Spencer Charters Movies

This airy bit of MGM fluff stars Lana Turner as small-town soda clerk Peggy Evans. After telling off the self-important new drugstore manager Bob Stuart (Robert Young), Peggy, convinced that there's no future for her in her hometown, fakes her suicide and heads for the big city. After a series of dizzying comic complications, she successfully poses as the long-lost daughter of millionaire Cornelius Burden (Walter Brennan). Meanwhile, poor Bob, held responsible for Peggy's "death," comes to town determined to clear his name by exposing Peggy as an impostor. How this all works itself out is as hard to swallow as the rest of the picture, but the stars are attractive and the production values first-rate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"It's box office poison," producer Samuel Goldwyn is said to have exclaimed when he heard the idea of filming the life story of fabled first baseman Lou Gehrig. "If people want baseball, they go to the ballpark!" The story begins before World War I, when young Lou Gehrig (played as a boy by Douglas Croft) begins dreaming of becoming a professional ballplayer. Lou's immigrant parents (Elsa Jansen and Ludwig Stossel) insist that the boy attend Columbia University to become an engineer. While in college, Lou (played as a man by Gary Cooper) becomes a star athlete, and, with the help of sports journalist Sam Blake (Walter Brennan), he is signed by the New York Yankees and joins their big-league lineup in 1925; real-life Yanks Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Bob Meusel and Mark Koenig play themselves. He also meets and falls in love with Eleanor Twitchell (Teresa Wright) (an event that actually happened in 1933) and earns the nickname "The Iron Man of Baseball" because he never misses a game. In 1939, Lou discovers that he has a fatal neurological disease called amytrophic lateral sclerosis (now known, of course, as "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). On July 4, 1939, an emotional Lou Gehrig, a scant two years away from death, bids farewell to 62,000 of his fans and friends at Yankee Stadium. Allowing that he might have been given a bad break, he concludes his speech with "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Deftly weaving basic facts with yards and yards of fancy, screenwriters Jo Swerling and Herman J. Mankiewicz serve up one of the most entertaining and inspiring baseball biopics. A more accurate but less dramatic adaptation of the same story, A Love Affair: The Eleanor & Lou Gehrig Story, was produced for television in 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Andrew Jackson is very happy to serve as the secretary of the society that honors his presidential namesake until he is arrested for embezzling from the town coffers. With no one to speak on his behalf, poor innocent Jackson is tossed into jail. There he finds himself haunted by several ghosts, including Presidents Andrew Jackson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. Each of this sagacious specters offers his advice to the incarcerated Andrew. Then Jesse James shows up and helps Andrew, the only one who can see them, escape and with their help, bring the real crooks to justice. When not helping Andrew, the ghosts have great fun adjusting to the modern world. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Yankee Doodle Dandy is no more the true-life story of George M. Cohan than The Jolson Story was the unvarnished truth about Al Jolson -- but who the heck cares? Dandy has song, dance, pathos, pageantry, uproarious comedy, and, best of all, James Cagney at his Oscar-winning best. After several failed attempts to bring the life of legendary, flag-waving song-and-dance man Cohan to the screen, Warners scenarist Robert Buckner opted for the anecdotal approach, unifying the film's largely unrelated episodes with a flashback framework. Summoned to the White House by President Roosevelt, the aging Cohan is encouraged to relate the events leading up to this momentous occasion. He recalls his birth on the Fourth of July, 1878; his early years as a cocky child performer in his family's vaudeville act; his decision to go out as a "single"; his sealed-with-a-handshake partnership with writer/producer Sam Harris (Richard Whorf); his first Broadway success, 1903's Little Johnny Jones; his blissful marriage to winsome wife Mary (a fictional amalgam of Cohan's two wives, played by Joan Leslie -- who, incredibly, was only 17 at the time); his patriotic civilian activities during World War I, culminating with his writing of that conflict's unofficial anthem "Over There" (performed by Nora Bayes, as played by Frances Langford); the deaths of his sister, Josie (played by Cagney's real-life sister Jeanne), his mother, Nellie (Rosemary DeCamp), and his father, Jerry (Walter Huston); his abortive attempt to retire; and his triumphant return to Broadway in Rodgers & Hart's I'd Rather Be Right.

His story told, Cohan is surprised -- and profoundly moved -- when FDR presents him with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first such honor bestowed upon an entertainer. His eyes welling up with tears, Cohan expresses his gratitude by invoking his old vaudeville curtain speech: "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you." Glossing over such unsavory moments in Cohan's life as his bitter opposition of the formation of Actor's Equity -- not to mention George M.'s intense hatred of FDR! -- Yankee Doodle Dandy offers the George M. Cohan that people in 1942 wanted to see (proof of the pudding was the film's five-million-dollar gross). And besides, the plot and its fabrications were secondary to those marvelous Cohan melodies -- "Give My Regards to Broadway," "Harrigan," "Mary," "You're a Grand Old Flag," "45 Minutes from Broadway," and the title tune -- performed with brio by Cagney (who modifies his own loose-limbed dancing style in order to imitate Cohan's inimitable stiff-legged technique) and the rest of the spirited cast. Beyond its leading players, movie buffs will have a ball spotting the myriad of familiar character actors parading before the screen: S.Z. Sakall, George Tobias, Walter Catlett, George Barbier, Eddie Foy Jr. (playing his own father), Frank Faylen, Minor Watson, Tom Dugan, John Hamilton, and on and on and on. In addition to Cagney, music directors Ray Heindorf and Heinz Roemheld also won Oscars for their efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Night Before the Divorce is when Lynn Thorndike (Lynn Bari) seeks out her ex-husband George (Joseph Allen Jr.), begging for help. Lynn claims she is in trouble with cops, a contingency tied in with the murder of bandleader Victor Roselle (Nils Asther), whom she has been dating. George immediately drops his current girl friend Lola May (Mary Beth Hughes) like a hot potato to come to his former wife's rescue. It turns out, however, that Lynn isn't in any trouble at all; she's just been playing dumb and helpless to win back her husband, who'd always been jealous of her superior intellect. Wonder what the chances are for a screening of The Night Before the Divorce at the next N.O.W. meeting? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romance, a spoiled, self-centered rich boy John T. Bromley III, is simultaneously disinherited by his wealthy aunt and kicked out by his social climbing girl friend. The fellow is naturally depressed and while slumping in a bar drinking heavily he meets a former pug who ends up knocking him flat in a brawl. Now the fellow is humiliated as well; and he demands a rematch, but before he goes through with it, he enrolls in a training camp for fighters. There he meets and falls for the trainer's daughter. Unfortunately her foster brother doesn't like her new beau and begins giving him a hard time. By the picture's end, the fellow has learned the proper etiquette for eating humble pie. Fortunately, his dream girl is there to eat it with him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Also known as The Singing Hills, this Gene Autry western boasts a screenplay cowritten by Jesse Lasky Jr. Gene and his saddle pal Smiley Burnette ride into town and sing a few songs. They make the acquaintance of heiress Virginia Grey, who wants to divest herself of her land holdings. Villain George Meeker hopes that she'll do this so he can charge inordinately high prices for grazing lands. Autry fixes everything, then he sings a few more songs. Director Lew Landers keeps things moving apace between the musical interludes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Midnight Angel was the title of this Paramount actioner when it was first released in December of 1941. But by the time the film reached the hinterlands, America had entered WW2, and thus it was that Midnight Angel was rechristened Pacific Blackout, which remained its title to this very day. Falsely convicted of murder (in one of those movie trials that takes only a few minutes!), young Robert Draper (Robert Preston) escapes custody during a practice blackout drill. Under cover of darkness, Draper hopes to find the real killer, who turns out to be a member of a Nazi sabotage ring. Our hero is helped along by Mary (Martha O'Driscoll), one of the most refreshingly self-reliant heroines in B-picture history. Among the secondary players are a young Hungarian immigrant named Eva Gabor and a