Robert Florey was a French-American director, screenwriter, film journalist and actor.
Clarence Linden Crabbe II, known professionally as Buster Crabbe, was an American two-time Olympic swimmer and film and television actor. He won the 1932 Olympic gold medal for 400-meter freestyle swimming event, which launched his career on the silver screen and later television. He starred in a variety of popular feature films and movie serials released between 1933 and the 1950s, portraying the top three syndicated comic-strip heroes of the 1930s: Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers.
Zasu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas, including Erich von Stroheim's epic 1924 silent film Greed, and comedies, transitioning successfully to mostly comedy films with the advent of sound films. She also appeared on numerous radio shows. Her career as an entertainer spanned nearly 50 years, and she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Thelma Alice Todd was an American actress and businesswoman who was often referred to by the nicknames "The Ice Cream Blonde" and "Hot Toddy". Appearing in around 120 feature films and shorts between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles opposite ZaSu Pitts, and in films such as Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers and a number of Charley Chase's short comedies. She co-starred with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in Speak Easily. She also had roles in several Wheeler and Woolsey and Laurel and Hardy films, the last of which featured her in a part that was cut short by her suspicious death in 1935 at the age of 29.
Gus Meins, born Gustave Peter Ludwig Luley, was an American film director. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany.
Lionel Alfred William Atwill was an English stage and screen actor. He began his acting career at the Garrick Theatre. After coming to the U.S., he subsequently appeared in various Broadway plays and Hollywood films. Some of his more significant roles were in Captain Blood (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939) and To Be or Not to Be (1942).
Jean Rogers was an American actress who starred in serial films in the 1930s and low–budget feature films in the 1940s as a leading lady. She is best remembered for playing Dale Arden in the science-fiction serials Flash Gordon (1936) and Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938).
John William Pilbean Goffage MBE, known professionally as Chips Rafferty, was an Australian actor. Called "the living symbol of the typical Australian", Rafferty's career stretched from the late 1930s until his death in 1971, and during this time he performed regularly in major Australian feature films as well as appearing in British and American productions, including The Overlanders and The Sundowners. He appeared in commercials in Britain during the late 1950s, encouraging British emigration to Australia.
Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch is a 1934 American comedy-drama film, directed by Norman Taurog, and is based on the 1904 Broadway play by Anne Crawford Flexner, which itself is taken from the novel of the same name by Alice Hegan Rice. The film stars Broadway stage actress Pauline Lord, and is one of only two films she appeared in. ZaSu Pitts and W. C. Fields appear in supporting roles.
The Gay Bride is a 1934 black-and-white gangster screwball comedy starring Carole Lombard as a wisecracking gold-digger and Chester Morris as the poor man she despises. It was directed by Jack Conway and written by the husband-and-wife team of Sam and Bella Spewak, based on the story "Repeal" by Charles Francis Coe.
Steamboat Round the Bend is a 1935 American comedy film directed by John Ford, released by 20th Century Fox and produced by Fox Film Corporation, based on the 1933 novel of the same name by author Ben Lucien Burman. It was the final film made by star Will Rogers and was released posthumously, a month after he was killed in an airplane crash on August 15, 1935.
C. Henry Gordon was an American stage and film actor.
Life with Father is a 1947 Technicolor American comedy film adapted from the 1939 play of the same name, which was inspired by the autobiography of stockbroker and The New Yorker essayist Clarence Day.
It All Came True is a 1940 American musical comedy crime film starring Ann Sheridan as a fledgling singer and Humphrey Bogart, who was third-billed on movie posters, as a gangster who hides from the police in a boarding house. It is based on the Louis Bromfield novel Better Than Life. Sheridan introduced the hit song "Angel in Disguise". The picture was produced by Mark Hellinger and directed by Lewis Seiler. The cast also featured Jeffrey Lynn as the leading man, Zasu Pitts, and Una O'Connor.
Harry Shannon was an American character actor. He often appeared in Western films.
Murder in the Private Car is a 1934 American pre-Code mystery romance film starring Mary Carlisle, Charles Ruggles and Una Merkel. Directed by Harry Beaumont, the production is based on the play The Rear Car by Edward E. Rose. David Townsend was the film's art director.
Their Big Moment is a 1934 American mystery film directed by James Cruze, from a screenplay by Arthur Caesar and Marion Dix. The film starred ZaSu Pitts and Slim Summerville. It is based on the 1933 West End play Afterwards by Walter C. Hackett which had run for more than two hundred performances in London. While most of the Pitts-Summerville teamings were comedies, this was a serious drama in which they merely played comic-relief characters; their star billing was thus misleading.
Her First Mate is a 1933 American pre-Code comedy film directed by William Wyler and written by Clarence Marks, Earle Snell and H. M. Walker, who adapted it from the play written by Frank Craven, John Golden and Daniel Jarrett. The film stars Slim Summerville, ZaSu Pitts, Una Merkel, Warren Hymer, Berton Churchill and George F. Marion. The film was released on August 3, 1933, by Universal Pictures.
Broken Toys is an 8-minute 1935 animation by Disney in the Silly Symphonies series. The toys in the story include caricatures of W.C. Fields, Zasu Pitts, Ned Sparks and Stepin Fetchit. Broken Toys was originally scheduled to follow Elmer Elephant and Three Little Wolves but was moved ahead of these titles in order to have it ready for a Christmas release.
James Diamond (1894–1936) was an American cinematographer active during the silent and early sound eras. Much of his work during the 1930s was for lower-budget Poverty Row companies.
