Passion Flower (1930).

Passion Flower (1930). Cast: Kay Francis, Kay Johnson, Charles Bickford, Winter Hall.

The story is about two cousins, Dulce who marries Morado, a wealthy Spanish aristocrat, and Cassy who falls in love with the family chauffeur, Dan Wallace. Cassy's father is having none of it and orders the couple to leave his home. They are soon married at Don Morado's estate. Dan refuses Morado's offer of a farm as a wedding gift, but.. after 5 years they are still struggling to make a living. So he finally, he accepts Morado's offer. Dan, knows that it is wrong, but, falls in love with Dulce and when Morado dies, the two of them go to Paris. Will Dan be able go through with the divorce, or will his memories of his family prevent him from going through with it?

Kay Francis, was wonderful in this film about human nature and the reason I decided to watch... Passion Flower. I would give this film 3 stars.

ZaSu Pitts(January 3, 1894– June 7, 1963). Was discovered by screenwriter Frances Marion. Pitts made her debut in the silent film, The Little Princess (1917), starring Mary Pickford. Pitts became a leading lady in the film, Greed (1924). Von Stroheim also featured her in his films, Sins of the Fathers (1928), The Wedding March (1928), War Nurse (1930) and Walking Down Broadway, which was re-edited by Alfred L. Werker and released as Hello, Sister! (1933).

Pitts became popular following a series of Universal one-reeler comedies and earned her first feature-length lead in, Better Times (1919). The following year she met and married actor Tom Gallery. The couple performed in several films, Bright Eyes (1921), Heart of Twenty (1920), Patsy (1921) and A Daughter of Luxury (1922).

In 1924, she was was given the greatest tragic role of her career in the epic classic, Greed (1924). Pitts, often starring in B movies and comedy shorts, teamed with Thelma Todd. She was best known in her performances as a fretful, flustered, worrisome spinster. She starred in a number of Hal Roach shorts and features, and co-starred in a series of feature-length comedies with Slim Summerville.

Some of her other performances include: The Dummy (1929), Finn and Hattie (1931), The Guardsman (1931), Blondie of the Follies (1932), Sing and Like It (1934) and Ruggles of Red Gap (1935).

She performed on the Fibber McGee and Molly show, playing a dizzy dame constantly looking for a husband.

Post-war films continued to give Pitts the chance to play comic snoops and flighty relatives in movies like, Life with Father (1947).

She played second banana to Gale Storm on, The Gale Storm Show (1956), as Elvira Nugent ("Nugie"), the shipboard beautician. Her last role was as a switchboard operator in the Stanley Kramer comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

In Name Only(1939).

In Name Only(1939). Cast: Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Kay Francis. Based on the 1935 novel Memory of Love by Bessie Breuer.

Alec Walker, finds himself trapped in a loveless marriage, to a woman who married him only for his money. When he meets Julie, a widow and her daughter Ellen, he quickly falls in love.



His wife Maida, has Alec's parents convinced that she is the perfect wife, so when, Alec asks for a divorce, Maida, says that she will sail to Paris to stay with his parents, hoping to prolong the divorce.

Alec, follows Julie to New York, where he proposes to her, Julie accepts. After, returning home on Christmas Eve, Maida promises Julie, that she will never give Alec a divorce, and if he files for one, she will sue Julie for alienation of affections and have her daughter testify in court against her.

After which, Alec and Julie decide to go their own way. It is not long before Alec, becomes very ill with pneumonia. When the doctor says that his only the hope is to be with with Julie, she comes up with the lie that Maida has agreed to a divorce. Maida tells Julie, that she wants all of the Walker family's money and Alec's parents happen to overhear her. Now what will happen to Maida, after she is exposed for the Gold digger she is?



This is the perfect movie to celebrate Carole Lombard day on TCM. The performances are wonderful and Lombard, is absolutely gorgeous. I think another good reason to see this film, is to see Kay Francis performance as Maida, Cary Grant's vindictive wife, which is great fun to watch. Lombard's fans won't be disappointed either.

Peggy Ann Garner (February 3, 1932 – October 16, 1984). Performed in the films: Jane Eyre(1943) The Keys of the Kingdom(1944). She reached the height of her success at the age of 13 in the film, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945). Winning an Academy Juvenile Award for this performance. Like many child performers, Garner was unable to make a successful transition into adult film roles.

King of the Underworld (1939).

King of the Underworld (1939). Directed by Lewis Seiler. With Humphrey Bogart, Kay Francis, James Stephenson, John Eldredge.

Dr. Niles Nelson, is lured into becoming doctor to crime boss Joe Gurney and his gang. When Niles is killed by the police, while taking care of one of Gurney's men, his wife, Dr. Carol Nelson, falls under suspicion of also being part of the gang. Carol, wants to prove her innocence, and moves her practice to a small town, in which two of Gurney's gangsters, are being held the towns prison. Things become complicated, when Gurney, breaks into the jail and frees his men. Wounded in the jailbreak, Gurney forces Carol to treat his arm. Also, wounded in the jailbreak, is down on his luck writer Bill Stevens, who had accepted a ride from the gangster. Carol and Bill, become fast friends, who is later taken prisoner by Gurney, so that he can write the gangster's autobiography. Knowing, that the federal agents, are coming to arrest her, because of her involvement with Gurney. Will Carol come up with a plan to capture the gangsters and prove her innocence in time?

I really only recommend this film to fans of gangster films, or Bogart. Bogart, plays a gang leader who thinks of himself as the next Napoleon, which seems a little odd at times.

Pre-Code: Man Wanted(1932).

Man Wanted (1932). Romance. Here is another wonderful pre-Code comedy. The casting, acting are all very entertaining. The humor is very sophisticated. Kay Francis, is perfect playing the role of a worldly woman with a open marriage. The way she deals with her husband's many adulteries makes her character very human.

David Manners, gives a wonderful performance as her new office employee. He left Hollywood for a private life in 1936, never to return to movies.

Giving support in this film are: Una Merkel as Manners, fiancee and Andy Devine as his, good natured roommate.

Elizabeth Patterson, makes the most of her small role as Miss Francis' eccentric, secretary and Edward Van Sloan (DRACULA's Van Helsing) has only a few scenes as a store manager.

Kay Francis (January 13, 1905 – August 26, 1968). After a brief period on the Broadway stage, Walter Huston, was so impressed by Francis that he asked her to take a screen test for the Paramount Pictures film, Gentlemen of the Press (1929). Francis made this film and the Marx Brothers film, The Cocoanuts (1929).

Francis, went on to sign a Paramount contract and moved to Hollywood. She frequently costarred with William Powell, and performed in as many as six to eight movies a year, making a total of 21 films between 1929 and 1931.

Because of her beauty and deep voice, she was perfectly suited to early sound movies which made Francis one of the top film stars of the early 1930s. Her success came in spite of a minor, but distinct speech impediment (she pronounced the letters "r" and "l" as "w") that gave rise to the nickname "Wavishing Kay Fwancis."

Francis' career at Paramount changed when she performed in the films: Girls About Town (1931) and the film, Twenty-Four Hours (1931). After Kay’s career skyrocketed at Warners, she would return to Paramount for the film, Trouble in Paradise (1932).

In 1932, Francis was given roles that allowed her a more sympathetic screen persona, in her first three featured roles she had played a villainess. Like in the film, The False Madonna (1932), she played a jaded society woman taking care of a terminally ill child who learns to appreciate the simpler things in life.

From 1932 through 1936, Francis was the queen of the Warners and her films were developed as star vehicles. By the mid-thirties, Francis was one of the highest-paid actors.

She frequently played long-suffering heroines like in films, I Found Stella Parrish, Secrets of an Actress, and Comet over Broadway, wearing beautiful wardrobes that, sometimes, were more memorable than the characters she played. Francis' clotheshorse reputation led Warners to concentrate more on lavish sets and costumes, designed to appeal to Depression-era female audiences.

After her release from Warners, Francis was unable to secure another studio contract. Carole Lombard, one of the most popular stars of the late 30s and early 1940s (and who had previously been a supporting player in Francis' 1931 film, Ladies' Man) tried to help Francis' career by insisting Francis be cast in the film, In Name Only (1939). In this film, Francis had a supporting role to Lombard and Cary Grant, she recognized that the film offered her a wonderful opportunity.

After this, she moved to character and supporting parts, playing catty professional women in the film, The Feminine Touch. Francis, did have a lead role in the Bogart gangster film, King of the Underworld(1939).

She signed a three-film contract with Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures that gave her production credit as well as star billing in the films: Divorce, Wife Wanted, and Allotment Wives which had limited releases in 1945 and 1946. While more lavish than some Monogram productions, they were pale copies of her earlier work.

Declining health, along with an accident in 1948 in which she was badly burned by a radiator, hastened her retirement from show business.