Emory ParnellFilmography

Born:: St. Paul, MN
Occupation:: Actor
Biography:: Trained at Iowa's Morningside College for a career as a musician, American actor Emory Parnell spent his earliest performing years as a concert violinist. He worked the Chautauqua and Lyceum tent circuits for a decade before leaving the road in 1930. For the next few seasons, Parnell acted and...Read More

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The Andy Griffith Show: Aunt Bee, the Juror

Actors: Jack Nicholson

Synopsis: A pre-superstardom Jack Nicholson appears as Marvin Jenkins, who has been charged with burglary and put on trial. Eleven of the twelve jurors vote for conviction; the sole holdout is Aunt Bee, who is nagged by that old demon known as "reasonable doubt." Also in the cast are Rhys Williams as the Read More

1967
Petticoat Junction: Jury at the Shady Rest

Synopsis: Traditionally, whenever a jury is sequestered in Hooterville County, they stay at the Pixley Hotel. Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) hopes to move this business to the Shady Rest Hotel by offering an added incentive: Namely, the delicious meals provided by his niece Kate (Bea Benaderet). Joe's plan Read More

1966
Green Acres: A Pig in a Poke

Synopsis: Oliver (Eddie Albert) is invited to give the keynote speech at a meeting of the Harvard Alumni Legal Society. As he clears his throat and begins to address the gathered throng, Oliver must first explain why he and wife Lisa (Eva Gabor) have arrived at this august occasion in the company of Arnold Read More

1966
Git!

Synopsis: Git! tries very hard within its low-budget limits to offer Disney-style family entertainment. Jack Chaplain plays 17-year-old Deke, who rescues a woebegone Irish setter from a sorry demise. Teaming up with Elaine (Heather North), the daughter of widowed dog-breeder Andrew Garrett (Richard Webb) Read More

1965
The Bounty Killer

Actors: Dan Duryea, Rod Cameron, Audrey Dalton, Richard Arlen

Synopsis: Dan Duryea plays a Western bounty hunter, expert in his job, but ill at ease with his conscience. He is shunned by the "good" townsfolk until they need him to track down and kill a criminal; the gratitude doesn't last long, and it's back to outcast status for Duryea. At one juncture, the Read More

1965
Perry Mason: The Case of the Latent Lover

Synopsis: Investment broker Eric Pollard (Lloyd Bochner) seems to have gone off his trolley when he begins suffering from dizzy spells; to begin with, he publicly charges his wife Sybil (Marian Moses) with every crime under the sun--and as a capper, he hires a taxi to rob a bank! Though he is thrown in Read More

1964
Maverick: One of Our Trains Is Missing

Synopsis: The final episode of Maverick finds Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) crossing the path of his brother Bret's old nemesis Modesty Blaine (played in earlier episodes by Mona Freeman, and here enacted by Kathleen Crowley). Hoping that Bart will marry her, Modesty goes ballistic (even though that word Read More

1962
The Two Little Bears

Actors: Eddie Albert, Jane Wyatt, Butch Patrick, Brenda Lee

Synopsis: In this standard children's story -- with a few teen songs added -- the head of Burberry Elementary School, Harry Davis (Eddie Albert) is the proud father of two boys, Timmy and Billy (Donnie Carter and Butch Patrick) who wish they were bears. If Dad was bothered before by this wish, things only Read More

1961
Maverick: Kiz

Synopsis: When scatterbrained millionairess Kiz Bouchet (Kathleen Crowley) insists that somebody is trying to murder her, Beau Maverick (Roger Moore) is convinced that the girl is out of her mind. But he soon comes to believe Kiz's story--and in so doing, he tries to thwart a scheme hatched by the girl's Read More

1960
Maverick: The Misfortune Teller

Synopsis: Arrested and jailed on a charge of murdering a small-town mayor, Bret (James Garner) is none too encouraged by his court-appointed defense attorney Luke Abigor (Alan Mowbray), a momument to ineptitute who bases his entire defense on an astrology chart. The only hope for salvation is to locate the Read More

1960
A Hole in the Head

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Edward G. Robinson, Eleanor Parker, Carolyn Jones, Thelma Ritter

Synopsis: Although the main character, Tony Manetta (Frank Sinatra), in this light comedy tends to tip the scales towards being unbelievably unrealistic, the story is pulled off because everyone else is convincing. Tony is a widower in need of a financial bailout for himself and his son, so he asks for help Read More

1959
Alias Jesse James

Actors: Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Jay Silverheels, Bob Hope, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Jim Davis, Gloria Talbott

Synopsis: Bob Hope plays a 19th-century insurance agent whose miserable sales record prompts his boss to send him out West, where he can (supposedly) do little harm. Hope manages to sell a $100,000 life insurance policy--to outlaw Jesse James (Wendell Corey), one of the worst "risks" in history! In his Read More

1959
Maverick: A Fellow's Brother

Synopsis: Rather than pay a gambling debt owed to Bret Maverick (James Garner), notorious gunslinger Henry Arnett (a pre-Batman Adam West) skips town when Bret shows up. Impressionable Smoky Vaughn (Gary Vinson) incorrectly assumes that Arnett was afraid of Bret's gun, and spreads the word that there's a Read More

1959
This Earth Is Mine

Actors: Rock Hudson, Jean Simmons, Dorothy McGuire, Claude Rains, Kent Smith

Synopsis: Based on the novel The Cup and the Sword by Alice Tisdale Hobart, this drama examines the trials and tribulations of three generations of French-American California vineyard owners. It's set during the Prohibition era, when wine makers were financially challenged and had to decide whether or not Read More

1959
Maverick: Black Fire

Synopsis: Flamboyant character actor Hans Conried delivers a surprisingly low-key performance as Homer Eakins, the black sheep of a prominent family. Hoping to claim his share of his clan's estate, Homer asks Bret to impersonate him and pay a visit to wealthy General Eakins (Will Wright). Thoroughly Read More

1958
Man of the West

Actors: Gary Cooper, Julie London, Lee J. Cobb, Arthur O'Connell, Jack Lord

Synopsis: Anthony Mann's final foray into the western genre is a disturbing examination of man's baser instincts, rising in intensity to the level of Shakespearean tragedy. The film begins as seemingly naive Link (Gary Cooper) leaves his family to take a train to Fort Worth. Also on the train is saloon Read More

1958
The Notorious Mr. Monks

Synopsis: In this dark drama a hapless hitchhiker takes a ride with a drunk driver who takes him to his house. There he meets the driver's wife and murder ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1958
The Hot Angel

Actors: Jackie Loughery, Ed Kemmer, Mason Alan Dinehart, Emory Parnell, Lyle Talbot

Synopsis: In this drama, a Korean war vet becomes a pilot who must take care of his late war buddy's little sister and brother. The sister is upset when her brother begins hanging around with a bad biker gang. The vet manages to turn the kid around by convincing him that he would have more fun flying an Read More

1958
The Delicate Delinquent

Actors: Jerry Lewis, Darren McGavin, Martha Hyer, Robert Ivers, Horace McMahon

Synopsis: Jerry Lewis' first solo effort was also his first headlong plunge into pathos. The Delicate Delinquent stars Jerry as mixed-up teenaged janitor Sidney Pythias, a nice kid on the verge of throwing in with a not-so-nice street gang. Sensing potential in Sidney, police officer Mike Damon (Darren McGavin Read More

1956
Pardners

Actors: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Lori Nelson, Jeff Morrow, John Baragrey, Jackie Loughery

Synopsis: This Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis romp is liberally based on the 1936 Bing Crosby film Rhythm on the Range. Set around 1910, the film stars Lewis as the pampered son of female tycoon Agnes Moorehead. Yearning to return to the Wild West where his father was a famed peacekeeper, Lewis purchases a prize Read More

1956
That Certain Feeling

Actors: Bob Hope, Eva Marie Saint, George Sanders, Pearl Bailey, David Lewis

Synopsis: For reasons unknown, the change-of-pace Bob Hope vehicle That Certain Feeling is out of favor with many Hope buffs. Bob plays Francis X. Dignan, the overly neurotic "ghost" for popular comic-strip artist Larry Larkin (George Sanders). When Larkin's syndicate complains that his work isn't as Read More

1956
The Looters

Actors: Rory Calhoun, Julie Adams, Ray Danton, Thomas Gomez, Frank Faylen

Synopsis: Actor Abner Biberman specialized in unpleasant characters; when he turned director in the mid-1950s, he specialized in unpleasant subjects. The Looters is a marked-down variation of the Spencer Tracy film The Mountain. When a plane crashes on Pike's Peak, a group of mercenaries agree to search for Read More

1955
How to Be Very, Very, Popular

Actors: Betty Grable, Sheree North, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Tommy Noonan

Synopsis: Betty Grable's final film was a remake of the 1934 Bing Crosby-Miriam Hopkins musicomedy She Loves Me Not, which in turn was based on a play by Howard Lindsay. Betty and Sheree North star as a couple of striptease "artistes" who have the bad luck to witness a murder. Hoping to evade the killer Read More

1955
You're Never Too Young

Actors: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Diana Lynn, Nina Foch, Raymond Burr

Synopsis: You're Never Too Young is a slapstick-with-songs remake of the 1944 Ray Milland/Ginger Rogers vehicle The Major and the Minor. Dean Martin plays the Milland part, while Ginger's shoes are filled by...Jerry Lewis? Lewis plays an apprentice barber who inadvertently crosses a homicidal jewel thief (Raymond Burr Read More

1955
Artists and Models

Actors: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine, Dorothy Malone, Eddie Mayehoff, Eva Gabor

Synopsis: Bearing very little relation to the 1937 Paramount musical of the same name, Artists and Models is a lavish, girl-filled vehicle for the popular team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Martin plays Rick Todd, a comic-book artist who is under fire from his publisher (Eddie Mayehoff), who complains Read More

1955
Sabrina

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Walter Hampden, John Williams

Synopsis: Billy Wilder directs the lighthearted romantic comedy Sabrina, based on the play by Samuel A. Taylor. Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is the simple, naïve daughter of a chauffeur, Thomas Fairchild (John Williams). They live on an estate with the wealthy Oliver Larrabee (Walter Hampden) and his Read More

1954
The Long, Long Trailer

Actors: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Marjorie Main, Keenan Wynn, Gladys Hurlbut

Synopsis: At the height of their TV fame, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were contracted by MGM to make two theatrical films. The first of these, The Long, Long Trailer, stars Lucy and Desi as an upwardly mobile couple who decide to buy a trailer so they can live together while his job takes him around the Read More

1954
Jungle Gents

Synopsis: The Bowery Boys go to Africa in this entry in the long-running series. They embark upon their adventure after they discover that one of them has the ability to smell diamonds. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1954
Battle of Rogue River

Actors: George Montgomery, Richard Denning, Martha Hyer, John Crawford, Emory Parnell, Charles Evans

Synopsis: George Montgomery heads the virile cast of the B-plus western Battle of Rogue River. Montgomery plays Cavalry major Frank Archer, assigned to protect the settlers in Oregon territory. Archer tries to find out why the previously peaceful Indians have suddenly become warlike. What he doesn't know is Read More

1954
Pride of the Blue Grass

Actors: Lloyd Bridges, Vera Miles, Margaret Sheridan, Arthur Shields, Michael Chapin

Synopsis: When equestrian Linda (Vera Miles) talks her trainer, Jim (Lloyd Bridges), into taking care of Gypsy Prince, her horse, Jim decides to enter the steed in an upcoming race. Tragically, the horse falls mid-race and breaks a leg. Though prospects look bleak, Linda (Miles) refuses to give up on her Read More

1954
The Rocket Man

Actors: Charles Coburn, Spring Byington, George Winslow, Anne Francis, John Agar, Emory Parnell

Synopsis: The strangest aspect of the low-budget fantasy effort The Rocket Man is the fact that one of its screenwriters was Lenny Bruce. There's nothing scatalogical or even satirical in the film itself, however. Essentially an Andy Hardyesque comedy drama with a peripheral sci-fi slant, the story concerns Read More

1954
Ma and Pa Kettle at Home

Actors: Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Alan Mowbray, Alice Kelley, Brett Halsey

Synopsis: This sixth in the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series produced by Universal stars (as usual) Marjorie Main as Ma and Percy Kilbride as Pa. After a whirlwind international tour, the contest-winning rustics and their fifteen children return to their old farm. The eldest Kettle son (Brett Halsey) has a chance Read More

1954
Shadows of Tombstone

Actors: Rex Allen, Slim Pickens, Jeanne Cooper, Roy Barcroft

Synopsis: Shadows of Tombstone is a fair-to-middling Rex Allen western. This time out, Rex and his sidekick Slim (Slim Pickens) try to prove that sheriff Webb (Emory Parnell) is a crook. Webb is in league with shady saloon-owner Mike (Roy Barcroft) and renegade bandit Delgado (Ric Roman), who hold the Read More

1953
Safari Drums

Actors: Johnny Sheffield, Douglas Kennedy, Barbara Bestar, Emory Parnell, Paul Marion

Synopsis: Safari Drums was the ninth entry in Monogram's "Bomba the Jungle Boy" series. Johnny Sheffield once more stars as Bomba, while his usual director Ford Beebe calls the shots. The villain is an avaricious guide (Douglas Kennedy) who has murdered a famed geologist. The killer is a member of a Read More

1953
Easy to Love

Actors: Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Tony Martin, John Bromfield, Edna Skinner

Synopsis: The Cole Porter title tune is but one of the musical highlights in the (literally) splashy Esther Williams musical Easy to Love. Reshuffling plot devices utilized in previous Williams vehicles, the film casts Williams as Julie Hallerton, the star of Ray Lloyd's (Van Johnson) aquacade. She loves Read More

1953
Sweethearts on Parade

Actors: Ray Middleton, Lucille Norman, Eileen Christy, Bill Shirley

Synopsis: Ray Middleton and Bill Shirley, Republic Pictures' answer to Hope and Crosby, star in Sweethearts on Parade. Middleton and Shirley play Cam Ellerby and Bill Gamble, the featured singers in a travelling medicine show. While stopping over in a small town, Cam renews his acquaintance with his former Read More

1953
Fort Vengeance

Actors: James Craig, Rita Moreno, Keith Larsen, Reginald Denny, Charles Irwin

Synopsis: Fort Vengeance starts out as a western and ends up as a "northern." Trouble-making brothers Dick (James Craig) and Carey (Keith Larsen) skeedaddle to Canada when things get too hot for them in the states. The brothers join the Royal Canadian Mounties, where their knowledge of Indian activities Read More

1953
Call Me Madam

Actors: Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor, Vera-Ellen, George Sanders, Billy De Wolfe

Synopsis: Ethel Merman reprised her role as a socialite turned diplomat in this screen adaptation of Irving Berlin's hit Broadway musical. Sally Adams (Merman) has made it her business to know everyone worth knowing in Washington D.C., and her penchant for parties pays off when she's appointed United States Read More

1953
The Abbott & Costello Show: Police Rookies

Synopsis: Bud and Lou get ready to attend police rookie school. Mike the Cop (Gordon Jones) and Mr. Fields (Sidney Fields) are driven out of A&C's apartment by the antics of Bingo the Chimp. And at tryouts for rookie school, Costello runs afoul of Professor Melonhead (Sidney Fields) and judo expert John Read More

1953
I Love Lucy: The Girls Go Into Business

Actors: Mabel Paige, Emory Parnell, Kay Wiley, Joe Mayer, Mike Mayer

Synopsis: Once again dreaming of unlimited wealth, Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ethel (Vivian Vance) allow themselves to be bamboozled into buying Hansen's Dress Shop. The crafty owner of the shop (Mabel Paige) has convinced the girls that they have purchased a gold mine at a bargain price, but before long Lucy Read More

1953
The Girl Who Had Everything

Actors: Elizabeth Taylor, Fernando Lamas, William Powell, Gig Young, James Whitmore

Synopsis: A good man tries to warn his daughter away from a bad man who has stolen her heart in this melodrama. Steve Latimer (William Powell) is a successful defense attorney who has gone out of his way to give his daughter Jean (Elizabeth Taylor) every advantage in life. However, Steve's generosity and Read More

1953
The Band Wagon

Actors: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan

Synopsis: One of the most subtle and sophisticated of the musical comedies that came out of MGM's Arthur Freed Unit in the '40s and '50s, The Band Wagon stars Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter, a movie star whose career is in a downturn. Looking for a boost, Tony decides to try starring in a Broadway musical. His Read More

1953
Has Anybody Seen My Gal?

Actors: Piper Laurie, Rock Hudson, Charles Coburn, Lynn Bari

Synopsis: Douglas Sirk directed this frothy musical comedy set in the 1920s starring Charles Coburn as Samuel Fulton, an elderly man with a multi-million dollar fortune. With no family of his own to whom he can leave his money, Fulton is pondering what to do with his estate. Years ago, he was in love with a Read More

1952
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair

Actors: Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, James Best, Lori Nelson, Esther Dale

Synopsis: Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair was Number Four in Universal's immensely successful "B"-picture series. It is giving away nothing to reveal that Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride once more assume the title roles. The plot is motivated by Ma's desire to send daughter Rosie (Lori Nelson) to college. To Read More

1952
Washington Story

Actors: Van Johnson, Patricia Neal, Louis Calhern, Sidney Blackmer, Philip Ober

Synopsis: Washington Story stars Van Johnson as mildly liberal congressman Joseph T. Gresham. For reasons that he can't fathom, Gresham has been targeted for abuse by powerful columnist Gilbert Nunnaly (Philip Ober). Working in cahoots with Nunnaly is journalist Alice Kingsley (Patricia Neal), who pretends Read More

1952
Lost in Alaska

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Mitzi Green, Tom Ewell, Bruce Cabot

Synopsis: One reviewer of Abbott & Costello's Lost in Alaska summed up the proceeding in three pithy words: "Lost is right." While not A&C's worst film, it's several miles removed from their best. Cast as firemen in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, Bud and Lou rescue would-be suicide Tom Ewell. It turns Read More

1952
The Lawless Breed

Actors: Rock Hudson, Julie Adams, Mary Castle, John McIntire, Hugh O'Brian

Synopsis: The Lawless Breed is based on the exploits of Texas bad man John Wesley Hardin, played here quite convincingly by Rock Hudson. The film takes the Cecil B. DeMille approach of condemning evil by showing as much evil as the censor will allow. After nearly an hour of unrepentant perfidy, Hardin Read More

1952
When in Rome

Actors: Van Johnson, Paul Douglas, Joseph Calleia, Carlo Rizzo, Tudor Owen

Synopsis: During the Vatican Holy Year of 1950, confidence trickster Joe Brewster (Paul Douglas) disguises himself as a priest and heads to the Holy City. It is Brewster's intention to use his faux clerical garb to evade arrest by the American authorities. But through the influence of American priest Father Read More

1952
Macao

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, Thomas Gomez, Gloria Grahame

Synopsis: The tendency is to scoff at Macao as just another example of Josef von Sternberg's late-career exercises in exoticism; true, it has its problems, including a weak plot and a slightly hasty pace, but it is still an extraordinary film for its time and its personnel. The real sparkplug for the movie Read More

1952
Gobs and Gals

Actors: George Bernard, Bert Bernard, Robert Hutton, Cathy Downs, Gordon Jones

Synopsis: The fraternal comedy team of George and Bert Bernard gained fame in the 1950s with their "record act," wherein they pantomimed to the popular recordings of the day (other aspiring comics who labored in this peculiar brand of humor included Jerry Lewis and Dick Van Dyke). Republic Pictures decided Read More

1952
Dreamboat

Actors: Clifton Webb, Ginger Rogers, Anne Francis, Jeffrey Hunter, Elsa Lanchester

Synopsis: Dreamboat stars Clifton Webb as Thornton Sayre, the perfectionist professor of literature at a sedate Midwestern university. Widowed and with a pretty daughter (Anne Francis), Sayre has given no clue to his previous life before becoming a teacher. But thanks to television, everyone discovers that Read More

1952
The Fabulous Senorita

Actors: Estelita, Robert Clarke, Nestor Paiva, Marvin Kaplan, Rita Moreno

Synopsis: The Fabulous Senorita in this frothy musical is Republic's resident Latin bombshell Estelita Rodriguez, here billed simply as Estelita. The story concerns the daughter (Estelita) of a Cuban millionaire who falls in love with a bookish professor (Robert Clarke) rather than the wealthy fiance of her Read More

1952
Let's Go Navy!

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Allen Jenkins, Tom Neal, Charlita

Synopsis: Through an incredible series of circumstances, the Bowery Boys sign up for a hitch in the Navy. While clumsily going about the shipboard duties, Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and the rest of the gang search high and low for a couple of crooks disguised in sailor suits who've stolen a large Read More

1951
Oklahoma Annie

Actors: Judy Canova, John Russell, Grant Withers, Roy Barcroft, Emmett Lynn

Synopsis: Judy Canova continues to bring home the box-office bacon for Republic Pictures in Oklahoma Annie. Judy plays Judy, Queen of the Cowgirls, a backwoods shopkeeper who falls in love with new sheriff Dan Fraser (John Russell). In order to stay in close proximity with the handsome lawkeeper, Judy Read More

1951
Boots Malone

Actors: William Holden, John Stewart, Stanley Clements, Basil Ruysdael, Carl Benton Reid

Synopsis: William Holden plays Boots Malone, a dishonest--and impoverished--jockey's agent. Malone sees a chance to crack the big time through the talents of young jockey John Stewart. Stewart's wealthy mother wants to remove the boy from the rarefied world of the race track, but it is Malone himself who Read More

1951
My True Story

Actors: Helen Walker, Willard Parker, Elizabeth Risdon, Emory Parnell

Synopsis: Mickey Rooney made his directorial debut with My True Story. Per its title, the film is based on an article which first appeared in the pages of True Story magazine. Jewel thief Ann Martin (Helen Walker) is paroled thanks to some string-pulling by criminal boss George Trent (Wilton Graff). Ann Read More

1951
Honeychile

Actors: Judy Canova, Eddie Foy, Jr., Walter Catlett, Claire Carleton

Synopsis: After a lengthy absence from the screen, Judy Canova returned in the raucous musical Honeychile. The plot had been utilized in several previous Republic films, but was good for yet another go-round here. Canova plays Judy, a would-be songwriter who sends one of her tunes to a big-city composer. Read More

1951
Show Boat

Actors: Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ava Gardner, Joe E. Brown, Marge Champion

Synopsis: The third and (to date) last film version of the Edna Ferber/Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Show Boat falls just short of greatness but is still a whale of a show. Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson are in fine fettle as irresponsible gambler Gaylord Ravenal and showboat ingenue Magnolia Read More

1951
Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm

Actors: Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Richard Long, Meg Randall, Ray Collins

Synopsis: This third entry in Universal's money-spinning "Ma and Pa Kettle" series once more stars Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride as the title characters. This time, the Kettles extend their hospitality to their stuffy Boston in-laws (Ray Collins and Barbara Brown). Trouble brews when the Bostonites offer Read More

1951
Golden Girl

Actors: Mitzi Gaynor, Dale Robertson, Dennis Day, James Barton, Una Merkel

Synopsis: Golden Girl is the life story (sort of) of legendary 19th-century American entertainer Lotta Crabtree. The daughter of a luckless gambler (James Barton), young Lotta (Mitzi Gaynor) supports herself and her dad by singing and dancing in mining camps during the California Gold Rush of 1849. She Read More

1951
Chain Gang

Actors: Douglas Kennedy, Marjorie Lord, Emory Parnell, Thurston Hall

Synopsis: Columbia's Chain Gang combines biting social commentary with good old-fashioned melodrama. Reporter Cliff Roberts (Douglas Kennedy) intends to expose political corruption by posing as a convict and joining a prison chain gang. While a "guest of the state," Roberts gets the lowdown on how cheap Read More

1950
Unmasked

Actors: Robert Rockwell, Barbara Fuller, Raymond Burr, Hillary Brooke, Paul Harvey

Synopsis: Raymond Burr stars as Roger Lewis, the ruthless publisher of a Confidential-style scandal magazine. For a fee, Lewis will keep certain names out of his rag. From blackmail it is one short step to murder: after killing his mistress, Lewis uses his magazine to frame the woman's husband for the Read More

1950
County Fair

Actors: Rory Calhoun, Jane Nigh, Florence Bates, Warren Douglas, Raymond Hatton

Synopsis: County Fair is an amiable racetrack drama starring Rory Calhoun. A veteran horse trainer, Calhoun has developed a somewhat unsavory reputation. He redeems himself by arranging for near-impoverished matron Florence Bates to win an important race. It's all for the love of a good woman--in this case, Bates Read More

1950
Beware of Blondie

Actors: Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms, Marjorie Kent, Adele Jergens

Synopsis: After 12 years and 28 films, Columbia's Blondie series came to a close with 1950's Beware of Blondie. The plot is "business as usual," with Mr. Dithers leaving Dagwood (Arthur Lake) in charge of the office for a short period. Poor old Dag manages to gum things up when he falls for a confidence Read More

1950
Trail of Robin Hood

Actors: Roy Rogers, Penny Edwards, Gordon Jones, Rex Allen

Synopsis: Filmed in eye-pleasing Trucolor, Republic's Trail of Robin Hood is one of the most entertaining and likable of Roy Rogers' starring films. Roy comes to the rescue of veteran cowboy star Jack Holt (playing himself) when the latter's Christmas-tree business is jeopardized by greedy rivals. With the Read More

1950
Rock Island Trail

Actors: Forrest Tucker, Adele Mara, Adrian Booth, Bruce Cabot

Synopsis: Rock Island Trail is proof enough that Republic could turn out an "A" western as well as any of the "majors." This saga of pioneer railroading stars Forrest Tucker as Reed Loomis, a visionary railman who dreams of the day that trains will run from coast to coast. During his own efforts to make Read More

1950
Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town

Actors: Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Richard Long, Meg Randall, Gregg Martell

Synopsis: The second of Universal's "Ma and Pa Kettle" series, Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town stars, as ever, Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride. This time, the Kettles win a letter-writing contest, which offers as first prize an all-expense-paid trip to New York City. Once in Manhattan, the huge Kettle brood Read More

1950
Key to the City

Actors: Clark Gable, Loretta Young, Marilyn Maxwell, Frank Morgan, Raymond Burr

Synopsis: George Sidney directs this pleasant romantic comedy concerning mayoral love. During a convention of mayors in San Francisco, Clarissa Standish (Loretta Young), the mayor of a small town in Maine, meets Steve Fisk (Clark Gable), the down-to-earth leader of a tiny northern California community. Read More

1950
To Please a Lady

Actors: Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, Roland Winters, Will Geer

Synopsis: Arrogant Mike Brannan (Clark Gable) is a famous driver of midget race cars and is the type of man crowds love to hate. He earned his bad-boy image after he is blamed for causing a fatal crash during a race. Wanting to see if all the hoopla is true, tough columnist Regina Forbes (Barbara Stanwyck) Read More

1950
Rose of the Yukon

Synopsis: The "Rose," we suppose, is Myrna Dell, because it sure as heck ain't leading man Steve Brodie. Brodie plays a US Army officer sent to Alaska to investigate reports of the appearance of a supposedly dead man. Upon arriving in the Great White North, Brodie locates his man (William Wright), a Read More

1949
Massacre River

Actors: Guy Madison, Rory Calhoun, Carole Mathews, Cathy Downs, Johnny Sands

Synopsis: Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun, both of whom went on to star in their own TV western series, head the cast of the Monogram sagebrusher Massacre River. Madison and Calhoun play Larry Knight and Phil Acton, fellow Army officers and rivals for the attentions of colonel's daughter Kitty Reid (Cathy Downs Read More

1949
Hellfire

Actors: William "Wild Bill" Elliott, Marie Windsor, Forrest Tucker, Jim Davis, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: Western star William Elliot always insisted that his idol was silent-film cowboy William S. Hart. Elliot's Hellfire, then, can be seen as his tribute to the 1916 Bill Hart classic Hell's Hinges. Elliot plays a hard-bitten frontier gambler whose life is saved by a preacher. When the preacher dies Read More

