Mantan MorelandFilmography

The Young Nurses

Synopsis: This crime drama is the fourth in Roger Corman's series of sexy "nurseploitation" films. Three curvaceous health care workers in a big city hospital expose a drug ring that is operating from inside the facility. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Biscuit Eater

Actors: Earl Holliman, Lew Ayres, Godfrey Cambridge, Pat Crowley, Beah Richards

Synopsis: In this touching adventure, a remake of the popular 1940 film, two Georgia boys ignore their racial differences to team up and befriend a feral bird dog, whom they train to participate in a fence-jumping contest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Watermelon Man

Actors: Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, Howard Caine, D'Urville Martin, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: African-American activist and actor Melvin Van Peebles directed this comedy-drama starring Godfrey Cambridge as Jeff Gerber, a white, middle class husband to Althea (Estelle Parson) and father of two who is also a mild bigot. One morning, Jeff wakes up to discover that he has become a black man Read More

Enter Laughing

Actors: José Ferrer, Reni Santoni, Shelley Winters, Elaine May, Jack Gilford

Synopsis: Carl Reiner's semi-autobiographical novel Enter Laughing makes a largely successful transition to the screen. Reni Santoni plays the Reiner character, here named David Kolowitz. A machinist's apprentice in Depression-era New York, David dreams of becoming the new Ronald Colman. Defying the wishes Read More

Spider Baby

Synopsis: Exploitation titan Jack Hill, who went on to make such cult favorites as Switchblade Sisters, The Swinging Cheerleaders, and Foxy Brown, made his solo directorial debut with this fascinating, offbeat shocker. The three surviving children of Titus W. Merrye, who represent the end of his family's Read More

The Patsy

Actors: Jerry Lewis, Ina Balin, Everett Sloane, Phil Harris, Keenan Wynn

Synopsis: Toward the end of Jerry Lewis's Paramount studio period, Lewis slapped together this bitter comedy about Hollywood phoniness and fame that has to be the most rancid portrait of the Hollywood star system in the Rat Pack era this side of Clifford Odets. When a famous entertainer suddenly is killed Read More

Nat "King" Cole Story

Synopsis: Jeff Chandler narrates this informative profile of the life of Nat "King" Cole starring the artist himself, from his days as saloon pianist to recording artist with titles such as "Sweet Lorraine" and "Straighten Up and Fly Right." ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Jazz Festival

Rockin' the Blues

Actors: Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: Rockin' the Blues was one of the last films to be specifically aimed at all-black theatres in segregated communities. Little more than a filmed revue, the story has something to do with a camp show staged for black GIs by New York deejay Hal Jackson. Foremost among the musical groups is The Read More

The Siege at Red River

Actors: Van Johnson, Joanne Dru, Richard Boone, Milburn Stone, Jeff Morrow

Synopsis: Siege of Red River stars Van Johnson as a Confederate officer, who "appropriates" a shipment of gatling guns from the Northern troops in the waning days of the Civil War. Posing as a medicine show entrepreneur, Johnson smuggles the guns through enemy lines in his wagon. Renegade rebel Richard Boone Read More

The Sky Dragon

Actors: Roland Winters, Keye Luke, Mantan Moreland, Tim Ryan, Milburn Stone

Synopsis: Film historian Leonard Maltin has labelled this final entry in Monogram's "Charlie Chan" series as "embarrassing," but it's not quite as bad as its reputation would indicate. True, star Roland Winters steadfastly refuses to take his characterization of Charlie Chan seriously, but that's part of Read More

The Golden Eye

Actors: Roland Winters, Mantan Moreland, Tim Ryan, Bruce Kellogg

Synopsis: The Golden Eye is a Charlie Chan mystery set on a Southwestern ranch. A once-dormant mine mysteriously begins to yield gold, bringing out the worst characteristics of several people involved. When murder enters the picture, Charlie Chan interrupts his vacation and investigates, with the dubious Read More

The Shanghai Chest

Actors: Roland Winters, Mantan Moreland, Deannie Best, John Alvin

Synopsis: Even after three appearances as oriental sleuth Charlie Chan, Roland Winters showed no interest in taking the role seriously. Shanghai Chest finds Charlie in the employ of the U.S. government, assigned to solve a series of puzzling murders. The victims all appear to have died by snakebite, which Read More

She's Too Mean to Me

The Feathered Serpent

Synopsis: In this entry in the long-running mystery series, Chan must find out who has been killing people over rare antiques. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Come On, Cowboy!

