Harvey Grant Movies
- 1965
The Bradley girls are having problems casting their upcoming community play. The solution: Forget about human actors, and stage the production with an all-canine cast. But complications ensue when the girls' own dog (played by Higgins of "Benjy" fame) suddenly falls heir to $200--making him not only too expensive for the show, but also too "important" to be bothered. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Henry Hathaway directs the 1965 psychological Western The Sons of Katie Elder. Four sons reunite in their Texas hometown to attend their mother's funeral. John (John Wayne) is the gunfighter, Tom (Dean Martin) is the gambler, Matt (Earl Holliman) is the quiet one, and Bud (Michael Anderson Jr.) is the youngest. They soon learn that their father gambled away the family ranch, leading to his own murder. The brothers decide to find their father's killer and get back the ranch, even though they are discouraged to do so by local Sheriff Billy Wilson (Paul Fix). When the sheriff turns up dead, the Elder boys are blamed for the murder. Deputy Sheriff Ben Latta (Jeremy Slate) joins forces with the only witnesses of the murder: Morgan Hastings (James Gregory) and his son Dave (Dennis Hopper). A gunfight breaks out between the Hastings gang and the Elder gang. After his brother Matt is killed, John decides to settle the ranch dispute in a court of law with a judge (Sheldon Allman). However, Tom decides to take matters into his own hands by kidnapping Dave. After the final climactic gunfight, John and the wounded Bud retreat to a rooming house owned by Mary Gordon (Martha Hyer). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Dean Martin, (more)
- 1958
Juvenile Jungle looks suspiciously like a standard kidnap drama, rewritten to conform with the "juvernile delinquent" cycle of the late 1950s. Gang leader Hal McQueen (Corey Allen) goes out of his way to ingratiate himself with Caroline Elliot (Anne Whitfield), the daughter of a wealthy shopkeeper. It's all part of McQueen's master plan to fake Caroline's abduction and extort a great deal of money from her daddy. Trouble begins brewing when Hal falls in love with Caroline, while his hoodlum buddies intend to go through with the snatch for real. Director William Witney struggles manfully to inject some excitement into the plodding plotline. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Corey Allen, Rebecca Welles, (more)
- 1957
After a bloody shootout in which three members of an outlaw gang are killed, Marshall Matt Dillon (James Arness) brings in the sole surviving outlaw, Jack Brand (Lawrence Dobkin), who claims that Matt never gave the others a chance. When he is forced to shoot Brand as well, Matt is confronted by the dead man's friend Stanger (Russell Johnson), who accuses the marshal of being a sadist who enjoys killing. Worried that there is some truth in this, Matt turns in his badge, vowing to spend the rest of his life fishing. No one is happier about Matt's "retirement" than Kitty (Amanda Blake). . .until circumstances tragically alter the situation. This episode is based on a classic Gunsmoke radio broadcast, originally heard April 2, 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1954
This second film version of Lloyd C. Douglas' spiritual novel Magnificent Obsession is in its own way as successful as the first (filmed in 1935) in glossing over the plot holes and logic gaps in the original novel. Rock Hudson plays Bob Merrick, a reckless playboy who is indirectly responsible for the death of a kindly and much-beloved doctor. The dead man's wife, Helen Phillips (Jane Wyman), refuses to accept Bob's apologies. When Helen is accidentally blinded, Bob decides to "do right" by her anonymously, illustrating author Douglas's curious edict that the best sort of good deed is the one for which you're not rewarded. In record time, Bob becomes a brilliant physician, and it is he who performs the sight-restoring surgery on Helen. Rather than fade into the woodwork unheralded, Bob is at last forgiven by Helen, who has fallen in love with him during her sightless months without even knowing it. Luxuriously produced by Ross Hunter and directed con brio by Douglas Sirk, Magnificent Obsession was one of the most successful of Universal's big-budget "weepers" of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, (more)
- 1953
An outdoor adventure musical comedy, Take Me to Town features Ann Sheridan as Vermilion O'Toole, a barroom singer with a shady past who has taken refuge in a small timber town in the Pacific Northwest. She's on the run from a federal agent, Ed Daggett (Larry Gates). Just out of town lives Will Hall (Sterling Hayden), a logger and preacher who is widowed and raising three children. The children meet O'Toole and try to hook her up with their father -- because they want a mother to care for them. This arouses the jealousies of Mrs. Stoffer (Phyllis Stanley), a widow who was hoping to snare Hall herself. Hall comes to prefer O'Toole, but she must overcome the resentment of the local townspeople, who think she's a floozy. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ann Sheridan, Sterling Hayden, (more)
- 1953
Excluding a brace of 1980s TV-movie appearances, It Happens Every Thursday was the final feature film appearance of Loretta Young. As radiantly beautiful at 40 as she'd been as a teen-aged ingenue, Young plays Jane McAvoy, the pregnant wife of big-city newspaper reporter Bob McAvoy (John Forsythe). Tired of the urban rat race, Bob moves to a small California town and assumes ownership of a just-getting-by weekly paper. It's a hand-to-mouth existence for the first few editions, and the situation isn't remedied by the cloistered, resentful behavior of the local citizenry. The outcome of the plot hinges on a publicity stunt engineered by Bob: an attempt to artificially create rain for the drought-ridden community. The well-chosen supporting cast of It Happens Every Thursday includes Edgar Buchanan, Jimmy Conlin, Willard Waterman, and in her last film, Gladys George. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, John Forsythe, (more)
