Stolen Paradise (1940) User Reviews

A Catholic Lad Comes of Age the Monogram Way

[alonzoiii-1 · 4/10 · 7 October 2012]

A callow youth leaves his cloistered catholic school and discovers unrequited lust for his stepsister, liquor, and airplanes. Will the snares of the world capture our young lad, ow will he find his way back to his STOLEN PARADISE, a place in the bosom of the church?

Even though it is apparent from the start that this is to be a low budget picture, there are moments in the first reel that suggest promise. For one thing, the film itself has different locales than typical, as it is shot in Coral Galbles, Florida. Second, the plot is way different than the usual B-movie offering, as it delves into issues of faith and adolescence. Third, the film itself does not shy away from dicey subject matter, as it becomes clear the young man is fixated on his older (by ten years) stepsister, and the stepsister is somewhat fixated in return.

But, alas, the movie ultimately fails, through uninspired direction and acting. (The director and one of the stars was involved with Reefer Madness, which does explain some of the quality issues.) The male lead tries hard, but does not have the chops to pull off a hard to play role. And the cheapness of the whole operation does get in the way.

The result. Not really worth seeing, unless you have a taste for extreme low budget, and the acting problems that tends to cause.

Three Movie Careers End

[boblipton · 4/10 · 24 July 2019]

Leon Janney misses his father's marriage to Esther Muir -- his mother had died several years earlier -- because the weather did permit him to fly from the Catholic boy's school he had been attending. He does get to meet his stepsister, Eleanor Hunt, who impresses him greatly before he heads off to college. there, he becomes a little more worldly wise, and a bit cruel. He realizes he's in love with Miss Hunt, but she's several years older, so he torments himself and his girlfriend, lounge singer Wilma Francis; she breaks with him after a torrid evening, when she tells him not to call, and if he does, use her name, rather than that of Miss Hunt.

It's a fairly old-fashioned movie that looks like it should have been a Pre-code movie. Technically, it's very primitive for 1940. It also was the last movie for three of the key personnel. Director Louis J. Gasnier had been directing for 35 years, but he had been flailing fr minor studios since his contract with Paramount had ended in 1935. Eleanor Hunt's career in the movies had begin in 1930, when she was pulled from the chorus for WHOOPEE!; her appearance here is almost certainly because she was the wife of the movie's producer, George Hirliman.

Leon Janney's case is a little more complicated. He was born in 1917 and made his first stage appearance at the age of 2. He appeared in movie shorts in 1925, in features from 1927. He did not limit himself to the moves. He appeared on Broadway in 1934, and in the late 1930s became a popular radio actor, particular on GANGBUSTERS. He continued acting on the radio into the 1970s, but he was also a board member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and an officer of Equity. He returned to the movie screen in three small roles from 1959 through 1970. Leon Janney died in 1980 at the age of 63.

One wishes for the element of scandal that burns like a candle on a birthday cake that can't be blown out.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 24 August 2022]

Child actor Leon Janney is lacking the spark for this role of a college age innocent heir who at one point wanted to be a priest yet got sidetracked by family issues and ultimately found sin more enticing than sainthood. First he falls in love with the much older newly introduced stepsister (Eleanor Hunt), then has a fling with nightclub hostess Wilma Francis. Apparently while making love to Francis, he called her by his step sister's name, whom he can't get off his mind.

You'd think that they would have found more of a story, but sadly that's all it is until he stranded with his stepsister on an island. Not really much of a plot and a very slow pacing. At times, this Monogram programmer really looks cheap (I recognized Janney's father's house set from the Bela Lugosi cheapy "The Invisible Ghost") then all of a sudden is glamorous and lush. Apparently filmed on location in Florida for the outdoors scenes, it must have rushed some indoor set scenes on the Monogram lot.

This is a complete waste of time for veteran comic actress Esther Muir who had stood her own against Wheeler and Woolsey and the Marx Brothers. She plays Hunt and Janney's stepmother, and only has a few scenes. Herbert Fisher is good as the head priest at the seminary Janney grew up in, and Fred Nielsey is fine in his brief screen time as Janney's father. Doris Blaine plays a pesky socialite that won't leave him alone. A very boring film, sadly this even lacks camp so it's just a bad movie that the audience would be lucky to make it through awake.

It's by the same guy who directed "Reefer Madness" and it's got a 2.8 on IMDb---'nuff said!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 28 June 2013]

"Stolen Paradise" is a creepy film brought to us by the same guy who directed "Reefer Madness", Louis Gasnier. Considering that "Reefer Madness" is among the most horrible films ever made AND "Stolen Paradise" has an IMDb score of 2.8, then I think you can guess what I thought about the film! The story begins at a residential school run by the Catholic Church. A young knuckle-head (Leon Janney) has lived there most of his life. Now, nearing 18, he's sent home to attend his father's wedding. It seems that the boy's mother passed away some time ago and the father left him in the care of the Church. Now, with a new mother, he's home to stay. However, and here's where the creepy exploitation angle occurs, he soon falls in love with his new step-sister—a lady a decade older than him. Since he cannot have her, he spends much of the film running amok—going from a nice young man who wants to become a priest to a nasty playboy who is simply out for a good time at anyone's expense. Late in the film, however, he kisses his step-sister—I mean REALLY kisses her. And, instead of working out his feelings, he runs off and joins the RAF to fight in WWII. Now this leads to one of the worst pieces of film work in movie history. He volunteers for a suicide mission and in the following scene, footage of various unrelated aircraft are literally randomly spliced on the screen. The plane changes from a fighter to a bomber and also changes nationalities repeatedly (going from British to American to even German!). But the worst was when the planes became WWI biplanes! I have never seen any air footage so random in all my life—and it would be like showing a NASCAR race and having the vehicles change to VWs, pickup trucks, convertibles and even tanks! I also liked it when the plane dove STRAIGHT down--several thousand feet and went nose-first into the earth...and he survived!!!

So is the movie worth seeing? Well, if you are a bad movie buff, yes. However, for a Gasnier film this one is practically a work of art. It's very bad and the acting is quite bad---but not nearly as bad as you might expect from this master of dreck. Dopey but not so dopey that you'll enjoy the ineptitude of the film—like you would many of Gasnier's other 'works of art'. I'd give this one a 2…maybe even a 2.5! Ultra-creepy but entertaining in a sick sort of way (at least at times).