Docks of New Orleans

Actors: Stanley Andrews, Virginia Dale, Dian Fauntelle, Carol Forman

Synopsis: Docks of New Orleans was Roland Winters' second appearance as aphorism-spouting oriental sleuth Charlie Chan -- and like the first (The Chinese Ring) the film was based on an earlier "Mr. Wong" series entry. This time out, Chan attempts to solve a case involving a stolen shipment of chemicals. Read More

The Trap

Synopsis: In this mystery, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) helps out an actress justly terrified for her own life after her fellow actors slowly begin to die horrible deaths. The homicides transpire at a Malibu beach house; Chan gathers all of the clues into one location and hones in on the killer. This marked Read More

Juke Joint

Actors: Spencer Williams

Synopsis: Juke Joint is one of the better-known films, produced especially for African-American audiences in the 1930s and 1940s. Spencer Williams Jr. and July Jones play a couple of shabby but resourceful gents who hit town with only 25 cents between them. Turning on the charm with various ladies of Read More

The Chinese Ring

Actors: Roland Winters, Warren Douglas, Mantan Moreland, Philip Ahn

Synopsis: Roland Winters takes over the role of wily oriental sleuth Charlie Chan in the so-so Monogram programmer The Chinese Ring. The film is a remake of 1939's Mr. Wong in Chinatown, right down to dialogue and camera angles. Charlie Chan gets dragged into the story when a beautiful Chinese princess (Jean Wong Read More

The Dreamer

Tall, Tan and Terrific

Synopsis: This all-black-cast musical showcases the singers, dancers and comedians who perform at Harlem's Golden Slipper Club. The plot revolves around a debt-plagued gambling club owner (Monte Hawley) who gets arrested for murder. The real attractions, though, are top-billed comic Mantan Moreland (playing Read More

Riverboat Rhythm

Actors: Leon Errol, Glenn Vernon, Walter Catlett, Marc Cramer, Jonathan Hale

Synopsis: Set upon the mighty Mississippi, this comedy chronicles the travails of a showboat captain trying to keep his operation financially afloat. He barely has enough money to do so and with no license, operates illegally. He finds more trouble when he moors at a posh hotel, pretends that he is a fine Read More

Shadows over Chinatown

Actors: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Tanis Chandler, John Gallaudet

Synopsis: Sidney Toler seems listless and barely awake throughout the intrigues of the Monogram "Charlie Chan" opus Shadows over Chinatown. This time out, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) and his erstwhile assistants, son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and chauffeur Birmingham (Mantan Moreland), investigate a clever Read More

Dark Alibi

Synopsis: In this episode of the popular detective series, Chan learns that fake fingerprints have caused innocent people to go to prison. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Charlie Chan: The Scarlet Clue

Synopsis: Birmingham Brown joins pal Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) in solving this missing government documents mystery, set at a New York City radio station. Various media types are satirized in this unorthodox entry in the Monogram Pictures series. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide Read More

Captain Tugboat Annie

Actors: Jane Darwell, Edgar Kennedy, Charles Gordon, Mantan Moreland, Pamela Blake

Synopsis: This tale of two tugboats focuses upon the rivalries between two operators competing to win a major shipping contract. Meanwhile a tugboat office secretary and an ex-con who wants to go straight, fall in love. Tugboat Annie is put in charge of a child violinist. When a waterfront fire breaks out Read More

She Wouldn't Say Yes

Synopsis: Rosalind Russell plays yet another independent career woman in She Wouldn't Say Yes. This time she's a psychiatrist who sees no need for a man in her life. Her resolve weakens a bit when she meets Lee Bowman, a dashing combat sketch artist suffering from wartime emotional problems. Bowman falls in Read More

The Scarlet Clue

Actors: Sidney Toler, Benson Fong, Mantan Moreland, Helen Deveraux, Robert E. Homans

Synopsis: More tightly scripted than most of the Monogram Charlie Chan whodunits, The Scarlet Clue is set in a radio station that, rather fortuitously, is located in the same building as a government research lab. It's wartime, and the Chinese master detective (Sidney Toler) is searching for the killer of Read More

The Spider

Actors: Richard Conte, Faye Marlowe, Kurt Kreuger, John Harvey, Martin Kosleck

Synopsis: In this mystery, a detective and his partner are hired by a carnival psychic to help her find her long-lost sister who vanished a few years back. It is the partner who solves the mystery, but before she can tell her boss, she is killed. The detective is accused of the crime and arrested. He Read More

The Shanghai Cobra

Actors: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Addison Richards, Joan Barclay, James B. Cardwell, Walter Fenner, James Flavin, Benson Fong, Roy Gordon, Arthur Loft, George Chandler, Joe Devlin, Gene Roth, Paul Newlan, Janet Warren

Synopsis: Just as Edgar C. Ulmer would at PRC around the same time, young Phil Karlson turned Monogram's almost nonexistent production values to his advantage in two Charlie Chan whodunits: The Shanghai Cobra (1945) and Dark Alibi (1946). Karlson added touches of film noir to the usual hoary Chan Read More

The Secret Service

Charlie Chan in the Secret Service

Actors: Sidney Toler, Gwen Kenyon, Mantan Moreland, Marianne Quon, Arthur Loft

Synopsis: Having ended its 11-year run at 20th Century-Fox, the "Charlie Chan" series set up shop at Monogram with the singularly uninspiring Charlie Chan in the Secret Service. Sidney Toler returns as the famed oriental detective, who, per the title, is now a government agent. His first assignment is to Read More

South of Dixie

Actors: Anne Gwynne, David Bruce, Jerome Cowan, Ella Mae Morse, Joe Sawyer

Synopsis: Universal's yearly quota of cheap, 60-minute musicals occasionally yielded such likeable diversions as South of Dixie. David Bruce stars as Danny, a popular composer of southern ballads. Striking while the iron is hot, Danny's partner Brains (Jerome Cowan) promotes a filmed biography of the Read More

Chip off the Old Block

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Peggy Ryan, Ann Blyth, Helen Vinson, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: A musical comedy star whose career is just starting to take off returns home from military school. En route, he meets a pretty girl whom he begins to woo. Unfortunately his hometown girl friend is waiting for him at the station and typical romantic mayhem ensues amidst many lively songs and Read More

Black Magic

Synopsis: Meeting at Midnight is the reissue title of Black Magic, a Charlie Chan "B" effort from Monogram Studios. A murder occurs during a seance conducted by a fraudulent medium. Scared chauffeur Mantan Moreland, who happens to be on the premises when the killing occurs, summons Chan (Sidney Toler). He Read More

Bowery to Broadway

Actors: Maria Montez, Jack Oakie, Susanna Foster, Turhan Bey, Ann Blyth

Synopsis: Two Bowery vaudevillians compete to be the first to produce shows on Broadway. They might be friends were they not so convinced that each has stolen ideas from the others. This bouncy musical chronicles their rivalry and the success they find after they finally team up. Unfortunately the success Read More

See Here, Private Hargrove

Actors: Robert Walker, Donna Reed, Keenan Wynn, Robert Benchley, Ray Collins

Synopsis: Newspaper reporter Marion Hargrove's best-selling novel was adapted to the screen by MGM as a vehicle for Robert Walker. The story is basically a series of humorous anecdotes about Hargrove's tenure at boot camp in the early days of World War II. Keenan Wynn is terrific as Hargrove's topkick, and Robert Benchley Read More

Pin-Up Girl

Actors: Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Despite the film's title, Pin-Up Girl offers surprisingly few glimpses of the famed Betty Grable "gams." This lively Technicolor musical casts Gable as Lorrie Jones, secretary at a USO canteen frequented by handsome servicemen. Falling in love with war hero Tommy Dooley (John Harvey), Lorrie Read More

Mystery of the Riverboat

Synopsis: This mystery is set upon the mighty Mississippi and within the dark bayous of Louisiana. Originally it was a 13- episode serial. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Moon Over Las Vegas

Actors: Anne Gwynne, David Bruce, Vera Vague, Vivian Austin, Alan Dinehart

Synopsis: In this musical romance, a young couple is still in love, but find themselves facing insurmountable turmoil in their relationship. They separate and head for Vegas for a quickie divorce. The wife is counseled by another that to save the union, she must make her husband jealous. She does, romantic Read More

This Is the Life

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Susanna Foster, Peggy Ryan, Louise Allbritton, Patric Knowles

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, a soldier falls in love with a very young woman who in turn has a crush on an older, more sophisticated man. When the older gent goes to New York, she follows as does her younger suitor. While in the Big Apple, the soldier encounters the older man's ex-wife who is still in Read More

The Jade Mask

Actors: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Edwin Luke, Janet Warren, Edith Evanson

Synopsis: An engagingly silly Charlie Chan whodunit from Poverty Row company Monogram, The Jade Mask mixed science fiction with Old House melodramatics and a generous dose of comedy. The venerable Chinese detective (Sidney Toler) is this time assigned by the government to establish the whereabouts of Harper Read More

The Chinese Cat

Actors: Sidney Toler, Joan Woodbury, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: Charlie Chan's second mystery for Poverty Row company Monogram, The Chinese Cat is one of the inscrutable detective's better efforts. Director Phil Rosen keeps things moving at a reasonably expedient pace -- especially for a Monogram programmer -- and although the denouement is no big surprise Read More

Sarong Girl

Actors: Ann Corio, Irene Ryan, Mantan Moreland, Bill Henry

Synopsis: Moving slightly up the poverty-row ladder from PRC to Monogram, Burlesque queen Ann Corio starred in the musical comedy Sarong Girls. Corio is cast as stripteaser Dixie Barlow, who manages to avoid a prison sentence when her attorney Gil Gailord (Damian O'Flynn) claims that she's the sole support Read More

You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith

Actors: Allan Jones, Evelyn Ankers, Billie Burke, David Bruce, Patsy O'Connor

Synopsis: The title of this low-budget Universal musical was lifted from the Andrew Sisters' hit song, introduced in 1941's Buck Privates. Evelyn Ankers stars as Lynn, who in order to collect an inheritance must quickly wed dull old Harvey (David Bruce). En route to her marriage by train, Lynn is Read More

Slightly Dangerous

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

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

Cabin in the Sky

Actors: Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram

Synopsis: MGM knew it would take a bath on its all-black musical Cabin in the Sky (few Southern theaters of 1943 would touch the film), but the studio still provided its standard A-plus production values to the film; besides, it served as a training ground for up-and-coming director Vincente Minnelli. Based Read More

Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher

Synopsis: This murder mystery is based on a forties radio program. It chronicles the exploits of a mail order detective who investigates a possible gangland murder. The film is also titled "Cosmo Jones." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Hit the Ice

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Ginny Simms, Patric Knowles, Elyse Knox

Synopsis: The Abbott & Costello vehicle Hit the Ice started life as satire of health clinics, with Lou Costello cast as a hypochondriac who used a streetcar conductor's change-purse to dispense pills to himself. By the time the film hit the screens, it was a standard A&C melange of comedy, music and Read More

Hi 'ya, Sailor

Actors: Donald Woods, Elyse Knox, Eddie Quillan, Frank Jenks, Phyllis Brooks

Synopsis: The musical quickie Hi'Ya Sailor was produced by Universal, the same studio responsible for Hi'Ya Chum, Hi, Buddy, Hi, Beautiful and Hi, Good Lookin'. Donald Woods plays Bob Jackson, a song-writing sailor who is taken to the cleaners by a crooked song-publishing racket. Left in the cold, Bob and Read More

She's for Me

Actors: George Dolenz, David Bruce, Grace McDonald, Lois Collier, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: A romantic triangle between two best friends and a beautiful woman provides the basis of this romantic comedy. The girl in question is the niece of the head of the law firm the men work for. She likes both of the men, but one of them she considers more of a brother. This one is very manipulative Read More

Melody Parade

Actors: Tim Ryan, Mary Beth Hughes, Eddie Quillan, Irene Ryan, Mantan Moreland, André Charlot

Synopsis: The seemingly ageless Eddie Quillan heads the cast of the Monogram musical Melody Parade. Eddie plays Jimmy Tracy, a nightclub busboy who hopes to become a big-time producer. Mary Beth Hughes costars as Anne O'Rourke, a hatcheck girl with singing aspirations. The arrival of supposed heriess Gloria Read More

We've Never Been Licked

Actors: Richard Quine, Noah Beery, Jr., Anne Gwynne, Martha O'Driscoll, Edgar Barrier

Synopsis: This patriotic WW II-era bit of anti-Japanese propaganda centers on a white Texas college student who becomes such good friends with Japanese students on campus that he goes to their country after he is wrongfully accused of being a traitor. All this happened before the U.S. declared war on Japan. Read More

Swing Fever

Actors: Marilyn Maxwell, William Gargan, Lena Horne, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: In most of his movie vehicles, bandleader Kay Kyser played a bandleader named Kay Kyser. In Swing Fever, however, Kyser is cast as aspiring songwriter Lowell Blackford. Though he isn't too successful at peddling his songs, Blackford does have one unique talent: The ability to hypnotize boxer Read More

Revenge of the Zombies

Actors: John Carradine, Robert Lowery, Gale Storm, Veda Ann Borg, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: The second of Monogram's "zombie" thrillers, Revenge of the Zombies is better than the first, if only because of its powerhouse cast. John Carradine does his usual as Von Alltermann, a mad scientist in the employ of the Nazis. Commissioned to create a race of "living dead" warriors for the Third Read More

Professor Creeps

Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost

Actors: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Elizabeth Risdon, Donald MacBride

Synopsis: Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost looks more like a Columbia two-reel comedy than an RKO feature film. Star Lupe Velez, her conservative ad-man husband (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) and good old Uncle Matt (Leon Errol) find themselves in a supposedly haunted house. Actually the "ghosts" are enemy spies Read More

Girl Trouble

Actors: Don Ameche, Joan Bennett, Billie Burke, Frank Craven, Alan Dinehart

Synopsis: In this comedy, set in WW II, a Venezuelan rubber planter's son must travel to New York to try and secure a loan for the expansion of the family business. There he encounters an impoverished American girl whose fortune lies frozen in England until the war ends. To make ends meet, she rents her Read More

The Palm Beach Story

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee, William Demarest

Synopsis: As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not explained until the film's punch line), Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are married. "And so they lived happily ever after," exults a title Read More

Phantom Killer

Actors: Dick Purcell, Joan Woodbury, John Hamilton, Warren Hymer, Kenneth Harlan

Synopsis: In this murder mystery, a re-working of The Sphinx, a distract attorney is determined to prove that the community's most respected member, a deaf-mute philanthropist, is a cold-blooded killer. When the prominent fellow is acquitted, the disgusted DA quits his job and begins investigating the Read More

Law of the Jungle

Andy Hardy's Double Life

Actors: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden, Ann Rutherford

Synopsis: Incredible as it may seem, rambunctious 18-year-old Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) finally makes it to college in Andy Hardy's Double Life. Just as he did at Carvel High School, Andy majors in "girls" at college, at one point finding himself engaged simultaneously to two different coeds. On a more Read More

Footlight Serenade

Actors: John Payne, Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Jane Wyman, Phil Silvers, James Gleason

Synopsis: Victor Mature plays an arrogant champion boxer who opts for an acting career on Broadway. He falls in love with his costar Betty Grable, who's secretly married to actor John Payne. Unwilling to make public her marriage lest it adversely affect her career, Grable is unsuccessful in fending off Read More

Tarzan's New York Adventure

Actors: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, Johnny Sheffield, Virginia Grey, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: This final "Tarzan" entry from the MGM assembly line is arguably one the least effective of the series, though it certainly has its adherents. It all begins when Boy (Johnny Sheffield), adopted son of Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) and Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan), is kidnapped from the jungle by Read More

Eyes in the Night

Actors: Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Katherine Emery, Horace McNally, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: Edward Arnold made the first of his two screen appearances as Bayard Kendrick's blind detective Captain Duncan McLain in MGM's Eyes in the Night. The plot is set in motion by Norma Lawry (Ann Harding), whose stepdaughter Barbara (Donna Reed) has been keeping company with washed-up actor Paul Read More

Freckles Comes Home

Actors: Johnny Downs, Gale Storm, Mantan Moreland, Bradley Page, Betty Blythe

Synopsis: The bucolic, down-home novels and short stories of Gene Stratton-Porter had been fodder for Monogram's screenwriting staff ever since the early 1930s. This cinemazation of Stratton-Porter's Freckles Comes Home stars Johnny Downs as the title character, who returns from college to his sedentary Read More

The Strange Case of Dr. Rx

Actors: Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill, Anne Gwynne, Samuel S. Hinds, Edmund MacDonald

Synopsis: Hot on the heels of his starring turn in The Mad Doctor of Market Street, Lionel Atwill was top-billed in another chiller-diller, The Strange Case of Dr. Rx. Somebody has been going around murdering known criminals who've escaped prosecution thanks to crooked lawyer Dudley Crispin (Samuel S. Read More

A-Haunting We Will Go

Actors: Sheila Ryan, John Shelton, Don Costello

Synopsis: Laurel & Hardy's second starring vehicle for 20th Century-Fox is arguably their weakest feature film, with the laughs few and far between. Broke as usual, the duo is given 24 hours to get out of town by the local constabulary. In dire need of travelling expenses, they take a job accompanying a Read More

Up Jumped the Devil

The Lucky Ghost

You're out of Luck

Actors: Frankie Darro, Mantan Moreland, Kay Sutton, Billy Snyder, Tristram Coffin

Synopsis: The curious but harmonious screen team of Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland are back again in You're Out of Luck. Elevator boy Frankie (Darro) is the brother of a detective (Richard Bond), and as such is eager to solve a crime himself. He gets his chance when a couple of mob murders occur in Read More

Sign of the Wolf

Actors: Michael Whalen, Grace Bradley, Darryl Hickman, Mantan Moreland, Louise Beavers

Synopsis: In this drama, a young woman shows two dogs at the championship competition at Madison Square Garden and when the two dogs get into a fight, they are both disqualified. The girl decides that she cannot keep them both and decides to sell her least favorite. Unfortunately, her servant loves that dog Read More

Dressed to Kill

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes, Sheila Ryan, William Demarest, Ben Carter

Synopsis: The fourth of 20th Century-Fox's "Michael Shayne" mysteries finds private detective Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) anxiously preparing for his long-delayed marriage to showgirl Joanne La Mar (Mary Beth Hughes). Alas, Mike's pre-nuptual tete-a-tete with Joanne is interrupted by the sound of a scream. Rushing Read More

Cracked Nuts

Synopsis: No relation to the Cracked Nuts he directed in 1931, this hokey sci-fi-comedy from director Edward F. Cline stars Stuart Erwin as Lawrence Trent, a country rube who wins a refrigerator-slogan contest and gets some money for his efforts. Meanwhile, mad scientist Boris Kabikoff (Mischa Auer) builds Read More

Hello Sucker

Actors: Hugh Herbert, Tom Brown, Peggy Moran, Lewis Howard, June Storey

Synopsis: The comic effusions of Hugh "woo woo" Herbert helps to keep this otherwise forgettable farce afloat. It all begins when Bob Wade (Tom Brown) and Rosalie Brown (Peggy Moran), are conned into buying a run-down vaudeville agency. Upon taking charge of the failing enterprise, they find they have a Read More

Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery

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

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

Bachelor Daddy

Actors: Baby Sandy, Edward Everett Horton, Donald Woods, Raymond Walburn, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: Universal's "Baby Sandy" series officially ended with Sandy Gets Her Man, but the infant star still had one picture left on her contract, so that's why Bachelor Daddy was born. Edward Everett Horton, Donald Woods, and Raymond Walburn carry the burden of the plot as the Smith Brothers, Joseph Read More

The Gang's All Here

Actors: Frankie Darro, Marcia Mae Jones, Jackie Moran, Mantan Moreland, Keye Luke

Synopsis: The Monogram publicity machine advertised Gang's All Here as a story of "Young Americans Fighting for Their Rights." Young driver Frankie (Frankie Darro) decides to take on a gang of truck hijackers single-handed, running into opposition from the crooked district manager behind the crime spree. Read More

Four Jacks and a Jill

Actors: Ray Bolger, Anne Shirley, June Havoc, Desi Arnaz, Jack Durant

Synopsis: This quickie RKO musical is the second retread of Street Girl (1929); the 1937 musical That Girl from Paris was the first remake. This time around, the four jacks are musicians Nifty (Ray Bolger), Happy (Eddie Foy Jr.), Nat (Jack Briggs), and Eddie (William Blees). Their singer Opal (June Havoc) Read More

Let's Go Collegiate

Actors: Frankie Darro, Marcia Mae Jones, Jackie Moran, Keye Luke, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: In this collegiate drama, a team of college oarsmen promise their gals that they will win the big race. Unfortunately, it looks as if their victory will go to another team after their strongest rower is drafted. The sly, enterprising lads end up replacing him with a truck driver on the sly. Songs Read More

King of the Zombies

Actors: Joan Woodbury, Dick Purcell, Mantan Moreland, Henry Victor, John Archer

Synopsis: Set in the Caribbean shortly before the U.S. was drawn into WWII, this zombie chiller tells the tale of an American special agent who, along with his butler and a pilot, is sent out to find a missing American Admiral, whose plane crashed on one of the islands. Unfortunately, the hero's plane also Read More

Mr. Washington Goes to Town

Actors: Flournoy E. Miller, Mantan Moreland, Maceo B. Sheffield, Arthur Ray, Marguerite Whitten

Synopsis: The all-black Mr. Washington Goes to Town is purely and simply a vehicle for the screamingly funny comedy team of F. E. Miller and Mantan Moreland. The whole story takes place in a fancy hotel, with heroes Wallingford (Miller) and Schenectady (Moreland) trying to raise enough money to buy the Read More

It Started With Eve

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Charles Laughton, Robert Cummings, Guy Kibbee, Margaret Tallichet

Synopsis: A man trying to make his dying father happy makes his love life very complicated indeed in this musical comedy starring Deanna Durbin. Jonathan Reynolds Jr. (Robert Cummings) is the playboy son of multi-millionaire business magnate Jonathan Reynolds, Sr. (Charles Laughton). Junior has told his Read More

Up in the Air

Actors: Frankie Darro, Marjorie Reynolds, Mantan Moreland, Gordon Jones

Synopsis: In this fast paced mystery, an eager page boy for a radio station tries to convince the owners to let him do a comedy show with his pal, a porter. A hopeful singer and the station receptionist support the lads with the former hoping to make her debut there. Things are looking up for the young folk Read More

Chasing Trouble

Synopsis: Diminutive Frankie Darro was always a lot of fun to watch when given his head in a leading role. In Monogram's Chasing Trouble, Darro plays a fella named Cupid, who fancies himself a handwriting analyst. He tries out his dilettante talent when a gang of spies begins covert activities in his Read More

Pier 13

Actors: Lynn Bari, Lloyd Nolan, Joan Valerie, Douglas Fowley, Chick Chandler

Synopsis: Pier 13 is a remake of the delightful Spencer Tracy-Joan Bennett vehicle Me and My Gal, which itself was a reworking of a 1922 silent picture. Wisecracking cop Danny Dolan (Lloyd Nolan) takes a liking to self-reliant waterfront waitress Sally Kelly (Lynn Bari), and the feeling is definitely Read More

On the Spot

Actors: Frankie Darro, Mantan Moreland, Robert Warwick, Mary Kornman

Synopsis: As conceived, Monogram's On the Spot was meant to be purely a Frankie Darro vehicle, with black comedian Mantan Moreland as comedy relief. As filmed, however, On the Spot offered Darro and Moreland as costars, contributing equally to the film's plotline and entertainment value. The story shifts Read More

While Thousands Cheer

Stardust

Actors: Linda Darnell, John Payne, Roland Young, Charlotte Greenwood, William Gargan

Synopsis: 17-year-old Linda Darnell received her first big break in the appropriately titled 20th Century-Fox production Star Dust. Discovered by talent scout Thomas Brooke (Roland Young), teenager Carolyn Sayre (Darnell) is brought to Hollywood, where she is turned down for a contract because she is Read More

Maryland

Actors: Walter Brennan, Fay Bainter, Brenda Joyce, John Payne, Charlie Ruggles

Synopsis: The success of 1938's Kentucky prompted 20th Century-Fox to come up with the similar (though not entirely identical) horse-racing opus Maryland. After her husband (Russell Hicks) is killed during a fox hunt, Maryland matriarch Charlotte Danfield (Fay Bainter) forbids her son Lee (John Payne) from Read More

Drums of the Desert

Actors: Ralph Byrd, Lorna Gray, Peter George Lynn, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: Twixt and tween his Dick Tracy movies, Ralph Byrd plays a Foreign Legionnaire in Drums of the Desert. Byrd and his pal Peter George Lynn alternately fight off the Riffs and fight each other over the affections of lovely Lorna Gray. Gee...we always thought that people joined the Foreign Legion to Read More

Laughing at Danger

Actors: Frankie Darro, Joy Hodges, George Houston, Mantan Moreland, Kay Sutton

Synopsis: Monogram's Laughing at Danger finds page-boy Frankie Kelly (Frankie Darro) trying to solve a murder at a fancy beauty salon. It so happens that the establishment is used for blackmail purposes by a gang of crooks who eavesdrop on their gossiping clientele by means of hidden microphones. When the Read More

Millionaire Playboy

Actors: Joe Penner, Linda Hayes, Russ Brown, Fritz Feld, Tom Kennedy

Synopsis: A hapless young socialite attempts to overcome an embarrassing romantic problem in this silly crime comedy. It seems every time the handsome youth kisses a gal, he gets a horrible case of hiccups. Anxious to cure him, his father spends a small fortune to take his son to a special headshrinker who Read More

Condemned Men

One Dark Night

Actors: Mantan Moreland, Arthur Ray

Synopsis: In this all African-American family drama, Father Brown encounters problems when his family throws him out for his laziness. He then journeys to the desert discovers radium, becomes quite wealthy, and buys a nightclub from a lecherous fellow who begins trying to court his daughter. Musical numbers Read More

Irish Luck

Actors: Frankie Darro, Dick Purcell, Sheila D'Arcy, Lillian Elliott, James Flavin

Synopsis: Irish Luck was one of a handful of Monogram actioners starring Frankie Darro as a crimesolving bellboy. The son of plainclothes detective, Buzzy O'Brien (Darro) is naturally suspicious of some sinister activities transpiring at the hotel where he works. When a murder occurs, Buzzy offers his Read More

Tell No Tales

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Louise Platt, Gene Lockhart, Douglas Dumbrille, Florence George

Synopsis: A model of precision and economy, the MGM "B" thriller Tell No Tales represented the feature-film directorial debut of former actor Leslie Fenton. Reportedly an expansion of a "Crime Does Not Pay" 2-reeler, the story follows editor Michael Cassidy (Melvyn Douglas) as he tries to save his newspaper Read More

Riders of the Frontier

Actors: Tex Ritter, Jack Rutherford, Hal Taliaferro, Nolan Willis

Synopsis: The Tex Ritter Monogram Westerns had a change of directors with Riders of the Frontier, Spencer Gordon Bennet having replaced Al Herman. But that was really the only difference between this entry and the previous seven. Ritter impersonated a notorious outlaw in order to infiltrate the gang that is Read More

Gun Moll

Harlem on the Prairie

Actors: Spencer Williams, Herb Jeffries, Mantan Moreland, Connie Harris, Maceo B. Sheffield

Synopsis: As indicated by the title, Harlem on the Prairie was aimed at the "all-colored" theaters which flourished in the 1930s. The star of this musical western is Herb Jeffries, a former vocalist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra who might have been a major film personality in a more equitable world. Read More

Frontier Scout

Actors: George Houston, Beth Marion, Dave "Tex" O'Brien, Jack Ingram

Synopsis: Frontier Scout was one of a handful of western vehicles for opera star George Houston, who adapted surprisingly well to his sagebrush surrounding. Singing nary a note during the film's 60 minutes, Houston is cast as Wild Bill Hickok, flowing hair and all. After nearly single-handedly winning the Read More

Two-Gun Man from Harlem

Actors: Herb Jeffries, Marguerite Whitten, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: The first of three all-black music Westerns released by white-operated Sack Amusement Enterprises, Two Gun Man from Harlem was filmed at N.B. Murray's African-American dude ranch near Victorville, California, and starred popular black entertainer Herb Jeffries (who billed himself Herbert Jeffrey Read More

There's That Woman Again

Actors: Melvyn Douglas, Virginia Bruce, Margaret Lindsay, Stanley Ridges, Gordon Oliver

Synopsis: There's That Woman Again was the second and last entry in Columbia's own spin on MGM's "Thin Man" series. Virginia Bruce and Melvyn Douglas star as Sally and Bill Reardon, husband-and-wife private eyes (Bruce took over from Joan Blondell, who costarred with Douglas in 1938's There's Always a Read More

Spirit of Youth

Actors: Clarence Brooks, Joe Louis, Clarence Muse, Edna M. Harris, Mae Turner, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: World heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis stars in Spirit of Youth. Often mistakenly referred to as a biography of Louis, the film is actually the fictional story of aspiring boxer Joe Thomas, who hopes to make millions in the ring. He does, but as consequence he falls into the hands of a Read More

Next Time I Marry

Actors: Lucille Ball, James Ellison, Lee Bowman, Granville Bates, Mantan Moreland

Synopsis: The Next Time I Marry stars actress Lucille Ball as an heiress who can only receive her 20 million dollar inheritance by marrying an American citizen. In love with a handsome foreigner, the young heiress marries the first man she comes across--a ditch-digger (James Ellison) whom she intends to Read More

Shall We Dance?

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: The seventh of RKO's Fred Astaire--Ginger Rogers musicals, Shall We Dance casts Astaire as a world-renowned ballet dancer and Rogers as a musical comedy headliner. Rogers' manager Jerome Cowan concocts a phony romance between his client and Astaire in order to garner publicity for them both. Read More