1949
The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend

Actors: Betty Grable, Cesar Romero, Rudy Vallee, Olga San Juan, Sterling Holloway

Synopsis: Preston Sturges' final American film was generally conceded to be a disaster in 1949; even star Betty Grable publicly bad-mouthed the finished product. When seen today, Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, while no classic, seems a lot better than it did five decades ago. Grable plays a western Read More

1949
Alaska Patrol

Actors: Richard Travis, Helen Westcott, James Griffith, Emory Parnell, Richard Fraser

Synopsis: Dauntless Navy intelligence officer Richard Travis is dispatched to the Frozen North to smash a spy ring. By a fortuitous circumstance, Travis is the exact lookalike of a recently deceased enemy agent. This plot contrivance is given surface credibility by the film's semi-documentary style. Onetime Read More

1949
A Woman's Secret

Actors: Maureen O'Hara, Melvyn Douglas, Gloria Grahame, Bill Williams, Victor Jory

Synopsis: Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz adopts the same prismatic-flashback technique he'd used so well in Citizen Kane for the 1949 filmic soap opera A Woman's Secret. Based on a novel by Vicki (Grand Hotel) Baum, the film begins with the shooting of nightclub singer Susan Caldwell (Gloria Grahame). Read More

1949
Blonde Ice

Actors: Leslie Brooks, Robert Paige, Walter Sande, John Holland, James Griffith

Synopsis: The film career of actress Leslie Brooks lasted long enough for her to contribute several mesmerizingly bitchy performances. In Blonde Ice, Brooks is cast as Claire, a society reporter who'll do literally anything for a story. She manages to keep herself in the headlines by marrying and romancing Read More

1949
The Hideout

Actors: Adrian Booth, Lloyd Bridges, Ray Collins, Sheila Ryan, Alan Carney

Synopsis: Reliable serial and western leading lady Adrian Booth is awarded top billing in Republic's Hideout. Hannah (Booth) and Edie (Sheila Ryan) vie for the attentions of naïve attorney George Browning (Lloyd Bridges). Our hero wises up in a hurry when he takes on a gang of jewel thieves, headed by Read More

1949
Ma and Pa Kettle

Actors: Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Richard Long, Meg Randall, Patricia Alphin

Synopsis: The title couple and their enormous brood of bumpkins made their movie debut in the film version of Betty McDonald's humorous book The Egg and I (1947) where they appeared as supporting characters. Audiences found them funny and so the characters got their own long-running series of B movies. Ma Read More

1949
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Actors: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Louise Beavers, Melvyn Douglas, Reginald Denny, Jason Robards, Sr., Lex Barker

Synopsis: Fed up with crowded big-city living, advertising executive Mr. Blandings (Cary Grant) decides to seek out a big, roomy house in the country. Armed with more enthusiasm than common sense, Blandings causes many a headache for his lawyer/business manager Melvyn Douglas, who tries to keep the costs Read More

1948
Strike It Rich

Actors: Rod Cameron, Bonita Granville, Don Castle, Stuart Erwin, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: Wildcatters in search of a gusher during the late 1920s provide the basis of this comedy-drama that centers on a rambunctious trio of men. When not drinking and fighting, the three are enthusiastically drilling for black gold. The trouble begins when one of the wildcatters grows dissatisfied with Read More

1948
Song of Idaho

Actors: Kirby Grant, June Vincent, Tommy Ivo, Dorothy Vaughan, Emory Parnell

Synopsis: In this musical, a hillbilly crooner loses his sponsor and finds his radio show is suddenly canceled. Now he must convince the reluctant sponsor to renew their support. To do this he must win the respect and affection of the sponsor's fussy brat of a son. The hillbilly is assisted by the Read More

1948
Words and Music

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Perry Como, Judy Garland, June Allyson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly

Synopsis: The life stories of Broadway tunesmiths Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are prettified for the screen in MGM's Words and Music. Billed fourth, the colorless Tom Drake plays Rodgers, but never mind that: the film belongs to Mickey Rooney, as the dynamic, self-destructive Lorenz Hart. Read More

1948
Summer Holiday

Actors: John Alexander, Mickey Rooney, Gloria de Haven, Walter Huston, Ruth Brady, Virginia Brissac, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: Summer Holiday is a musical remake of the 1935 MGM comedy-drama Ah, Wilderness!, which in turn was adapted from the play by Eugene O'Neill. Mickey Rooney (who played a supporting role in the 1935 film) stars as O'Neill's alter ego Richard Miller, a young man coming of age in early 20th century New Read More

1948
You Gotta Stay Happy

Actors: Joan Fontaine, James Stewart, Eddie Albert, Roland Young, Willard Parker

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, a wealthy heiress marries hastily and realizes her mistake on her honeymoon in New York. Though it is her wedding night, she decides not to consummate the union and so ends up hiding in the room of a fellow whose airplane cargo company is facing financial ruin. He assumes Read More

1948
Here Comes Trouble

Actors: Joe Sawyer, Emory Parnell, Betty Compson, Paul Stanton

Synopsis: Hoping to start up where he left off before his studio was taken over by the government during WWII, Hal Roach turned out a brief series of "streamliners" (short-length feature films) under the umbrella title Hal Roach's Laff-Time. The third entry in this series was Here Comes Trouble, a Cinecolor Read More

1948
Calendar Girl

Actors: Charles Arnt, Jane Frazee, James Ellison, William Marshall, Gail Patrick, Kenny Baker, Janet Martin, Victor McLaglen

Synopsis: In this Republic musical, all heck breaks loose when the girlfriend of an aspiring composer becomes a model for the starving artist who lives next door. The story takes place at the turn of the 19th century and is set in Miss Rich's boardinghouse, the temporary home of many young artists and Read More

1947
Stork Bites Man

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Gus Schilling, Emory Parnell, Stanley Prager

Synopsis: Stork Bites Man was the last of five short-length features from Comet Productions, a company owned by Mary Pickford, her husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and former Columbia executive Ralph Cohn. Jackie Cooper plays Ernie, an apartment-house manager whose wife Peg (Gena Roberts) is several months Read More

1947
Violence

Actors: Nancy Coleman, Michael O'Shea, Sheldon Leonard, Peter Whitney, Emory Parnell

Synopsis: With a title like Violence, the audience knew what it was in for from the get-go. Nancy Coleman plays Ann Mason, troubleshooting journalist for an illustrated newsmagazine. Going undercover, Ann infiltrates the United Defenders, a so-called patriotic organization comprised of thugs and Read More

1947
The Guilt of Janet Ames

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Melvyn Douglas, Sid Caesar, Betsy Blair, Nina Foch

Synopsis: In this drama, a soldier's widow, whose husband died a hero in WW II, begins a quest to find the five men whose lives were saved when her husband sacrificed his own life by taking the brunt of a hand grenade blast. Her search begins two years after the war's end, and is an attempt to see if the Read More

1947
Gas House Kids Go West

Actors: Vince Barnett, Bennie Bartlett, Lela Bliss, Tommy Bond

Synopsis: The second of three "Bowery Boys" rip-offs produced by bargain-basement Producers Releasing Corporation, Gas House Kids Go West finds the kids in question vacationing at a California ranch. City boys all, the Kids have a lot of difficulty adjusting to western life, none more so than former "Our Read More

1947
The Crime Doctor's Gamble

Actors: Warner Baxter, Micheline Cheirel, Roger Dann, Steven Geray, Marcel Journet

Synopsis: For the ninth time, Warner Baxter plays Dr. Robert Ordway, better known to movie (and radio) fans as "The Crime Doctor". Ordway is in Paris, mingling with the upper crust of the art world. A murder is committed and a valuable painting is stolen; the principal suspects are the victim's son (Roger Dann Read More

1947
Queen of Burlesque

Actors: Evelyn Ankers, Carleton Young, Craig Reynolds

Synopsis: Its title notwithstanding, there's precious little female epidermis on display in PRC's Queen of Burlesque. Real life stripteaser Rose la Rose is cast in the title role, a burleycue "peeler" named Blossom Terraine, but the storyline is carried by Evelyn Ankers and Carleton Young, as exotic dancer Read More

1946
Deadline at Dawn

Actors: Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, Bill Williams, Joseph Calleia, Osa Massen

Synopsis: Deadline at Dawn represented not only the sole film directorial effort of Broadway's Harold Clurman, but also the only cinematic collaboration between Clurman and his former Group Theatre associate, screenwriter Clifford Odets. While on shore leave in New York, sailor Alex (Bill Williams) is Read More

1946
Abie's Irish Rose

Actors: Joanne Dru, Richard Norris, Michael Chekhov, J.M. Kerrigan, George E. Stone

Synopsis: Abie's Irish Rose, the surprise hit of the 1922-23 Broadway season, was old-fashioned when it was first filmed in 1928, and this 1946 remake, though updated by playwright Anne Nichols, was even more anachronistic. It's the story of what happens when Jewish-American Abie Levy (Richard Norris) Read More

1946
Strange Triangle

Actors: Signe Hasso, Preston S. Foster, Anabel Shaw, Roy Roberts

Synopsis: In this drama, a seductive woman uses her wiles upon both a traveling bank examiner and a manager to whom she is married. This woman has expensive taste and ends up spending all of her husband's money. She then begins trying to seduce the bank examiner, who doesn't know she is married to the Read More

1946
The Show-Off

Actors: Leon Ames, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, George Cleveland, Lila Leeds, Marjorie Main

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1926 and 1934, George Kelly's venerable stage comedy The Show-Off was dusted off as a Red Skelton vehicle in 1946. Skelton is well cast as Aubrey Piper, an inveterate braggart who sorely annoys the family of his wife Amy (Marilyn Maxwell). All talk but no action, Piper gets Read More

1946
Little Iodine

Actors: Jo Ann Marlowe, Marc Cramer, Eve Whitney, Irene Ryan, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: Running a mere 56 minutes, Little Iodine was the first of five "streamliners" produced by Comet Productions, a company formed by Mary Pickford, her husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and former Columbia exec Ralph Cohn. Based on the comic strip by Jimmy Hatlo, the film stars Jo Ann Marlowe as Iodine Read More

1946
Badman's Territory

Actors: Randolph Scott, Ann Richards, George "Gabby" Hayes, Ray Collins, James Warren

Synopsis: In this is '40s western a U.S. marshal chases a band of big-name bandits into no-man's territory (land outside of U.S. government jurisdiction) as he's trying to locate his little brother. He ends up facing off with none other than the James Boys, the Daltons and other notorious fellows. Badman's Read More

1946
Deadline for Murder

Actors: Joan Blair, Larry Blake, Renee Carson, André Charlot, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: In this crime drama, two crooks dupe their friend, a professional gambler, into nipping some important government documents. The crooks then hope to sell the documents to a foreign country. The gambler gets the papers, but then realizes that he has been tricked. He enlists the aid of a detective Read More

1946
The Falcon's Alibi

Actors: Tom Conway, Rita Corday, Vince Barnett, Jane Greer, Elisha Cook, Jr.

Synopsis: A loose remake of 1941's The Gay Falcon, The Falcon's Alibi is one of the better entries in RKO's "Falcon" series, and one of the few that can stand on its own merits as a "film noir." This time, amateur detective Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka the Falcon, is hired by a wealthy woman's secretary Read More

1946
It's in the Bag

Actors: Fred Allen, Jack Benny, William Bendix, Binnie Barnes, Robert Benchley

Synopsis: Based on the popular Russian novel The Twelve Chairs, this stars Fred Allen as flea-circus impresario Fred Floogle. Learning that he's inherited $12 million from his uncle, Fred also discovers that the money has been stuffed in one of thirteen chairs that he's sold at auction. The rest of the film Read More

1945
State Fair

Actors: Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Charles Winninger

Synopsis: Twentieth Century-Fox couldn't make a film version of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's Oklahoma in 1945--that particular Broadway musical would remain a "hot ticket" until the end of the decade--so the studio did the next best thing by hiring Rodgers & Hammerstein to pen the score for the Read More

1945
Having Wonderful Crime

Actors: Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Carole Landis, Lenore Aubert, George Zucco

Synopsis: Having Wonderful Crime spotlights Michael J. Malone, the murder-solving attorney created by author Craig Rice. The film is also ostensibly based on a novel by Rice, though precious little of the original actually made it to the screen. The story begins as Malone (Pat O'Brien) brusquely informs his Read More

1945
Sing Your Way Home

Actors: Jack Haley, Marcy McGuire, Glenn Vernon, Anne Jeffreys, Donna Lee

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, an arrogant war journalist is sailing back to the Big Apple after the end of WW II. En route, he has been assigned to watch over a band of teenagers who were trapped in Europe four years ago while entertaining the troops. Their entrapment has done nothing to dim their Read More

1945
What a Blonde

Actors: Leon Errol, Richard Lane, Elaine Riley, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: What a Blonde gets under way when wealthy lingerie manufacturer Fowler (Leon Errol) runs out of valuable gas-ration coupons. Knowing that he can secure additional coupons if he forms a car pool, Fowler orders his butler Pomeroy (Richard Lane) to seek out a few "riders." Pomeroy returns with a Read More

1945
Mama Loves Papa

Actors: Leon Errol, Elizabeth Risdon, Edwin Maxwell, Emory Parnell, Charles Halton

Synopsis: A loose remake of the 1935 Charlie Ruggles-Mary Boland comedy of the same name, Mama Loves Papa stars Elisabeth Risdon in the title role. Thanks to the efforts of his social-climbing wife Jessie (Risdon), furniture store employee Wilbur Todd (Leon Errol) is tossed headfirst into the world of Read More

1945
The Crime Doctor's Courage

Actors: Warner Baxter, Hillary Brooke, Jerome Cowan, Robert Scott, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: Warner Baxter makes his fourth appearance as Dr. Robert Ordway, criminal-turned-criminologist, in Crime Doctor's Courage. This time, Ordway investigates the murder of fortune-hunter Gordon Carson (Stephen Crane), not long after his marriage to wealthy Kathleen Carson (Hillary Brooke). It's just Read More

1945
Colonel Effingham's Raid

Actors: Joan Bennett, William Eythe, Allyn Joslyn, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Barry Fleming, Colonel Effingham's Raid stars Charles Coburn in the title role. Upon retiring from the army, Effingham returns to his home town of Fredericksville, Georgia. Dismayed by the town's paucity of civic pride, the Colonel begins writing a newspaper column honoring Read More

1945
Two O'clock Courage

Actors: Tom Conway, Ann Rutherford, Richard Lane, Lester Matthews, Roland Drew

Synopsis: In this drama, an amnesiac awakens and finds himself accused of murder. Fortunately, a female cabbie helps prove his innocence. Things look bleak until a bullet wound helps him regain his memory and he can prove he didn't kill anyone. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1945
The Great Moment

Actors: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: After producing, writing and directing one hit film after another, Preston Sturges finally misfired with the biopic The Great Moment. Sturges was always fascinated with the saga of W.T.G. Morton, the 19th century Boston dentist who, after inventing the first truly effective anesthesia, was forced Read More

1944
Seven Days Ashore

Actors: Wally Brown, Alan Carney, Marcy McGuire, Gordon Oliver, Virginia Mayo

Synopsis: Ostensibly a vehicle for RKO Radio's new comedy duo Wally Brown and Alan Carney, Seven Days Ashore actually casts Brown & Carney in subordinate roles. The plotline is carried by furloughed sailor Dan Arland (Gordon Oliver), who while docked in San Francisco gets mixed up with three amorous Read More

1944
A Night of Adventure

Actors: Tom Conway, Audrey Long, Edward S. Brophy, Louis Borell, Addison Richards

Synopsis: In this drama, a remake of Hat, Coat and Glove (1934), a hard working attorney is upset when he learns that his long-suffering, neglected wife is having an affair with an accused murderer. This does not prevent the highly principled lawyer from representing the man and his wife in court. Not only Read More

1944
Once Upon a Time

Actors: Cary Grant, Janet Blair, James Gleason, Ted Donaldson, Howard Freeman, William Demarest

Synopsis: Based on Norman Corwin's satirical radio play My Client Curley, Once Upon a Time is an engaging bit of whimsy, completely dominated by the personality of star Cary Grant. It all begins when fly-by-night Broadway producer Jerry Flynn (Grant) learns of a trained caterpillar (!) that dances to the Read More

1944
Gildersleeve's Ghost

Actors: Harold Peary, Marion Martin, Amelita Ward, Freddie Mercer, Joseph Vitale

Synopsis: The last and least of RKO Radio's B-series based on radio's "Great Gildersleeve", Gildersleeve's Ghost is a standard "scare" comedy redeemed by some enthusiastic performances. The barely relevant title comes from the fact that the film opens in a graveyard, where two spectral ancestors of Read More

1944
The Falcon in Hollywood

Actors: Tom Conway, Barbara Hale, Rita Corday, Jean Brooks, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: This delightful entry in RKO Radio's "Falcon" series finds amateur Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka The Falcon, tring to solve a series of Tinseltown murders. The killings all seem to be tied in with a "jinxed" movie production, supervised by neurotic studio executive Martin Dwyer (John Abbott). Read More

1944
Heavenly Days

Actors: Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan, Eugene Pallette, Gordon Oliver, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: Heavenly Days was the last of three RKO Radio film vehicles for the popular radio duo of Fibber McGee and Molly (aka Jim and Marion Jordan). Unlike their first two films, which were cacophonous, plotless musical farces, this one actually has a coherent storyline and not a little "heart appeal." Read More

1944
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, William Demarest, Brian Donlevy, Porter Hall

Synopsis: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon 'em." Firmly in the latter category is Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), a feckless wartime 4-F who must stand by helplessly as his sweetheart Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) entertains every visiting GI in town. One Read More

1944
Address Unknown

Actors: Paul Lukas, Carl Esmond, Peter Van Eyck, Mady Christians

Synopsis: A plot revealed through the correspondence between German-American businessman and his Jewish partner, Lukas, the German-American, returns to Germany during the early Nazi years and gets caught up in the racist philosophies. He goes to the point of denying even his partner's daughter, who is Read More

1944
Casanova Brown

Actors: Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Frank Morgan, Anita Louise, Patricia Collinge

Synopsis: When he finds out his ex-wife has just had his child and plans to give her up for adoption, a timid English instructor dashes to the child's rescue and attempts to care for her in a hotel room. Before too long, however, his new fiancee and his ex confront him and he must decide what he will do. Read More

1944
The Falcon in Mexico

Actors: Tom Conway, Mona Maris, Nestor Paiva, Mary Currier

Synopsis: The Falcon in Mexico wastes no time getting started: within the first ten minutes, amateur sleuth Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway), aka The Falcon, gets mixed up with a damsel in distress, the murder of an art gallery owner, and a collection of valuable paintings attributed to a supposedly dead artist. Read More

1944
The Outlaw

Actors: Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston, Mimi Aguglia

Synopsis: Perhaps Hollywood's greatest success du scandal of the 1940s, this odd psychological Western became a box office hit largely thanks to the costuming of leading lady Jane Russell (or, more accurately, its relative absence). Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel) and Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) are Read More

1943
Mr. Lucky

Actors: Cary Grant, Laraine Day, Charles Bickford, Gladys Cooper, Alan Carney

Synopsis: One of Cary Grant's most financially successful 1940s vehicles, Mr. Lucky finds Grant atypically cast as a shifty, out-for-number-one gambler. Having dodged the draft by adopting the identity of a dead man, Grant sets his sights on purchasing a fancy gambling ship. To raise the necessary funds, he Read More

1943
Two Senoritas from Chicago

Actors: Joan Davis, Jinx Falkenburg, Ann Savage, Leslie Brooks, Ramsay Ames

Synopsis: The Two Senoritas from Chicago are Gloria (Jinx Falkenburg) and Maria (Ann Savage). When their goofy pal Daisy Baker (Joan Davis) passes off a discarded Portuguese play manuscript as her own, producer Rupert Shannon (Emory Parnell) agrees to bankroll the production. With stars in their eyes Read More

1943
The Human Comedy

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, Fay Bainter, James Craig, Marsha Hunt, Ray Collins, Van Johnson

Synopsis: Author William Saroyan's corn-shucking brand of sentimentality works wonders in this 1943 filmization of his novel. Narrator Ray Collins is dead before the film begins; thus he is able to provide an all-seeing overview of the tiny community of Ithaca, California. The principal character, played by Mickey Rooney Read More

1943
The Unknown Guest

Actors: Victor Jory, Pamela Blake, Harry Hayden, Veda Ann Borg, Nora Cecil

Synopsis: The King Brothers, entrepreneur siblings who parlayed an allegedly ill-gotten fortune into a long movie career, produced Monogram's The Unknown Guest. Victor Jory heads the cast as a young man who (like the producers?) is forced to live down an unsavory past. When his aunt and uncle are murdered Read More

1943
Du Barry Was a Lady

Actors: Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, Virginia O'Brien, Zero Mostel, Rags Ragland

Synopsis: The racy, ribald Cole Porter musical Du Barry Was a Lady is here given a thorough dry-cleaning by prudish MGM. Richard "Red" Skelton takes over the role of Louis Blore (played on Broadway by Bert Lahr), while Lucille Ball steps into the shoes of the original play's Ethel Merman. The story proposes Read More

1943
The Dancing Masters

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Trudy Marshall, Matt Briggs

Synopsis: This lesser Laurel and Hardy vehicle casts Stan and Ollie as the proprietors of the "Arthur Hurry" dance studio. Despite a rather sizeable student body (consisting mainly of 20th Century-Fox contract starlets), the boys would starve to death were it not for their only paying customer, socialite Read More

1943
That Nazty Nuisance

Actors: Bobby Watson, Joe Devlin, Johnny Arthur, Jean Porter, Ian Keith

Synopsis: A sequel to the Hal Roach "streamliner" The Devil with Hitler, That Nazty Nuisance is much funnier, albeit nearly as tasteless as the earlier film. Bobby Watson, Hollywood's foremost Adolf Hitler impersonator, plays Der Fuhrer as a pompous imbecile, and who's to say his interpretation wasn't Read More

1943
Mission to Moscow

Actors: Walter Huston, Ann Harding, Oscar Homolka, Gene Lockhart, George Tobias, Eleanor Parker

Synopsis: More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Read More

1943
Let's Face It

Actors: Bob Hope, Betty Hutton, ZaSu Pitts, Phyllis Povah, Eve Arden, Dave Willock

Synopsis: Let's Face It is adapted from the Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the old Norma Mitchell/Russell G. Medcraft stage chestnut The Cradle Snatchers. The basic story of three neglected wives who hire a trio of young men as professional companions is updated for the World Read More

1943
Government Girl

Actors: Olivia de Havilland, Sonny Tufts, Anne Shirley, Jess Barker, James Dunn

Synopsis: Olivia De Havilland hadn't wanted to star in RKO's Government Girl, but was forced to do so by her home studio Warner Bros. Perhaps in retaliation, De Havilland delivers a strident, overbaked performance, which serves only to make this so-so wartime comedy something of an endurance test for modern Read More

1943
Young Ideas

Actors: Susan Peters, Herbert Marshall, Mary Astor, Elliott Reid, Richard Carlson

Synopsis: Young Ideas is a deliberately "small" MGM feature designed as a trial balloon for up-and-coming director Jules Dassin. Hardly in the league of Dassin's later Naked City, Rififi or Never on Sunday, the film nonetheless satisfies within its own modest limits. Susan Peters and Elliot Reid play Susan Read More

1943
The Remarkable Andrew

Actors: William Holden, Ellen Drew, Brian Donlevy, Rod Cameron, Richard Webb

Synopsis: Andrew Jackson is very happy to serve as the secretary of the society that honors his presidential namesake until he is arrested for embezzling from the town coffers. With no one to speak on his behalf, poor innocent Jackson is tossed into jail. There he finds himself haunted by several ghosts Read More

1942
Saboteur

Actors: Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Norman Lloyd, Otto Kruger, Vaughan Glaser, Murray Alper

Synopsis: Aircraft plant worker Robert Cummings is accused of sabotaging his factory and causing the death of a co-worker. Actually, Cummings is the fall guy for a clever ring of Nazi spies, headed by above-suspicion American philanthropist Otto Kruger. Our hero goes on a cross-country chase after genuine Read More

1942
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

1942
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

1942
The Arabian Nights

Actors: Jon Hall, Maria Montez, Leif Erickson, Sabu, Billy Gilbert

Synopsis: In a harem in a Middle Eastern palace, the guardian leads the women he protects in telling the tale of Halroun-Al-Raschid (Jon Hall), the Caliph of Bagdad, who found himself an enemy close to home in the form of his half-brother Kamar (Leif Erickson), who was ineligible for the throne because of Read More

1942
I Married a Witch

Actors: Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Robert Benchley, Susan Hayward, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: As she burns at the stake, a 17th century witch, Jennifer (Veronica Lake), places a curse on her accuser (Fredric March), so that from this day forward, all of his descendants (each played by him) will be unhappy in marriage. After several hilarious through-the-years examples (the Civil War-era Fredric March Read More

1942
Wings for the Eagle

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, George Tobias, Don DeFore

Synopsis: Wings for the Eagle is an overbaked but sincere tribute to the wartime defense workers at the Lockheed Aircraft Plant, where a good portion of the film was made. Hoping to dodge the draft, Corky Jones (Dennis Morgan) lands an "essential" job at Lockheed, eventually realizing the importance of his Read More

1942
Larceny, Inc.

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, Jack Carson, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: This parody of gangster flicks centers on an incarcerated gangster who decides to reform after he is released from Sing Sing. He and his cell mate have earned a small fortune in investments and are planning to buy a dog track. Unfortunately, another prisoner eavesdrops and attempts to force the Read More

1942
Once Upon a Honeymoon

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Walter Slezak, Albert Dekker, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: The surrealistic opening sequence, featuring a WW2 calendar as written "by A. Hitler", should be indication enough that Once Upon a Honeymoon is no ordinary lighthearted romantic trifle. Ginger Rogers plays Katie, an American chorus girl who seeks to better herself by marrying titled European Read More

1942
The Major and the Minor

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Diana Lynn, Robert Benchley, Rita Johnson

Synopsis: A woman's attempt to disguise herself as an underage girl mushrooms into a series of humorous deceptions in this romantic comedy. Ginger Rogers stars as Susan Applegate, a young woman living in New York who, nearly broke and sick of the city, decides to head home to Iowa. Lacking the money for a Read More

1942
Over My Dead Body

Actors: Milton Berle, Mary Beth Hughes, Reginald Denny, Frank Orth

Synopsis: If MGM's Red Skelton could make the mystery/comedy Whistling in the Dark, 20th Century-Fox's Milton Berle could show up in the mystery/comedy Over My Dead Body (Berle's reputation for lifting gags from other comics now extended to lifting plot material). Berle plays a mystery writer who forever Read More

1942
All the World's a Stooge

Synopsis: When wealthy Mrs. Bullion informs her husband, Ajax that they are adopting a "little refugee" -- a common event amongst society people during World War II -- he is less than thrilled. But a trip to the dentist changes his perspective. Instead of getting his tooth pulled by his regular guy, Dr. I. Read More

1941
Unholy Partners

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Edward Arnold, Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt, William Orr

Synopsis: If Edward G. Robinson thought he'd get away from tough-guy roles by moving from Warners to MGM, he was sorely mistaken. Robinson plays the editor of a 1920s tabloid newspaper, compelled to accept financial aid from a gangster (Edward Arnold). Defying his "unholy partner," Robinson adopts an Read More

1941
A Shot in the Dark

Actors: William Lundigan, Nan Wynn, Regis Toomey, Ricardo Cortez, Maris Wrixon

Synopsis: The oft-used title A Shot in the Dark was affixed in 1941 to this Warner Bros. B-picture. Much of the film takes place in the big-city nightclub owned by shady Phil Richards (Ricardo Cortez). When the prospective buyer of Richards' establishment is murdered, there's no shortage of suspects, but Read More

1941
Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Actors: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond, Jack Carson, Philip Merivale

Synopsis: In Hitchcock's rare foray into comedy (courtesy of a wittily risque script by Norman Krasna), Mr. Smith (Robert Montgomery) makes the mistake of telling Mrs. Smith (Carole Lombard) that if he had it to do all over again, he might not have married her. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Smith discovers that Read More

1941
The Maltese Falcon

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Barton MacLane, Gladys George

Synopsis: After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett's detective classic The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally got it right in 1941--or, rather, John Huston, a long-established screenwriter making his directorial debut, got it right, simply by adhering as closely as possible to the original. Read More

1941
The Monster and the Girl

Actors: Ellen Drew, Robert Paige, Paul Lukas, Joseph Calleia, Onslow Stevens

Synopsis: One of the most schizophrenic films ever to come out of the Paramount "B" mill, The Monster and the Girl starts out as a white-slavery melodrama and ends up as a horror picture! Emerging from the fog, heroine Susan Webster (Ellen Drew) tells her woeful tale to the audience. A young innocent from Read More

1941
The Lady from Cheyenne

Actors: Loretta Young, Robert Preston, Edward Arnold, Frank Craven, Gladys George

Synopsis: In this western, a schoolteacher battles for women's rights in mid 19th century Wyoming. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

1941
Tall in the Saddle

Actors: John Wayne, Ella Raines, Audrey Long, George "Gabby" Hayes, Ward Bond, Elizabeth Risdon

Synopsis: John Wayne stars in this hard-driving oater which was co-written by character actor Paul Fix. Wayne plays Rocklin, a chauvinistic cowboy who arrives at the KC Ranch in Santa Inez to apply for a job as a foreman. But when he finds that the owner has died and that the ranch is now being run by two Read More

1941
So Ends Our Night

Actors: Fredric March, Margaret Sullavan, Frances Dee, Glenn Ford, Anna Sten

Synopsis: The Nazis are clearly the villains in So Ends Our Night, but since the film was made before America's entry into World War II, Adolph Hitler goes unmentioned (we wouldn't want to lose those foreign markets, would we?) Based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel Flotsam, the film zeroes in on three Read More

1941
Kiss the Boys Goodbye

Actors: Mary Martin, Don Ameche, Oscar Levant, Jerome Cowan, Virginia Dale, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: The nationwide search for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind formed the basis of Claire Booth Luce's satirical Broadway comedy Kiss the Boys Goodbye. By the time the film version came out in 1941, Gone with the Wind was yesterday's news, but the picture still manage to elicit Read More

1941
Obliging Young Lady

Actors: Joan Carroll, Edmond O'Brien, Ruth Warrick, Robert Smith, Eve Arden

Synopsis: The studio concocted the film as a showcase for its 9-year-old discovery Joan Carroll, here cast as precocious Bridget Potter. Little Bridget has been willingly "kidnapped" by secretary Linda Norton (Ruth Warrick), who hopes that the girl's disappearance will precipitate a reunion between Read More

1941
Sullivan's Travels

Actors: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Warwick, Porter Hall

Synopsis: In Preston Sturges' classic comedy of Depression-era America, filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), fed up with directing profitable comedies like "Ants in Your Plants of 1939," is consumed with the desire to make a serious social statement in his upcoming film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Read More

1941
The Blonde from Singapore

Actors: Florence Rice, Gordon Jones, Don Beddoe, Alex D'Arcy

Synopsis: The Blonde from Singapore was one of several Columbia B-pictures that were presold to exhibitors on the basis of their titles alone. Pilot Terry Prescott (Leif Erickson), forced to resort to poaching pearl beds to keep financially afloat, makes the acquaintance of ex-showgirl Mary Brooke (Florence Rice Read More

1941
The Case of the Black Parrot

Actors: William Lundigan, Maris Wrixon, Eddie Foy, Jr., Paul Cavanagh, Luli Deste

Synopsis: This thriller, set aboard a transatlantic ship heading for America during WW II, chronicles the endeavors of a cagey reporter looking for the notorious international criminal, the Black Parrot. The reporter begins his search after a major theft occurs during a bogus submarine alert. Before the Read More

1941
Johnny Eager

Actors: Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Van Heflin, Robert Sterling

Synopsis: Robert Taylor toughened up his image considerably with this gangster movie, which was unusual both in its plot and origins, having come from MGM, which was generally not known for its crime movies. Taylor plays a parolee who is pretending to follow the straight-and-narrow as a hardworking cabbie Read More

1941
Louisiana Purchase

Actors: Bob Hope, Vera Zorina, Victor Moore, Irene Bordoni, Dona Drake

Synopsis: The Irving Berlin-Morrie Ryskind Broadway musical hit Louisiana Purchase came to the screen with surprisingly few emendations in 1941. Bob Hope replaces Broadway's William Gaxton in the role of innocent political flunkey Jim Taylor, set up to take the fall for wholesale graft by a group of corrupt Read More

1941
Kings Row

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Charles Coburn

Synopsis: A seemingly quiet Midwestern town is the hiding place for a number of sordid secrets in this melodrama based on Henry Bellamann's best-selling novel. Parris Mitchell (Scotty Beckett) is a young boy growing up in the town of King's Row, where he becomes close friends with Cassandra (Mary Thomas), a Read More

1941
Blondie on a Budget

Actors: Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms, Rita Hayworth

Synopsis: This is the celebrated Blondie episode that costars Rita Hayworth, who in 1940 was still just another Columbia contract actress. Hayworth plays an old flame of Dagwood Bumstead's (Arthur Lake), who moves into the Bumstead household when wife Blondie (Penny Singleton) advertises for a boarder. Read More

1940
The Stranger on the Third Floor

Actors: Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet, Charles Waldron, Elisha Cook, Jr.

Synopsis: Though he doesn't speak his first line of dialogue until the film's final ten minutes, Peter Lorre spiritually dominates the fascinating RKO melodrama Stranger on the Third Floor. The plotline is carried by John McGuire, playing Ward, a newspaper reporter whose courtroom testimony sends the Read More

1940
If I Had My Way

Actors: Bing Crosby, Gloria Jean, Charles Winninger, El Brendel, Allyn Joslyn

Synopsis: In this musical drama, a construction worker becomes the guardian of a 12-year old girl after one of his buddies is killed. She and he head to New York to look for her uncle, a vaudevillian. With the help of a good pal, they soon find the uncle. The three searchers encounter trouble when the pal Read More

1940
Out West with the Peppers

Actors: Edith Fellows, Dorothy Ann Seese, Dorothy Peterson, Charles Peck, Tommy Bond

Synopsis: Pleasing time-fillers at best, Columbia's "Five Little Peppers" films were otherwise undistinguished spinoffs of the best-selling literary series by Margaret Sidney. In the case of Out West With the Peppers, the title and plotline are virtually interchangeable. Once again in dire financial Read More

1940
Foreign Correspondent

Actors: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman

Synopsis: Fourteen scriptwriters spent five years toiling over a movie adaptation of war correspondent Vincent Sheehan's Personal History before producer Walter Wanger brought the property to the screen as Foreign Correspondent. What emerged was approximately 2 parts Sheehan and 8 parts director Alfred Hitchcock Read More

1940
The Great McGinty

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff, Allyn Joslyn, William Demarest

Synopsis: The moral of Preston Sturges' first directorial effort The Great McGinty seems to be: If you're a crook, stay a crook, because honesty will get ya every time. Brian Donlevy plays Dan McGinty, a Chicago hobo who is hired by local political bosses as a "professional voter", casting ballots under a Read More

1940
Invisible Stripes

Actors: George Raft, Jane Bryan, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, Flora Robson

Synopsis: Invisible Stripes is a cookie-cutter Warners prison drama which rounds up the usual suspects. George Raft and Humphrey Bogart are top-billed, and as is often the case in such a circumstance, it is Raft who is given the larger (albeit less interesting) role. Raft plays Cliff Taylor, an ex-convict Read More

1940
Northwest Mounted Police

Actors: Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll, Preston S. Foster, Paulette Goddard, Robert Preston

Synopsis: Cecil B. De Mille directed this lavish all-star spectacular paying tribute to America's neighbors to the North. In 1885, as Louis Riel (Francis J. McDonald) tries to organize Indians and French settlers into a fighting force that will battle against the ruling British, Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers (Gary Cooper Read More

1940
The Star Maker

Actors: Dorothy Babbs, Bing Crosby, Louise Campbell, Linda Ware, Ned Sparks, Laura Hope Crewes

Synopsis: The Star Maker is the story (with variations) of vaudeville enterpreneur Gus Edwards, here played by Bing Crosby. Determining that he can attain the uppermost showbiz rungs by spotlighting new, untried talents, Edwards rises to fame by hiring preteen boys and girls for his touring acts, the most Read More

1939
They Shall Have Music

Actors: Jascha Heifetz, Andrea Leeds, Joel McCrea, Gene Reynolds, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Read More

1939
The Roaring Twenties

Actors: James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Priscilla Lane, Jeffrey Lynn, Gladys George

Synopsis: Based upon an idea by Broadway columnist Mark Hellinger, The Roaring Twenties opens during World War I as doughboys Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney), Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn), and George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) discuss what they will do when the war is over. Bartlett wants to go back to repairing Read More

1939
Idiot's Delight

Actors: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Edward Arnold, Charles Coburn, Joseph Schildkraut, Burgess Meredith

Synopsis: Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Idiot's Delight starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway. Set in a lavish alpine hotel bordering an Italian air base, the story throws together several disparate people, each in his or her own way affected by the World War that threatens to Read More

1939
The House of Fear

Actors: William Gargan, Irene Hervey, Dorothy Arnold, Alan Dinehart, Harvey Stephens

Synopsis: A remake of Paul Leni's The Last Warning (1929), this "Crime Club" series entry once again presents the spectacle of an actor murdered in mid-performance and in front of a sellout crowd. This time the unfortunate thespian is John Wofford (Don Douglas), whose body subsequently disappears. To solve Read More

1939
Tiny Troubles

Actors: George "Spanky" McFarland, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, Eugene "Porky" Lee, Darla Hood

Synopsis: The MGM Our Gang series began its slow but steady decline with the sub-standard one-reel entry Tiny Troubles. On this occasion, the gang is held responsible for the crimes perpetrated by a midget named Light-Fingered Lester (played by prolific dwarf actor Jerry Maren). The notion that the kids Read More

1939
The Day the Bookies Wept

Actors: Joe Penner, Betty Grable, Richard Lane, Tom Kennedy

Synopsis: Zany radio comedian Joe Penner delivers one of his best (and most believable) screen performances in the Runyonesque comedy The Day the Bookies Wept. Penner stars as Ernest, the trainer of a broken-down racehorse named Hiccup. It seems that the nag turns into a potential champion whenever he's Read More

1939
Let Freedom Ring

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Virginia Bruce, Victor McLaglen, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Originally filmed in Sepiatone, Let Freedom Ring is a satisfying Nelson Eddy musical with patriotic overtones. Set in the years following the Civil War, the story focuses on the battle of wills between Harvard-educated idealist Steve Logan (Eddy) and bullying railroad magnate Jim Knox (Edward Arnold Read More

1939
Union Pacific

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Akim Tamiroff, Robert Preston, Lynne Overman, Brian Donlevy

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille takes us back to the 1860s, then rebuilds the first intercontinental railroad in Union Pacific. The real-life spectacle is occasionally interrupted by the fictional adventures of railroad overseer Joel McCrea, postmistress Barbara Stanwyck (with an incredible Irish brogue), and Read More

1939
St. Louis Blues

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Lloyd Nolan, Tito Guizar, Jerome Cowan, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: Dorothy Lamour had been playing "sarong girls" long enough to parody her screen character in 1939's Best of the Blues. Tired of portraying jungle princesses, a temperamental Broadway star (Lamour) runs out on her manager (Jerome Cowan) and joins a Mississippi showboat under a phony name. Read More

1939
Sued for Libel

Actors: Kent Taylor, Linda Hayes, Lillian Bond, Morgan Conway, Richard Lane

Synopsis: Thanks to a practical joker, hotshot radio newscaster Steve (Kent Taylor) announces that prominent financier Pomeroy (Morgan Conway) has been convicted of murder. When it turns out that Pomeroy has been acquitted, Steve, his radio station and the newspaper that owns it are slapped with libel Read More

1939
Off the Record

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, Bobby Jordan, Alan Baxter

Synopsis: Pat O'Brien is his usual likably obnoxious self in the Warner Bros. newspaper yarn Off the Record. While trying to smash a numbers racket, star reporter Breezy Elliot (O'Brien) takes tough young numbers-runner Mickey Fallon (Bobby Jordan) under his wing. The kid gets a job as a copy boy, earning Read More

1939
Little Accident

Actors: Hugh Herbert, Florence Rice, Richard Carlson, Ernest Truex, Joy Hodges

Synopsis: A remake of a 1930 Universal film, Little Accident was the third starring vehicle for androgynous juvenile star Baby Sandy. Hugh Herbert stars as Herbert Pearson, self-styled infant specialist on a big-city newspaper. When father Tabby Morgan (Ernest Truex) abandons his bundle of joy (Baby Sandy) Read More

1939
One Hour to Live

Actors: Charles Bickford, Doris Nolan, John Litel, Samuel S. Hinds, Paul Guilfoyle

Synopsis: One Hour to Live affords John Litel, usually cast as rock-solid businessmen and incorruptable attorneys, the opportunity to play a double-dyed villain. Litel is cast as crooked fight manager Rudy Spain, who orders the murder of a boxer (Jack Carr) who has turned honest. By having his dirty work Read More

1939
Pacific Liner

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Chester Morris, Wendy Barrie, Alan Hale, Barry Fitzgerald

Synopsis: An outbreak of cholera threatens a luxury liner in this surprisingly low-budget melodrama from RKO. En route from Shanghai to San Francisco, chief engineer Crusher McKay (Victor McLaglen) and shipboard doctor Tony Craig (Chester Morris) become rivals for the attention of nurse Ann Grayson (Wendy Read More

1939
Winter Carnival

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Richard Carlson, Helen Parrish, James Corner, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: This romance is set during the Dartmouth College Winter Carnival and follows the exploits of a woman recently divorced from a count who has returned to her alma mater for the annual carnival. A former carnival queen, she watches as her lovely little sister vies for the title. She also flirts with Read More

1939
You Can't Get Away with Murder

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Billy Halop, John Litel, Henry Travers

Synopsis: A young punk hooks up with a mobster and helps him rob a gas station in this crime drama. From there the crimes become more serious and the boy is very happy until something goes wrong and the gangster shoots someone using the stolen gun of the boy's sister's lover. The innocent lover is given the Read More

1939
The Spellbinder

Actors: Lee Tracy, Barbara Read, Patric Knowles, Linda Hayes

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a shyster lawyer makes his living earning acquittals for his guilty clients. Most recently he freed a powerful crime lord. He comes to regret this when his daughter falls in love with the gangster. Despite his efforts to dissuade the criminal from pursuing the relationship Read More

1939
I Stole a Million

Actors: George Raft, Claire Trevor, Dick Foran, Henry Armetta, Victor Jory

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a grizzled cabbie is scammed out of his life savings by a fake finance company. He tries to no avail to get police assistance. Finally he becomes a wanted criminal and escapes to California where he meets the girl who will become his wife. She helps him go straight by helping Read More

1939
East Side of Heaven

Actors: Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, Mischa Auer, Irene Hervey, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his roommate, dour doorman Mischa Auer, Crosby offers care and shelter to the infant until he can locate the parents. The baby brings in some unwanted publicity for Crosby, which Read More

1939
Angels With Dirty Faces

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft

Synopsis: Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connelly (Pat O'Brien) grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood. Rocky becomes a hero to a gang of teenaged boys Read More

1938
I Am the Law

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Barbara O'Neil, Wendy Barrie, Otto Kruger

Synopsis: I Am the Law is arguably the best of the late-1930s films inspired by the racket-busting career of New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Edward G. Robinson switches to the right side of the law as the Dewey counterpart, here named John Lindsay (!) A feisty, no-nonsense law professor, Lindsay Read More

1938
Doctor Rhythm

Actors: Bing Crosby, Mary Carlisle, Beatrice Lillie, Andy Devine, Rufe Davis

Synopsis: Bing Crosby plays the melodic medico of the title. To help cover for his ailing policeman pal (Andy Devine), Crosby takes the policeman's latest assignment and becomes the bodyguard for a loopy but wealthy matron (Bea Lillie). Bing falls in love with the lady's niece (Mary Carlisle), expressing Read More

1938
Sweethearts

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Florence Rice

Synopsis: Contrary to popular belief, the Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald Technicolor confection Sweethearts is not based on the 1913 Victor Herbert operetta of the same name (though most of Herbert's songs remain intact), but a Dorothy Parker-Alan Campbell brainstorm about a popular Broadway singing duo Read More

1938
Arson Gang Busters

Actors: Robert Livingston, Rosalind Keith, Jackie Moran, Warren Hymer, Jack LaRue

Synopsis: Arson Gang Busters was a slick little Republic programmer highlighted by several well-staged miniature sequences, courtesy of the talented Lydecker Brothers. Robert Livingston plays a firefighter who feels that the police aren't moving fast enough in tracking down an arson ring. Livingston decides Read More

1938
The Mad Miss Manton

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Sam Levene, Frances Mercer, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: Wealthy socialite Melsa Manton (Barbara Stanwyck) is taking her pooches for a walk in the dead of the night when she stumbles upon a dead body and a car fleeing the scene of the crime. She alerts the police but the corpse has disappeared by the time they arrive, and the lieutenant, knowing of her Read More

1938
King of Alcatraz

Actors: Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan, J. Carrol Naish, Harry Carey, Robert Preston

Synopsis: We never actually see J. Carroll Naish in Alcatraz, but there's no doubt he's the "king" of the title. Most of the action takes place aboard a passenger ship, which Naish has boarded incognito in hopes of escaping prosecution. Naish and his gunmen take over the ship, complicating the lives Read More

1938
Call of the Yukon

Actors: Richard Arlen, Beverly Roberts, Lyle Talbot, Garry Owen

Synopsis: In this saccharine Klondike adventure, a brave female reporter who has a rapport with wild animals heads north to cover a story. Included in her animal entourage are a pair of bear cubs, a talking rook, and a homeless collie. After she gets lost, a handsome guide shows up to lead her out of the Read More

1938

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