Walter Connolly

Actor, writer, director and activist Ossie Davis narrates this look at the history of race films, those produced from the 1920s-50s catered to a primarily Black audience.

A runaway heiress makes a deal with the rogue reporter trailing her but the mismatched pair end up stuck with each other when their bus leaves them behind.

When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.

While in Shanghai reporting on the Sino-Japanese war, Chris Hunter, a shrewd news reporter, meets pilot Alma Harding. She does not trust him, but he manages to hire her as his assistant. During an adventurous expedition through the jungles of South America, her opinion of him begins to change.

Apple Annie is an aging New York City fruit seller whose daughter Louise has been raised in a Spanish convent since she was an infant. As she grows up, Louise is led to believe that her mother is a society matron called Mrs. E. Worthington Manville. Annie worries that her lie is in danger of being uncovered when she learns that Louise is sailing to New York with her new fiancé and his nobleman father.

A temperamental Broadway producer trains an untutored actress, but when she becomes a star, she proves a match for him.

Tycoon J.L. Higgins controls his whole family, but one of his sons-in-law, Dan Brooks, and his daughter Alice are fed up with that. Brooks quits his job as manager of J.L.'s paper box factory and devotes his life to his racing horse Broadway Bill, but his bankroll is thin and the luck is against him. He is arrested because of $150 he owes somebody for horse food, but suddenly a planned fraud by somebody else seems to offer him a chance...

Short film in which Frankie Darro as a Telegram delivery boy visits various Hollywood locations to make deliveries. He visits the Los Angeles Pier and a Gala Hollywood Premiere.

Huckleberry Finn, a rambunctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River.

A public relations man falls for his most difficult client's granddaughter.

China, during the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The arranged marriage between Wang Lung, a humble farmer, and O-Lan, a domestic slave, will endure the many hardships of life over the years; but the temptations of a fragile prosperity will endanger their love and the survival of their entire family.

When a small-town girl is incorrectly diagnosed with a rare, deadly disease, an unknowing newspaper columnist turns her into a national heroine.

Nero Wolfe agrees to investigate a series of murders that seem to be tied in with a past Harvard hazing prank that went awry.

Shanghai, China, the 1920s. In the midst of a bloody civil war, General Yen, a ruthless warlord, rescues Megan Davis —who was about to marry a missionary— from certain death amid the chaos.

A politician's wife plots for her husband to become the next U.S. President.

The wealthy Van Dyke family are constantly in the media for outrageous behavior, much to the frustration of the patriarch, Dan Van Dyke. His self-centered wife has a fondness for foreign imports, including "pet projects" like dancers and such and his spoiled children Tony and Carol have constant run-ins with the law. When Dan himself ends up in the clink for five years for tax evasion, he becomes bunk-mates with ex-bootlegger Joe "Spots" Ricardi. Ricardi lectures him on being such a push-over for an out-of-control family, so a dying Dan makes Ricardi his estate trustee once he is released from prison. Ricardi is then thrust into high society and must do everything he once nagged Dan to do.

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.

In an exclusive Swiss school for young girls, Christa Storm discovers that she is going to have a baby. She keeps the secret from everyone but her boyfriend, chemistry student David Perrin. Having lived in the private school for most of her life, Christa cannot confide in her distant father - and David cannot get his approval to marry her.

Dr. MacAuley, a kindly, beloved country doctor, is sent to Fillmore Prison. His crime was for removing a bullet from a young man who was escaping from the police.

An able nurse clashes with a new doctor at her hospital.

A wealthy man hires a poor girl to play his mistress in order to get more attention from his neglectful family.

Bill takes Trina into his depression camp cabin. Later, just as he finds showgirl LaRue who will support him, Trina becomes pregnant.

Steady, dependable Coast Guard Lieutenant Raymond "Ray" Dower and reckless aviator Thomas "Speed" Bradshaw are the closest of friends. Ray saves the life of Captain Tobias Bliss, tramp steamer skipper, in a daring rescue at sea. Speed flies the injured man back to the base hospital, where the two officers later visit him. There Ray meets Nancy Bliss, Bliss' grand-daughter, and falls in love with her. Speed meets her at a dance and urges Ray to propose before some other guy does. Ray is assigned to flood rescue duty, and Speed and Nancy start going out together and discover they are in love.

Jenny Swanson, a waitress on a college campus, is dying to visit Paris. Thanks to English professor Ronald Brooke, she manages to make her dream come true. Besides seeing the sights in the French capital she makes friends with a wealthy family there, the Brands.

During the American Civil War, Valette Bedford waits patiently for her husband Duncan Bedford, to return home, praying that she will not become a widow.

Flubs and bloopers that occurred on the set of some of the major Warner Bros. pictures of 1938.

In Ireland, Major Adair’s older daughter Eileen is about to marry Lawrence Blake for his money in order to pay off her father’s debts, even though she really loves Jack Breen.

Alcoholic newspaperman Steve Bramley boards the San Capador for a restful cruise, hoping to quit drinking and begin writing a book. Also on board are Steve's friend Schulte, a private detective hoping to nab criminal Danny Checkett with a fortune in stolen bonds. Steve begins drinking, all the while observing the various stories of other passengers on board, several of whom turn out not to be who they seem to be.

