Lupe Vélez

Documentary about the presence of Latin American culture and actors in American movies.

Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

HOLLYWOOD. Tinseltown. Land of the stars. A city where an actor can reach the greatest heights overnight - and descend just as rapidly. What goes up must come down, and Hollywood's failing stars leave a legacy of sadness, pain and disappointment in their wake. Here, in graphic detail, are the shocking stories behind the deaths of the silver screen's most beloved celebrities, as well as it's lesser known players. Packed with stunning newsreel footage, and previously unrevealed facts, DEATH IN HOLLYWOOD documents many a celebrity's morbid demise due to suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, disease, and even murder. From the outrageous to the tragic, DEATH IN HOLLYWOOD leaves no tombstone unturned in it's quest to dig up the truth about Hollywood's dearly departed.

An unprecedented anthology of never-before-told true stories by and about some of Hollywood's most interesting stars, legends, and wannabes, and takes readers inside Hollywood's inner sanctum to show how casting decisions are made, who makes them, and who has the final word.

Famous Hollywood Scandals and Tragedies

Vintage Hollywood themed shockumentary.

Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

A pair of shipboard smugglers have a large diamond hidden inside a small elephant statuette, which they plant on absentminded Lord Epping to get it past customs. Now, his lordship is visiting Uncle Matt Lindsay who looks just like him. Thanks to flirtatious Diana's efforts to get the elephant back, the comic confusion proliferates, with 'spitfire' Carmelita (now a blonde) playing a prominent part.

While in Hawaii, Velez begins the film as a risque nightclub act and due to her involvement with a group of sailors becomes a beauty queen.

This edition of Screen Snapshots has more of a vaudeville flavor as opposed to Ralph Staub's usual candid-camera at home with the stars offerings. Ken Murray, assisted by the Brewer Twins, is the MC, while the Andrews Sisters sing "In Apple Blossom Time" and the pre-"Uncle Miltie" Milton Berle plays his clarinet. The rest of the players, with contract-player faces belonging to 20th-Century Fox, RKO Radio, Universal and Columbia, just pass through. Production Number 3851.

Based in the Émile Zola novel of the same name, which details the life of Nana, a French prostitute of the 19th century.

Carmelita and Uncle Matt find themselves in a haunted house, but the "ghosts" are actually enemy agents who are trying to frighten away visitors in order to develop a nitroglycerin bomb.

An advertising executive and his temperamental wife adopt a war orphan who turns out to be a beautiful woman.

Lulu Monahan, the press agent for John Barrymore, is attempting to get a sponsor for a radio program. To that end, she and the agent for bandleader Kay Kyser, plant a story that the great Shakespearean actor, over his heartfelt objections, will teach Kyser how to play Shakespeare, which isn't the same as playing Paducah, which soon becomes evident.

The brash, opinionated owner of a nightclub manages to drive everybody crazy on a boat trip to Havana.

Dennis heads west to work on an important business deal minus the Mexican Spitfire, Carmelita. His hot-tempered spouse decides to surprise him, but ends up as the surprised one when she sees him with another woman. Instead of a second honeymoon, Carmelita begins divorce proceedings

Newlyweds Dennis and Carmelita have several obstacles to deal with in their new marriage: Carmelita's fiery Latin temper, a meddling aunt and a conniving ex-fiancee who's determined to break up their marriage.

A top baseball pitcher "loses" his pitching skills whenever he falls in love. After marrying a movie star extreme measures are taken for the benefit of the team.

Dennis mistakenly believes Carmelita is going to have a baby. Little does he know that the blessed event is her cat's new kittens.

Lupe Vélez plays a dual role, twin sisters Rita and Elaine. After escaping a torpedoed ship, Rita shows up in Manhattan, where she takes the place of her Broadway-star twin sister Elaine, who's having problems with her marriage and needs to make a getaway. Neither Elaine's husband or Rita's saxophone-player boyfriend are aware of the switch.

An advertising executive and his temperamental wife sail to Hawaii in search of business. The fifth entry (of eight) in the "Mexican Spitfire" comedy series.

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.

A short review hosted by Cliff Edward. Clarence Muse sings a song about the Congo, we see various Hollywood stars at a horse race in Mexico, and then a Mexican band plays a tribute to Lupe Vélez.

The ruthless Flint, a disabled man, rules an isolated region of Kongo like an omnipotent god, through superstition and sadism, living only for the day when he can get revenge on the man who ruined his life.

Lovely Anita dreams of escaping the monotony of her island home and sailing to bustling Havana. But when her abusive father promises her to the greasy local merchant, Anita does everything in her power to make her dream a reality.

Jimmy Durante is jungle movie star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lions. When Baron Munchausen comes to town with real man-eating lions, Durante throws him a big Hollywood star-studded party so that he might use the lions in his next movie. But, his film rival sneaks into the party to buy the lions before Durante.

Two men running a carnival airplane ride are hired to fly to retrieve what they think are photos for a reporter. Actually, they are retrieving diamonds stolen from a noted gem dealer. As it turns out, their plane crashes on the very estate of the dealer. Thinking the duo are police officers, the dealer offers his home for their convalescence from the accident. Meanwhile, the diamonds have been snatched by a kleptomaniac dog and buried on the estate. When the smugglers track down the pair, they try to convince the dealer that they are officials from an institution from which the two have escaped. Before long, the carnival fellows, the crooks, the gem dealer and his family, along with a platoon of cops, are tearing up the grounds to find where the dog has buried the diamonds.

Carmelita Fuentes is a fiery-Latin singer/dancer in Mexico City who has designs on Dennis Lindsay, an American publicity agent, for unclear reasons, while Lindsay's shiftless uncle Matthew Lindsay aids and abets her every step of the way to the marriage altar.

A failed poet ends up becoming a gag writer for a bombastic comedian.

A carnival pitchman (Tracy) finagles his girlfriend, a fiery hoochie dancer (Vélez), into a major Broadway revue under the auspices of an impresario (Morgan).

Jim Wyngate, an English aristocrat, comes to the American West under a cloud of suspicion for embezzlement actually committed by his cousin Lord Henry. In Wyoming, Wyngate runs afoul of cattle rustler Cash Hawkins by rescuing the Indian girl Naturich from Hawkins. Wyngate marries Naturich, but then learns that his cousin Lord Henry has been killed and has cleared his name before dying. As Wyngate has long loved Lady Diana, Lord Henry's wife, he is perplexed at his situation. But fate takes a hand and resolves matters as Wyngate could not have predicted.

Burr and Dave, two close friends who have backed each other up in countless difficulties, are torn apart by the arrival of a woman, Manette, who becomes stranded with them in their cabin during a raging blizzard.

A guilt-ridden U.S. Marine returns to Cuba to try to find the woman he promised to marry.

Simultaneously shot Spanish version of Tolstoy adaptation: After a woman he has formerly mistreated is sentenced for a crime a man who was part of her jury joins her on the trip to Siberia to expatiate his guilt.

Alternate-language version of Men in Her Life (1931)

In this comedy, a pair of ex-Marines team up and get involved in a nightclub. Trouble ensues when they both fall in love with a feisty woman and begin fighting over her.

Due to a complex series of events a Guards Officer in a small European country is imprisoned. He manages to escape in the company of an idiotic milliner and they briefly take shelter with some gypsies, where the Captain falls in love with a young woman. Having been discovered by an American promoter while performing with gypsy orchestra in a tavern, the three accompany him to London as the latest new musical sensation. A great success, they begin a European-wide tour when their plane is forced down by bad weather in their homeland. Here events are satisfactorily resolved.

A confirmed bachelor takes pity on a young woman and takes her to London.

Joe Palooka is a naive young man whose father Pete was a champion boxer, but his lifestyle caused Joe's mother Mayme to leave him and to take young Joe to the country to raise him.

It is the story of a beautiful Tehuana woman who falls in love with a sailor who leaves with the promise of returning, but due to her delay she decides to accept a former suitor as her husband. Finally, when the marriage is about to materialize, the sailor returns creating an emotional conflict in her that is resolved thanks to her fiancé who, by intuiting her true feelings, leaves her free to stay with the sailor

A young Navajo defies tribal custom to marry an outcast.

Ming Toy is on the auction block in China. She is saved by Billy and taken to San Francisco by Lo Sang Kee. To save her from deportation she is sold to Charlie Yong, the Chop Suey King. Billy kidnaps her with plans of marriage.

Ed Sullivan shows night spots all over New York in this movie, joking and listening to stories the patrons tell.

No synopsis available yet.

In a little Mexican village by the American border. However powerful big shot Captain Innocencio (a misnomer indeed!)is, he proves unable to charm Lolita, the shapely daughter of his neighbor, a big-time rancher. Lolita expects better than this awkward unprepossessing showoff! Besides the fortune-teller she consults tells her her true love will get into her life after a terrible storm. This very night a violent storm does break out and an American pilot, whose plane is caught in it, is forced to make an emergency landing next to where she lives. The gringo - by the name of Phil Marvin - is both dashing and good-looking. Good news for Lolita but bad news for Innocencio who is not ready to bow that easily...

Katusha, a country girl, is seduced and abandoned by Prince Nekludov. Nekludov finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to. He follows her to imprisonment in Siberia, intent on redeeming her and himself as well.

Carla de Hulvea is a rumba dancer who makes news by posing as a South-American heiress. She is doing fine with her hoax until she meets American Peter Jackson, a high-pressure promoter who is looking for movie-producing money. He does some big-time bluffing on his own in order to get Carla to invest in a film he is making with his partner, Roy Harley. Through Carla, Roy meets actress Diana West, who is given a role in the movie, and Roy falls in love with her.

In 1840, Sam Lash heads west for adventure. He meets up with some Mountain Men, and they head for the Rockies to trap beavers and cats. In Taos he meets Lola, a beautiful Mexican girl from a proud and rich family. They fall in love and he persuades her to elope with him. After they get married, Sam is torn between his love for Lola and his yearn for traveling.

Karl, a German diplomat in Paris, discovers that his fiancée, Diane, has been unfaithful. He tells her that he would rather marry a 'girl of the streets' than her. Outraged, Diane enlists the services of a Spanish singer/dancer from a disreputable nightclub to pose as a sophisticated, convent-educated singer, and surreptitiously arranges for her to meet Karl.

A Chinese wife returns to the American family she left behind in Southeast Asia and then moves in on her daughter's beau.

A girl is saved by a miracle after she falls from a cliff in the Argentine Andes, and is blessed with healing powers. A shrine is built on the site, and a whole city grows around it, rich with gold from the grateful worshipers. Ruiz, an evil and sadistic general, captures the city, confiscates the gold, and closes the shrine. But the Gaucho, the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws, comes to the rescue.

A mountie pursues a man wanted for murder.

A con artist and a midget dressed as her infant son, are unmasked aboard a ship by a steward.

A girl-shy professor runs into trouble at a ladies’ seminary.

Our heroine, Miss Velez (despite the fact that she seems to be just along for the ride) is much her usual over-eloquent self (how fortunate she has no sound track!), while Warner Oland makes such an impressive and villainously seedy bandit, he needs no sound track at all. We can just imagine his oily, purring accents all too well.