portly German refugee named John Banner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fresh from his contract-player duties at Warner Bros., future TV "Superman" George Reeves heads the cast of 20th Century-Fox's Man at Large. Reeves is cast as FBI agent Bob Grayson, working in collaboration with Max (Richard Derr), a British agent posing as a fugitive German aviator. Meanwhile, fearless girl reporter Dallas Dayle (Marjorie Weaver) is assigned by her editor to track down the enemy aviator and get an exclusive story. When she catches up with Grayson and Max, Dallas is under the impression that Grayson is a rival reporter and Max is the genuine fugitive, leading to the usual complications. All three protagonists ultimately pool their resources to expose a German spy ring operating in the United States. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though history is distorted almost beyond recognition in Warner Bros.' They Died With Their Boots On, audiences in 1941 ate it up like cotton candy. In the gospel according to Warners, General George Armstrong Custer (Errol Flynn) is neither an arrogant fool nor a rabid Indian hater. Instead, he is a flamboyant but brilliant cavalry officer, who during the Civil War defies his superiors' orders and becomes a hero as a result. After a period of forced retirement in the postwar years, Custer is put in charge of the 7th Cavalry in the Dakota Territory. Here he whips this ragtag group into spit-and-polish shape, and also does his best to extend a neighborly hand to the local Indian tribes. Custer even goes so far as to promise Chief Crazy Horse (Anthony Quinn) that the white man will never set foot in the sacred Black Hills. Alas, Custer is betrayed by greedy gold prospectors, whipped into a frenzy by scheming (and fictional) land speculator Ned Sharp (Arthur Kennedy). Forced by circumstances to do battle against Crazy Horse to prevent tribal retaliation, Custer and his command ride towards a rendezvous with destiny at the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876. Though some of the historical inaccuracies in the film are real howlers, blame cannot be laid solely at the feet of Warner Bros.; the Custer legend had previously been perpetrated by the general's loyal widow Elizabeth Bacon (played herein by Olivia de Havilland), then eagerly elaborated upon by Eastern news journalists and dime novels. This film represented the final screen pairing of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, a fact that lends poignancy to their classic parting scene. Though an extremely long film, They Died With Their Boots On is never dull, especially during the spectacular Custer's Last Stand finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Nazis are clearly the villains in So Ends Our Night, but since the film was made before America's entry into World War II, Adolph Hitler goes unmentioned (we wouldn't want to lose those foreign markets, would we?) Based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel Flotsam, the film zeroes in on three German refugees. Frederic March despises the Nazis on ideological grounds; Margaret Sullavan, a Jew, is fleeing for her life; and Glenn Ford, born of a Jewish mother and Aryan father, is racked with confusion and torn loyalties. The three separate as they move from country to country in Europe, just a step or so ahead of the advancing Nazis. As Sullavan and Ford fall in love, March puts his life on the line by trying to arrange a reunion with his ailing wife Frances Dee, who has remained in Germany. Had So Ends Our Night been released a few months after the US entry into the war, it might have done better at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three different Universal pictures made between 1922 and 1941 bore the catchall title Don't Get Personal. The 1941 film stars Hugh Herbert as a ditzy pickle manufacturer whose favorite radio program stars Jane Frazee and Robert Paige. The couple plays a bickering husband and wife on the air, and Herbert mistakes their scripted bouts for the real thing. He heads to the radio station to patch up their differences, but succeeds in embroiling the actors in a real battle. Don't Get Personal seems to have been made at the same time as Universal Hellzapoppin' (41), with at least four actors (Hugh Herbert, Robert Paige, Jane Frazee and Mischa Auer) appearing in both films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide