Betty Boyd Movies

Otto Preminger directed this stylish film noir exercise, intended as a follow-up to his surprise hit Laura. Kicked off a bus traveling cross-country for not being able to come up with the fare, down-and-out press agent Eric Stanton (Dana Andrews) ends up in Walton, a small coastal town in California. Stanton fast-talks Joe Ellis (Olin Howland) into giving him a place to stay for the night in exchange for promoting Professor Madley (John Carradine), a "mentalist" whose show Ellis manages. While in Walton, Stanton makes the acquaintance of June Mills (Alice Faye), a wealthy but reclusive young woman, and has his eye on Stella (Linda Darnell), a good-looking waitress working at the local diner. Thanks to Madley, Stanton learns a few things about June, and when Ellis and the professor pull up stakes after a successful engagement, Stanton opts to stay behind, hoping to win Stella's heart. Gold digger Stella makes it known that she has no interest in Stanton unless he comes into a lot of money, but June has made her interest in Stanton quite clear. Stanton hatches a plan: he'll marry June, take her money, divorce her, and then take up with Stella. Stanton and June do in fact marry, but just as he's about to give her the brush-off, Stella turns up dead. Mark Judd (Charles Bickford), a retired cop-turned-detective, is investigating the murder, and while the initial suspect is Dave Atkins (Bruce Cabot), Stella's ne'er-do-well ex-boyfriend, Judd's focus eventually falls on Stanton. Stanton flees Walton for San Francisco, with ever-loyal June at his side; he quickly abandons her after taking her money, but he returns to her side when word reaches him that June has been charged with Stella's murder. Fallen Angel marked a dramatic change of pace for Alice Faye; however, she was very unhappy with how Preminger edited her performance, convinced that much of her best work ended up on the cutting-room floor. Faye was so angry that she quit the movie business altogether and didn't appear in another film until State Fair in 1962. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this comedy-mystery, an ex-vaudevillian becomes an amateur sleuth and begins helping the police locate an international ring of smugglers who have been sneaking diamonds into the US inside coffee cans. Scotland Yard nabs a female gang member. They then have the ex-music hall performer impersonate the crook and use him to entrap the other smugglers. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Silent screen sweetheart Corinne Griffith, who originally wanted to retire when talkies came in, proved the wisdom of her earlier decision when she starred in the clunky musical drama Lilies of the Field. Griffith is cast as Mildred Harker, who loses custody of her child in a messy divorce settlement. Leaving her hometown in disgrace, Mildred heads to New York, where after a crash course in the school of hard knocks she joins the chorus of a Ziegfeld-like musical revue. Now a full-fledged gold-digger, she enjoys the favors of backstage johnnies and elderly sugar daddies, but finally finds true love in the form of Park Avenue socialite Ted Willing (Ralph Forbes). Alas, Mildred is damaged goods, and soon she's back in the gutter whence she came. A remake of a 1924 silent film which also starred Corinne Griffith, Lilies of the Field is distinguished by a bizarre musical number in which the star is dressed (just barely) as an art-deco automobile hood ornament! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Comedian Frank Fay and director Michael Curtiz reportedly despised one another at sight, and their mutual animosity tends to seep through every frame of Under a Texas Moon. The vainglorious Fay is cast as Don Carlos, a gay caballero ("gay" meaning "carefree") whose serenades every senorita he meets. When a group of ranchers post a $7000 dollar reward for the capture of the Bad Man of the Pool (Fred Kohler), a notorious bandit, Don Carlos passes himself off as a daring cattle rustler and promises to bring the Bad Man to heel within 10 days. Characteristically, he spends nine of those ten days romancing such lovelies as Raquella (Raquel Torres), Lolita (Myrna Loy) and Dolores (Armida). All of this was played for laughs, but Frank Fay's special brand of quiet put-down humor didn't play quite as well on screen as it did on stage. Under a Texas Moon was originally released in Technicolor, but try finding a color print today. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Completed as a silent film, Cecil B. DeMille's The Godless Girl was quickly converted into a part-talkie by the simple expedient of tacking on a 10-minute coda, wherein the characters discuss the weather. The film begins as a condemnation of the atheistic movement then prevalent on high-school and college campuses. Heroine Judith Craig (Lina Basquette) and hero Bob Hathaway (George Duryea, later known as western star Tom Keene) hold secret anti-religious meetings with their friends. During one such meeting, the police stage a raid, whereupon a stairway collapses and a young girl is killed. Arrested for complicity in the girl's death, Judith and Bob are sent to reform school, where they suffer mightily at the hands of their sadistic jailers. Likewise brutalized is hard-boiled Mame (Marie Prevost), who in one of the film's most notorious scenes is strung up by her wrists and beaten (DeMille claimed that he was only mirroring "real life," but he was always saying things like that). Somehow, their horrible experiences serve to renew Judith and Bob's faith in God. In a harrowing climax, Bob rescues Judith from a fire, a scene so realistically staged that, for the rest of her life, the actress retained vivid memories of how close she came to being genuinely incinerated. Featured in the cast are Noah Beery Sr. as "The Brute" and Eddie Quillan as "The Goat." The Godless Girl represented Cecil B. DeMille's final production for Pathe; shortly afterward, he moved to MGM, thence to Paramount. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi