Dick L'Estrange Movies

Teen-Age is another "exposé" film of the 1940s, cheaply made but widely distributed. In the guise of a warning against wartime juvenile delinquency, the film offers the exploitational tale of a bunch of wild, unsupervised kids at large in a small community. With nothing but time on their hands, the young protagonists become involved with petty theft, inevitably leading to some pretty serious consequences. Veteran actors Herbert Heyes, Wheeler Oakman and Clare McDowall lend some professionalism to the proceedings, while there are a few potential "faces" in the youthful supporting cast, notably Russell Horton and Ted Stanhope. When originally released, Teen-Age was accompanied by a live lecturer, offering an "authoritative" discussion on delinquency before handing out pamphlets at a dollar each. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Directed by a very young William Wyler, this fanciful Ted Wells Western from the assembly-lines at Universal reads like a Hoot Gibson reject. Wells plays Jack Duncan, a ranch hand planning to give his new, female employer Betty Barton (Charlotte Stevens), a welcoming reception she won't soon forget. Arriving from the East with her aunt (Julia Griffith), the girl is delighted to be greeted with a mock Indian attack arranged by Jack and ranch foreman Lon Seeright (William J. Dyer). Jack plans to give Betty yet another chance to experience the wild and woolly West by staging a "kidnapping" during a masked ball. Unfortunately, crooked gambler Lem Dawson (William A. Steele) gets in the way by abducting the pretty girl for real. Wyler, a distant relative of Universal's benign founder Carl Laemmle, began his long, celebrated directorial career helming B-Westerns starring contract cowboys such as Wells and Fred Humes. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

A crooked rancher (George B. French) and his nasty son (Cuyler Supplee) buy up the area's water rights to drive out the local farmers. Enter Fred Humes, the stalwart cowboy hero of the Francis Ford Ranch, who manages to lure the villains into a trap. The prize for ridding the community of outlaws is the old rancher's peppy daughter (Dorothy Gulliver). Edgar Lewis replaced William Wyler as director of the Humes series. Wyler, of course, went straight to the top, while the pedestrian Lewis, a former house director at Fox (who earlier helmed such "socially relevant" melodramas as 1915's Nigger), retired shortly after the changeover to sound. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

William Wyler, a distant relative of Universal's founder Carl Laemmle, directed this routine western about a cowboy, "Smilin'" Sam (Fred Humes), who mistakes lovely Milly (Ena Gregory) and her brother (Churchill Ross) for a couple of outlaws. Everything is quickly sorted out, however, and Humes can search for the real villain. Director Wyler later recalled that moving from the Ted Wells unit to that of Fred Humes was considered quite a step up in prestige at Universal. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi