Thomas E. Jackson Movies

In this crime drama a young woman leaves her unhappy life at home to become a sophisticated night club singer. Her first job is nearly fatal when she entangles herself with the mobsters who own the joint and learns too much about their operation. Her boss decides to kill her and make it look like suicide. An intrepid reporter disbelieves the report and exposes the truth to the public. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a former card shark finally gets paroled and decides to take his singing niece to Chicago to make a new start. Unfortunately, the musical niece ends up working at a gangster's nightclub and the gambler, unable to resist the lure of easy money, returns to card playing. Later an investigating attorney falls in love with the singer whose boss he has been assigned to ultimately prosecute. Songs include: "In Love with Love," "Mam'selle Is on Her Way" (George Waggner, Milton Rosen), "Tango" (Edgar Fairchild), and "Cuddle Up a Little Closer" (Karl Hoschna, Otto Harbach). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Directed by Fritz Lang, The Woman in the Window, a sadly tragic film noir, is the story of the doomed love of married psychology-professor Wanley (Edward G. Robinson), who, with murderous results, meets and falls in love with another woman. Wanley first sees the portrait of a beautiful woman, Alice (Joan Bennett), and then meets the woman herself. After committing murder in self-defense, he finds himself blackmailed by Heidt (Dan Duryea). The script, written by Nunnally Johnson, is carefully structured with crisp dialogue and a convincing ending. Lang is at his best, getting excellent performances from Robinson, as the doomed, naive professor, and Bennett both. The Woman in the Window shows that good and evil are present in all, and that circumstances frequently dictate moral choices. Based on J.H. Wallis' novel Once Off Guard, the film gives viewers their money's worth with not one but two logical and satisfying surprise twists at the end. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

William Gargan and Margaret Lindsay, stars of Columbia's "Ellery Queen" series, were reunited for the like-minded comedy/mystery No Place for a Lady. Gargan plays private eye Jess Arno, while Lindsay is Jess' ever-faithful, long-suffering fiancee June Terry. The plot gets under way when a valuable collection of tires (vital to the War effort of course) are stolen by a wealthy widow-who subsequently ends up murdered. Suspicion falls upon Dolly Adair (Phyllis Brooks), but Arno isn't satisfied with this and eventually ferrets out the real killer. While it's not fair to reveal the murderer, it should be noted that the cast includes such whodunit veterans as Edward Norris, Dick Purcell and Jerome Cowan. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

Paramount's "B" pictures of the early 1940s were generally more interesting than their star-studded "A"s, as witness Women without Names. Ellen Drew and Robert Paige star as newlyweds Joyce and Fred MacNeil, whose honeymoon comes to an abrupt and unsatisfying halt when Fred is accused of murder. Railroaded into prison through the efforts of politically ambitious assistant DA Marlin (John Miljan), Fred awaits his doom on Death Row, while Joyce works overtime on the outside to clear her husband's name. Fred fate rests in the hands of Peggy Athens (Judith Barrett), the spiteful girl friend of Joyce's ex-husband, and the only person who knows the identity of the real murderer. Women Without Names was based on a play by Ernest Booth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed with the full cooperation of the Golden Gloves Tournament Association, this Paramount programmer stars Richard Denning as promising pugilist Bill Crane. Though tempted to sign up with crooked Joe Taggerty (J. Carrol Naish) for a series of fixed bouts, Crane is saved from himself by sportswriter Wally Matson (Robert Paige), the organizer of the local Golden Gloves program. Taggerty tries to get even by pitting the amateur Crane against a seasoned professional, but to no avail. James Cagney's sister Jeanne Cagney is an appealing heroine, while Crane's duplicitious ring opponent is played by Robert Ryan in his first screen appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1940 Warner Bros. quickie A Fugitive From Justice is based on Leonard Neubauer's short story "Million Dollar Fugitive." Roger Pryor plays insurance investigator Don Miller, who endeavors to hide Lee Leslie (Donald Douglas), holder of a million-dollar policy, from both the police and the underworld. Miller's efforts are frequently stymied by Mark Rogers (John Gallaudet), a Winchellesque radio reporter in cahoots with the G-Men. Our hero's allies include his wisecracking assistant Ziggy (Eddie Foy Jr., brother of Bryan Foy, the film's producer) and all-purpose heroine Janet Leslie (Lucille Fairbanks, niece of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.) A Fugitive from Justice sure looks like a remake, but a remake of what remains a mystery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The notoriously temperamental Miriam Hopkins is ideally cast as equally contentious theatrical prima donna Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Lady With Red Hair. As rapidly paced as any Warner Bros. gangster picture, the film charts Caroline Carter's rise to fame on Broadway through the auspices of impresario David Belasco (Claude Rains). The screenwriters take great pains to cast Carter in a sympathetic light, suggesting that she turned to the lucrative world of the theater to regain custody of her son (Johnnie Russell), won by her husband in their acrimonious 1889 divorce settlement. Though at first she meets with nothing but failure, our heroine perseveres, and by 1904 she is the idol of millions throughout the world. Along the way, she marries visionary producer Lou Payne (Richard Ainley), but by film's end she is reunited with her mentor Belasco. A young Cornel Wilde makes his screen debut as an aspiring actor in a boarding-house sequence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Free, Blonde and 21 was one of a handful of films directed by former leading man Ricardo Cortez. Two of 20th Century-Fox's busiest leading ladies, Mary Beth Hughes and Lynn Bari, head the cast of this soap opera-style yarn about life in a hotel catering to women. Hughes plays Jerry, a duplicitious wench who gets involved with gangsters ends up behind bars, while Bari plays Carol, an honest lass who is rewarded at fadeout time with a happy marriage to millionaire Dr. Mayberry (Henry Wilcoxon). Joan Davis injects a few moments of hilarity as the hotel chambermaid, while Alan Baxter is his usual steely-eyed self as a stickup man. For its original New York run, Free, Blonde and 21 was paired with Fox's The Grapes of Wrath, leading several reviewers to note that both films would have been better off with a single-feature presentation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A typical, fast-paced Grade-B murder mystery, Mystery of the White Room was based on the then revolutionary medical breakthrough of corneal transplantation. After being rebuked by hospital administrator Dr. Morton (Addison Richards) for failing to follow procedure, Dr. Clayton (Bruce Cabot) and Dr. Thornton (Frank Reicher) become prime suspects when Morton is murdered during a brief blackout in the operating room. Suspicion quickly centers on Dr. Thornton, who fails an ad hoc lie detector test, and the case seems solved when the good doctor is found dead, an apparent suicide. But neither Dr. Clayton nor the investigating police officer, Sgt. Spencer (Thomas Jackson), are convinced and the former makes the daring suggestion of transplanting Dr. Morton's corneas onto the eyes of the only witness, Tony (Frank Puglia), the deaf-and-dumb janitor who has been blinded with acid by the killer. The operation proves successful and the janitor is able to reveal the surprising identity of his attacker. Mystery of the White Room was the second-to-last of Universal's "Crime Club" thrillers. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Stronger Than Desire is a streamlined remake of 1934's Evelyn Prentice. Instead of the earlier film's William Powell and Myrna Loy, we are offered Walter Pidgeon and Virginia Bruce in the roles of a dynamic attorney and his wife. Little has changed storywise from Evelyn Prentice: Bruce kills (or thinks she kills) a man who is blackmailing her; another woman is accused of the crime; and as luck would have it, Pidgeon defends the accused woman. The remake is inferior to the original, save for the presence of child actress Ann Todd, who as the couple's daughter is a lot more appealing than Evelyn Prentice's nails-on-the-blackboard moppet Cora Sue Collins. Sidebar: Ann Dvorak, playing an "other woman" role originated by Rosalind Russell in Evelyn Prentice, is directed in Society Lawyer by her then-husband, Leslie Fenton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide