33% OFF
your entire purchase
|  
|
 
Be sure to enter code
C91RHQQ46X at checkout to save!
| | | |
|
Robert M. Young, who has made a cottage industry of "small" atmospheric films, made his directorial debut in 1977's Alambrista!. Domingo Ambriz plays a young Mexican man who crosses illegally into the U.S. The birth of an additional child convinces him that they need more than he can earn on his small farm. Each employment opportunity ultimately evolves into a heartbreak thanks to the exploitative practices of Ambriz's American employers. | |
   
|
|
A middle-aged Clark Gable returned from active duty in World War II to star in this MGM release that was heavily advertised as his big comeback. Gable is Harry Patterson, the bosun mate on a merchant marine vessel, a tough sailor and fighter with the proverbial girl in every port. But while in a San Francisco library, looking up a book on the human soul for his sidekick Mudgin (Thomas Mitchell), who thinks his soul has departed his body, Harry meets librarian Emily Sears (Greer Garson), whom he woos, marries, and leaves to sail off on another freighter. When he returns, Emily has retreated to an old farm to await the birth of their child. Harry continues to resent staying in one place, but he ultimately changes his tune when his baby's life hangs in the balance. Garson and Joan Blondell, playing her outspoken best friend, are both terrific, and Gable gives a less heroic performance that's a thoughtful change for him, although critics at the time were less than charitable. | |
   
|
|
The Accidental Husband (2008) | A radio talk-show host who specializes in repairing damaged relationships finds her life suddenly turned upside down when a listener who took her advice and later regretted doing so resolves to take revenge on the misguided love doctor. Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, Sam Shepard, and Isabella Rossellini star in a romantic comedy directed by Griffin Dunne. | |
   
|
|
Tarzan And His Mate (1934) | Most Tarzan enthusiasts consider 1934's Tarzan and His Mate to be the best of the Johnny Weissmuller-Maureen O'Sullivan Tarzan efforts. Certainly it is the sexiest, with Weissmuller and especially O'Sullivan wearing next to nothing for most of the film's running time. Picking up where 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man left off, the film's plot is set in motion by avaricious ivory hunter Paul Cavanaugh, who arrives in the African jungle in search of the fabled Elephant's Graveyard. Accompanying Cavanaugh is Neil Hamilton the former fiance of Jane Porter (Maureen O'Sullivan), who for the past two years has been living with jungle lord Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) without benefit of clergy (this is strictly a pre-code effort, as evidenced by Jane's bikini-like attire and the now-famous skinny-dipping sequence). Jane briefly entertains notions of returning to civilization, but opts for her blissful outdoor existence with Tarzan. The plot rears its ugly head again when Cavanaugh shoots Tarzan and leaves him for dead, the better to seek out the precious ivory unimpeded. Rescued by his simian friends, Tarzan races towards the elephant's burial site, where Cavanaugh and Hamilton have been eaten by lions and Jane is next on the menu. A convenient elephant stampede--heralded by that classic Tarzan ahh-ee-yahhhh-ee-yahhhh--saves Jane from the lion's fangs in the nick of time. Tarzan and His Mate was the last of MGM's "Tarzan" series to be targeted for a strictly adult audience: the remaining MGM Tarzans, made under stricter censorship guidelines, were geared for the whole family. | |
  |
|
The Bedford Incident (1965) | The Bedford Incident was an attempt by Columbia Pictures -- which had previously made Dr. Strangelove and released Fail-Safe -- to tap the well of public anxiety surrounding nuclear weapons and the Cold War one more time. Reporter Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier) is allowed aboard a navy ship on patrol near the Arctic Circle, under the command of Captain Eric Finlander (Richard Widmark). His job is to observe the ship in action and do an article on Finlander, a hard-as-nails sailor and a dedicated anti-Communist with a patriotic zeal that's extraordinary even in a man of his rank and position. Finlander's main problem, however -- when he's not sparring with the reporter -- is tracking and hunting a Soviet sub that he knows is patroling the same waters. What alarms Munceford (and the audience) is that Finlander acts like there is an actual "hot" war going on; he drives his men mercilessly, up to and past the breaking point, trying to hunt down the submarine and force it to surface, and nothing -- not the questions of the reporter, the angry protests of the newly-arrived medical officer (Martin Balsam), or the quietly voiced concerns of retired U-Boat commander Commodore Shrepke (Eric Portman), aboard as an observer, can get him to relent. Then, when it looks like Finlander has been proved right and has gotten away with his provocation of the "enemy," a mistake by one over-tired young officer (James MacArthur) suddenly unleashes all of the destructive power with which Finlander has been flirting. | |
  |
|
A waitress starts behaving strangely after she gets a nail stuck in her skull. Later, she falls for a dim-witted senator during a trip to Washington, D.C. | |
  |
|
Mel Ferrer and Anthony Quinn are perfectly cast in The Brave Bulls. Ferrer plays a star matador who is the idol of the crowds, an image carefully cultivated by Quinn, his manager. The matador is unbeatable until the woman he loves (Miroslava) perishes in an auto accident. Wracked by guilt and self-doubt, Ferrer is gored in his next battle. The rest of the film traces Ferrer's slow and torturous regaining of his courage. Based on the novel by Tom Lea, The Brave Bulls manages to convey the euphoria and blood-lust of the aficionados without offending the sensibilities of the Hollywood censors. The film's greatest asset is the gut-wrenching camera work by James Wong Howe and Floyd Crosby. | |
  |
|
Harold Lloyd plays Ezekial Cobb, a missionary's son who has spent his entire life in China. Cobb is sent to his father's home church in California, where it is hoped he will find a wife. A true babe in the woods, Cobb is befriended by politician Jake Mayo (George Barbier). Mayo is a cog in a crooked political machine whose bosses plan to set up a "reform" candidate for mayor, so that they can continue their underhanded activities unmolested. The candidate drops dead, so Mayo sets up the innocent Cobb as the mayor-to-be--a "cat's paw" to deflect attention from the system's corruption. But once elected, Cobb takes his duties quite seriously and begins to clean up the town. The machine frames Cobb with planted evidence of wrongdoing, destroying the lad's political career. Undaunted, Cobb remembers the story of an ancient Chinese leader, who, similarly disgraced, took the law in his own hands and executed all known criminals in his last days of power. Cobb orders that every crook in town be rounded up and brought to a dark cellar. He insists that they confess their crimes or face instant death--and backs up his words by "beheading" two of the crooks on the spot! Actually, these executions are cleverly designed magical illusions, and no one is really killed; but the terrified criminals are so hoodwinked by Cobb's apparent cold-bloodedness that they literally climb over one another to confess. Cobb is exonerated, and honesty is restored to his administration. While not Harold Lloyd's best feature film, The Cat's Paw is definitely his most unorthodox. | |
  |
|
The Actress is based on Years Ago, one of several autobiographies by actress/playwright Ruth Gordon. Jean Simmons stars as blossoming teenager Ruth Gordon Jones, who is determined to become a famous stage star despite the objections of her stubborn ex-sea captain father Clinton Jones (Spencer Tracy). Papa wants Ruth to become a physical-education instructor, but she wants none of this. With the covert help of her understanding mother (Teresa Wright), Ruth seeks out stage work--any stage work. Ultimately, it is Papa who dips into the Jones family's limited coffers to bankroll his daughter's first big break. The Actress represented the movie debut of Anthony Perkins, here cast as Ruth Gordon Jones' gawky boyfriend. | |
  |
|
Marius fled from his homeland years ago and has become a philosophy instructor and fencing teacher at a private school in Switzerland. One of his pupils is the son of the dictator of Marius native land. One day in class, the boy accuses his teacher of cowardice. | |
  |
|
Mitchell Leisen utilizes his stylistic pizzazz to enliven this romantic comedy that proves the old adage "opposites attract" -- but only after three or four reels. Claudette Colbert is Katherine Grant, an upper-crust fashion photographer who has a gang of admirers snapping at her heels. When her vindictive editor tries to teach her a lesson for her snobbishness by giving her an assignment photographing lower-class workers digging a tunnel, she falls for Jim Ryan (Fred MacMurray). Ryan is also attracted to her, so when she leaves her camera tripod in the tunnel, Ryan obligingly returns it to her. When Ryan returns to the job site, he is ribbed by his co-workers. Ryan loses his head and gets into a fight and is subsequently suspended from his job. Katherine, feeling guilty about Ryan being suspended from his job (and also looking for an excuse to have him around), hires him as her assistant. But in his new job, Ryan starts to put the make on one of Katherine's flirtatious models, Darlene (June Havoc). Katherine must now find a way to overcome her superior attitude and make her true feelings known to Ryan. | |
  |
|
Based on a true 1972 story, Sidney Lumet's 1975 drama chronicles a unique bank robbery on a hot summer afternoon in New York City. Shortly before closing time, scheming loser Sonny (Al Pacino) and his slow-witted buddy, Sal (John Cazale), burst into a Brooklyn bank for what should be a run-of-the-mill robbery, but everything goes wrong, beginning with the fact that there is almost no money in the bank. The situation swiftly escalates, as Sonny and Sal take hostages; enough cops to police the tristate area surround the bank; a large Sonny-sympathetic crowd gathers to watch; the media arrive to complete the circus; and police captain Moretti (Charles Durning) tries to negotiate with Sonny while keeping the volatile spectacle under control. When Sonny's lover, Leon (Chris Sarandon), tries to talk Sonny out of the bank, we learn the robbery's motive: to finance Leon's sex-change operation. Sonny demands a plane to escape, but the end is near once menacingly cool FBI agent Sheldon (James Broderick) arrives to take over the negotiations. | |
  |
|
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 Lee (Errol Flynn) insists on trying to save him with an immediate operation, and the mortally injured pilot dies on the table. This sets the stage for a long, lingering, and bitter hatred between Blake and Lee -- which is only exacerbated when Lee chooses to become a flight surgeon so he can help to find a solution to the problem of high altitude blackout. Lee is assigned to medical research with Lt. Cdr. Lance Rogers (Ralph Bellamy), a flight surgeon whose dedication to high-altitude research has left him unfit for further flying. Their work proceeds through small triumphs and terrible tragedy, and Lee and Blake keep crossing paths, unwillingly -- they not only don't like each other personally, but end up competing for the attentions of the same woman (Alexis Smith) at one point. But they're forced to work together for the good of the service, even after Lee grounds Tim Griffin as medically unfit to keep flying. A fresh tragedy shows Blake that Lee has always been looking out for the best interests of the pilots, and they begin working together in earnest, at last. Blake pushes his piloting skills to their limit and beyond, and he soon finds a purpose and dedication that he's never known before -- and then he learns that he may have to be grounded because of his own deteriorating medical condition. While Lee frets over having to give the news to his friend, the only question for Blake is whether he will be able to see the final test of Lee's high-altitude pressure suit through to the end. | |
  |
|
Dick Tracy, Detective (originally just Dick Tracy) was the first of four RKO Radio B-pictures based on Chester Gould's classic comic strip. Though Ralph Byrd is most closely associated with the role of Tracy, the title character is played herein by Morgan Conway (Byrd would be seen as Tracy in the last two series entries). The jut-jawed detective takes on a vicious criminal named Splitface (Mike Mazurki), who upon escaping from jail vows to murder the jurors who found him guilty and their alternates. He manages to knock off three before the police force figures out what's happening. Galvanized into action, Dick Tracy and his partner Pat Patton (Lyle Latell) track Splitface to a deserted riverboat (a leftover set from the 1945 RKO feature Man Alive) where the villain is holding Tracy's girlfriend Tess Truehart (Anne Jeffreys) and adopted son Junior (Mickey Kuhn) captive. When asked about Dick Tracy Detective in 1990, Anne Jeffreys flatly denied she'd ever played Tess Trueheart until she caught up with the film on videotape. She'd completely forgotten the whole experience. | |
  |
|
Devil On Horseback (1936) | A movie star visits a small Latin country with her press agent, and a local bandit who has a crush on her invites her to visit his hacienda. Her press agent decides to spread the story that she's been kidnapped, which brings out the army. | |
  |
|
Errol Flynn are the on-screen spark plugs in this bracing propaganda yarn, which relies on the personalities of its casts as well as the lively direction of Raoul Walsh to overcome the improbabilities of its plot. In 1942, a lone RAF bomber flying deep into Germany (just inside the old Polish border) is shot down after completing its mission. The skipper is killed, and left in command is Flight Lieutenant Terry Forbes (Errol Flynn), an Australian who plans on leaving damage behind on the ground so the Germans remember him, even if he doesn't make it back to England. The rest of the crew consists of brash American bombardier Johnny Hammond (Ronald Reagan), bookish Canadian navigator Jed Forrest (Arthur Kennedy), wide-eyed Flight Sergeant Lloyd Hollis (Ronald Sinclair), the son of a World War I hero, and First World War veteran Kirk Edwards (Alan Hale, Sr.). They're captured in short order, and brought before Luftwaffe Major Otto Baumeister (Raymond Massey) for interrogation -- they not only manage to escape, but gather some information vital to the Allied war effort. Now they only have to figure out how to cross most of Germany and Holland, avoiding capture along the way by a mix of sheer daring, blind luck, and assistance from two anti-Nazi Germans (Nancy Coleman, Albert Bassermann) -- and just when it seems that all of the odds have turned against them, they find themselves faced with a German plot to wipe out a major part of London, and one last opportunity to get home. | |
  |
|
Just as she had in High Sierra (1941), Ida Lupino enjoys a brief moment of bliss with a man on the run in this highly emotional drama from Warner Bros. She plays Libby, a mountain girl nearly deprived of speech due to her rather hostile environment in general and repressive home life in particular. A true innocent, she falls head-over-heels in love with Barry Burnett (Dane Clark), a member of a prison chain gang building a road through the wilderness. One of those convenient storms endemic to this kind of narrative allows Barry and Libby to escape into the hills but their blissful existence proves of short duration. Deep Valley was filmed on location at Big Sur and Big Bear, CA. | |
  |
|
This fact -based western follows a soft-spoken railroad detective (Alan Ladd) as he brings a murderous ring of robbers to justice and rekindles an old flame. | |
  |
|
Adapted from a "drawn from life" novel by Sir Phillip Gibbs, Captured is the story of the men in a German POW camp during World War I. Amongst the allied prisoners are Leslie Howard and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (British), and Paul Lukas (French). Adding to the dramatic intensity is the fact that both Howard and Fairbanks had been in love with the same aristocratic young woman before the war. Instead of serving up slam-bang action sequences, the film is more concerned with detailing the Hell of war and the despair of those who fight it. Not quite in the same league as La Grande Illusion or Stalag 17, Captured is nonetheless worth a second glance. | |
  |
|
The Monster And The Girl (1941) | One of the most schizophrenic films ever to come out of the Paramount "B" mill, The Monster and the Girl starts out as a white-slavery melodrama and ends up as a horror picture! Emerging from the fog, heroine Susan Webster (Ellen Drew) tells her woeful tale to the audience. A young innocent from The Sticks, Susan arrives in New York to seek work as an actress, but instead is tricked into a sham marriage with Larry Reed (Robert Paige). Awakening "the morning after", Susan is informed that her missing husband is not her husband, and that, as a fallen woman, there is only one avenue of livelihood open to her-as one of the "paid hostesses" in the stable of gangster Bruhl (Joseph Calleia). Learning of his sister's plight, church organist Scot Webster (Philip Reed) shows up in town to set things right, only to be framed for murder by Bruhl and his mob. After his execution, Scot's body is appropriated by mad scientist Dr. Parry (George Zucco), who hopes to transplant the dead man's brain into the body of a gorilla. Driven by impulses it can't resist, the big ape escapes from his cage to kill off all those responsible for Susan's ruin and Scot's death. Undeniably fascinating, The Monster and the Girl is also undeniably silly at times, especially in the opening scenes, in which the censor-plagued screenwriters work overtime not to overtly state that Susan Daniels has been forced into prostitution. | |
  |
|
This modest Preston Sturges comedy stars Dick Powell as an office clerk dreaming of better things and Ellen Drew as his more pragmatic girlfriend. Powell convinces himself that his fortune will be made if he can win a slogan contest sponsored by a coffee company. Powell's contribution: "If you can't sleep at night, it isn't the coffee, it's the bunk!" Three of Powell's fellow workers decide to have some fun with him; they fake a telegram which announces that he's won the contest. The deception snowballs to the point that even the head of the coffee firm (Raymond Walburn) labors under the misapprehension that Powell has won. When the painful truth is revealed, Powell finds himself broke (because of all the creature comforts he's bought) and jobless, but at least he's retained the love of his wife. A cute deus ex machina to the story appears in the person of William Demarest, the foreman of the "jury" that is judging the slogan contest. | |
  |
|
Although Warner Bros. "officially" disbanded its B-picture unit in 1941, the studio continued to grind out lower-berth features for the next three years. One of these was Bullet Scars, which had the look of a 1930s gangster meller which somehow escaped filming at the time of its inception. Decked out with a lavish toupee, Regis Toomey stars as country doctor Steven Bishop, who is strongarmed into operating on wounded bank robber Joe Madison (Michael Ames) without reporting the wound to the cops. Coerced into assisting Bishop is trained nurse Nora (Adele Longmir), who happens to be Madison's sister. Falling in love with Dr. Bishop, Nora helps him sneak a message to the cops, and the result is a noisy climactic shootout (pieced together with a handful of new shots and stock footage from earlier Warners epics). Variety was understating the case when it described Bullet Scars as "a very unpleasant film." | |
  |
|
In this romantic crime drama a young Detroit criminal flees into the West after killing his boss. It was accidental, but he fears retaliation. He finds work in Colorado building the great dam, proves to be a hard-working honest young man and is promoted to foreman. When not working, he woos a beautiful singer. Eventually he can no longer hide from his past. Fortunately, his good work has won him friends in high places. | |
  |
|
A neurotic prowler sets attempts to track down the object of his obsession after she is kidnapped by a dangerous psychopath. As the news reports a rash of a shocking sexual predator, anti-social voyeur Matt Wyler forms an unwholesome fixation on Annabelle, the pretty young daughter of his landlord Dr. Greene. Not only does Wyler share a house with Dr. Greene and Annabelle, but he always seems to know when the young girl is alone, and intrudes on her privacy at every opportunity. When Annabelle is abducted by the same psychopath who holds their city in the cold grip of fear, the police issue an all points bulletin about the girl and her father wages a one-man mission to bring her home safely. Meanwhile, Wyler too sets out in search of the elusive kidnapper, confronting his vicious inner-demons with each step closer he comes to finding Annabelle. | |
  |
|
Glynis Johns and Cameron Mitchell are top-billed in All Mine to Give, but they're out of the picture halfway through. Johns and Mitchell play a Scottish couple, Mamie and Robert, living in the American wilderness of the mid-19th century. Robert dies, whereupon Mamie takes on the responsibility of raising their six children. And when she succumbs to illness, it is the oldest child, Robbie (Rex Thompson, who'd previously played Louis Leonowens in The King And I), who takes on the challenge of finding homes for his siblings on Christmas Day. Based on a true story, All Mine to Give has heart-tugging potential, but the script isn't up to the performances. One year before its American release, the film was distributed in Great Britain under the title The Day They Gave Babies Away. | |
  |
|
A Child is Born is a remake of 1932's Life Begins, softened to conform to stricter movie censorship and lengthened to qualify as an "A" picture. The film is an episodic account of one particularly busy night in a maternity hospital. A generous portion of screen time is lavished on a gangster's moll (Geraldine Fitzgerald), about to give birth to her illegitimate baby. The young woman dies in childbirth, but other subplots end more happily. Even at 79 minutes, A Child is Born seems more padded and protracted than its 1932 predecessor--notably in a contrived sequence wherein the only surgeon qualified to perform a delicate operation is blinded in an accident. | |
  |
|
The frequently used title An Eye for an Eye was applied to a Chuck Norris martial-arts festival in 1981. Norris plays Sean Kane, a San Francisco cop whose partner is murdered by an Oriental drug ring. Told to keep his distance by his superiors, Kane quits the force and sets out to exact vengeance. When he's not suffering from traumatic nightmares, our hero is single-handedly decimating every one of villain Morgan Canfield's (Christopher Lee) henchmen. | |
  |
|
Alfred Hitchcock directed this disappointing misfire, memorable solely for the fact is that it is the final film from Hitchcock's early British period before he left for the Hollywood studio system and David O. Selznick. In the England of the 1800s, a group of ruthless smugglers, led by Sir Humphrey Pengallon (Charles Laughton), prey on ships by blacking out warning signals. When the ships crash on the rocks, the nefarious group loots the remains and kills the sailors. The plot kicks in when the beautiful orphan Mary Yelland (Maureen O'Hara) goes to visit her uncle Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks) at a creepy hotel called the Jamaica Inn, the home of the gang of smugglers. Mary doesn't realize that Uncle Joss is one of them. Meanwhile, Lloyd's of London sends one of their ablest men, Jem Trahearne (Robert Newton), to investigate the recurring shipwrecks. Jem checks in to the Jamaica Inn, and when the coven of smugglers finds out who he is, they capture him and attempt to kill him. But Mary comes to his rescue and saves him. Through the inn, the smugglers try to recapture Jem -- along with Mary. Thrown together by dire circumstances, the two fall in love. Meanwhile, all the shenanigans occurring at the Jamaica Inn appear to be driving Pengallon insane. | |
  |
|
You Said A Mouthful (1932) | The butt of many a practical joke at the office where he works as a clerk, Joe Holt (Joe E. Brown) is nonetheless determined to prove himself a brilliant inventor. His latest creation is an unsinkable swim suit, which works quite well in theory. In practice, however, it is another matter; Joe can't test out the suit because he can't swim. As the result of a series of dizzying circumstances, Joe is mistaken for a swimming champ (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) also named Joe Holt, and as such he makes the acquaintance of wealthy debutante Alice Brandon (Ginger Rogers). Through the auspices of Alice's father, "our" Joe is entered in the annual swimming marathon from Catalina Island to the California coastline. After taking a few "dry" swimming lessons from a youngster named Sam (Allan "Farina" Hoskins), the nervous Joe dives into the Catalina surf and starts the 22-mile swim. His unsinkable suit is a success, but there's many a slapstick obstacle placed in Joe's path before he can resurface at the finish line, thanks largely to the machinations of rival swimmer Edward Dover (Preston S. Foster). | |
  |
|
The Glass Menagerie (1950) | Adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams, Glass Menagerie centers around four unhappy people living in a rundown section of St. Louis. Tom, the story's narrator (Arthur Kennedy) is a poetic idealist trapped in a dead-end job, drowning his sorrows in booze. Tom lives with his mother Amanda (Gertrude Lawrence), a faded Southern belle who lives in the past, and with his crippled older sister Laura (Jane Wyman), an intensely shy woman who escapes from reality by keeping a "glass menagerie" of small animal figures. Laura is brought out of her shell by the Gentleman Caller (Kirk Douglas), a coworker of Tom's who relies on bravado and charm to get through life. | |
  |
|
Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama. | |
  |
|
Till The End Of Time (1946) | Sometimes dismissed as a derivation of Samuel Goldwyn's The Best Years of Our Lives, RKO Radio's superb Till the End of Time was actually based on Niven Busch's novel They Dream of Home, and was completed and released several months before the Goldwyn film. The story concentrates on three ex-marines: Cliff Harper (Guy Madison), Bill Tabeshaw (Robert Mitchum) and Perry Kincheloe (Bill Williams). Harper falls in love with emotionally distraught war widow Pat Ruscomb (Dorothy McGuire); Tabeshaw endures one disappointment after another as he tries to buy his own ranch; and Kincheloe, rendered legless by the war, intends to spend the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity. All three men find a new lease on life when they engage in a cathartic barroom brawl against a bigoted group of self-styled patriots led by hate-spouting Ray Teal (forever typecast as rabid racists during the postwar years). It was this climactic scene, which remains the most memorable aspect of Till the End of Time (outside of its Chopin-inspired theme song) that caused a lot of headaches for producer Dore Schary, screenwriter Allen Rivkin and director Edward Dmytryk during the House Unamerican Activities hearings a few years later: what was accepted as pro-American in 1946 would soon be labelled "Pinko" by the anti-Red zealots. | |
  |
|
Gold Is Where You Find It (1938) | Michael Curtiz directs this Technicolor Western based on the familiar story by Clements Ripley about the rivalry between farmers and miners in the Sacramento valley during the years following the California Gold Rush. Handsome engineer Jared Whitney (George Brent) from the Golden Moon mining company arrives in a small town to supervise their operations. He oversees boorish mining foreman Slag Minton (Burton MacLane), then goes to bar where he befriends Lance (Tim Holt), the son of prominent wheat farmer Colonel Chris Ferris (Claude Rains). He ends up falling in love with Lance's sister, Serena (Olivia deHavilland), despite their alliances with opposing forces. They are forbidden to see each other when her father finds out, so Jared goes back to San Francisco to work with his boss, Harrison McCooey (Sidney Toler), on a dam construction project. Meanwhile, Lance chooses the side of the miners over the farmers when he leaves the town to stay with his Uncle Ralph (John Litel). When local farmer John McKenzie (Russell Simpson) loses his family and his farm due to the destruction caused by the miners, Chris supports him in a law suit against the mining company. This all escalates into a violent armed confrontation between the farmers and the miners, leading up to an explosive conclusion and a romantic reunion. | |
  |
|
Two Guys From Milwaukee (1946) | If Paramount could rake in the bucks by teaming singer Bing Crosby and comedian Bob Hope in a series of Road pictures, then Warner Bros. could do the same. Lacking a Crosby or Hope, Warners paired Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson (who like Crosby and Hope were good buddies off-screen) and came up with the Two Guys series--which lasted two pictures. Two Guys From Milwaukee cast Carson as a wisecracking cabdriver and Morgan as a likable Balkan prince. Anxious to learn the "American way," Morgan joins Carson for a night on the town. Along the way, the boys fall in love with Joan Leslie and Janis Paige (Warners wasn't satisfied with just one Dorothy Lamour counterpart); and if you keep your eyes open, you'll see Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a closing-scene cameo. Two Guys From Milwaukee had its premiere showing in the "beer city" of the title--which happened to be the childhood home of both Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson. | |
  |
|
Enchanted April was adapted for the screen from the novel by "Elisabeth" and play by Kane Campbell. Neglected by her novelist husband Mellersh Wilkins (Frank Morgan), repressed Lotty Wilkins (Ann Harding) and her best friend Rose Arbuthnot (Katherine Alexander) impulsively rent an Italian castle during the month of April. Like Lotty, Rose hopes to briefly escape her humdrum marriage to pompous barrister Henry Arbuthnot (Reginald Owen). The two ladies are eventually joined by bejeweled dowager Mrs. Fisher (Jessie Ralph) and young heiress Lady Caroline (Jane Baxter), likewise seeking a respite from a male-dominated society. For the next 30 days, the convivial foursome revels in their newfound liberation, leading to all sorts of unexpected complications. A mixed bag, Enchanted April was better served by director Mike Newell's 1991 remake. | |
  |
|
In this wartime drama, cavalry private Dennis Murphy purchases a nervous horse, Sergeant, after it is deemed unfit for military service. With patience and love, Murphy trains his horse into a champion and later proves his worth by sneaking the steed into England where he enters him in the Grand National. He wins. The plucky private also wins the affection of the colonel's daughter. This film is based on a true story. | |
  |
|
In this drama, an amoral, manipulative womanizer gets his comeuppance. The story begins as the handsome cad is witnessed quickly leaving a hotel room in the East. He has just stolen money, and a wedding band from a dead woman. He is next seen in L.A. living under an alias. There, he begins victimizing two naive sisters and uses them to substantially increase his wealth. Eventually, the two figure out the man's evil game, but there is little they can do to thwart him. Meanwhile, the gigolo is being stalked by the husband of the woman he robbed in the film's beginning. | |
  | | | |