Russell HicksFilmography

Man of Conflict

Actors: Edward Arnold, John Agar, Susan Morrow, Fay Roope, Herbert Heyes

Synopsis: After several years of supporting roles, Edward Arnold once again enjoys top billing in the independently produced Man of Conflict. Arnold plays powerful industrialist J. R. Compton, who tries to force his son Ray (John Agar) to become as ruthless and hard-hearted as his dad. But Ray is cut from a Read More

Mr. Walkie Talkie

Actors: William Tracy, Joe Sawyer, Margia Dean, Russell Hicks, Robert Shayne

Synopsis: Mr. Walkie Talkie was the second attempt by producer Hal Roach Jr. to revive the popular series of William Tracy/Joe Sawyer service comedies filmed by Hal Roach Sr. back in the early 1940s. Like its predecessor As You Were, this film stars Tracy as Sgt. Doubleday, a garrulous soldier with a Read More

The Maverick

Actors: William "Wild Bill" Elliott, Myron Healey, Phyllis Coates, Richard Reeves, Terry Frost

Synopsis: In this "Wild Bill Elliot" western, Elliot and two other lawmen (Myron Healey and Robert Bray) are assigned to take three outlaws to prison. Along the way, they agree to escort Phyllis Coates and her grandmother Florence Lake through Indian territory. Everyone's safety is threatened when one of Read More

Old Oklahoma Plains

Actors: Rex Allen, Slim Pickens, Elaine Edwards, Roy Barcroft

Synopsis: Rex Allen, his horse Koko, and his sidekick Slim Pickens play themselves in Old Oklahoma Plains. Set in the 1920s, the film finds Allen trying to convince local ranchers to allow the army room for their tank maneuvers. Rabble-rouser Roy Barcroft, certain that the tank will make horses obsolete Read More

All That I Have

Bowery Battalion

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Donald MacBride, Virginia Hewitt, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: Mistakenly believing that America has gone to war, the Bowery Boys (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict, et al.) join the army. Our heroes get off to a bad start when they crash a party at the Officer's Club, a breach of protocol that earns them the undying enmity of Sergeant Frisbie (the Read More

Kentucky Jubilee

Actors: Jerry Colonna, Jean Porter, James Ellison, Fritz Feld, Raymond Hatton

Synopsis: From the opening credits onward, bombastic comedian Jerry Colonna dominates the proceedings in Kentucky Jubilee. Colonna plays second-rate entertainer Jerry Harris, who links up with aspiring singer Sally Shannon (Jean Porter) and hotshot reporter Jeff Benson (James Ellison). The trio heads to the Read More

As You Were

Synopsis: In the early 1940s, producer Hal Roach turned out several entertaining and profitable "streamliners" (each running approximately 45 minutes) about an army recruit with a photographic memory and his long-suffering sergeant. William Tracy portrayed Private (and later Sergeant) Doubleday, while Joe Sawyer Read More

Overland Telegraph

Actors: Tim Holt, Gail Davis, Hugh Beaumont, Mari Blanchard, George Nader

Synopsis: Not to be confused with the 1929 film The Overland Telegraph, this Western from director Lesley Selander stars Tim Holt as a cowboy appropriately named Tim Holt. In order to hinder the construction of a new telegraph line for his own financial gain, scheming shopkeeper Paul Manning (George Nader) Read More

Fourteen Hours

Actors: Richard Basehart, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Agnes Moorehead, Debra Paget, Robert Keith

Synopsis: Henry Hathaway directed this high-tension drama about a man teetering on the verge of self-destruction and how his dilemma affects those around him. Robert Cosick (Richard Basehart) is a desperate and despondent young man who has never gotten along with his parents (Robert Keith and Agnes Moorehead Read More

The Flying Saucer

Actors: Mikel Conrad, Pat Garrison, Hanz von Teuffen, Lester Sharpe, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: Striking while the iron was hot, actor/producer Mikel Conrad registered the title The Flying Saucer for copyright not long after UFOs were allegedly spotted in Washington State. Filmed on location in Alaska, Flying Saucer stars Conrad (who also co-wrote) as a secret agent, dispatched by the Read More

Square Dance Katy

Synopsis: In this musical, an ambitious young singer and her band leave their small hometown to head for the Big Apple in hopes of finding fame and fortune. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Petty Girl

Actors: Robert Cummings, Joan Caulfield, Elsa Lanchester, Melville Cooper, Audrey Long

Synopsis: Back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, artist George Petty was famous for his "Petty Girl" illustrations; lovingly detailed renderings of ripe young damsels wearing next to nothing, and sometimes not even that. In The Petty Girl, George Petty is portrayed by Robert Cummings, while Joan Caulfield Read More

Blue Grass of Kentucky

Actors: Bill Williams, Jane Nigh, Ralph Morgan, Robert "Buzzy" Henry, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: As indicated by its title, Blue Grass of Kentucky is a horse-racing opus. Bill Williams plays Lin McIvor, the owner of a horse named Blue Grass. He doesn't know it, but the horse was sired by a Kentucky Derby winner, owned by Armistead (Russell Hicks). The aristocratic Armistead had previously Read More

Unmasked

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

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

The Big Hangover

Actors: Van Johnson, Elizabeth Taylor, Percy Waram, Fay Holden, Leon Ames

Synopsis: Nobody sits on the fence so far as The Big Hangover is concerned. Leonard Maltin considers it "predictable, as well as silly and boring," while the late William K. Everson regarded it as one of Hollywood's best and most underappreciated screwball comedies. Examine the premise and judge for Read More

Barbary Pirate

Actors: Donald Woods, Trudy Marshall, Lenore Aubert, Stefan Schnabel, Ross Ford

Synopsis: Quickie king Sam Katzman was responsible for the 64-minute swashbuckler Barbary Pirate. Set mostly in the bay of Tripoli in the early 19th century, the film stars Donald Woods as American army officer Tom Blake. Hoping to trap the titular pirates, Blake gains the confidence of Yussef, the ruler of Read More

Samson and Delilah

Actors: Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Henry Wilcoxon

Synopsis: Samson and Delilah is Cecil B. DeMille's characteristically expansive retelling of the events found in the Old Testament passages of Judges 13-16. Victor Mature plays Samson, the superstrong young Danite. Samson aspires to marry Philistine noblewoman Semadar (Angela Lansbury), but she is killed Read More

I Cheated the Law

Actors: Tom Conway, Steve Brodie, Robert Osterloh, Barbara Billingsley, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: This independently produced crime caper was picked up for distribution by 20th Century-Fox. Tom Conway stars as criminal attorney John Campbell. After saving Frank Bricolle (Steve Brodie) from a murder charge, Campbell is taunted with revelation that Bricolle is actually guilty. Even more galling Read More

The Noose Hangs High

Actors: Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Cathy Downs, Joseph Calleia, Leon Errol

Synopsis: For their first independently-produced vehicle, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello chose to appear in a remake of the 1939 Universal programmer For Love or Money. Bud and Lou are cast as Ted and Tommy, two bumbling window washers hired by gangster Mike Craig (Joseph Calleila) to collect a $50,000 Read More

My Dear Secretary

Actors: Laraine Day, Kirk Douglas, Helen Walker, Keenan Wynn, Rudy Vallee

Synopsis: Produced by comedy specialist Harry M. Popkin and his brother Leo Popkin, My Dear Secretary stars Kirk Douglas as Owen Waterbury, a best-selling novelist with an eye for the ladies. When aspiring writer Stephanie Gaylord (Laraine Day) signs on as his secretary, Waterbury assumes that he's lined up Read More

The Plunderers

Actors: Rod Cameron, Ilona Massey, Adrian Booth, Forrest Tucker, George Cleveland

Synopsis: Hero Rod Cameron kills Sheriff Sam Borden (George Cleveland) at point-blank range and in front of several witnesses in the opening of this Republic Pictures Western, released in the company's patented Trucolor system. The "killing," however, is merely a ruse set up to allow army agent Johnny Drum (Cameron Read More

The Gallant Legion

Actors: Adrian Booth, James Brown, Bruce Cabot, Andy Devine, Steve Drake

Synopsis: When Republic moved its popular star William Elliot from "B" series westerns to "A" frontier specials, a lot of the fun and excitement was lost in the process. Additionally, Republic seemed reluctant to admit the new Elliot films were westerns, as witness the title Gallant Legion, which could have Read More

Jiggs and Maggie in Court

Assigned to Danger

Actors: Gene Raymond, Noreen Nash, Robert Bice, Martin Kosleck, Gene Evans

Synopsis: An early effort from director Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, Assigned to Danger was a worthwhile showcase for Gene Raymond, who'd been absent from the screen for several years. Raymond plays insurance investigator Dan Sullivan, at present trying to gather clues from a payroll heist. Someone doesn't want Read More

The Hunted

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Belita, Pierre Watkin, Edna Holland, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: In this detective story, a private eye must send his fiancee to prison as he truly believes that she was involved in a bank robbery. Unfortunately, she is innocent. Still she serves her time. Upon her release someone frames her for murder. The detective is in quite a quandary until the real Read More

Silver River

Actors: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Thomas Mitchell, Bruce Bennett, Tom D'Andrea

Synopsis: Love leads a man to his most evil deeds and forces him to change his ways in this Western. After being handed a dishonorable discharge during the Civil War, Mike McComb (Errol Flynn) becomes a professional gambler and follows a path of ruthless action to get what he wants. After moving out West Read More

Race Street

Actors: George Raft, William Bendix, Marilyn Maxwell, Frank Faylen, Henry Morgan

Synopsis: In this dark crime drama, the trouble begins when a San Francisco bookie attempts to lead an honest life by marrying a comely widow. In preparation for his nuptials, the fellow stays on the straight and narrow, but when he learns that one of his cohorts has been murdered by an East Coast gang that Read More

The Return of October

Actors: Glenn Ford, Terry Moore, Albert Sharpe, Dame May Whitty, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: In this whimsical fantasy, a young girl suddenly discovers that her horse is really a reincarnation of her beloved uncle who upon his death bed was heard to say that if could ever come back, he would want to be a race horse that wins the Kentucky Derby. When the girl's relatives learn of her Read More

The Velvet Touch

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Leo Genn, Claire Trevor, Sydney Greenstreet, Leon Ames

Synopsis: Based upon a story by William Mercer, The Velvet Touch stars Rosalind Russell as Valerie Stanton, a celebrated Broadway actress whose latest smash comedy is coming to the end of its successful run. The play's producer, Gordon Dunning, has produced all of Stanton's hits for the last decade, and Read More

The Black Arrow

Actors: Louis Hayward, Janet Blair, George Macready, Edgar Buchanan, Rhys Williams

Synopsis: This commendably short adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow stars Louis Hayward in the title role. Returning from duty in the 15th-century War of the Roses, young Richard Shelton (Hayward) learns that his estate has been claimed by his usurping uncle Sir Daniel Brackley (George Macready Read More

One Sunday Afternoon

Actors: Dennis Morgan, Janis Paige, Don DeFore, Dorothy Malone, Ben Blue

Synopsis: This third film version of James Hagan's stage play One Sunday Afternoon was directed by Raoul Walsh, who helmed the second adaptation (1941's Strawberry Blonde). This time around, songs have been added to accommodate the talents of Dennis Morgan and Janis Paige. Morgan stars as 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

Manhattan Angel

Actors: Gloria Jean, Ross Ford, Thurston Hall

Synopsis: A rapidly maturing Gloria Jean is the star of the Columbia musical Manhattan Angel. She's cast at Madison Avenue copywriter Gloria Cole, at present striving to save a youth center for underprivileged children from being demolished to make way for a factory. Complications arise when Everett H. Read More

The Pilgrim Lady

Actors: William Benedict, Carlyle Blackwell, Veda Ann Borg, Paul E. Burns, Harry V. Cheshire

Synopsis: Beneath the proper, prurient exterior of a spinster college professor beats the passionate, seductive heart of a sexy romance novelist. When she finds her ribald first book approved for publication she finds herself facing a terrible dilemma. If word of her secret avocation leaks out, she could be Read More

Exposed

Actors: Adele Mara, Robert Scott, Adrian Booth, Robert Armstrong, William Haade

Synopsis: Not precisely the best film of 1947, the Republic comedy-mystery Exposed is nevertheless consistently enjoyable. Adele Mara is a delight as wisecracking female private eye Belinda Prentice, who has to put in a lot of overtime when her first client is murdered. Following the clues to an apartment Read More

Smoky River Serenade

Buck Privates Come Home

Actors: Bud Abbott, George Beban, Jr., Lou Costello, Don Beddoe, Nat Pendleton, Tom Brown, Lennie Bremen, Joan Fulton

Synopsis: After serving with a notable lack of distinction in WW2, Corporal Slicker Smith (Bud Abbott) and Private Herbie Brown (Lou Costello) return to the US. Unbeknownst to their sourpussed sergeant Collins (Nat Pendleton), Slicker and Herbie have smuggled cute little war orphan Evie (Beverly Simmons) Read More

Variety Girl

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

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

The Web of Danger

Actors: William Hall, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: An unimportant but likeable Republic drama, Web of Danger revolves around the rivalry between two hardhat bridge-builders. Ernie (Bill Kennedy) and Bill (Damian O'Flynn) spend most of the footage duking it out, usually over a "dame". But when the chips are down, our heroes work side by side to Read More

The Sea of Grass

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Walker, Melvyn Douglas, Phyllis Thaxter

Synopsis: Usually associated with erudite, urbane comedies, the legendary screen team of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy goes intensely dramatic in the expensive western Sea of Grass. Tracy plays cattle baron Colonel James Brewton, who staunchly opposes opening the western frontier to homesteaders. Read More

Louisiana

Actors: Dottye Brown, Tristram Coffin, Joseph Crehan, Jimmie Davis

Synopsis: A sharecropper's son grows up to be the governor of Louisiana in this rags-to-riches bio-pic that tells the story of Jimmie Davis who was determined to get a good education and make something of himself. Not only did he become known as the singing governor, Davis was also a professor in a women's Read More

Fun on a Weekend

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Priscilla Lane, Tom Conway, Allen Jenkins, Arthur Treacher

Synopsis: Long before he became the foremost purveyor of ultra-realistic melodramas, writer/producer/director Andrew Stone turned out a handful of screwball comedies like Fun on a Weekend. Eddie Bracken stars as P. P. Porterhouse III, who despite his triple-barrelled monicker is flat broke. Long on ideas Read More

Swing Parade

Synopsis: In this musical, a struggling young singer falls in love with a nightclub owner whose father mistakes her for someone else and tries to convince her to serve a summons at the club. Fortunately, the love between the youngsters prevails. Music and happiness ensues. Songs include: Stormy Weather" Read More

Till the Clouds Roll By

Actors: June Allyson, Robert Walker, Judy Garland, Gower Champion, Lucille Bremer, Cyd Charisse, Joan Wells, Van Heflin, Bruce Cowling

Synopsis: MGM's Till the Clouds Roll By is the musicalized, and highly fictionalized, life story of beloved composer Jerome Kern, who gave his blessing to the production shortly before his death in 1946. As played by a gray-templed Robert Walker, Kern is a likeable but none too exciting sort who expresses Read More

A Close Call for Boston Blackie

Actors: Chester Morris, Lynn Merrick, Richard Lane, Frank Sully, George E. Stone

Synopsis: In this episode of the popular mystery series, the crook turned sleuth must clear his name after he is accused of murder. To help him, Blackie enlists the aid of his pal. Together they reveal the real murderer before the Inspector can put Blackie back in jail. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Show-Off

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

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

The Hoodlum Saint

Actors: William Powell, Esther Williams, Angela Lansbury, James Gleason, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: William Powell plays a cynical con man who graduates from penny-ante operations to a big-time charity racket. The scam involves collecting money on behalf of St. Dismas, bringing Powell in close contact with several men of the cloth. As the racket rolls on, Powell is touched by the sincerity of Read More

The Bandit of Sherwood Forest

Actors: Cornel Wilde, Anita Louise, Jill Esmond, Edgar Buchanan, George Macready, Henry Daniell

Synopsis: The Technicolor swashbuckler Bandit of Sherwood Forest stars Cornel Wilde as Robert of Nottingham, son of the legendary Robin Hood (Russell Hicks). Robert elects to follow in his father's footsteps when oppression rears its ugly head in the form of a despotic Regent (Henry Daniell) and his partner 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

G.I. War Brides

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Louis Austin, Stephanie Bachelor, Virginia Carroll, Harry Davenport

Synopsis: Republic Pictures certainly didn't believe in obscure or misleading film titles, as G.I. War Brides amply proves. Ann Lee plays Linda Powell, a British lass who desires to enter the United States without dealing with the immigration authorities. To this end, Linda trades places with Joyce Giles Read More

The Bachelor's Daughters

Actors: Gail Russell, Claire Trevor, Ann Dvorak, Adolphe Menjou, Billie Burke

Synopsis: Andrew Stone's The Bachelor's Daughters has much of the nonsensical breeziness of Stone's earlier screwball comedy Hi Diddle Diddle; the stylistic link between the two properties is emphasized by the presence in both films of stars Adolphe Menjou and Billie Burke. The title characters are four Read More

The Plainsman and the Lady

Actors: Don "Red" Barry, Andy Clyde, William B. Davidson, Byron Foulger

Synopsis: The 87-minute running time of Plainsman and the Lady was evidence aplenty that this was no mere Republic B western. William Elliot (formerly and latterly "Wild Bill" Elliot) stars as cattleman Sam Cotten, who offers his services-and his six-guns-to the newly formed Pony Express. Erudite villain Read More

Gay Blades

Actors: Allan Lane, Jean Rogers, Edward Ashley, Frank Albertson, Ann Gillis

Synopsis: The biggest surprise in Republic's Gay Blades is that the studio's resident skating star Vera Hruba Ralston doesn't appear. Allan Lane plays hockey star Andy Buell, whose prowess on the rink brings him to the attention of Hollywood leading lady Nancy Davis (played not by the real Nancy Davis Read More

First Yank into Tokyo

Actors: Barbara Hale, Richard Loo, Keye Luke, Leonard Strong

Synopsis: This WW II drama is the first to deal with the fateful atomic bomb attack on Japan. Originally, the film centered on the acquisition of a new kind of gun, but as it was in production during the time the Bomb was dropped, the producers were quick to change the story to suit the times. It tells the 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 Valley of Decision

Actors: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp, Lionel Barrymore, Preston S. Foster

Synopsis: Based on Marcia Davenport's novel and set in 1870, Valley of Decision details the romance between a housemaid named Mary Rafferty (Greer Garson) and her employer's son, Paul Scott (Gregory Peck). Paul's father, William (Donald Crisp), owns a Pittsburgh steel mill where Mary's father, Pat (Lionel Barrymore Read More

A Game of Death

Actors: John Loder, Audrey Long, Edgar Barrier, Russell Wade, Jason Robards, Sr., Russell Hicks

Synopsis: RKO Radio's A Game of Death was the first official remake of Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game, given a contemporary WW2 twist. Novelist Rainsford (John Loder) and brother-and-sister shipwreck victims Ellen (Audrey Long) and Robert (Russell Wade) are among the innocents stranded on remote Read More

Apology for Murder

Actors: Ann Savage, Hugh Beaumont, Charles D. Brown, Russell Hicks, Pierre Watkin

Synopsis: PRC's Apology for Murder is aptly named: the production values in this 67-minute quickie are pretty sorry. If you're willing to look past the mildewed sets and murky lighting, however, this well-paced film noir is pretty enjoyable. Hugh Beaumont (yes, that Hugh Beaumont) plays a tough Read More

Weekend at the Waldorf

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Weekend at the Waldorf is an unabashed remake of MGM's 1932 Oscar-winner Grand Hotel: in fact, at several points in the story, the cast makes pointed references to the earlier film. The posh Waldorf Hotel in the heart of New York is the setting for several plots and subplots. Ginger Rogers plays Read More

Nob Hill

Actors: George Raft, Joan Bennett, Vivian Blaine, Peggy Ann Garner

Synopsis: The bland performance of star George Raft is the only drawback of this splashy 20th Century-Fox musical. Set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, the film casts Raft as Barbary Coast saloonkeeper Tony Angel, who endears himself to patrons and pedestrians alike by tossing out silver dollars at the Read More

The Hidden Eye

Actors: Edward Arnold, Frances Rafferty, Ray Collins, Paul Langton

Synopsis: The Hidden Eye was the second of two MGM films featuring mystery writer Baynard Kendrick's blind detective Duncan McLain. As in Eyes in the Night, sightless sleuth McLain is played by Edward Arnold. This time, our hero tackles a series of murders apparently tied in with an ancient oriental cult. Read More

Flame of Barbary Coast

Actors: John Wayne, Ann Dvorak, Joseph Schildkraut, William Frawley, Virginia Grey

Synopsis: John Wayne is not the title character of Flame of the Barbary Coast: that honor goes to second-billed Ann Dvorak. Wayne plays a Montana cattleman who is lured into a San Francisco gambling joint by dance-hall girl Dvorak. Though Ann at first brings Wayne luck, he ends up losing his shirt to Read More

Scarlet Street

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay, Rosalind Ivan

Synopsis: Masterfully directed by Fritz Lang, Scarlet Street is a bleak film in which an ordinary man succumbs first to vice and then to murder. Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a lonely man married to a nagging wife. Painting is the only thing that brings him joy. Cross meets Kitty (Joan Bennett) Read More

She Gets Her Man

Synopsis: Joan Davis, the daughter of a famed woman detective, has inherited none of her mother's deductive prowess. Nonetheless, Joan teams with patrolman Leon Errol to solve a series of blowgun murders. The two erstwhile Sherlocks track down the alleged murder weapon to a theatre, where it is being used Read More

A Guy, a Gal and A Pal

Actors: Ross Hunter, Lynn Merrick, Ted Donaldson, George Meeker, Jack Norton

Synopsis: Future film producer Ross Hunter heads the cast of Columbia's A Guy, a Gal and a Pal. Hunter is the "guy", serviceman Jimmy Jones; the "gal" is Jimmy's sweetheart Helen Carter (Lynn Merrick), while the "pal" is the couple's self-appointed chaperone, 10-year-old Butch (Ted Donaldson). Helen's Read More

Flame of the Barbary Coast

Synopsis: In this western, a Montana cattle rancher travels to San Francisco's notorious Barbary Coast and ends up falling in love with a dance hall girl who helps him win big at the gaming tables. Unfortunately, a card sharp takes it all from the innocent rube. The dance hall girl is also involved with the Read More

The Master Key

Synopsis: A machine able to extract gold from the ocean floor is desired by both Axis powers and the FBI in this 13 chapter Universal serial directed by the team of Ray Taylor and Lewis D. Collins. Milburn Stone -- later "Doc Adams" on television's Gunsmoke -- starred as G-Man Tom Brant, with blond Jan Wiley Read More

Janie

Actors: Robert Hutton, Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Robert Benchley, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Janie, adapted from the Broadway play by Josephine Bentham and Herschel Williams, was one of a 1940s cycle of stage-to-film comedies about teenagers. Joyce Reynolds stars as Janie, a typical teen whose life is turned topsy turvy by the installation of a military base near her home town. Edward Arnold Read More

The Port of 40 Thieves

Actors: Stephanie Bachelor, Lynne Roberts, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: Port of 40 Thieves is a so-so suspenser completely dominated by the formidable Stephanie Bachelor. The statuesque, sophisticated Republic leading lady is cast as Muriel, the scheming widow of the fabulously wealthy Hartford Chaney 3rd. Muriel's husband has disappearance under mysterious Read More

Hat Check Honey

Actors: Grace McDonald, Richard Davies, Leon Errol, Walter Catlett, Ramsay Ames

Synopsis: In this musical comedy, a vaudevillian father, wanting a better life for his son, fires the youth from their act. The deeply angry young man's devoted and creative gal, a hat-check girl, helps him land a job with a big band. But despite his resulting success, he remains estranged from his Read More

Louisiana Hayride

Actors: Judy Canova, Ross Hunter, Richard Lane, Lloyd Bridges, Matt Willis

Synopsis: But for the presence of the Columbia "torch lady" in the opening credits, it would be easy to mistake Judy Canova's Louisiana Hayride for one of her concurrently-produced Republic musicals. The rambunctious Canova is cast as backwoods heiress Judy Crocker, who comes to Hollywood in hopes of Read More

The Woman of the Town

Synopsis: Originally, producer Harry Sherman's Woman of the Town was slated for Paramount release, but that studio was overloaded with product, so the film was deferred to United Artists. Nonetheless, the finished product has the "look" of a Paramount, right down to the presence of character actor Albert Read More

Captain America [Serial]

Synopsis: Based on the comic book by the same name, the hero takes on a crazed scientist who creates deadly machines for his own villainous schemes. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Three Hearts for Julia

Actors: Ann Sothern, Melvyn Douglas, Lee Bowman, Richard Ainley, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: Hoping to achieve a brilliant career as a violinist, Julia Seabrook (Ann Sothern) divorces her husband Jeff (Melvyn Douglas), feeling as though he's holding her back. But Jeff is still in love with Julia, and he's willing to move Heaven and Earth to get her back. Meanwhile, David Torrance (Lee Read More

What a Woman!

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne, Willard Parker, Alan Dinehart, Edward Fielding

Synopsis: In his book on "screwball" comedies, the late William K. Everson described What a Woman as "indistinguishable from a dozen other big-business comedies, but a pleasant and zany time-killer." Once again, Rosalind Russell is cast as a high-pressure female executive, in this instance liteary agent Read More

Follow the Band

Actors: Eddie Quillan, Mary Beth Hughes, Leon Errol, Anne Rooney, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: In this musical drama, a Vermont farm lad goes to the Big Apple to become a member of the National Dairy Association. He happens to bring with him his beloved trombone. Soon, with the help of bandleader Skinnay Ennis, the boy gets a job in a nightclub and subsequently becomes a popular radio star. Read More

Air Raid Wardens

Synopsis: Set in wartime (WW II), this film finds the fat guy, skinny guy comedy duo not much good at any attempted professions; they can't even enlist in the war effort. None of the services want them. But they do become air raid wardens, at least for a while, until their misadventures continue. They get 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

King of the Cowboys

Actors: Roy Rogers, Smiley Burnette, Peggy Moran, Gerald Mohr

Synopsis: The budget for this fine Roy Rogers Western was doubled and the title changed from Starlight on the Trail to the more descriptive King of the Cowboys, mainly due to Rogers' great reception on a personal appearance tour in the fall of 1942. Republic had lost Gene Autry to the war effort and this Read More

Someone to Remember

Actors: Mabel Paige, John Craven, Dorothy Morris, Charles Dingle, Harry Shannon

Synopsis: Mabel Paige, one of Hollywood's most beloved character actresses, was given her one-and-only starring role in this Republic Pictures tearjerker. Paige plays a wealthy old lady embittered by the long-ago disappearance of her son. She lives alone in a downtown hotel, with only the occasional company Read More

Northern Pursuit

Actors: Errol Flynn, Julie Bishop, Helmut Dantine, John Ridgely, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: The fact that star Errol Flynn had been recently embroiled in a real-life rape trial only served to increase the box-office "pull" of Warner Bros. Northern Pursuit. Flynn is cast as Canadian mountie Steve Wagner, assigned to track down and capture downed Nazi pilot Hugo von Keller (Helmut Dantine) Read More

His Butler's Sister

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Pat O'Brien, Franchot Tone, Akim Tamiroff, Evelyn Ankers

Synopsis: In this frothy musical comedy, Ann Carter (Deanna Durbin) is an aspiring singer from the Midwest who decides to move to New York in hopes of advancing her career. Her half brother, Martin Murphy (Pat O'Brien), is already living in the Big Apple, and has told her that he's doing well as a Read More

Lady in a Jam

Actors: Irene Dunne, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Irene Dunne plays a flibbetygibbet socialite who inherits a farm in Arizona. She can't seem to manage either her money or her private life, thus seeks advice from outside sources. Irene falls in love with fledgling Manhattan psychiatrist Patric Knowles, and marries him in the hope that he'll solve Read More

Pacific Rendezvous

Actors: Lee Bowman, Jean Rogers, Carl Esmond, Paul Cavanagh, Blanche Yurka

Synopsis: Pacific Rendezvous is a B-picture remake of the 1935 MGM A-picture Rendezvous, updated to accommodate WW2. Lee Bowman plays the old William Powell role as a American naval intelligence operative (this time named Lt. Bill Gordon) assigned to decipher enemy code. His mission is compromised by his Read More

Tennessee Johnson

Actors: Van Heflin, Ruth Hussey, Lionel Barrymore, Marjorie Main, Regis Toomey

Synopsis: The tumultuous presidency of 17th-president Andrew Johnson is chronicled in this biopic. The story begins with Johnson's boyhood and covers his early life. During the Civil War, Johnson stays a staunch Unionist and upon Lincoln's reelection in 1864, becomes his Vice President. After Lincoln's Read More

Behind the Eight Ball

Actors: The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Carol Bruce, Dick Foran, Grace McDonald, Johnny Downs

Synopsis: To say that Behind the Eight Ball is the best of the Ritz Brothers' quartet of Universal vehicles is faint praise indeed, but it's fact that the Ritzes pack an awful lot of laughs in the film's 60-minute running time. The story takes place at a summer theater in the Berkshire Mountains, where Read More

Fingers at the Window

Actors: Lew Ayres, Laraine Day, Basil Rathbone, Walter Kingsford, Miles Mander

Synopsis: A fun though abortive bid to pair crime-solving duo Lew Ayres and Laraine Day for a series of thrillers, this murder mystery benefits from good performances by the leads. The plot involves a series of axe murders in Chicago being perpetrated by the patients of an insane asylum, all of whom have Read More

Strictly in the Groove

Actors: Mary Healy, Richard Davies, Leon Errol, Shemp Howard, Grace McDonald

Synopsis: A college student's passion for swinging music leads him to found his own band. When he starts spending more time playing music than studying, his father, a prominent hotelier, steps in and sends the lad to a dude ranch in Arizona. Undeterred, the boy brings the band with him. Once there, he Read More

Joe Smith, American

Actors: Robert Young, Marsha Hunt, Harvey Stephens, Darryl Hickman, Jonathan Hale

Synopsis: This upbeat war-time tale chronicles the ordeal of ardently American munitions plant worker Joe Smith (Robert Young), whose access to the U.S. military's plan for a new bomb-sight leave him victim to an abduction from Nazi agents. Knowing that Joe (Young) has vital information, the German soldiers Read More

Ride 'Em Cowboy

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Dick Foran, Anne Gwynne, Johnny Mack Brown

Synopsis: Bud Abbott & Lou Costello invade the wild west in Ride 'Em Cowboy. The boys play Duke and Willoughby, a couple of rodeo peanut vendors who get mixed up in the travails of western novelist Bob Mitchell (Dick Foran). Ostensibly a true Son of the Frontier, Bob has actually never been west of Brooklyn 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

We Were Dancing

Actors: Norma Shearer, Melvyn Douglas, Gail Patrick, Lee Bowman, Marjorie Main

Synopsis: Strange but true: Norma Shearer turned down the title role in Mrs. Miniver to star instead in the insignificant trifle We Were Dancing. Loosely based on two Noel Coward playlets originally presented as part of the omnibus production Tonight at 8:30, the story concerns the romance between socialite Read More

King of the Mounties

Ship Ahoy

Actors: Eleanor Powell, Red Skelton, Virginia O'Brien, William Post, Jr., Jimmy Cross

Synopsis: This musical -- a concoction of comedy, songs, dancing, and war-time patriotism mixed together with a spy spoof plot -- opens with Tommy Dorsey and his band swinging through "Hawaiian War Chant" while Eleanor Powell taps away. Powell, it turns out, is Tallulah Winters, the band's official tap Read More

Butch Minds the Baby

Actors: Virginia Bruce, Broderick Crawford, Dick Foran, Porter Hall, Richard Lane

Synopsis: Damon Runyon's short story Butch Minds the Baby is about a certain Broadway citizen by the name of Butch, who is known far and wide to be involved more than somewhat in business of a dishonest nature. Butch is the lookout for a gang of safecrackers, one of whom is forced to bring his squalling Read More

To the Shores of Tripoli

Actors: John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly, William Tracy

Synopsis: One of the first big-studio productions to acknowledge America's entry into WW2, 20th Century-Fox's To the Shores of Tripoli was filmed with full the cooperation of the US Marine Corps. John Payne plays Chris Winters, a wealthy, wise-lipped young Marine recruit who learns the true meaning of Read More

Hitler: Dead or Alive

Actors: Ward Bond, Dorothy Tree, Warren Hymer, Paul Fix, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: Believe it or not, this bizarre wartime "B"-picture was based on a true story. In the early stages of WWII, a prominent American businessman offered one million dollars to anyone who could nab Adolf Hitler and bring him to justice, dead or alive. This real-life character is herein played by Russell Hicks Read More

Sergeant York

Actors: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, Ward Bond, Margaret Wycherly, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: When World War I hero Alvin York agreed to sell the movie rights to his life story to Warner Bros., it was on three conditions: (1) That the film contains no phony heroics, (2) that Mrs.York not be played by a Hollywood "glamour girl" and (3) That Gary Cooper portray York on screen. All three Read More

A Man Betrayed

Actors: John Wayne, Frances Dee, Edward Ellis, Ward Bond, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: Bucolic lawyer John Wayne takes on big-city corruption in A Man Betrayed. He sets out to prove that an above-suspicion politician (Edward Ellis) is actually a crook. The price of integrity is sweet in this instance, since Wayne happens to be in love with the politician's daughter (Frances Dee). Read More

Here Comes Happiness

Actors: Mildred Coles, Edward Norris, Richard Ainley, Russell Hicks, Marjorie Gateson

Synopsis: The brazen audaciousness with which Bryan Foy's B-picture unit at Warner Bros. remade the studio's old properties was seldom more pronounced than in 1941's Here Comes Happiness, a thinly disguised reworking of 1934's Happiness Ahead! The original starred Dick Powell and Josephine Hutchinson; the Read More

They Died With Their Boots On

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Arthur Kennedy, Charles Grapewin, Regis Toomey, Gene Lockhart, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: Though history is distorted almost beyond recognition in Warner Bros.' They Died With Their Boots On, audiences in 1941 ate it up like cotton candy. In the gospel according to Warners, General George Armstrong Custer (Errol Flynn) is neither an arrogant fool nor a rabid Indian hater. Instead, he Read More

The Strawberry Blonde

Actors: James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth, Jack Carson, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Strawberry Blonde is the second, and by far the most well-regarded, of the three film versions of James Hogan's play One Sunday Afternoon. James Cagney stars as Biff Grimes, a turn-of-the-century dentist married to onetime suffragette Amy Lind (Olivia de Havilland). A former convict, Biff has Read More

Sealed Lips

Actors: William Gargan, June Clyde, John Litel, Anne Nagel, Mary Gordon

Synopsis: There's something very odd about Romano (John Litel), a notorious gangster serving time in the federal pen. For one thing, Romano doesn't sound much like himself. For another, he always seems to be hiding something. Detective Lee (William Gargan) suspects that something's amiss, and he's right Read More

Western Union

Actors: Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore, Barton MacLane, John Carradine

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox's Western Union was loosely based on a story by Zane Grey. The basic historical facts behind the connecting of telegraph wires between Omaha and Salt Lake City serve as a backdrop for a fictional story straight out of Manhattan Melodrama. Randolph Scott and Barton MacLane are cast Read More

The Man Who Lost Himself

Actors: Brian Aherne, Kay Francis, Henry Stephenson, S.Z. Sakall

Synopsis: In this humorous adventure, a Puerto Rican explorer shares a drink with his oddball millionaire double. For a lark, they decide to pull a switcheroo and exchange places. Unfortunately, the millionaire is killed in a car accident. His poor grieving wife, doesn't realize that the dead man is the Read More

Hold That Ghost

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Joan Davis, Richard Carlson, Evelyn Ankers, Mischa Auer

Synopsis: Hold That Ghost was the second of Abbott and Costello's starring films, but was held back from release in favor of their third picture, the more "topical" In the Navy. In Ghost, Bud and Lou play a couple of service-station owners who happen to be hanging around when gangster Moose Mattson (William B. Davidson Read More

Pacific Blackout

Actors: Robert Preston, Philip Merivale, Eva Gabor, Louis Jean Heydt

Synopsis: Midnight Angel was the title of this Paramount actioner when it was first released in December of 1941. But by the time the film reached the hinterlands, America had entered WW2, and thus it was that Midnight Angel was rechristened Pacific Blackout, which remained its title to this very day. Read More

The Great Lie

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Mary Astor, Hattie McDaniel, Lucile Watson, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: The Great Lie is Soap Opera Deluxe from Bette Davis' peak period at Warner Bros. Davis plays a socialite who is madly in love with playboy aviator George Brent. Brilliant but bitchy concert pianist Mary Astor (who won a well-deserved Academy Award for her chain-smoking histrionics) is also in love Read More

The Parson of Panamint

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Ellen Drew, Phillip Terry, Joseph Schildkraut, Porter Hall

Synopsis: First filmed in 1916, Peter B. Kyne's novel Parson of Panamint provided an excellent showcase for Charles Ruggles in this 1941 remake. As he looks over the dusty, deserted remains of the western "boom town" of Panamint, grizzled old prospector Chuckawalla Bill Redfield (Ruggles) recalls the town's Read More

Honky Tonk

Actors: Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Frank Morgan, Claire Trevor, Albert Dekker, Marjorie Main

Synopsis: The marvelous rapport between stars Clark Gable and Lana Turner makes MGM's Honky Tonk seem far more substatianal than it really is. About to be tarred and featherd by an angry mob, frontier con artists Candy Johnson (Gable) and his pal Sniper (Chill Wills) manage to make a quick getaway via Read More

Great Guns

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sheila Ryan, Dick Nelson, Edmund MacDonald

Synopsis: In their first 20th Century-Fox vehicle, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are cast respectively as the butler and chauffeur of wealthy young Dan Forrester (Dick Nelson). Tired of being pampered and coddled by his overprotective aunts (Mae Marsh, Ethel Gryffies), Dan is delighted when he is drafted Read More

Public Enemies

Actors: Phillip Terry, Wendy Barrie, Edgar Kennedy, William Frawley, Marc Lawrence

Synopsis: In this drama an eager-beaver reporter loses his job when he prints a false story about a society girl. The unemployed reporter, anxious to redeem himself, then gets involves in a gangster backed smuggling operation. Meanwhile the wronged socialite falls in love with him. Unfortunately, he will Read More

The Little Foxes

Actors: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson, Patricia Collinge, Charles Dingle

Synopsis: Playwright Lillian Hellman first wrote of the horrible Hubbard family in her 1939 play The Little Foxes. In this lavish 1941 film version, Bette Davis takes over for Broadway's Tallulah Bankhead in the role of conniving turn-of-the-century Southern aristocrat Regina Hubbard Giddens. Regina's Read More

Man Made Monster

Actors: Lionel Atwill, Lon Chaney, Jr., Anne Nagel, Frank Albertson, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Originally slated as a Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi vehicle, Man Made Monster emerged on screen as a tour de force for Lon Chaney Jr. (in his first horror-film starring role) and Lionel Atwill. Chaney plays Dynamo Dan the Electric Man, a sideshow performer whose talent for absorbing mass quantities Read More

Dive Bomber

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

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

Unexpected Uncle

Actors: Anne Shirley, James Craig, Charles Coburn, Ernest Truex

Synopsis: From first frame to last, foxy Charles Coburn thoroughly dominates the proceedings in the bubbly RKO Radio comedy Unexpected Uncle. Living in retirement in Florida, ex-tycoon Seton (Charles Coburn) gets bored with sitting around doing nothing, and decides to extend himself to others for the first Read More

Doctors Don't Tell

Synopsis: In this medical melodrama, a young MD finds himself in love with a woman who doesn't love him. She is interested in an older, more sophisticated doctor. After she discovers that the older medic has a sleazy side, she decides to go for the younger doctor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Buy Me That Town

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

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

The Big Store

Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Tony Martin, Virginia Grey

Synopsis: In the last of the Marx Brothers' MGM films, The Big Store, Groucho Marx plays two-bit detective Wolf J. Flywheel, hired by department-store owner Martha Phelps (Margaret Dumont) to act as bodyguard for Martha's nephew and sole heir, Tommy Rogers (Tony Martin). Crooked store manager Grover (Douglas Dumbrille 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

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

Arkansas Judge

Actors: Leon Weaver, Frank Weaver, June Weaver, Roy Rogers, Spring Byington

Synopsis: The down-home Weaver family stars in this countrified drama set in Peaceful Valley where if things went any slower they'd be going backwards. Things pick up a bit when someone steals $50 from a widow. The townsfolk are outraged and Judge Weaver finds himself accusing the widow's cleaning lady of Read More

Earthbound

Actors: Warner Baxter, Andrea Leeds, Lynn Bari, Charles Grapewin, Henry Wilcoxon

Synopsis: Future blacklistee John Howard Lawson co-wrote this remake of Samuel Goldwyn's 1920 drama Earthbound, presented here as a rather more straightforward morality tale/fantasy. Warner Baxter and Andrea Leeds star as Nick and Ellen Desbrough, a seemingly happily-married couple celebrating their fifth Read More

Santa Fe Trail

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Santa Fe Trail, Errol Flynn's third western, has precisely nothing to do with the titular trail. Instead, the film is a simplistic retelling of the John Brown legend, with Raymond Massey playing the famed abolitionist. The events leading up to the bloody confrontation between Brown and the US Read More

The Lady with Red Hair

Actors: Miriam Hopkins, Claude Rains, Richard Ainley, Laura Hope Crewes, Helen Westley

Synopsis: The notoriously temperamental Miriam Hopkins is ideally cast as equally contentious theatrical prima donna Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Lady With Red Hair. As rapidly paced as any Warner Bros. gangster picture, the film charts Caroline Carter's rise to fame on Broadway through the auspices of Read More

East of the River

Actors: John Garfield, Brenda Marshall, Marjorie Rambeau, George Tobias, William Lundigan

Synopsis: In this drama, set in New York City, two brothers fight it out over a girl. The boys were raised by their Italian mother. The younger brother is adopted and they grow up to pursue very different life directions. The adopted brother goes to college, but the older brother gets involved with crime Read More

Junior G-Men [Serial]

Synopsis: The Dead End Kids fight alongside the government to find a famed scientist who has been abducted by wartime traitors. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

No, No Nanette

Actors: Anna Neagle, Richard Carlson, Victor Mature, Roland Young, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: No, No, Nanette was the second film version of the popular Otto Harbach-Vincent Youmans Broadway musical. Though slightly updated, the basic plot remains the same, with heroine Nanette (Anna Neagle) entering into a financial arrangement whereby she must answer "No" to every question during a Read More

Enemy Agent

Actors: Richard Cromwell, Helen Vinson, Robert Armstrong, Marjorie Reynolds, Jack Arnold

Synopsis: In this espionage adventure, a courageous millworker must prove himself innocent of treason charges after the title spies purloin valuable blueprints from his plant. He also tries to bring the spies to justice, but soon finds himself in deep trouble. Fortunately, the good-guy spies show up at the Read More

The Return of Frank James

Actors: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Jackie Cooper, John Carradine, Henry Hull

Synopsis: This Technicolor sequel to 1939's Jesse James does without the services of the earlier film's star Tyrone Power, who after all was shot dead by that "dirty little coward" Bob Ford (John Carradine). Repeating his portrayal of western outlaw Frank James, Henry Fonda is promoted to top billing here. Read More

Love Thy Neighbor

Actors: Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Mary Martin, Veree Teasdale

Synopsis: Love Thy Neighbor was produced to capitalize on the famous radio feud between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen. The two stars (actually friends in real life) play "themselves," constantly at each other's throats due to real and imagined slights. Benny complicates matters by falling in love with Read More

Johnny Apollo

Actors: Tyrone Power, Dorothy Lamour, Lloyd Nolan, Edward Arnold, Charles Grapewin

Synopsis: Tyrone Power plays the college-grad son of jailed-embezzler Edward Arnold. Power tries to find work, only to be turned away because of his father's reputation. When he decides to use a phony name, he is still fired, because his ex-convict boss feels that Power is being unfair to his Read More

The Bank Dick

Actors: W.C. Fields, Cora Witherspoon, Una Merkel, Evelyn del Rio, Jessie Ralph, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: W.C. Fields plays Egbert Souse, a bibulous denizen of Lompoc who supports his family by winning radio contests. When a fleeing bank robber is knocked cold upon tripping over the park bench where Egbert sits, Souse is hailed as a hero and offered the job of bank guard. The next day, he is Read More

Nobody's Children

Actors: Edith Fellows, Billy Lee, Georgia Caine, Lois Wilson

Synopsis: Edith Fellows and Billy Lee, two of Hollywood's most talented second-echelon child stars, are teamed in the Columbia tearjerker Nobody's Children. The film was inspired by Walter White Jr.'s popular human-interest radio series, which ran from 1939 to 1941. The radio version of Nobody's Children 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

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

Virginia City

Actors: Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, Humphrey Bogart, Frank McHugh

Synopsis: Promoted as a follow-up to the popular 1939 western Dodge City (which, indeed, was left wide open for a sequel in its closing scenes), Virginia City bears only surface resemblance to the earlier film. Indeed, the only discerning links between the two pictures are the western setting and the Read More

Sporting Blood

Actors: Robert Young, Maureen O'Sullivan, William Gargan, Lynne Carver

Synopsis: Directed in 1940 by S. Sylva Simon, Sporting Blood stars Robert Young as racing stable owner Myles Vanders. Shortly after traveling back to his ramshackle family estate in Virginia, he stirs up a long-term family rivalry with Davis Lockwood (Lewis Stone), who runs a neighboring stable. Vanders Read More

Parole Fixer

Actors: William Henry, Virginia Dale, Robert Paige, Gertrude Michael, Richard Denning

Synopsis: Parole Fixer is another entry in Paramount's unofficial "J. Edgar Hoover" series, purportedly based on an actual case in the files of the FBI. The plot revolves around the activities of crooked attorney Paul McGrath, who secures paroles for big-time criminals by pulling a number of political Read More

Seven Sinners

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, John Wayne, Broderick Crawford, Mischa Auer, Albert Dekker

Synopsis: Set in the South Seas, Seven Sinners stars Marlene Dietrich as a cabaret singer whose reputation as a troublemaker has gotten her kicked out of one port of call after another. Once more causing a riot, Dietrich takes refuge on the first ship out, together with her underhanded cohorts Broderick Crawford Read More

The Blue Bird

Actors: Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, Nigel Bruce, Gale Sondergaard, Eddie Collins

Synopsis: When Darryl F. Zanuck's arrangement to loan Shirley Temple to MGM as star of The Wizard of Oz fell through, Zanuck hastily assembled a lavish Technicolor vehicle for his diminutive star which, he hoped, would match Wizard in popularity and appeal. The result was The Blue Bird, adapted from the Read More

Blind Fools

Synopsis: This British-American, coproduction was released in England by Pathe, and in the US by Monogram. Blind Fools is the old bromide about all those parents who are too rich and busy to pay attention to their teenaged children. The kids' restlessness translate into Big Trouble, culminating in the Read More

The Mortal Storm

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan, Robert Stack

Synopsis: The Nazi Party's rise to power has disastrous consequences for a German family in this drama. Victor Roth (Frank Morgan) is a college professor teaching in Germany in 1933 who leads a peaceful and contented life with his wife Emelie (Irene Rich), son Rudi (Gene Reynolds), daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan Read More

Hollywood Cavalcade

Actors: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, J. Edward Bromberg, Alan Curtis, Stuart Erwin

Synopsis: Hollywood Cavalcade was a fictionalized history of silent films and the growth of the movie industry. Don Ameche portrays a character based on equal portions of Mack Sennett and D. W. Griffith, while Alice Faye's silent star is an amalgam of Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Ameche breaks into Read More

Union Pacific

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

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

North of Shanghai

Actors: James Craig, Betty Furness, Keye Luke, Morgan Conway

Synopsis: In this newspaper drama, a female reporter and a newsreel cameraman are both assigned to cover the Sino-Japanese war. They meet on the boat ride over and decide to team up. They are further assisted by a Chinese cameraman. The three of them manage to expose of spy ring operating out of the Read More

East Side of Heaven

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

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

Our Leading Citizen

Actors: Susan Hayward, Joseph Allen, Jr., Charles Bickford, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: A big city lawyer returns to his tiny home town to enter the firm of his late father. His father's partner is happy to have him, but the partner's lovely daughter is even happier.. Every one is happy until the young attorney decides to represent the local villain, a ruthless factory owner who Read More

Swanee River

Actors: Don Ameche, Andrea Leeds, Al Jolson, Felix Bressart, Chick Chandler

Synopsis: This musical presents a romantic and sanitized biography of distinguished American songwriter Stephen Foster. The story begins with the romance between Foster (Don Ameche) and a pretty southern belle and sets up a home in Kentucky--actually the real Foster married a girl from Pittsburgh. His Read More

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edna May Oliver, Walter Brennan, Lew Fields

Synopsis: The last of RKO's Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicles, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle is also the least typical. At their best playing carefree characters in gossamer-thin musical comedy plotlines, Fred and Ginger seem slightly ill at ease cast as the real-life dancing team of Vernon and Read More

The Honeymoon's Over

Actors: Stuart Erwin, Marjorie Weaver, Patric Knowles, Russell Hicks, Jack Carson

Synopsis: In this comedy, newlyweds soon discover that life in the fast lane is not as fun as it seems. As they both work for the same advertising agency, they can well afford the high life. They joyfully spend all their money on fast cars, country clubs, and booze. They begin to change their lifestyle Read More

Stanley and Livingstone

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Nancy Kelly, Cedric Hardwicke, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Charles Coburn

Synopsis: Twentieth Century-Fox borrowed Spencer Tracy, from MGM for the sprawling (yet economically produced) historical drama Stanley and Livingstone. Tracy plays 19th-century American journalist Henry M. Stanley, an adventure-prone sort who is assigned by his editor (Henry Hull) to locate lost Scottish Read More

The Big Guy

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Jackie Cooper, Edward S. Brophy, Peggy Moran, Ona Munson

Synopsis: In this melodrama, the acting warden at a correctional facility must make a difficult choice when he comes across some ill-gotten loot after averting a prison break. At first he keeps it for himself, but then one of the recently recaptured inmates gets blamed for the crime. During the attempted 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

I Was a Convict

Actors: Barton MacLane, Beverly Roberts, Clarence Kolb, Janet Beecher

Synopsis: In this crime drama a wealthy business tycoon serves a sentence for tax fraud. While there he becomes good friends with his cellmates and after they are all released, the magnate appoints them both as executives in his company. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President

Actors: Ann Sothern, Walter Brennan, William Gargan, Marsha Hunt

Synopsis: This Damon Runyon yarn features William Gargan and Ann Sothern as Brooklynites Joe and Ethel Turp. The Turps are up in arms when their faithful old mailman (Walter Brennan) is fired. Unable to get satisfaction on a municipal level, Joe and Ethel plead their mailman's case to the President Read More

Hotel for Women

Actors: Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, James Ellison, Jean Rogers, Lynn Bari

Synopsis: In this romance, a young woman journeys from Syracuse to New York to see her sweetheart, a prominent architect. She is bitterly disappointed to discover that he has lost interest in her. The residents of the women's hotel at which she stays offer the heartbroken lass words of encouragement. They Read More

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell

Actors: Don Ameche, Loretta Young, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: This fictionalized biography of the famed American inventor's life provided actor Don Ameche with his signature role. For years after its release, people even referred to the telephone as "an Ameche." The story begins in 1873 Boston as Bell endeavors to teach deaf people to speak in the manner Read More

Boy Trouble

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, Donald O'Connor, Joyce Mathews, John Hartley

Synopsis: It may sound like a teenage-romance comedy, but Boy Trouble is actually a sentimental effort about middle-aged parents. Charlie Ruggles stars as a small town shopkeeper whose wife (Mary Boland) adopts a pair of rambunctious orphan boys (Donald O'Connor, Billy Lee). Ruggles is at first hostile Read More

The Three Musketeers

Actors: Don Ameche, The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Binnie Barnes, Lionel Atwill, Pauline Moore, Gloria Stuart

Synopsis: Allan Dwan's comedic musical adaptation of the classic Dumas story sticks close to the original tale, yet it augments it with healthy doses of humor and songs. Don Ameche stars as D'Artagnan and the Ritz Brothers play his two other musketeers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

The Real Glory

Actors: Gary Cooper, Andrea Leeds, David Niven, Broderick Crawford, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: Set during the turn-of-the-century Moro uprising in the Philippines, The Real Glory stars Gary Cooper as an American Marine doctor and David Niven and Broderick Crawford as a pair of rowdy mercenaries. While staving off the insurgent Moros, Cooper must also combat a cholera outbreak. Once this Read More

Fugitives for a Night

Actors: Frank Albertson, Eleanor Lynn, Allan Lane, Bradley Page, Adrienne Ames

Synopsis: The RKO Radio backlot gets quite a workout in the peppy "B" comedy-mystery Fugitives for a Night. When movie executive Maurice Tenwright (Russell Hicks) is murdered, the prime suspect is would-be actor Matt Ryan (Frank Albertson). As stooge and "gopher" for arrogant rising star Poole (Bradley Read More

Gateway

Actors: Don Ameche, Arleen Whelan, Gregory Ratoff, Binnie Barnes, Gilbert Roland

Synopsis: En route to America, Irish immigrant Arleen Whelan is the victim of shipboard masher Raymond Walburn. Pushed away by the girl, Walburn is slightly injured, whereupon he brings up charges against Whelan and holds up her entry visa at Ellis Island. War correspondent Don Ameche comes to the rescue Read More

You Can't Take It with You

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

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

Kidnapped

Actors: Warner Baxter, Freddie Bartholomew, Arleen Whelan, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure tale of a young 18th century boy betrayed by his wicked uncle didn't need a romantic subplot, but that didn't stop 20th Century-Fox from including a female love interest (Arleen Whelan). Bypassing that plot point, Kidnapped stars Freddie Bartholomew as the heir Read More

Hold That Co-Ed

Actors: John Barrymore, George Murphy, Marjorie Weaver, Joan Davis, Jack Haley

Synopsis: This tuneful campus comedy features aging star John Barrymore as a sly, blustery Southern governor with his eye on the Senate (aka Louisiana's Huey Long). He sees opportunity knocking when he learns how desperate his constituents have become to build their miserable state college football team Read More

In Old Chicago

Actors: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Alice Brady, Andy Devine, Brian Donlevy

Synopsis: In Old Chicago was 20th Century-Fox's spin on MGM's San Francisco--a personal saga played out against the backdrop of a famous 19th Century disaster. Alice Brady plays Mrs. O'Leary, a widow who brings her two young boys to the sleepy village of Chicago. As the city grows in prominence and Read More

Kentucky

Actors: Loretta Young, Richard Greene, Walter Brennan, Douglas Dumbrille, Karen Morley

Synopsis: The blue grass of Kentucky was seen in three-strip Technicolor for the first time in this rambling racetrack drama. Sally Goodwin (Loretta Young) falls in love with Jack Dillon (Richard Greene), but the arrangement is complicated by a decades-old feud. Sally's uncle Peter (Walter Brennan, who won Read More

Little Miss Broadway

Actors: Shirley Temple, George Murphy, Jimmy Durante, Phyllis Brooks, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: Child star Shirley Temple was getting a bit long in the tooth (at age 10!) by the time she made Little Miss Broadway. Facing the possibility that Temple's appeal was beginning to slip, the producers overstocked the film with top musical-comedy performers and character actors. The curly-topped Read More

Men with Wings

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Ray Milland, Louise Campbell, Andy Devine, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: Brash and vigorous director William Wellman always had a place in his filmography for movies glorifying the early years of aviation -- from the start of his career (Wings), until the end (Lafayette Escadrille). But, perhaps, never has his devotion to aviation been made more vivid than in his 1938 Read More

That Certain Age

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Melvyn Douglas, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Nancy Carroll

Synopsis: In this musical romantic comedy of 1938, Deanna Durbin plays Alice Fullerton, a young woman of a "certain age" who is prone to developing crushes against her best judgment. Her parents have taken in an intriguing house guest, Vincent Bullitt (Melvyn Douglas), a successful international news Read More

Partners in Crime

Actors: Lynne Overman, Muriel Hutchison, Anthony Quinn, Inez Courtney

Synopsis: Partners in Crime was Paramount's follow-up to its successful Murder Goes to College; both films were based on a series of mystery novels by Kurt Steel. Lynne Overman and Roscoe Karns are back as insouciant private eye Hank Hyer and his bibulous partner-in-crimesolving Sim Perkins. Our heroes are Read More

Secret Valley

Actors: Richard Arlen, Virginia Grey, Jack Mulhall, Norman Willis, Sid Saylor

Synopsis: Released in Great Britain as Gangster's Valley, Secret Valley is a modern western (that is, it takes place in 1937). Richard Arlen plays a Nevada rancher who is compelled to extend his hospitality to headstrong Virginia Grey. She has arrived to establish residency in Nevada, the better to secure a Read More

The Westland Case

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Carolyn Hughes, Barbara Pepper, Frank Jenks, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: The Westland Case was the opening volley in Universal's "Crime Club" series. The film was based on Headed for a Hearse, a novel by Jonathan Latimer which had to be toned down considerably for the filmgoers' consumption. Latimer's cynical private-eye team of Bill Crane and Doc Williams are here Read More

The Wildcatter

Actors: Scott Colton, Jean Rogers, Suzanne Kaaren, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: Scott Colton, a good-looking young fellow whom Universal was grooming for stardom (unsuccessfully as it turned out) heads the cast of Wildcatter. Colton plays "Lucky" Conlon, who makes his living as a wildcat oil rigger, taking his young wife Helen (Jean Rogers) to wherever he can find work. Lucky Read More

The Big Broadcast of 1938

Actors: W.C. Fields, Martha Raye, Dorothy Lamour, Shirley Ross, Lynne Overman, Bob Hope

Synopsis: Paramount's final "Big Broadcast" musical had perhaps the least exciting musical lineup of the series (Tito Guizar, The Shep Fields Orchestra, and opera singer Kirsten Flagstad are hardly household names today), but a slightly stronger storyline than the others, as well as a top-notch comic cast. Read More

The Big Shot

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Cora Witherspoon, Dorothy Moore, Gordon Jones, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: A veterinarian and his wife leave their small burg and move to the Big Apple after he inherits a million dollars. His social climbing wife insists on the move because she wants her daughter to make a formal debut. Unfortunately for the family, the fortune was earned by a brutal mob boss, the Read More

The Toast of New York

Actors: Edward Arnold, Cary Grant, Frances Farmer, Jack Oakie, Donald Meek

Synopsis: Allegedly based on two factual works, Bouck White's The Book of Daniel Drew and Matthew Josephson's The Robber Barons, RKO's The Toast of New York is a largely fanciful account of the career of 1870s financier "Jubilee Jim" Fisk. As played by Edward Arnold in his usual "tycoon" mode, Fisk was a Read More

King of Gamblers

Actors: Claire Trevor, Lloyd Nolan, Akim Tamiroff, Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Helen Burgess

Synopsis: Akim Tamiroff, Paramount Pictures' resident crime lord, runs all illegal gambling activities in a major city. Reporter Lloyd Nolan struggles to get the goods on Tamiroff, but runs up against a stone wall until he meets nightclub singer Claire Trevor. Trevor is anxious to avenge the death of her Read More

Espionage

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Madge Evans, Paul Lukas, Ketti Gallian

Synopsis: The notorious Orient Express provides the setting for this romance involving two rival reporters in pursuit of a munitions baron. The two rivals eventually fall in love, but not before they are implicated and subsequently cleared of a plot to kill the arms maker. The munitions man also falls in Read More

23 1/2 Hours Leave

Actors: James Ellison, Terry Walker, Morgan Hill, Arthur Lake, Paul Harvey

Synopsis: Douglas MacLean, who starred in the original 1919 version of this World War I comedy, produced this remake starring James Ellison as Sgt. Gray. One day at training camp, Gray bets his buddies that he'll be having breakfast with the General (Paul Harvey) the next morning. Through a series of comic Read More

Dodge City Trail

Actors: Charles Starrett, Donald Grayson, Marion Weldon, Russell Hicks, Si Jenks

Synopsis: With the increasing popularity of Republic's sagebrush crooner Gene Autry), rival company Columbia found it necessary to add a musical element to this Charles Starrett Western released in early 1937. As Starrett himself was no singer, the studio hired Donald Grayson to warble Lonesome River, Out Read More

Fifty Roads to Town

Actors: Don Ameche, Ann Sothern, George "Slim" Summerville, Jane Darwell, John Qualen

Synopsis: Don Ameche is called upon to testify in his married friends' divorce case. Unwilling to take sides, he skips town and hides out at a country inn. A young girl (Ann Sothern) stumbles into Ameche's rural hideaway; she thinks he's an escaped gangster, while he thinks she's a process server. The local Read More

A Dangerous Adventure

Actors: Don Terry, Rosalind Keith, Nana Bryant, John Gallaudet, Frank Wilson

Synopsis: This drama chronicles the education of a naive, rich young woman who inherits a steel mill. To help her keep it running she unites with a man. Meanwhile two crooks try to destroy her production in order to force her to sell it to them for very little money. They are thwarted at the last moment. Read More

Criminals of the Air

Actors: Rosalind Keith, Charles Quigley, Rita Hayworth, John Gallaudet, Marc Lawrence

Synopsis: Columbia's Criminals of the Air is another entry in the "alien-smuggling" movie cycle -- and as such includes the obligatory scene in which the airborne smugglers escape detection by pulling a lever and disposing of their human cargo. Hoping to collar the crooks, detective Mark Owens (Charles Quigley Read More

Girl Overboard

Actors: Gloria Stuart, Walter Pidgeon, Billy Burrud, Hobart Cavanaugh, Gerald Oliver Smith

Synopsis: The Girl Overboard is Mary Chesebrooke (Gloria Stuart) but she doesn't take her dunk into the deep until the film's final minutes. A department-store model, Mary takes a break from her work and embarks upon an ocean voyage. Any hopes for a peaceful vacation are dashed when one of Mary's fellow Read More

On Again - Off Again

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Marjorie Lord, Patricia Wilder, Esther Muir

Synopsis: The comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey are atypically cast as bickering "friendly enemies" in On Again-Off Again. Based on the old stage farce A Pair of Sixes (previously filmed in 1930 as Queen High), the film stars the comedians as Hobbs and Horton, co-owners of a profitable pill Read More

Let Them Live

Actors: John Howard, Nan Grey, Edward Ellis, Judith Barrett, Robert Wilcox

Synopsis: John Howard stars as Dr. Paul Martin, intent upon instituting sweeping medical reforms in his community. He is opposed in this by the corrupt political machine headed by Pete Lindsey (Edward Ellis). Thanks to Lindsey's chicanery, the town is a hotbed of health hazards, and no one but Martin has Read More

Maytime

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, John Barrymore, Herman Bing, Tom Brown

Synopsis: The third of MGM's profitable Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy songfests, Maytime opens in the early 20th century, with a young girl arguing with her boyfriend over her wishes to become an opera singer. The girl's neighbor, a lonely old woman whom we gradually recognize as a convincingly "aged" Read More

Midnight Taxi

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Frances Drake, Alan Dinehart, Sig Rumann, Harold Huber

Synopsis: Sometimes it seemed as if Brian Donlevy played nothing but G-men during his years at 20th Century-Fox. In Midnight Taxi, Donlevy is cast as Chick Gardner, a federal agent who poses as a New York cab driver. His plan is to use his cover to expose a gang of counterfeiters, who've been using taxis as Read More

Fit for a King

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Helen Mack, Paul Kelly, Harry Davenport, Halliwell Hobbes

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, a rookie reporter works for his uncle's newspaper and gets assigned to write a story about an elderly archduke. While interviewing him, the young journalist falls in love with the crown princess. He then exposes a conspiracy to kill her and her father. Mayhem ensues as he Read More

Pick a Star

Actors: Patsy Kelly, Jack Haley, Rosina Lawrence, Mischa Auer, Lyda Roberti

Synopsis: Film collectors take note: Hal Roach's Pick a Star is not a Laurel and Hardy picture, though the popular comic duo does make a brace of amusing cameo appearances halfway through the film. A remake of Buster Keaton's Free and Easy, this is the story of how small-town gas-station owner Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley Read More

Laughing at Trouble

Actors: Allan Lane, Jane Darwell, Sara Haden, Lois Wilson, Margaret Hamilton, Delma Byron

Synopsis: The film is called Laughing at Trouble, but feisty female newspaper publisher Glory Bradford (Jane Darwell) doesn't waste much of her time laughing. Using her paper as a forum, Glory does her best to clear innocent John Campbell (Allan Lane) of a trumped-up murder charge. When John escapes from Read More

The Man Who Cried Wolf

Actors: Tom Brown, Robert Gleckler, Forrester Harvey, Billy Wayne

Synopsis: An actor creates a devious murder plot in this suspenseful, ironic drama. For many years, the aging thespian has been confessing to homicides he never committed. Naturally the cops think he is bonkers so that when he really does kill his victim, no one believes he did it. Unfortunately, his lies Read More

Grand Jury

Actors: Fred Stone, Louise Latimer, Owen Davis, Jr., Moroni Olsen, Frank M. Thomas

Synopsis: The Commodore (Fred Stone), an average man in an average small town, is incensed that killers and thieves are able to use legal loopholes to escape punishment. He mounts a civic crusade to bring a local gang of racketeers to justice and is aided in this endeavor by idealistic young reporter Steve Read More

Follow the Fleet

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: This lesser Astaire/Rogers vehicle is one of several screen versions of the venerable Hubert Osborne stage play Shore Leave. For reasons unknown, Fred and Ginger are virtually supporting players here, spending most of their time trying to patch up the romance between Fred's fellow sailor Randolph Scott Read More

Rose Marie

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, James Stewart, Reginald Owen, Allan Jones

Synopsis: It was standard operating procedure at MGM to cast their favorite singing team of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald in new versions of old operettas, then retain only the music, drastically altering the plotlines to conform to popular tastes. This was the treatment afforded the Rudolf Friml-Herbert Stothart Read More

Ticket to Paradise

Actors: Roger Pryor, Wendy Barrie, Andrew Tombes, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: In this comedy, an amnesiac takes off with a young woman. This causes the woman's father to hire a detective to find them. Real mayhem ensues when a nightclub owner/gangster gets involved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

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

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

15 Maiden Lane

Actors: Claire Trevor, Cesar Romero, Douglas Fowley, Lloyd Nolan, Lester Matthews

Synopsis: Hoping to prove to her insurance-investigator uncle that she's a good detective in her own right, Jane Martin (Claire Trevor) pretends to be a jewel thief so that she can infiltrate a criminal gang. She quickly ingratiates herself with suave but deadly crook Frank Peyton (Cesar Romero), and before Read More

Bunker Bean

Actors: Owen Davis, Jr., Louise Latimer, Robert McWade, Jessie Ralph, Eddie Nugent

Synopsis: Owen Davis Jr. plays Bunker Bean, a meek and mild office worker who loves the boss' daughter (Louise Latimer) from afar. Bunker impulsively visits a mystic, who gazes into a crystal ball and determines that Mr. Bean is the reincarnation of such past leaders of men as Napoleon and an Egyptian 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

Woman Trap

Actors: Gertrude Michael, George Murphy, Akim Tamiroff, Sidney Blackmer, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: A gangland murder is the motivating factor of this fast-moving crime drama. George Murphy stars as reporter Kent Shevlin, whose investigation of the murder leads to a tenure as a temporary FBI agent. His subsequent adventures lead him to Mexico, where he makes the acquaintance of Ramirez (Akim Tamiroff 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

Laughing Irish Eyes

Actors: Phil Regan, Walter "Judge" Kelly, Evelyn Knapp, Ray Walker, Mary Gordon

Synopsis: Singer-bandleader Phil Regan, Republic Pictures's answer to Dick Powell, stars in Laughing Irish Eyes. Regan plays Danny O'Keefe, a pugnacious County Cork blacksmith who rises to prizefighting fame in the U.S. Fight manager Pat Kelly (Walter C. Kelly) isn't above using his pretty daughter Peggy (Evelyn Knapp Read More

Spendthrift

Actors: Henry Fonda, Pat Paterson, Mary Brian, June Brewster, George Barbier

Synopsis: Spendthrift gives the modern viewer a pretty good idea how Hollywood planned to "mold" the image of new star Henry Fonda. The Lanky One is cast as a profligate, polo-playing playboy, married to a beautiful but superficial heiress (Mary Brian). They divorce, and the wife gets all the money. But the Read More

Honeymoon Limited

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Irene Hervey, Lloyd Hughes, Russell Hicks, Lorin Raker

Synopsis: In this drama, a writer, dissatisfied with his flagging career, decides to raise some money by walking from New York to San Francisco in six months. Along the way, he will be writing about the experience. One of his buddies bets that the writer won't make it, and this makes him even more Read More

Hearts in Bondage

Actors: James Dunn, Mae Clarke, David Manners, Charlotte Henry, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: First-time director Lew Ayres performs miracles on a tiny budget in the Civil War drama Hearts in Bondage. The story offers a romanticized version of the events leading up to the battle between the "ironclads" Monitor and Merrimac. Northern naval officer Kenneth (James Dunn), the nephew of Monitor Read More

The Sea Spoilers

Actors: John Wayne, Nan Grey, William Bakewell, Fuzzy Knight, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: John Wayne steered clear of westerns for the most part during his year-long contract with Universal Pictures. In The Sea Spoilers, Wayne is cast as Bob Randall, temporary skipper of a Coast Guard cutter. Randall knows that a gang of seal poachers are operating within his jurisdiction but can do Read More

Fatal Lady

Actors: Mary Ellis, Walter Pidgeon, Ruth Donnelly, Norman Foster, Guy Bates Post

Synopsis: Mary Ellis, Paramount's answer to Columbia's Grace Moore, stars in the title role in this musical melodrama/whodunit. When her fiancé dies under mysterious circumstances, neophyte opera diva Mary Stuart (Ellis) flees to South America, assumes a new identity, and obtains a position with a local Read More

Devil Dogs of the Air

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Margaret Lindsay, Frank McHugh, Helen Lowell

Synopsis: Warner Bros.' Devil Dogs of the Air is very much a "formula" picture -- but what a wonderful formula it is! James Cagney plays reckless stunt flyer Tommy O'Toole, who is encouraged to join the Marine Flying Corps by his old Brooklyn buddy Lt. William Brannigan (Pat O'Brien). An undeniably talented Read More

The Woman in Red

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Raymond, Genevieve Tobin, Phillip Reed

Synopsis: In this romantic drama, a horsewoman is forced to work in a society dame's stable. There she meets and falls in love with a destitute polo-player who has curried the favor of his lovely employer. The matron gets jealous of the budding relationship between the horsewoman and the player. A wealthy Read More

While the Patient Slept

Actors: Aline MacMahon, Guy Kibbee, Lyle Talbot, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: Based on a mystery novel by Mignon Eberhardt, While the Patient Slept stars Aline MacMahon as Eberhardt's middle-aged amateur sleuth, Nurse Sarah Keate. Our heroine is summoned to the home of millionaire Adolphe Federie (Robert H. Barrat), who has suffered a stroke. Federie sleeps through an Read More

Living on Velvet

Actors: Kay Francis, George Brent, Warren William, Helen Lowell

Synopsis: In this drama, an amateur pilot is driven to living life in the fast lane after he pilots that plane that crashed and killed his parents and his sister. He goes on to marry. He and his new wife live in terrible conditions until he suddenly inherits $8,000 which he uses to buy a plane and start up Read More

Sweet Music

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Ann Dvorak, Ned Sparks, Helen Morgan, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: Rudy Vallee made his third feature-film starring appearance in the breezy Warner Bros. musical Sweet Music. Vallee is appropriately cast as singer-bandleader Skip Houston, who falls in love with aspiring dancer Bonnie Haydon (Ann Dvorak). Though Bonnie feels the same way about Skip, the two leads Read More

$1,000 a Minute

Actors: Roger Pryor, Leila Hyams, Edgar Kennedy, Edward S. Brophy, Purnell Pratt

Synopsis: Two rich and wealthy millionaires who have a lot of money bet that reporter Robert Pryor can't spend $720,000 in twelve hours. If you're asking "Why $720,000?", the answer is: because this Republic programmer is titled $1000 a Minute . Anyway, a couple of cops spot Pryor flashing a roll of bills Read More

Millions in the Air

Actors: John Howard, Willie Howard, Robert Cummings, Inez Courtney

Synopsis: The title doesn't refer to mosquitoes but to the amount of money that could be earned in the radio business of the 1930s. Samuel S. Hinds plays a Major Bowes-type entrepreneur who sponsors a weekly radio amateur contest. Hinds' daughter Wendy Barrie has show-biz aspirations, but dad won't hear of Read More

Lady Tubbs

Actors: Alice Brady, Douglass Montgomery, Anita Louise, Alan Mowbray, Minor Watson

Synopsis: A variation on the Lady for a Day theme, Universal's Lady Tubbs stars Alice Brady as Henrietta "Mom" Tubbs, the no-nonsense cook in a rowdy railroad construction camp. Upon inheriting a fortune, Mom Tubbs trains herself to enter high society, not so much for her sake as for that of her pretty Read More

Ladies Crave Excitement

Actors: Norman Foster, Evelyn Knapp, Esther Ralston, Eric Linden, Purnell Pratt

Synopsis: Perhaps the best of Mascot Pictures' feature-film releases, Ladies Crave Excitement is also one of the fastest 69 minutes ever put on film. Norman Foster and Eddie Nugent play Don and Bob, a pair of ace newsreel cameraman for The March of Events, forever keeping one step ahead of their Read More

Ladies Love Danger

Actors: Mona Barrie, Gilbert Roland, Donald Cook, Adrienne Ames, Hardie Albright

Synopsis: Hoping to finish his latest play in peace, writer Ricardo Souchet (Gilbert Roland) loses his train of thought when dizzy blonde reporter Rita (Mona Barrie) invades his apartment. Before long, Rita has gotten Ricardo involved in a series of murders amongst the theater folk. When the police prove Read More

Grand Exit

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Ann Sothern, Onslow Stevens, Robert Middlemass, Wryley Birch

Synopsis: Insurance investigator Tom Fletcher (Edmund Lowe) is hot on the trail of an arsonist (please excuse the pun). He is helped along by his dedicated assistant John Grayson (Onslow Stevens), and to a lesser extent by Fire Chief Mulligan (Robert Middlemass). Because Fletcher always demands a huge fee Read More

Charlie Chan in Shanghai

Actors: Warner Oland, Irene Hervey, Jon Hall, Charles Locher, Russell Hicks, Keye Luke

Synopsis: After wrapping up his last case in Egypt, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) heads to Shanghai for a well-deserved rest. It isn't long, however, before Chan has been summoned by the local constabulary to help smash an international dope ring. He is aided by erudite American intelligence agent James Read More

Go into Your Dance

Actors: Al Jolson, Ruby Keeler, Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Helen Morgan, Patsy Kelly

Synopsis: Broadway legend Al Jolson and his second wife Ruby Keeler costarred in this thin backstage musical. In keeping with Jolson's earlier starring films, the plotline is melodramatic to the point of risibility. Jolson plays an irresponsible performer whose unprofessional antics incur the wrath of Read More

Thanks a Million

Actors: Dick Powell, Ann Dvorak, Fred Allen, Patsy Kelly, Raymond Walburn

Synopsis: A sharp satire of small-town politics, Thanks a Million stars Dick Powell as the leading man of a travelling musical show. During a short stopover, the troupe witnesses a political rally where a pompous candidate (Raymond Walburn) is wallowing in ineptitude. Sensing a quick-buck opportunity, the Read More

Dante's Inferno

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Claire Trevor, Rita Hayworth, Alan Dinehart, Scotty Beckett

Synopsis: Carnival barker Spencer Tracy befriends elderly concessionaire Henry B. Walthall, who owns a picturesque but stodgy display depicting Dante's Inferno. Walthall is more interested in the spiritual aspects of Man's fascination with Hell, but Tracy uses hoopla and exaggeration to get the suckers into Read More

Thunder in the Night

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Karen Morley, Paul Cavanagh, Una O'Connor, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: Most of the Fox productions of the 1930s had a "continental" flavor, and Thunder in the Night was no exception. Edmund Lowe stars as amorous Budapest police captain Torok, whose best friend Count Alvinczy (Paul Cavanaugh) has just been elected president of the Hungarian cabinet. When Alvinczy's Read More

The Secret Bride

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Warren William, Glenda Farrell, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: The Secret Bride is Ruth Vincent (Barbara Stanwyck), the daughter of Governor Vincent (Arthur Byron). Attorney general Robert Sheldon (Warren William) falls in love with Ruth and they marry, but Sheldon insists that their marriage be kept secret. It seems that the Governor has been accused of Read More

Cardinal Richelieu

Actors: George Arliss, Halliwell Hobbes, Edward Arnold, Katherine Alexander

Synopsis: Released generally as Cardinal Richelieu, this George Arliss vehicle was based on the popular 19th-century blank-verse play by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Downplaying the more villainous aspects of the character, Arliss portrays Richelieu as a dry-witted foxy-grandpa type, manipulating the Read More

The Firebird

Actors: Veree Teasdale, Ricardo Cortez, Lionel Atwill, Anita Louise, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: All but forgotten today, Warner Bros.' The Firebird was based on a once-popular stage mystery by Lajos Zilhany. Prohibited from seeing her actor sweetheart Herman Brandt (Ricardo Cortez) by her tyrannical parents, sweet young Vienesse lass Mariette (Anita Louise) defies authority by regularly Read More

The St. Louis Kid

Actors: James Cagney, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins, Robert H. Barrat, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: James Cagney manages to retain his pre-Code cockiness within post-Code limitations in the likeable St. Louis Kid. Cagney and Allen Jenkins, Eddie Kennedy, and Buck Willetts play long-distance truck drivers who get entangled in a battle between a crooked trucking firm and striking milk farmers (a Read More

Enlighten Thy Daughter

Actors: Herbert Rawlinson, Charles Eaton, Claire Whitney, Edmund MacDonald

Synopsis: The late "B"-picture historian Don Miller once referred to the "teenage sex" exploitationers of the 1930s as the "Enlighten Thy Daughter-type film." A remake of the 1917 picture of the same name, the 1934 version of Enlighten thy Daughter stars Herbert Rawlinson as Dr. Richard Stevenson, who for Read More

Gentlemen Are Born

Actors: Franchot Tone, Jean Muir, Margaret Lindsay, Ann Dvorak, Ross Alexander

Synopsis: Film historian William K. Everson once referred to Warner Bros.' Gentleman are Born as an all-male precursor to Mary McCarthy's The Group. The story focuses on a tight-knit quartet of friends, all of whom graduate from college on the same day. Determined to "change the world" while keeping their Read More

The Case of the Howling Dog

Actors: Warren William, Mary Astor, Helen Trenholme, Allen Jenkins, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: Two wealthy neighbors, who make no secret of despising one another, both claim that they're married to Bessie Foley (Mary Astor). When one of the claimants is murdered, Bessie is the prime suspect. Brilliant defense counsel Perry Mason (Warren William), whose spacious offices look like something Read More

Happiness Ahead

Actors: Dick Powell, Frank McHugh, Josephine Hutchinson, John Halliday, Dorothy Dare

Synopsis: Josephine Hutchinson is a beautiful heiress bored by her stifling lifestyle. She bolts her family mansion on New Years' Eve and heads for a boisterous nightclub, where she meets blue-collar worker Dick Powell. Hutchinson pretends to be poor, and soon she and Powell are pitching woo. Powell has Read More

Murder in the Clouds

Actors: Lyle Talbot, Ann Dvorak, Gordon Westcott, Robert Light, George Cooper

Synopsis: Lyle Talbot stars as "Three Star" Halsey, a hotshot West Coast aviator with a reputation for recklessness. Time and time again, Halsey promises his stewardess sweetheart Judy Wagner (Ann Dvorak) that he'll stop taking risks, and time and again he breaks his word. After several misadventures Read More

Babbitt

Actors: Aline MacMahon, Guy Kibbee, Claire Dodd, Maxine Doyle, Glen Boles

Synopsis: Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis' satirical novel of the American "middle class" was first filmed as a silent in 1924, then as a talkie ten years later. In this second version, Guy Kibbee portrays George Babbitt, a small town businessman whose sense of self-importance has turned him into a pompous ass. Read More

Before Morning

Actors: Leo Carrillo, Lora Baxter, Taylor Holmes, Louise Prussing

Synopsis: Based on a 1933 play, this mediocre whodunit was independently produced in New York City with a Broadway cast. Lora Baxter plays Elsie Manning, a famous actress who suddenly finds herself stuck with the dead body of her former lover, James Nichols (Russell Hicks). Dr. Gruelle (Leo Carrillo) offers Read More