Fred Wilcox Movies

MGM's first big-budget science fiction film, Forbidden Planet, combined state-of-the-art special effects with a storyline based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. In the 23rd century, Cmdr. J.J. Adams (Leslie Nielsen) guides United Planets cruiser C-57-D on a rescue mission to faraway planet Altair-4. Twenty years earlier, Earth ship Bellerophon disappeared while en route to Altair-4. Only the ship's philologist, Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), survived; in the intervening decades, Morbius has created an Edenlike world of his own, for the benefit of himself and his nubile young daughter, Altaira (Anne Francis). His private paradise is zealously guarded by Robby the Robot, a piece of technology far in advance of anything on Earth. When Adams and his crew land on Altair-4, Morbius announces that he has no intention of being rescued and returned to Earth. When Adams attempts to contact home base, he finds that his radio equipment has been smashed by some unseen force. Holding Morbius responsible, Adams confronts the scientist, who decides to tell all. At one time, according to Morbius, Altair-4 was populated by the Krel, a wise, intellectually superior race. Using leftover Krel technology, Morbius has doubled his intellect and gained the ability to shape a new world to his own specifications. Forbidden Planet was a big influence on future sci-fi outer-space efforts, especially Star Trek. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The modest MGM programmer Code Two follows a group of police academy aspirants from the grueling training process to their first days on the job. The plot concentrates on three of these trainees: self-satisfied Chuck O'Flair (Ralph Meeker), bridegroom-to-be Harry Whenlon (Jeff Richards) and married rookie Russ Hardley (Robert Horton). Eschewing the usual Hollywood cliché, it is Whenlon, rather than Hardley, who is the first to be killed in the line of duty. The film then segues into a lengthy chase, with O'Flair and Hardley hot on the trail of the truck hijackers responsible for Hardley's death. While most of Code Two is presented in the clipped, straightforward style of TV's Dragnet, the producers find time to display leading lady Elaine Stewart in a brief two-piece bathing suit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The oft-filmed Frances Hodgson Burnett novel The Secret Garden was given the usual plush MGM treatment in 1949. Tempestuous orphan girl Mary Lennox (Margaret O'Brien) is sent to live with her reclusive, long-widowed uncle Archibald Craven (Herbert Marshall). The embittered Craven has an invalid son named Colin (Dean Stockwell), with whom the troublesome Mary constantly clashes. Her only real friend is neighbor-boy Dickon (Brian Roper). Things soon change after Mary discovers the key to the Craven household's garden, which has been locked up and neglected since the death of Craven's wife. Through the influence of the Secret Garden, Mary learns to think of others rather than herself, Craven drops his curmudgeonly veneer, and Colin's health slowly but steadily improves. In the tradition of The Wizard of Oz, the sequences taking place in the Secret Garden are lensed in Technicolor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jeanette MacDonald made her first screen appearance in five years in the MGM confection Three Daring Daughters. Looking at least ten years younger than her 48 years, MacDonald is cast as glamorous magazine editor Louise Raton Morgan. Long divorced Louise returns from a Cuban vacation with a handsome new husband in tow: None other than famed pianist Jose Iturbi, engagingly playing "himself". Louise's three daughters Tess (Jane Powell), Alix (Mary Elinor Donahue, the future "Princess" on TV's Father Knows Best) and Ilka (Ann E. Todd) are appalled by their mother's choice of husbands. Refusing to accept Iturbi as their stepdad, the girls contrive to unite Louise with Robert-whether they like it or not. Before the Three Daring Daughters come to their senses, there's opportunity aplenty from musical solos by stars Jeanette MacDonald, Jane Powell and Jose Iturbi, with an additional solo from harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler (just before he was blacklisted from Hollywood and forced to scare up film work in England). Incidentally, the actress playing the flirtatious Mrs. Smith is Moyna McGill, the real-life mother of Angela Lansbury. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Female dogs tend to shed while in heat; this is why all the collies who've played doggy heroine Lassie in the movies have actually been well-disguised males. A magnificent animal named Pal was the screen's first Lassie in 1943's Lassie Come Home. Set in Yorkshire during the first World War, the film gets under way when the poverty-stricken parents (Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester) of young Joe Carraclough (Roddy McDowall) are forced to sell his beloved Lassie. While her new master, the duke of Rudling (Nigel Bruce), is pleasant enough, Lassie prefers the company of Joe and repeatedly escapes. Even when cared for by the duke's affectionate granddaughter, Priscilla (Elizabeth Taylor), Lassie insists upon heading back to her original home. This time, however, the trip is much longer, and Lassie must depend upon the kindness of strangers, notably farmers Dally (Dame May Whitty) and Dan'l Fadden (Ben Webster) and handyman Rowlie (Edmund Gwenn). Based on the novel by Eric Knight (originally serialized in The Saturday Evening Post), Lassie Come Home was released quite some time after Knight's death. Like all the Lassie sequels turned out by MGM between 1943 and 1951, Lassie Come Home was lensed in Technicolor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide