Marjorie Lord Movies

This four-hour TV movie is one more of novelist Harold Robbins' "guess who everyone is supposed to really be?" wallowfests (with nary a Jolly Roger in sight). The "pirate" is Baydr (Franco Nero), an anti-Semitic Lebanese oil sheik, who, unbeknownst to himself, is actually an Israel-born Jew fathered by Ben Ezra (Eli Wallach). Baydr marries a haughty American WASP, Jordana (Anne Archer as a blonde), whom he meets at JFK's 1960 presidential campaign, and fathers a son by her. Meanwhile, Leila (Olivia Hussey), one of Baydr's two daughters from a prior marriage, trains to become a PLO terrorist and plots to kidnap Jordana and her son by Baydr. The modern viewer is luckier than those poor TV fans of 1978 who had to sit through two nights of this nonsense: the currently available syndicated version of Harold Robbins' The Pirate (retitled simply The Pirate) runs a mere 150 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Usually cited as the absolute nadir of Bob Hope's film career, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! is by no means a classic, but it isn't nearly as bad as some of his other sixties efforts (take a look a Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell sometime). The plot is set in motion by movie sex bomb Elke Sommer, who flees from the set of her latest picture when she refuses to do yet another bathtub sequence. Sommer hides out in the home of real estate agent Hope, who is forced to keep the buxom starlet under wraps lest his wife Marjorie Lord misunderstand. Phyllis Diller plays Hope's maid, who conspires with her boss to keep Sommer out of sight. The plot lumbers forward to a wild climax wherein Hope, accused of Sommer's murder (she's still very much alive), embarks upon a slapstick car chase, chock full of Sennett-like sight gags. Though cheaply produced and perilously anachronistic, Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! is professionally assembled by director George Marshall, a Hope colleague from way back. The film turned a tidy profit, thanks largely to the popularity of Hope's costar Phyllis Diller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this early disaster film, the tough-minded and strict Los Angeles Harbormaster must use his courage and wits when the communists announce they have planted an atomic bomb on a freighter. It will detonate in 12 hours. Now, the harbormaster must not only save the city, he must keep his actions mum to prevent mass hysteria. He quietly tows the vessel out to sea where it explodes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Dumas-inspired Blades of the Musketeers began life as an hour-long TV show, produced by Hal Roach Jr. as a possible series pilot. Robert Clarke, who'd previous headlined a pilot for a never-sold "Robin Hood" series, plays D'Artagnan, while the rest of the Musketeers are portrayed by John Hubbard (Athos), Mel Archer (Porthos) and Keith Richards (Aramis). The plot follows the traditional "Queen's Necklace" portion of Dumas' The Three Musketeers, with D'Artagnan and his brothers in arms defending Queen Anne (Marjorie Lord) against the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu (Paul Cavanaugh) and Rochefort (Peter Mamakos). Rounding out the cast are Don Beddoe as a comic-relief King Louis, Lyn Thomas as the courageous Constance, and Kristine Miller as the scheming Milady De Winter. Within the limitations of its tiny budget and 54-minute time span, Blades of the Musketeers is a not-bad rendition of a familiar adventure yarn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rebel City is a "B" western with "A" aspirations. Wild Bill Elliot plays gambler Frank Graham, who heads to Kansas in search of his father's murderer. This being 1864, the local military presence is more preoccupied with keeping Southern sympathizers out of the state to worry about Graham's problems. Thus, our hero undertakes the task of exposing the killer himself. As always, the least likely suspect is the guilty party (though sharp-eyed viewers were wise to the villain from the first reel). Marjorie Lord co-stars as Jane Dudley, the comely operator of the local freight line who helps Graham in his task. Producer Thomas M. Fennelly and director Thomas Carr later collaborated on the Richard Diamond TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anxious to remain active in the 1950s, director Frank Capra wanted to prove to Paramount Pictures that he could deliver an "A" picture on a modest budget. To that end, Capra bought the rights of his 1934 film Broadway Bill from Columbia, and remade it under the title Riding High. He then hired many of the supporting actors who'd appeared in Broadway Bill -- including Clarence Muse, Douglass Dumbrille, Ward Bond, Charles Lane and Frankie Darro -- so he could match up his newly shot scenes with stock footage from the earlier film. Capra even kept the musical costs down by having star Bing Crosby sing such public-domain favorites as "Camptown Races" (though there is one delightful original song, "We Ought to Bake a Sunshine Camera" performed without dubbing by Crosby, Muse, and leading-lady Colleen Gray). Crosby steps into the old Warner Baxter role as Dan Brooks, scion of a wealthy family who prefers hanging around racetracks to the responsibilities of his family business. Scheduled for a "proper" marriage to Margaret Higgins (Frances Gifford), the snooty daughter of millionaire J. L. Higgins (Charles Bickford), Dan infinitely prefers the company of Margaret's younger sister Alice (Coleen Gray), who loves horses as much as he. Hoping to declare his financial independence, he pins his future on a racehorse named Broadway Bill. Though not in the same league as Capra's earlier classics, Riding High is lots of fun. It is especially enjoyable for film buffs, thanks to Capra's decision to fill the picture with uncredited celebrity cameo appearances -- including Oliver Hardy, minus Stan Laurel, as an apoplectic horse player. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Columbia's Chain Gang combines biting social commentary with good old-fashioned melodrama. Reporter Cliff Roberts (Douglas Kennedy) intends to expose political corruption by posing as a convict and joining a prison chain gang. While a "guest of the state," Roberts gets the lowdown on how cheap convict labor is being brutally exploited by certain higher-ups. Unfortunately, his ruse is discovered, and soon Roberts is desperately clambering through treacherous hills and dismal swamps, with police bloodhounds hot on his trail. Producer Sam Katzman claimed that Chain Gang was "torn from today's headlines," but he was always saying things like that. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Texas Rangers Tim Holt and Richard Martin are dispatched to halt a gang of masked outlaws terrorizing the frontier. Infiltrating the gang, Holt and Martin learn that the raiders are operating altruistically, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. The real villain, it seems, is the local banker (Frank Wilcox), who is mortgaging the local ranchers out of existence. Holt convinces masked-raider leader Marjorie Lord that it's best to let the law take his course, then rides out to bring the banker to task for his misdeeds. Masked Raiders moves along with the smooth expertise audiences of 1949 had come to expect from RKO's Tim Holt western series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Only faintly related to the old stage play The Argyle Case, The Argyle Secrets is based on a half-hour radio program originally heard on CBS' Suspense. In the immediate postwar years, several above-suspicion Americans attempt to hide their past collaborations with the Nazis. Reporter William Gargan refuses to let sleeping dogs lie, however, and tracks down some of these fifth columnists. The film's "Macguffin" is a set of incriminating papers, which are stolen early in the proceedings. The supporting cast of this Film Classics programmer includes future Danny Thomas Show co-star Marjorie Lord and former "Dick Tracy" portrayer Ralph Byrd. The Argyle Secrets was written and directed by one-time MGM film editor Cyril Endfield, later the man behind the megaphone on Zulu (1964). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

New Orleans is Republic Pictures' spin on such "musical origin" films as Birth of the Blues and Dixie. Covering nearly four decades, the story is a fanciful recreation of the "birth" of American jazz music. Arturo de Cordova plays Nick Duquesne, owner of a posh gambling house in turn-of-the-century New Orleans (yes, that's an uncredited Shelley Winters as Duquesne's secretary!) When the "good" people of the town forced Duquesne to pack up and leave, he relocates in Chicago, where he discovers that his customers are turned on by hot jazz. Hiring bandleader Louis Armstrong to entertain his patrons, Duquesne no longer has to rely on gambling to make a living. Romance enters the picture in the form of Miralee Smith (Dorothy Patrick), a straightlaced student of classical music who learns to kick up her heels and shed her inhibitions at the sound of jazz. New Orleans is the only mainstream Hollywood feature good enough to cast Billie Holliday in a major role: true, she's playing a maid, but a maid with the most exquisitve singing voice this side of Heaven. The film's highlight is the Holliday/Armstrong duet "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans", surely one of the great moments of movie-musical history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though Republic's Shantytown keeps threatening to become a musical, it's essentially a romantic drama built around the thespic talents of new discovery Mary Lee. The star plays Liz Gorey, a hoydenish lass from the wrong part of town who'd rather play sandlot baseball than anything else. In the course of events, Liz is instrumental in the salvation of Bill Allen (John Archer), a young-and married-mechanic who gets mixed up with a gang of bank robbers. Of special interest to movie buffs is the fact that John Archer's screen wife is played by his real-life spouse Marjorie Lord. Though Archer and Lord eventually divorced, the union lasted long enough to produce a daughter, who grew up to become film actress Anne Archer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide