Tweet The Crooked Road (1932)

When I wrote about The Pueblo Terror a few weeks ago I cited it as Wanda Hawley's last film, even though the IMDB has one subsequent credit for her: an obscure 1932 entry called The Crooked Road which had Gaston Glass in the lead.

The only other reference I've found on this film is in The Motion Picture Guide--the AFI catalogue doesn't include it and so far I haven't found any mention of it in Film Daily. My tentative theory is that it may have been unreleased at the time but wound up in a late 40s or 50s TV syndication package. Or that it really is a phantom title.

Anyone know more?

-HA

IMDb lists a cast list, director and running time. But that's about it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310926/combined

...Obscure 1932 entry called The Crooked Road...

My tentative theory is that it may have been unreleased at the time but wound up in a late 40s or 50s TV syndication package.

Anyone know more?

-HA

It is not listed in any B.I.B. book I checked (1971, 1978 or 1987).

I know this is probably a real low budget film, but it seems odd that Gaston Glass would have the lead. His other film work at this point was bit parts and usually uncredited. Wanda Hawley and Glass made 2 silents together. Could this be a goat-gland effort from some minor studio.

A 1929 western (apparently unreleased) titled All Faces West was given the goat gland treatment and released in 1932 as the talkie West of the Rockies.

Thanks for looking it up, Rich--that's one theory I can discard!

I did wonder if it might be a re-edit of a states' rights film from the 20s. The cast list for The Crooked Road doesn't match with those for the previous Glass-Hawley pairings (Flying Fool from Aywon in 1925 and The Midnight Limited from Rayart in 1926), but then again we don't know how accurate the IMDB's entry is.

One of the more interesting examples of a silent being reissued in the 30s is Missing Daughters, a 1924 film released through Selznick and then revised for a 1933 re-release (including newly-shot framing scenes that told the story in flashback).

-HA

One web site for Wanda Hawley said all he final films were Westerns, but there's no info on The Crooked Road anywhere and none of the principals are big enough names to have much written about them, let along full-blown biographies. The Ben Lyon film I mentioned was produced by the Mormons and had "stock footage" added for the talkie release to pad out the film. The added prologue of singing cowboys has nothing to do with the film that I could see. So anything is possible.

I still wonder about Gaston Glass in a leading part, especially since he was French and usually played French in talkies unless he had no lines. Glass was married to a showgirl hilariously named Bo Peep Karlin, who actually appeared in 7 films.