Natalie Moorhead on TCM in March

TCM will be showing two movies with Natalie Moorhead in March.
Three Wise Girls - March 8, 9:30pm
I Take this woman - March 21, 12:00pm

The Stoker (1932)

This was sadly a waste of money, for one reason, Natalie was only in the movie for one short scene, and basically this movie was awful. Natalie plays the wife of the main character who wants a divorce, her only scene is when she confronts him, and that’s it, it’s not even worth a full review. Here is the plot from the TCM website:
During a divisive meeting with his board of directors, Dick Martin, the president of a New York shipping company founded by his father, vows to buy them out. However, when he returns home to his wealthy wife Vera, who promised to give him the money for the buyout, she says she has changed her mind and announces her plans to go to Paris to seek a divorce, having become involved with their lawyer, Alan Ballard. Dick gets drunk at a dive by the docks and breaks up a fight by hitting the drunk who started it. He then invites the man for a drink, and the man, impressed with Dick's strength and character, offers him a job as a stoker on a ship bound for South America. Dick agrees and is soon happy to be without worries and pretense. When Margarita Valdez, a passenger, implores a steward to show her the stoke hole, she becomes interested in Dick. As the sea gets rough, she bumps him into the fire. She arranges for him to be transferred to the deck, but Dick, wary of women, refuses. The ship docks in Nicaragua, where in a rowdy bar, Dick sees a bandit, Santini, pawing an American prostitute, who objects to his advances. Dick fights Santini and, during the ensuing brawl, hits the police chief. Dick and the ship's black porter, Eclipse, are thrown in jail, and after eating bananas three times a day for a number of days, they accept an offer of parole in exchange for work on a coffee plantation. It turns out that the owners, Margarita and her uncle, arranged for the parole because they think that Dick can demand protection by the U.S. Marines if they are attacked by bandits. As Dick and Margarita are riding one day, he shoots a mountain lion about to pounce from a tree. The shot causes Margarita's horse to bolt, and Dick catches the horse and pulls her onto his horse. As they rest, she holds his hand, but he remains cold. Dick gets a letter from the American commander in Managua stating that they will only protect plantations owned by Americans. Believing that Margarita loves him, Dick marries her, but after the wedding, he overhears her proudly tell her uncle that now, if the bandits attack, the Marines will protect them because of her marriage. Dick returns to his room disgusted, without hearing her next say that she really loves him and would have married him even if he had been an Eskimo. That night, Dick berates Margarita, not listening to her protestations of love. In the morning when he leaves, she says she hates him, but after she learns that Santini's bandits are heading for their hacienda on the road on which Dick is riding, she drives to rescue him. At the plantation, after the bandits cut the telephone wires, Dick sends Eclipse to get the Marines. At night, during a period of calm, Dick thanks Margarita for risking her life, but she says pridefully that she only did it so he could fight for them. However, she finally confesses she needs and loves him, and they embrace, just as the bandits begin to fire. The troops arrive, however, and Dick beats Santini. The lovers finally embrace in Margarita's bedroom.

Natalie Moorhead photo (1934)

I purchased this photo from eBay, it’s from the movie “Long Lost Father” which I have never seen, but I had to have this photo. I love 30’s photography, most of the photo is just a bit out of focus, the focus line is just about at the eyes, so the eyes and bottom part of the feathers are all that’s in perfect focus. That classic Natalie Moorhead stare, wow wasn’t she beautiful, just an amazing photo. The photo has the RKO studios stamp on the back, plus the caption strip on the back for the magazines and newspapers to print, it describes her clothes and the colors, which is mostly gold and brown, so use your imagination.

updates coming soon

I hope to have some updates soon, sadly I will not be able to have screen shots on the movies reviews right now. I'm not sure what is wrong, but I can't seem to get the DVD's to play on my computer, so I will use the old stand by and just take photos off the tv, it may not look as good, but better than nothing.

If you are looking to purchase any Natalie Moorhead movies, here is the best place to look
http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/findresults_actor.asp?search=Natalie+Moorhead

Corruption (1933)

This was a fun little movie starring Preston Foster and one of my favorites Evalyn Knapp. As for Natalie she had like always a very small part as again the other woman. The story is about a political reformer(Preston Foster) who becomes mayor and tries to run all the crooked politicians out of the city, but of course the party boss get him removed from office on a trumped up morals charge. Of course everything ends up well in the end and he becomes states attorney. Natalie plays the daughter of one of the party heads, and also fiancé of Preston Foster, but when they find out he’s not what the party wanted, she’s out of the picture, but comes back when he becomes states attorney. Like a lot of these movies, the secretary is in love with the mayor but he doesn’t know it, so of course in the end he realizes he does really love his secretary, he officially breaks off with Natalie. Natalie did fine with what she had, but she did very little but look beautiful, what a waste of talent.

The Women (1939)

I’m not a big fan of this movie, great cast but I really can’t get into it. You would think with a cast of Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, and Joan Fontaine, it would be great, but I find it boring. As for Ms Natalie Moorhead, I have no idea where she is in this movie, imdb says she plays “woman in salon”, thanks, that helps. Around this time in her career she became a brunette in hopes of getting better roles, so I thought I found her and I was very excited. It was around the fashion show scenes, she even had a few lines, but the more I watched those scenes, I said to myself, that kind of looks like Aileen Pringle, another favorite of mine. When Natalie became a brunette, she did look a little like Aileen, so I looked up the cast list on imdb and to my disappointment it was Aileen Pringle, well back to the search. I still can’t find her, there is a little scene that I think is her, early in the movie there is a wide shot of the salon, and the receptionist gets up and shows someone around. Now the woman is blonde and does look like her, but Natalie should be a brunette at this time, but maybe the brunette hair was really a wig, wigs were very popular at that time, also it does kind of sound like her, but I’m still not sure. Maybe I’m missing her, maybe she’s right there in my face but I still can’t for sure find her, if anyone knows where she is, I would love to know.

Curtain at Eight (1933)

This is a great whodunit, the gorgeous Dorothy Mackaill gets top billing, although she wasn’t really the star, she should have been maybe third of fourth on the list. It’s about a Broadway star who is shot to death at his birthday party in front of dozens of witnesses. Unfortunately the lights went off and no one saw a thing. It seems everyone hated him, he had a wife, a lover and business partners who all wanted him dead, so who did it? Natalie plays the wife who is set to get a divorce, yet she arrives at his house after the show, next scene we see him getting dressed and she is in bed, I think we know what happened, but all she really wants is some money he owes her. It’s a great little scene, again Natalie only gets one scene, but she does a great job, she is so good at playing those villain parts, the women who only want money, she so slick and sexy, no wonder men always fall for her. But sadly we find out later somebody who was also after her husbands money killed her, so she didn’t kill her husband, who did? It’s really a fun movie, great cast, Dorothy MacKaill, C. Aubrey Smith, and of course Natalie Moorhead, I love a good mystery movie.