The Man Called Back

Disgraced London doctor David Yorke is drinking himself into oblivion in a South Seas bar when he is called to the bedside of socialite Diana St. Claire who has been badly injured in a riding mishap. Smitten by Diana's beauty and kindness, David swears off the bottle, as he nurses her back to health. He returns to London, where he rises to prominence once again. Here he crosses paths with his beloved Diana, and is shocked to find her married to wealthy Gordon St. Claire, a notorious womanizer. Gordon humiliates his wife on a daily basis, even forcing her to entertain his lovers at their home. When he is poisoned, Diana is arrested and charged with murder. As scandalous headlines fill the newspapers, David works desperately, to try to prove the innocence of the woman he loves.

Conrad Nagel's long film career began in the silent era (Little Women, 1918), extended to the 1950s (All That Heaven Allows, 1955) and later into television through the 1960s. A founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927, Nagel received an honorary Academy Award for his work with the Motion Picture Relief Fund in 1940. Co-star Doris Kenyon first appeared on stage and screen in 1915 would play against top leading-men including Rudolph Valentino and Milton Sills, her future husband. She successfully made the transition to sound with her most notable role in 1939s The Man In The Iron Mask. A Man Called Back has a fine supporting cast including Alan Mowbray, Mae Busch and John Halliday turning in a fine performance as the despicable Gordon St. Claire.

Fresh from his success with the moody melodrama MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, director Robert Florey dashed off THE MAN CALLED BACK at bargain-basement Tiffany Studios. The film is set in the tropics; Conrad Nagel tops the cast as a dissipated, derelict doctor, hopelessly in love with married socialite Doris Kenyon. Doris' insane husband John Halliday commits suicide, but arranges the evidence so that his wife will be charged with murder. Nagel snaps out of his drunken doldrums to prove Doris' innocence. Watch for "the ever-popular Mae Busch" in a minor role.