Joe Brown, Jr. Movies

Fugitive Kind began life as Battle of Angels, a never-produced 1939 play by a young Tennessee Williams. Nearly 20 years later, Williams refined this rough-hewn theatrical effort into Orpheus Descending, which enjoyed a respectable Broadway run. The renamed film version stars Marlon Brando as Valentine "Snakeskin" Xavier, a trouble-prone drifter who wanders into a deliciously Williamsesque Mississippi town. Here he becomes involved in the problems of alcoholic Carole Cutrere (Joanne Woodward) and unhappily married Lady Torrence (Anna Magnani) and also runs afoul of Torrence's vicious husband (Victor Jory). Sexual symbolism abounds in this tempestuous drama, which offers Brando at his most inscrutable and Magnani at her earthiest. Maureen Stapleton, in real life one of Brando's best friends and severest critics, plays an avant-garde artist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wendell Corey and Forrest Tucker, the Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy of Republic, star as a pair of World War II Army Air Corps officers. In between their battles over the affections of beautiful nurse Vera Hruba Ralston, Corey and Tucker prepare to fly a bombing mission in the South Pacific. Before boarding their B29 Superfortress, Tucker appears to be chickening out, but he's steadfastly at his cockpit post at takeoff time. For a big-budget war picture, Wild Blue Yonder contains a surprising amount of chorus boy-style singing. The best musical vignette is supporting player Phil Harris' rendition of his hit song "The Thing" ("Get outta here with that [thump! thump! thump!] /Before I call a cop" etc.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Spencer Tracy received an Oscar nomination for his performance in this classic comedy. Stanley T. Banks (Tracy) is a securely middle-class lawyer whose daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor) announces that she's going to marry her beau Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). From that point on, everything in Stanley's life is turned upside down. His wife Ellie (Joan Bennett) wants Kay to have the kind of formal wedding that she and Stanley never had, and between meeting his soon-to-be in-laws, the socially prominent Herbert and Doris Dunstan (Moroni Olsen and Billie Burke), his man-to-man talk with the groom, hosting the engagement party, financing the increasingly lavish wedding, and wondering if Kay and Buckley will resolve their differences before arriving at the altar, Stanley barely has time to deal with his own considerable anxieties about his advancing age and how his "little girl" became a grown woman. Director Vincente Minnelli reunited with the principal cast a year later for a sequel, Father's Little Dividend; and the movie was remade in 1991 with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress appropriated the money to build the school, but opponents who believed it to be an illegitimate expansion of the powers of the federal government decided to sabotage the school. They put the hard-as-nails Major Sam Carter (Laird Cregar) in charge of the academy, and he ruthlessly put the recruits through grueling training -- until only ten prospective soldiers remained. They include Dawson (George Montgomery), a patriotic farm boy and Howard Shelton (John Sutton), a selfish playboy who has come to West Point only because of its prestige. The two vie for Carolyn Bainbridge (Maureen O'Hara), while they, along with the other eight, try convince Carter that the school is worth keeping. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Three of Hollywood's best child actors-Freddie Bartholomew, Jimmy Lydon and Billy Cook-join forces in Columbia's Naval Academy. The story opens as spoiled rich kid Steve Kendall (Bartholomew), Naval officer's son Tommy Blake (Jimmy Lydon) and reform-school graduate Dick Brewster (Cook) find themselves assigned to the same room at a spit-and-polish private naval school. The three plebes endure "hell" week, undergo extensive training and suffer the usual setbacks before they earn the classification of "Real Navy". Throughout their stay, the boys are shepherded by tough-but-compassionate superior officer Lt. Brackett (Warren Ashe). Naval Academy is so predictable that the viewer may be reciting the dialogue before the actors do. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Unlike Shirley Temple, Jane Withers was permitted to "grow up" in her 20th Century-Fox vehicles. Since Withers was 13 going on 14 in 1940, it was only natural that she should star in a film titled High School. Fresh from her family's Texas cattle ranch, rambunctious Jane Wallace (Wither) is sent to a fancy-schmantsy San Antonio high school, where her unbridled behavior earns her the scorn of her more reserved classmates. The limit comes when she inadvertently causes football hero Slats Roberts (Joe Brown Jr.) to miss his opportunity to play in the Big Game. Ultimately, Jane learns to comport herself in a proper fashion, graduating with the highest honors and with popularity to spare. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide