A Successful Calamity (1932)

Director
John G. Adolfi

Main cast
George Arliss; Mary Astor; Evalyn Knapp; Grant Mitchell; Hardie Albright

Genres
Comedy, Drama

Description
Henry Wilton is an elderly millionaire saddled with his selfish young second wife Emmy 'Sweetie' Wilton and a pair of spoiled grown children (Peggy and Eddie). To test his family's mettle, Henry pretends to have gone broke. Just as he suspected they would, his children rally to their father's side and change their ways: Peggy forsakes the fortune hunter George Struthers for the nice young man she's really in love with, the polo coach Larry Rivers; while Eddie applies for a demanding job and performs admirably. Only Sweetie seems to desert Henry.


Similar movies

Childhood friends Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven got married and quickly divorced. Now Tracy is about to marry again, this time to a shrewd social-climbing businessman. Bing still loves her. Spy magazine blackmails Grace's family by threatening to reveal her playboy father's exploits if not allowed to cover the wedding.
Chorus girl Patsy Shaw crashes a high-society party, meets playboy Charlie Breen, they fall in love, and are on their merry way to wedded bliss. However, Charlie's snobbish, ever-loving mama doesn't think that Patsy is worthy and sets out to prove it.
The story centers on a group of gossipy, high-society women who spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily-wedded Mary Haines finds her marriage in trouble when shop girl Crystal Allen gets her hooks into Mary's man.
Platon Ryabinin, a pianist, is traveling by train to a distant town of Griboedov to visit his father. He gets off to have lunch during a twenty minute stop at Zastupinsk railway station. He meets Vera, a waitress, after he refuses to pay her for the disgusting food he doesn't even touch and misses his train due to police investigation of the incident. His passport is then accidentally taken away from him by Andrei, Vera's fiancé, and his money is stolen as he waits for the next train to Griboedov. Vera learns that Platon is about to get sentenced and sent to prison in the Far East for a car accident he isn't guilty for. During the few days that Platon has to spend in Zastupinsk he and Vera develop feelings for each other...
"Sofia introduces her three adult daughters to her new lover who is their age and happens to be a woman. The women, in particular Elvira find it extremely difficult to accept their mothers sudden apparent sexual reversal. The news pushes the neurotic Elvira to the point of nervous breakdown. Sol, the youngest daughter, writes a lude rock song about it and performs in front of them at a concert. The daughters plot together on how to get their mothers new girlfriend, a native Czech, and brilliant pianist, out of her life. Their plot goes terribly wrong and turns the film from a light-hearted comedy, into mildly amusing drama."
Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam (Oscar Levant) is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary). A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.
A Beverly Hills teen (Billy Warlock) discovers his parents are part of a gruesome orgy cult for the social elite.
Concert pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellers) is trying to have an affair with a married woman, Stella Dunnworthy (Paula Prentiss), while two teenage private-school girls, Valerie Boyd (Tippy Walker) and Marian Gilbert (Merrie Spaeth), stalk him and write their fantasies about him in a diary. Orient's paranoia leads him to believe that the two girls, who seem to pop up everywhere he goes, are spies sent by the husband of his would-be mistress. When Val's mother, Isabel Boyd (Angela Lansbury), finds their diary, she suspects that Henry has acted inappropriately with her daughter. She contacts Orient and they end up having an affair. Val finds out about it, as does her dad.
Cléo is a pop singer who wanders around Paris while she awaits her biopsy results in fear she may have cancer. As Cléo readies herself to meet with her doctor at 7 o'clock, she meets with several friends and strangers while trying to grapple with mortality. Sensing indifference from those nearest to her, she finds herself questioning the doll-like image people have of her and is overcome by a feeling of solitude and helplessness. She finally finds some comfort in the company of stranger she meets in a park and with whom she is able to have a sincere conversation.
Julien and Emma are brother and sister, living in rural France with their father, who writes children's books. Julien is a gifted pianist but the loss of his mother has sucked the joie de vivre out of him; his best friend Alice knows it although their platonic relationship is more about him supporting her in bad relationship choices than anything else. When he sees a beautiful woman called Olga in a bookstore, Julien is smitten and sets about to set up someway of impressing her and winning her affection.
It's a story of 29-year-old top-manager Max who is really sure he is absolutely successful. All his life is around earning and spending money. But one day he meet a girl who is from another, real, world. And his own world starts to crash down.
