Marguerite Chapman Movies

This appallingly bad sci-fi film about an invisible bank-robber (Douglas Kennedy) was shot back-to-back with Beyond the Time Barrier on the grounds of the Texas State Fair in Dallas. The usual cackling and crime is included, most of which was done better in The Invisible Man. Marguerite Chapman is the film's one bright spot as Kennedy's lowlife girlfriend, but the rest of the characters are annoying and unsympathetic. Unpleasant, downbeat, and badly produced, it is hard to see the appeal of this one, even for genre completists. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

Monogram's Sea Tiger stars John Archer as discredited sea captain Ben McGrun, on the outs for supposedly collaborating with the enemy during the war. Blackballed in the U.S., Ben manages to dig up a job in New Guinea as skipper of a rundown freighter owned by heroine Jenine (Marguerite Chapman). It turns out that Ben and Jenine are the only honest people in the region, leading to trouble aplenty when a gang of gem thieves arrive on the scene. Seizing the opportunity to redeem himself, Ben risks life and limb to round up the crooks. There seems to be two stories going on at once, leading at least one observer to conclude that Sea Tiger was originally conceived as the pilot for a TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Last Page was the original British title for the 1952 murder meller Man Bait. Hollywood's George Brent plays a married bookstore owner who is blackmailed by scheming Diana Dors. The subsequent chain reaction of events leads to the death of Brent's invalid wife. It gets worse when Dors is killed by her partner-in-crime Peter Reynolds, and Brent is accused of the crime. The bookseller's faithful secretary Marguerite Chapman comes to the rescue. As with many British programmers of the 1950s which starred American actors, The Last Page was distributed in the U.S. by Lippert Productions. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Having previously played Billy the Kid, Audie Murphy assumes the role of Jesse James in Kansas Raiders. The plot finds Jesse and his brother Frank (Richard Long), together with the Younger Brothers (James Best, John Kellogg and Tony Curtis -- yes, Tony Curtis) joining Quantrill's Raiders. Idolizing Quantrill (Brian Donlevy), Jesse believes that his hero's mission -- to save the Confederacy by sacking Kansas -- is just. Only when it is too late does Jesse discover that Quantrell is little more than a bloodthirsty mercenary. The James and Younger Brothers are depicted as innocent dupes of a madman, which isn't surprising considering how often Hollywood has whitewashed Jesse and Frank in other films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Columbia kept insisting upon placing its hottest new star Larry Parks in swashbucklers, and though Parks wasn't really suited to the genre, he always strived to please. Set in 17th-century France, the film stars Parks as Lt. David Picard, a peace-loving officer who is nevertheless handy with his sword when the need arises. Hoping to crush the burgeoning pacifistic movement in France, warmongering Marshall Mordore (Victor Jory) plots to abduct popular "people's general" Cadeau (George Macready, in a rare sympathetic role). Picard, Cadeau's adjutant, spends the balance of the film trying to shield the general from harm -- and to romantically pursue beautiful spy Nanton de Lartigues (Marguerite Chapman). The antiwar philosophies of The Gallant Blade would return to haunt Larry Parks when he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Randolph Scott is a single-minded gunman bent on tracking down and killing the white man responsible for an Indian raid on a stagecoach. Scott's fiancee was killed in the raid and a large army payroll was stolen. The villain is George Macready, a "solid citizen" with fingers in several dirty pies. The film's highlight is not the final confrontation with Macready but a brutal fistfight between Scott and minor heavy Forrest Tucker. Filmed in Cinecolor (a pleasing if limited two-color process), Coroner Creek was based on a novel by western specialist Luke Short. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this comedy, a Chicago team of radio scriptwriters must split up when he takes a job with his bride-to-be's father, and the other must write commercial jingles. Their agent then appears and tells them they have a $1,000 per week assignment in Tinseltown provided they work together. They accept and board a train with their girl friends. There they meet the sponsor and a millionaire who offers them twice the money to work for him. They take the latter offer, but then two orderlies from an asylum board the train and grab the millionaire who turns out to be a nut case. They quickly go back to the sponsor and re-sign their contract. Unfortunately, once in California, the learn that it is the sponsor who is bonkers, not the millionaire. Now the two couple reboard the train and begin looking for the millionaire. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This drama is based on a Broadway play, One Against Seven, which in turn is based on the Russian play Pobyeda. Set during WW II, it centers on a Russian officer, a Russian woman, and seven German soldiers who have been trapped in the ruined cellar of a bombed out factory in a Nazi-controlled town. While waiting for someone to rescue them, the two Russians try to keep the Germans away. Eventually the Russian officer begins toying with a German officer and vice versa as both seek to extract information from the other. The Russian lets on that his troops are planning to construct a tunnel beneath the river. The woman is appalled at this betrayal of information, but her companion reassures her that he can kill the enemy before they have time to share that information. But first they need to get rescued. As time slowly passes, the tension increases, especially when the Russian finds himself falling asleep. The film was made during the brief period after WW II when Russia and the US were allies and the political overtones of the film were unintentional. Later, with the advent of the Cold War, many of the actors who participated in this film were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and accused of being communist sympathizers and some were blacklisted. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this mystery, the artist behind a detective cartoon strip solves real police cases on the side. The police are rather irritated by him because he is better at it than they are. He does it again when the chairman of a fund-raiser suddenly dies during a benefit. The police report claims the man died of heart failure, but the cartoonist proves that he was poisoned. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Though somewhat past his prime, Edmund Lowe carries the dramatic weight of Murder in Times Square with breezy assuredness. Lowe plays Barrymoresque stage actor Cory Williams, who vaingloriously tries to solve a bizarre series of murders. Though the killings take place in the heart of New York, the victims are killed by the venom of a rattlesnake. It turns out that the killing has a vendetta against theater people, and Williams may be next on the list. Marguertie Chapman costars as perky press agent Melinda Mathews, while the many suspects and victims include Bruce Bennett, Veda Ann Borg, John Litel, and, best of all, Esther Dale as a crafty panhandler named Longacre Lil. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this entry in the "Lone Wolf" series, the sleuth and former jewel thief, the Lone Wolf finds himself accused of killing a blackmailer in front of the three women he was harassing. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

One of the best serials ever made, Spy Smasher has managed to find favor even among non-serial aficionados. Like his fellow masked avenger, Batman, Spy Smasher possessed no super-human powers but was a mere mortal of flesh and blood. In brief, Spy Smasher, alias Alan Armstrong (Kane Richmond, and his twin brother Jack (also Richmond) pursue a nefarious German agent known only as The Mask (Hans Schumm). Witney and screenwriters Ronald Davidson, Norman S. Hall, Joseph Poland, William Lively and Joseph O'Donnell imbued their hero with a dark uniform very similar to the one he wore in the comics, but added a fancy belt decorated with a large "V" for "Victory" and the morse code symbol for the letter, three dots and a dash. The coup de grace, so to speak, was Mort Glickman's signature score adapted from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Leading man Richmond managed to make his identical twins a little less identical than the usual routine split-screen characterizations and the character of Jack Armstrong, the All-American boy, was actively mourned when killed off in chapter eleven, "Hero's Death," in perhaps the most unique chapter ending in the history of serialdom. Kane Richmond, who had been around Hollywood's action studios since 1930 and had even appeared as a Martian in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), became a major genre icon on account of his stellar performance as the Spy Smasher. Borrowed from Columbia Pictures, flaxen-haired Howard Hughes discovery Marguerite Chapman proved one of the best purveyor's of serial pulchritude thus far as Jack Armstrong's imperiled fiancee Eve Corby, and Tristram Coffin, later a serial hero himself, was capital as Drake, The Mask's chief henchman who manage to insinuate himself as Jack's friend. The subsequent feature release Spy Smasher Returns constituted not a sequel but an edited-down version of this serial. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi