Lyle Latell Movies
Open-faced, prominently chinned character actor Lyle Latell began surfacing in films in the late 1930s. Only occasionally did Latell rise above the status of bit player; he was most often seen as a wisecracking reporter, griping military man or cheerful cabbie. From 1945 through 1947, Latell was a regular in RKO's Dick Tracy "B"-picture series, playing Tracy's assistant Pat Patton. Lyle Latell was married to Mary Foy, one of the "Seven Little Foys" of vaudeville fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Texas was Columbia Pictures' lighthearted (and frankly more enjoyable) follow-up to its 1940 big-budget western Arizona. William Holden and Glenn Ford, looking collectively 28 years old, play a couple of ex-Confederate soldiers who get into all sorts of trouble in a wide-open Texas town. The two split up, whereupon Ford takes a job on Joseph Crehan's ranch; by and by, he falls in love with Crehan's daughter Clare Trevor. Meanwhile, Holden has joined a gang of rustlers headed by town dentist Edgar Buchanan (in real life, Buchanan had been a practicing dentist, retaining his license well into the sixties just in case things slowed down in Hollywood). Ex-friends Ford and Holden confront each other again when Holden tries to steal the cattle that Ford is driving across the state to Abilene. Complicating matters is the fact that Holden, too, carries a torch for Trevor. Though packed with action and suspense, Texas never loses its subliminal sense of humor, a fact that can be attributed to its director, slapstick comedy veteran George Marshall. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Holden, Glenn Ford, (more)
- 1941
Silent film stalwart Neil Hamilton heads the cast of the PRC "special" Federal Fugitives. Hamilton plays secret service officer Captain Madison, assigned to investigate the deaths of three of his colleagues in highly suspicious plane crashes. Posing as an airplane manufacturer, Madison keeps a watchful eye over two sinister types (Victor Varconi, Charles Wilson), who are desirious of taking over "his" factory. The villains manage to slip Madison a mickey and send him aloft in a doomed plane, but the film's resident Mata Hari-style seductress falls in love with our hero and rescues him instead. The heroine is played by a starlet Doris Day--not, it must be emphasized, the same Doris Day who later starred with Rock Hudson in a series of sex comedies in the 1950s and 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Neil Hamilton, Doris Day, (more)
