The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a 1934 American romantic drama film directed by Sidney Franklin based on the 1930 play of the same title by Rudolf Besier. It depicts the real-life romance between poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, despite the opposition of her abusive father Edward Moulton-Barrett. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Shearer was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. It was written by Ernest Vajda, Claudine West, and Donald Ogden Stewart, from the successful 1930 play The Barretts of Wimpole Street by Rudolf Besier, and starring Katharine Cornell.
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American film and stage actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill (1930) opposite Marie Dressler, as General Director Preysing in Grand Hotel (1932), as the pirate Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934), as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa! (1934), and his title role in The Champ (1931), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Beery appeared in some 250 films during a 36-year career. His contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stipulated in 1932 that he would be paid $1 more than any other contract player at the studio. This made Beery the highest-paid film actor in the world during the early 1930s. He was the brother of actor Noah Beery and uncle of actor Noah Beery Jr.
The following is an overview of 1934 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was an Irish actress who played Jane in the Tarzan series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She starred in dozens of feature films across a span of more than half a century and performed with such stars as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, Fredric March, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, the Marx Brothers and Woody Allen. In 2020, she was listed at number eight on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Private Benjamin is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Howard Zieff, written by Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer, and Harvey Miller, and starring Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, and Armand Assante.
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley CBE was an English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career in both Britain and the United States. He was frequently cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, often in supporting roles. In 1939 he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of King Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette.
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery was an American actress whose career spanned five decades in film, stage, and television. She portrayed the good witch Samantha Stephens on the popular television series Bewitched, which earned her five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations.
Robert Montgomery was an American actor, director, and producer. He began his acting career on the stage, but was soon hired by MGM. Initially assigned roles in comedies, he soon proved he was able to handle dramatic ones, as well. He appeared in a wide variety of roles, such as the weak-willed prisoner Kent in The Big House (1930), the psychotic Danny in Night Must Fall (1937), and Joe, the boxer mistakenly sent to Heaven in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941). The last two earned him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Richard Thorpe was an American film director best known for his long career at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The Big Clock is a 1948 American thriller directed by John Farrow and adapted by novelist-screenwriter Jonathan Latimer from the 1946 novel of the same title by Kenneth Fearing.
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell is a 1955 American CinemaScope biographical drama film directed by Otto Preminger, and starring Gary Cooper and co-starring Charles Bickford, Ralph Bellamy, Rod Steiger, and Elizabeth Montgomery in her film debut. The film is based on the 1925 court-martial of General Billy Mitchell, who is considered a founding figure of the U.S. Air Force.
Tarzan Escapes is a 1936 Tarzan film based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the third in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Tarzan series to feature Johnny Weissmuller as the "King of the Apes". Previous films were Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934), with Jane's bikini-like attire and the famous skinny-dipping sequence. Weissmuller and O'Sullivan starred together in three more Tarzan films, Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942).
Paul C. Vogel, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer. His credits included The Tell-Tale Heart (1941), Angels in the Outfield (1951), The Tender Trap (1955), High Society (1956), The Time Machine (1960), The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), Hold On!, and Return of the Seven.
Paul Osborn was an American playwright and screenwriter. Osborn's original plays are The Vinegar Tree, Oliver Oliver, and Morning's at Seven and among his several successful adaptations, On Borrowed Time has proved particularly popular. He wrote the screenplays for East of Eden (1955) and South Pacific (1958), among other films.
Tugboat Annie is a 1933 American pre-Code film directed by Mervyn LeRoy, written by Norman Reilly Raine and Zelda Sears, and starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery as a comically quarrelsome middle-aged couple who operate a tugboat. Dressler and Beery were MGM's most popular screen team at that time, having recently made the bittersweet Min and Bill (1930) together, for which Dressler won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Morning's at Seven is a play by Paul Osborn. Its plot focuses on four aging sisters living in a small Midwestern town in 1928, and it deals with ramifications within the family when two of them begin to question their lives and decide to make some changes before it’s too late.
Ten Gentlemen from West Point is a 1942 American Western film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring George Montgomery, Maureen O'Hara and John Sutton. Its cinematography was nominated for an Academy Award in 1943. George Montgomery replaced John Payne who was suffering an emotional upset at the time. The story tell a fictional story of the first class of the United States Military Academy in the early 1800s.
The Crowd Roars is a 1938 American sports drama film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Taylor as a boxer who gets entangled in the seamier side of the sport. It was remade in 1947 as Killer McCoy, featuring Mickey Rooney in the title role. This film was not a remake of the 1932 film of the same name starring James Cagney. The supporting cast for the 1938 version features Edward Arnold, Frank Morgan, Lionel Stander, and Jane Wyman.
Charles Cahill Wilson was an American screen and stage actor. He appeared in numerous films during the Golden Age of Hollywood from the late 1920s to the late 1940s.
I'll Wait for You is a 1941 American drama film directed by Robert B. Sinclair and written by Guy Trosper. The film stars Robert Sterling, Marsha Hunt, Virginia Weidler, Paul Kelly, Fay Holden and Henry Travers. A re-make of the 1934 film Hide-Out, it was released on May 16, 1941, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
