Though history is distorted almost beyond recognition in Warner Bros.' They Died With Their Boots On, audiences in 1941 ate it up like cotton candy. In the gospel according to Warners, General George Armstrong Custer (Errol Flynn) is neither an arrogant fool nor a rabid Indian hater. Instead, he is a flamboyant but brilliant cavalry officer, who ...
"What a dump!" That's the classic line delivered by Bette Davis at the halfway point of Beyond the Forest, her final Warner Bros. effort of the 1940s. Some Davis devotees feel as though this vituperative utterance is the high point of an otherwise turgid melodrama; others consider the line a succinct assessment of the entire film. Based on a best ...
As Alfred Hitchcock's classic psychothriller opens, the staff of a posh mental asylum eagerly awaits the arrival of the new director. When the man in question shows up, it turns out to be handsome psychiatrist John Ballantine (Gregory Peck). But something's wrong, here: Ballantine seems much too young for so important a position; his answers to ...
The bravura performance of Bela Lugosi is the main selling card for the 12-episode Universal serial The Phantom Creeps. Unhinged by the death of his wife, Dr. Alex Zorka (Lugosi) vows to avenge himself on the world with a variety of strange inventions, including a "disvisualizer belt" which allows him to carry out his perfidy under the cloak of ...
A varied group of more or less greedy relatives is once again gathered at the reading of a will in this atmospheric thriller from low-budget Monogram Pictures. But this time, the benefactor, Silas Wayne (William V. Mong), isn't quite dead yet and the law, in the persons of dense Lieutenant Mitchell (Regis Toomey) and his equally addle-brained ...
With famed journalist Drew Pearson appearing in the film's prologue and epilogue, it was easy in 1945 to confuse Betrayal from the East with Real Life. Lee Tracy is once again cast as a seemingly disreputable type with a heart of gold, in this case an expatriate ex-GI named Eddie. Believing that he'd be willing to sell out his country, a Japanese ...
Paramount Pictures did their patriotic duty with this World War II era musical, with a number of the studio's biggest stars making cameo appearances. Tony West (George Raft), his sister Kitty (Grace McDonald), and their father Nick (Charles Grapewin) tour together as The Three Wests, a failing act just scraping by in the latter days of vaudeville. ...
Dick Powell stars in this suspenseful melodrama, directed by Robert Parrish. Rocky Mulloy (Powell) has recently returned from prison, after being pardoned from a life sentence when new evidence clears him from a robbery conviction. Delong (Richard Erdman), a crippled Marine veteran who concocted the new evidence that got Mulloy released, thinks ...
Some good performances overcome the scripted cliches in Dakota Incident. In the tradition of Stagecoach, the film offers a disparate group of travellers whose lives are imperiled when their coach heads deep into Indian territory. Linda Darnell plays Amy Clarke, the requisite you-know-what with a heart of gold. Dale Robertson costars as hard-bitten ...
New York Police Commissioner Mulroney opens Penal Code with a stern warning for parents about keeping the children off the streets and out of gangs. The rest of the film provides a grim example of what could happen if they do not heed him as it tells the tale of a young man's descent into criminalhood and eventually jail. After serving his time, ...
Proof positive that Reliable Pictures' Skull and Crown was filmed several years before its 1938 New York premiere is the presence in the cast of former silent-screen leading man James Murray, who died in 1936. The star of the show is Rin-Tin-Tin Jr., who among other things helps to break up a gang of smugglers. Another silent veteran, Jack Mower, ...
In this bargain-basement actioner, a determined young woman tries to prove that her incarcerated brother is innocent. She must hurry, for he has a fatal date with the electric chair. Desperate, she enlists the aide of a shady character and a kindly district attorney. Most of the action scenes were cut from minor serials. ~ Sandra Brennan, All ...
Although released as an "Allied Pictures Special," Picture Brides revealed its Poverty Row origins in almost all departments, including casting and choice of material. Waning silent star Dorothy Mackaill was top-billed as Mame, one of five mail-order brides arriving at Lottagrasso, a remote Brazilian gold mining community. The fifth girl, Mary Lee ...
This Pine-Thomas actioner stars Robert Lowery as two-fisted forest ranger Don Bradley. Promoted to supervisor, Bradley finds his success hollow when his childhood sweetheart Kay (Ellen Drew) marries big-time gangster Steve Downey (Regis Toomey). In soon develops that Kay has wedded Downey against her will, and is being held prisoner in a remote ...
Released by Monogram in 1937, Shadows of the Orient was actually produced independently several years earlier by Larry Darmour. Arrested in a raid on a Chinese gambling joint, judge's daughter Viola Avery (Esther Ralston) is rescued from disgrace by King Moss (Sidney Blackmer), owner of the establishment. In return, Moss expects Viola to string ...
The Light of Western Stars goes a long way towards using Paramount's fledgling sound system creatively; some scenes are filmed in complete darkness, allowing voices and sound effects to carry the day. Otherwise, this is a pleasantly familiar western concerning the relationship between drunken-cowpuncher Richard Arlen and new ranch-owner Mary Brian ...
Apparently having cornered the market in white-collar crooks in 1935, Sidney Blackmer plays a shifty financier in Monogram's The Great God Gold. Blackmer is cast as John Hart, a "receivership representative" for shysters Nitto (Edwin Maxwell) and Simon (John T. Murray). Hart's present assignment is to claim the meager assets of heroine Marcia ...
Based on Danny Ahearn's short story "Back in Circulation", Republic's Bulldog Edition stars Ray Walker as Ken Dwyer, two-fisted circulation manager for a great metropolitan newspaper. Though Dwyer's methods always attract customers, they are also the bane of the existence of dyspeptic managing editor Hardy (Regis Toomey). In addition, Dwyer and ...
After being injured in the prizefighting ring, an ex-boxer is reduced to speakeasy bouncer and meets a charming burlesque performer whose complex personal difficulties prompt him to aid her by attempting a return to the world of professional pugilism. ~ All Movie Guide
Sally Bates (|$Isabel Jewell) is a young Texas woman trying to make it to Hollywood on too little money and driving a car that's too old. She gets stranded one night, nearly out of money and gas, in a college town where she meets Bill Cutler (Larry "Buster" Crabbe), a poor-but-honest and hard-working campus hunk -- he's a football hero and also ...
In this drama, a young couple ignores the advice of their elders and get married. Soon afterward, the young groom is inducted into the war. Overseas, he suffers from shell shock and must return home. Much of the drama centers upon his reminiscences as he rides the train homeward. Later the people he thought about on his journey home help him to ...
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