Margalo Gillmore Movies
Actress Marglo Gillmore appeared in numerous plays between 1917 and the early 1960s. The daughter of Actors Equity founder Frank Gillmore, she made her film debut in 1932 in Wayward. After that she didn't work in films again until the 1950s. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1954
In this subtle 1954 comedy with feminist overtones, Clifton Webb plays Gifford, an executive with a large automobile manufacturer who is having trouble deciding who to hire as his chief sales manager. His three candidates are equally competent, so he brings their wives with them to New York headquarters, planning to hire the one whose wife is most suited to be an executive's wife. Elizabeth (Lauren Bacall) is the wife of Sid (Fred MacMurray), a company man. Elizabeth knows that Sid is such a workaholic that she will never see him if he gets the new job, but she is loyal to her husband and impresses the hiring team with her competency. Bill Baxter (Cornel Wilde) is handicapped in the competition by his wife Katie (June Allyson), a clumsy but sweet small-town girl from the Midwest. Katie dutifully tries to impress the big boss but proves inept at handling the social responsibilities. She would prefer to stay in Kansas City anyway. Jerry (Van Heflin) is married to Carol (Arlene Dahl), a seductive gold-digger who sexually teases various executives in the hopes that her assets can help land Jerry the job. Instead, her out-of-bounds behavior gets Jerry eliminated from the list, at least until Jerry tells Gifford that he doesn't sanction his wife's behavior. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clifton Webb, June Allyson, (more)
One of the oddest comedies of the 1950s, Behave Yourself! stars Farley Granger and Shelley Winters as a pair of none-too-bright newlyweds. Granger and Winters adopt a stray pooch named Archie, who unbeknownst to them has been trained as a go-between for a couple of underworld gangs. To the ever-mounting amazement of our hero and heroine, corpses begin to pile up all around them as one gang endeavors to rub out the other during a million-dollar smuggling operation. While it's quite possible to treat murder as a farcical situation-remember Arsenic and Old Lace?--the killings in this film are sometimes too graphic to induce laughter (there's nothing terribly mirth-provoking about gang flunkey Hans Conried lying dead in a bathtub with a bullet hole between his eyes). Another detriment is the casting of Granger and Winters, both of whom are woefully unsuited to their roles. In fact, such veteran villains as Lon Chaney Jr., Sheldon Leonard, Francis L. Sullivan and Elisha Cook Jr. come off funnier than the stars! The film's best sequence occurs during the closing cast credits, so try to stick around after the "THE END" title. Behave Yourself was the first coproduction between Wald-Krasna Productions and RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Farley Granger, Shelley Winters, (more)
- 1951
While a man recuperates from a heart-attack, he obsesses with the thought that his wife and his doctor are having an affair, so decides to write a letter to the D.A. accusing the two of trying to kill him. After his wife mails the letter for him, he tells her of its contents which provokes his anger and he attacks her, dying on the spot from another heart attack. Though innocent, she is nevertheless desperate to somehow get the letter back. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Loretta Young, Barry Sullivan, (more)
- 1951
In this romance, an industrial designer is bitterly disappointed when he discovers that upon graduation his daughter decides to elope with her psychology professor rather than pursue a career. The professor's family is also not pleased by the union. Both families, who despise each other, try to get the newlyweds to annul their marriage. This quest unites the families and they become friends. When they finally catch up to the couple, both sides are appalled to discover that marital strife threatens to rip the couple apart. The families rally together and the marriage remains intact. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clifton Webb, Anne Francis, (more)
- 1956
The third film version of Robert E. Sherwood's play Waterloo Bridge, Gaby is also the most antiseptic of the three. In the original 1931 film, Mae Clarke is cast as a British streetwalker who falls despearately and tragically in love with aristocratic military officer Douglass Montgomery. In the cleaned-up 1940 version, Vivien Leigh plays a ballerina who becomes a prostitute only after being informed that her lover, British "landed gentry" officer Robert Taylor, was killed in battle. In the 1956 edition, Leslie Caron is once again a ballerina at the outset, who once again turns to the World's Oldest Profession when she believes that her sweetheart, American GI John Kerr, has been killed during the D-Day invasion. The source material has been dry-cleaned to the extent that the heroine is permitted a happy ending, something she was flatly denied in the first two versions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leslie Caron, John Kerr, (more)
High Society is a glossy Technicolor-and-VistaVision musical remake of Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story (1940), decked out with million-watt star power and a Cole Porter score. Set amongst the rich and famous in Newport, RI, the story revolves around the wedding plans of socialite Tracy Lord (Grace Kelly). Tracy is all set to marry stuffy George Kittridge (John Lund), while magazine writer Mike Connor (Frank Sinatra) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm) intend to cover the ceremony. Meanwhile, Tracy's ex-husband C.K. Dexter-Haven (Bing Crosby) also comes calling, ostensibly to the attend the annual Newport Jazz Festival, but actually for the purpose of winning Tracy back. In the course of events, Mike falls in love with Tracy, and she with him. The Jazz Festival subplot allows scriptwriter John Patrick to bring Louis Armstrong into the proceedings, much to the delight of anyone who cares anything about music. The Cole Porter tunes include the Crosby-Sinatra duet "Well, Did You Evah?," the Crosby-Armstrong teaming "Now You Has Jazz," the Kelly-Crosby romantic ballad "True Love," and the Sinatra solo "You're Sensational." Though it lacks the satiric edge of the Philip Barry original (Barry, incidentally, is not given any screen credit), High Society succeeds on its own lighthearted terms. The film represents Grace Kelly's final acting assignment before her real-life wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, (more)
- 1950
The Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur Broadway comedy Ladies and Gentlemen formed the basis of the Warner Bros. laughspinner Perfect Strangers. The title characters are Terry Scott and David Campbell, played by Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan. She's a divorcee, he's a husband and father. Terry and David are thrown together by fate -- or rather, the LA judicial system. While serving as jurors on a murder trial, the two fall in love. Ironically, the woman on trial allegedly killed her husband because he'd asked for a divorce. The seriocomic tension develops on two levels: will juror Isobel Bradford (Margolo Gillmore) be able to sway the others to vote for the death penalty, and will Terry and David continue to pursue their romance at the expense of the happiness of others? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, (more)
- 1960
Mary Martin originally starred in the Jules Styne/Carolyn Leigh/Comden & Green musical version of James M. Barrie's Peter Pan on Broadway in 1953. On March 7, 1955, Peter Pan was restaged for television, live and in color, on NBC's Producer's Showcase. The telecast was so popular that it was repeated, again live, the following year. Blessedly, Mary Martin returned to commit Peter Pan to videotape in 1960; this version was first telecast on December 8 of that year. Forty-seven years old at the time, Martin is utterly enchanting as Peter Pan, the little boy who won't grow up and who whisks Wendy Darling (Maureen Bailey) and her brothers Michael (Kent Fletcher) and John (Joey Trent) out of their London nursery and off to Never Never Land: "First star to the left, then straight on till morning." Song highlights include "I've Gotta Crow," "I'm Flying," "I Won't Grow Up," "Neverland," "Ugg-a-Wugg" and "Hook's Waltz." As with the Broadway version, the staging and choreography was in the more than capable hands of Jerome Robbins. Cyril Ritchard shamelessly hams it up as the wicked Captain Hook, and also doubles as the more benign Mr. Darling. Both Martin and Ritchard re-created their Broadway roles, as did Sondra Lee as the incongruously blonde Indian princess Tiger Lily. Martin's daughter Heller Halliday also appears in the minor role of Liza the maid, while the whole wonderful package is narrated by Lynn Fontanne. Repeated several times into the 1970s, this full-color version of Peter Pan was put into mothballs for several years, then retelecast (complete with the old NBC Peacock logo) in 1989. For this return engagement, the play was edited to accommodate extra commercials; happily, the complete version of the 1960 Peter Pan is now available on videocassette. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1953
Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon were together again for the last time in Scandal at Scourie. Filmed on location in Canada, the plot concerns a childless Protestant couple, the McChesneys (Garson and Pidgeon), whose lives are profoundly altered by an orphaned Catholic girl named Patsy (Donna Corcoran). Through a series of far-fetched coincidences, Patsy wanders into the McChesney home, immediately capturing the heart of Mrs. McChesney. Mr. McC, a local politician, is a bit harder to win over, but eventually his wife convinces him to adopt the child. This stirs up a tempest in a teapot, as McChesney's political enemies accuse him of using Patsy to win over his Catholic constituents, while one of Patsy's former orphanage classmates spreads a rumor (backed up by circumstantial evidence) that the little girl is a "firebug." Sentimental to a fault, Scandal at Scourie is also undeniably effective. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, (more)
- 1952
Esther Williams generously shares screen time with Joan Evans and Vivian Blaine in Skirts Ahoy! The three leading ladies play WAVE officers who experience a daunting series of romantic misadventures. Whitney Young (Williams) had joined the WAVES after leaving her fiancé at the altar. Conversely Mary Kate Yarbrough (Evans) was jilted on her wedding day by her intended, while Una Yancy (Blaine) has donned a uniform in hopes of finding a husband. Much of the humor is of the gender-switch variety, with the three lady sailors ogling and whistling at every eligible male who crosses their path. Inevitably, Williams sheds her navy duds in favor of a swimsuit, while Blaine performs a comic torch song in the manner of her "Miss Adelaide" characterization in Guys and Dolls. Poor Joan Evans isn't given a musical number, but she does get her man (Keefe Brasselle) at the end. Guest performers include the singing DeMarco Sisters and youthful aquatic champs Russell and Kathy Tongay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Esther Williams, Joan Evans, (more)
- 1956
Irregularly scheduled on NBC from 1954 through 1957, Producers' Showcase was a series of lavish, full-color 90 minute specials, bringing the best of Broadway to the 21 inch screen. The series' April 2, 1956 presentation was Guthrie McClintic's adaptation of Rudolf Besier's 1931 Broadway hit The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Repeating her celebrated stage role as the fragile, invalided poetess Elizabeth Barrett was McClintic's wife, Katherine Cornell, in her first television appearance. Set in London in 1845, the play recounts the familiar story of the romance between Elizabeth and the dashing, much-younger poet Robert Browning (Anthony Quayle), who is determined to rescue Elizabeth from the autocratic grip of her domineering father, Edward Moulton-Barrett (Henry Daniell), who holds the rest of the grown Barrett children in tyrannical thrall in their home at 50 Wimpole Street. Previously filmed by Hollywood in 1934 with Norma Shearer, Fredric March and Charles Laughton, The Barretts of Wimpole Street would again go before the cameras one year after this well-mounted Producers' Showcase production, this time with Jennifer Jones, Bill Travers and John Gielgud. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katharine Cornell, Margalo Gillmore, (more)
- 1950
Owen Johnson's novel The Lawrenceville School Stories (compiled from short stories originally published in The Saturday Evening Post) was the basis for The Happy Years. The film is set at an early 20th-century boy's prep school; Dean Stockwell plays an habitual troublemaker sent to this school as a means of straightening him out and making a man of him. At first bullied by the older kids, the pugnacious Stockwell stands his ground until he earns his fellow students' respect. The film adheres strictly to MGM's factory-tested Boys Town formula by having Stockwell cleaning up his act and becoming a worthwhile Lawrenceville student. Watch The Happy Years carefully and you'll spot an unbilled Robert Wagner, in his film debut. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Stockwell, Darryl Hickman, (more)
- 1951
The Law and the Lady is the third film version of the venerable Frederick Lonsdale stage play The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Greer Garson follows in the footsteps of Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford as a beautiful confidence trickster, working in concert with a suave jewel thief (Michael Wilding). Jane Hoskins (Garson) inveigles herself into the household of San Francisco dowager Warton (Marjorie Main), where she and her accomplice intend to take their feisty hostess for everything she's got. Thanks to censorial intervention, many of the sharper satirical edges of the Lonsdale original have been dulled by sentiment and pathos. Still, any film that offers Greer Garson as a not-so-nice lady is well worth having. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greer Garson, Michael Wilding, Sr., (more)
The Trouble With Angels opens on the first day of school for a new batch of students at St. Francis Academy, run by a very strong-willed Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell). She is used to having things her way, but she may have met her match in the headstrong and independent Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) and her newfound friend, Rachel Devery (June Harding). Mary, easily bored and ready to rebel at the drop of a hat, comes up with an endless series of "scathingly brilliant" schemes designed either to amuse her and Rachel, torture insufferable schoolmate Marvel-Ann, or in some way help them get ahead. Rachel, who would never come up with such ideas on her own, is delighted to go along with them. The duo starts right away by convincing several of the girls to join them in giving fake names to the sisters that register them. Future escapades include guided tours of the nuns' living quarters, illicit cigarette smoking that brings about the fire brigade, replacing sugar with soap bubbles, and many others. Several times the Mother Superior is on the brink of expelling the girls, but she relents, knowing something of their home lives and that they will benefit from the more nurturing environment of the school. By the end of the film, the girls have indeed grown, and Mary, in particular, has developed a special love for the Academy. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosalind Russell, Hayley Mills, (more)
- 1960
A humorous, sometimes absurd and sometimes just light-hearted comedy, this story sets up the premise of a couple's search for a housemaid, with a series of impossible women providing the hilarity. When Richard and Kate (Michael Craig and Anne Heywood) return from their honeymoon, they discover that Kate's father has given them a maid as a wedding gift. The trouble is that the maid has a good portion of the U.S. Navy in the house when they arrive, in a more-or-less wild orgy. Exit maid. The couple then hire Rosemary (Joan Hickson) who tipples to excess, making her service at a dinner party an insurmountable challenge. Exit Rosemary. Enter Blodwen (Joan Sims) a homesick woman from Wales who cannot live outside her native environment. Exit Blodwen. And so it goes, even through a gorgeous French maid (Mylene Demongeot) who causes more than a mild uproar among the couple's friends. It seems the help is either too bad or too good. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Craig, Anne Heywood, (more)
- 1932
In this drama, a rich man's wife finds herself victimized by her cruel mother-in-law who doesn't think the girl is good enough for her son. Not only does she try to destroy their marriage, the meddlesome mom also tries to steal their baby. The wife takes the baby and flees. In the end, the couple overcomes their difficulties and happily reunite. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Carroll, Richard Arlen, (more)
