Noel Francis

Acting

Noel Francis

Born 1906-08-31 · Temple, Texas, USA

Noel Francis was born in Temple, Texas in 1906. By age 20 she was appearing in the Ziegfeld Follies, working opposite the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey. Eventually Fox scouts noticed her and in 1929 she was signed to a Hollywood contract. Because of her Follies background, Fox intended to develop Noel as a musical and dance star. Unfortunately, musicals were on the wane at the time (they did rebound) and her contract was dropped. Luckily, she was picked up by Warner Brothers, and featured in a number of films that had her portraying the tough talking, sassy female connected to gangsters, convicts, and other underworld types, so popular with the movie going public then and now. Noel was rarely given the lead female role, though she worked near the top with some of the era's best actors in films that included Smart Money (1931), in which she is a scheming blonde helping Edward G. Robinson lose his money, and Blonde Crazy (1931), where her target is James Cagney. Her most noted performance was in I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), working with Paul Muni in one of his strongest performances. However, perhaps because of being typecast, she found herself in "B" productions after 1932, though one was as the lead female, in Mayfair Picture Corporation's 1934 What's Your Racket?, opposite Regis Toomey. Needing work, Noel returned to Broadway, but couldn't resume her career there, and returned to Hollywood to make three final films with Buck Jones, including Stone of Silver Creek (1935), in which she used her Broadway musical expertise to play a saloon singer. Between 1929 and 1937 Noel made 47 films. She died October 30, 1959 in Los Angeles, California.

Acting credits

Up the River poster
5.7

Daily life at men and women's prison units where baseball and the marching band are serious business. Two prisoners escape in order to help paroled Steve from being blackmailed by his girlfriend's ex-partner-in-crime.

Up the River

1930

Smart Money poster
6.9

Two brothers' trip to the big city to do a little gambling results in a fateful turn of events.

Smart Money

1931

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang poster
7.8

A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

1932

Son of a Sailor poster
6.0

A lovesick fool bumbles into espionage and finds a stolen plane.

Son of a Sailor

1933

Imitation of Life poster
7.0

A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

Imitation of Life

1934

Night Court poster
6.5

A corrupt night court judge tears an innocent young family apart in his efforts to elude a special prosecutor.

Night Court

1932

The Line-Up poster
3.5

Bob Curtis (William Gargan), the youngest member of the New York City plain-clothes squad, is assigned to help Detective-Sergeant Doyle (Paul Hurst) uncover the people behind a number of fur robberies. Peggy Arnold (Marian Nixon), a beautiful girl, comes under suspicion, but Bob, convinced of her innocence, adopts a desperate plan to clear her and round up the real criminals.

The Line-Up

1934

Bureau of Missing Persons poster
5.7

Butch Saunders has been transferred to Missing Persons because he was too brutal in other police work...

Bureau of Missing Persons

1933

Reform Girl poster
7.0

A young girl just out of prison and desperate for money finds herself involved in a plot to smear a politician by pretending to be his long-lost daughter.

Reform Girl

1933

The Loudspeaker poster
8.0

A young man from a small town hits New York City, bound and determined to become a radio star. Amazingly, he achieves his ambition, but in the process alienates everyone around him with his arrogance and egomania.

The Loudspeaker

1934

Blonde Crazy poster
7.0

The adventures of a cocky con man and his beautiful accomplice.

Blonde Crazy

1931

Only Yesterday poster
7.1

On the back of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, a young businessman is about to commit suicide. With a note to his wife scribbled down and a gun in his hand, he notices an envelope addressed to him on his desk. As he begins to read, we're taken back to World War One and his meeting with a young woman named Mary Lane.

Only Yesterday

1933

Smart Woman poster
5.4

A society man's loving, devoted wife, upon learning that he has been unfaithful and is planning to leave her for the other woman, strategically pretends to be having an affair of her own. The woman's friends gladly assist in the deception.

Smart Woman

1931

So Big! poster
5.8

A farmer's widow takes on the land and her late husband's tempestuous son.

So Big!

1932

Havana Widows poster
6.6

Two golddiggers go fishing for millionaires in Havana.

Havana Widows

1933

Fifteen Wives poster
3.0

Shortly after his arrival from South America to New York, Steven Humbolt is found dead in his apartment at the Savoia Hotel. Inspector Decker Dawes investigates the case and although the cause of death is described as apoplexy, Dawes is convinced it as murder, especially after he learns that Humbolt had been married fifteen times.

Fifteen Wives

1934

The White Cockatoo poster
5.9

In a spooky hotel on the coast of France, two bands of crooks are working independently of the other in an attempt to steal the inherited fortune of an American girl, Sue Tally. Along the way the heiress is kidnapped, three murders are committed, a girl appears in two places at once, mysterious persons roam about the old hotel at night and mysteriously disappear, and there is a hidden room without any doors.

The White Cockatoo

1935

Blood Money poster
7.1

The title refers to the business of affable, ambitious bail bondsman (and politically-connected grifter) Bill Bailey, who, in the course of his work, crosses paths with every kind of offender there is, from first-time defendants to career criminals.

Blood Money

1933

The Mouthpiece poster
6.2

A prosecutor quits his job and becomes a defense attorney when he finds out that a man he got convicted and executed was actually innocent.

The Mouthpiece

1932

Hold Me Tight poster
7.0

Newly married sweethearts Chuck Evans and Molly Roberts work at Blair's Department Store and Molly plans to quit to be a stay-at-home wife and mother. But Chuck unexpectedly and unfairly gets fired so Molly stays on. She catches the eye of Dolan, the crooked store detective, and he makes a play for her, trying to make Chuck, who is still unemployed, small in her eyes. Meanwhile, Dolan puts into action his plan to steal the store's fur coats by hiring his girlfriend, Trudie Holmes, and Molly to do a sham inventory one night, then hires Chuck to unwittingly drive the contraband away. Dolan arranges with his mugs for Chuck to be the fall guy if anything goes wrong. Molly & Chuck become suspicious and manage to foil the robbery. Blair appoints Chuck the head of the shipping department and the young couple see a bright future ahead.

Hold Me Tight

1933

Under-Cover Man poster
6.2

When his father is murdered, erstwhile conman Nick Darrow asks the cops if he can go undercover to find the killers, and maybe even stop a crime ring that has been plaguing the police. The sister of another innocent victim joins him as they infiltrate the syndicate. Any wrong move could lead to instant death.

Under-Cover Man

1932

What's Your Racket poster
8.0

Mae Cosgrove, a nightclub hostess, carries out a robbery on the safe of a gangster's palatial home.

What's Your Racket

1934

My Pal, the King poster
8.0

The king of a European country, who is a child, meets the cowboy star of a traveling circus.

My Pal, the King

1932

Bachelor Apartment poster
5.9

A New York playboy, Wayne Carter, dates wild women until he falls for a hard-working stenographer, Helene Andrews.

Bachelor Apartment

1931