The Man in the Iron Mask

Peter Cushing did double duty on this film. In additional to his own role, he would feed Louis Hayward the lines for the split screen shots.

Nearly all of the characters in this film actually existed, but none of the characters who die in it actually died that way in real life.

The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) is an American film very loosely adapted from the last section of the novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, pere, which is itself based on the French legend of the Man In The Iron Mask.

The film is notable for containing the first screen role for Peter Cushing. It was also notable for being the source of several subsequent remakes. The film was directed by James Whale and stars Louis Hayward as royal twins, Joan Bennett as Princess Maria Theresa, Warren William as d'Artagnan, and Joseph Schildkraut as Nicolas Fouquet.

Cast of The Man in the Iron Mask

Louis Hayward as King Louis XIV / Philippe of Gascony
Joan Bennett as Princess Maria Theresa
Warren William as d'Artagnan
Joseph Schildkraut as Fouquet
Alan Hale as Porthos
Miles Mander as Aramis
Bert Roach as Athos
Walter Kingsford as Colbert
Marion Martin as Mademoiselle de la Valliere (as Marian Martin)
Montagu Love as the Spanish ambassador
Albert Dekker as King Louis XIII

The Four Feathers

A British army officer who resigns his commission on the eve of his unit's embarkation to a mission against Egyptian rebels seeks to redeem his cowardice by secretly aiding his former comrades disguised as an Arab. When his unit is overwhelmed and captured by the rebels, the hero finds an opportunity to return the 'feathers' of cowardice sent to him by his former comrades by freeing them.

John Clements as Harry Faversham
Ralph Richardson as Captain John Durrance
C. Aubrey Smith as General Burroughs
June Duprez as Ethne Burroughs
Allan Jeayes as General Faversham
Jack Allen as Lieutenant Willoughby
Donald Gray as Peter Burroughs
Frederick Culley as Dr Sutton
Clive Baxter as Young Harry Faversham
Robert Rendel as Colonel
Archibald Batty as Adjutant
Derek Elphinstone as Lieutenant Parker
Hal Walters as Joe
Norman Pierce as Sergeant Brown
Henry Oscar as Dr. Harraz

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

MGM bought the rights to Mark Twain's novel specifically for Mickey Rooney.

When the con-men Walter Connolly and William Frawley advertise "Romeo & Juliet" as the play they were to present, they say it stars "David Garrick" and "Mrs. 'Sarah Kemble Siddons'", two of the most famous British actors of the 18th century. David Garrick and Sarah Kemble Siddons were both long dead by the year in which "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is supposed to take place.

Rex Ingram, playing Jim, was actually born on a riverboat on the Mississippi River.

Cast of Huckleberry Finn

Mickey Rooney as Huckleberry Finn
Walter Connolly as the 'King'
William Frawley as the 'Duke'
Rex Ingram as Jim
Lynne Carver as Mary Jane
Jo Ann Sayers as Susan
Minor Watson as Captain Brandy
Elisabeth Risdon as the widow Douglas
Victor Kilian as 'Pap' Finn
Clara Blandick as Miss Watson

Stanley and Livingstone

Otto Brower and Osa Johnson followed Stanley's path through Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda with their crew and returned with 100,000 feet of film for use in the safari sequences.

The movie was dubbed into Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.

Neither Spencer Tracy nor Walter Brennan ever actually went to Africa during the making of this film. Stand-ins for both of them were used in the long shots during the safari sequences, and whenever Tracy or Brennan were shown "on safari" in close-up against African scenery, they were acting in front of a rear projection screen.

Cast of Stanley and Livingstone

Spencer Tracy as Henry M. Stanley
Nancy Kelly as Eve Kingsley
Richard Greene as Gareth Tyce
Walter Brennan as Jeff Slocum
Charles Coburn as Lord Tyce
Cedric Hardwicke as Dr. David Livingstone
Henry Hull as James Gordon Bennett, Jr.
Henry Travers as John Kingsley
Miles Mander as Sir John Gresham
David Torrence as Mr. Cranston
Holmes Herbert as Sir Frederick Holcomb
Hannah Regin as Daian Stonehillety

Juarez

Orry-Kelly designed costumes for Bette Davis which changed in tone as the film progressed: from white at the beginning, changing to gray in mid-film, and then to black at the end when she goes insane.

Extensive research was done to provide accuracy. The writers had a bibliography of 372 books. Art director Anton Grot made 3,643 sketches from which 7,360 blueprints were prepared for exterior and interior settings. A complete Mexican village was built on the Warner Bros. ranch in the San Fernando Valley.

Because the film shows many of Maximilian's generals to be Mexican, many viewers attribute it to typical Hollywood historical distortions. It is, however, indeed accurate. It's a little-known fact that, although Maximilian was eventually overthrown and executed by Mexican revolutionaries, there were actually more Mexicans fighting on Maximilian's side than against him. This was due in large part to the Catholic Church's strong support of the French occupation of Mexico and its "encouraging" Mexican Catholics to fight against the revolutionary forces by joining Maximilian's army, which they did in large numbers.

An English version of Franz Werfel's play titled "Juarez and Maximilian" opened on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on October 11, 1926 and ran for 48 performances. This stage version's cast included Alfred Lunt and Edward G. Robinson. The film is an extremely loose adaptation of Werfel's play. Juarez never appears in the stage version. The only one of Werfel's works to be quite faithfully adapted into a Hollywood film was "The Song of Bernadette", in 1943. (Werfel's play "Jacobowsky and the Colonel" was filmed by Hollywood as a Danny Kaye vehicle and retitled "Me and the Colonel".)

Cast of Juarez

Paul Muni ..... Benito Juárez
Bette Davis ..... Carlota of Mexico
Brian Aherne ..... Maximilian I of Mexico
John Garfield ..... Porfirio Diaz
Claude Rains ..... Napoléon III
Donald Crisp ..... Gen. Marechal Achille Bazaine
Joseph Calleia ..... Alejandro Uradi
Gale Sondergaard ..... Empress Eugénie
Gilbert Roland ..... Col. Miguel Lopez
Henry O'Neill ..... Gen. Miguel Miramon
Harry Davenport ..... Dr. Samuel Basch
Louis Calhern ..... LeMarc
Walter Kingsford ..... Prince Richard Metternich

Jesse James

A scene in which a horse falls to its death from a cliff, and the subsequent public outcry, led to the American Humane Association (AHA) overseeing filmmaking through its new Film and TV Unit. Eventually they introduced the now-familiar AHA certification, "No animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture."

Irving Cummings filled in as director from 14 October 1938 to 24 October 1938, when Henry King was bed-ridden from a swelling in his ear.

The film shows both Jesse and Frank going off the cliff on horseback. In reality the stunt was performed once and shot with two cameras.

In the scene where a wagon and its two horses go over the edge of a 75-foot cliff into the river below, the stuntman driving the wagon wasn't hurt, but the two horses were killed.

While shooting his role in the Ozarks, Lon Chaney, Jr. fell off his horse during a chase and was trampled by the horse behind him. He was not injured badly - he managed to finish his scenes that day. But director Henry King, blaming Chaney's nightly drinking for the mishap, fired him, and he was dropped by his studio (20th Century Fox.)

After the two horses that were blindfolded and forced to go over a cliff were killed, a new rule was enforced and later endorsed by The Humane Society of America in which strict standards were created to protect Animal Actors in which at the end of the movie and added to the credits listed as "No Animals Were Harmed or Injured in the Production of this Film...". Now all films involving any Animal Actors must have present a member representing The Humane Society of America to insure that all animals are treated humanly and given a safe environment in which to work.

Cast of Jesse James

Tyrone Power as Jesse James
Henry Fonda as Frank James
Nancy Kelly as Zerelda 'Zee' James
Randolph Scott as Will Wright
Henry Hull as Maj. Rufus Cobb
John Carradine as Robert Ford
Charles Tannen as Charlie Ford
Slim Summerville as Jailer
J. Edward Bromberg as Mr. Runyan
Brian Donlevy as Barshee
Donald Meek as McCoy
Claire Du Brey as Mrs. Bob Ford
Jane Darwell as Mrs. Samuels
Lon Chaney Jr. as James Gang member
Eddy Waller as Deputy

Hell's Kitchen

Don Turner (Chick), Robert Strange (Callahan) and Jimmy O'Gatty (Mug) are listed in studio records for those roles, but were not seen in the movie.

As a result of a PTA complaint, this was the last gangster angle picture made by The Dead End Kids.

This was one of the first films that Broadway columnist-turned-film producer/writer Mark Hellinger worked on at the B-picture unit of Warner Brothers. Hellinger was under close scrutiny by Hollywood columnists to observe how he would perform, and they jokingly referred to this film as "Hellinger's Kitchen".

The fifth of seven movies featuring The Dead End Kids.

The film was given an "H" rating (now known as an "X" rating) in the United Kingdom due to its violence.

Cast of Hell's Kitchen

Ronald Reagan as Jim
Margaret Lindsay as Beth
Billy Halop as Tony
Bobby Jordan as Joey
Leo Gorcey as Gyp
Gabriel Dell as Bingo
Huntz Hall as Ace
Bernard Punsly as Ouch