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ACTOR
Monte BlueDorothy BurgessNoah BeeryNatalie Moorhead
DIRECTOR
Chester M. Franklin
SYNOPSICS
The Stoker (1932) is a English,Spanish movie. Chester M. Franklin has directed this movie. Monte Blue,Dorothy Burgess,Noah Beery,Natalie Moorhead are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1932. The Stoker (1932) is considered one of the best Drama movie in India and around the world.
A man whose wife has deserted him winds up saving a beautiful girl from the clutches of a murderous bandit on a Nicaraguan coffee plantation.
The Stoker (1932) Reviews
Give Dorothy a Hand!
Although the super-lovely Dorothy Burgess is none too well served by photographers Tom Galligan and Harry Neumann in the 1932 F. Hugh "The Moon Is Blue" Herbert's version of Peter B. Kyne's "The Stoker", and our hero, Monte Blue, is hardly the most dashing or charismatic of leading men, director Chester M. Franklin keeps the story moving along at a fast clip. The movie has more than its fair share of noir moments (the scenes in the hold and in the sleazy bar stay firmly in my memory), and of course these scenes are aided by the constant presence of Noah Beery as the villain and the delightful cameo Natalie Moorhead presents as the wife who sells Blue out. (I'm with Natalie. Who'd put up with a mindless lug like Blue, when you could have a real nice accountant-type guy like Richard Tucker instead? True, our beautiful Dorothy seems to find Blue attractive, but maybe, as the script points out, it's mainly the fact that he's an American-on-the-loose that makes him so irresistible). Director Chester Franklin's brother, Sidney Franklin (with whom he teamed in silent days), had a niche at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Chester wound up his career, producing shorts at the same studio, including the award-nominated "A Gun In His Hand" (1945).
The Halls of Montezuma this was not!
Today, this story would have come from a 1,000 page novel and been spread over many hours. Here, telling the tale in 70 minutes did not allow for any reflection on credibility, acting or production, but the result was nevertheless very watchable. Dick is CEO of the family business. The directors do not agree with his plans, so he asks his wife to help him buy them out using her money. At first she agrees, but then reneges, telling Dick she is leaving him for her accountant. (I think this was meant to be funny). Dick resigns from the company and ends up in a dockside bar, where he is taken on as a stoker in a ship bound for Nicaragua. The scenes in the stokehold were very well done. Passengers on the ship include a wealthy Nicaraguan coffee planter and his beautiful daughter, Margarita (erotically played by Dorothy Burgess). She flutters her eyes at a deck officer who agrees to show her the stokehold, where she drools over the stokers, stripped to the waist and sweating profusely. The ship pitches and she is thrown towards a firebox, but Dick saves her, though he falls against it and his back is badly burned. Margarita shows interest in him while he convalesces, but he is once bitten twice shy as far as women are concerned. In Managua he gets into a fight and is thrown is gaol along with a Negro fellow stoker. After a week in gaol and a riot outside, they are bailed to the coffee planter. Dick is taken into the house, the Negro sent off to the packing sheds (I think this was meant to be significant). Dick becomes accountant to the business, but still resists Margarita. However, he weakens when he rescues her when her horse bolts. Meanwhile, bandits are trying to steal the coffee, but the US Marines in Managua won't help Dick as he is outside their secure perimeter. Dick now kisses Margarita and they immediately get married. On her wedding night, Margarita tells her father that now she is an American, the Marines will have to help them. Dick overhears and feels betrayed, so stays out of the marital bedroom. Next morning he leaves on horseback for Managua. However, the bandits attack the plantation and give chase to him. Margarita drives up in her car, rescues him and they both return to the compound, now under siege. The Negro is now sent to Managua to call up the Marines who arrive in three trucks and slaughter the bandits. (From a military perspective, I suspect with their tactics the bandits would have wiped them out). Dick now realises that Margarita really loves him for himself, and agrees to stay, commenting, "Now the actions all over". To which, and remember this is pre-Code, Maragrita replies, "You're wrong, the action's only just beginning" as she drags him towards the double bed!
Is There A Uniform Dress Code For Latin American Bandits?
When Natalie Moorhead walks out on their marriage and Monte Blue loses his shipping line, he decides on an ocean cruise...as a stoker on a ship bound for Nicaragua. There he winds up working on Dorothy Burgess' coffee plantation, and the sparks fly. Meanwhile Noah Beery is a bandit raiding the coffee warehouses, who tries to roughly woo the lovely senorita. When she marries Blue, Beery decides if he can't have her, he and his bandits will wipe out everyone at the plantation. Chester Franklin directs this standard script with an immobile camera and a few interesting point-of-view scripts, but the cliches run riot, from Beery's Frito Bandito serape and hat, to the moment when he's eavesdropping and walks away at the wrong moment. Miss Burgess sports an accent -- she was often cast as a Latin American beauty -- and is very charming, despite her uninspiring dialogue. Keep a look out for Chris-Pin Martin as a Nicaraguan police chief. Producer M.H. Hoffman and son, M.H. Junior, tried some ambitious projects in the early 1930s, hampered by Poverty Row budgets and down-on-their-heels talent like Blue and Franklin. This one looks like it was intended to keep the pot boiling.
South of the Border, the Mexican Border.
Monte Blue, a very tall actor but otherwise uninteresting, loses his business in New York when his wife refuses to let him use the apartment as collateral. Moreover, she informs him that she is suing for divorce. This sours Monte Blue on women in general. Broke, he finds himself working as a stoker on a ship to Nicaragua. There, he gets into a fist fight with the renowned bandit, Santini (Beery). I suppose every one of these picaresque stories about down-and-outers who work as stokers or cow hands must sooner or later be involved in a saloon brawl, but I doubt they happened that often historically. I've visited many saloons and only witnessed one such brawl. It was a gay bar in San Francisco and two lesbians were duking it out near my table. Both the combatants were hefty. The tables and chairs flew. I wound up on the sawdust floor next to a stranger who taught me how to realistically imitate Franklin Delano Roosevelt by doing the impression into an empty beer glass while we lay on the floor. It was very effective too. Back to the story. As a result of the fight, Monte Blue and his pal, "Eclipse," an African-American whom I can't find listed in the credits, wind up in the calaboose. They are paroled to the service of the owner of a coffee plantation threatened by bandit raids, led by the head honcho, Beery himself. The US Marines are in Managua but they refuse to help the plantation unless it is American property. So Blue marries the owner's niece (Burgess) and when Santini and his bandidos attack, the Marines arrive just in time to drive them off. Blue has mistaken Burgess' motives in marrying him and this leads to a misunderstanding which is cleared up on their wedding night. A word about Dorothy Burgess. Monte Blue was a fool for avoiding her after she had inexplicably fallen in love with him. She's quite pretty and has a very sassy figure. Her Spanish accent is reduced to calling the hero "Deek" instead of "Dick" but so what? It's what inside a person that counts, and what's inside Burgess' character is money, sex, and a physique to die for. This is a fast movie, only about an hour long, but it's entertaining and it demonstrates some surprisingly high production values. The sets are convincing, and so are the Nicaraguans, who speak proper Spanish. The ending, of course, with the cavalry coming to the rescue at the last minute, is a cliché, and poor Blue in the lead has the expressiveness of a tree stump. That aside, it's not bad.