Betty Roadman Movies

Charles Starrett, who originated the character of the Durango Kid in the 1940 Heroes of the Range, embarked on a lengthy seven-year Western series with this aptly titled horse opera. Starrett plays Bill Blayden, a newcomer to Silver City, TX, searching for the villain who framed his father years before. En route, Blayden is the victim of a stagecoach holdup along with Paradise Flo (Jean Stevens), who may or may not know more about the holdup than she lets on. In Silver City, Bill sides with Buckskin Liz Armstrong (Betty Roadman) and her drivers (Britt Wood) and Tex Harding) against the town's crooked boss, saloon owner Leland Kirby (John Calvert). The latter is in cahoots with Tom Wagner (Hal Price), who is attempting to take over Buckskin's stage route by illegal means. Donning the disguise of the Durango Kid, Blayden gets the goods on both Kirby and Wagner and, along the way, learns the identity of the man who framed his father. Young sidekick Tex Harding performs "Old Pinto (and His Cowboy Pal)," while a jolly group known as The Jesters takes care of such humorous ditties as "When They Fiddle Out the Polka" and "He Holds the Lantern (While His Mother Cuts the Wood)". Starrett would play the character of the Durango Kid for the remainder of his career -- a total of 63 films. Strangely, he was awarded a new alias in each film. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Adapted from the Cornell Woolrich novel Black Alibi, The Leopard Man is a lesser but still fascinating psychological-horror effort from producer Val Lewton. Someone has been killing off the citizens of a small New Mexico town, and the most likely suspect is a huge leopard, purchased for a local nightclub act by press agent Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe), which has escaped from its cage. Neither Manning nor his star Clo-Clo (Margo) are totally convinced that the big cat is responsible.The haunting finale takes place during the annual "Day of the Dead" festivities. The opening sequence of Leopard Man, atmospherically detailing the last few moments of murder victim Teresa Delgado (Margaret Landry), is so powerful that the rest of the film seems anticlimactic. Long available only in its 59-minute reissue form, the film was restored to its original 65-minute running time in the mid-1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Soviet Union. As played by Walter Huston, Davies is a pillar of incorruptable integrity, reporting the facts "as I saw them" (only in later years was Davies revealed to be something less than a paragon of virtue who was willing to alter opinions for political, personal and financial expedience). Sent to Moscow by FDR as a means of finding out if Russia is a potentially trustworthy ally in case of war, Davies and his family are given the royal treatment by the Commissars, who display the social, technological, agricultural and artistic advances made under the Stalin regime. Invariably, the Russian citizens are shown to be singing, smiling, freedom-loving rugged individuals-in contrast to the Nazis, who are depicted as humorless automatons. In its efforts to present the USSR in the best possible light, the film glosses over the notorious Purge Trials of 1937, presenting the trials as scrupulously fair and the defendants as unabashed traitors to the Soviet cause. At one point, Russia's annexation of Finland in 1939 is "justified" by Davies' explanation that the Soviets merely wanted to protect their tiny neighbor from Nazi domination! It is unfair to label Mission to Moscow as Communistic or even left-wing, since it was merely parroting the official party line vis-a-vis US/Soviet relations in 1943. Even so, screenwriter Howard Koch found it very difficult to get film work after the war because of his contributions to this "Pinko" project (conversely, Jack Warner pulled a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter by insisting that he was strongarmed into making the film). Seen objectively, Mission to Moscow is top-rank entertainment, superbly and excitingly assembled in the manner typical of Warners and director Michael Curtiz. The huge cast includes Gene Lockhart as Molotov, attorney Dudley Field Malone as Winston Churchill, Maynart Kippen as a benign, pipe-smoking Stalin, Charles Trowbridge as Secretary Cordell Hull, Leigh Whipper as Hailie Selassie, Georges Renavent as Anthony Eden and Alex Chirva as Pierre Laval, along with the more familiar faces of Ann Harding (as Mrs. Davies), George Tobias, Eleanor Parker, Moroni Olsen, Minor Watson, Jerome Cowan, Duncan Renaldo, Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Edward van Sloan, Louis-Jean Heydt, Monte Blue, Robert Shayne and even Sid (sic) Charisse. Original prints of Mission to Moscow include a 6-minute prologue delivered by the real Joseph Davies. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Fools of Desire is a tacky but entertaining "exploitationer", originally filmed in 1938 or thereabouts as It's All in Your Mind. In his only starring film role, Byron Foulger plays milquetoast Wilbur Crane, driven from his home and hearth by his battleaxe wife Martha (Betty Roadman). Desperate to prove his manhood, Wilbur has a one-night affair with brassy blonde Dorothy (Constance Bergen). Alas, our hero has fallen victim to a shakedown scheme, cooked up by Dorothy and her sleazy blackmailer boyfriend Danny (Lynton Brent). Considered pretty racy stuff back in 1941, Fools of Desire is about as sexy as a pair of gym shoes when seen today; its sole redeeming factor is the virtuoso performance of Byron Foulger, one of Hollywood's most reliable character actors. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The George S. Kaufman/Moss Hart Broadway hit The Man Who Came to Dinner was inspired by the authors' mutual friend, waspish critic/author Alexander Woollcott. Generously bearded ex-Yale professor Monty Woolley, no mean curmudgeon himself, plays the Woollcott character, here rechristened Sheridan Whiteside. While on a lecture tour in Ohio, Whiteside slips on the ice outside his hosts' home; until his broken leg heals, the hosts (Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke) are forced to put up (and put up with) the imperious Whiteside. This means enduring an unending stream of Whiteside's whims, caprices and vitriolic bon mots, as well as his long-distance phone calls, eccentric guests and a variety of critters, ranging from penguins to octopi. Like the real Woollcott, Whiteside insists upon stage-managing the lives of everyone around him. He is particularly keen on discouraging a romance between his faithful secretary Maggie Cutler (top-billed Bette Davis) and local newspaper editor Bert Jefferson (Richard Travis). Once he realizes he's gone too far in this respect, Whiteside is forced to reunite the lovers. That's only one aspect of a three-ring-circus plotline that accommodates a Lizzie Bordenish axe murderess, takeoffs of Woollcott intimates Harpo Marx, Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, and a general practitioner who's willing to let his patients suffer for a chance to pitch his interminable memoirs to Whiteside. Featured in the cast are Jimmy Durante as "Banjo" (the Harpo clone), Reginald Gardiner as the Noel Coward-like Beverly Carlton, Anne Sheridan as the predatory Gertrude Lawrence counterpart Lorraine Sheldon, and Mary Wickes as the long-suffering Nurse Preen ("You have the touch of a love-starved cobra!") The script, by the Epstein brothers, manages to retain most of the play's best lines and situations, even while expanding Bette Davis' role to justify her start status; it's a shame, though, that we are robbed of Sheridan Whiteside's imperishable opening line, "I may vomit!" ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this, the first entry in four-part series, children's movie, Polly Pepper takes care of her siblings while her mother toils at a factory. Polly's newest friend is Jasper, a rich kid who likes to play with the Pepper kids. Trouble ensues when the littlest Pepper comes down with the measles and infects Jasper and his grandfather, Mr. King. They all wind up stuck together in a quarantined house. After the devoted Polly collapses from working too hard, Mr. King moves the Pepper clan into his mansion. The plucky family finally garners a fortune when it is discovered that Polly has inherited the controlling shares in a mine that the grandfather wants to purchase. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Laugh it Off was one of two Johnny Downs vehicles released within the same week in December of 1939 (the other was Bad Boy). Downs plays Stephen Hannis, a Broadway bandleader who aspires to become a lawyer. He gets his big break when he champions the cause of a group of elderly ex-chorus dancers who've been booted out of their retirement home. The thorn in the hero's side is gangster Phil Ferranti (Horace McMahon), who wants to take over operation of the home for his own nefarious purposes. Among the venerable damsels appearing in Laugh it Off are Marjorie Rambeau, Cecil Cunningham and Hedda Hopper, the latter already well established as a Hollywood columnist. For romantic purposes, Johnny Downs is teamed up with a somewhat younger showgirl, played by Constance Moore. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Joan Bennett plays a young woman who believes she's killed bigtime crook Sidney Blackmer. She changes her hair color from blonde to brunette and escapes from San Francisco to parts unknown. Police detective Fredric March is hired to track down Bennett, which he does in the company of two assistants, wisecracking Ann Sothern and dimwitted Ralph Bellamy. March's chase takes him all over the world (courtesy of back-projected shots of Tay Garnett's recent worldwide vacation); when he catches up with Bennett, he falls in love with her. Still, when they reach Frisco again, March turns Bennett in to the authorities, convincing Bellamy and Sothern that their boss is a no-good rat. But it's actually a clever ploy by March to bring the real murderer out in the open. Trade Winds was produced by Joan Bennett's future husband Walter Wanger, who noted the popularity of Bennett's new brunette status and advised her to stay that way...which she did. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Roy Rogers fans were in for a shock in the opening scenes of Billy the Kid Returns--for there was Rogers, playing the title character, being gunned down in the dark by sheriff Pat Garrett! Within a few minutes, however, things were explained satisfactorally when Rogers showed up again as a young cowpoke who bears a striking resemblance to the late Billy. Mistaken for the the notorious outlaw, Rogers finally clears himself by bringing villains Morgansson (Morgan Wallace) and Matson (Fred Kohler Sr.) to justice. The musical numbers are strategically placed throughout the film as tension-breakers during the more hair-raising moments. Lynne Roberts, who briefly changed her name to Mary Hart before reverting to Lynne Roberts again, made the first of several appearances opposite "The King of the Cowboys". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi