately diabolical and the latter carrying off her character’s realization that this isn’t the simple con job she’d been told to expect. Wynn tries hard, but his accent is wobbly and, not his fault, he never matches the frequent descriptions of him as “hulking.” Poor Blair, who would come alive in later roles and was blacklisted shortly after the film’s release, seems rather out of her depth. The character is supposed to be quiet and withdrawn, but at times she seems almost comatose. There’s no real character growth, either. Her building of a relationship with Barrymore is a key plot point, but she doesn’t really seem to have gotten the note. It’s left to Barrymore to act as though they were getting closer. Watch for brief appearances by Lansbury’s mother, Moyna McGill, and John Williams as a banker.

#melodrama #thriller #john sturges #ethel barrymore #maurice evans #angela lansbury #keenan wynn #betsy blair #doris lloyd #john williams #moyna mcgill

Night Monster (1942)

"Why don't you have Millie do that, Miss Judd? That's a maid's work, not a housekeeper's. You needn't answer because I know the reason: that spot under your hand is blood and you didn't want anyone to know."

"Blood? Ridiculous."

"Yes, it is ridiculous. It couldn't be blood, but it is. I've seen those spots before and I've seen you trying to scrub them out because you knew what they were. Blood, the whole house reeks of it. The air is charged with death and hatred and something that's unclean!"

#night monster #1942 #horror film #american cinema #ford beebe #clarence upson young #bela lugosi #lionel atwill #leif erickson #irene hervey #ralph morgan #don porter #nils asther #fay helm #frank reicher #doris lloyd #francis pierlot #robert homans #janet shaw #eddy waller #cyril delevanti #thoroughly enjoyable haunted house whatnot that's obviously trying to do too much but still comes out the other side a Good Time #we've got mishaps and mayhem and murders and mesmerism (not to mention medical malpractice) and all squeezed into a little over 70 minutes #(sigh those were the days). Lugosi and Atwill take top billing despite only really having supporting roles (Atwill in particular could be #better described as a cameo) but both are clearly having fun in their roles and nobody is taking this too seriously (how could they?)#gets a little messy in the back half and ends with some crucial weirdness just kind of handwaved away without proper explanation #but I'll forgive it because it's just so concerned with being a silly fun time that of course its brains fall out of the plot. one element #of the plot (a sex pest chauffeur who relentlessly pursues every woman in the film in a sinister fashion) could probably have been trimmed #back but this is still a hugely charming and (to me) entirely irresistible bit of old spooky hokum

'Well, there's one thing I'll say for you, George. You always could tell a good story. Best adventure yarn I've heard for years. You're a truly fine inventor, George!' - bridewell