A British writer struggles to fit in at a high-profile magazine in New York. Based on Toby Young's memoir "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People".
Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.
Charlotte is being raised without a mother. She is only 13 but ready to be an adult. She meets an older boy and begins a relationship while teaching a young friend about life and learning the ropes herself.
The life story of the famous pianist and band-leader of the 1930s and 1940s.
The Pianist is a film adapted from the biography of Wladyslaw Szpilman. A Jewish-Polish pianist who during the second world war lived and hid miraculously in Warsaw after having gone through a terrible tragedy. A film from Roman Polanski.
Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.
Called "the longest running con in FBI history," Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, the man that people knew as "Clark Rockefeller" had brilliantly impersonated numerous people, ranging from a talk show host to a Pentagon Advisor before ultimately claiming to be an heir to the famous Rockefeller family. Confident from the success of his prior scams, Clark quickly became well known and highly respected among Boston's elite and used his purported high society status to charm his way into the life of Sandra Boss, a millionaire with a Harvard MBA and a partner at the prestigious management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company.
The daughter of jazz pianist Joe Albany witnesses her beloved father's struggle -- and failure -- to kick his heroin habit.
Charlie Kohler is a piano player in a bar. The waitress Lena is in love with him. One of Charlie's brother, Chico, a crook, takes refuge in the bar because he is chased by two gangsters, Momo and Ernest. We will discover that Charlie's real name is Edouard Saroyan, once a virtuose who gives up after his wife's suicide. Charlie now has to deal wih Chico, Ernest, Momo, Fido (his youngest brother who lives with him), and Lena...
Mélanie Prouvost, a ten-year-old butcher's daughter, is a gifted pianist. That is why she and her parents decide that she sit for the Conservatory entrance exam. Although Mélanie is very likely to be admitted, she unfortunately gets distracted by the president of the jury's offhand attitude and she fails. Ten years later, Mélanie becomes her page turner, waiting patiently for her revenge.
Hard-hitting news editor Jim Branch falls for high-society type Sharon Norwood but can't get to first base as he continually makes use of her knowledge of the rich and famous to try to solve the murder of one of her socialite acquaintences. Written by Doug Sederberg
Yuri Kashiwaga was once known as a genius pianist. One day, she returns to her hometown in Goto Islands from Tokyo. There, she begins to work as a temporary teacher at a middle school and advisor for the school chorus. The chorus aims to take part at a competition. Yuri gives the members of the chorus members an assignment. She instructs them to write a letter with the title of “To myself 15 years later.” The 15-year-old boys and girls write about their secrets and worries.
When an African dictator jails her husband, Shandurai goes into exile in Italy, studying medicine and keeping house for Mr. Kinsky, an eccentric English pianist and composer. She lives in one room of his Roman palazzo. He besieges her with flowers, gifts, and music, declaring passionately that he loves her, would go to Africa with her, would do anything for her. "What do you know of Africa?," she asks, then, in anguish, shouts, "Get my husband out of jail!" The rest of the film plays out the implications of this scene and leaves Shandurai with a choice.
This titillating bit of pulp sensationalism was the last in a string of "B" films that Cleo Moore starred in at Columbia. Moore plays Lila Crane, an ambitious clip-joint floozie turned photographer with flexible morals and a penchant for fast money.
Like his father, Tom is a real estate agent who makes his money from dirty, and sometimes brutal, deals. But a chance encounter prompts him to take up the piano and become a concert pianist. He auditions with the help of a beautiful, young virtuoso pianist who cannot speak French - music is their only exchange. But pressures from the ugly world of his day job soon become more than he can handle...
Eight-hour epic based on the eponymous book by Leo Tolstoy. Two main story-lines are complex and intertwined. One is the love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov, who is unhappy in his marriage. Another is the "Great Patriotic War" of 1812 against the invading Napoleon's Armies. The people of Russia from all classes of society stand up united against the enemy.
Heaven's Bookstore is a 2004 Japanese film directed by Tetsuo Shinohara about a struggling classical pianist who is sent to heaven to work in a bookstore. It is based on two novels, written by Atsushi Matsuhisa and Wataru Tanaka.
A young married woman invites her mother, a celebrated concert pianist, to stay with her. Tensions rise as their buried hatred for one another comes to the surface.
Judaai (English: Separation) is a 1997 Indian Bollywood film starring Anil Kapoor, Urmila Matondkar and Sridevi who made her last appearance in this film and left the industry. This is the remake of 1994 Telugu film Subha Lagnam, which was in turn remade from the Kannada movie Ajagajantara (1991) starring Kashinath.
A mystery set in the environs of Lausanne concerning several plots which wind their way through the elegant homesteads of a couple of well-heeled French-Swiss denizens. Mika is the couture-attired, oh-so-perfect head of Muller Chocolates--a company that manufactures Swiss chocolates. Andre is her suave, concert pianist husband whose first wife died years ago in a mysterious car accident. When Jeanne, a beautiful young woman, enters the home of Mika and Andre, raising questions about her possible relationship to the family, tensions mount, alliances shift, and all the while, Mika prepares and faithfully serves her special recipe for hot chocolate each evening.
Motive is an edgy thriller that centers around Emery Simms, a highly educated and successful business tycoon who happens to be married to the quintessential wife Constance. Things go dangerously awry when the thrill seeking Emery engages in an adulterous fling with the wildly free-spirited and exotic Allanah. Timing couldn't be any worse when the politics of high society, shady business deals, bad press, and a violent murder collide, they threaten to destroy more than just his shaky marriage. As police probe into his situation, they uncover a labyrinth of deception, agendas and motives, where the stakes are enormous and nothing is what it seems.
Tale of 19th century New York high society in which a young lawyer falls in love with a woman separated from her husband, while he is engaged to the woman's cousin.
Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.
Gambling boat operator Jenny Blake throws over her gambler beau Jack Morgan in order to marry into high society.
The movie centers on a piano competition whose winner is assured of success. It is Paul's last chance to compete, but newcomer Heidi may be a better pianist. Can romance be far away? Will she take a dive despite the pressure to win from her teacher, Greta, or will she condemn Paul to obscurity?
A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.
A young man is a reformed gambler who must return to playing big stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks.
Seriously ill, concert pianist Karen Duncan is admitted to a Swiss sanitorium. Despite being attracted to Dr Tony Stanton she ignores his warnings of possibly fatal consequences unless she rests completely. Rather, she opts for a livelier time in Monte Carlo with dashing Paul Clermont. Written by Jeremy Perkins
A group of young high society friends, aged between 18 and 25, are gathered at a friend's bar that they regularly frequent for the night. But when they finish of their last beer and prepare to head home they find themselves held captive at gunpoint by five strangers. With their mouths, hands and feet tied, they are tortured, raped and murdered until the next morning. The gang who have captured them have no clear reason, they just want to punish these young people for everything left incomplete in their lives.
AKA is the story of a disaffected youth's search for love, status, and identity in late 1970s Britain. 18-year old Dean is handsome and bright, but feels hampered by his working-class background and by his family. In order to make something of himself, Dean assumes another identity and manages to enter high society. As he navigates this decadent new world, he meets a host of characters, including David, an older gay man who desires him, and Benjamin, a young hustler from Texas who has also managed to find a place among the aristocracy. Can Dean find love while living a lie? How much is he willing to sacrifice in order to pull off his charade? Presented through three simultaneous frames rather than one.
Martijn, an idealistic Dutch pianist, travels to Morocco to help start a food program for malnourished children. Within moments of his arrival, however, Martijn is abducted by a group of terrorists, injected with a debilitating drug, and imprisoned. Under threat of death, the young man engages in a mental chess match with Ahmat, trying to learn his captor's true objective and avoid a horrible fate
Jenny Stewart is a tough Broadway musical star who doesn't take criticism from anyone. Yet there is one individual, Tye Graham, a blind pianist who may be able to break through her tough exterior.
A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. A wake is going on, with mourners gathered around a coffin. Downstairs is an elegant bar where tuxedoed men dance and talk. One of them has a dream in which he comes upon Beauty, who seems to reject him, although when he awakes, Beauty is sleeping beside him. His story and his visits to the jazz and dance club are framed by voices reading from the poetry and essays of Hughes and others. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.
Former concert pianist, victim of Nazi torture, pursues a melancholic existence on the island of Guadalupe.
