John Link Movies

In this drama, a outlaw leads his fugitive band into the desert after they murder a rich woman while robbing her. They are sheltered by an Indian woman who killed her husband after he made advances toward her daughter. The youngest outlaw falls for the daughter. They decide to come clean to the law. The gang leader and the Indian mother are killed by the cops. The daughter patiently awaits the release of her lover, who was sent to prison. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Military women prove their mettle against military men in this low-budget comedy. The fun begins after a handsome corporal is accidentally assigned to a WAC base located on a Pacific island. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This confusingly-titled science-fiction thriller is both an artifact of its time and a surprisingly forward-looking film, in terms of plot. On the one hand, its plot makes it a kind of 1950's B-movie antecedent to The Andromeda Strain -- on the other, it owes a lot to the popular police procedural films and television shows of the decade or so leading up to its production. The title refers to an advanced US satellite sent into orbit, in part to gather and return samples of material from space. The latter includes a microscopic organism believed to be the same existing on the planet Mars which, so one scientist, Dr. Charles Pommer (Paul Frees), believes, is responsible for that world's red coloration. Pommer, who is permitted to take the sample to his home laboratory, is brilliant and single-minded in his work; but his intellect and ambition, coupled with his unstable personality and chaotic personal life, leads to disaster. He discovers that the organism, which he christens "Blood Rust," can multiply incredibly fast in Earth's environment, and attach itself to (and ultimately consume any living host creature, including human beings. The alien organism proves his undoing, and he lives just long enough to warn project security chief John Hand (Bill Williams) of the danger -- but the warning comes too late to prevent Pommer's ex-wife (Lyn Thomas) from becoming an unwitting carrier of the organism. It's up to Hand and his assistant, Radigan (Robert Ellis), to find this woman -- whose identity they don't even know at first -- even as she tries (for purely personal reasons) to elude the authorities, not knowing of the danger she presents to herself and the world. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The first half of this live-action Disneyland episode is an entertaining promo for the upcoming Disney theatrical feature Old Yeller. Narrated by Dorothy McGuire, one of the film's stars, this segment features behind-the-scenes footage pertaining to the training of the dogs used in the film, as well as random vignettes of Man's Best Friend eagerly performing a variety of tasks (Swiss rescue dogs, seeing-eye dogs, bloodhounds, etc.). The episode concludes with a telecast of Arizona Sheepdog, a 1955 entry in the Disney theatrical short-subject series "People and Places." When "The Best Doggoned Dog in the World was rebroadcast in February of 1961, the Old Yeller segment was replaced with a newly filmed promo for Disney's animated feature 101 Dalmations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Magician-turned-actor John Calvert, previously the suave leading man of Film Classics' "Falcon" series, is a curious choice to star in the rough-and-tumble western Gold Fever. John Bonar (Calvert) and grizzled old prospector Nugget Jack (Ralph Morgan) strike it rich, whereupon they are besieged by Bill Johnson's (Gene Roth) outlaw gang. Heavily outnumbered, our heroes are forced to rely on brain rather than brawn. In this respect, they have a distinct advantage over the dimwitted crooks (especially perennial pea-brain Tom Kennedy). Ann Cornell, who was Mrs. John Calvert when Gold Fever was filmed, is on hand as the nominal but barely relevant heroine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The positive public response to such productions as Crossfire and Gentleman's Agreement led to a mini-cycle of postwar anti-prejudice films. One of these was The Vicious Circle, based on a true incident which had previously been dramatized in G. W. Pabst's The Trial. In the late-19th century, an anti-Semitic Hungarian baron (Reinhold Schunzel) foments a pogrom against his country's Jews when a 14-year-old servant girl commits suicide. Falsely accused of subjecting the girl to a ritualistic murder, five Jewish farmers are put on trial for murder. Defying the slings and arrows of public condemnation, defense attorney Karl Nemensch (Conrad Nagel) intends to prove the farmers' innocence -- and to expose anti-Semitism for the poisonous scourge that it truly is. The Vicious Circle was based on The Burning Bush, a play by Herald and Geza Herczeg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Albert Dekker plays a crooked investment agent who embezzles a large sum from an estate, hoping to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress (Catherine Craig). The girl is already engaged, so Dekker arranges to have the fiance killed. The hit man's only means of identifying the victim-to-be is his picture in the society columns. But the girl changes her mind and agrees to marry Dekker--meaning that it is his picture that will appear in the columns, thereby condemning him to death. Desperately trying to contact the hit man, Dekker discovers that the man is dead...but the assassin's successor is still at large. A cheap but tidy "hoist on his own petard" melodrama, The Pretender was produced and directed by W. Lee Wilder, brother of the more famous (and frankly more talented) Billy Wilder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Character actor Douglas Fowley earns a rare starring role in this oddball western comedy produced and directed by W. Lee Wilder, the brother of star director Billy Wilder. Fowley plays Yankee Davis, a traveling salesman who takes it upon himself to solve the killing of a local marshal (Forrest Taylor). To get to the bottom of things, the ingenious huckster sends for ancient prospector Shaggy Hartley (Clem Bevans), who pretends to be his millionaire uncle, Throckmorton. Hoping that "Uncle Throckmorton" will settle down and enrich the community, the townsfolk are soon perfectly willing to squeal on each other. From one of the informers, Charlie (Ernie Adams), Yankee learns of a smuggling ring headed by -- well that is indeed the question. In the end, it is the dead marshal's young son Tommy (Tom Bernard) who solves the mystery and unmasks the true killer. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Nora Goodrich (Brenda Marshall) is a dedicated research scientist who is very close to a breakthrough in her field of anesthetics. She allows herself to be used as the subject of an experiment, and becomes the victim of sabotage by her jealous assistant (Hillary Brooke), who is her rival for the affections of the same man (William Gargan). Nora is scarred by the accident, but fate takes a hand when a vicious blackmailer (Ruth Ford), part of an extortion scam that was being worked on her, breaks in to her apartment. In the ensuing struggle, the lady grifter is killed and then mistaken for Nora, while the real Nora goes into hiding. Taking the identity of the dead woman, she realizes how she has been betrayed and maimed and plots an elaborate revenge, undergoing reconstructive surgery that changes her whole appearance. She then reintroduces herself into the lives of her former associates, in her new guise, and begins her revenge. Before her plans can be concluded, however, her masquerade backfires on her, when she finds herself accused by the police -- of the murder of Nora Goodrich. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This ambitious independent production was packaged by producer W. Lee Wilder, brother of Billy Wilder, and distributed by Republic. The title character, played with relish (and a bit of mustard) by Erich Von Stroheim, is an arrogant vaudeville artiste specializing in a trick-gunshot act. A dyed-in-the-wool misogynist, Flamarion at first pays little attention to his beautiful assistant Connie (Mary Beth Hughes)-just as well, since Connie is already married to Flamarion's other assistant, Al Wallace (Dan Duryea). Bored with marriage, Connie begins playing up to her boss, the result being the "accidental" death of Al during Flamarion's act. Having committed murder for Connie's sake, Flamarion fully expects to be sexually compensated-but he doesn't know the treacherous Connie as well as the late Al did. Future cult favorite Anthony Mann's direction is rather perfunctory, suggesting perhaps that he was somewhat intimidated in the presence of the flamboyant Von Stroheim. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For at least 63 of its 68 minutes, Republic's The Woman Who Came Back is an exciting and compelling journey into the realm of the supernatural. Returning to her ancestral New England village, Lorna Webster (Nancy Kelly) slowly but surely becomes convinced that she's the reincarnation of a centuries-old witch. A chance encounter on a bus with a weird old woman, combined with a series of bizarre "coincidences", further confirms Lorna's suspicions. Set upon and stoned by the terrified villagers, Lorna is rescued by her physician fiance Matt Adams (John Loder) and local minister Stevens (Otto Kruger), who attempt to separate fact from fancy. The disappointingly "logical" explanation to the events in The Woman Who Came Back doesn't quite gloss over such phenomena as a bouquet of flowers wilting at Lorna's touch! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The wild and woolly early days of New York -- when it was still known as New Amsterdam -- provide the backdrop for this period musical-comedy. In 1650, Peter Stuyvesant (Charles Coburn) arrives in New Amsterdam to assume his duties as governor. Stuyvesant is hardly the fun-loving type, and one of his first official acts is to call for the death of Brom Broeck (Nelson Eddy), a newspaper publisher well-known for his fearless exposes of police and government corruption. However, Broeck hasn't done anything that would justify the death penalty, so Stuyvesant waits (without much patience) for Broeck to step out of line. Broeck is romancing a beautiful woman named Tina Tienhoven (Constance Dowling), whose sister Ulda (Shelley Winters) happens to be dating his best friend, Ten Pin (Johnnie "Scat" Davis). After Stuyvesant's men toss Broeck in jail on a trumped-up charge, Stuyvesant sets his sights on winning Tina's affections. However, as Broeck begins to organize his fellow New Amsterdamians in a bid for independence, he tries to convince Stuyvesant that working for justice might do him more good that following his current policies of graft and corruption. Based on a Broadway musical with songs by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, Knickerbocker Holiday's score was beefed up for its screen incarnation with a number of new tunes by Sammy Cahn and Jules Styne, though the best known song from the stage version remained the best remembered selection from the film, September Song. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Meeting at Midnight is the reissue title of Black Magic, a Charlie Chan "B" effort from Monogram Studios. A murder occurs during a seance conducted by a fraudulent medium. Scared chauffeur Mantan Moreland, who happens to be on the premises when the killing occurs, summons Chan (Sidney Toler). He pokes around a bit, dispenses a bit of fortune-cookie wisdom, then suggests that the crime be re-enacted. Never was there a more likely suspect than the least likely suspect. The novelty of Meeting at Midnight is that Charlie Chan's daughter (played-no kidding-by Frances Chan) helps solve the mystery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide