Dan Foster Movies

Though completed in 1950, Love Is Better Than Ever was held back from release until 1952, due in great part to the "political undesirability" of star Larry Parks, whose career was effectively ruined after he humbled himself before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Parks plays Broadway talent agent Jud Parker, who takes a fancy to small-town dance teacher Anastacia Macaboy (Elizabeth Taylor). Parker wines and dines Anastacia during her visit to New York for the purposes of seduction. But the girl assumes that his intentions are honorable, and sends word of her "impending" engagement to her hometown newspaper. With his reputation on the line, Parker agrees to confirm the engagement if asked, with the understanding that he doesn't really mean it. Rest assured that by fade-out time, he will mean it. Gene Kelly makes an unbilled cameo appearance in Love Is Better Than Ever, which also features such reliables as Ann Doran, Kathleen Freeman, and Dick Wessel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions onscreen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can't stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the company of aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), whom he met while escaping his screaming fans. Watching these intrigues from the sidelines is Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), Don's best pal and on-set pianist. Cosmo is promoted to musical director of Monumental Pictures by studio head R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) when the talking-picture revolution commences. That's all right for Cosmo, but how will talkies affect the upcoming Lockwood-Lamont vehicle "The Dueling Cavalier"? Don, an accomplished song-and-dance man, should have no trouble adapting to the microphone. Lina, however, is another matter; put as charitably as possible, she has a voice that sounds like fingernails on a blackboard. The disastrous preview of the team's first talkie has the audience howling with derisive laughter. On the strength of the plot alone, concocted by the matchless writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Singin' in the Rain is a delight. But with the addition of MGM's catalog of Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs -- "You Were Meant for Me," "You Are My Lucky Star," "The Broadway Melody," and of course the title song -- the film becomes one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fish-market worker Johnny O'Hara (James Arness) is named as a suspect when his boss -- with whom he had a dispute the previous day -- is shot to death in an apparent robbery. When he's arrested, his family appeals to their old friend James Curtayne (Spencer Tracy), who was once a renowned criminal attorney but is now in civil practice. He resists their entreaties until he realizes that no decent attorney will handle the case properly; his daughter (Diana Lynn) watches with alarm, however, for we soon learn that Curtayne is an alcoholic, and that the major factor in his life that pushed him over the edge was the stress of having someone's life in his hands. He discovers soon enough just how much Johnny's life is in his hands when his client refuses to level with him about his real whereabouts on the night of the murder. He also realizes as the trial starts precisely how rusty he is in the courtroom, and the old stresses return -- and with them, his drinking. Curtayne not only manages to lose the case but destroys his career when he tries to buy off a larcenous prosecution witness. His client facing a death sentence and his own life and career in ruins, he's seemingly hit bottom, but then new evidence surfaces, of a nature that not even the ambitious prosecutor (John Hodiak) can ignore. Recognizing that his client was actually innocent and also acting in his silence -- however stupidly -- from the noblest of motives, Curtayne is willing to redeem himself by putting his own life on the line, confronting a killer who has taken more than one life without any compunction whatsoever, and who has no reason to spill anything.

The People Against O'Hara was a well-made, largely location-shot crime drama set in New York City, but it wouldn't have been nearly so prestigious a movie were it not for the presence of Spencer Tracy in the role of Curtayne. Ironically enough, he only agreed to do the film on the condition that his friend Pat O'Brien, who hadn't been in a major studio release in a couple of years, be given a large role, which he got as the lead detective on the case, and O'Brien and Tracy get a couple of really good scenes together. The film also includes an unbilled appearance by Charles Bronson, who was still working as Charles Buchinski in 1951, and is highlighted by a superb prominent supporting performance by William Campbell, who seems to quietly relish every nuance of his portrayal of a totally slimy character. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Set in 19th-century New York, this mystery begins when a Frenchwoman shows up at the home of one of Napoleon's former marshals. The alcoholic man is badly crippled and slowly dying, but this doesn't stop the forthright lady from pushing him to change his will to include his estranged grandson so that he can help out the struggling French Republic. Unfortunately, the dying man's conniving housekeeper and butler, already planning murder to get the money themselves, overhear her and begin plotting her demise. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

"This boy...and this girl...were never properly introduced to the world we live in." With this superimposed opening title, director Nicholas Ray inaugurates his first feature, They Live by Night. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell play a "Bonnie and Clyde"-type fugitive couple, who in trying to escape their past are hell-bent down the road to Doom. Despite their criminal activities, Bowie (Granger) and Keechie (O'Donnell) are hopelessly naïve, fabricating their own idyllic dream world as the authorities close in. The entrapment -- both actual and symbolic -- of the young misfit couple can now be seen as a precursor to the dilemma facing James Dean in Ray's 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause. A box-office disappointment upon its first release, They Live by Night has since gained stature as one of the most sensitive and least-predictable entries in the film noir genre. The film was based on a novel by Edward Anderson, and in 1974 was filmed by Robert Altman under its original title, Thieves Like Us. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz adopts the same prismatic-flashback technique he'd used so well in Citizen Kane for the 1949 filmic soap opera A Woman's Secret. Based on a novel by Vicki (Grand Hotel) Baum, the film begins with the shooting of nightclub singer Susan Caldwell (Gloria Grahame). Marian Washburn (Maureen O'Hara), who'd coached Susan into the Big Time, confesses to the shooting. Neither Marian's piano-player friend Luke Jordan (Melvyn Douglas) nor police inspector Fowler (Jay C. Flippen) completely buy her story, and it is their probing investigation of the facts that sparks the flashback parade. The film details in sometimes clever, sometimes maudlin fashion the perils of living one's life vicariously through the accomplishments of others. Though filmed before director Nicholas Ray's "official" debut feature They Live by Night, A Woman's Secret was released afterward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The success of 1947's Badman's Territory prompted RKO Radio to assemble another "outlaw rally," Return of the Badmen. Randolph Scott plays US marshal Vance, assigned to rid the Oklahoma Territory of outlaws. This proves to be quite a challenge, inasmuch as virtually every frontier bad guy has converged upon the territory. Led by the surly Sundance Kid (Robert Ryan), the rogue's gallery includes the Younger Brothers (Steve Brodie, Richard Powers, Robert Bray), the Daltons (Lex Barker, Walter Reed, Michael Harvey) and Billy the Kid (Dean White). For all the formidable villainy, the film's most fascinating conflict develops between the two heroines: feisty Cheyenne (Anne Jeffreys) and prim 'n' proper Madge Allen (Jacqueline White). Return of the Badmen posted a huge profit, spawning yet another "all-star" western from RKO, 1951's Best of the Badmen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide