The Man Who Played God

The Man Who Played God

'A Modern Drama From Real Life'

NR 1932 · 80 min · ★ 7.2 · Romance, Drama

While giving a private performance for a visiting monarch, concert pianist Montgomery Royle 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, Royle 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 and becomes absorbed in his game of "playing God".

Directed by John G. Adolfi · Written by Gouverneur Morris

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Rent or Buy

Cast

George Arliss Montgomery Royle
Violet Heming Mildred Miller
Bette Davis Grace Blair
André Luguet The King
Louise Closser Hale Florence Royle
Donald Cook Harold Van Adam
Ivan F. Simpson Battle
Oscar Apfel Appleby - the Lip Reader
Charles E. Evans The Doctor
Hedda Hopper Mrs. Alice Chittendon
Ray Milland Eddie (uncredited)
Dorothy Libaire Jenny (uncredited)

Make it a double feature

2h 21m together

The Man Who Played God

College Lovers

Both from John G. Adolfi.

More from John G. AdolfiSee all →

College Lovers

College Lovers · 1930

Romance on a college campus.

The Little 'Fraid Lady

The Little 'Fraid Lady · 1920

The Little 'Fraid Lady

Cecelia Carne, dubbed "the little 'fraid lady" because she shuns society, seeks the solitude of the forest in order to perfect her talents as a painter. By chance one day, Cecelia wanders into the estate of Judge Peter Carteret where she meets Saxton Graves, who is assisting the judge in decorating his house. Recognizing her talent, Saxton hires Cecelia and soon falls in love with the artist.

The Scarlet West

The Scarlet West · 1925

The Scarlet West

Cardelanche, the son of an Indian chief, returns from the East to find himself rejected by his own people. He is made captain of the U.S. army when he saves a detachment of cavalry from a group of renegade Indians, and further removes himself from his race when he develops a relationship with Miriam, the daughter of the Fort Remmington commandant. Lieutenant Parkman (Walker) gets into a fight with Cardelanche when Parkman is demoted, while General Custer's troops are slaughtered by Cardelanche's people. Cardelanche decides that his true allegiance is to his own race, and gives up Miriam to return to them.

What Shall I Do?

What Shall I Do? · 1924

What Shall I Do?

Under the name of Jack Nelson, Don McLean goes to work in his father's factory. He meets a restaurant cashier, Jeanie; they are married and have a child. Stricken by amnesia as a result of an accident, Jack forgets his family and returns to his former life. Eventually his memory is restored, and he is reunited with his wife and child.

Evidence

Evidence · 1929

MovieDramaRomance

Lord Cyril Wimborne, a barrister, divorces his wife, Myra, and takes custody of their child, Kenyon, when he finds her name linked with the profligate Major Pollock. Myra goes into seclusion while Pollock, intending to conceal Myra's innocence, goes to Burma. A few years later Myra sees Kenyon in the park with Mrs. Debenham, a widow with designs on Wimborne. Noting the resemblance between the lady in the park (whom he calls his "princess") and a photograph of his mother, Kenyon invites Myra to dinner at a time when his father, who has curtailed the visits to the park, plans to be away. At the same time Harold Courtenay, an old family friend, sees an opportunity to reunite the estranged couple.

Who's Your Brother?

Who's Your Brother? · 1919

Who's Your Brother?

The story of Jewish financier Stephen Field and his daughter Esther. Having survived a European massacre years before that claimed his wife and son, Stephen takes immense pleasure in philanthropic work at a community service center in the U.S. while Esther entertains returning soldiers in a canteen. At the canteen, Esther meets Robert Graham, who because of a war wound suffers from fainting spells, and he falls in love with her. William Morris, a brilliant Jewish surgeon also courts Esther; and the men vie for her affection. When Graham loses control of his car due to a fainting spell suffering grave injury, Morris is the only person who can save his life.

The Millionaire

The Millionaire · 1931

The Millionaire

A millionaire automaker retires upon the advice of his doctor, but becomes so bored he buys half interest in a gas station and works it on the sly.

The Show of Shows

The Show of Shows · 1929

The Show of Shows

Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!

The Working Man

The Working Man · 1933

The Working Man

MovieComedyDrama

A successful shoe manufacturer named John Reeves goes on vacation and meets the grown children of his recently deceased and much-respected competitor; they're on the verge of losing the family legacy through their careless behavior. Reeves takes it upon himself to save his rival's company by teaching the heirs a lesson in business.

Recaptured Love

Recaptured Love · 1930

Recaptured Love

MovieComedyDrama

In this drama, a 50-year-old married man (played by John Halliday) goes with his wife (Belle Bennett) and son (Junior Durkin) to a nightclub in a fancy hotel in Detroit. He meets a gold-digger (Dorothy Burgess) there, singing the theme song of the picture, and eventually ends up going out with her on a subsequent occasion and falls in love with her. His wife finally finds out and this leads to her leaving him and getting a divorce in Paris. He is married to the gold-digger but finds life with her and her "jazz friends" to be too much for him. He begins to long for his old wife when he finds her in a nightclub with another man and becomes jealous.

Central Park

Central Park · 1932

MovieRomanceComedy

Two destitute New Yorkers meet cute in Central Park and then separate and independently get tangled up with some gangsters only to be reunited again in the end.

The King's Vacation

The King's Vacation · 1933

The King's Vacation

The king of an unnamed European country abdicates and tries to recapture the happiness with the wife he had to give up for the throne.

Dumb-bells in Ermine

Dumb-bells in Ermine · 1930

Dumb-bells in Ermine

MovieComedyRomance

In a small town in Virginia, Faith Corey, daughter of a socially prominent family, meets and falls in love with Jerry Malone, a prizefighter, though her straitlaced mother wants her to marry Siegfried, a spellbinding "missionary reformer." Though Grandma Corey promotes the romance with the prizefighter, Mike, the fighter's hardboiled, wisecracking manager, tries to keep them apart; following a quarrel, Faith reconciles herself to marrying Siegfried, but when he invites a group of "weak sisters" to a revival meeting, he is disgraced when one accuses him of her downfall. Finally, with Mike's advice, Jerry wins back Faith and they are united with the family's blessings.

The Stolen Jools

The Stolen Jools · 1931

The Stolen Jools

Famous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)

A Successful Calamity

A Successful Calamity · 1932

A Successful Calamity

MovieComedyDrama

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.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood · 1912

MovieRomanceAdventure

Robin Hood is a 1912 film made by Eclair Studios when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey at the beginning of the 20th century. The movie's costumes feature enormous versions of the familiar hats of Robin and his merry men, and uses the unusual effect of momentarily superimposing images different animals over each character to emphasize their good or evil qualities. The film was directed by Étienne Arnaud and Herbert Blaché, and written by Eustace Hale Ball. A restored copy of the 30-minute film exists and was exhibited in 2006 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

More Like This

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind · 2004

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

MovieScience FictionDrama

Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.

Maria Full of Grace

Maria Full of Grace · 2004

Maria Full of Grace

MovieDramaThriller

A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.

Klute

MovieThrillerCrime

A high-priced call girl is forced to depend on a reluctant private eye when she is stalked by a psychopath.

Stranger Than Paradise

Stranger Than Paradise · 1984

Stranger Than Paradise

MovieComedyDrama

New York layabout Willie forms an unexpected bond with his young Hungarian cousin Eva when she pays him a surprise visit. Later, Eva moves in with their aunt in Cleveland, and Willie takes his best friend Eddie to see her—a visit that culminates in a strange, eventful trip to Florida.

MovieMysteryDrama

A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.

Shaft

MovieCrimeThriller

Cool Black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.

We Own the Night

We Own the Night · 2007

We Own the Night

MovieDramaCrime

A New York nightclub manager tries to save his brother and father from Russian mafia hitmen.

Mr. Deeds

Mr. Deeds · 2002

MovieComedyRomance

When Longfellow Deeds, a small-town pizzeria owner and poet, inherits $40 billion from his deceased uncle, he quickly begins rolling in a different kind of dough. Moving to the big city, Deeds finds himself besieged by opportunists all gunning for their piece of the pie. Babe, a television tabloid reporter, poses as an innocent small-town girl to do an exposé on Deeds.

Cop Land

Cop Land · 1997

MovieCrimeDrama

Freddy Heflin is the sheriff of a place everyone calls “Cop Land” — a small and seemingly peaceful town populated by the big city police officers he’s long admired. Yet something ugly is taking place behind the town’s peaceful facade. And when Freddy uncovers a massive, deadly conspiracy among these local residents, he is forced to take action and make a dangerous choice between protecting his idols and upholding the law.

Alice in the Cities

Alice in the Cities · 1974

Alice in the Cities

German journalist Philip Winter has a case of writer’s block when trying to write an article about the United States. He decides to return to Germany, and while trying to book a flight, encounters a German woman and her nine year old daughter Alice doing the same. The three become friends (almost out of necessity) and while the mother asks Winter to mind Alice temporarily, it quickly becomes apparent that Alice will be his responsibility for longer than he expected.

The Talented Mr. Ripley

The Talented Mr. Ripley · 1999

The Talented Mr. Ripley

MovieThrillerCrime

Tom Ripley is a calculating young man who believes it's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody. Opportunity knocks in the form of a wealthy U.S. shipbuilder who hires Tom to travel to Italy to bring back his playboy son, Dickie. Ripley worms his way into the idyllic lives of Dickie and his girlfriend, plunging into a daring scheme of duplicity, lies and murder.

American Psycho

American Psycho · 2000

American Psycho

MovieThrillerDrama

A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.

Party Monster

Party Monster · 2003

MovieComedyDrama

The New York club scene of the 80s and 90s was a world like no other. Into this candy-colored, mirror ball playground stepped Michael Alig, a wannabe from nowhere special. Under the watchful eye of veteran club kid James St. James, Alig quickly rose to the top... and there was no place to go but down.

Addicted to Love

Addicted to Love · 1997

Addicted to Love

MovieComedyRomance

Good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life leaves him for a suave Frenchman. He therefore does what every other normal dumpee would do — go to New York and set up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend's apartment, wait until she decides to leave her current lover, and then win her back.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter