Before Morning | |
---|---|
![]() Film's lobby card | |
Directed by | Arthur Hoerl |
Written by | Arthur Hoerl (adaptation) |
Based on | Before Morning by Edward and Edna Riley |
Produced by | Robert Mintz |
Starring | Leo Carrillo Lora Baxter Taylor Holmes |
Cinematography | Frank Zucker Walter Strenge |
Edited by | Joseph Silverstein |
Production companies | Stage and Screen Productions, Inc. |
Distributed by | State Rights |
Release date |
|
Running time | 56 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Before Morning is a 1933 American pre-Code crime drama directed by Arthur Hoerl, and starring Leo Carrillo, Lora Baxter, and Taylor Holmes. The film was adapted for the screen by Arthur Hoerl, from the 1933 Broadway play of the same name by Edward and Edna Riley. [1]
Actress Elsie Manning is engaged to Horace Baker, but has also been in a romantic relationship with James Nichols who has named her as the beneficiary in his will. Not knowing about her engagement, Nichols asks his wife for a divorce and is refused. Nichols dies in Manning's apartment after she tells him she's engaged to Baker. When Baker arrives on the scene, he agrees to help her dispose of the body by having Nichols moved to a sanitarium. The owner, Dr. Gruelle, tells them Nichols was murdered by poison and attempts to extort money from Manning for his statement that the death was of natural causes. Gruelle tries the same scam on the widow of Nichols, who eventually agrees when the poison is found in her purse. It is revealed that Gruelle is in reality Police Inspector Maitland, intent on solving the murder. [2]
The Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman, considered a classic of 20th century drama. Its title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15, of the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." Set in a small town in Alabama in 1900, it focuses on the struggle for control of a family business. Tallulah Bankhead starred in the original production as Regina Hubbard Giddens.
Warner Leroy Baxter was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter is known for his role as the Cisco Kid in the 1928 film In Old Arizona, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards. He frequently played womanizing, charismatic Latin bandit types in Westerns, and played the Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s, but had a range of other roles throughout his career.
Mary of Scotland is a 1936 American historical drama film starring Katharine Hepburn as the 16th-century ruler Mary, Queen of Scots. Directed by John Ford, it is an adaptation of the 1933 Maxwell Anderson play, with Fredric March reprising the role of Bothwell, which he also performed on stage during the run of play. The screenplay was written by Dudley Nichols. Ginger Rogers wanted to play this role and made a screen test, but RKO rejected her request to be cast in the part feeling that the role was not suitable to her image.
Edna May Oliver was an American stage and film actress. During the 1930s, she was one of the better-known character actresses in American films, often playing tart-tongued spinsters.
Lee Patrick was an American actress whose career began in 1922 on the New York stage with her role in The Bunch and Judy which headlined Adele Astaire and featured Adele's brother Fred Astaire.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1939 American gothic mystery film based on the 1902 Sherlock Holmes novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Directed by Sidney Lanfield, the film stars Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. John Watson. Released by 20th Century Fox, it is the first of fourteen Sherlock Holmes films produced between 1939 and 1946 starring Rathbone and Bruce.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a 1939 American mystery adventure film based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Although claiming to be an adaptation of the 1899 play Sherlock Holmes by William Gillette, the film bears little resemblance to the play.
20 Mule Team is a 1940 American western film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Marjorie Rambeau, Anne Baxter and Wallace Beery, who appears with his nephew Noah Beery Jr. The film was originally released in sepia-tone, a brown-and-white process used by the studio the previous year for the Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz.
Penthouse is a 1933 American Pre-Code crime film starring Warner Baxter as a lawyer and Myrna Loy as a call girl who helps him with a murder case. The film features Charles Butterworth as the butler, Mae Clarke as the murder victim, Phillips Holmes as the suspected murderer, and C. Henry Gordon as the gangster who arranged the murder. It was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, based on a novel by Arthur Somers Roche. The film was later remade as the more sanitized Society Lawyer (1939), without the risqué pre-Code dialogue.
Murder on a Honeymoon is a 1935 American mystery film starring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason. This was the third and last time Oliver portrayed astute schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers; the two previous films were The Penguin Pool Murder (1932) and Murder on the Blackboard (1934). The film was directed by Lloyd Corrigan from a screenplay by Seton I. Miller and Robert Benchley based on the 1933 novel The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree by Stuart Palmer. Palmer's novel, however, did not include Inspector Piper, and has Withers doing the investigating on her own.
Arthur Hoerl was an American screenwriter and film director. Hoerl was born in New York, son of Louis Hoerl, a German immigrant silver polisher, and Teresa Hoerl. Arthur completed three years of high school, according to the 1940 US Census.
A Study in Scarlet is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery thriller film directed by Edwin L. Marin and starring Reginald Owen as Sherlock Holmes and Anna May Wong as Mrs. Pyke. The title is taken from Arthur Conan Doyle's 1887 novel of the same name, the first in the Holmes series, but the screenplay by Robert Florey was original.
Lady Rose's Daughter is a 1920 American silent drama film starring Elsie Ferguson and David Powell with directing being from Hugh Ford. It was produced by Famous Players–Lasky and released through Paramount Pictures. The film was based on a stage play performed in 1903 on Broadway. Both the film and the play were based on the famous 1903 novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward. The actress Ida Waterman had appeared in the original 1903 Broadway play.
The Man with Two Faces is an American drama film directed by Archie Mayo, and starring Edward G. Robinson and Mary Astor. The supporting cast features Ricardo Cortez, Louis Calhern, Mae Clarke, and David Landau. The story was adapted by Tom Reed and Niven Busch from the play The Dark Tower by George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott.
Leo Carrillo (1881–1961) was an American cartoonist, a comedian in vaudeville, and an actor on stage, film and television. He was best known in the United States as the Cisco Kid's sidekick Pancho on 1950s children's television, a role which capped a long show business career that began decades earlier.
Danger in the Pacific is a 1942 espionage thriller set on a fictional island during World War II.
Racetrack is a 1933 American pre-Code drama directed by James Cruze and starring Leo Carrillo, Junior Coughlan and Kay Hammond. This film is now considered lost.
Tight Shoes is a 1941 American comedy film directed by Albert S. Rogell and starring Leo Carrillo, John Howard, and Broderick Crawford. It is based on the Damon Runyon story. The film was produced and distributed as second feature by Universal Pictures.
Escape from Hong Kong is a 1942 American comedy horror film.
Frederick Worlock was a British-American actor. He is known for his work in various films during the 1940s and 1950s, and as the voice of Horace in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961).