Frankie Darro Movies

In this odd-ball comedy, a self-sacrificing but eccentric mother attempts to guide her equally eccentric family. She has two sons and a daughter. One son is a communist and the other is a struggling prizefighter. Her daughter is trying to snag a married booking agent to help her break into radio. In addition to watching over her children, the mother must also help her husband find a full-time job. Real trouble comes when her husband's brother dies of indigestion following a big Chinese dinner and leaves her with $500,000 provided that she leave her family. She decides to take the money and run. Fortunately, she eventually decides to come back home. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this frothy romantic comedy, a hard-working female Army shrink (Janet Leigh) devises the "perfect furlough" for battle weary men and convinces the brass to let her try it on selected men stationed at her base. According to her plan, selected men would be given three weeks, tailor made to fit their deepest desires. Her first test-case is a handsome ladies' man (Tony Curtis) who chooses to go to Paris with his favorite movie star. Naturally the psychologist chaperones. Romantic mayhem ensues and eventually the furloughed soldier and the shrink fall in love. The story is also titled Strictly for Pleasure. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In the opening chapter of the Mascot serial The Phantom Empire, a stagecoach is held up for its content -- musical instruments. One of the "outlaws," a bashful young man, removes a fake mustache to address his radio audience: "Yes folks, it's Gene Autry making another raid on your time with his 'Radio Riders,' broadcasting from Radio Ranch." After a rendition of Smiley Burnette's "Uncle Noah's Ark", the airwaves are given over to teenagers Frankie (Frankie Darro) and Betsy Baxter (Betsy Ross King), who relay the story of how they founded the "Thunder Riders' Club" for kids. Out riding in the desert one day, Frankie and Betsy spotted a group of strangely garbed horsemen who seemingly disappeared without a trace. Using old buckets as headgear, the kids' reenact the encounter and invite boys and girls to form their own groups and come visit a real radio show being produced. Unbeknownst to Gene and his radio performers, however, there is radium in them thar hills, and not only that; the ranch may also be situated on top of a secret treasure trove, the underground world of Murania, a "Scientific City" inhabited 100,000 years ago by people fleeing an ice age glacier. Professors Beetson (J. Frank Glendon) and Cooper (Edward Peil, Sr.) are after both the radium and the treasure and the former make a couple of unsuccessful attempts at Autry's life. The villains trace the radium to a place known as The Garden of Life, a development that greatly endangers the lives of the Muranian people 25,000 feet below. Their ruler, Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy), decrees the entrance to the Garden of Life be destroyed for good and the capture of Gene Autry, less the area be overrun by radio fans. Alerted to danger by the sound of the Thunder Riders, Frankie and Betsy discover a lost Gene in the desert. "Say, we have a broadcast at 2 o'clock," the rustic crooner exclaims. "If we miss it, we'll lose our contract!" Climbing down from the Garden of Life plateau, Gene, Frankie and Betsy can only watch as their rope is torn asunder by the Riders. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Both Frankie (Frankie Darro) and Betsy (Betsy Ross King) manage to parachute to safety. Meanwhile, 25,000 feet below the surface, in Murania, Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) sentences the captain of the Thunder Riders (Ray Bernard, later known as Ray "Crash" Corrigan) to death in The Lightning Chamber for failing to catch Gene Autry and thus prevent the continuation of the Radio Ranch, whose popularity threatens to expose the secret underground empire. But the captain, Ord, is spared by Argo (Wheeler Oakman), Murania's Lord High Chancellor, who is secretly planning to overthrow the queen. Back at the ranch, an incognito Gene comes across the rifle that killed his partner, Baxter, but Professor Beetson (J. Frank Glendon) and his thugs are right behind. Discovering too late that his getaway car is missing the brakes, Gene crashes over a steep cliff. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Gene Autry, Frankie (Frankie Darro) and Betsy (Betsy Ross King) all escape the tunnel explosion courtesy of the Junior Thunder Riders, who manage to unlock the secret exit. Planning to broadcast from a shack in the desert, the fugitive Autry is surprised by a Muranian lieutenant (George Magrill), whom he manages to subdue. Impersonating his captive, Gene is brought down to Murania to face Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy), who is displeased that her emissary let "Autry" slip away. Unmasked, a bemused Gene opines that Murania's dead air "is more suitable to rats and moles" than surface people. Taking great umbrage to such heresy, the Queen sentences the intruder to the electrical death chamber, where he is to be executed by a charge of 200,000 volts. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

On Queen Tika's orders, a lifeless Gene Autry) is brought to Murania's Radium Reviving Room, the queen (Dorothy Christy) hoping that the crooner may disclose the identity of the traitor among her officers. But before the reconstituted Autry can spill the beans, Lord Argo (Wheeler Oakman) destroys Murania's main power line and the entire city is thrust into darkness. Escaping Argo's henchmen in the ensuing confusion, our hero battles his way to the surface elevator -- playfully getting slapped on the butt by one of the top-hatted worker robots along the way -- but as chapter seven reaches its conclusion, Autry finds himself cornered once again by Queen Tika's Thunder Guard. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Despite the deadly radium beam, Frankie Baxter (Frankie Darro) manages to pull the lever that opens the surface entrance to Murania, allowing Gene Autry and sidekicks Oscar (Smiley Burnette) and Pete (William Moore) entry to the underground empire. Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) finally learns of Count Argo's treachery from Gene but the warning comes too late: Argo (Wheeler Oakman) is about to assume control over the entire palace and most of the empire. Knocked unconscious in the ensuing mayhem, Gene lands on a moving conveyor belt and is in grave danger of being incinerated by one of the Muranian worker robots. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In the final chapter of The Phantom Empire, Gene Autry is saved by Oscar (Smiley Burnette) and Pete (William Moore), who manage to drag him away from Murania's feared disintegrating atom-smashing machine. In the control room, Queen Tika (Dorothy Christy) can only watch as a bumbling Lord Argo (Wheeler Oakman) turns the out-of-control atom-smasher on himself and Murania. Deciding to die with her people in the melting Murania rather than live in the undesirable surface world, Tika allows Gene and his friends to escape the underground kingdom. Back in his own domain, Gene tricks Professor Beetson (J. Frank Gledon) into revealing that he, and not Gene, killed Frankie's (Frankie Darro) and Betsy's Betsy Ross King) father. With Radio Ranch safe from usurpers, Autry and his friends perform "Uncle Noah" to end a rather eventful broadcast season. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Gerald Mayer proved once more that he had talent above and beyond being the nephew of MGM-head Louis B. Mayer with his direction of The Sellout. The story begins with a bang, as big-city newspaper editor Haven Allridge (Walter Pidgeon) falls victim to the small-town tyranny of corrupt sheriff Kellwin C. Burke (Thomas Gomez). Poised to launch an investigation of Burke's underhanded activities, Allridge is suddenly intimidated into silence. Crusading state's attorney Chick Johnson (John Hodiak) discovers that Burke is keeping Allridge quiet by threatening to reveal the criminal activities of Allridge's son-in-law Randy Stanton (Cameron Mitchell). The final reels illustrate the thesis of Edmund Burke that evil will triumph so long as good men do nothing -- except that this time, they do something. Though hardly a big-budget effort, The Sellout boasts an unusually strong cast, including the aforementioned actors, as well as Karl Malden and Everett Sloane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the space of 74 minutes, Helen Hayes goes from naïve French country lass to elderly harridan in Sin of Madelon Claudet. Is it any wonder that she won an Academy Award? (She truly deserved this Oscar; the jury is still out concerning her cutesy supporting turn in 1969's Airport, which also copped her the gold statuette). Betrayed by artist Neil Hamilton, Hayes moves on to jewel thief Lewis Stone, who commits suicide to avoid arrest, leaving Hayes to her fate. After ten years in jail for her complicity in Stone's crimes, Hayes turns to the only profession open to her. She walks the streets to raise enough money to support her illegitimate son, who grows up to be Robert Young and who has no idea that Hayes is his mother. Thanks to his mother's anonymous financial support, Young is able to attend medical school, eventually becoming a wealthy doctor. Even allowing for the illogical nature of the plotline and the lachrymose dialogue, the heartrending final scenes of Sin of Madelon Claudet can still raise a lump in the throat after 65 years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story, Capone lieutenant Frank Nitti (Bruce Gordon) attempts to bribe Chicago mayor Anton Cermak (Robert Middleton) for a piece of the 1933 World's Fair. When Cermak tells him to get lost, Nitti growls "You're dead"--and he means it. As Federal agent Elliot Ness and his Untouchables provide Cermak with round-the-clock protection, Nitti brings in a couple of out-of-town boys to assassinate the Mayor...while a deranged lone gunman named Giuesppe Zangara (Joe Mantell) plans a killing of his own. Parts One and Two of "The Unhired Assassin" were later combined and released theatrically as the feature film Guns of Zangara. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Young Roger Calverton (Ronald Sinclair) and his uncle Sir Peter Calverton (Sir C. Aubrey Smith) bring their prize race-horse The Pookah to America, hoping to win a major purse and save their impoverished family estate. They cross paths with Tim Donahue (Mickey Rooney), one of the top young jockeys in the business, and also with Cricket West (Judy Garland), the niece of Mother Ralph (Sophie Tucker), who runs the boarding house where Donahue resides. Cricket likes to sing every chance she gets, and also has a terrible crush on Tim, but even she can't abide his brash, cocky attitude about himself -- and as a good hostess and also a sensible girl, she also gets just a tiny bit smitten with Roger. He and Tim have a rough first meeting but find that they do sort of like each other, and soon Tim -- who has had a tough, hard-scrabble life -- becomes very close to his new friend from England and to Sir Peter, especially when he finds out how much they love horses and racing. He agrees to ride The Pookah -- but then the young jockey is suckered by his estranged father (Charles D. Brown), a low-life member of a gambling syndicate, into throwing the race. This leads to a tragedy that forces Tim to walk away from his profession and everyone he knows, until Cricket finds him and convinces the boy that what he did wasn't entirely his fault, and that he still has the power to make up for a part of it. Tim steals some of the money he gave his father -- supposedly to save the man's life -- to help Roger get The Pookah into another race, but he still has to overcome the machinations of the mob so he can right the wrong he did to the best friends he's ever had. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Three on a Match covers approximately 13 years in the lives of girlhood chums Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis) and Vivian Deverse (Ann Dvorak). Having graduated from grammar school together in 1919, the girls stage a reunion ten years later. Hard-boiled Mary is now a chorus girl, level-headed Ruth has a steady job as a secretary, and vixenish Vivian is on the verge of capriciously deserting her wealthy husband Robert Kirkwood (Warren William) and their baby in favor of sexy mob-boss Mike (Lyle Talbot). Several more years pass, during which Mary marries Henry, Ruth is hired as governess for Henry, and Vivian's son and a drug-addicted Vivian become fatally enmeshed in a kidnapping plot involving her own child. In his second Warner Bros. film, tenth-billed Humphrey Bogart essays his first sneering-gangster role. Three on a Match was remade (and considerably laundered) in 1938 as Broadway Musketeers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide