The best Arthur Rankin’s movies
We present our ranking of the best Arthur Rankin’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Arthur Rankin.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
7.8/10
Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.
Second Fiddle
6.4/10
Studio publicist discovers Minnesota skating teacher and takes her to Hollywood. She goes back to Minnesota but he follows her.
Hollywood Cavalcade
6.5/10
Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.
Murder at the Vanities
6.5/10
Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.
The Man Who Wouldn't Talk
6.6/10
A man involved in a crime (Nolan) kills his key witness by mistake and resigns himself to death. He changes his name so as not to harm his family. The law is not content with his explanation, however.
Swanee River
6.2/10
Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of the time, the film is more fictional than factual biography.
She Couldn't Take It
6.4/10
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.
Glad Rag Doll
4.8/10
Glad Rag Doll is a 1929 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Dolores Costello. This is one of many lost films of the 1920s, no prints or Vitaphone discs survive, but the song with the same title and the trailer survives.
After the Dance
5.5/10
Though he was protecting her when he accidentally killed a man, Mabel Kane (Thelma Todd) refuses to testify on behalf of her dance partner Jerry Davis (George Murphy), and he's sent to jail. In a riot, a hostile convict (Jack La Rue) forces Jerry to help him escape, so Jerry takes to the streets himself. Nightclub entertainer Anne Taylor (Nancy Carroll) meets him, and convinces her boss Louis (Arthur Hohl) to hire him as her partner.
The Public Menace
6.4/10
1935 comedy in which an immigrant (Jean Arthur), a reporter (George Murphy) and a gangster (Douglass Dumbrille) cross paths.
Rose of Washington Square
6.7/10
Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.
Mexicali Rose
5.5/10
The owner of a border town gambling saloon falls in love with a promiscuous young girl. When she has an affair with another, he tosses her out of town. She gets revenge by marrying his younger brother.
News Is Made at Night
6.3/10
Newspaper editor (Foster) will do almost anything to increase circulation. He campaigns to free a condemned man while accusing a wealthy ex-criminal of a string of murders.
The Crime of Helen Stanley
6.3/10
Director D. Ross Lederman's 1934 drama, about a controlling and vengeful Hollywood actress, stars Gail Patrick, Ralph Bellamy, Shirley Grey, Kane Richmond, Bradley Page and Vincent Sherman.
The Thrill Hunter
6.1/10
A blowhard cowboy talks himself into a job as a movie stunt man.
Submarine
6.4/10
Two sailors who are always competing against each other set their sights on the same girl. When she chooses one over the other, their friendship ends acrimoniously. However, things change when one the men is in a submarine trapped beneath the ocean and the other, a diver, is sent down on a rescue mission.
Midnight Taxi
6.1/10
A federal agent goes to work for a taxi company believing it to be a front for a gang of counterfeiters.
The Wolf of Wall Street
6.7/10
A ruthless stockbroker sells short in the copper business and ruins the life of his friends by ruining their finances.
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island
7.2/10
Charlie's investigation of a phony psychic during the 1939 World Exposition on San Francisco's Treasure Island leads him to expose a suicide as murder.
Chicken Wagon Family
6.2/10
Addie Fippany, her father Jean Paul Batiste Fippany, her mother Josephine and her sister Cecile roam the country-side in a mule-drawn wagon, trading trinkets to farmers for chickens which they sell in the cities. Addie and her father love the care-free life, but Mrs. Fippany and Cecile want to settle down in New York City. As soon as the "chicken wagon family" reaches New York, Addie gets into mischief and a policeman, Matt Hibbard, helps her and falls in love with Cecile. He helps the family settle into a deserted firehouse which is up for public sale.
