Sid SaylorFilmography

Perry Mason: The Case of the Torrid Tapestry

Synopsis: Framed for setting fire to a warehouse containing the famous Nathan Claver art collection, Claude Demay (Robert H. Harris) is released from prison after six years. With vengenace on his mind, Claude plans to use a forgery of a "lost" Panamaker tapestry to prove that Leonard Voss (John Holland) is Read More

Maverick: The Saga of Waco Williams

Synopsis: Wayde Preston took a break from his starring duties on the Warner Bros. western series Colt. 45 for a guest stint in this episode of Maverick. Preston is cast as Waco Williams, a trigger-happy gent who manages to get into trouble even when he goes out of the way to avoid it. Riding into Bent City Read More

Escort West

Actors: Victor Mature, Elaine Stewart, Faith Domergue, Reba Waters

Synopsis: This trite, low-budget western stars Victor Mature as Ben Lassiter, a former Confederate soldier who is traveling to the Western U.S. with his daughter Abbey (Reba Waters) just after the Civil War. Their journey is interrupted by a group of Union soldiers on patrol and the recent war casts its Read More

Dragnet: The Big Infant

Synopsis: Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) investigate the theft of a car containing a baby. The car is ultimately found abandoned, but the baby has completely disappeared. Following the trail of clues, the two detectives determine that a pair of juvenile delinquents may know something about the Read More

Maverick: The Burning Sky

Synopsis: Bart (Jack Kelly) is one of several stagecoach passengers who are attacked by the Apaches. With their coach destroyed, the hapless passengers are left stranding in the desert, under a blazing sun. The others insists that Bart strike out on his own and seek out help--an assignment that borders on Read More

Maverick: Shady Deal at Sunny Acres

Synopsis: In one of Maverick's all-time greatest episodes, Bret (James Garner) is cheated out of $15,000 by "respectable" banker John Bates (John Dehner). Since Bret is unable to reclaim the money through legal means, his brother Bart (Jack Kelly) devises an elaborate sting operation to beat Bates at his Read More

Maverick: Prey of the Cat

Synopsis: After suffering a broken leg, Bart (Jack Kelly) convalesces at the ranch owned by Pete Stillman (Wayne Morris) and his much-younger wife Kitty (Patricia Barry). Fascinated by Bart, Kitty tries to get him mixed up in a scheme to murder her husband. At the same time, Raquel Morales (Yvette Duguay) Read More

Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend

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

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

The Spirit of St. Louis

Actors: James Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith, Bartlett Robinson, Marc Connelly

Synopsis: A misfire for all concerned, The Spirit of St. Louis can be chalked up as a courageous failure. At age 48, James Stewart was far too old to be convincing as 27-year-old "Lone Eagle" Charles Lindbergh. Director Billy Wilder, a past master of cynical pessimism, was clearly the wrong choice to helm Read More

Dragnet: The Big Yak

Synopsis: $1200 in cash and various other items of value have been stolen from a restaurant safe. Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) do their best to find both the crook and the loot, but their investigation goes nowhere until they receive a phoned-in tip from a garrolous old woman. Featured in Read More

The Toughest Man Alive

Actors: Dane Clark, Lita Milan, Anthony Caruso, Ross Elliott, Myrna Dell

Synopsis: This adventurous crime drama is set in exotic Latin America and chronicles a lawman's attempt to bust up the ring of Yankee gun-smugglers who have been supplying arms to war-torn Central America. To stop them, the American agent must masquerade as a smuggler and join the gang. Meanwhile a young Read More

Three Hours to Kill

Actors: Dana Andrews, Donna Reed, Dianne Foster, Richard Coogan

Synopsis: Three Hours to Kill is a "message" Western that manages to entertain without preaching. Jim Guthrie (Dana Andrews), unjustly accused of murder, is forced out of town by an angry mob. After several tough years living off the land, Guthrie returns to clear his name. Fearing that Guthrie is out for Read More

The Gabby Hayes Show: Episode 2

The Redhead from Wyoming

Actors: Maureen O'Hara, Alex Nicol, Robert Strauss, William Bishop, Alexander Scourby

Synopsis: The title character of this western can only be one of two actresses: Maureen O'Hara or Rhonda Fleming. But Fleming apparently had something else to do, so O'Hara won the coin-toss. She plays a dance-hall gal who protects the identity of a cattle rustler--mainly because she's the same crooked Read More

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Mari Blanchard, Robert Paige, Horace McMahon

Synopsis: They don't really go to Mars, they go to Venus, but first they go to New Orleans. While working at a missile base, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello inadvertently launch a rocket ship with themselves aboard. After a wild ride around New York City (the Statue of Liberty ducks when the rocket heads her Read More

The Tall Texan

Actors: Lloyd Bridges, Lee J. Cobb, Marie Windsor, Luther Adler, Sid Saylor

Synopsis: Elmo Williams, the veteran Hollywood film editor who gained fame for his work on High Noon, serves as director of the medium-budget western The Tall Texan. Lloyd Bridges plays the title character, a convicted murderer named Ben Trask. While being escorted to prison, Trask talks his captors into Read More

The Hawk of Wild River

Actors: Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, Jock Mahoney, Clayton Moore

Synopsis: By virtue of the popularity of his TV series The Range Rider, Jack (later Jock) Mahoney is afforded almost as much screen time in Hawk of the Wild River as the film's official star Charles Starrett. In fact, since Mahoney doubles for Starrett in certain sequences, it could be argued that his part Read More

Belles on Their Toes

Actors: Jeanne Crain, Myrna Loy, Debra Paget, Jeffrey Hunter, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Myrna Loy returns as Mrs. Gilbreth -- efficiency expert, industrial engineer, and mother of twelve -- in this sequel to Cheaper By The Dozen. After the death of her husband, Gilbreth is forced to take over as the family's primary breadwinner, but she soon discovers that not every company who hired Read More

The Las Vegas Story

Actors: Jane Russell, Victor Mature, Vincent Price, Hoagy Carmichael, Brad Dexter

Synopsis: The Las Vegas Story features two of Hollywood's most impressive physiques. Victor Mature stars as Dave Andrews, a gambler, while Jane Russell plays Linda, the love of his life. Assuming that Andrews has forgotten her, Linda marries Lloyd Rollins (Vincent Price) on the rebound. All three main Read More

Wagon Team

Actors: Gene Autry, Pat Buttram, Gail Davis, Dick Jones, Gordon Jones

Synopsis: Gene Autry goes undercover once again in this rather pedestrian western from Columbia Pictures. Suspecting jailed youth Dave Weldon (Dick Jones) of complicity in an army payroll heist, special investigator Autry has himself jailed. He quickly discovers that there is more to the case than meets the Read More

Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Charles Laughton, Hillary Brooke, Bill Shirley

Synopsis: Though out of favor with many Abbott and Costello buffs, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd is actually a lot of fun, so long as the viewer parks logic and dignity at the door. Captain Kidd is played by no less than Charles Laughton, who reportedly agreed to sign up for this film because he Read More

The Adventures of Superman: The Case of the Talkative Dummy

Synopsis: The staff of the "Daily Planet" investigates when several armored trucks are hijacked in Metropolis. It turns out that the thieves are being supplied with information concerning the truck's routes by a specially rigged ventriloquist's dummy. Stumbling on to vital evidence, cub reporter Jimmy Olsen Read More

The Greatest Show on Earth

Actors: Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Grahame

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth is a lavish tribute to circuses, featuring three intertwining plotlines concerning romance and rivalry beneath the big top. DeMille's film includes spectacular action sequences, including a show-stopping train wreck. The Greatest Show on Earth won Read More

Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair

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

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

The Old West

Actors: Gene Autry, Pat Buttram, Gail Davis, Lyle Talbot, Louis Jean Heydt

Synopsis: Gene Autry was clearly tiring of the rigors of moviemaking by the time he starred in The Old West. Even so, Autry gives his all to this story of frontier religiosity. Left for dead in an outlaw ambush, Gene is nursed back to health by a travelling parson (House Peters Sr.) Our hero decides to help Read More

Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man

Actors: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Nancy Guild, Arthur Franz, Adele Jergens

Synopsis: The best of Universal-International's followups to Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man casts Bud and Lou as mail-order private eyes. The boys champion the cause of boxer Arthur Franz, who has been framed for murder. Utilizing the formula created by Claude Rains Read More

Valley of Fire

Actors: Gene Autry, Pat Buttram, Gail Davis, Russell Hayden, Christine Larson

Synopsis: Valley of Fire is a fairly gutsy title for this formula Gene Autry western. This time, Autry plays the reform-minded mayor of a wide-open western town. The villain of the piece, Tod Rawlings (Harry Lauter), decides to undermine Gene by convincing a band of disreputable miners to hijack a wagon Read More

The Jackpot

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

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

Mule Train

Actors: Gene Autry, Pat Buttram, Sheila Ryan, Robert Livingston, Frank Jaquet

Synopsis: Though the hit song "Mule Train" is most closely associated with Frankie Laine, it was Gene Autry who first sang the tune on film, in a picture titled ... what else? .... Mule Train. This time, Autry plays a federal marshal who comes to the aid of a grizzled old prospector who has been framed for Read More

Cheaper by the Dozen

Actors: Clifton Webb, Jeanne Crain, Myrna Loy, Edgar Buchanan

Synopsis: Even allowing for the fact that it owed its existence to the popularity of Life with Father (1947), Cheaper by the Dozen is one of the freshest, funniest and most enduring "family" films ever to emerge from Hollywood. Based on the autobiographical novel by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Read More

The Fuller Brush Girl

Actors: Lucille Ball, Eddie Albert, Carl Benton Reid, Gale Robbins, Jeff Donnell

Synopsis: Hot on the heels of such Red Skelton slapstick comedies as The Fuller Brush Man and The Yellow Cab Man came The Fuller Brush Girl, starring Lucille Ball in a fascinating dry run for her wacky "Lucy Ricardo" TV character. Unable to hold a job because of her tendency to get into trouble, Sally Read More

Three Little Words

Actors: Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Vera-Ellen, Arlene Dahl, Keenan Wynn

Synopsis: MGM's Three Little Words is a "twin" musical biopic, covering the lives and careers of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Fred Astaire plays Kalmar, a frustrated magician, while Red Skelton is cast as Ruby, a wannabe baseball player. After "meeting cute" during a disastrous vaudeville show Read More

Big Jack

Actors: Wallace Beery, Richard Conte, Marjorie Main, Edward Arnold, Vanessa Brown

Synopsis: Wallace Beery's final film was the curiously endearing "black comedy" Big Jack. Set in 1820, a time when "science was a crime and crime not yet a science," the film casts Beery and Marjorie Main as outlaws Big Jack Horner and Flapjack Kate. The two bandits rescue visionary young doctor Alexander Read More

Dancing in the Dark

Actors: William Powell, Mark Stevens, Betsy Drake, Adolphe Menjou, Randy Stuart

Synopsis: This musical comedy stars William Powell as Emery Slade, who was once a major film star but lately isn't getting much work. Arrogantly determined to climb back to the top, Slade convinces studio chief Melville Crossman (Adolphe Menjou) to give him the male lead in the film version of a Broadway Read More

Miss Grant Takes Richmond

Actors: Lucille Ball, William Holden, Janis Carter, James Gleason, Gloria Henry

Synopsis: Lucille Ball is Miss Grant, an efficient but naïve secretary hired by William Holden. Ostensibly a legit real estate salesman, Holden is actually the brains of a bookie ring. It takes forever for Ball to tumble to what's going on, but when she does she settles matters in the same fashion as her Read More

The Stratton Story

Actors: James Stewart, June Allyson, Frank Morgan, Agnes Moorehead, Bill Williams

Synopsis: Both Van Johnson and Gregory Peck were considered for the role of baseball star Monty Stratton in the 1949 biopic The Stratton Story before settling upon the real Stratton's own first choice, James Stewart. The film covers several years in the 1930s, as Texas farm boy Stratton rises from the Read More

Racing Luck

Actors: Gloria Henry, Stanley Clements, David Bruce, Paula Raymond, Harry V. Cheshire

Synopsis: Years before she played Dennis Mitchell's mom in TV's Dennis the Menace, Gloria Henry was a B-picture ingenue at Columbia. In Racing Luck, Gloria is top-billed as Phyllis Warren, sister of headstrong jockey Boots Warren (Stanley Clements). There's plenty of stock racetrack footage, intermingled Read More

The Snake Pit

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

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

Family Honeymoon

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Rita Johnson, William Daniels, Gigi Perreau, Jimmy Hunt

Synopsis: In this family farce, an older couple falls in love and decide to marry and embark upon a peaceful honeymoon without the bride's three bratty children. Unfortunately, the way things work out, the whole family ends up tagging along. The little darlings are less than pleased that their widowed Read More

Isn't It Romantic?

Actors: Veronica Lake, Mona Freeman, Mary Hatcher, Billy De Wolfe, Roland Culver

Synopsis: One of the more popular movie-review paperbacks sums up Paramount's Isn't it Romantic? with a terse "No." There's actually more to the film than that, but not much. Set in Indiana in the 1890s, the story revolves around an diehard Confederate soldier named Major Euclid Cameron (Rolan Culver), who Read More

If You Knew Susie

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Joan Davis, Allyn Joslyn, Charles Dingle, Phil Brown

Synopsis: Hoping for a success commensurate with his previous Show Business (1945), comedian Eddie Cantor poured a lot of his own money into the RKO Radio musical If You Knew Susie. Cantor and his Show Business co-star Joan Davis are reteamed herein as ex-vaudevillians Sam and Susie Parker, who retire to a Read More

Sleep, My Love

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Robert Cummings, Don Ameche, Hazel Brooks, Rita Johnson, George Coulouris

Synopsis: This noir mystery thriller was produced by Mary Pickford and her husband Buddy Rogers, and directed by Douglas Sirk. Claudette Colbert stars as Alison Courtland, a wealthy New York socialite who awakens on a Boston-bound train with no memory of how she got there. A kindly older woman, Mrs. Read More

The Paleface

Actors: Bob Hope, Jane Russell, Robert Armstrong, Iris Adrian, Robert "Bobby" Watson

Synopsis: Bob Hope's Technicolor western spoof The Paleface was one of the comedian's biggest box-office hits. Hope plays Painless Potter, a hopelessly inept dentist who heads west to seek his fortune. Meanwhile, buxom female outlaw Calamity Jane (Jane Russell) is engaged in undercover work on behalf of the Read More

Triple Threat

Actors: Richard Crane, Gloria Henry, Mary Stuart, John Litel, Pat Phelan

Synopsis: Two future TV favorites--Rocky Jones' Richard Crane and Dennis the Menace's Gloria Henry-head the cast of Columbia's Triple Threat. Crane plays Don Whitney, an egocentric college football hero who receives a good strong dose of reality when he joins a professional team. Whitney's game really Read More

The Miracle of the Bells

Actors: Philip Ahn, Lee J. Cobb, Fred MacMurray, Charles Meredith, Veronika Pataky

Synopsis: Casting Frank Sinatra as a Pennsylvania priest is but one of the many miscalculations made by the producers of Miracle of the Bells. Adapted by Ben Hecht and Quentin Reynolds from the best-selling novel by Russell Janney, the story revolves around an aspiring actress named Olga Treskovna (Alida Valli Read More

Sitting Pretty

Actors: Robert Young, Maureen O'Hara, Charles Arnt, Clifton Webb, Ken Christy, Richard Haydn, Mary Field, Ed Begley, Sr., Louise Allbritton

Synopsis: Clifton Webb has the role of a lifetime as Lynn Belvedere, self-styled genius and expert on everything. Belvedere accepts the job of baby-sitting the troublesome children of Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara; he wins the job by calmly dumping a bowl of cold oatmeal on the head of the couple's most Read More

The Prince of Thieves

Actors: Jon Hall, Patricia Morison, Adele Jergens, Alan Mowbray, Michael Duane

Synopsis: The daring Robin Hood and his loyal Merry Men attempt to save Maid Marian and her brother from the evil clutches of the Sheriff of Nottingham in this adventure aimed at younger audiences. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Dead Reckoning

Actors: James Bell, Humphrey Bogart, Lizabeth Scott, Morris Carnovsky, William Prince, George Chandler, Charles Cane, Wallace Ford, Marvin Miller

Synopsis: In Dead Reckoning, Rip Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) recites the film's plotline to a priest in the confessional. Murdock and Johnny Drake (William Prince) are Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, en route to Washington by train. Drake hops off and disappears, leading Murdock on a hectic manhunt. Read More

Unconquered

Actors: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, Boris Karloff, Katherine de Mille, Ward Bond

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's first postwar production, the $5 million Technicolor historical spectacular Unconquered lacks only the kitchen sink. The story begins in England in the 1760s, as Abigail Martha Hale (Paulette Goddard), unjustly accused of a crime against the Crown, is sentenced by the Lord Chief Read More

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Actors: Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff, Fay Bainter, Ann Rutherford

Synopsis: James Thurber wasn't too happy with the Sam Goldwyn film adaptation of his 1939 short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but the Technicolor musical comedy proved to be a cash cow at the box office. Danny Kaye stars as Walter, a milquetoast proofreader for a magazine publishing firm. Walter is Read More

Cross My Heart

Actors: Betty Hutton, Sonny Tufts, Ruth Donnelly, Al Bridge, Iris Adrian

Synopsis: True Confession was one of the unfunniest of the "screwball" comedies of the 1930s, and its musical remake, Cross My Heart, isn't much of an improvement. Betty Hutton steps into the old Carole Lombard role as Peggy, a compulsive liar who'll do anything to help her attorney fiance Oliver Clarke (Sonny Tufts Read More

Avalanche

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Roscoe Karns, Helen Mowery, Veda Ann Borg, Regina Wallace

Synopsis: Avalanche offers an IRS man as a hero, meaning that there isn't much chance of this particular film being remade! Treasury agents Steve Batchellor (Bruce Cabot) and Red Kelley (Roscoe Karns) head to a mountain resort in the dead of winter to arrest a tax-evading businessman. Upon cornering their Read More

Deadline for Murder

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

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

Thunder Town

Actors: Bob Steele, Sid Saylor, Ellen Hall, Bud Geary, Charles King

Synopsis: In his final starring Western for PRC, Bob Steele plays Jim Brandon who is imprisoned for a bank robbery and murder he didn't commit. Returning home on parole, Jim is ostracized by all and sundry, except Sheriff Warner (Steve Clark) and Betty Morgan (Ellen Hall), both of whom believe in his Read More

Ambush Trail

Actors: Budd Buster, Edward Cassidy, Frank Ellis, I. Stanford Jolley

Synopsis: One of four western films made for PRC by bantam-weight Bob Steele, Ambush Trail stars Steele as cowpoke Curley Thompson. The villain of the piece intends to bankrupt all the local ranchers and grab up the surrounding property for himself. But with Curley involved, the bad guy and his minions Read More

Six Gun Man

Actors: Bob Steele, Sid Saylor, Jim Martin, Jean Carlin, I. Stanford Jolley

Synopsis: Diminutive western hero Bob Steele stars in Six Gun Man. Steele plays federal marshal Bob Storm, who has been assigned to halt the activities of cattle rustlers. Given his previous movie track record, we'll wager that Bob also wants to avenge the death of his father. Jean Carlin is the ingenue, I. Read More

House of Horrors

Synopsis: This marked the first starring role for Rondo Hatton, previously seen in a few Sherlock Holmes films as the spine-snapping killer "The Oxton Creeper." Hatton, a giant of a man whose face was deformed by acromegaly, was luridly promoted by the studios as a "human monster" who required no makeup. Read More

The Navajo Kid

Actors: Bob Steele, Sid Saylor, Edward Cassidy, Caren Marsh, Stanley Blystone

Synopsis: A B-Western hero since the late silent era, Bob Steele would hang up his spurs after a final four westerns for director Harry L. Fraser. In the opener, The Navajo Kid, Steele, as he had so many times before, went in search of the villain, or villains, who murdered his foster-father and stole both Read More

The Kid from Brooklyn

Actors: Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran, Eve Arden

Synopsis: Danny Kaye's The Kid From Brooklyn is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of Harold Lloyd's The Milky Way (1936), with music and Technicolor added to the proceedings. Kaye is cast as timid milkman Burleigh Sullivan, who through a fluke knocks out prizefighting champion Speed McFarlane (Steve Read More

Her Favorite Patient

Actors: John Carroll, Ruth Hussey, Charlie Ruggles, Ann Rutherford, Claudia Drake

Synopsis: Her Favorite Patient is the TV title for Bedside Manner, an improbable comedy directed by future master of "realism" Andrew L. Stone. Ruth Hussey plays a big-city doctor who travels to a small town to assist her surgeon uncle (Charlie Ruggles). The townsfolk resist the notion of a female 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

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

On Stage Everybody

Actors: Peggy Ryan, Jack Oakie, Julie London

Synopsis: Jack Oakie and Peggy Ryan head the cast of the Universal "B plus" musical On Stage Everybody. As indicated by the title, this is a "Let's put on a big show" affair, set this time at a radio station. Veteran vaudevillian Michael Sullivan (Jack Oakie) refuses to admit that his brand of entertainment 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

Eve Knew Her Apples

Actors: Ann Miller, William Wright, Ray Walker, Charles D. Brown

Synopsis: Eve Knew Her Apples is an pinchpenny musical reworking of Frank Capra's Oscar-winning It Happened One Night. Musical star Ann Miller takes over the Claudette Colbert role; this time she's not a runaway heiress but a runaway radio star, escaping her stuffy fiance rather than her autocratic father. William Wright Read More

Murder, He Says

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Helen Walker, Marjorie Main, Porter Hall, Jean Heather

Synopsis: Though it comes on much too strong at times, Murder, He Says fully justifies its present "cult" status. Professional pollster Pete Marshall (Fred MacMurray) gets more than he bargained for when he heads to hillbilly country to investigate the disappearances of several of his colleagues. Poor Pete Read More

Brenda Starr, Reporter

Synopsis: Based on the popular comic strip by Dale Messick, this Sam Katzman-produced Columbia serial starred the beautiful and talented Joan Woodbury, an actress who never really lived up to her early potential. Brenda Starr, Reporter didn't exactly change that sad fact; a rather straightforward tale of a 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

Gaslight

Actors: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury

Synopsis: Ingrid Bergman won her first of three Oscars for this suspense thriller, crafted with surprising tautness by normally genteel "women's picture" director George Cukor. Bergman stars as Paula Alquist, a late 19th century English singer studying music in Italy. However, Paula abandons her studies Read More

Swingtime Johnny

Actors: Maxene Andrews, LaVerne Andrews, Peter Cookson

Synopsis: If one were forced to choose, Swingtime Johnny may well be the best of the Andrews Sisters' 1940 "B"-musicals. Patty, Maxine and Laverne Andrews play three popular singers (what a stretch!) who do their bit for Uncle Sam by landing jobs in a defense factory. When they're not hammering and Read More

Hey, Rookie

Actors: Ann Miller, Larry Parks, Joe Sawyer, Jimmy Little

Synopsis: Musical star Ann Miller plays a Broadway leading lady coaxed into reteaming with Larry Parks, her former producer. Parks is now a lowly Army G.I., anxious to produce a show for the troops--with a 200 dollar budget! This being a wartime musical, Ann Miller succumbs to Patriotism and stars in Parks' Read More

Once Upon a Time

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

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

Doughboys in Ireland

Synopsis: According to Doughboys in Ireland, there were those who sang their way through WW2. Radio tenor Kenny Baker plays Manhattan orchestra leading Danny O'Keefe, who is drafted into the army along with a Ritz Brothers-like quartet called The Jesters. Stationed in Ireland, Danny believes that his New Read More

So's Your Uncle

Actors: Billie Burke, Donald Woods, Elyse Knox, Frank Jenks

Synopsis: In this tuneful comedy, a would-be actor and playwright is deeply in debt, and to keep away from his creditors, begins pretending to be his aged uncle. Unfortunately he ends up getting hit by a limousine. The rich woman inside takes the wounded "codger" home to her manhungry old aunt. The actor Read More

Harvest Melody

Actors: Rosemary Lane, Johnny Downs, Sheldon Leonard, Charlotte Wynters, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: As PRC pictures go, the modest Harvest Melody is practically a spectacular. Rosemary Lane plays former film star Gilda Parker, who hopes to regain her popularity with a carefully staged publicity stunt. Aiming for the "rural" trade, Gilda goes to work on a farm at harvest time. At the behest of Read More

He Hired the Boss

Actors: Stuart Erwin, Evelyn Venable, Thurston Hall, Vivian Blaine, William Orr

Synopsis: In this comedy, a milque-toast bookkeeper buckles under his overbearing girl friend's constant nagging and begins investing his money so he won't have to wait for a raise from his boss. His girl friend pushes him, because she wants to marry him and he refuses to until he has enough money. Luckily Read More

Mug Town

Actors: Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Grace McDonald, Bernard Punsly

Synopsis: In this entry in the "Dead End Kids" series (later they would reappear as "The Bowery Boys") the lads encounter a terribly ill young boy while they stay in a rural boarding house. The lad tries hard to keep up with the lads as they sneak into a train yard and begin playing amongst the box cars. Read More

That Other Woman

Actors: Virginia Gilmore, James Ellison, Dan Duryea, Janis Carter, Alma Kruger

Synopsis: That Other Woman in this 20th Century-Fox programmer turns out to be Emily (Virginia Gilmore), faithful secretary to master architect Henry Summers (James Ellison). Hoping to trap her boss into marriage, Emily begins sending "mash notes" to Henry, purportedly from a mysterious female admirer. She 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

Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour

Actors: Jimmy Lydon, Charles Smith, John Litel, Olive Blakeney, Diana Lynn

Synopsis: Adenoidal teenager Henry Aldrich (James Lydon) "gets glamour" when he wins first prize in a movie-magazine contest. Before he quite knows what's happening, Henry is whisked to Hollywood for a date with glamorous "sarong girl" Hilary Dane (Frances Gifford). All of this coincides with a local 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

Yankee Doodle Dandy

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

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

A Gentleman at Heart

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

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

Time to Kill

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Heather Angel, Doris Merrick, Ralph Byrd, Richard Lane

Synopsis: Like most of 20th Century-Fox's "Michael Shayne"detective series, Time to Kill was based on a source other than Brett Halliday's Shayne stories. In this case, the inspiration was The High Window, a "Philip Marlowe" mystery novel by Raymond Chandler. Substituting for Marlowe, of course, is flippant Read More

True to the Army

Actors: Judy Canova, Allan Jones, Ann Miller, Jerry Colonna, William Demarest

Synopsis: In this musical comedy set during WW II, a circus aerialist desires to be closer to her lover, a soldier. When she finds herself chased by gangsters, the woman dresses up as a man and joins the military. Mayhem ensues as she tries to undergo training and keep her sex a secret. The secret is Read More

The Man in the Trunk

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

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

Wyoming Wildcat

Actors: Don "Red" Barry, Julie Duncan

Synopsis: Don "Red" Barry's first western of 1941, Wyoming Wildcat told the careworn but still potent story of a war veteran returning home to find that his father is now a wanted outlaw. But as Frank Gannon (Frank M. Thomas explains, circumstances -- in this case severe economic conditions forced upon the Read More

Sierra Sue

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Fay McKenzie, Robert E. Homans

Synopsis: In this Gene Autry Western, the valley is threatened by a weed capable of poisoning the cattle. When burning the range proves ineffectual, the local banker, Stacy Bromfield (Frank M. Thomas), sends for a government inspector in desperation. The inspector, played by Autry, quickly suggests spraying Read More

The Last of the Duanes

Actors: George Montgomery, Lynne Roberts, Eve Arden, Francis Ford, George E. Stone

Synopsis: With Paramount abandoning its "Zane Grey" western series in 1941, 20th Century-Fox took up the cudgel with such films as The Last of the Duanes. George Montgomery stars as Buck Duane, who in 1870 returns to his Texas hometown, only to find out that his father has been murdered. Following the most Read More

Nevada City

Actors: Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes, Sally Payne, George Cleveland, Billy Lee

Synopsis: Nevada City finds Roy Rogers and his perennial sidekick Gabby Hayes cast as stagecoach drivers. Their boss is Joseph Crehan, an ornery crust who can't abide the notion of the railroad cutting into his business. Roy and Gabby try to establish a détente between Crehan and railroad man George 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

Design for Scandal

Actors: Rosalind Russell, Walter Pidgeon, Lee Bowman, Jean Rogers, Mary Beth Hughes, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Rosalind Russell stars as a no-nonsense judge who dabbles in sculpting in her spare time. Walter Pidgeon costars as a reporter assigned to discredit Rosalind after she rules against his boss (Edward Arnold) in a divorce case. Pidgeon plans to frame the judge in a compromising situation, then Read More

H.M. Pulham, Esq.

Actors: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn, Van Heflin

Synopsis: MGM was doing so well in 1941 that it could afford the occasional "prestige" film with little box-office appeal. Based on the novel by J.P. Marquand, H.M. Pulham, Esq., stars Robert Young as a successful but stuffy Boston businessman. The glimmer of sadness in Young's eyes indicates that his Read More

Sunset in Wyoming

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, George Cleveland, Maris Wrixon, Robert Kent

Synopsis: Not to be confused with his later Home in Wyomin', Gene Autry's Sunset in Wyoming is essentially a musical with western interludes. This time, Autry champions the cause of a group of ranchers who are being victimized by the apparent megalomania of lumber baron George Cleveland. Upon palavering Read More

The Great American Broadcast

Actors: Alice Faye, Jack Oakie, John Payne, Cesar Romero, Four Ink Spots

Synopsis: On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of commercial radio, 20th Century-Fox cooked up the pageantlike entertainment The Great American Broadcast. Opening with clips of such airwaves favorites as Dick Powell and Fred Allen (courtesy of earlier Fox films like Thanks a Million), the picture Read More

Young People

Actors: Shirley Temple, Jack Oakie, Charlotte Greenwood, Arleen Whelan, George Montgomery

Synopsis: "Over the hill" at the tender age of 12, Shirley Temple closed out her 20th Century-Fox contract with the musical seriocomedy Young People. After years of trodding the boards in vaudeville, Wendy Ballantine (Temple) and her adoptive parents Joe (Jack Oakie) and Kit (Charlotte Greenwood retire) to Read More

Abe Lincoln in Illinois

Actors: Raymond Massey, Ruth Gordon, Gene Lockhart, Mary Howard, Dorothy Tree

Synopsis: Raymond Massey plays Abe Lincoln in this moving adaptation of Robert Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Expanded a bit for cinematic purposes, the film traces Lincoln's progress from his days of scrambling for a living as a woodsman, to his courtship of the tragic Ann Rutledge (Mary Howard) Read More

I Take This Woman

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, Veree Teasdale, Kent Taylor, Laraine Day

Synopsis: This soapy drama stars Hedy Lamarr as a would be model who meets a research doctor en route to the US from Europe. They meet when Dr. Spencer Tracy prevents her from taking a suicidal plunge from the upper decks of the ocean liner. It seems that Lamarr had been involved with married man Kent Read More

Arizona

Actors: William Holden, Jean Arthur, Warren William, Porter Hall, Paul Harvey

Synopsis: Wesley Ruggles's Arizona is an epic western set in an impoverished Arizona outpost. It tells the story of the feisty, no-nonsense Phoebe Titus (Jean Arthur). Wearing leather breeches, with a bullwhip and gun, she can out-shoot and out-fight nearly every bad hombre in town, and manages to transform Read More

Irene

Actors: Anna Neagle, Ray Milland, Roland Young, Alan Marshal, May Robson

Synopsis: In this remake of the 1926 silent hit (which was in turn based on a hit musical from 1919), Anna Neagle stars as Irene O'Dare, an Irish girl of humble beginnings who comes to New York in search of work. She finds a place as a shopgirl at a fashionable and expensive boutique managed by Mr. Smith (Roland Young Read More

Stand up and Fight

Actors: Wallace Beery, Robert Taylor, Florence Rice, Helen Broderick, Charles Bickford

Synopsis: Directed with customary haste by Woody Van Dyke, Stand Up and Fight is an excellent dual vehicle for veteran Wallace Beery and up-and-coming Robert Taylor. Set in the American west in the mid-19th century, the story concerns the efforts of empire-building Blake Cantrell (Taylor) to construct a 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

Let Freedom Ring

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

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

$1,000 a Touchdown

Actors: Joe E. Brown, Martha Raye, Eric Blore, Susan Hayward, John Hartley

Synopsis: This film should have been a press agent's dream: Hollywood's two greatest "big mouths," Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye, together in the same picture. Brown and Raye play a show business couple who inherit a near-bankrupt college. They decide to build up the school's scraggly football team in hopes Read More

Geronimo

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Ellen Drew, Andy Devine, Gene Lockhart, William Henry

Synopsis: The late cinema historian William K. Everson once wrote an article titled "Movies Out of Thin Air", referring to films that were comprised almost exclusively of stock footage from earlier productions. A prime example of this sort of patchwork entertainment is the 1939 Paramount production Read More

Pirates of the Skies

Actors: Kent Taylor, Rochelle Hudson, Lucien Littlefield, Ray Walker, Stanley Andrews

Synopsis: In this drama, a waitress leaves her husband after getting sick of being alone while her husband, a commercial pilot, plies his trade. To be near her, he quits his job and joins the state police air service. Unfortunately, he becomes mixed up in an interdepartmental rivalry between road-bound and 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

Golden Boy

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, Lee J. Cobb, Joseph Calleia

Synopsis: Director Rouben Mamoulian often claimed that he'd been inspired to make Golden Boy after reading a newspaper clipping about a recently deceased boxer. While Mamoulian may have genuinely believed that he was the true "auteur" of Golden Boy, he probably wouldn't have made the picture at all had not Clifford Odets Read More

Test Pilot

Actors: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Test Pilot is one of those irresistible MGM potboilers of the 1930s that coast along on sheer star power. Clark Gable plays a courageous test pilot, who compromises his achievements with his frequent bouts of drinking. Gable's mechanic, Spencer Tracy, does what he can to keep his boss out of 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

There Goes My Heart

Actors: Fredric March, Virginia Bruce, Patsy Kelly, Alan Mowbray, Nancy Carroll

Synopsis: Heiress Virginia Bruce tries to prove her worth by taking a job as a shopgirl in the store owned by her family. The pampered young lady is given a crash course in pragmatism by her worldly roommates Patsy Kelly and Nancy Carroll. Reporter Fredric March learns of Bruce's ruse and plans to tell all Read More

Strange Faces

Actors: Frank Jenks, Dorothea Kent, Andy Devine, Leon Ames, Mary Treen

Synopsis: After several years' faithful service in supporting parts, Frank Jenks and Dorothea Kent were promoted to leading roles in Universal's Strange Faces. Even so, it is fourth-billed Leon Ames who dominates the film, in the dual role of a notorious gangster and a respectable small-town citizen. Taking Read More

Crashin' Thru Danger

Actors: Ray Walker, Sally Blane, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, James Bush, Guy Usher

Synopsis: This poverty-row quickie stars Ray Walker, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, and James Bush as troubleshooting telephone linemen Torchy, Slim and Eddie. When their supervisor is killed, the boys offer to adopt the dead man's "little" daughter Ann (Sally Blane), actually a curvaceous young lady for whom Read More

The Law West of Tombstone

Actors: Harry Carey, Tim Holt, Evelyn Brent, Jean Rouverol, Clarence Kolb

Synopsis: Despite its title and its potent lineup of cowboy talent, RKO Radio's The Law West of Tombstone is more comedy than western. The characters are all based on famous frontier characters, with names changed to protect the producers. Harry Carey is cast against type as a blowhard Judge Roy Bean clone Read More

A Yank at Oxford

Actors: Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: A Yank at Oxford was filmed in England at MGM's "sister studio", Elstree. Robert Taylor plays Lee Sheridan, an arrogant young American scholar/athlete who intends to show the "Brits" a thing or two while attending Oxford University. His abrasive attitude grates against the Oxonian students, who 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

Forlorn River

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, June Martel, John Patterson, Harvey Stephens, Chester Conklin

Synopsis: Paramount's "Zane Grey" series continued rolling onward with 1937's Forlorn River. Larry "Buster" Crabbe, a regular in the Grey films, stars as Nevada, who in the company of his sidekick Weary Pierce (Sid Saylor) searches high and low for the outlaw gang run by Les Setter (Harvey Stephens). It's Read More

Wallaby Jim of the Islands

Synopsis: Set in the land Down Under but filmed at Sunland, CA, and on Catalina Island, this low-budget action-adventure stars one of the more forgotten of the singing cowboys, baritone George Houston. Fisherman Wallaby Jim has discovered a rich pearl bed, but his constant brawling gets him in trouble with Read More

The House of Secrets

Actors: Leslie Fenton, Muriel Evans, Noel Madison, Sidney Blackmer, Morgan Wallace

Synopsis: A young man is in danger of losing his inheritance in this muddled thriller from the waning Chesterfield Motion Picture Corp., a remake of the company's first talkie. After rescuing a pretty girl from a brute while crossing the English channel, Barry Wilding (Leslie Fenton) learns that he has Read More

The Wrong Road

Actors: Richard Cromwell, Helen Mack, Lionel Atwill, Russell Powell

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a young couple decides to rob the bank where the woman works as a teller. They get 100,000 dollars and hide it in a music box. Unfortunately, they are caught and sentenced to prison. Upon their release, the two hope that the money will still be in the little box, which they 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

Hell Town

Actors: John Wayne, Marsha Hunt, Johnny Mack Brown, John Patterson, Monte Blue

Synopsis: Paramount borrowed John Wayne from Republic Pictures for the studio's second screen version of Zane Grey's Born to the West, which was also the Western's original release title. A couple of drifters, Dare Rudd (Wayne) and Dinkie Hooley (Sid Saylor), arrive in a Wyoming town hoping for a handout 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

Time out for Romance

Actors: Claire Trevor, Michael Whalen, Joan Davis, Chick Chandler, Douglas Fowley

Synopsis: Scheduled to marry a man she doesn't love (and for good reason), spoiled heiress Barbara Blanchard (Claire Trevor) runs away from her wedding and hits the road. While hitchhiking, Trevor is given a ride by Bob Reynolds (Michael Whalen), a personable young auto salesman who's been hired to deliver Read More

Meet the Boy Friend

Actors: David Carlyle, Carolyn Hughes, Warren Hymer, Pert Kelton, Andrew Tombes

Synopsis: Before he "reinvented" himself as Robert Paige, actor David Carlyle headed the cast of Republic's Meet the Boy Friend. Paige/Carlyle plays radio crooner Tony Page, billed as "America's Boy Friend" (hence the title). Despite all the publicity hype, Tony is a "regular fellow" who despises the Read More

The Sea Serpent

Arizona Days

Actors: Tex Ritter, Ethelind Terry, Sid Saylor, William Faversham, Eleanor Stewart

Synopsis: In his third starring Western, former radio singer Tex Ritter played a minstrel performer turned tax collector! During a performance at the Tombstone, Arizona, opera house, Tex Malinson (Ritter) courageously goes up against Harry Price (Forrest Taylor) and his henchmen, who refuse to pay the price Read More

Exiled to Shanghai

Actors: Wallace Ford, June Travis, Dean Jagger, William Bakewell, Arthur Lake

Synopsis: Exiled to Shanghai uses the then-waging wars in Spain and China as backdrops for a familiar "rival reporters" yarn. Wallace Ford plays Ted Young, a brash newsreel cameraman who is fired by his dyspeptic editor Fred Sears (Dean Jagger) for photographing the wrong general during the Spanish Civil Read More

Guns in the Dark

Synopsis: Acting upon the belief that he accidentally murdered his best pal, a gunman swears never to draw his weapon again. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Wild and Woolly

Actors: Jane Withers, Walter Brennan, Pauline Moore, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Jackie Searl

Synopsis: Wild and Woolly stars young Jane Withers as a hoydenish resident of a modern frontier town. Revelling in the town's 50th anniversary celebration, Jane is brought down to earth by the long-standing feud between her ex-desperado grandfather (Walter Brennan) and a pompous politician (Berton Read More

The Sea Racketeers

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

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

Rose Bowl

Actors: Eleanore Whitney, Tom Brown, Larry "Buster" Crabbe, William Frawley, Ben Baker

Synopsis: Actual footage of the 1936 Rose Bowl game is cleverly (if not seamlessly) integrated into the action of this sports-oriented comedy. Longtime chums Paddy O'Reilly (Tom Brown) and Dutch Schultz (Benny Baker) may be heroes of the high-school gridiron, but they're persona non grata with the girls Read More

The Sky Parade

Actors: Jimmie Allen, William Gargan, Katherine de Mille, Kent Taylor, Grant Withers

Synopsis: In this airborne adventure, three pals from WW I team up to run a commercial airline. They have also been working on a new design for a plane and unbeknownst to them, enemy agents are watching them. Later a good-guy is assigned to stop the spies. During the exciting climax, the hero accomplishes Read More

Prison Shadows

Actors: Eddie Nugent, Lucille Lund, Joan Barclay, Forrest Taylor, Sid Saylor

Synopsis: Prison Shadows was put together by the Mercury Productions division of Puritan Pictures, the same folks responsible for the above-average horror thriller Rogue's Tavern. Eddie Nugent plays rising young boxer Gene Harris, who is thrown into jail on a manslaughter charge after one of his opponents Read More

His Brother's Wife

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, Jean Hersholt, Joseph Calleia, John Eldredge

Synopsis: In this polished soap opera from MGM, Robert Taylor plays Chris Claybourne, a dedicated scientist researching a possible cure for spotted fever. However, Chris has a dark side; he has a weakness for gambling and has fallen into debt with a gangster named Fish Eye (Joseph Calleia). While visiting Read More

Hitch Hike to Heaven

Actors: Henrietta Crosman, Herbert Rawlinson, Russell Gleason, Polly Ann Young, Al Shean

Synopsis: Virtually all of the Chesterfield Pictures efforts of the 1930s served as starring vehicles for Hollywood's best character actors. It was Henrietta Crossman who headed the cast of the 1936 Chesterfield production Hitch Hike to Heaven, sharing star billing with former silent-movie matinee idol Herbert Rawlinson Read More

Kelly of the Secret Service

Synopsis: A radio-controlled bomb accurate within 200 miles is the cause of much mayhem in this low-budget science fiction-thriller based on a story by pulp writer Peter B. Kyne. A hayseed prizefighter, Lefty (Fuzzy Knight), and his manager, Red (Syd Saylor), are hired by Dr. Marston (Forrest Taylor) to Read More

Headin' for the Rio Grande

Actors: Tex Ritter, Eleanor Stewart, Sid Saylor, Warner P. Richmond, Charles King

Synopsis: In his second "Range Rider" music Western for poverty row newcomer Grand National, Tex Ritter played Tex Saunders, the troubadour brother of the sheriff (Forrest Taylor) of Rio Grande, Texas. When Tex and sidekick Chilo (Syd Saylor) on behalf of Laurie Hart (Eleanor Stewart) begin to look into Read More

The Ex-Mrs. Bradford

Actors: William Powell, Jean Arthur, James Gleason, Eric Blore, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: The "ex" of the title is daffy mystery-writer Jean Arthur, former wife of urbane doctor William Powell. When Powell becomes the prime suspect in a murder case, Arthur endeavors to solve the case herself -- and to reclaim her ex-hubby in the process. After a well-directed semiclimax at a race Read More

The Three Mesquiteers

Actors: Robert Livingston, Sid Saylor, Kay Hughes

Synopsis: After a couple of false starts, William Colt MacDonald's "Three Mesquiteers" stories were converted into a western film series by Republic Studios. The Mesquiteers, a trio of wandering do-gooders, are muscular Tucson Smith, played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan; hotheaded Stony Brooke, played by Robert Livingston Read More

Kelly the Second

Actors: Patsy Kelly, Pert Kelton, Charley Chase, Edward S. Brophy

Synopsis: Produced by Hal Roach, Kelly the Second is one of the few feature films to capture the comic spirit of Roach's wonderful two-reelers. Patsy Kelly stars as Molly Kelly, who as the result of an unexpected street brawl becomes the trainer of truck-driver-turned-prizefighter Cecil Callahan (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams Read More

Fury

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sidney, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Fritz Lang's first American film is a vigorous and perceptive indictment of mob law, starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney. Katherine (Sidney) leaves her boyfriend, Joe Wilson (Tracy), behind in their Midwestern hometown when she takes a job in another city. Joe is a decent, hard-working soul Read More

Nevada

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Kathleen Burke, Sid Saylor, Monte Blue, William Duncan

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1927 with Gary Cooper and Thelma Todd, the Zane Grey story Nevada was remade in 1936 with Buster Crabbe and Kathleen Burke. Crabbe plays Nevada, a cattle-drive trail boss, while Burke is cast as Hettie Ide, who is brought into the story when Nevada rescues her from a runaway Read More

The Gorgeous Hussy

Actors: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Melvyn Douglas

Synopsis: The Gorgeous Hussy purports to be based on the life of Margaret "Peggy" O'Neill, the controversial wife of early 19th-century politician John Eaton, who served as cabinet minister during the Andrew Jackson presidency. Snubbed by the Washington elite because of her questionable background as a Read More

Rhythm on the Range

Actors: Bing Crosby, Frances Farmer, Martha Raye, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Bing Crosby's only western (outside of the 1966 version of Stagecoach), Rhythm on the Range stars Crosby as a casual cowpoke on his way back to the Wide Open Spaces after an eastern visit. He meets a young train stowaway (Frances Farmer), whom he regards as a hoydenish vagabond until learning that Read More

The Last Assignment

Branded a Coward

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Billie Seward, Roger Williams, Lloyd Ingraham, Sid Saylor, Bob Kortman

Synopsis: In his first of 16 Westerns for independent producer A.W. Hackel, Johnny Mack Brown is Branded a Coward when instead of preventing a saloon hold-up, he is spotted cowering behind the bar. The reason for Johnny Hume's reticence is to be found in his background: 20 years earlier, little Johnny was Read More

Wilderness Mail

Synopsis: In this off-beat outdoor adventure, a courageous Mountie braves the elements and many dangers to deliver mail to remote Northwestern outposts. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Fighting Coward

Synopsis: Based on a Peter B. Kyne short story, The Final Assignment (which was also the film's alternate title), Fighting Coward features silent-screen star William Farnum as Jim Horton, a former prison inmate falsely accused of killing a district attorney. Although engaged to his boss' daughter Marie Read More

Code of the Mounted

Synopsis: In this western about the adventures of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a fur trapper is robbed and killed by a local thug. Although he is caught by the Mounties and thrown in jail, his partner soon breaks him out. It turns out they are both part of a gang headed by a ruthless killer -- who is Read More

Star of Midnight

Actors: William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: This barely-disguised but effective riff on The Thin Man (1934) stars that film's lead, William Powell, opposite Ginger Rogers instead of Myrna Loy. Clay Dalzell (Powell) is a suave attorney fonder of solving crimes than trying cases. His elegant girlfriend, Donna (Rogers) hopes that Clay will 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

The Headline Woman

Actors: Heather Angel, Roger Pryor, Jack LaRue, Ford Sterling, Conway Tearle

Synopsis: This typically lightning-paced Mascot Studios production stars Heather Angel as the title character, a thrill-seeking socialite named Myrna Van Buren. During a raid on a gambling joint, Myrna witnesses the murder of gambler Johnny Corinti (Theodore Von Eltz). Hoping to get an exclusive story Read More

Goin' to Town

Actors: Mae West, Paul Cavanagh, Gilbert Emery, Ivan Lebedeff, Tito Coral, Marjorie Gateson

Synopsis: Mae West is Goin' to Town in this elegant post-Production Code vehicle. West plays Cleo Borden, a nouveau riche cattle rancher who hopes to crash into high society. Though she is willing to subject herself to "refinement" lessons, she still has a high old time puncturing the pretensions of those Read More

Young and Beautiful

Actors: William Haines, Judith Allen, Joseph Cawthorn, John Miljan

Synopsis: Produced by small-scale Mascot Pictures, this behind-the-scenes look at a now forgotten annual Hollywood event, the WAMPAS Baby Star selection, starred former MGM light leading man William Haines in his penultimate film role. Well cast as Bob Preston, the brash publicity director of Superba Read More

Mystery Mountain [Serial]

Actors: Ken Maynard, Tarzan the Horse, Verna Hillie, Edward Earle, Lynton Brent

Synopsis: In the first of two proposed serials for Mascot Pictures, Western hero Ken Maynard goes up against a murderous fiend known as "the Rattler." Wearing a strange disguise consisting of eye glasses, a fake nose, and crepe-hair mustache, the Rattler, aka "the Menace of the Mountain," attempts to Read More

The Dude Ranger

Actors: George O'Brien, Irene Hervey, LeRoy Mason, Henry Hall

Synopsis: In his first in a series of well-mounted Westerns and action melodramas for independent producer Sol Lesser, George O'Brien plays Ernest Selby, a young Easterner who cannot get rid of his inheritance -- an Arizona ranch -- soon enough. But when Sam Hepburn (Henry Hall), the wheelchair-bound Read More

When a Man Sees Red

Actors: Dorothy Revier, Peggy Campbell, LeRoy Mason, Sid Saylor, Libby Taylor

Synopsis: The second entry in Buck Jones' Universal western series, When a Man Sees Red casts Jones as the foreman of a ranch owned by a haughty Easterner (Peggy Campbell). Our hero tries to dissuade the pretty owner from taking up with an unsavory character (Leroy Mason), to no avail. Eventually, the lout Read More

Marrying Widows

Actors: Bert Roach, Sarah Padden, Nat Carr, Arthur Hoyt

Synopsis: Versatile character players Minna Gombell and Lucien Littlefield are afforded leading roles in the interesting Poverty-Row effort Marrying Widows. Littlefield plays a wealthy man who is targeted by a conniving gold-digger (Judith Allen). To lure the old duffer into her trap, the sly woman relies Read More

Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round

Actors: Gene Raymond, Jack Benny, Nancy Carroll, Sydney Howard, Mitzi Green

Synopsis: While crossing the Atlantic aboard a luxury liner, a radio troupe (led by Jack Benny) becomes involved in a murder mystery among a buffet of romance, music, trickery and blackmail--ornamented with a few musical numbers. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

The Lost Jungle [Serial]

Actors: Clyde Beatty, Cecilia Parker, Sid Saylor, Warner P. Richmond, Wheeler Oakman

The Lost Jungle

Actors: Clyde Beatty, Cecilia Parker, Sid Saylor, Warner P. Richmond, Wheeler Oakman

Synopsis: The Lost Jungle is a feature-length version of the 12-episode Mascot serial of the same name. Legendary animal trainer Clyde Beatty plays himself, while Cecilia Parker portrays Beatty's screen sweetheart Ruth Robinson. When Ruth and her father are lost in the African jungle during a scientific Read More

Hell Below

Actors: Robert Montgomery, Walter Huston, Madge Evans, Jimmy Durante, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Hell Below transcends its hackneyed World War I plot to emerge as a drama of rare originality and gutsiness. Walter Huston stars as a submarine commander whose lieutenant (Robert Montgomery) falls in love with Huston's daughter (Madge Evans). All cliches (including the intrusive comedy relief of Jimmy Durante Read More

Gambling Ship

Actors: Cary Grant, Benita Hume, Roscoe Karns, Glenda Farrell, Jack LaRue

Synopsis: A professional gambler masquerading as a businessman boards a train and sets off across the country. During the journey he meets a lovely, wealthy young woman. This drama follows what happens after she (also a gambler in disguise) persuades him to buy a financially sinking gambling ship. At first Read More

Justice Takes a Holiday

Actors: H.B. Warner, Huntly Gordon, Audrey Ferris, Robert W. Frazer

Synopsis: In this syrupy tear-jerker a young girl is adopted by the judge who sent her daddy to prison. The father agreed to this relationship and soon the aging judge becomes very fond of his new charge. Unfortunately, his love for her blinds him to mounting evidence attesting to her real father's Read More

A Man of Sentiment

Actors: Marian Marsh, Owen Moore, Christian Rub, William Bakewell, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: In this romance, an ambitious young career woman is slated to marry a wealth man until she gets into a fender-bender and meets a poor fellow with whom she falls instantly in love. She soon jilts her fiance in favor of him. She later discovers that her new love is the errant son of a wealthy family Read More

The Nuisance

Actors: Lee Tracy, Madge Evans, Frank Morgan, Charles Butterworth, John Miljan

Synopsis: In this comedy, an oily tongued sleazy lawyer, who specializes in injuries, makes sure all of clients, regardless of the size of their injuries, make it big in court. He is assisted by a thoroughly convincing doctor who can make the smallest bruise look like life-threatening internal bleeding. The Read More

Tangled Destinies

Actors: Lloyd Whitlock, Doris Hill, Glenn Tryon, Vera Reynolds, Sidney Bracey

Synopsis: Produced at the little Tec Art studio by sound engineer Ralph M. Like, this film is one of those modest whodunits where the lights go out and someone inevitably gets hit over the head with a blunt instrument. This time, the crew and passengers from a Los Angeles-bound plane seek shelter from the Read More

Million Dollar Legs

Actors: Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, Andy Clyde, Lyda Roberti, Susan Fleming

Synopsis: "Klopstokia: A Far-Away Country. Chief Exports: Goats and Nuts. Chief Imports: Goats and Nuts. Chief Inhabitants: Goats and Nuts." This introductory title ushers in Million Dollar Legs, one of the zaniest comedies ever to emerge from a major studio. W.C. Fields stars as the president of Read More

The Crusader

Actors: Evelyn Brent, H.B. Warner, Lew Cody, Ned Sparks, Walter Byron

Synopsis: The Crusader was one of the earliest efforts from Majestic Pictures, for many years the most ambitious of the independent production firms. H.B. Warner plays the title character, incorruptible district attorney Phillip Brandon. Hoping to silence Brandon, a gang of crooks uncover some unsavory Read More

If I Had a Million

Actors: Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, W.C. Fields, Charlie Ruggles, George Raft, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Based on a story by Robert Andrews, If I Had a Million is a multipart comedy-drama employing Paramount's top directorial and acting talents. Refusing to leave his fortune to his grasping relatives, dying millionaire Richard Bennett selects several people at random from the phone book and bestows Read More

Law of the Sea

Actors: Ralph Ince, Sally Blane, William Farnum, Rex Bell, Priscilla Dean

Synopsis: Silent-movie favorites Priscilla Dean and William Farnum appear in the company of up-and-coming action star Rex Bell in the low-budget Law of the Sea. Ship's captain Farnum and his wife Dean are saved from drowning by sadistic skipper Ralph Ince, who promptly blinds Farnum and casts him adrift Read More

Lady and Gent

Actors: George Bancroft, Wynne Gibson, Charles Starrett, John Wayne, Morgan Wallace

Synopsis: One of four films directed by Stephen Roberts in 1932, just four years before the filmmaker passed away prematurely, Lady and Gent stars George Bancroft as aging prizefighter Stag Bailey. After Stag loses his last match to hotshot up-and-comer Buzz Kinney (a 25-year-old John Wayne in an early Read More

The Sidewalks of New York

Actors: Buster Keaton, Anita Page, Cliff Edwards, Norman Phillips, Frank Rowan

Synopsis: Buster Keaton once described his 1931 vehicle Sidewalks of New York as "God-awful"; it's hardly that bad, though admittedly it pales in comparison with his silent classics. Keaton plays Harmon, a wealthy young Park Avenue socialite who falls in love with Lower East Side denizen Margie (Anita Read More

Caught

Actors: Tom Kennedy, Martin Burton, Richard Arlen, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: In the wake of such cinematic Calamity Janes as Jean Arthur and Doris Day, it comes as a shock to find a film in which the famed frontierswoman is played by someone who actually looks the part. Matronly, granite-visaged Louise Dresser stars as Calamity in Caught, an early-talkie psychological Read More

No Limit

Actors: Clara Bow, Dixie Lee, Stuart Erwin, Norman Foster, Harry Green

Synopsis: In this fluffy comedy, an innocent usherette falls for a customer whom she finally meets and eventually marries. Soon after the ceremony, she learns that he is a jewel thief about to go to jail. She then moves into a girlfriend's ultra-modern apartment that is really a front for gamblers. Again Read More

I Take This Woman

Actors: Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Helen Ware, Lester Vail, Charles Trowbridge

Synopsis: Based on a Mary Roberts Rinehart novel, I Take This Woman stars Carole Lombard as the spoiled daughter of a wealthy rancher. Lombard impulsively marries cowhand Gary Cooper, a poverty-stricken employee of her father. Cooper insists that they live on his income in a tiny shack; Lombard gives this Read More

Unfaithful

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Paul Cavanagh, Julie Compton, Donald Cook

Synopsis: A socially prominent wife must choose between avoiding scandal and her own happiness in this British drama. According to social convention, the wife is expected to gracefully ignore her husband's constant philandering, and under no circumstances can she get a divorce. But her husband's actions are Read More

Fighting Caravans

Actors: Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, Ernest Torrence, Fred Kohler, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Directly after his successful screen teaming with Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, Gary Cooper returned to Paramount's "Zane Grey" western series with Fighting Caravans. Cooper is cast as Clint Belmet, a hell-raisin' frontiersman facing a misdemeanor jail term. To avoid arrest, Clint talks French-born Read More

The Lawyer's Secret

Actors: Clive Brook, Richard Arlen, Fay Wray, Jean Arthur

Synopsis: In this courtroom drama, a lawyer defends his sister's fiance after he is accused of murder. The lawyer knows his client is guilty, and that another man, a sailor, also accused of the crime because he gambled away his gun, which became the murder weapon, but he must honor the confidentiality Read More

For the Defense

Actors: William Powell, Kay Francis, Scott Kolk, William B. Davidson

Synopsis: William Powell stars in this drama as William Foster, a gifted defense attorney with a gift for making cases go his way. Foster's winning record in the courtroom has earned him a colorful clientele, including several notorious criminals, but he doubts his abilities when his girlfriend Irene Read More

The Border Legion

Actors: Richard Arlen, Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Eugene Pallette, Stanley Fields

Synopsis: The Border Legion (1930) is one of several cinemadaptations of the Zane Grey story of the same name. Jack Holt plays Jack Kells, a ruthless but essentially decent outlaw. Kells befriends straight-arrow border patrolman Jim Cleve (Richard Arlen), who is in love with heroine Joan Randall (Fay Wray). Read More

Men Without Law

Actors: Buck Jones, Harry Woods, Fred Burns

Synopsis: Returning to Gunsight, AZ, from World War II, Buck Healy (Buck Jones) finds that his younger brother Tom (Thomas Carr) has fallen in with an outlaw gang lead by Murdock (Harry Woods). The latter frames Buck in the robbery of Francisco Del Rey (Hector Sarno), a Mexican rancher whose son (Donald Reed Read More

The Light of Western Stars

Actors: Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, Fred Kohler, Harry Green, Regis Toomey

Synopsis: The Light of Western Stars goes a long way towards using Paramount's fledgling sound system creatively; some scenes are filmed in complete darkness, allowing voices and sound effects to carry the day. Otherwise, this is a pleasantly familiar western concerning the relationship between Read More

Cat, Dog & Co.

Actors: Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Joe Cobb, Farina Hoskins, Harry Spear, Mary Ann Jackson

Synopsis: One of the livelier late-silent entries in the "Our Gang" series, Cat, Dog & Co. begins with the kids thoughtlessly abusing or overworking their pets. But thanks to the gentle admonitions of a lady from the Be Kind to Animals Society (played by future gossip columnist Hedda Hopper), the kids Read More

Shanghai Rose

Actors: Irene Rich, William Conklin, Richard Walling, Ruth Hiatt, Sid Saylor

Synopsis: Ostensibly based on an "original story" by Arthur Hoerl, Shanghai Rose would seem to have been derived from the then-popular courtroom drama The Trial of Mary Dugan. Dignified Irene Rich is sorely miscast as the title character, the proprietress of a gin mill which doubles as a bordello. A murder Read More