Carl Brisson

The singing stoker and the vamp.

Paramount Pictures decided in 1935 to create a new romantic team, thus cast singing stars Carl Brisson and Mary Ellis in the frothy operetta All the King's Horses. Brisson does the "Prisoner of Zenda" bit as a movie star who is forced by circumstances to impersonate a look-alike king. Ms. Ellis is the highborn lady who seems to be fooled by the ruse. The plots roll merrily onward while various and sundry musical-comedy character actors (including Edward Everett Horton and Eugene Pallette) fuss and fume in the background. Danish singer Carl Brisson had created a minor sensation by introducing "Cocktails for Two" in Paramount's Murder at the Vanities (34), but the studio's attempts to turn him into a Scandinavian Maurice Chevalier were unsuccessful.

Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

A Ruritanian Prince is due to marry a princess with acting ambitions, but he has fallen in love with another woman.

An ex-French Foreign Legion soldier comes to Soho and ends up as a singer in a cafe.

Facing an arranged marriage to a man of dubious morals, heiress Korah Hurley poses as the impoverished travelling companion of her aunt, the Marquise de Jaurmais, in order to test whether her rakish fiancé's affections are truly for her or for the fortune she will inherit.

In a small mine town north of the circle, Torsten lives, working with his sister Eva and comrade Lars, who is engaged to Eva. The town's bat-owner has a daughter, Märta, who, after trying out the big city life, has returned to the village for a while, and begins to flirt openly with Torsten, but also with Lars. Märta hears of an old gold treasure that will be hidden somewhere in the mountains, trying to seduce both of them and seek both friends to find out the treasure. Neither Lars nor Torsten knows the plans or swarms of others, but Eva notices how Märta attracts Lars away from her.

An American sailor imprisoned on Dartmoor during the American War of Independence manages to escape and falls in love with a local Squire's daughter.

A fisherman and a rising lawyer who grew up together as brothers fall in love with the same woman.

Both Jack Sander and Bob Corby are boxers in love with Mabel. Jack and Mabel wed, but their marriage is flat. The young wife looks to Bob for comfort.