Political kingmaker Joe Quinn attempts to elevate his daughter's ambitious suitor, George Willoughby, into the the higher echelons of politics by getting him elected to Congress. His daughter, Paula Quinn, is not interested in her father's hand-picked choice of Willoughby as her husband. Willoughby is duly elected but Paula chooses weatherman/inventor Kirk Duncan as her husband.

Button Gwinett Brown is a freshman congressman on a mission to rid Washington of corruption. He quickly runs afoul of the powerful Senator Norton...

After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him expelled.

A carefree playboy with an aversion to marriage falls for a lass he meets in the French Alps.

After being in jail for seventeen years a crook is met by the girl he kidnapped as a baby. She now thinks he's her father. When he returns her to her real father there's a job and a reward, but an old prisonmate gets in the way.

After notorious jewel thief Flambeau meets Evelyn Fischer during a raid on a casino, he falls deeply in love with her. Later Flambeau sends notes to both Leopold Fischer, who unknown to him is Evelyn's uncle, and Father Brown, in which he vows he will steal from them the ten diamonds that comprise the "Flying Star." Flambeau intends to give these diamonds to Evelyn. Father Brown, whose gold cross contains some of the Flying Star diamonds, is determined to meet Flambeau before he is arrested, to reform and redeem his soul.

The story of a D.A. who becomes a prison warden and winds up overseeing the sentence of a man he prosecuted.

Princess is destined to marry the Emperor, until her sister steps in.

Tycoon Humphrey Craig is fearful that a "soak the rich" bill will pass in the United States Senate.

Broadway's most successful producer, John Forrester, is deeply in love with his wife Margaret and dreams of the future when his son Jack will step into his shoes. He sails to England to produce a show but the ship strikes a derelict wreckage and is sinking rapidly. In the ensuing wild panic, Forrester saves many lives, until finally, panic stricken by sudden fear, he dons a woman's clothes and is among the rescued. On the coast of Newfouldland, the villagers, not aware of his true identity, curse him but he is befriended by Alec who helps him conceal his identity. With a planned story of his survival, he returns to New York but cannot face his family or friends after he sees the plaque to his heroism on his New York theatre. Deciding to remain thought of as dead, he becomes a derelict himself, surviving on odd jobs as he watches from afar his now-grown son begin his career as a producer.

A convict marries the warder's daughter after his escape and she eventually persuades him to finish his sentence.

Harry Wallace (Harry Richman) is the star of a musical comedy who, while on a leave of absence from Broadway, encounters a troupe of untalented showboat players and takes them to New York City. Without letting them in on the joke, he then features them in a new revue, hoping that unintentionally-funny act will bring the house down.

Heiress Hedda Nillson certain that her family is about to lose all its money, takes a job as a maid. After the usual trials and tribulations, Hedda falls in love with humble chauffeur Eric Landstrom.

A wealthy playboy surreptitiously romances a scullery maid to gain access to her mistress with whom he is in love, but doesn't count on the maid falling in love with him.

To improve her image, a fan dancer "adopts" an old woman to be her mother.

A kindly, elderly couple who run a New York City boarding house form the steady center around which the lives and loves of their various residents unfold. Borrowed money, a lovelorn chorus girl, and a tragic misunderstanding set in motion the chain of events in East of Fifth Avenue’s tender pageant of life.

A powerful publisher John Mitchell whose pursuit of sensational headlines at the expense of all else takes a personal toll when his daughter Joan is implicated in a murder.

Johnny McCloud, a tough police inspector given more to fisticuffs than investigating has the hots for torch-singer Lola Parker, but Miss Parker is much taken with a good-looking crook named George Perry. This does not bother McCloud, as he not only gets his man behind bars but takes the man's woman also.

Despite loving another man, a young woman is talked into marrying a wealthy and boorish prince in order to help her financially-strapped father.

One of ten films that Fay Wray made in 1993 (including King Kong), Master of Men casts her as Kay Walling, a woman who is being ignored by her husband, Buck (played by Jack Holt). Buck owns a prosperous steel mill and they make a very good living, but he is ambitious and wants more. To this end, he is devoting considerable amounts of time to expanding his finances -- and doing quite well. Not satisfied with his success, he journeys to New York, where his wrangling further increases his bank account. Unfortunately, his stock with his wife is dropping steadily. Jealous and unhappy, she fights back by giving one of Buck's business rivals details about what he is up to.

While engaged in battle, Pierre Duval, a French soldier, stumbles onto the mortally wounded Count de Morave. Before dying, the count begs Pierre to deliver some family jewels and papers to the Vicomte Raoul de Reyntiens. At home, Pierre places the jewels in a box that also contains a necklace given to Margot, his wife, by the Duke D'Auberg. While stealing the box, Lazare, a war correspondent who witnessed Pierre's scene with the count, attacks and kills Margot. Found guilty of the crime, Pierre is sentenced to life imprisonment but is pardoned after performing a dangerous jailhouse rescue. Mavis, his daughter, who has been adopted by the duke, falls in love with the poor vicomte but is courted by Lazare, now posing as the Count de Morave. To win her love, Lazare gives her some of the stolen jewels, including the duke's necklace, but when Pierre sees the necklace later, he exposes Lazare and wins retribution.