Romance and heartbreak walk hand-in-hand when Philip Chagal accidentally meets Helen Lawrence in a restaurant where she is a waitress. Unhappily married to a woman who suffers from mental illness, he is attracted to her and they make a date to go sailing, arriving at Philip's country home just as a storm is breaking. Helen learns who he is for the first time, a celebrated-and-famous concert pianist and, falling in love with him, decides to leave before matters go further. A hurricane hits and their car is crippled by a falling tree. Rising water forces then to seek shelter in the choir loft of a church, where they spend the night.
A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he doesn't know they once belonged to a murderer.
While giving a private performance for a visiting monarch, concert pianist Montgomery Royale is deafened when a bomb is detonated in an attempt to assassinate the foreign ruler. With his career over as a result of his injury, Royale returns to New York City with his sister Florence, close friend Mildred Miller, and considerably younger fiancée Grace Blair. After abandoning thoughts of suicide, Montgomery discovers he can lip read, and he spends his days observing people in Central Park from his apartment window. As he learns of people's problems, he tries to help them anonymously. He becomes absorbed in his game of "playing God" but his actions are without sincerity.
After discovering that she has only a short time left to live, concert pianist Lissa travels to Cornwall for the final fling of her life. While there, she falls in love with young mineral prospector Kit, a man whose dark secret prevents him from fighting in the War. Unbeknownst to Lissa, however, Kit's affections are also much in demand from a rival of hers.
This film exposes the weaknesses found in the high-society consisting of the minister, architects and lawyers. Each has different tastes and desires. As an influential person, the minister used his position to compromise the weak girl. The young lawyer was questioning the good name and status after the girl was betrothed with a tarnished. The young architect ignore Malay art elements. The film also presents a question of love in a family.
Follows the triumphs and tragedies of Katrinka Kovár, a young Czechoslovakian ski prodigy who discovers high-society splendor in the arms of a wealthy American businessman. When lust turns to lies, Katrinka - long haunted by a burning secret from her past - sets out to find the love she left behind.
Updated adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' classic 18th Century tale of seduction, betrayal and revenge set in the modern 1960s world of Parisian high society. The beautiful Madame de Merteuil seeks vengeance against her ex-lover Gercourt when he becomes engaged to her young goddaughter, Cécile. Merteuil turns to her ex-lover/partner-in-crime, Valmont, famous for his reputation as a Don Juan, to seduce Cécile and emotionally destroy her. While on his mission, Valmont gets sidetracked when he goes to visit his aunt and falls for Madame Tourvel, a virtuous, married woman who knows of his womanizing ways, but that only makes the challenge more exciting to Valmont. Together, Madame de Merteuil and Valmont make a dangerous team and they will stop at nothing when it comes to matters of the heart.
Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.
Nodame and Chiaki mutually decide that it would be for the best if they parted ways for a while so Nodame can practice for an upcoming competition. However, when things don’t go her way, she gets impatient and depressed. While Nodame is away, Chiaki’s former pianist Rui Son returns to take her place. To make matters worse, Rui and Chiaki are set to play the song Nodame dreams of playing with Chiaki herself: Ravel’s “Concerto in G Minor”.
The story of the first cloned human being - told in her own words: At the age of thirty the world-famous composer Iris Sellin learns that she has an incurable illness. She - a person who wanted to live for ever - does however not give in. In order to preserve her art and also herself, beyond death, for all posterity, she has herself cloned. Her daughter Siri, whom, in this way, she turns into her virtual twin, learns as a child that she is the world's first cloned human being. In fact a blueprint: a blueprint of her mother. From that moment on nothing is as it was before...
A young man romantically pursues his masochistic piano teacher.
In Mansfield Park, poverty-stricken Fanny Price is sent away to live with her wealthy uncle and aunt at Mansfield Park. As she struggles to adapt to her new lifestyle she begins to attract the attentions of suitors, learning about the sexual politics of high society along the way.
An insane surgeon's obsession with an actress leads him to replace her wounded pianist's hands with the hands of a knife murderer which still have the urge to throw knives.
Ye Xiang Lun is a music student majoring in piano who just transferred to Tamkang, a school famous for its musically talented students, especially those who play piano. On his first day of school, he hears a mysterious melody being played, and following it meets Lu Xiao Yu, another piano major. When he asks her about the song she was playing, she tells him that it is a secret that cannot be told. The two form a friendship that quickly evolves into a romantic relationship. However unbeknownst to Xiang Lun, there is more to Xiao Yu than initially meets the eye.

© Valossa 2015–2024