Frances Charles Movies
- 1952
In this Yukon adventure, a gold mining community is rocked by a murder. A Mountie investigates and encounters a female gambler. Action ensues, but justice prevails. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1950
The Woman From Headquarters is female rookie-cop Joyce (Virginia Huston). For reasons that seem amazing unless one actually sees the film, Joyce decides to take on a narcotics ring single-handed. Even more amazing -- especially for a 1950 film -- is the fact that she doesn't seem to need much help from her male colleagues. She does, however, find time for an intramural romance with officer Gates (Robert Rockwell). She also works overtime to reform a good-girl-gone-bad (Barbara Fuller). Featured in the cast are real-life policewoman Frances Charles, stalwart supporting actor Jack Kruschen, and, at the bottom of the cast list, Leonard Penn, the father of 1990s film faves Sean and Christopher Penn. Made with the full cooperation of the Los Angeles Police Department, Woman From Headquarters overcomes its occasional lapses of logic, painting a fairly realistic picture of crime-fighting in the Big City. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1950
The Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur Broadway comedy Ladies and Gentlemen formed the basis of the Warner Bros. laughspinner Perfect Strangers. The title characters are Terry Scott and David Campbell, played by Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan. She's a divorcee, he's a husband and father. Terry and David are thrown together by fate -- or rather, the LA judicial system. While serving as jurors on a murder trial, the two fall in love. Ironically, the woman on trial allegedly killed her husband because he'd asked for a divorce. The seriocomic tension develops on two levels: will juror Isobel Bradford (Margolo Gillmore) be able to sway the others to vote for the death penalty, and will Terry and David continue to pursue their romance at the expense of the happiness of others? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, (more)
- 1949
"What a dump!" That's the classic line delivered by Bette Davis at the halfway point of Beyond the Forest, her final Warner Bros. effort of the 1940s. Some Davis devotees feel as though this vituperative utterance is the high point of an otherwise turgid melodrama; others consider the line a succinct assessment of the entire film. Based on a best-selling novel by Stuart Engstrand, the film stars Davis as Rosa Moline, a small-town girl with big-city ambitions. Trapped in a dull marriage to just-getting-by lawyer Lewis Moline (Joseph Cotten), Rosa plots and plans to sexually entrap millionaire industrialist Neil Latimer (David Brian). That Rosa's scheme is doomed from the start is telegraphed at every juncture by Max Steiner's sledgehammer musical score (few will ever want to hear the song "Chicago" again after this). Hampered by the censorship standards of the era, the film is prevented from being as frank as the novel; in one scene, for example, Rosa is obviously visiting an abortionist, but the sign on the door reads "Psychiatrist." A standard entry in most film historians' "Worst Movies" lists (even Davis herself hated it), Beyond the Forest is rather entertaining in its own schlocky fashion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, (more)
