Reginald Le Borg Movies

Joe Palooka, Ham Fisher's famed comic-strip fighter, risks his life to clear the name of his manager in this series entry. In this episode, Palooka is blinded during a fight. Although surgery restores his vision, the doctors strongly caution him not to fight again for at least a year. Meanwhile Knobby Walsh, his manager, begins managing another heavyweight fighter who gets himself mixed up with gamblers. To save his manager's good name, Palooka disregards the doctors' advice and reenters the ring. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the long-running "Bowery Boys" series, Slip Mahoney and his boys witness a murder, but cannot identify the killer. Upon seeing the victim in the newspaper, Slip and Sach head for the morgue and launch their own investigation. There they meet the victim's daughter; she owns the hotel where the boys witnessed the crime. To help them work undercover, she hires them on as bell boys. Later, a gangster mistakes Sach for someone else and gives him some valuable information about the murder which he immediately passes on to his policeman friend. Unfortunately, the policeman has been suspended for neglecting his daily duties. Fortunately, the Boys still manage to solve the murder, but not before embarking upon a crazy chase through a laundry chute. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

S.S. Van Dine's gentleman detective is reduced to an ordinary "hard boiled" gumshoe in this inexpensive mystery. Philo Vance (Alan Curtis) is hired by a magazine publisher, ostensibly as a technical advisor for a crime periodical. This is a cover for his "secret mission": to learn the truth behind the death of the publisher's former partner seven years earlier. When the publisher is himself killed, Vance learns that practically everyone who came in contact with the dead man had a motive. Vance gets to the bottom of things with the dubious help of his pretty secretary (Sheila Ryan). Philo Vance's Secret Mission was the fourteenth and final Hollywood film based on Van Dyne's creation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

What's a country to do when it is handily and thoroughly defeated in a World War? In the case of Italy, the solution was to build several films around that defeat as a sort of "cleansing exercise". One such film was a comedy, Come Persi la Guerra, which was released outside of Italy under the laughing-through-the-tears title How I Lost the War. The soldiers depicted herein by Macario, Carlo Campanini and Nando Bruno are buffoons, only a step or two above the village-idiot category. Most of the laughs are garnered by Macario, a popular Italian music-hall comedian whose film appearances were all too few. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adventures of Don Coyote is the third of five "streamliners", a group of under-an-hour features made by Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers' Comet Productions. Richard Martin, best known for his semicomic portrayal of Irish-Mexican adventurer Chito Rafferty in RKO's Tim Holt westerns, plays the title character. Accompanied by his singing sidekick Sancho Val Carlo, Don Coyote defends a Mexican ranch against an incursion of Yankee villains. Frances Rafferty, who later played Spring Byington's daughter on TV's December Bride, plays the ranch-owner heroine. Attractively photographed in two-tone Cinecolor, Adventures of Don Coyote is one of the better Comet efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The wonderful newfangled world of television provides the backdrop for this musical. The tale begins as an advertising executive has a misunderstanding with his employer's wife and ends up fired. Now her family is left penniless until her younger sister begins impersonating a nightclub singer and becomes a television star. Songs include: "When You're Near," "When Does Love Begin?" (Hal Borne, sung by David Bruce), "For the Right Guy," "I'm So Lonely" (Borne), and "Bob-Bob That Did It" (Borne, Eddie Cherkose). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this musical, a chorus of convicts conspires to get a paroled crooner chucked back in the clink. Songs include: "Time Will Tell," "Now And Always," "Round The Bend," and "How Lovely." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The third installment in Universal's low-budget "Inner Sanctum" mysteries, Dead Man's Eyes promises a great deal more than screenwriter Dwight W. Babcock can deliver. Lon Chaney Jr. stars as Dave Stuart, a struggling artist promising his fiancée Heather Hayden (Jean Peters) that he will marry her as soon as he finishes a portrait of beautiful Tanya Czoraki (Acquanetta). The jealous Tanya causes Dave to have an accident that blinds him. According to eye specialist Dr. Sam Welles (Jonathan Hale), Dave's sight can only be restored by a cornea transplant and Heather's father, "Dad" Hayden (Edward Fielding), promptly wills the unfortunate young man his own eyes. When Dad is found killed, Dave becomes the obvious suspect but Welles nevertheless goes ahead with the operation. Tanya, meanwhile, has her suspicions about the identity of the killer, but before she can reveal the name to Heather, she, too, is killed. Although the operation seems at first to have been a failure, Dave regains his sight just in time to unmask the killer, who is made to confess. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A strong contender for the title of Universal's worst horror film of the 1940s, Jungle Woman continued the melodramatic exploits of "Ape-Woman" Paula Dupree (Acquanetta from Captive Wild Woman) including seemingly endless "flashback" footage. (Captive, of course, had itself "benefitted" from plenty of stock footage courtesy of the studio's 1933 Clyde Beatty film, The Big Cage.) Poor Dupree is found roaming an all-too familiar back lot jungle and is once again captured by a scientist (J. Carrol Naish), who proceeds to torment the girl to death. At his trial, Dr. Carl Fletcher is acquitted when he proves that the girl was not only more simian than human, but jealously stalked the good doctor's lovely daughter (Lois Collier). Fletcher is acquitted after an excursion to the morgue, where the body of Dupree has indeed transformed into that of an "Ape Woman." The film's odorous repute, even among the most ardent Z-movie apologists, stems mainly from its overuse of stock footage and some notoriously rotten acting. The studio's "Scream Queen," first-billed Evelyn Ankers, basically walked through her repeating role as Beth Mason and the film's only comedy relief was provided by the patently unfunny Edward M. Hyans, Jr., whose eventual demise thus came as a true relief. Worst of all, Irish-American character actor J. Carrol Naish, who was between Academy Award-nominated performances in Sahara (1943) and A Medal for Benny (1945), delivered perhaps the only bad performance of his long career as the not-so-mad doctor. Acquanetta (né Mildred Davenport), a former fashion model claiming to be the result of a liaison between an Arapaho princess and British royalty, was allowed to speak this time around, a fact which hasn't exactly enhanced the film's reputation either. Starlet Julie London was lucky; her small role as one of Lois Collier's friends landed on the cutting-room floor. The third and final installment in Universal's "Paula, the Ape Woman" trilogy, The Jungle Captive (1945), replaced Acquanetta (who had become a "goodwill ambassador" to South America for President Roosevelt) with 18-year-old starlet Vicky Lane. The series' strongest critic at the time, John T. McManus, actually took Universal to task for spreading "Nazi propaganda" through the work of legendary make-up artist Jack Pierce. "In Mein Kampf," McManus wrote, "Hitler calls the Negro a 'half-born ape.' Jungle Woman illustrates the point, changing a Hollywood glamor girl into an ape and vice versa with the Negro stage inserted right where Hitler says...Apparently it is to be an annual outrage unless somebody passes a law against propounding Nazi race theories in America." Still much debated today, Jungle Woman has a certain notoriety for modern audiences. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The still very undead mummy experiences insane jealousy in this the third of Universal's Kharis thrillers. Although he was thought to have perished in a fire in The Mummy's Tomb (1942), Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) is once again wreaking havoc in the town of Mapleton, MA. Sent by the High Priest (George Zucco) to retrieve both Kharis and his ancient love interest, the Princess Ananka, from their resting places at New York's Scripps Museum, Yousef Bey (John Carradine) learns that the princess has turned to dust. Her soul, however, seems to have been reincarnated as Amina Mansouri (Ramsay Ames), an Egyptian exchange student studying with Mapleton Egyptologist professor Norman (Frank Reicher). The latter's experiments with brewing tanna leaves turn ugly when Kharis appears. Soon after, Amina's hair develops grey streaks and she experiences strange and unsettling trances, unsettling especially for boyfriend Tom Hervey (Robert Lowery). Investigating Professor Norman's strange death, Inspector Walgreen (Barton MacLane) sets a trap for Kharis, but the crafty mummy escapes with a prostrate Amina. Hiding in an abandoned mineshaft, Kharis, to his distress, learns that Yousef harbors more than a religious interest in the beautiful Amina and promptly kills him. With the reincarnated but rapidly decaying princess in his arms, the mummy, to the horrors of the townspeople in general and Tom in particular, blithely walks into a nearby swamp and slowly sinks into the quagmire. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this first of Universal's "Inner Sanctum" mysteries, Lon Chaney Jr. plays a neurologist plagued by a faithless wife. He suffers a bout of insanity, blacks out, and loses all track of time. Upon returning to his home, he discovers that his wife has been murdered. Investigating detective J. Carroll Naish is certain that Chaney is the murderer, and tries to browbeat the suspect into a confession. Chaney himself is half-convinced that he is guilty, and in conducting his own investigation learns the truth. All we can say without spoiling the film is that the truth hurts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical comedy, a pregnant disc jockey misses her husband who is fighting overseas. Stressed out by the situation and her job, she decides to take some time off and convinces her twin sister to trade places with her. The switcheroo causes the soldier her husband appointed as her unofficial guardian no end of confusion. Songs include: "Annie Laurie," "Rug Cuttin' Romeo" (sung by Susan Miller), "My Melancholy Baby" (Ernie Burnett, George A. Norton, sung by Frances Langford), "I'm Gonna Swing My Way to Heaven" (Eddie Cherkose, Jacques Press, sung by Langford), "Got Love" (sung by Langford). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After several false starts, opera star Grace Moore became a motion picture success in the sublimely assembled One Night of Love. Moore opens the film by losing a radio talent contest in New York. She disconsolately heads to Europe, where the best job she can come up with is singing in a restaurant. Here she is discovered by brilliant voice-teacher Tulio Carminatti, who carefully nurtures Moore until she becomes the toast of the European opera world. The two fall in love, but jealousy nearly destroys them both. Happily, Moore recovers to the extent of making a triumphant return to the US as reigning diva of the Metropolitan Opera. One Night of Love represents Grace Moore's finest screen work. The film's musical manifest includes such operatic standards as Lucia di Lammermoor, Madame Butterfly and Carmen; the "contemporary" musical lineup was composed by such hands as Louis Silvers (who won an Oscar for his efforts), Victor Schertzinger (who also directed), and Gus Kahn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide