Frank Wilson Movies

One of the few all-black productions of the 1940s to garner attention in the "white" trade press, Beware is a vehicle for bandleader Louis Jordan, here cast as a college alumnus named Lucius Brokenshire Jordan. Thanks to the economic duplicity of its benefactor's grandson, Jordan's alma mater runs out of money. When he learns about the college's plight, our hero not only stages an impromptu fund-raising show, but also settles the hash of the crooked grandson. In its own modest way, the film pokes fun at the snobbery of college faculty members who look down their noses at graduates who enter show business rather than pursue more "worthwhile" careers. Costarring with Louis Jordan are Frank Wilson and Valerie Black, both cast members of Broadway's Anna Lucasta. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this drama, a preacher's son is arrested for murder and robbery, leaving his devastated father to try and deal with the shock. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Versatile character actor (and offscreen golf pro) John Gallaudet is afforded a leading role in the 1939 cheapie Murder is News. When business magnate Edgar Drake (William McIntyre) decides to get even with his cheating wife Pauline (Doris Lloyd) and her attorney lover David Corning (John Hamilton), it's dollars to doughnuts that someone's going to wind up dead. Problem is, the victim is Drake himself. So who "done it": The wife, the lover, or Drake's own son, a popular orchestra leader? With the help of his "leg man" Brains McGillicudy (George McKay), Winchellesque radio commentator Jerry Tracy (Gallaudet) hopes to crack the case. The presence of Columbia contractees Gallaudet, McKay and Iris Meredith suggests that Murder is News was originally a Columbia picture, sold to fly-by-night Warwick Films for a quick turnover. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Extortion was designed as a sort of trial balloon for Columbia's new contractees Scott Colton and Mary Russell. The story takes place on a college campus, where a distinctively unpopular professor is murdered. When her physics-teacher father (Thurston Hall) falls under suspicion, co-ed Betty Tisdale (Mary Russell) turns to campus newspaper editor Larry Campbell (Scott Colton). Dissatisfied with the slowness of police procedure, Betty, Larry and their fellow students conduct their own investigation, unearthing a hotbed of scholastic intrigue and double-crossing. The much-hated victim is played by Albert Von Dekker, who'd later streamline his professional monicker as Albert Dekker and go on to a distinguished film career; ironically, Dekker would himself be the victim of a spectacular demise in 1968, which may or may not have been a sex murder. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In the fine tradition of And Sudden Death, Columbia's The Devil is Driving tabulates the dangers of drunken driving in an exciting, unabashedly melodramatic fashion. In his first true portrayal of a "little creep," Elisha Cook Jr. stars as Tony, the spoiled-rotten son of the wealthy and influential Mr. Stevens (Henry Kolker). Forever climbing behind the wheel after one too many martinis, Tony strikes and kills an old woman and later forces his sweetheart Kitty (Ann Rutherford) over an embankment. By rights, this blatant vehicular homicide should earn Tony a stiff jail sentence, but he is constantly bailed out by his father, who even buys off juries and judges to keep his son out of prison. After helping Stevens spring his son once too often, guilt-stricken district attorney Paul Driscoll (Richard Dix) joins forces with crusading reporter Eve Hammond (Joan Perry) to keep repeat offenders like Tony off the road. Be assured that Tony will receive his comeuppance in spades by fade-out time. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This drama chronicles the education of a naive, rich young woman who inherits a steel mill. To help her keep it running she unites with a man. Meanwhile two crooks try to destroy her production in order to force her to sell it to them for very little money. They are thwarted at the last moment. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Green Pastures began life as a group of "revisionist" Biblical stories titled Ol' Man Adam and His Chillun, written in exaggerated Negro dialect by white humorist Roark Bradford. These Old Testament stories were purportedly told from the point of view of an elderly black Sunday School teacher, who translated the Biblical prose into words that his congregation ("untutored black Christians" was Bradford's description) could readily understand. Thus, "De Lawd" behaves very much like a Southern black Baptist preacher; Heaven is a wondrous bayou-like land of big cigars and eternal fish fries; "Cap'n" Noah is a languid ferryboat skipper who argues with De Lawd over the advisability of bringing along a couple of kegs of liquor on the Ark; and the court of the Pharoah is redefined as a "Mystic Knights of the Sea" type lodge hall, with Moses introduced as a "conjure man". It is, of course, a white man's perspective on black life, but both the original "Ol' Man Adam", and the subsequent Pulitzer Prize-winning stage version written by Marc Connelly and retitled Green Pastures, have a lot more clarity, profundity and spiritual reverence than most "serious" Biblical adaptations. In this 1936 film version of the Connelly play, Rex Ingram is nothing less than brilliant as De Lawd, speaking the most ludicrous of lines with dignity and quiet authority. Others in the all-black cast include Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as Noah, Frank Wilson as Moses, George Reed as Rev. Deshee, and Oscar Polk as Gabriel, who has the film's single most stirring line: "Gangway! Gangway for de Lawd God Jehovah!" Unlike many other so-called racist films of decades past, The Green Pastures nearly always charms and captivates its modern-day audiences; even the most adamant of "P.C" advocates will probably thoroughly enjoy the experience. Playwright Marc Connelly is credited as director of Green Pastures, as he was for the original stage version, but co-director William Keighley and director of photography Hal Mohr deserve most of the credit for the film's strong cinematic sense. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An African-American Secret Service agent (Carl Mahan) saves a young girl from a fate worse than death in this typical low-budget "all-black" melodrama produced, written, and directed by Oscar Micheaux. Returning from Europe, Secret Service agent Alonso White (Mahan) is assigned to a case in Batesburg, Mississippi. At his lodgings, he meets and falls for the town's new schoolmistress, Norma Shepard (Starr Calloway), later rescuing the girl from being ravished by nasty Jeff Ballinger (John Everett). By coincidence, Ballinger proves to be the very man agent White was assigned to track down. After shipping Ballinger off to jail, Alonso and Norma depart for Harlem, New York, where Norma's former landlady, Mary Austin (Eunice Brooks), now lives. Having lost all her money gambling in the Radium Club, Mary is accused of murdering Gomez, the owner. As Alonso and Norma prove, the real killer was Liza, the estranged mistress of Ballinger and now Gomez's wife. This confusing melodrama was actually a reworking of Micheaux's silent The Spider's Web, both having been based on the director's unpublished Jeff Ballinger's Woman. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi