John St. Polis Movies

Cecil B. DeMille's Technicolor historical spectacle Reap the Wild Wind was to have starred Gary Cooper, but Cooper's prior commitment to Goldwyn's Pride of the Yankees compelled DeMille to recast the leading role with John Wayne. The film, set in the mid-19th century, centers around Key West, Florida, where piracy reigns unchecked and steam engines are beginning to replace tall ships. Jack Stuart (Wayne) is a sea captain who crashes his vessel on the shoals of Key West. Loxi Claiborne (Paulette Goddard), the hoydenish manager of a salvage firm, arrives on the scene, but discovers that her rival in the salvage business, King Cutler (Raymond Massey) has reached Wayne first and lashed him to the mast, and is proceeding to ransack the ship with the aid of his partner-in-crime, younger brother Dan Cutler (Robert Preston). The Cutlers have built up quite a reputation for reaching wrecks ahead of competitors - to such a degree that some suspect them of making under-the-table deals with dishonest captains. While the men continue to ransack the ship, Loxi nurses Jack back to health, and the two fall in love; meanwhile, Jack worries openly that he'll lose the privilege of piloting his company's newest steamship. To ensure that this doesn't happen, Loxi offers to travel to Charleston, South Carolina and convince investigators that pirates were responsible for what happened to Jack. Subsequently, the company attorney, Stephen Tolliver (Ray Milland) must go to Florida with Jack's commission papers, and investigate the circumstances of the incident prior to givng the papers to the captain. In the process, Jack and Stephen become intense rivals for Loxi's affections. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In the late 1930s-early 1940s, Monogram Pictures hoped to create a popular screen team in the form of teenaged thespians Jackie Moran (he was Huck Finn in Selznick's 1938 version of Tom Sawyer) and Marcia Mae Jones (a former child star who'd been in pictures since the silent days). In The Haunted House, Jackie plays a newsboy, while Marcia is cast as the niece of the paper's publisher. There's a killer loose in town, and both police and reporters are baffled. Jackie and Marcia join forces to catch the killer themselves so as to clear their mutual friend of a murder charge. The climax takes place in the haunted house of the title, with thrills and chills abounding. The high slapstick content in The Haunted House can be attributed to screenwriter Monty Collins, a veteran of the Columbia Pictures comedy short subjects unit. The director is Robert McGowan, formerly the guiding hand behind Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies of the 1920s and 1930s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Lawson's inner-city music school. Unfortunately, the school teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Fortunately the determined young boy convinces his street buddies to help him plead with Heifetz to help them save the school by doing a benefit concert. The master violinist agrees and saves the day. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Phantom Ranger was the last of a quartet of Tim McCoy westerns produced by Maurice Conn for Monogram release. The star is cast as federal agent Tim Hayes, assigned to round up a counterfeiting gang. The audience knows way ahead of time that McCoy will pose as an outlaw to gain the villain's confidence; funny that the villains never seemed to figure this out until the last reel. This time around, our hero must face down an unusually formidable line-up of thugs and pluguglies, including Charles King, John Merton and frog-faced Rychard Cramer. Happily, he also gets to romance the lovely Suzanne Kaaren. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Carefully measuring the success of Republic's Clyde Beatty serial Darkest Africa, Columbia top-billed wild animal hunter Frank "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Buck in the 15-chapter Jungle Menace. The story takes place in the mythical Asian province of Seemang, where rubber planter Edward Elliot (John St. Polis) owns a huge and profitable plantation. When one of Elliot's shipments is hijacked by river pirates, his daughter Dorothy (Charlotte Henry) and her planter friend Tom Banning (William Bakewell) narrowly escape with their lives. Things get worse when Elliot himself is shot by an unknown assailant, at which point soldier-of-fortune Frank Hardy (Buck) takes a hand in matters. For the rest of the serial, Hardy tries to ascertain the identity of the mysterious villain who wishes to drive Elliot off his property, while poor Dorothy is subjected to one jungle peril after another. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After several overlong "Hopalong Cassidy" westerns, Rustler's Valley brings things back under control with a short-and-sweet running time of 58 minutes. William Boyd, George "Gabby" Hayes and Russell Hayden are back respectively as Hoppy, Windy and Lucky. This time, a powerful railroad tycoon frames an innocent young man on a robbery charge. The villain is in cahoots with an equally unscrupulous lawyer, played by Stephen Morris (better known as Morris Ankrum). With Hopalong Cassidy on the job, however, the baddies are foiled in near-record time. Of interest is the fact that the rail baron is played by 26-year-old Group Theatre veteran Lee J. Cobb, a full decade before his stage triumph in Death of a Salesman. Rustler's Valley comes to a thrilling climax as a rock-slide wipes out the remaining villains, a sequence later excerpted in toto in the 1942 Hopalong Cassidy oater Lost Canyon. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An above-average "Hopalong Cassidy" series entry, Borderland has Hoppy (William Boyd) going undercover as a bandit in a tough Mexican border town in order to trap a notorious bandit known only as The Fox. Not even sidekicks Johnny Nelson (James Ellison) and Windy (George "Gabby" Hayes) are in on the scheme, concocted jointly by Mexican Army Colonel Gonzales (Trevor Bardette) and Texas Ranger Major Stafford (Earle Hodgins). Lodging with widowed Grace Rand (Nora Lane) and her small daughter, Molly (Charlene Wyatt), both of whom he abuses in order to protect his cover, Hoppy learns that The Fox (Stephen Morris aka Morris Ankrum) is himself performing a bit of masquerade, in this case as a halfwit known as Loco. Windy, however, innocently spills the beans and is promptly kidnapped along with Molly. Chased by Hoppy, who is himself tailed by the villain's henchmen, Gonzales' troops, and a wounded Johnny Nelson, The Fox (alias Loco) escapes to his secret hideaway, a cabin stocked with dynamite. There, Hoppy catches up with him and in an exciting finale keeps the master villain at bay until help arrives. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

The Dark Hour was based on The Last Trap, a mystery novel by Sinclair Gluck. The setting is one of those Old Dark Houses which proliferated in 1930s "B"-pictures. Elsa Carson (Irene Ware), mistress of the house, fears that her weird uncles intend to do her harm and calls in detectives Landis (Ray Walker) and Bernard (Berton Churchill) for protection. It isn't long before the two gumshoes come upon the body of Elsa's Uncle Henry (William V. Vong), who appears to have been starved to death (in less than 24 hours!) The gathered suspects are unable to account for their movements at the time of the murder, making our heroes' job doubly difficult. For a while, it looks as though the butler did it (honest!), but Landis believes that the killer is someone less suspicious. He's right -- but to reveal more would be to reveal all. The scenes in which the murderer stalks about the mansion in female drag are unforgettably bizarre. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this romantic comedy a border patrolman must cite a young, wealthy, and very spoiled young woman for smoking in a non-smoking area. Later her parents hire him to protect their wild young daughter. Unfortunately she accidently gets involved with jewel thieves. It is up to her dashing body guard to save her. In the end he wins not only her respect, but also her heart. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A man who has ruined a woman's life attempts to make good on his debt to her (and his conscience) in this sudsy drama based on a best-selling novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. Bobby Merrick (Robert Taylor) is an alcoholic ne'er-do-well whose recklessness causes the death of Dr. Hudson, a respected physician. Helen Hudson (Irene Dunne), the doctor's widow, turns away from Merrick's apology, only to walk into traffic. She's struck by a car and blinded. Shaken by the tragic events, Merrick gives up alcohol and begins studying to become a doctor and right the wrong he's done to Helen. As he begins spending time at the family's estate through a mutual friend, Helen grows fond of his frequent visits, and they begin to fall in love. However, when Helen learns that Merrick is responsible for her husband's death and her own accident, she moves away to a place where he cannot find her. In time, Merrick becomes a gifted eye surgeon, and he learns that he could restore Helen's sight with a delicate and dangerous operation that he has never performed before. Magnificent Obsession was a box-office success that spawned a 1954 remake directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this drama, a teenage girl threatened by a man who wants to steal her virtue, kills him. She is taken to court and her lawyer ends up laying the blame upon the girl's narrow minded mother who did not provide proper sex-education for the girl. The distraught teen winds up jumping out of a window. She never knows that the jury found her not-guilty. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Tom Mix goes up against a ruthless gang of rustlers headed by a crooked army colonel in this, his penultimate Western for Universal. When a vigilante group assembled by Colonel Charles Ormsby (John St. Polis) fails to make a dent in the rustlings -- primarily because Ormsby and the local sheriff (Frank Brownlee) are the secret leaders of the gang -- rancher Tom Munroe (Mix) is assigned by the governor of Arizona to look into things. With the help of local cowboy Lucky Dawson (Raymond Hatton), Tom discovers that young rancher Bernie "Little Casino" Laird (Arthur Rankin), the weakling brother of Norma Laird (Naomi Judge), is secretly a member of the gang. When the rustlers turn to robbing the stage, Mix manages to arrest Bernie and two henchmen (Francis McDonald and Robert Kortman), but all three are freed from jail by Ormsby. During a climactic shootout at the Laird ranch, young Bernie reveals that Ormsby and the sheriff are crooked and the entire gang is rounded up and arrested. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi