J. Carrol NaishFilmography

Dracula vs. Frankenstein

Actors: J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: A slapdash epic of bad filmmaking geared strictly toward drive-in audiences, Dracula vs. Frankenstein has gone on to achieve cult status thanks to its sheer ineptness and impressive cast. At an oceanside amusement park, Dr. Frankenstein (J. Carrol Naish) runs a house of horrors that serves as a Read More

Cutter's Trail

Synopsis: John Gavin stars as Santa Fe marshal Ben Cutter, whose homecoming is blighted when he finds his town has been taken over by a Mexican bandit gang. Accompanied by two of the less frightened townsfolk--a small boy (Manuel Padila Jr.) and the boy's mother (Marisa Pavan)--Cutter sets out to rid the Read More

Bonanza: A Severe Case of Matrimony

Actors: Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Susan Strasberg, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Breaking from tradition, Bonanza offered two first-run episodes amidst the usual sea of reruns in the summer of 1968. The first of these, "A Severe Case of Matrimony", aired on July 7, 1968. Susan Strasberg plays Rosalita, a fiery gypsy girl who aspires to a career in opera-and never mind that she Read More

I Dream of Jeannie: Djinn and Water

Synopsis: J. Carroll Naish guest stars as Jeannie's great-grandfather, Bilejik the Djinn. Upon learning that Tony (Larry Hagman) is involved in an experiment to extract fresh water from salt water, Jeannie (Barbara Eden) summons forth Bilejik, who invented the same process back in ancient times. Of course Read More

The Hanged Man

Synopsis: Don Siegal directed this made-for-TV remake of the western drama Ride The Pink Horse, in which Robert Culp stars as Harry Pace, who has set out to avenge the violent death of a good friend. Pace's search leads him to New Orleans during the Mardi Gras celebration, where he meets a beautiful woman Read More

The Untouchables: The Noise of Death

Synopsis: J. Carrol Naish guest stars as Mafia Don Giuseppe "Joe" Bucco, who is being pressured to step down from leadership by his associates. Stubbornly refusing to retire, Bucco suffers the consequences but still remains loyal to the Organization, balking at an invitation to cooperate with Federal agent Read More

Force of Impulse

Synopsis: In this socially conscious love story, a dull high school jock falls in love with a seductive young girl whose father disapproves of her seeing a man with a lower social station. He then forces her to date a boy from the upper class. To defy her father, she ends up staying out all night with the Read More

Adventures of Charlie Chan, Vol. 2

Adventures of Charlie Chan, Vol. 3

Master Detectives

Adventures of Charlie Chan, Vol. 1

Adventures of Charlie Chan, Vols. 1-3

This Could Be the Night

Actors: Jean Simmons, Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa, Julie Wilson, Neile Adams, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: A rare comedy effort by director Robert Wise, This Could Be the Night is based on a series of short stories Cordelia Baird Gross. Jean Simmons stars as Anne Leeds, a prim, proper and very level-headed grade-school teacher who takes a night job as secretary to rough-and-tumble nightclub owner Rocco Read More

The Young Don't Cry

Actors: Sal Mineo, James Whitmore, J. Carrol Naish, Gene Lyons, Leigh Whipper, Ruth Attaway

Synopsis: 17-year-old Sal Mineo was one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood when The Young Don't Cry was specially tailored for his talents. Filmed on location at the Bethesda Home for Boys in Savannah, Georgia, the film stars Mineo as Leslie Henderson, a lonely older orphan who befriends escaped Read More

The New Adventures of Charlie Chan [TV Series]

Rebel in Town

Actors: John Payne, Ruth Roman, J. Carrol Naish, Ben Cooper, John Smith

Synopsis: Rebel in Town was the third issue from Bel-Air Productions, a firm co-founded by film execs Howard W. Koch and Aubrey Schenck. While the title character is played by John Smith, top billing goes to John Payne as ex-Union officer John Willoughby. When Willoughby's young son (Bobby Clark) snaps his Read More

Yaqui Drums

Synopsis: In this western, a Mexican bandit and an angry rancher team up and take on a crooked saloon keeper. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Desert Sands

Actors: Ralph Meeker, Marla English, J. Carrol Naish, John Smith, Ron Randell, John Carradine

Synopsis: Although the French Foreign Legion became increasingly anachronistic in the 1950s, films like Desert Sands helped to perpetuate the glamorous legend of this mercenary aggregation. Ralph Meeker heads the cast as a bold legionnaire who falls in love with gorgeous Arab girl Marla English. Alas, Marla Read More

Rage at Dawn

Actors: Randolph Scott, Forrest Tucker, Mala Powers, Edgar Buchanan

Synopsis: Since lapsing into public domain, Rage at Dawn has become one of the most readily available of Randolph Scott's westerns. Based on the exploits of the infamous Reno gang, the film casts Scott as a federal agent assigned to squelch the Renos once and for all. After staging a few phony train Read More

Hit the Deck

Actors: Jane Powell, Tony Martin, Debbie Reynolds, Walter Pidgeon, Vic Damone

Synopsis: Hit the Deck is the second film version of the same-named 1927 hit Broadway musical. Though updated for the 1950s, the basic plot remains the same. Sailors Tony Martin, Vic Damone and Russ Tamblyn spend their entire shore leave in pursuit of three beautiful gals. Martin is "that way" about Ann Read More

The Last Command

Actors: Sterling Hayden, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Richard Carlson, Arthur Hunnicutt, Ernest Borgnine, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: The Republic super-production The Last Command is a partial remake of the same studio's Man of Conquest (1939). But whereas the earlier film concerned itself with the exploits of Texas patriot Sam Houston, Last Command concentrates on Houston associate James Bowie, played by Sterling Hayden. When Read More

New York Confidential

Actors: Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Marilyn Maxwell, Anne Bancroft, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: New York Confidential is based on the Jack Lait-Lee Mortimer bestseller of the same name. Richard Conte plays Nick Magellan, a "torpedo" for Manhattan crime boss Charlie Lupo (Broderick Crawford). Pleased with Magellan's work, Charlie promotes him to the topmost rungs of the Syndicate. He regrets Read More

Violent Saturday

Actors: Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, Virginia Leith, Lee Marvin, Tommy Noonan

Synopsis: Three bank robbers (J. Carroll Naish, Lee Marvin, Stephen McNally) case a small Arizona mining town prior to pulling a holdup. The audience get to know the various townsfolk as they're scrutinized by the crooks. Victor Mature plays a man who is a disappointment to his son because he didn't serve Read More

Saskatchewan

Actors: Alan Ladd, Shelley Winters, Robert Douglas, J. Carrol Naish, Hugh O'Brian

Synopsis: Saskatchewan is a "northern" starring Alan Ladd as tight-lipped Canadian Mountie Sgt. Thomas O'Rourke. He rescues Grace Markey (Shelley Winters), sole survivor of a Sioux uprising, and the two of them set out across the treacherous Saskatchewan terrain to safety. To keep himself and his companion Read More

Sitting Bull

Actors: Dale Robertson, Mary Murphy, J. Carrol Naish, Iron Eyes Cody, John Litel

Synopsis: This western offers one of Hollywood's more historically accurate accounts of the Battle of Little Big Horn. The story centers on a major in the cavalry who believes the Indians have the same rights as other Americans. Despite his efforts to stop Custer from embarking on his ill-fated mission, the Read More

Ride the Man Down

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Rod Cameron, Ella Raines, Forrest Tucker, Barbara Britton

Synopsis: Will Ballard (Rod Cameron) is the longtime foreman of the Hatcher ranch, a spread renowned for its size and the wealth it contains. When owner Phil Evarts dies suddenly, the speculation in the territory is that Hatcher will be broken up, especially since it was Evarts' determination coupled with Read More

Fighter Attack

Actors: Sterling Hayden, J. Carrol Naish, Joy Page, Kenneth Tobey, Anthony Caruso

Synopsis: Director Leslie Selander invests the Allied Artists "special" Fighter Attack with the same energy that he'd previously applied to his many westerns. Set during World War II, the film concerns an effort to destroy a Nazi supply depot. Though he's flown enough missions to be sent home, squadron Read More

Beneath the 12-Mile Reef

Actors: Robert Wagner, Terry Moore, Gilbert Roland, J. Carrol Naish, Richard Boone

Synopsis: At the time of its release, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef was considered more notable for its technical achievements than its artistic virtues, a judgment that is still valid, up to a point. It wasn't the most earth-shattering drama ever made, though the performances seem better than they were probably Read More

Life with Luigi [TV Series]

Actors: J. Carrol Naish, Vito Scotti, Alan Reed, Sr., Thomas Gomez

Woman of the North Country

Actors: Ruth Hussey, Rod Cameron, John Agar, Gale Storm, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Ruth Hussey stars in this big-budget Republic actioner. She plays Christine Powell, the grasping, conniving sister of Minnesota mining magnate David Powell (John Agar). Using her feminine wiles, Christine tries to undermine her brother's competition by romancing rival mine owner Kyle Ramlo (Rod Cameron Read More

Clash by Night

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: The opening credits appearing over a turbulent ocean serve as a foreshadowing of things to come in this standard-issue love triangle that shifts into high drama thanks to taut direction by Fritz Lang and a sizzling performance by Barbara Stanwyck. Returning to live with her brother, Joe (Keith Read More

Across the Wide Missouri

Actors: Clark Gable, Ricardo Montalban, John Hodiak, Adolphe Menjou, Maria Elena Marques

Synopsis: Clark Gable is the largely nonheroic hero of the sprawling western Across the Wide Missouri. A cunning trapper who lives purely by his wits, Gable avoids being scalped by the Blackfoot Indians by marrying Maria Elena Marques, the chief's daughter. This marriage of convenience also allows Gable to Read More

Bannerline

Actors: Keefe Brasselle, Sally Forrest, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Bannerline was Don Weis' first solo directorial credit for MGM. Keefe Brasselle stars as cub reporter Mike Perrivale, who devises a heart-tugging promotional stunt. Upon learning that crusty old history teacher Hugo Trimble (Lionel Barrymore) is dying, Mike writes up a glowing tribute, ascribing Read More

Mark of the Renegade

Actors: Ricardo Montalban, Cyd Charisse, J. Carrol Naish, Gilbert Roland, Andrea King

Synopsis: MGM's Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse were loaned to Universal for the Technicolor period piece Mark of the Renegade. Set in 19th-century California, the film stars Montalban as Marcos, in league with a band of pirates. Marcos falls into the hands of Don Pedro Garcia (Gilbert Roland), a despot Read More

The Denver and Rio Grande

Actors: Edmond O'Brien, Sterling Hayden, Dean Jagger, Laura Elliot, Lyle Bettger

Synopsis: Audiences got their money's worth and then some from Byron Haskin's The Denver and Rio Grande. Edmond O'Brien plays Jim Vesser, a former U.S. Cavalry officer and hero, now the man in charge of getting the D&RG's tracks across the Rockies first to secure a right-of-way -- he revels in the job Read More

The Toast of New Orleans

Actors: Kathryn Grayson, Mario Lanza, David Niven, J. Carrol Naish, James Mitchell

Synopsis: So far as their fans were concerned, Mario Lanza and Kathryn Grayson could have stood up against a blank wall and sung uninterruptedly for 96 minutes in Toast of New Orleans. MGM, however, adhered to the policy that all movies must have plots. This one finds Lanza playing Pepe Abellard Duvalle, a Read More

Annie Get Your Gun

Actors: Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Louis Calhern, J. Carrol Naish, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Judy Garland was originally slated to star in MGM's film version of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, but she was forced to pull out of the production due to illness (recently discovered out-takes reveal a gaunt, dazed Garland, obviously incapable of completing her duties). She was replaced by Betty Hutton Read More

Please Believe Me

Actors: Deborah Kerr, Robert Walker, Peter Lawford, Mark Stevens, James Whitmore

Synopsis: Producer Val Lewton abandoned the "psychological horror" efforts of his RKO days when he moved to MGM in 1950. Lewton's Please Believe Me is a simple, sometimes simplistic romantic comedy, designed principally as a showcase for Deborah Kerr. The star plays Alison Kirbe, an English girl who Read More

Rio Grande

Actors: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman, Jr., Harry Carey, Jr.

Synopsis: John Wayne stars as Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke, whose devotion to duty has cost him his marriage to his beloved Kathleen (Maureen O'Hara). Yorke gets word that his son, Jeff (Claude Jarman Jr.) -- whom he hasn't seen in 15 years -- has been dropped as a cadet from West Point, and that he lied about his Read More

The Black Hand

Actors: Gene Kelly, J. Carrol Naish, Teresa Celli, Marc Lawrence, Frank Puglia

Synopsis: Gene Kelly as an Italian-American attorney? Once you get past this, the rest of Black Hand ought to go down easy. This expose of organized crime is set in New York's "Little Italy" the late 19th century. The various Italian immigrant merchants find themselves at the mercy of the Black Hand, a Read More

That Midnight Kiss

Actors: Kathryn Grayson, Mario Lanza, José Iturbi, Ethel Barrymore, Keenan Wynn

Synopsis: That Midnight Kiss served to introduce the film-going public to MGM's newest singing sensation, Mario Lanza. Just as he did with Deanna Durbin at Universal, producer Joe Pasternak removes the "stuffy" onus attached to classical music by presenting Lanza as a down-to-earth truck driver named Johnny Read More

Canadian Pacific

Actors: Randolph Scott, Jane Wyatt, J. Carrol Naish, Victor Jory, Nancy Olson

Synopsis: Filmed on location in the Canadian Rockies, this historical adventure spins a fanciful account of the building of the Canadian Pacific railroad. Randolph Scott heads the cast as Tom Andrews, a rough-and-ready surveyor who meets and conquers all obstacles in the railroad's path. The biggest fly in Read More

Joan of Arc

Actors: Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, Selena Royle, Ward Bond, Robert H. Barrat, Francis L. Sullivan, Jimmy Lydon, Rand Brooks, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: Director Victor Fleming's final film features Ingrid Bergman as a vivid and luminous Joan of Arc, the 15th-century French peasant girl who led the French in battle against the invading English, becoming a national hero. When she was captured, tortured, and ultimately executed by the English, she Read More

The Fugitive

Actors: Henry Fonda, Dolores Del Rio, Pedro Armendáriz, J. Carrol Naish, Leo Carrillo

Synopsis: The Fugitive was shot on location in Mexico by that country's premiere cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa. Henry Fonda plays a Christ-like priest in an unnamed Latin-American country where religion has been outlawed. Though incognito in a backwater village, Fonda cannot help but seem more spiritual Read More

The Kissing Bandit

Actors: Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, J. Carrol Naish, Mildred Natwick, Mikhail Rasumny

Synopsis: In this period musical, Ricardo (Frank Sinatra) is the son of a Mexican innkeeper who has come to California to take over a hotel owned by his family after the death of his father. Ricardo makes the startling discovery that his father was best known as a "kissing bandit," a dashing thief who Read More

Carnival in Costa Rica

Actors: Dick Haymes, Vera-Ellen, Cesar Romero, Celeste Holm, Anne Revere

Synopsis: This musical romance is set in the beautiful South American country and chronicles the love affair between a betrothed couple who secretly have fallen in love with other people. The young man loves a nightclub chanteuse, while the woman wants a handsome coffee-buyer. Now they must somehow let Read More

Bad Bascomb

Actors: Wallace Beery, Margaret O'Brien, Marjorie Main, J. Carrol Naish, Frances Rafferty

Synopsis: Bad Bascomb is an expensive MGM western, tailor-made for the blubbery talents of Wallace Beery. Beery plays the badman of the title, whose heart is softened by a sweet little child (Margaret O'Brien at her most cloying). Just about to make a clean getaway, Beery realizes that the child is in Read More

Humoresque

Actors: John Abbott, Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Oscar Levant, Paul Cavanagh, J. Carrol Naish, Joan Chandler, Tommy Cook

Synopsis: Fannie Hurst's novel Humoresque is the lachrymose tale of a famed Jewish-American violinist who forgets all about his friends and family in his rise to fame. Screenwriters Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold refashioned this timeworn material into a first-class, big-budget soap opera, completely Read More

The Beast with Five Fingers

Actors: Robert Alda, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: This movie is an early horror film classic and certainly one that a well-rounded horror movie aficionado should not miss. An invalid concert pianist dies, leaving a will that does not include his personal secretary Hilary Cummins (Peter Lorre) as a beneficiary. Furious, the left-out yes-man cuts Read More

Getting Gertie's Garter

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Marie McDonald, Barry Sullivan, Binnie Barnes, J. Carrol Naish, Sheila Ryan

Synopsis: Getting Gertie's Garter is an updated adaptation of the venerable stage farce by Wilson Collison and Avery Hopwood. Dennis O'Keefe, newly married to lovely Sheila Ryan, is in a jam. O'Keefe's former girl friend, exotic dancer Marie McDonald, has in her possession an expensive, jeweled garter given Read More

Strange Confession

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr., Brenda Joyce, J. Carrol Naish, Milburn Stone, Lloyd Bridges

Synopsis: In this suspense story (released as part of Universal's "Inner Sanctum" series, named for the popular radio series of the day), Jeff Carter is a scientist who is working on a medicine which would cure the flu. Carter's duplicitous boss Roger Graham (J. Carrol Naish) sends him on a business trip to Read More

The Southerner

Actors: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, Beulah Bondi, Percy Kilbride, Bunny Sunshine, J. Carrol Naish, Jay Gilpin

Synopsis: The Southerner was Jean Renoir's favorite of his American films. Shot on location, the film stars Zachary Scott as a sharecropper who yearns for a place of his own. On a tiny, scraggly patch of land, Scott tries to make a go of things, along with his wife Betty Field, his grandmother Beulah Bondi Read More

A Medal for Benny

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Arturo de Cordova, J. Carrol Naish, Mikhail Rasumny, Fernando Alvarado

Synopsis: John Steinbeck cowrote this sometimes hilarious, sometimes heart-wrenching study of small-town hypocrisy. Shiftless Benny (who is never seen) has been tossed out of his Southern California town by the "proper" citizens. Drafted into the army, Benny is killed in action--and now that he's a hero Read More

Voice in the Wind

Actors: Francis Lederer, Sigrid Gurie, J. Edward Bromberg, J. Carrol Naish, Alexander Granach

Synopsis: Originally slated for PRC release, Voice in the Wind was eventually distributed by United Artists. The film was directed by the estimable Arthur Ripley, a graduate of 2-reel comedies who aspired to bring art with a capital "A" to the cinema. Francis Lederer stars as Jan Foley, an amnesiac Czech Read More

Two-Man Submarine

Actors: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, J. Carrol Naish, Abner Biberman

Synopsis: Columbia's Two-Man Submarine was predicated on a then-new Japanese invention, designed to maneuver in waters where no normal-sized sub could go. Naturally, the Japanese themselves could not be the heroes of this 1944 film, so Tom Neal and Lloyd Bridges play the good guys, while ersatz Read More

Enter Arsene Lupin

Actors: Charles Korvin, Ella Raines, J. Carrol Naish, George Dolenz, Gale Sondergaard

Synopsis: In this crime programer, Arsene Lupin (Charles Korvin) is an expert jewel thief from France who, while aboard a train, notices that Stacie (Ella Raines), a beautiful woman from England, is travelling with a large and valuable emerald. Lupin steals the gem, but he becomes so infatuated with Stacie Read More

Dragon Seed

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, Turhan Bey

Synopsis: This lavish, 145-minute cinemadaptation of the Pearl Buck best-seller Dragon Seed was intended by MGM as a followup to the studio's successful film version of Buck's The Good Earth. In true Hollywood fashion, the Chinese protagonists are all played by Caucasian actors, with fascinating if not Read More

Jungle Woman

Actors: Evelyn Ankers, J. Carrol Naish, Samuel S. Hinds, Lois Collier, Milburn Stone, Acquanetta

Synopsis: A strong contender for the title of Universal's worst horror film of the 1940s, Jungle Woman continued the melodramatic exploits of "Ape-Woman" Paula Dupree (Acquanetta from Captive Wild Woman) including seemingly endless "flashback" footage. (Captive, of course, had itself "benefitted" from Read More

The Whistler

Actors: Richard Dix, J. Carrol Naish, Gloria Stuart, Alan Dinehart, Don Costello

Synopsis: The Whistler was the first of eight Columbia "B" thrillers based on the popular radio series of the same name. The Whistler, a shadowy (and unbilled) figure, introduced each film as he'd done on radio: "I am the Whistler...and I know many things, for I walk by night." This time the Whistler tells Read More

House of Frankenstein

Actors: Boris Karloff, J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Anne Gwynne, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: In many ways the most endearing of Universal's B-grade "monster rallies" of the 1940s, House of Frankenstein manages within its 70-minute time span to make room for Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (John Carradine) the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.), and a couple of new recruits, mad Read More

Waterfront

Actors: John Carradine, J. Carrol Naish, Maris Wrixon, Edwin Maxwell, Terry Frost

Synopsis: With such charismatic villains as John Carradine and J. Carroll Naish on hand in PRC's Waterfront, who cares about nominal leading man Terry Frost. The story is set in the docks of San Francisco, where Nazi spy Carl Decker (Naish) poses as a harmless optometrist. Decker is aided and abetted by Read More

The Monster Maker

Actors: J. Carrol Naish, Ralph Morgan, Tala Birell, Wanda McKay, Terry Frost

Synopsis: The disfiguring disease of acromegaly-which grotesquely extends the bones and distorts one's facial features-was the "gimmick" in the PRC horror opus The Monster Maker. J. Carroll Naish stars as Markoff, a mad doctor who has no qualms about experimenting on human beings. Markoff's unwitting victim Read More

Calling Dr. Death

Synopsis: In this first of Universal's "Inner Sanctum" mysteries, Lon Chaney Jr. plays a neurologist plagued by a faithless wife. He suffers a bout of insanity, blacks out, and loses all track of time. Upon returning to his home, he discovers that his wife has been murdered. Investigating detective J. Carroll Naish Read More

Gung Ho!

Actors: Randolph Scott, Grace McDonald, Noah Beery, Jr., Alan Curtis, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Mitchum

Synopsis: Accepted in 1943 as standard wartime propaganda, Gung Ho can be seen today as an outrageous exercise in raging machismo. Randolph Scott plays Thorwald, a marine colonel assigned to assemble a crack squadron of fearless jungle fighters for the all-important raid on Japanese-held Makim Island (which Read More

Behind the Rising Sun

Actors: Margo, Tom Neal, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Ryan, Gloria Holden

Synopsis: Behind the Rising Sun is a rarity: a WW2 film with a handful of sympathetic Japanese characters. His eyes slanted by the RKO makeup department, Tom Neal plays Taro, the Americanized son of a Japanese diplomat (J. Carroll Naish). During the Sino-Japanese war, Taro's father insists that the boy Read More

Harrigan's Kid

Actors: Frank Craven, William Gargan, J. Carrol Naish, Jay Ward

Synopsis: The world of horse racing provides the framework for this drama. The story centers around a young aspiring jockey who becomes the student of a corrupt ex-jock, who not only teaches him how to race, he teaches him the subtleties of cheating. The student ends up teaching the teacher a thing or two Read More

Good Morning, Judge

Actors: Dennis O'Keefe, Louise Allbritton, Mary Beth Hughes, J. Carrol Naish, Louise Beavers

Synopsis: This 67-minute farce stars Dennis O'Keefe as a music publisher sued for plagiarism by a pair of scraggly songwriters. Louise Allbritton is the lady lawyer bringing litigation against O'Keefe, who has promoted the song in question into a hit for his tempestuous singer girlfriend (Mary Beth Hughes). Read More

Sahara

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, Lloyd Bridges, Rex Ingram, J. Carrol Naish, Dan Duryea

Synopsis: Humphrey Bogart considered this World War II action epic from director Zoltan Korda one of his finest films. Sergeant Joe Gunn (Bogart) is the commander of an American M-3 tank crew allied to the British Eighth Army, which is defeated by the Germans at Tobruk. Joining the scattered retreat across Read More

Batman [Serial]

Actors: Michael Vallon, Lewis Wilson, John Maxwell, Douglas Croft, Karl Hackett, J. Carrol Naish, Ted Oliver, George Cheseboro

Synopsis: Bob Kane's 1939 Detective Comics superhero The Batman came to the screens in serial form courtesy of Columbia Pictures and producer Rudolph C. Flothow. In time-honored serial fashion, Flothow chose Lewis Wilson for the title role, a relative newcomer, but one with an amazing facial resemblance to Read More

Tales of Manhattan

Actors: Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton

Synopsis: Tales of Manhattan is a sumptuous multipart film centered around a formal tailcoat. The coat is specially designed for stage actor Charles Boyer, who wears it during a rendezvous with his lady friend (Rita Hayworth). The lady's husband (Thomas Mitchell) shoots Boyer, thus the tailcoat is damaged Read More

Dr. Broadway

Actors: MacDonald Carey, Jean Phillips, J. Carrol Naish, Eduardo Ciannelli, Richard Lane

Synopsis: In this mystery, a Times Square doctor rescues a chorus girl who, as part of a publicity stunt, was preparing to leap off a building. He later becomes friends with a killer who asks the doctor to take $100,000 to his estranged daughter. Before the doctor can run his errand, mobsters show up and Read More

Sunday Punch

Actors: William Lundigan, Jean Rogers, Dan Dailey, Guy Kibbee, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Another graduate of MGM's short-subject department, director David Miller proved he had what it took to helm a feature film for the studio in Sunday Punch. The harmless but diverting story concerns the rivalry, in and out of the ring, between prizefighters Ken Burke (William Lundigan) and Olaf Read More

A Gentleman at Heart

Actors: Cesar Romero, Carole Landis, Milton Berle, J. Carrol Naish, Richard Derr

Synopsis: Cesar Romero plays an outwardly tough bookie with the proverbial golden heart. Romero falls in love with Carole Landis, an art shop proprietor who introduces her raffish romeo into the world of fine art. Utilizing his gambling skills, he amasses an impressive collection of valuable paintings, only Read More

Dr. Renault's Secret

Actors: J. Carrol Naish, John Shepperd, Lynne Roberts, George Zucco, Bert Roach

Synopsis: A remake of the 1927 horror melodrama The Wizard (which, alas, no longer exists), 20th Century-Fox's Dr. Renault's Secrets packs a real wallop in its brisk 58-minute running time. The scene is a remote French village, where the murder of drunken tourist Austin (Jack Norton) coincides with the Read More

Jackass Mail

Actors: Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, J. Carrol Naish, Darryl Hickman, William Haade

Synopsis: This might be a film about junk mail...but it isn't. Wallace Beery and Marjorie Main are teamed again for this rambunctious western comedy. Beery plays a horse thief who romances saloon owner Main. His goal is to marry the lady and take over her lucrative mail route. He accidentally becomes a Read More

The Man in the Trunk

Actors: Lynne Roberts, George Holmes, Raymond Walburn, J. Carrol Naish, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: Man in the Trunk is a variation on the "Topper" theme, with Raymond Walburn carrying the weight of the film as a restless ghost. Ten years before the story proper gets under way, bookie Jim Cheevers (Walburn) is murdered and his body is stuffed in a trunk. When the trunk is opened, all that Read More

The Pied Piper

Actors: Monty Woolley, Anne Baxter, Roddy McDowall, Otto Preminger, Peggy Ann Garner, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Monty Woolley plays an irascible Englishman who insists that he dislikes children. While on a vacation in France, the Nazis invade the country. Reluctantly, Woolley agrees to transport several French children into England. As the flight to freedom becomes more treacherous, Woolley grows fonder of Read More

Forced Landing

Synopsis: In this war drama, a commercial pilot joins the air corps of a South Pacific island, and there he finds that he must contend with a dictator. He also falls quietly in love with the leader's girlfriend. Unfortunately, the evil leader is the head of the air corps, and to get rid of the young man who Read More

Blood and Sand

Actors: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, Alla Nazimova, Anthony Quinn, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Vincente Blasco Ibanez, Blood and Sand is the beautifully rendered story of the rise and fall of a young, cocksure Spanish bullfighter, played by Tyrone Power. Working his way slowly up the ladder to success, Power achieves fame when he is praised to skies by fatuous, fickle Read More

Accent on Love

Synopsis: In this sentimental drama, a real estate executive tires of his privileged life working for his wealthy father-in-law and decides to leave his job and family to become a WPA ditch digger. While laboring, he meets a lovely immigrant, with whom he falls in love. He then begins working to help the Read More

That Night in Rio

Actors: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, J. Carrol Naish, S.Z. Sakall

Synopsis: That Night in Rio is a musical remake of 1934's Folies Bergère. Don Ameche plays a dual role as a middle-aged Brazilian industrialist, and a young Rio de Janeiro cabaret performer who looks just like him. The highlight of the entertainer's act is an imitation of the industrialist, which impresses Read More

Birth of the Blues

Actors: Bing Crosby, Mary Martin, Brian Donlevy, Carolyn Lee, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson

Synopsis: Rather shaky as history, Birth of the Blues delivers the goods in terms of entertainment, thanks to the unbeatable star combination of Bing Crosby and Mary Martin. Set in New Orleans in the 'teens, the film stars Crosby as clarinetist Jeff Lambert, who breaks away from a traditionalist orchestra Read More

The Corsican Brothers

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Ruth Warrick, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, H.B. Warner

Synopsis: The Corsican Brothers is based on theDumas novel about "psychic" twins--one feels the pain and experiences the thoughts of the other. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays both Mario and Lucien, siblings separated at birth because of a long-standing feud between various factions of their family. One twin is Read More

Mr. Dynamite

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Irene Hervey, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Armstrong, Ann Gillis

Synopsis: Lloyd Nolan is thoroughly convincing as a big-league baseball pitcher in Mr. Dynamite--and never mind that the film never shows the inside of a ballpark! On the eve of the World Series, Tommy Thornton (Nolan), known to one and all as Mr. Dynamite, decides to spend some time at a New York amusement Read More

A Night at Earl Carroll's

Actors: Ken Murray, Rose Hobart, Blanche Stewart, Elvia Allman

Synopsis: For the purposes of this inconsequential 61-minute musical, Paramount Pictures shelled out a great deal of money to film on location at showman Earl Carroll's Hollywood cabaret, and to highlight several of the performers appearing therein on a nightly basis. Since Carroll claimed to have "The Most Read More

Golden Gloves

Actors: Richard Denning, J. Carrol Naish, Robert Paige, William Frawley

Synopsis: Filmed with the full cooperation of the Golden Gloves Tournament Association, this Paramount programmer stars Richard Denning as promising pugilist Bill Crane. Though tempted to sign up with crooked Joe Taggerty (J. Carrol Naish) for a series of fixed bouts, Crane is saved from himself by Read More

Typhoon

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Robert Preston, Lynne Overman, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Typhoon was Paramount's answer to Samuel Goldwyn's The Hurricane, even utilizing the same leading lady, Dorothy Lamour. The film is set in a small island off Dutch Guinea. Two sailors (Robert Preston and Lynne Overman) make the acquaintance of a young white girl (Lamour) who has been living on the Read More

Down Argentine Way

Actors: Don Ameche, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Greenwood

Synopsis: Hollywood's handful of Technicolor cameras got a real workout on 20th Century-Fox's Down Argentine Way. Don Ameche stars as Ricardo Quintana, the charming son of a less charming Argentine horse breeder (Henry Stephenson). Betty Grable is vacationing American heiress Glenda Crawford, who "collects" Read More

Queen of the Mob

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Blanche Yurka, J. Carrol Naish, William Henry

Synopsis: Though the title character is loosely based on that of the notorious killer/robber Ma Barker, she has been sanitized and prettified to meet the perceived conservative values of Hollywood movie audiences. Unlike Barker, who was bad to the bone, Ma Webster is simply a matriarch who would do anything Read More

Persons in Hiding

Actors: Lynne Overman, Patricia Morison, J. Carrol Naish, William Henry, Helen Twelvetrees

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a young hood and a seductress team up and rob a gas station. As she requires an opulent, exciting existence, more robberies ensue until they get really greedy and attempt a kidnapping. Unfortunately, they chose an unusually perceptive victim who is able to recall the flight Read More

Hotel Imperial

Actors: Isa Miranda, Ray Milland, Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: In this drama, a vengeful woman searches for the man she blames for her sister's suicide. To get at him, the woman masquerades as a mousy maid in the tiny hotel where he stays. The story is set in Gallacia during WW I and while she enacts her plan, the Russians and Austrians take over the town. Read More

Undercover Doctor

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Janice Logan, J. Carrol Naish, Heather Angel, Broderick Crawford

Synopsis: Undercover Doctor, like the other entries in Paramount's "FBI" series, could lay claim to being "drawn from today's headlines." The film was loosely based on the career of Dr. Joseph P. Moran, who violated the ethics of his profession by tending to the gunshot wounds of gangster Eddie Krator Read More

Island of Lost Men

Actors: Anna May Wong, J. Carrol Naish, Eric Blore, Ernest Truex, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: Anna May Wong and J. Carroll Naish, so memorably teamed in Paramount's Dangerous to Know, are costarred once more in Island of Lost Men. Naish plays ruthless jungle plantation owner Gregory Prin, who runs his domain like a dictatorship and treats his workers little better than slaves. Into Prin's Read More

Beau Geste

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward

Synopsis: This second of three movie versions of P.C. Wren's adventure novel Beau Geste is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of the 1927 silent version. We open on the now-famous scenes of a remote, burning desert fort, manned by the dead Foreign Legionnaires, then flash back to the early lives of the Geste Read More

King of Chinatown

Actors: Anna May Wong, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, Sidney Toler, Philip Ahn

Synopsis: Akim Tamiroff plays the title role, an underworld leader who controls all illicit operations in Chinatown. Tamiroff is toppled from power by two members of his own mob (Anthony Quinn and J.Carroll Naish). He is left for dead, but is saved by a dedicated Chinese-American doctor (Anna May Wong). In Read More

Prison Farm

Actors: Shirley Ross, Lloyd Nolan, John Howard, J. Carrol Naish, Porter Hall

Synopsis: Shirley Ross plays an innocent young girl convicted for complicity in a crime committed by her boy friend (Lloyd Nolan). The male crook is sentence to six months on a prison farm populated by both men and women (segregated, of course). Ross is also incarcerated, suffering the cruelties of the Read More

Illegal Traffic

Actors: J. Carrol Naish, Mary Carlisle, Robert Preston, Judith Barrett, Pierre Watkin

Synopsis: J. Carroll Naish positively oozes immigrant gangster charm in this fairly entertaining thriller from Paramount. He plays Louis Zonta, an immigrant gangster running a racket that transports wanted criminals. At their wits end, the authorities send in undercover agent Bent Martin (Robert Preston) to Read More

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

Hunted Men

Actors: Mary Carlisle, Lloyd Nolan, Lynne Overman, J. Carrol Naish, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: Hunted Men is part of Paramount's unofficial B-picture series based on the J. Edgar Hoover book Persons in Hiding. Lynne Overman stars as a middle-class family man whose even-keel lifestyle is shattered when he brings home an affable stranger (Lloyd Nolan) to dinner. The stranger turns out to be Read More

Tip-Off Girls

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Mary Carlisle, J. Carrol Naish, Harvey Stephens, Roscoe Karns

Synopsis: Tip-Off Girls is a worthwhile entry in Paramount's "FBI" series, based on the various writings of
J. Edgar Hoover. The title refers to a group of pretty young women who are ordered by their gangster bosses to pick up tips on incoming merchandise shipments, thereby expediting a sophisticated Read More

Bulldog Drummond in Africa

Actors: John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner, Reginald Denny

Synopsis: This typically wild-and-wooly entry in Paramount's "Bulldog Drummond" series gets under way when stiff-upper-lip Scotland Yard inspector Nielsen is kidnapped by master criminal Richard Lane (J. Carroll Naish). Ensconsed in his lavish jungle hideout somewhere in Africa, Lane wines and dines his Read More

Her Jungle Love

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Ray Milland, Lynne Overman, J. Carrol Naish, Dorothy Howe

Synopsis: Sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour made her Technicolor debut in this follow-up to her earlier starrer Jungle Princess. After crash-landing on a tropic isle, aviator Bob Mitchell (Ray Milland) and his mechanic Jimmy Wallace (Lynne Overman) make the acquaintance of the lovely Tura (Lamour). While Bob Read More

Night Club Scandal

Actors: John Barrymore, Lynne Overman, Louise Campbell, Charles Bickford, Harvey Stephens

Synopsis: A remake of 1932's Guilty as Hell, Night Club Scandal also borrows a page from 1934's Murder at the Vanities by depicting the "friendly adversary" relationship between a reporter (Lynne Overman) and a cop (Charles Bickford). Top-billed John Barrymore plays a respectable doctor married to a Read More

Thunder Trail

Actors: Gilbert Roland, Marsha Hunt, Charles Bickford, Monte Blue, James Craig

Synopsis: Thunder Trail is a thoughtful, intelligent adaptation of the Zane Grey yarn. Arizona Ames. The storyline is a Grey favorite, concerning a pair of brothers separated at birth. One of the boys grows up to be an outlaw, while the other remains on the right side of the law. Meeting in adulthood as Read More

We Who Are About to Die

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Ann Dvorak, John Beal, Ray Mayer, Gordon Jones

Synopsis: Its title notwithstanding, We Who Are About to Die has nothing to do with Roman Gladiators. Rather, the film is based on the true story of San Quentin inmate David Lamson, who spent 13 agonizing months on Death Row before the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. Renamed John (and played by John Beal Read More

Daughter of Shanghai

Actors: Anna May Wong, Philip Ahn, Charles Bickford, Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Cecil Cunningham

Synopsis: Anna May Wong, who cornered the 1930s market in Eurasian heroines, stars in Daughter of Shanghai. Wong is on the trail of the criminals who murdered her father. The villains are running an illegal-alien operation, smuggling cheap Chinese and Mexican labor into San Francisco and killing those Read More

Bulldog Drummond Comes Back

Actors: John Barrymore, John Howard, Louise Campbell, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive

Synopsis: In the second of Paramount's "Bulldog Drummond" thrillers, Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (John Howard) is finally about to marry longtime fiancée Phyllis Clavering (Louise Campbell) when the girl is kidnapped. The hijackers, Mikhail Valdin (J. Carroll Naish) and his sister, Erena Soldanis (Helen Read More

Song of the City

Actors: Margaret Lindsay, J. Carrol Naish, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: In this drama, a milque-toast socialite is drowning in San Francisco Bay. Fortunately, he is saved by a kindly Italian fisherman who takes him in and teaches him how to be manly. During his slow recovery, the wimpy fellow is cared for by the fisherman's lovely daughter who is studying to become an Read More

The Crack-Up

Actors: Peter Lorre, Brian Donlevy, Helen Wood, Ralph Morgan, Thomas Beck

Synopsis: Test pilot Brian Donlevy works for a major aircraft plant where a hush-hush project is in progress. Peter Lorre is a deceptively shy plant technician who is actually the head of a foreign spy ring. Eager to get his hands on the plans of a new, secret aircraft, Lorre bribes Donlevy to help him Read More

The Sea Serpent

Border Cafe

Actors: Harry Carey, John Beal, Armida, George Irving, Leona Roberts

Synopsis: The cattle rustlers in Border Cafe, a modern-day western from the RKO B-unit, are Eastern gangsters headed by none other than that old reprobate J. Carrol Naish. After having landed in jail for drunken driving for the umpteenth time, young Bostonian Keith Whitney (John Beal callously leaves his Read More

Hideaway

Actors: Fred Stone, Emma Dunn, Marjorie Lord, J. Carrol Naish, William Corson

Synopsis: In this crime comedy, a lazy feller and his family take-up residence in an abandoned house. The squatters have no idea that the owners, a gang of crooks, are just about to return and use it as their hide out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Think Fast, Mr. Moto

Actors: Peter Lorre, Virginia Field, Thomas Beck, Sig Rumann, Murray Kinnell

Synopsis: Think Fast, Mr. Moto was the first of 20th Century-Fox's movie series based on the wily Japanese sleuth created by J. P. Marquand. Moto (Peter Lorre) seems to be a criminal this time around, involved with a gang of international smugglers. Virginia Field is a White Russian expatriate who likewise Read More

The Sea Racketeers

Actors: Weldon Heyburn, Jeanne Madden, Warren Hymer, Dorothy McNulty, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Weldon Heyburn never did become Republic's answer to Clark Gable, though he always aimed to please. In Sea Racketeers, Heyburn is cast as Jim, a courageous Coast Guard officer whose legions of lady friends includes the pert and perky Pat (Jeanne Madden). Jim leaves the ladies behind when he takes Read More

Moonlight Murder

Actors: Chester Morris, Leo Carrillo, Frank McHugh, Benita Hume

Synopsis: Moonlight Murder takes place virtually in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl. Despite dire warnings by a sinister mystic (Pedro de Cordoba), opera-star Gino D'Acosta (Leo Carrillo) insists that he will sing in the Bowl's current production of Il Trovatore. He gets no farther than the "Anvil Read More

Charlie Chan at the Circus

Actors: Warner Oland, Keye Luke, J. Carrol Naish, Francis Ford, Maxine Reiner

Synopsis: Enjoying a break from crime-solving, oriental sleuth Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) takes his 12 children to the circus. It isn't long, however, before he's sucked into yet another murder case, with a more colorful array of suspects than usual. Meanwhile, Number One Son Lee Chan (Keye Luke) tries to Read More

Anthony Adverse

Actors: Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland, Edmund Gwenn, Claude Rains, Anita Louise

Synopsis: When David O. Selznick produced the film version of the 1000-plus page novel Gone with the Wind, he declared he could not make a film running any less than 222 minutes. When Warner Bros. adapted the even longer Hervey Allen best-seller Anthony Adverse, the studio managed to pack everything--except Read More

The Return of Jimmy Valentine

Actors: Roger Pryor, Charlotte Henry, Robert Warwick, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: Impressed by the popularity of radio program about the exploits of legendary safecracker Jimmy Valentine, advertising man Gary Howard (Roger Pryor) posts a huge reward for anyone who knows the whereabouts of real Valentine, who is technically still a fugitive from justice. Following a lead, Howard Read More

Ramona

Actors: Loretta Young, Don Ameche

Synopsis: First filmed in 1910, the venerable Helen Hunt Jackson novel Ramona was remade in 1936 in full Technicolor (20th Century-Fox's first such production). Loretta Young plays Ramona, a half-Indian girl raised by a white family in Spanish California. She falls in love with the young man of the Read More

The Robin Hood of El Dorado

Actors: Warner Baxter, Ann Loring, Bruce Cabot, Margo, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Warner Baxter does a variation of his Oscar-winning "Cisco Kid" characterization in Robin Hood of El Dorado. Baxter plays the real-life Mexican bandit Joaquin Murietta, which the screenplay depicts as a South of the Border Jesse James. Murietta has turned criminal to avenge the death of his wife Read More

Exclusive Story

Actors: Franchot Tone, Madge Evans, Stuart Erwin, Joseph Calleia, Robert H. Barrat

Synopsis: Former newspaperman Martin Mooney based his script for Exclusive Story on the racket-busting activities of New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Franchot Tone plays the lawyer for a major newspaper which is conducting a campaign against gang boss Joseph Calleia. The paper can't get any Read More

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson, Donald Crisp, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Of the many film versions of Alfred Lord Tennyson's narrative poem, 1936's Charge of the Light Brigade has the least relationship to the facts concerning the famous 19th century British military blunder in the Crimea. Reflecting the popularity of 1935's Lives of A Bengal Lancer, the film uses the Read More

Absolute Quiet

Actors: Lionel Atwill, Irene Hervey, Raymond Walburn, Stuart Erwin, Ann Loring

Synopsis: Despite its title, things get pretty noisy in MGM's Absolute Quiet. Lionel Atwill heads the cast as reclusive financier G. A. Axton, who squirrels himself away at a remote ranch to recuperate from an illness. The only other person at the ranch is Axton's secretary Laura Tait (Irene Hervey), but Read More

Special Investigator

Actors: Richard Dix, Margaret Callahan, Erik Rhodes, Owen Davis, Jr., Ray Mayer

Synopsis: Richard Dix is as stalwart and oaklike as ever in Special Investigator. Here he plays courtroom-movie cliche #22B: The wealthy attorney who keeps mobsters out of prison. When Dix's brother, a G-Man, is killed by one of his ex-clients, the attorney switches sides and joins the Department of Read More

Two in the Dark

Actors: Walter Abel, Margot Grahame, Wallace Ford, Gail Patrick, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Wandering around in the darkness, an amnesiac (Walter Abel) can't shake the feeling that he's murdered someone. When it develops that a prominent (if somewhat shifty) theatrical producer has been killed, our hero thinks that he's guilty. But unemployed actress Marie Smith (Margot Grahame) isn't Read More

The Leathernecks Have Landed

Actors: Lew Ayres, Isabel Jewell, James Ellison, James Burke, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: The Leathernecks Have Landed is an adventure yarn revolving around three boisterous marines. Lew Ayres is the headstrong one, James Ellison the sincere one, and Maynard Holmes the roly-poly comic relief. Holmes is killed in a nightclub brawl for which Ayres gets the blame. The real murderers are Read More

Black Fury

Actors: Paul Muni, Karen Morley, William Gargan, Barton MacLane, John Qualen

Synopsis: Like many 1930s Warner Bros. films, Black Fury drew its inspiration from the headlines. The story is adapted from a true-life incident from 1929, wherein a striking Pennsylvania coal miner was beaten to death by three company detectives; this served as the focus for Henry R. Irving's stage play Read More

Under the Pampas Moon

Actors: Warner Baxter, Ketti Gallian, Veloz & Yolanda, John Miljan, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: In this western-style musical, a rakish gaucho rides off across the Argentine pampas to Buenos Aires in search of his stolen horse. Once there, he soon engages in hot pursuit of a lovely singing señorita. Soon he discovers that her manager just may be the thief he has been looking for. Keep a Read More

Captain Blood

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Lionel Atwill, Ross Alexander

Synopsis: When British actor Robert Donat dropped out of Warner Bros. Captain Blood, the studio took a chance on its new contractee, Tasmania-born Errol Flynn. Adapted from the novel by Rafael Sabatini, the film is set during the oppressive reign of King James II. Irish physician Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) Read More

Front Page Woman

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns, June Martel, Dorothy Dare, Joseph Crehan, Walter Walker, Winifred Shaw

Synopsis: Front Page Woman was one of those bread-and-butter vehicles that forced Bette Davis to go on strike against Warner Bros., demanding more worthwhile scripts. On its own terms, the film is a briskly entertaining newspaper yarn about two warring reporters (Davis and George Brent). In their efforts to Read More

Confidential

Actors: Donald Cook, Evelyn Knapp, Warren Hymer, J. Carrol Naish, Herbert Rawlinson

Synopsis: Treasury agent Dave Elliot (Donald Cook) dedicates himself to smashing a crime syndicate, especially after his best friend is killed by the mob. This requires Elliot to go undercover, posing as a criminal. He gains the confidence of sadistic mob gunman Lefty (J. Carroll Naish), and it's Read More

Special Agent

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Ricardo Cortez, Jack LaRue, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: The agent of the title is George Brent, a journalist sent by the Government to get the goods on a crime syndicate. Brent befriends Bette Davis, bookkeeper for suspected crime boss Ricardo Cortez. Bette's cooperation nearly costs her life, but both she and Brent manage a tricky escape during a Read More

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

Actors: Gary Cooper, Franchot Tone, Richard Cromwell, Guy Standing, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Gary Cooper stars in this rousing adventure saga of three British officers of the 41st Regiment of Bengal Lancers of India. The story begins as Lt. McGregor (Gary Cooper) accepts two new officers to his company -- the brash Lt. Fortesque (Franchot Tone) and Lt. Stone (Richard Cromwell), the son of Read More

Little Big Shot

Actors: Sybil Jason, Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong, Edward Everett Horton, Jack LaRue

Synopsis: In the wake of Shirley Temple, every Hollywood studio scrambled to find a child star who might possibility match Temple's selling power. Warner Bros.' candidate was South Africa-born Sybil Jason, who starred in several of the studio's short subjects and was headlined in a handful of features like Little Big Shot Read More

The Crusades

Actors: Loretta Young, Henry Wilcoxon, Ian Keith, C. Aubrey Smith, Katherine de Mille

Synopsis: The Holy Wars are given the usual overblown Cecil B. DeMille treatment in The Crusades. It all begins in the 12th-century AD, when Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Saracens, and the Christians are slaughtered or sold into slavery. A holy man known as The Hermit (C. Aubrey Smith) rallies the Read More

Bachelor of Arts

Actors: Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Henry B. Walthall, Mae Marsh

Synopsis: This tuneful melodrama is set upon a college campus and follows the attempts of a pretty young woman who slyly helps her wealthy, free-wheeling freshman boy friend learn about responsibility. She contacts his father and together they convince the boy that his inheritance has been lost. Now he must Read More

Girl in Danger

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Shirley Grey, J. Carrol Naish, Charles Sabin, Arthur Hohl

Synopsis: The fourth and last of Columbia's "Inspector Trent" mysteries, Girl in Danger once more stars Ralph Bellamy as the super-methodical Trent. The endangered girl is socialite Gloria Gale (Shirley Grey), who on a caprice steals a valuable emerald. Pursued by Inspector Trent, the playful Gloria leads Read More

Sleepers East

Actors: Wynne Gibson, Preston S. Foster, Mona Barrie, Harvey Stephens, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Frederick Nebel (of "Torchy Blane" fame), Sleepers East is largely set on a train bound for New York. The plot is set in motion by the murder trial of a man accused of killing a politician. The defendant intended to pull the trigger, but the murder was actually committed by Read More

The Last Trail

Actors: George O'Brien, Claire Trevor, El Brendel, Lucille La Verne

Synopsis: Based on a Zane Grey story, The Last Trail stars virile cowboy hero George O'Brien in a largely anti-heroic role. Escaping from a posse, the "good bad man" (O'Brien) boards an Eastbound train, where he strikes up a friendship with a genial gangster (J. Carroll Naish). Later on, the cowboy returns Read More

Hell in the Heavens

Actors: Warner Baxter, Russell Hardie, Conchita Montenegro, Andy Devine

Synopsis: The Lafayette Escadrille, that elite corps of volunteer WW I flyboys, is the collective "hero" of Fox's Hell in the Heavens. American lieutenant Steve Warner (Warner Baxter) heads to France to join the Escadrille in the months just prior to his country's entry into WW I. It is Warner's mission in Read More

The Hell Cat

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Ann Sothern, Ben Baker, Minna Gombell, Purnell Pratt

Synopsis: Scrappy society belle Geraldine (Ann Sothern) is The Hell Cat in this peppy Columbia potboiler. Fed up with the intrusions of brash newspaper reporter Dan Collins (Robert Armstrong), Geraldine punches him in the nose -- whereupon he promptly punches her back. Feeling humiliated, Geraldine plots a Read More

British Agent

Actors: Leslie Howard, Kay Francis, William Gargan, Phillip Reed, Irving Pichel

Synopsis: British Agent starred the Hungarian/British actor Leslie Howard in the title role, was directed by full-fledged Hungarian Michael Curtiz, and costarred American leading lady Kay Francis as a Russian spy. Based on the memoirs of R. H. Bruce Lockhart, who had been the unofficial British emissary to Read More

Upper World

Actors: Warren William, Mary Astor, Ginger Rogers, Andy Devine, Dickie Moore

Synopsis: Written by the prolific Ben Hecht, Upper World is a clash-of-class melodrama set in New York City. Railroad tycoon Alexander Stream (Warren William) is neglected by his social-climbing wife Mary Astor. Quite unintentionally, through a chance encounter, he strikes up a reasonably chaste friendship Read More

One Is Guilty

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Shirley Grey, Warren Hymer, Rita La Roy, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: One is Guilty was an entry in Columbia's "Inspector Trent" mysteries, all starring the ubiquitous Ralph Bellamy. A philandering prizefighter is murdered, and then the prizefighter's manager is likewise bumped off. All evidence points to heroine Sally (Shirley Grey), but Inspector Trent isn't about Read More

Notorious But Nice

Actors: Marian Marsh, Betty Compson, Rochelle Hudson

Synopsis: A lover selflessly dumps her boy friend so that he will obey the wishes of his wealthy benefactor and marry someone more suitable. If he fails to marry an approved woman, his wealthy guardian will no longer pair for his support. Meanwhile, the heartbroken lover ends up marrying a creepy gambler. Read More

Murder in Trinidad

Actors: Nigel Bruce, Heather Angel, Victor Jory, Murray Kinnell, Douglas Walton

Synopsis: What a shame that the 1934 Fox crime meller Murder in Trinidad is currently unavailable for viewing. In one of his best performances, Nigel Bruce is cast as Bertram Lynch, a slovenly, sweat-stained detective with a mind like a steel trap. Lumbering his way through a tropical outpost, Lynch Read More

What's Your Racket?

Actors: Regis Toomey, Noel Francis, J. Carrol Naish, Fred Malatesta

Synopsis: What's Your Racket? was another aimless crime drama from low-budget Mayfair Productions, albeit with a more alluring title than usual (most Mayfair efforts bore such yawn-provoking names as Her Forgotten Past and Sister to Judas). The story opens as heroine Mae Cosgrove (Noel Francis) robs the Read More

Return of the Terror

Actors: Mary Astor, Lyle Talbot, John Halliday, Frank McHugh, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: An Edgar Wallace yarn was the basis for the uncharacteristic Warner Bros. melodrama Return of the Terror. Hoping to escape prosecution for a series of poison murders, Dr. Redmayne (John Halliday) feigns insanity at his trial. The audience knows that Redmayne is innocent, so when he escapes from Read More

Arizona to Broadway

Actors: James Dunn, Joan Bennett, Herbert Mundin, Sammy Cohen, Theodore Von Eltz

Synopsis: While travelling through Arizona, carnival huckster Smiley Wells (James Dunn) makes the acquaintance of sweet small-town girl Lynn Martin (Joan Bennett). Upon learning that a gang of slick operators has swindled a huge sum of money from Lynn's mother, Smiley decides that money lost through larceny Read More

Mystery Squadron [Serial]

Actors: Bob Steele, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Lucille Browne, Jack Mulhall, J. Carrol Naish, Robert W. Frazer, Lafe [Lafayette] McKee

Synopsis: Heroes and villains alike use airplanes instead of horses in this generally well-made Mascot serial featuring diminutive cowboy star Bob Steele. Steele and sidekick Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (whose supposedly comical craving for jellybeans quickly becomes tiring) are hired by an aviator friend (Jack Mulhall Read More

The Devil's in Love

Actors: Victor Jory, Loretta Young, Vivienne Osborne, David Manners, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: The French Foreign Legion is the setting for this episodic adventure yarn. Victor Jory plays a Legion doctor falsely accused of murdering his commander over the love of Loretta Young. Jory escapes prosecution by heading for parts unknown, but when a deadly illness strikes his old fort, he returns Read More

Frisco Jenny

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, Donald Cook, Louis Calhern, Hallam Cooley

Synopsis: Jenny (Ruth Chatterton) becomes pregnant by a young man who is killed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Bearing her child in secret, Jenny gives up custody to a wealthy couple. The years pass, and through the auspices of a crooked politician (Louis Calhern), Jenny becomes the number one Read More

The Avenger

Actors: Ralph Forbes, Adrienne Ames, Arthur Vinton, Charlotte Merriam

Synopsis: Based on a novel by John Goodwin, The Avenger stars Ralph Forbes as a district attorney who is imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. Upon his release, Forbes makes public his intention of settling matters with those who framed him. Shortly thereafter, the culprits disappear from view, and it Read More

Elmer the Great

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Patricia Ellis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Preston S. Foster

Synopsis: Joe E. Brown plays Elmer Kane, a rookie ballplayer with the Chicago Cubs whose ego is matched only by his appetite. Because he is not only vain but naive, Elmer's teammates take great delight in pulling practical jokes on him. Still, he is so valuable a player that the Cubs management hides the Read More

The Big Chance

Actors: John Darrow, Merna Kennedy, Mickey Rooney, Matthew Betz

Synopsis: Eagle Productions was another of those exotically named independent studios that came and went in the early 1930s. Eagle's The Big Chance stars John Darrow as an aspiring boxer. Ignoring the advice of trainer Matthew Betz, Darrow falls among bad company. Faithful Merna Kennedy saves Darrow from Read More

The Mad Game

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Claire Trevor, Ralph Morgan, J. Carrol Naish, John Miljan

Synopsis: A man on the wrong side of the law has a chance to turn over a new leaf in this crime drama. Edward Carson (Spencer Tracy) is a gangster who made a fortune in bootlegging; however, his lawyer turned on him and set him up on a tax evasion charge that earned him a long stay in prison. While Carson Read More

Ann Vickers

Actors: Irene Dunne, Walter Huston, Conrad Nagel, Bruce Cabot, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: This 1933 movie version of Sinclair Lewis's novel Ann Vickers stars Irene Dunne in the title role. Left alone and pregnant by her soldier sweetheart (Bruce Cabot), Ann turns her life around by devoting herself to social work. A frustrating tenure as psychologist in a poorly maintained woman's Read More

The Past of Mary Holmes

Actors: Helen MacKellar, Eric Linden, Jean Arthur, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Ivan Simpson

Synopsis: A former opera star loses her voice, her career evaporates, and she takes to drinking heavily and blaming her son for her situation. In order to get revenge on her son, and to get her name back in the newspapers to try to resurrect her career, she tells the authorities that her son is responsible Read More

The World Gone Mad

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Evelyn Brent, Neil Hamilton, Mary Brian, Louis Calhern

Synopsis: Plodding through the dialogue-heavy script, this is still a timely movie topic. Dealing with white collar crime, this is the story of a reporter who discovers that the District Attorney is going to be murdered by some high-rolling Wall Streeters. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

No Other Woman

Actors: Irene Dunne, Charles Bickford, Gwili Andre, Eric Linden, Buster Miles, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: The melodramatic No Other Woman is a remake of the 1925 silent film Just a Woman which was based on the play of the same name by Eugene Walter. Early in her career, Irene Dunn stars as ambitious housewife Anna Stanley, who pressures her steelworker husband, Jim (Charles Bickford), into a business Read More

Blood Money

Actors: George Bancroft, Frances Dee, Chick Chandler, Judith Anderson, Blossom Seeley

Synopsis: Roland Brown's Blood Money (1933) has lost none of its ability to entertain and startle over the seven decades since its release. The title refers to the business of affable, ambitious bail bondsman (and politically-connected grifter) Bill Bailey (George Bancroft), who, in the course of his work Read More

Infernal Machine

Actors: Chester Morris, Genevieve Tobin, Victor Jory, Elizabeth Patterson, James Bell

Synopsis: The infernal machine in question is a bomb controlled by a wireless operator and set aboard a New York bound ocean liner. No one knows it is there. Meanwhile the passengers go about their business. One of them, a stowaway pretends to be a classy fellow so he can pitch woo to a sophisticated lady. Read More

Captured

Actors: Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Paul Lukas, Margaret Lindsay, Arthur Hohl

Synopsis: Adapted from a "drawn from life" novel by Sir Phillip Gibbs, Captured is the story of the men in a German POW camp during World War I. Amongst the allied prisoners are Leslie Howard and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (British), and Paul Lukas (French). Adding to the dramatic intensity is the fact that both Howard Read More

Big City Blues

Actors: Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Inez Courtney, Evelyn Knapp, Guy Kibbee, Humphrey Bogart

Synopsis: Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, Mervyn LeRoy directs the black-and-white 1932 comedy drama Big City Blues. A small-town innocent from Indiana, Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) inherits money and goes to New York to get in all sorts of trouble. He meets up with his cousin Gibby (Walter Read More

The Cabin in the Cotton

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Dorothy Jordan, Bette Davis, Henry B. Walthall, Walter Percival, Berton Churchill

Synopsis: Henry Harrison Kroll's novel Cabin in the Cotton was an attack on wealthy southern landowners who exploited their sharecroppers. While the landowners still don't come off too well in Warner Bros.' film version of Kroll's novel, the film tries to avoid stepping on powerful toes, even composing an Read More

The Beast of the City

Actors: Walter Huston, Jean Harlow, Wallace Ford, Jean Hersholt, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: A reluctantly appointed police chief in a crime-riddled city takes his job seriously and works hard to clean the streets of gangsters and to shape up his own corrupt department in this brutal, gritty film noir. Jean Harlow plays a luminescent but ill-fated gun moll. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More

Crooner

Actors: David Manners, Ann Dvorak, Ken Murray, Sheila Terry, William Janney

Synopsis: Sudden success can be a double-edged sword as this drama aptly proves. An aspiring musician finds success when his manager has him switch from playing the sax to vocals. He soon becomes a popular star. Unfortunately as his popularity swells, so does his head. His arrogance and megalomania cause Read More

Week-End Marriage

Actors: Loretta Young, Norman Foster, George Brent, Aline MacMahon, Vivienne Osborne

Synopsis: In this comedy, a hard-working husband loses his job and his wife becomes the bread winner. The husband feels demeaned by his new role and takes a mistress to regain his lost manhood. The chastened wife eventually returns to the daily drudgery of home so her hubby can feel important and manly Read More

It's Tough to Be Famous

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mary Brian, Oscar Apfel, Walter Catlett, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Undoubtedly inspired by Charles Lindbergh's unprecedented sudden fame (but not the ensuing tragedy), Mary McCall's 1932 novel The Goldfish Bowl was turned into a satirical comedy-drama featuring an engaging Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as a navy captain thrust into the limelight after saving his crew Read More

Tiger Shark

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Richard Arlen, Zita Johann, Leila Bennett, J. Carrol Naish, Vince Barnett

Synopsis: It is difficult to determine who is the more ferocious character in this film: The real shark seen in the underwater sequences, or star Edward G. Robinson. Robinson plays a Portuguese tuna boat skipper--the self-styled "best dam' fisherman in the Pacific"--who years earlier had lost his hand to a Read More

The Hatchet Man

Actors: Loretta Young, Leslie Fenton, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Hatchet Man is a dated but fascinating film set amidst the "tong wars" in San Francisco's Chinatown. Tong hatchet man Wong Low Get (Edward G. Robinson) is required to kill his boyhood friend Sun Yet Sen (J. Carroll Naish). Sen is resigned to his fate, but extracts a promise that Wong will look Read More

No Living Witness

Actors: Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery, Sr., Barbara Kent, Carmel Myers, Otis Harlan

Synopsis: Crusading district attorney Jerry Bennett (Gilbert Roland) would give anything to get the goods on unscrupulous criminal lawyer Clyde Corbin (Noah Beery). Alas, Corbin proves too slippery a target -- and besides, he's got too many irons in the fire to be bothered by Bennett. Halfway through the Read More

The Mouthpiece

Actors: Warren William, Aline MacMahon, William Janney, John Wray

Synopsis: In this crime drama, an assistant DA must scramble to save the life of an innocent man he mistakenly sent to the chair. Unfortunately, he is too late and turns to alcoholism to soothe his throbbing conscience. It is only down from there and soon the attorney begins working for the mob until he Read More

The Kid from Spain

Actors: Jane Wyman, Eddie Cantor, Lyda Roberti, Robert Young, Ruth Hall, John Miljan

Synopsis: In director Leo McCarey's film The Kid From Spain, actor Eddie Cantor plays mischievious college boy Eddie Williams, who, with his buddy Ricardo (Robert Young), is kicked out of college for sneaking into the women's dormitory. Ricardo (Young), on his way back to Mexico, suggests Eddie (Cantor) Read More

The Famous Ferguson Case

Actors: Joan Blondell, Tom Brown, Adrienne Dore, Walter Miller, Leslie Fenton

Synopsis: Inspired in part by the sensational Snyder-Gray murder case (which was also the source of The Postman Always Rings Twice), The Famous Ferguson Case casts an unflattering light on the journalist "feeding frenzy" attending such crimes. A wealthy banker named Ferguson is found murdered, and his Read More

Two Seconds

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Preston S. Foster, Vivienne Osborne, J. Carrol Naish, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: About to die in the electric chair, John Allen (Edward G. Robinson) uses the last two seconds of his life to recall the events leading up to his present predicament. A $62.50-per-week riveter ("That's more than most college professors make!"), Allen gets drunk at a speakeasy and impulsively Read More

Kick in

Actors: James Murray, Clara Bow, Regis Toomey, Wynne Gibson, Julie Compton, Leslie Fenton

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1917 and 1922, Willard Mack's barnstorming stage melodrama Kick In was exhumed again in 1931 as a Clara Bow vehicle. The "It" girl plays Molly, the wealthy but long-suffering sister of young coke-head Charlie (Leslie Fenton). When ex-crook Chick Hewes (Regis Toomey) tries to Read More

The Finger Points

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Fay Wray, Clark Gable, Regis Toomey, Robert Elliott

Synopsis: The names have all been changed, but this hard-hitting gangster tale is based on an actual newspaper headline story involving the brutal slaying of corrupt crime reporter Alfred "Jake" Lingle, who had been suspected of betraying his boss Al Capone. Naive Southern boy Breckinridge Lee comes to the Read More

The Royal Bed

Actors: Lowell Sherman, Nance O'Neil, Mary Astor, Anthony Bushell, Robert Warwick

Synopsis: A wimpy king is forced to take responsibility for his little North Sea island kingdom after his iron-fisted wife goes on a vacation to the US in this comedy. Soon after she leaves, his subjects launch a revolt and the flighty fellow must quickly figure out what to do. Things get worse when his Read More

The Homicide Squad

Actors: Leo Carrillo, Noah Beery, Sr., Mary Brian, Russell Gleason, George Brent

Synopsis: In this crime drama, dedicated to the police forces of America, a gangster searches for his estranged son, also a gangster. Meanwhile a police captain searches for the gangsters who murdered his son. The gangster's crooked son, wanting to stay out of jail for killing the cop's son, offers to help Read More

Gun Smoke

Actors: Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, William "Stage" Boyd, Eugene Pallette, Charles Winninger

Synopsis: William Boyd is one of the stars of the Paramount western Gun Smoke -- only it's not the same William Boyd who later essayed the role of Hopalong Cassidy, but another actor who billed himself as William "Stage" Boyd. The plot was a familiar one to western devotees of the early 1930s: a bunch of Read More

Surrender

Actors: Warner Baxter, Leila Hyams, Ralph Bellamy, William Pawley, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Surrender is yet another triangular romance set against the backdrop of WWI. French POW Dumaine (Warner Baxter) is sequestered near the castle of a prideful Prussian nobleman, Count Reinmacher (C. Aubrey Smith), who lives for the day that his four sons will march triumphantly into Paris. Axelle (Leila Hyams Read More

Good Intentions

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Marguerite Churchill, Regis Toomey, Earl Foxe, Eddie Gribbon

Synopsis: In this classy crime drama, the well-spoken, leader of a sophisticated gang of gangsters use their high social status to gain access to the vaults of the local rich people. The suave ring leader smoothly moves through the aristocratic social circles, charming all those who cross his path. He falls Read More

Scotland Yard

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Joan Bennett, Lumsden Hare, Barbara Leonard, Donald Crisp

Synopsis: Dakin Barrolles (played by Edmund Lowe is a criminal who, while escaping from a bank robbery that went wrong, stumbles across a famous banker, Sir John Lasher, and his wife, Xandra. Lasher is deep in his cups, and neither he nor Xandra notice when Barrolles absconds with one of their possessions Read More