Ann DoranFilmography

Wildcats

Actors: Goldie Hawn, James Keach, Swoosie Kurtz, Robyn Lively, Brandy Gold, Nipsey Russell, Bruce McGill

Synopsis: Blonde-haired, blue-eyed women's libber Molly McGrath (Goldie Hawn) quits her teaching job at a comfortable middle-class school to take a new position as varsity football coach at a predominantly black inner-city school. Culture and gender clashes abound; she must win over the hard-boiled youths Read More

The A-Team: Mission of Peace

Synopsis: This week, the A-Team shows up at the Mission of Peace, a historic Texas tourist attraction maintained by a group of feisty senior citizens. The oldsters are being forced off the Mission by a greedy rancher named Ashton (Ric Mancini), compelling the unofficial head of the seniors, a guy named Rudy Read More

Magnum, P.I.: Two Birds of a Feather

Synopsis: In search of lost treasure, international adventurer Sam Hunter (William Lucking) crash-lands his plane on the Robin Masters estate. Magnum (Tom Selleck) quickly deduces that the crash was no accident, and that someone wants Hunter dead. He also has the eerie feeling that he's met Hunter before. . Read More

First Monday in October

Actors: Walter Matthau, Jill Clayburgh, Barnard Hughes, Jan Sterling, James Stephens

Synopsis: The election of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court rendered the premise of First Monday in October anachronistic before the picture was even released; ignoring this, however, the film is supremely entertaining (no pun intended). Jill Clayburgh stars as Ruth Loomis, the first lady justice Read More

All Night Long

Actors: Gene Hackman, Barbra Streisand, Diane Ladd, Dennis Quaid, Kevin Dobson

Synopsis: Gene Hackman plays a disgruntled suburbanite who manages the Ultra-Sav, an all-night drugstore. He hates his job, hates his debts and responsibilities, and isn't overly fond of his wife (Diane Ladd) and son (Dennis Quaid). Partly as a form of protest, Hackman enters into an affair with Barbra Streisand Read More

Advice to the Lovelorn

Actors: Melissa Sue Anderson, Walter Brooke, Paul Burke, Lance Kerwin, Cloris Leachman, Donna Pescow

Synopsis: The made-for-TV Advice to the Lovelorn stars Cloris Leachman as a "Dear Abby" type newspaper advice columnist. Walter Brooke costars as her editor, who discourages her efforts to follow up her advice in person. But follow she does, trying to untangle the problems of guest stars Melissa Sue Anderson Read More

Crazy Times

Synopsis: In this socially conscious drama, set in 1955, three tough New York youths must learn to deal with a troubled world. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Gumball Rally

Actors: Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey, John Durren, Susan Flannery

Synopsis: For better or worse, The Gumball Rally was the catalyst for a short-lived cycle of "illegal cross-country race" flicks. As thick-headed cop Roscoe (Norman Burton) does his best to stop the titular rally, a vast and varied contingent of contestants prepare to burn rubber from New York to Read More

Flood!

Actors: Barbara Hershey

Synopsis: Having already exhausted the dramatic possibilities of fire with The Towering Inferno, producer Irwin Allen turns to water in the made-for-TV Flood! The film is set in a small community, conveniently (for the purposes of the plot) located near a huge earthen dam. As the flood waters rise and the Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: School of Fear

Synopsis: Eminent Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans guest stars as Leopold Summer, a history teacher dismissed from his job because he is a firm proponent of corporal punishment. Upon learning that one of his former colleagues has been shot in a tough high school, the already disturbed Summer goes Read More

Little House on the Prairie: Founder's Day

Actors: Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, Melissa Gilbert, Karl Swenson

Synopsis: Walnut Grove's annual Founder's Day celebration brings a host of visitors to compete in a wide variety of contests. As the Ingalls' and the Olesons' jealously squares off elsewhere (Mrs. Olesen [Katherine MacGregor] is quite a sight at the three-legged race), elderly but proud logger Jim Tyler (Forrest Tucker Read More

The Family Nobody Wanted

Synopsis: Based on a true story, The Family Nobody Wanted was one of the better ABC Movie of the Week entries of the 1970s. James Olson plays a minister whose main concern is society's outcasts, particularly the youngsters. With the loving help and support of his wife (Shirley Jones), the reverend takes in Read More

M*A*S*H: The Kids

Synopsis: The "kids" in this episode include a group of Korean orphans who take refuge at the 4077th when their living quarters are bombed. Not surprisingly, everyone in the unit takes the youngsters to their hearts except the xenophobic Frank Burns (Larry Linville). And there's even more on the way, as the Read More

The Last Angry Man

Synopsis: Previously filmed with Paul Muni in 1959, Gerald Green's novel The Last Angry Man was adapted for television by Green himself, who restored the original book's Depression-era setting in the process. Pat Hingle steps into the Muni role as crusty, temperamental Dr. Sam Abelman, who tends to the Read More

Emergency!: The Old Engine

Synopsis: A new subplot is born as Roy (Kevin Tighe) and John (Randolph Mantooth) purchase a 1932-vintage fire engine as a "fixer-upper." The emergency roster includes a runaway LSD victim who may or may not kill herself; a fireman who is trapped in a burning warehouse after falling through the roof; a Read More

Emergency!: School Days

Synopsis: Parademic trainee Billy Hanks (Kip Niven) has everyone at Rampart on edge with his lack of experience--and his more injurious lack of self-confidence. Billy's inner strength ultimately comes to surface when he must rescue a man from an overturned ambulance. Among the other emergencies facing the Read More

The Streets of San Francisco: The Victims

Synopsis: Stone (Karl Malden) and Keller (Michael Douglas) cover the length and breadth of the Bay Area to track down three escaped convicts. The escapees have embarked on a murder spree, wiping out anyone who gets in their way at the behest of the sadistic outlaw leader who kills for the thrill of it. The Read More

Adam-12: Training Wheels

Synopsis: Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) cover familiar ground when they climb into the front seat of Adam-12 to chase down a car thief. But they're in far less familiar surroundings when they are assigned to an experimental LAPD bicycle patrol. Doing their best to hide Read More

Ironside: The Priest-Killer

Synopsis: First telecast September 14, 1971, "The Priest Killer" was originally identified as the two-hour opening episode of Ironside's fifth season. In truth, it is the second pilot film for the TV cop series Sarge, starring George Kennedy as cop-turned-priest Father Samuel "Sarge" Kavanaugh. Though based Read More

Ironside: In the Line of Duty

Synopsis: Existing evidence suggests that an elusive and very prolific thief known as the Golden Gate Bandit is responsible for the murder of policeman Jack Campbell (Stuart Randall). But Ironside (Raymond Burr) suspects that someone else is using the thief's crime spree to cover up their own homicidal Read More

Bewitched: This Little Piggy

Actors: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick Sargent, Agnes Moorehead, David White, Herb Edelman

Synopsis: Endora's latest spell transforms Darrin into an indecisive clod. Once this bit has been squeezed dry, Endora endeavors to prove that Darrin is quite literally pig-headed. The results: Neighbor Gladys Kravitz is all shook up and another ad campaign is placed in jeopardy until Samantha can bring the Read More

The Hired Hand

Actors: Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Verna Bloom, Robert Pratt, Severn Darden

Synopsis: Meeting largely mixed reviews during its first run in 1971, counterculture icon Peter Fonda's directorial debut was restored and remastered for its 30-year anniversary. The film opens with three drifters greeting the morning by cavorting in a sun-dabbled mountain river. Harry Collings (Fonda) Read More

Adam-12: Log 114: The Hero

Synopsis: Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) are duly impressed when a young civilian, Lauro Perez (A Martinez), performs an act of heroism by rescuing a man from a warehouse fire. Curiously, however, Lauro balks at being awarded with a police citation; indeed, he seems Read More

Ironside: This Could Blow Your Mind

Synopsis: In order to qualify for a top-secret assignment, Ironside (Raymond Burr) must first undergo an evaluation conducted by psychologist William Danner (Bradford Dillman). This involves a "stress test" to see how far Ironside can be pushed before he will break. Unfortunately, Danner has a hidden agenda Read More

Bewitched: The Corsican Cousins

Actors: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick Sargent, Agnes Moorehead, David White

Synopsis: This week, Endora's spell transforms lookalike cousins Samantha and Serena into "two minds with but a single thought." In true Simon Says fashion, Sam begins mirroring Serena's words and actions, and vice versa. Will this confusing situation spell disaster for the ad firm of McMann and Tate -- and Read More

There Was a Crooked Man

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates, Burgess Meredith

Synopsis: An offbeat 1970s black-comic Western with an all-star cast, this Joseph L. Mankiewicz film is set in 1883 in Arizona. Paris Pitman, Jr. (Kirk Douglas) is the leader of a band of outlaws that steals $500,000 from a wealthy businessman named Lomax (Arthur O'Connell). The other gang members die in a Read More

Ironside: Dora

Synopsis: Woe betide the criminal who ever makes the mistake of victimizing a friend of Chief Robert Ironside (Raymond Burr)! In this case, the friend is a fruit seller named Dora Copeland (Ann Doran). A syndicate of protection racketeers has swarmed into town in hopes of gaining control of San Francisco's Read More

Once You Kiss a Stranger

Actors: Paul Burke, Carol Lynley, Martha Hyer, Peter Lind Hayes, Philip Carey

Synopsis: Diana (Carol Lynley) is the wealthy, mentally unbalanced woman who seduces the local golf pro Jerry (Paul Burke). She proposes they each do the other a favor by eliminating their rivals. The drunken golfer laughs and agrees to kill Diane's psychiatrist Dr. Haggis (Whit Bissell), believing Diane is Read More

The Arrangement

Actors: Kirk Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Deborah Kerr, Richard Boone, Hume Cronyn

Synopsis: Kirk Douglas has an extreme case of mid-life crisis in Elia Kazan's turgid melodrama (adapted from his best-selling novel). Douglas plays successful advertising executive Eddie Anderson, who cracks under the strain of the morning rush hour in Los Angeles and plows his sports car into a truck. Read More

Bonanza: The Real People of Muddy Creek

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Joe Don Baker, Jean Hale

Synopsis: When Sheriff Walker (Stuart Randall) of Muddy Creek is murdered, Ben and Joe Cartwright volunteer to guard prisoner Luke Harper (Joe Don Baker). Fearful of retaliation from Harper's gang, the townspeople refuse to assist Ben and Joe, going so far as to desert the town. The only remaining citizens Read More

Rosie!

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Sandra Dee, Brian Aherne, Audrey Meadows, James Farentino

Synopsis: Rosie! is directly based upon Ruth Gordon's play A Very Rich Woman, which was itself based upon a French play by Philippe Heriat, but the indirect source for all three versions is Shakespeare's King Lear. Rosalind Russell has the Lear part, here transformed from a powerful king into a rich, madcap Read More

Petticoat Junction: With This Gown I Thee Wed

Synopsis: This is the much-anticipated episode in which Betty Jo Bradley (Linda Kaye) is married to Steve Elliott (Mike Minor). But it's still a sitcom episode, meaning that a few complications must ensue before the happy moment. Especially vexing to Betty Jo is the fact that her well-meaning friends and Read More

The Hostage

Actors: Don O'Kelly, John Carradine, Danny Martins, Ron Hagerthy

Synopsis: Six year-old Davey Cleaves (Danny Martins) is trapped in a moving van with two killers after witnessing a murder in this low-budget crime drama. Bull (Don O'Kelly) is the brains of the outfit, with the spineless Eddie (Harry Dean Stanton) as his vacillating accomplice. The boy is hiding in the van Read More

Petticoat Junction: Meet the In-Laws

Synopsis: Former Leave It to Beaver paterfamilias Hugh Beaumont makes his second Petticoat Junction appearance, this time playing the father of Betty Jo's fiancé Steve Elliott (Mike Minor). The trouble begins when the elder Mr. Elliott and his wife (Ann Doran) arrive in Hooterville unexpectedly, looking Read More

Bonanza: Ballad of the Ponderosa

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Randy Boone, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Fifteen years after Ben Cartwright's testimony sent a man named Preston to the gallows, Preston's son Colter arrives in Virginia City. A self-styled troubador, Colter sings a bitter ballad denouncing Ben and proclaiming his own father's innocence, forcing the authorities to re-open the case. Read More

Not with My Wife, You Don't!

Actors: Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi, George C. Scott, Carroll O'Connor, Richard Eastham

Synopsis: In the words of Hamlet, there's a plentiful lack of wit in Not with My Wife, You Don't! Korean war vet Tony Curtis is living in London, blissfully married (so he thinks) to Virna Lisi. In strolls old air force buddy George C. Scott, who has a history of stealing Curtis' ladies away from him. Read More

Where Love Has Gone

Actors: Susan Hayward, Bette Davis, Michael Connors, Joey Heatherton, Jane Greer

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Harold Robbins, comes this family drama from director Edward Dmytryk. Adapted for the the screen by John Michael Hayes, the film follows the events that befall Luke Miller (Michael Connors) when he discovers that his daughter, Danielle (Joey Heatherton), has been arrested for Read More

The Carpetbaggers

Actors: George Peppard, Alan Ladd, Martha Hyer, Elizabeth Ashley, Carroll Baker

Synopsis: Edward Dmytryk brings Harold Robbins' trashy, dirt-dishing Hollywood best-seller to the screen with George Peppard starring as Jonas Cord, a rancidly-sketched portrait of Howard Hughes. In 1925, when his father dies of a stroke, Jonas inherits the Cord Chemical factory, a manufacturer of dynamite Read More

Kitten With a Whip

Actors: Ann-Margret, John Forsythe, Peter Brown, Patricia Barry, Richard Anderson

Synopsis: An aspiring senator finds himself in deep trouble when he tangles with a sultry teenage girl gone bad in this campy drama. Ann-Margret stars as Jody, a tough customer who escapes from reform school by stabbing a matron and attempting to burn down the building and then takes refuge in a house owned Read More

The Brass Bottle

Actors: Tony Randall, Burl Ives, Barbara Eden, Kamala Devi, Edward Andrews

Synopsis: In this goofy comedy, an architect discovers that a recently purchased antique bottle is the home of a jovial but vexing genie who is more than willing to destroy anyone who would oppose or annoy his new master. This creates problems for the architect as he is more interested in impressing his Read More

Captain Newman, M.D.

Actors: Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson, Eddie Albert, Bobby Darin, James Gregory

Synopsis: Gregory Peck plays a benevolent God-like figure in a white smock as Captain Josiah Newman, the head of a psych-unit at a Southwestern army base during the waning days of World War II. Newman is a patriarchal protector to his patients, preferring to keep him in his ward, rather than return them to Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito

Synopsis: This episode is unusual in that there is no defendant as Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) attempts to solve a murder during a coroner's inquest in the mining town of Gold Gulch. Having learned that someone has been selling phony gold mines in the area, Perry disguises himself as a prospector to draw out Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Lurid Letter

Synopsis: While vacationing in the small town of Price Hill, Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) agrees to speak before the local board of education on behalf of English teacher Jane Wardman (Mona Freeman), who may lose her job because of an anonymous letter accusing her of "playing around" with her male students. Read More

Riot in Juvenile Prison

Actors: Jerome Thor, Marcia Henderson, Scott Marlowe, John Hoyt, Dick Tyler

Synopsis: Conflicting views on how to handle juvenile delinquents are not convincingly brought across in this teen melodrama by Edward Cahn. Colonel Walton (John Hoyt) is the repressive head of an institution for young male juvenile delinquents. Responsibility for the deaths of two teens is indirectly laid Read More

Warlock

Actors: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, Dorothy Malone, Dolores Michaels

Synopsis: Warlock offers us a mean-spirited, mercenary Henry Fonda and an honest, peaceloving Richard Widmark. A Wyatt Earp-like frontier marshal, Fonda agrees to protect the small town of Warlock from an outlaw gang, but only if he's permitted to plunder the town's cash reserve. Widmark, the town deputy Read More

Cast a Long Shadow

Actors: Audie Murphy, Terry Moore, John Dehner

Synopsis: A troubled saddletramp with a penchant for drinking away his pain inherits a ranch from the man who may have been his father. This western follows the young rider's attempts to reform. His efforts are ultimately challenged when his old rivals come to town. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The FBI Story

Actors: James Stewart, Vera Miles, Murray Hamilton, Larry Pennell, Nick Adams

Synopsis: If Warner Bros.' pageantlike The FBI Story resembles an episode of Jack Webb's Dragnet at times, it's probably because the screenplay was by veteran Dragnet scrivener Richard L. Breen. The film meticulously details the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, from its formation in 1924 to Read More

Leave It to Beaver: Beaver the Magician

Actors: Rusty Stevens, Madge Kennedy, Eddie Marr, Joey Scott, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Beaver (Jerry Mathers) shells out good coin for a mail-order magic trick, but no one seems impressed by his conjuring skills. In desperation, Beaver and Larry (Rusty Stevens) put on a mini-magic show for the only person willing to watch: four-year-old Benjie Bellamy (Joey Scott). Larry covers Beav Read More

Disneyland: Tales of Texas John Slaughter: Showdown at Sandoval

Synopsis: In the fourth episode of Walt Disney's 17-part miniseries The Tales of Texas John Slaughter, Slaughter (Tom Tryon) has captured outlaw leader Mrs. Barko (Beverly Garland) who, though she faces the gallows, refuses to explain why she was trying to join forces with another notorious bandit, Dan Read More

A Summer Place

Actors: Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy, Troy Donahue

Synopsis: The Jorgensons are a wealthy family spending the summer on a resort island. Ken (Richard Egan), Helen (Constance Ford) and daughter Molly (Sandra Dee) settle in to a beach house on the island where Ken was a young lifeguard twenty years ago. He rediscovers Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire), with whom he Read More

Life Begins at 17

Actors: Mark Damon, Dorothy Johnson, Edward Byrnes, Ann Doran, Hugh Sanders

Synopsis: Life Begins at 17 in this all-too-typical example of the "art" of quickie producer Sam Katzman. Plain little Carol Peck (Luana Anders) is wooed by arrogant punk Russ Lippincott (Mark Damon). What Carol doesn't know is that Russ is only interested in her knockout older sister Elaine (Dorothy Johnson Read More

Step Down to Terror

Actors: Josephine Hutchinson, Colleen Miller, Charles Drake, Rod Taylor, Jocelyn Brando

Synopsis: Though the fact was played down by the Universal-International publicity department, Step Down to Terror (aka The Silent Stranger) is a remake of the 1943 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Shadow of a Doubt. Charles Drake plays Johnny Williams, a psychotic serial killer who returns to his hometown to Read More

The Rawhide Trail

Synopsis: In this western two wagon masters are wrongfully accused of driving their wagon train in to a Comanche raid and are sentenced to hang. Now they must work hard and fast to prove their innocence. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Day of the Bad Man

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Joan Weldon, John Ericson, Robert Middleton, Marie Windsor

Synopsis: Fred MacMurray is the beleagured hero of the Universal western Day of the Badman. MacMurray plays circuit judge Jim Scott, who rides into town to pass sentence on convicted killer Jake Hayes (Lee Van Cleef). Unfortunately, it doesn't look as though Hayes will stay in jail long enough for the Read More

Perry Mason: The Case of the Prodigal Parent

Synopsis: Philip Larkin (Terry Becker) is murdered, and his stepfather Joseph Harrison (John Hoyt) is charged with the crime. A key piece of evidence for the prosecution is a home movie showing Larkin and Harrison quarrelling; could their argument have been about sexy Lorraine Stevens (Andra Martin), whom Read More

It! The Terror from Beyond Space

Actors: Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith, Kim Spalding, Ann Doran, Dabbs Greer, Richard Benedict

Synopsis: One of the best of the medium-budgeted science fiction flicks of the 1950s, It! The Terror from Beyond Space is set in "the future" (1973, to be exact). An rescue ship travels out to Mars to retrieve the only survivor of a space probe that has experienced some sort of cataclysm. That survivor Read More

The Female Animal

Actors: Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell, Jan Sterling, George Nader, Jerry Paris

Synopsis: Harry Keller, the man who directed the extra scenes in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, receives solo directorial credit in The Female Animal. Hedy Lamarr stars as Vanessa Windsor, a beautiful but ageing film star whose life is saved on the set by handsome extra Chris Farley (George Nader). Falling in Read More

Violent Road

Actors: Brian Keith, Dick Foran, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Merry Anders, Sean Garrison

Synopsis: In this drama, six daring truckers must transport unstable, highly explosive rocket fuel through a dangerously bumpy, rugged country. The film centers on their individual reasons for making the trip. These are presented via flashback. Though most of them need the money, one of the truck drivers is Read More

The Voice in the Mirror

Actors: Richard Egan, Julie London, Arthur O'Connell, Walter Matthau, Troy Donahue

Synopsis: In this sensitive drama, a commercial artist is devastated by his tiny daughter's death and takes to drinking to numb the terrible pain. Soon he has become a full-blown alcoholic. His loving wife and caring doctor are unable to help. He wants to stop drinking, but he simply cannot until he meets Read More

Joy Ride

Actors: Rad Fulton, Ann Doran, Regis Toomey, Nicholas King, Robert Levin

Synopsis: Adapted by Christopher Knopf from a short story by C.B. Gifford, Joy Ride is a fast-paced pocket variation of the Desperate Hours/Night Holds Terror school of suspense. When middle-aged Mr. Miles (Regis Toomey) picks up a quartet of young-punk hitchhikers, he's only trying to extend the usual Read More

The Deep Six

Actors: Alan Ladd, William Bendix, James Whitmore, Dianne Foster, Keenan Wynn

Synopsis: The conflict between duty and conscience is explored in the WWII drama The Deep Six. Alan Ladd stars as Naval gunnery officer Alec Austin, a Quaker whose sincere pacifist sentiments do not sit well with his crew members. When he refuses to fire upon an unidentified plane, the word spreads that Read More

Band of Angels

Actors: Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo, Sidney Poitier, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Patric Knowles

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Robert Penn Warren, this Southern potboiler stars Yvonne DeCarlo as Amantha Starr, the daughter of a wealthy Louisiana plantation owner. When her father unexpectedly dies, Amantha discovers that her father was deep in debt and the family is penniless, and she is forced to drop Read More

Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend

Actors: Randolph Scott, James Craig, Angie Dickinson, Dani Crayne, James Garner

Synopsis: A bizarre western that at times veers dangerously close to outright burlesque, Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend concluded Randolph Scott's long-term contract with Warner Bros. and sat on the shelf for nearly two years before being dumped on the double-bill market in 1957. Scott and two fellow cavalry Read More

Two Grooms for a Bride

Actors: John Carroll, Virginia Bruce, Brian Oulton, Kay Callard, Michael Caridia

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, four children are seemingly orphaned and remanded to their aunt and uncle's custody after their parents, renowned explorers, are lost. The proper English aunt is the sister of the missing mother; the playboy uncle is the brother of their father. Both are single and Read More

Leave It to Beaver: Voodoo Magic

Actors: Ken Osmond, Ann Doran, Karl Swenson

Synopsis: Defying their parents' orders, Beaver (Jerry Mathers) and Wally (Tony Dow) sneak out to the local movie house to watch the horror-thriller "Voodoo Curse." Scared witless by what he has seen, Beaver gets sore at Eddie Haskell (Tony Dow), who talked the boys into seeing the flick. Accordingly, Beav Read More

Young and Dangerous

Actors: Mark Damon, Lili Gentle, Edward Binns, Frances Mercer, Dabbs Greer

Synopsis: A wild young buck settles down and becomes a decent fellow after he falls in love with a sweet young girl in this youth drama. He is a delinquent with a reputation when they meet. During their first date, they end up at the police station. Her protective parents are outraged and forbid her to see Read More

The Man Who Turned to Stone

Actors: Victor Jory, Ann Doran, Charlotte Austin, William Hudson, Paul Cavanagh

Synopsis: The secret to immortality is thus: to rejuvenate tired bones and muscles and retain that youthful feeling forever, simply place nubile young women in a vat filled with chemicals, attach wires to their heads and suck out their life forces Warning: If after the first dosage subsequent treatments are not promptly administered, irreversible petrification will occur in all cases. Read More

The Desperate Hours

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March, Arthur Kennedy, Martha Scott, Dewey Martin

Synopsis: Based on the novel and play by Joseph Hayes, which in turn was inspired by an actual event, The Desperate Hours is the prototypical "family-trapped-by-criminals" drama. Escaped convicts Humphrey Bogart, Robert Middleton and Dewey Martin, seeking an appropriate hideout until they can make contact Read More

Rebel Without a Cause

Actors: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Corey Allen, Sal Mineo, Dennis Hopper

Synopsis: This landmark juvenile-delinquent drama scrupulously follows the classic theatrical disciplines, telling all within a 24-hour period. Teenager Jimmy Stark (James Dean) can't help but get into trouble, a problem that has forced his appearance-conscious parents (Jim Backus and Ann Doran) to move Read More

The High and the Mighty

Actors: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Stack, Jan Sterling

Synopsis: For The High and the Mighty, director William Wellman made a point of using Cinemascope to heighten the dramatic content of a confined screen space -- in this instance, the cockpit of a plane in flight. Copilot Dan Roman (John Wayne) seems a lot more in control of things than Captain John Sullivan Read More

The Bob Mathias Story

Actors: Bob Mathias, Ward Bond, Melba Mathias, Howard Petrie, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Taking into consideration the success of the 1953 biopic Crazylegs, Allied Artists cooked up its own sports biography in the form of The Bob Mathias Story. Olympic decathalon winner (and future Wheaties spokesman) Bob Mathias plays himself, and quite well indeed. The film begins with the Read More

City Story

Synopsis: Director William "One Take" Beaudine never turned down a job from anyone. So when the Protestant Film Commission called him up to work on City Story, he was on the set bright and early the first morning of shooting, and was still there when production wrapped a week or so later. The plot concerns Read More

Them!

Actors: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness, Onslow Stevens

Synopsis: A little girl is found wandering in the desert, in a state of complete shock. When she finally revives, she can scream out only one word: "Them!" Any aficionado of 1950s horror films can readily tell you that "Them" are giant ants, a byproduct of the radiation attending the atomic bomb tests of Read More

Island in the Sky

Actors: John Wayne, Lloyd Nolan, Walter Abel, James Arness, Andy Devine

Synopsis: During World War II, a Military Air Transport Command DC-3 piloted by a civilian crew is forced down in northern Labrador. The five men, led by Dooley (John Wayne), have barely any food and almost no way to keep warm, and their power supply is fading fast, but they have to find a way of staying Read More

So This Is Love

Actors: Kathryn Grayson, Merv Griffin, Joan Weldon, Walter Abel, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: This tuneful biography of operatic soprano Grace Moore begins as she prepares to perform on opening night. While awaiting her entrance cue, she reflects upon her life and the sequence of events that led her from a humble childhood in Tennessee to becoming one of the brightest stars in the opera Read More

The Eddie Cantor Story

Actors: Keefe Brasselle, Marilyn Erskine, Aline MacMahon, Marie Windsor, Arthur Franz, Alex Gerry, Jackie Barnett

Synopsis: Eddie Cantor, beloved "banjo eyed" entertainer who conquered stage, films, radio and television, is given the Hollywood biopic treatment in this largely uninvolving film. Cantor is portrayed by Keefe Brasselle, a minor nightclub performer of the 1950s who couldn't hope to come within shouting Read More

Here Come the Nelsons

Actors: Ozzie Nelson, Harriet Nelson, David Nelson, Ricky Nelson, Rock Hudson

Synopsis: Fresh from radio and TV, "America's Favorite Family" stars in Here Come the Nelsons. That's right: this harmless little comedy is purely a vehicle for Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky. Since there must be a plot, the scriptwriters contrive to have Harriet uncharacteristically express jealousy over Read More

The Adventures of Superman: A Night of Terror

Synopsis: While taking a well-deserved vacation in Canada, reporter Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) ends up at a seedy motel where the owner's wife (Ann Doran) is behaving in a strangely terrified fashion. It turns out that the motel is the refuge for a pair of gunmen who are awaiting the arrival of a paid Read More

Rodeo

Actors: Jane Nigh, John Archer, Wallace Ford, Gary Gray, Frances Rafferty

Synopsis: Hard-working leading lady Jane Nigh attains top billing in 1952's Rodeo. It's all about rough-and-ready gal Nancy Cartwright (Nigh) who takes over a travelling rodeo after the manager skips town with the payroll. Under her guidance, the show becomes a money-making proposition. Unfortunately, in Read More

The Rose Bowl Story

Actors: Marshall Thompson, Vera Miles, Richard Rober, Natalie Wood, Keith Larsen

Synopsis: Nancy Thorne, 1952's Tournament of Roses queen, makes an extended guest appearances in this Monogram "special." In her first important film role, Vera Miles plays Denny Burke, one of Thorne's attendants, whom stuck-up football hero Steve Davis (Marshall Thompson) mistakes for an heiress. Upon Read More

Paula

Actors: Loretta Young, Kent Smith, Alexander Knox, Tommy Rettig, Otto Hulett

Synopsis: Loretta Young plays a guilt-ridden hit-and-run driver in Paula. After leaving the scene of an accident, Paula (Young) discovers that her victim, a young boy named David Larson (Tommy Rettig), may have permanently lost the power of speech. Her maternal instinct overcoming her desire for Read More

Love Is Better Than Ever

Actors: Larry Parks, Elizabeth Taylor, Elinor Donahue, Josephine Hutchinson, Tom Tully, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Though completed in 1950, Love Is Better Than Ever was held back from release until 1952, due in great part to the "political undesirability" of star Larry Parks, whose career was effectively ruined after he humbled himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Parks plays Broadway Read More

The Painted Hills

Actors: Lassie the Dog, Paul Kelly, Bruce Cowling, Gary Gray, Art Smith

Synopsis: Alexander Hull's novel Shep of the Painted Hills was refashioned into a traditional Lassie vehicle by screenwriter True Boardman. The noble collie turns avenger this time out, hoping to bring the murderer of her master to justice. The perpetrator, played by Bruce Cowling, is hounded (no pun Read More

Tomahawk

Actors: Van Heflin, Yvonne De Carlo, Alex Nicol, Preston S. Foster, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Tomahawk takes place during the Great Sioux Uprising of the 1860s. Van Heflin stars as famed frontier scout Jim Bridger, who labors valiantly and vainly to orchestrate peace between Indians and whites. Much of the action takes place at Fort Phil Kearney, the scene of one of the bloodiest battles Read More

Starlift

Actors: Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Virginia Mayo, Gene Nelson, Ruth Roman

Synopsis: Starlift was Warner Bros' attempt to revive the "all-star patriotic musical" format which had worked so well during WW II. The wisp of a plot concerns Mike Nolan (Dick Wesson) and Rick Williams (Ron Hagherty), San Francisco-based airmen who serve as crew members on a shuttle to Korea. To impress a Read More

The People Against O'Hara

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Pat O'Brien, Diana Lynn, John Hodiak, Eduardo Ciannelli

Synopsis: Fish-market worker Johnny O'Hara (James Arness) is named as a suspect when his boss -- with whom he had a dispute the previous day -- is shot to death in an apparent robbery. When he's arrested, his family appeals to their old friend James Curtayne (Spencer Tracy), who was once a renowned criminal Read More

Her First Romance

Actors: Margaret O'Brien, Allen Martin, Jr., Jimmy Hunt, Sharyn Moffett, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Former child star Margaret O'Brien is Betty Foster, the "all growed up" heroine of Her First Romance. Hoping to rendezvous with handsome teenager Bobby Evans (Allen Martin Jr.) at a fancy summer camp, Betty bamboozles her parents into sending her there. Once she's arrived, Betty proves her Read More

Lonely Hearts Bandits

Actors: Dorothy Patrick, John Eldredge, Barbara Fuller, Robert Rockwell, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Dorothy Patrick, the sweetheart of Republic Pictures' "B" unit, stars in Lonely Hearts Bandits. Patrick plays Louise Curtis, a petty crook who teams with mobster Tony Morelli (John Eldredge) to fleece the lonely. Victim number one is a lovelorn farmer, who is summarily robbed and murdered by Read More

Riding High

Actors: Bing Crosby, Coleen Gray, Charles Bickford, Frances Gifford, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: Anxious to remain active in the 1950s, director Frank Capra wanted to prove to Paramount Pictures that he could deliver an "A" picture on a modest budget. To that end, Capra bought the rights of his 1934 film Broadway Bill from Columbia, and remade it under the title Riding High. He then hired Read More

No Sad Songs for Me

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, Wendell Corey, Viveca Lindfors, Natalie Wood, John McIntire

Synopsis: Rudolph Mate directs this sentimental melodrama about a ridiculously self-sacrificing wife based on the book by Ruth Southard and starring a 12-year-old Natalie Wood. Mary Scott (Margaret Sullavan) is pregnant when she finds out that she has terminal cancer with only a few months left to live. She Read More

Lonely Heart Bandits

Gambling House

Actors: Victor Mature, Terry Moore, William Bendix, Zachary A. Charles, Cleo Moore, Basil Ruysdael, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Gambling House is a low-key remake of the 1943 Cary Grant vehicle Mr. Lucky. Victor Mature stars as Marc Fury, a foreign-born gambler who is currently facing deportation. Always looking out for Number One, Fury seeks out a legal loophole so he can sidestep naturalization--and, incidentally, avoid Read More

Never a Dull Moment

Actors: Irene Dunne, Fred MacMurray, William Demarest, Andy Devine

Synopsis: In this 1951 comedy Irene Dunne stars as Kay, a Manhattan-based songwriter who marries widowed rodeo cowboy Chris (Fred MacMurray). In the tradition of The Egg and I, Kay suffers a great deal of culture shock when she moves into Chris' western ranch. When she isn't being bedeviled by her new Read More

The Jackpot

Actors: James Stewart, Barbara Hale, Natalie Wood, James Gleason, Fred Clark, Patricia Medina, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: The Jackpot is a generally pleasing satire of quiz programs. James Stewart stars as Bill Lawrence, an average Joe who picks up the phone one day, answers a simple question, and suddenly finds himself the recipient of a radio quiz-show jackpot. Tons of prizes are shipped to Lawrence's house, to the Read More

Rusty Saves a Life

Actors: Ted Donaldson, Gloria Henry, Stephen Dunne, John Litel, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Columbia's "Rusty" series was entering the homestretch with 1949's Rusty Saves a Life. The eponymous doggie hero, portrayed by a very busy canine thespian named Flame, does exactly what the film's title says he does. But before this prophecy can be fulfilled, the story spends a great deal of time Read More

Air Hostess

Actors: Gloria Henry, Ross Ford, Audrey Long, Marjorie Lord, William Wright

Synopsis: The upsurge in commercial air travel in the postwar years resulted in several films dealing with the trials and tribulations of airline stewardesses. Gloria Henry, who'd later star as Alice Mitchell in TV's Dennis the Menace, is teamed with Danny Thomas' future TV wife Marjorie Lord and Audrey Long Read More

Rusty's Birthday

Actors: Ted Donaldson, John Litel, Ann Doran, Jimmy Hunt, Mark Dennis

Synopsis: Columbia's heartwarming "Rusty" series came to a close with Rusty's Birthday. As in previous series entries, the doggie hero is played by "Flame", while his human master Danny Mitchell is portrayed by Ted Donaldson. This time, Rusty is taken to parts unknown by a group of tourists who think Read More

Calamity Jane and Sam Bass

Actors: Yvonne De Carlo, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Willard Parker, Norman Lloyd

Synopsis: For various reasons, the 1949 western Calamity Jane and Sam Bass has a rather poor reputation amongst film buffs. Many observers feel that stars Yvonne de Carlo and Howard Duff merely go through the motions, while others complain that the usually dependable Universal-International production Read More

One Last Fling

Actors: Alexis Smith, Zachary Scott, Douglas Kennedy, Ann Doran, Ransom Sherman

Synopsis: Zachary Scott uncharacteristically plays for laughs in Warner Bros.' One Last Fling. Scott plays Larry Pearce, the dullish husband of Olivia Pearce (Alexis Smith). When Larry enters into a perfectly innocent business arrangement with gorgeous Gay Winston (Veda Ann Borg), Olivia misunderstands, as Read More

The Fountainhead

Actors: Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Henry Hull, Robert Douglas

Synopsis: The hero of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), a fiercely independent architect obviously patterned after Frank Lloyd Wright. Rather than compromise his ideals, Roark takes menial work as a quarryman to finance his projects. He falls in love with heiress Dominique (Patricia Neal Read More

The Kid from Cleveland

Actors: George Brent, Lynn Bari, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Cook, Ann Doran

Synopsis: The "kid" is Johnny Barrows (Russ Tamblyn), who runs away from his nasty stepfather and hits the streets of Cleveland. Seemingly destined to become a juvenile delinquent, Johnny is rescued by sportscaster Mike Jackson (George Brent). Making it his mission to put Johnny on the right path, Mike gets Read More

Beyond the Forest

Actors: Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian, Ruth Roman, Regis Toomey, Minor Watson

Synopsis: "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 Read More

Holiday in Havana

Actors: Desi Arnaz, Mary Hatcher, Ann Doran, Steven Geray, Minerva Urecal

Synopsis: Desi Arnaz's bandleader career was in decline when he starred in Columbia's Holiday in Havana. Arnaz essays the difficult role of a Cuban bandleader, named not Ricky Ricardo but Carlos Estrada. His romantic vis-a-vis isn't Lucille McGillicudy but a peppery dancer named Lolita Valdez (Mary Read More

The Return of the Whistler

Actors: Lenore Aubert, Trevor Bardette, James B. Cardwell, Edgar Dearing, Ann Doran

Synopsis: This final entry in Columbia's "Whistler" series is also the first to dispense with the services of star Richard Dix. This time around, hero Ted Nichols (Michael Duane) tries to ascertain the whereabouts of his wealthy fiancee Alice Barclay (Lenore Aubert). Finally locating the girl in a mental Read More

No Minor Vices

Actors: Dana Andrews, Lilli Palmer, Louis Jourdan, Jane Wyatt, Norman Lloyd

Synopsis: Another interesting effort from independent Enterprise Productions, No Minor Vices stars recent French import Louis Jourdan. Into the staid, conservative lives of pediatrician Perry Ashwell (Dana Andrews) and his wife April (Lilli Palmer) comes the flamboyantly eccentric Greenwich Village artist Read More

Sealed Verdict

Actors: Ray Milland, Florence Marly, Broderick Crawford, Ludwig Donath

Synopsis: In this wartime drama, an American officer is accused of secretly working as an SS man. Though all evidence is against the officer, one Army prosecutor is not convinced of the man's guilt and begins working to prove his innocence. He is assisted by a beautiful woman who knows the defendant is Read More

Rusty Leads the Way

Actors: Ted Donaldson, Sharyn Moffett, John Litel, Ann Doran, Paula Raymond

Synopsis: Columbia's dog-and-boy "Rusty" series galloped ever forward with Rusty Leads the Way. This time, young Danny Mitchell (Ted Donaldson) and his canine pal Rusty (played by "Flash") befriend blind girl Penny Moffatt (Penny Waters). Feeling cheated by life, Penny resists all efforts to cope with her Read More

The Walls of Jericho

Actors: Art Baker, Griff Barnett, Anne Baxter, Helen Brown, Linda Darnell

Synopsis: The year is 1908 and the setting Jericho, Kansas, a veritable cesspool of sin and vice. Dave Connors is a politically ambitious lawyer married to Belle, the town lush, and is in love with beautiful colleague Julia Norman. Matters are worsened when Algeria Wedge, his best friend's wife, makes a Read More

Hazard

Actors: Paulette Goddard, MacDonald Carey, Fred Clark, Stanley Clements, "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom

Synopsis: Chronic gambler Ellen Crane (Paulette Goddard) indulges in games of chance to compensate for the loss of her boyfriend during WW2. Heavily in debt to gambling czar Lonnie Burns (Fred Clark), Ellen promises to marry him to clear her financial slate, but in the cold light of day she rethinks her Read More

He Walked by Night

Actors: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, James B. Cardwell

Synopsis: The "He" of the title is Richard Basehart, a clever but psychopathic burglar (based on real-life criminal Erwin Walker) Basehart stays one step ahead of the law by listening in to the police band on his radio. To avoid detection, he changes his M.O. on each crime, making it seem that the string of Read More

The Accused

Actors: Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey, Sam Jaffe, Douglas Dick

Synopsis: The Accused is a mystery melodrama with a predictable plot involving blackmail, attempted rape and murder. Loretta Young stars as Wilma Tuttle, a prim and proper college professor who unwittingly arouses the libido of student Bill Perry (Douglas Dick). When Perry tries to rape Wilma under cover of Read More

Pitfall

Actors: Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr, Jimmy Hunt

Synopsis: The darker side of the American dream is explored in the fascinating film noir Pitfall. Dick Powell stars as John Forbes, a successful insurance man with a trophy wife named Sue (Jane Wyatt) and a model child named Tommy (Jimmy Hunt). Despite all that he's achieved in life, Forbes feels somehow Read More

The Snake Pit

Actors: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Glenn Langan, Helen Craig

Synopsis: "A woman loses her mind and is confined to a mental institution." That's the usual TV-listing encapsulation of The Snake Pit -- and like most such encapsulations, it only scratches the film's surface. Olivia de Havilland stars as an outwardly normal young woman, married to loyal, kindly Mark Stevens Read More

My Dog Rusty

Actors: Ted Donaldson, John Litel, Ann Doran, Mona Barrie, Whitford Kane

Synopsis: Another entry in Columbia's bucolic "Rusty" series, My Dog Rusty again pairs apple-cheeked Ted Donaldson with Flame the Dog. This time around, Hugh Mitchell (John Litel), father of mischievous Danny Mitchell (Donaldson) is running for mayor. Thanks to Danny's propensity for lying, the elder Read More

Road to the Big House

Actors: John Shelton, Ann Doran, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: In this drama, a desperate bank clerk, teetering on the brink of financial ruin, attempts to save himself by embezzling $200,000 from his employer. Unfortunately, he is caught; fortunately, it is after he has hidden the loot. His plan is to serve his time and then enjoy the money when he is freed. Read More

Variety Girl

Actors: Eric Alden, Mary Hatcher, Olga San Juan, William Bendix, MacDonald Carey, DeForest Kelley, William Demarest, Joan Caulfield, Stanley Clements, Frank Faylen

Synopsis: This story of two young hopefuls who come to Hollywood is merely a thin device to feature almost every star working for Paramount Studios in 1947. Mary Hatcher plays Catherine Brown, a woman of humble origins who arrives in Hollywood, where she meets another wanna-be movie star, Amber La Vonne Read More

For the Love of Rusty

Actors: Ted Donaldson, Tom Powers, Ann Doran, Aubrey Mather, Sid Tomack

Synopsis: For the Love of Rusty is an easy-to-take entry in Columbia's brief "Rusty" series of the late 1940s. Danny Mitchell (Ted Donaldson) can't seem to get along with his father Hugh (Tom Powers). An especially sore spot is Danny's affection for his dog Rusty; Hugh Mitchell can't stand Rusty, and Read More

The Son of Rusty

Synopsis: The Adventures of Rusty was Columbia Pictures' low-budget answer to MGM's Lassie series. This boy-and-his-dog effort starred Ted Donaldson and a German Shepherd. The first Rusty film paid its way, so Columbia hastily fashioned a sequel, Son of Rusty. The basic premise of the first film-a vicious Read More

Fear in the Night

Actors: Paul Kelly, DeForest Kelley, Kay Scott, Ann Doran, Robert Emmett Keane

Synopsis: One of several low-budget mellers directed by scriptwriter Maxwell Shane, Fear in the Night was based on the short story Nightmare by William Irish (pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich). In his first starring role, DeForest Kelley plays Vince Grayson, a young man who has a terrible nightmare wherein he Read More

Second Chance

Actors: Kent Taylor, Louise Currie, Dennis Hoey, Larry Blake, Ann Doran

Synopsis: In this crime melodrama, two would-be jewel thieves conspire to pull a heist, but are frustrated because the police are able to successfully anticipate their every move and stop them. Later the thieves fall in love and it is then that the female thief admits that she is a detective who was hired Read More

Seven Were Saved

Actors: Richard Denning, Catherine Craig, Russell Hayden, Ann Doran

Synopsis: A plane crash over the Pacific leaves seven survivors stranded in a life raft in this war-time disaster movie. One of the passengers is a captured Japanese official en route to stand trial for war crimes. Two of the survivors spent time in a Japanese prison camp. Both pilots survived as did a Read More

My Favorite Brunette

Actors: Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Hoyt

Synopsis: Just as Bob Hope's My Favorite Blonde (1942) was a takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock, Hope's My Favorite Brunette was a lampoon of the noirish "hard-boiled detective" school popularized by Raymond Chandler. Awaiting execution on death row, Hope tells the gathered reporters how he got into his present Read More

Magic Town

Actors: E.J. Ballantine, James Stewart, Jane Wyman, Mary Currier, Julia Dean, Kent Smith, Ann Doran, Ned Sparks, Wallace Ford, Frank Fenton

Synopsis: With Robert Riskin as screenwriter, director William Wellman proved in Magic Town that it was possible to make a Frank Capra-esque picture without Capra himself at the helm. James Stewart plays Rip Smith, a cynical pollster who comes across a small American town named Grandview, which represents a Read More

The Crimson Key

Actors: Kent Taylor, Doris Dowling, Dennis Hoey, Louise Currie, Ivan Triesault

Synopsis: In this suspense film, a detective must find the murderer of a rich and jealous wife and her husband, a doctor with a tendency to work late into the night. After many missteps and false leads, he finally finds himself confronted with a sexy former patient of the deceased doc. Is she the guilty Read More

Our Hearts Were Growing Up

Actors: Gail Russell, Diana Lynn, Brian Donlevy, James Brown, Bill Edwards

Synopsis: Our Hearts Were Growing Up is the sequel to Paramount's surprise 1944 hit Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. The first film was based on the memoirs of actress Cornelia Otis Skinner; the sequel was inspired by the fevered imaginations of the screenwriters. Gail Russell plays Ms. Skinner, while Diana Lynn Read More

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Roman Bohnen, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Charles D. Brown, Ann Doran, Kirk Douglas, Judith Anderson

Synopsis: In The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, relationships formed in childhood lead to murder and obsessive love. The wealthy Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) is the prime mover of the small Pennsylvania town of Iverston. Martha lives in a huge mansion with her DA husband, Walter O'Neil (Kirk Douglas), an Read More

The Perfect Marriage

Actors: Loretta Young, David Niven, Eddie Albert, Charlie Ruggles, Virginia Field

Synopsis: If the Perfect Marriage in this romantic comedy were truly perfect, there wouldn't be any story, would there? Outwardly an ideal couple, Maggie and Dale Williams (Loretta Young, David Niven) have grown tired of one another after 10 years. Petty squabbles lead to major battles, exacerbated by the Read More

Pride of the Marines

Actors: John Garfield, Eleanor Parker, Dane Clark, Ann Doran, John Ridgely, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: John Garfield stars as Al Schmid, a true-life marine who served in World War II. Schmid becomes a hero at Guadalcanal, defending a machine gun post and killing 200 Japanese before he is permanently blinded by a grenade. Despite being awarded the Navy Cross, Schmid returns home embittered by his Read More

Roughly Speaking

Actors: Ray Collins, Kathleen Lockhart, Ann E. Todd, Andy Clyde, Rosalind Russell, Robert Hutton

Synopsis: This odd combination of roughneck comedy and serious domestic drama was adapted by Louise Randall Pierson from her own autobiographical novel. Rosalind Russell is cast as young Louise Randall, the headstrong daughter of a New England merchant. Inheriting her father's business, Louise intends to Read More

The Story of Dr. Wassell

Actors: Gary Cooper, Laraine Day, Signe Hasso, Dennis O'Keefe, Carol Thurston

Synopsis: The genesis of The Story of Dr. Wassell is said to have been a story told by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to director Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper stars as Corydon M. Wassell, a real-life country doctor from Arkansas who worked as a medical missionary in China in the years prior to WWII. Read More

Here Come the Waves

Actors: Bing Crosby, Betty Hutton, Sonny Tufts, Ann Doran, Gwen Crawford

Synopsis: This peppy wartime musical stars Bing Crosby as radio crooner Johnny Cabot, the heartthrob of millions. To escape his frenzied fans, Johnny joins the Navy, where is he ordering to aid a WAVE recruiting drive. He is helped(?) in this endeavor by Betty Hutton, amusingly cast in a dual role as twin Read More

I Love a Soldier

Actors: Paulette Goddard, Sonny Tufts, Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Sande, Beulah Bondi, Ann Doran

Synopsis: Paulette Goddard and Sonny Tufts, two of the stars of director Mark Sandrich's wartime morale-booster So Proudly We Hail, were reunited in Sandrich's I Love a Soldiers. Looking gorgeous in bib overalls, Goddard plays defense-plant welder Eva Morgan, who avoids romance but gives generously of her Read More

Mr. Skeffington

Actors: Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Walter Abel, Richard Waring, George Coulouris, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: From a novel of the same name by "Elizabeth", the film begins in 1914, with Bette Davis cast as vain, flighty society woman Fanny Trellis. Informed by Jewish-American financier Job Skeffington (Claude Rains) that her brother Trippy (Richard Waring) has stolen money to pay his gambling debts, Fanny Read More

Henry Aldrich's Little Secret

Actors: Jimmy Lydon, Charles Smith, Joan Mortimer, John Litel, Olive Blakeney

Synopsis: Paramount's "Henry Aldrich" series came to a quiet conclusion with 1944's Henry Aldrich's Little Secret. The titular secret is a baby, the son of woebegone Helen Martin (Ann Doran). Because her husband is in jail, Helen has been adjudged an unfit mother by the local welfare board, headed by the Read More

Gildersleeve on Broadway

Actors: Harold Peary, Billie Burke, Claire Carleton, Richard LeGrand, Freddie Mercer

Synopsis: Gildersleeve on Broadway was the third in a series of RKO B-pictures inspired by the radio sitcom The Great Gildersleeve. Harold Peary once more stars as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, water commissioner and resident blowhard of the town of Springfield. In this one, Gildy accompanies his Read More

Slightly Dangerous

Actors: Lana Turner, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, Dame May Whitty

Synopsis: This airy bit of MGM fluff stars Lana Turner as small-town soda clerk Peggy Evans. After telling off the self-important new drugstore manager Bob Stuart (Robert Young), Peggy, convinced that there's no future for her in her hometown, fakes her suicide and heads for the big city. After a series of Read More

So Proudly We Hail!

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, George Reeves, Barbara Britton

Synopsis: Paramount's So Proudly We Hail, like MGM's Cry Havoc, is a tribute to the Red Cross nurses trapped behind enemy lines in the early days of the Pacific war. Claudette Colbert is the self-sacrificing head nurse, struggling to minister to the wounded and to keep her staff (including Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake Read More

True to Life

Actors: Mary Martin, Franchot Tone, Dick Powell, Victor Moore, Mabel Paige, William Demarest

Synopsis: True to Life stars Dick Powell as a radio writer in search of saleable material. He comes up with a weekly sitcom about a typical American family. To soak up inspiration, he hangs around the household of waitress Mary Martin and her parents (Ernest Truex, Mabel Paige), transcribing their Read More

Old Acquaintance

Actors: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young, John Loder, Dolores Moran

Synopsis: After the box office success of The Old Maid, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins were reunited for this catty drama. Kitty Marlowe (Davis) is a well-respected author who returns to the small town of her birth, where she becomes reacquainted with her childhood friend Millie Drake (Hopkins). While Read More

The More the Merrier

Actors: Ann Doran, Ann Savage, Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines, Bruce Bennett

Synopsis: To fully appreciate The More the Merrier, it is important to know that, during WW2, there was an acute housing shortage in Washington DC. This is why elderly Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) is obliged to share a tiny DC apartment with pretty Connie Milligan (Jean Arthur) and handsome Joe Carter Read More

Air Force

Actors: John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy, Harry Carey, Charles Drake

Synopsis: On December 6, 1941, a squadron of nine B-17 bombers takes off for Hickam Field, HI. The crew of the Mary Ann, including two new men, assistant radio man Private Chester (Ray Montgomery) and gunner Sergeant Joe Winocki (John Garfield), assembles for the flight, and in the first 20 minutes, the Read More

Mr. Wise Guy

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, Billy Gilbert, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: In this "East Side Kids" escapade (the eighth in the series), the gang, led by Muggs McGinniss (Leo Gorcey), help a man load a barrel on a truck. Little do they know that the man is a crook; accused of trying to steal the truck, they are immediately and without due process sent to reform school. Read More

The Hard Way

Actors: Ida Lupino, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson, Gladys George

Synopsis: In this dark drama an iron-willed older sister forcibly thrusts her only modestly talented younger sister into a Broadway career. She does this to desperately try to keep her little sis from falling into the same small-town trap of marriage to a dull working-stiff and endless hours of taking care Read More

They All Kissed the Bride

Actors: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Helen Parrish, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: Joan Crawford is the kissable bride of the title--but when the film opens, matrimony is the farthest thing from her mind. Crawford becomes a big-time executive upon inheriting her father's trucking business, which leaves her no time for such trivialities as romance. To enhance her business Read More

Street of Chance

Actors: Burgess Meredith, Claire Trevor, Sheldon Leonard, Jerome Cowan, Frieda Inescort

Synopsis: Based on Cornell Woolrich's novel The Black Curtain (later dramatized several times on the radio series Suspense), Street of Chance top-bills Burgess Meredith as an amnesia victim. He awakens in the middle of the street, with nary a clue of who he is or what he's done. Meredith comes to learn that Read More

Beyond the Blue Horizon

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Richard Denning, Jack Haley, Walter Abel, Helen Gilbert

Synopsis: It's Dorothy Lamour again, sarong and all, in the South Seas wish-dream Beyond the Blue Horizon. Lamour plays Tama, a daughter of the jungle who heads to the US to claim an inheritance. For publicity purposes, press agent Squidge (Jack Haley) tries to team Tama with his client, circus lion tamer Read More

My Sister Eileen

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne, Janet Blair, George Tobias, Richard Quine, June Havoc, Allyn Joslyn

Synopsis: Rosalind Russell plays aspiring Ohio journalist Ruth Sherwood, who heads for New York to seek her fortune, accompanied by her sister, Eileen (Janet Blair), an aspiring actress. The girls take a basement apartment in Greenwich Village, which becomes a gathering place for several oddball characters Read More

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Actors: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, Richard Whorf, Irene Manning

Synopsis: Yankee Doodle Dandy is no more the true-life story of George M. Cohan than The Jolson Story was the unvarnished truth about Al Jolson -- but who the heck cares? Dandy has song, dance, pathos, pageantry, uproarious comedy, and, best of all, James Cagney at his Oscar-winning best. After several Read More

New York Town

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Mary Martin, Robert Preston, Akim Tamiroff, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: Fred MacMurray is a breezy New York street photographer; Mary Martin is a small town girl hoping to make her fortune in the Big Apple. Fred and Mary meet, bicker, fall in love, fall out of love, fall in love again, and so it goes. The main story is occasionally leavened by subplots involving such Read More

Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Margaret Lindsay, Charles Grapewin, James Burke

Synopsis: Like the first entry in Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery depicts its amateur-criminologist hero as an oafish ignoramus. This time around, Chinese ventriloquist Gordon Cobb (Noel Madison), is murdered by a gang of jewel thieves. Baffled by the contradictory clues Read More

Sun Valley Serenade

Actors: Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller, Milton Berle, Lynn Bari

Synopsis: Skating star Sonja Henie and the Glenn Miller Orchestra share the spotlight in Sun Valley Serenade. Henie plays a Norwegian refugee adopted by band pianist John Payne, who mistakenly thought that the full-grown Miss Henie was a 10-year-old little girl. Payne's girlfriend, Lynn Bari, is a soloist Read More

Penny Serenade

Actors: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi, Edgar Buchanan, Ann Doran

Synopsis: While listening to a recording of "Penny Serenade," Julie Gardiner Adams (Irene Dunne) begins reflecting on her past. She recalls her near-impulsive marriage to newspaper reporter Roger Adams (Cary Grant), which begins on a deliriously happy note but turns out to be fraught with tragedy. While Read More

Blue, White, and Perfect

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes, Helene Reynolds, George Reeves, Steven Geray, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: The high batting average of 20th Century-Fox's Michael Shayne detective series remained intact with Blue, White and Perfect. Having prevented his sweetheart Merle Garland (Mary Beth Hughes) from marrying a bigamous fortune-hunter (Ivan Lebedeff), Mike Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) offers to marry the girl Read More

The Kid from Kansas

Actors: Dick Foran, Leo Carrillo, Andy Devine, Ann Doran, Francis McDonald

Synopsis: In this drama, a South American planter and his neighbors find themselves plagued by vandals who have been destroying their equipment thereby forcing them to sell their fruit at below cost. Meanwhile, the orchardist's foreman hires a vagabond, an escaped convict framed for murder. It is he who Read More

Meet John Doe

Actors: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington

Synopsis: The first of director Frank Capra's independent productions (in partnership with Robert Riskin), Meet John Doe begins with the end of reporter Ann Mitchell's (Barbara Stanwyck) job. Fired as part of a downsizing move, she ends her last column with an imaginary letter written by "John Doe." Angered Read More

Criminals Within

Actors: Eric Linden, Ann Doran, Constance Worth, Donald Curtis, Weldon Heyburn

Synopsis: Talented B-picture director Joseph H. Lewis wasn't yet in the "auteur" class when he helmed the PRC quickie Criminals Within. Eternal juvenile Eric Linden plays Greg, an Army draftee accused of stealing a top-secret document. Escaping from the stockade, Greg tries to clear himself by exposing the Read More

Dive Bomber

Actors: Errol Flynn, Fred MacMurray, Ralph Bellamy, Herbert Anderson

Synopsis: Lieutenant Commander Joe Blake (Fred MacMurray), Lt. Tim Griffin (Regis Toomey), and Lt. Swede Larson (Louis Jean Heydt) are longtime US Navy flying buddies, about to be transferred to different posts when Larson suffers a blackout during high-altitude maneuvers and cracks up. Navy doctor Douglas Read More

Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Red Skelton, Alma Kruger

Synopsis: When MGM decided to move up-and-coming star Laraine Day out of the "Dr. Kildare" series, the studio did so in a startlingly dramatic fashion. In Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day, Dr. Jim Kildare (Lew Ayres) and nurse Mary Lamont (Laraine Day) are finally able to exchange their marital vows. Alas, the Read More

Buy Me That Town

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Constance Moore, Albert Dekker, Sheldon Leonard

Synopsis: A gangster and his mob buy a small-town in this warm comedy. They, tired of trying to make it as big city hoods, buy the town to use as a hideout. The leader of the gang begins to have a change of heart after he begins falling for a local girl. He decides to use the "protection money" his gang has Read More

Sing Another Chorus

Actors: Johnny Downs, Jane Frazee, Mischa Auer, George Barbier, Iris Adrian

Synopsis: In this musical, an idealistic college graduate is bitten by the show business bug after he finds success writing and producing the campus variety show. Wanting to launch his career, he convinces his father to allow him to create a production using the workers at the old man's clothing factory. Read More

Manhattan Heartbeat

Actors: Robert Sterling, Virginia Gilmore, Joan Davis, Edmund MacDonald, Don Beddoe

Synopsis: Manhattan Heartbeat is a somewhat toned-down remake of the pre-Production Code melodrama Bad Girl (1931). Newlyweds Johnny (Robert Sterling) and Dottie (Virginia Gilmore) have troubles living within their budget, thanks to Dottie's spendthrift habits. An airplane mechanic, Johnny begins accepting Read More

Five Little Peppers at Home

Actors: Edith Fellows, Dorothy Ann Seese, Clarence Kolb, Dorothy Peterson, Ronald Sinclair

Synopsis: Like the other entries Columbia's "Five Little Peppers" series, The Five Little Peppers at Home is based on characters created by Margaret Sidney. Edith Fellows stars as Polly, the oldest child of the Pepper clan, while her four siblings are portrayed by Dorothy Ann Seers (as Phronsie), Ronald Read More

Untamed

Actors: Ray Milland, Patricia Morison, Akim Tamiroff, William Frawley, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: A courageous doctor braves a fierce blizzard in the Canadian wilderness to save a remote community from a deadly epidemic. He has come North to visit and ends up stealing a wife from her husband. When the epidemic hits, he and the wife begin their arduous journey. At one point, they are stranded. Read More

Glamour for Sale

Actors: Anita Louise, Roger Pryor, Frances Robinson, June MacCloy, Don Beddoe

Synopsis: The vice squad takes on escort services in this crime drama. Two services are depicted. One escort agency is legitimate, offering fine upstanding girls with no funny business. The other agency has a more tawdry reputation (though the none of the women there are prostitutes) and makes most of its Read More

Girls of the Road

Actors: Ann Dvorak, Helen Mack, Lola Lane, Ann Doran, Marjorie Cooley

Synopsis: The lives of female hoboes in the Great Depression are chronicled in this interesting drama. In order to fully understand the travails of their existence, the governor's daughter dresses down and joins them. There in the hobo camps she experiences their aimless unlucky lives as they hitchhike Read More

Let Us Live

Actors: Maureen O'Sullivan, Henry Fonda, Ralph Bellamy, Alan Baxter, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: Despite its comparatively upbeat ending, Let Us Live is one of the darkest and gloomiest films of the late 1930s. As working stiff Brick Tennant, Henry Fonda is once more cast as a misunderstood victim of society. Held up during a robbery-murder, Brick is himself convicted of the crime on the Read More

Rio Grande

Actors: Charles Starrett, Ann Doran, Bob Nolan, Dick Curtis, George Cheseboro

Synopsis: No relation to the 1950 John Ford classic of the same name, Rio Grande is yet another rubber-stamp Charles Starrett western from the Columbia assembly line. The hero is a fellow named Houston (Starrett), who comes to the rescue when land-grabbing Barker (Dick Curtis) sets his sights on the ranch Read More

The Man They Could Not Hang

Actors: Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, Roger Pryor, Don Beddoe

Synopsis: A scientist's greatest invention proves to be his darkest curse in this thriller that was part of Columbia and star Boris Karloff's "mad doctor" series. Karloff stars as Dr. Henryk Savaard, a brilliant heart expert who has created a pump that will allow him to place a patient in a state of death Read More

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Actors: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee, Eugene Pallette, Beulah Bondi, Harry Carey

Synopsis: Frank Capra's classic comedy-drama established James Stewart as a lead actor in one of his finest (and most archetypal) roles. The film opens as a succession of reporters shout into telephones announcing the death of Senator Samuel Foley. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains), the state's senior Read More

Good Girls Go to Paris

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell, Alan Curtis, Joan Perry, Isabel Jeans

Synopsis: Spunky Joan Blondell is practically the whole show in the diverting comedy Good Girls Go to Paris. Blondell is cast as ambitious college-campus waitress Jenny Swanson, who yearns to see the sights in Gay Paree. She gets her chance by latching onto British exchange professor Ronald Brooke (Melvyn Douglas Read More

Blind Alley

Actors: Chester Morris, Ralph Bellamy, Ann Dvorak, Joan Perry, Melville Cooper

Synopsis: Blind Alley, directed by Charles Vidor is a chilling psychological drama in the film-noir tradition reminiscent of the fine melodrama The Desperate Hours. Hal Wilson (Chester Morris) is an escaped killer who hides out in the home of noted psychologist Dr. Shelby (Ralph Bellamy). While Wilson's Read More

Smashing the Spy Ring

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Fay Wray, Regis Toomey, Walter Kingsford, Ann Doran

Synopsis: In this espionage drama, a G-man keeps an enemy spy from stealing highly classified plans for military equipment. While investigating he falls in love with a lovely woman whose brother, also an FBI agent was killed. Later the agent sneaks into enemy headquarters by feigning amnesia and pretending Read More

Homicide Bureau

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Rita Hayworth, Marc Lawrence, Richard Fiske, Moroni Olsen

Synopsis: On the verge of superstardom, Rita Hayworth played in scores of minor dramas like Homicide Bureau, an entertaining little crime story released a scant three months before her big breakthrough, Howard Hawk's Only Angels Have Wings. She plays J.G. Bliss, a girl scientist assigned to help the city's Read More

Women in Prison

Actors: Wyn Cahoon, Scott Colton, Arthur Loft, Mayo Methot, Ann Doran

Synopsis: In this prison drama, a female robber is sent to prison. She is the only one in the gang who knows the location of the loot and so the rest of them are anxious to free her. One of the desperate robbers frames the warden's daughter for murder so he can blackmail the prison leader. It doesn't work Read More

Extortion

Actors: Scott Colton, Mary Russell, Thurston Hall, Arthur Loft, Gene Morgan

Synopsis: Extortion was designed as a sort of trial balloon for Columbia's new contractees Scott Colton and Mary Russell. The story takes place on a college campus, where a distinctively unpopular professor is murdered. When her physics-teacher father (Thurston Hall) falls under suspicion, co-ed Betty Read More

Blondie

Actors: Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms, Gene Lockhart, Ann Doran

Synopsis: When Columbia Pictures secured the movie rights to Chic Young's popular comic strip Blondie, the studio executives probably never imagined that the ensuing "Blondie" series would last for 12 years and 28 episodes! Part of the series' charm was Columbia's wisdom in casting the ideal actors for the Read More

You Can't Take It with You

Actors: Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Highway Patrol

Actors: Robert Paige, Robert Middlemass, Arthur Loft, Al Bridge

Synopsis: It will do no good to look for Broderick Crawford in the cast of Highway Patrol; this is not the famed TV series of the 1950s, but instead a 1938 Columbia B-picture. Robert Paige heads the cast as motor patrolman William Rolph, dedicated to smashing up a deadly rivalry between two oil-refinery Read More

The Lady Objects

Synopsis: In this drama, a former college football hero and his college sweetheart get married. Marital turmoil ensues as her criminal law practice soars while he cannot get his career as an architect off the ground. They separate, and the man begins making extra money by singing in a nightclub. When he is Read More

Penitentiary

Actors: Walter Connolly, John Howard, Jean Parker, Robert H. Barrat, Marc Lawrence

Synopsis: Penitentiary was the first of two remakes of Howard Hawks' 1931 prison flick The Criminal Code (the second remake was 1950's Convicted). Sent to prison on a manslaughter charge, young William Jordan (John Howard) is befriended by the man who sent him up, Judge Mathews (Walter Connolly). The judge Read More

Paid to Dance

Actors: Don Terry, Jacqueline Wells, Rita Hayworth, Arthur Loft, Paul Stanton

Synopsis: Marked Woman was the most famous of the late-1930s films based on New York DA Thomas Dewey's attack on vice lord Lucky Luciano; Paid to Dance was among the least famous. All-purpose Columbia leading lady Jacqueline Wells plays Joan Bradley, a long-suffering hoofer in the seedy dime-a-dance joint Read More

The Go-Getter

Actors: George Brent, Charles Winninger, Anita Louise, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: An intrepid amputee must pass a test to prove his devotion to his sweetie in this romantic drama. The hero lost his leg during the crash of a navy dirigible. Later he gets a job with a lumber company. He soon falls for the boss's daughter. Unfortunately, the general manager is also interested in Read More

The Shadow

Actors: Rita Hayworth, Charles Quigley, Marc Lawrence

Synopsis: No relation to the radio program of the same name, The Shadow is a lightning-paced murder mystery with a Big Top background. Rita Hayworth plays Mary Gillespie, the young owner of a travelling circus in danger of losing financial control of her show to hissable bareback rider Peter Martinet (Donald Kirke Read More

Devil's Playground

Actors: Richard Dix, Dolores Del Rio, Chester Morris, George McKay, John Gallaudet

Synopsis: A remake of Frank Capra's Submarine (1928), Devil's Playground is a snappy Columbia "B plus" picture starring Richard Dix and Chester Morris. Submarine officers Dorgan (Dix) and Mason (Morris) battle on land for the affections of dance-hall girl Carmen (Dolores del Rio). She marries Dorgan but Read More

Stella Dallas

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Produced by Sam Goldwyn, this second film version of Olive Higgins Prouty's Stella Dallas is by far the best. The combined talents of Goldwyn, director King Vidor and star Barbara Stanwyck lift this property far above the level of mere soap opera. Stanwyck is perfectly cast as Stella Martin, the Read More

Marry the Girl

Actors: Mary Boland, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Carolyn Hughes, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: The disarmingly zany Marry the Girl was one of the better Hugh Herbert "B"-vehicles for Warner Bros. Much of the story takes place within the walls of the ramshackle newspaper syndicate owned by the screwball Radway family. Purportedly the head of the operation, John B. Radway (Hugh Herbert) is Read More

Nothing Sacred

Actors: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly, Sig Rumann

Synopsis: "This is New York, Skyscraper Champion of the World...Where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye..." With this jaundiced opening title, scripter Ben Hecht introduces his classic comedy Nothing Sacred Read More

Girls Can Play

Actors: Charles Quigley, Rita Hayworth, John Gallaudet, George McKay

Synopsis: In this crime drama, an evil ex-con makes his living selling cheap booze masked under expensive labels. He runs a drugstore as a front and also sponsors a girl's baseball team. The story is split between the gangster's illegal activities and the action on the baseball field where the lovely Read More

When You're in Love

Actors: Grace Moore, Cary Grant, Aline MacMahon, Henry Stephenson, Thomas Mitchell

Synopsis: In this tuneful, romantic drama, an Australian opera star (Grace Moore) wants to perform in a major U.S. festival but cannot enter the country unless she is married. To this end, she hires a handsome artist (Cary Grant) temporarily marry her. At first it is all strictly business, but in time, the Read More

Palm Springs

Actors: Frances Langford, Smith Ballew, Guy Standing, Ernest Cossart, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Just before his brief turn as a "singing cowboy," radio crooner Smith Ballew starred in Paramount's Palm Springs. Filmed on location at the famed California resort community, the story concerns the efforts by near-bankrupt gambler Capt Smyth (Sir Guy Standing) to marry off his daughter Joan (Frances Langford Read More

Missing Girls

Actors: Roger Pryor, Muriel Evans, Sidney Blackmer, Noel Madison, Ann Doran

Synopsis: A couple of naïve girls get themselves unwittingly involved in the gambling racket in this Poverty Row production directed by the redoubtable Phil Rosen. Runaway Ann Jason (Ann Doran) finds shelter in big, bad New York City with the Traveler's Aid Society, one of those organizations run by bored Read More

Ring Around the Moon

Actors: Donald Cook, Ann Doran, Alan Edwards, Douglas Fowley

Synopsis: Ring Around the Moon was based on the once-popular novel by Vera Hobart. The story endeavors to invite comparisons between the high-toned romantic adventures of wealthy Gloria Endicott (Erin O'Brien-Moore) and more earthy amours of low-born Kay Duncan (Ann Doran). Caught between both ladies is Read More

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglas Dumbrille, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: When a car crash ends the life of a fabulously wealthy patron of the arts, the decedent's $20,000,000 fortune is inherited by one Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) of Mandrake Falls, Vermont. Already a reasonably successful local businessman, Deeds doesn't really feel the need for anything extra in Read More

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Actors: Frank Coghlan, Jr., Dickie Moore, Ann Doran, Lloyd Hughes

Synopsis: Two of Hollywood's finest juvenile actors, Frank Coghlan Jr. and Dickie Moore, top the cast of The Little Red Schoolhouse. Coghlan plays orphaned Frank Burke, who drops out of school and heads to New York City in the company of his faithful dog. He soon learns that life in the Big City is a bit Read More

Let's Sing Again

Actors: Henry Armetta, George Houston, Vivienne Osborne, Grant Withers

Synopsis: In this musical, a talented young boy escapes from his orphanage and joins a traveling show where he is adopted by a has-been opera star who teaches helps him develop his marvellous singing voice. When his mentor finds himself terminally ill, he takes the lad to New York to see a real opera. There Read More

Way Down East

Actors: Rochelle Hudson, Henry Fonda, George "Slim" Summerville, Edward Trevor, Margaret Hamilton

Synopsis: This tragic melodrama is a remake of Griffith's 1920 film, Way Down East. The story centers upon a starving, impoverished gamin who lost everything after a wicked millionaire tricked her into a marriage and impregnated her. The baby doesn't survive the ordeal and the poor girl ends up sheltered by Read More

Red Lights Ahead

Synopsis: A family loses its collective head going from rags to riches in this low-budget comedy from also-ran studio Chesterfield. Former slapstick comedian Andy Clyde starred as Grandpa Tom Hopkins who, after selling his junk business, moves in with daughter Molly (Lucille Gleason), her husband Ed (Roger Read More

One Exciting Adventure

Actors: Binnie Barnes, Neil Hamilton, Paul Cavanagh, Grant Mitchell, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Binnie Barnes stars as Rina Sorel, a glamorous kleptomaniac who steals for the thrill of it. Specializing in uncut diamonds, Rina amasses quite a collection before detectives Lavassor (Grant Mitchell) and Kleinsibler (Eugene Pallette) catch up with her. Using the scent of Rina's perfume as their Read More

Night Life of the Gods

Actors: Alan Mowbray, Florine McKinney, Peggy Shannon, Richard Carle, Theresa Maxwell Conover

Synopsis: Another of Thorne Smith's slyly naughty fantasy novels, Night Life of the Gods was transferred to the screen with reasonable fidelity to the original in 1934. Alan Mowbray plays the eccentric Hunter Hawk, inventor of a ray gun that can turn human beings into statues. Much to his surprise, Hawk is Read More

Mary Burns, Fugitive

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Melvyn Douglas, Pert Kelton, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: An innocent but admittedly none-too-bright victim of circumstance, Mary Burns (played by perennial movie victim Sylvia Sidney) is inexorably sucked into the vortex of organized crime. She tries to escape her murderer husband Babe Wilson (Alan Baxter), but it's a losing proposition, especially Read More

Servants' Entrance

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Lew Ayres, Ned Sparks, Walter Connolly, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: Inasmuch as the film was based on a novel by Swedish author Sigrid Boo, Fox's Servant's Entrance is logically set in Sweden. Heiress Hedda Nillson (Janet Gaynor) certain that her family is about to lose all its money, takes a job as a maid. After the usual trials and tribulations, Hedda falls in Read More