Flowers and Trees, The Guardsman, Entitled The Champ

In 1931 Walt Disney made his first animated cartoon in technicolor. It was called Flowers and Trees, and it won an Academy award.

After long persuasion, that great stage couple, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, reluctantly consented to make the film version of Molnar's The Guardsman. Despite the success of the picture, directed by Sidney Franklin, they never made another.

The filming of Trader Horn was Hollywood at its tragicomic best. M-G-M sent an entire company and crew to Africa, in order to ensure the authenticity of the location shots; then, when the company returned to America, reshot most of the scenes on the M-G-M lot. The tragic phase of the episode was that Edwina Booth, who played the role of the white girl turned native priestess, contracted an obscure tropical malady from which she never fully recovered.

The flood of gangster pictures continued. One of the better ones was Public Enemy, in which James Cagney demonstrated that one way to charm the ladies in the audience was to be rough with the ladies on the screen.

The success of Moana encouraged Paramount to release another South Sea island picture, Tabu, which was directed by F. W. Murnau from a story by himself and Robert Flaherty. It was one of the most glamorous and beautiful pictures ever made.

Jackie Cooper raised himself to stardom by his engaging performance of a comic-strip character brought to life--Percy Crosby's Skippy. Norman Taurog won an Academy Award for his direction.

Beery also costarred with Jackie Cooper in a story, by Frances Marion, about a drunken ex-champion prize fighter who is regenerated by his little boy. Entitled The Champ, it was one of the lachrymal hits of 1931.