Thomas E. Jackson Movies

A model of precision and economy, the MGM "B" thriller Tell No Tales represented the feature-film directorial debut of former actor Leslie Fenton. Reportedly an expansion of a "Crime Does Not Pay" 2-reeler, the story follows editor Michael Cassidy (Melvyn Douglas) as he tries to save his newspaper from being shut down by corporate fat-cat Matt Cooper (Douglass Dumbrille). Hoping to track down the perpetrators of a recent kidnapping (and thereby obtaining an "exclusive"), Cassidy illegally gets hold of one of the bills used for the ransom, tracing the bill to all its previous owners. In the course of his odyssey, Cassidy stumbles into a wake for a murdered black boxer, a haunting sequence dominated by the powerhouse performance of Theresa Harris. He also learns that the much-hated Cooper was tenously connected to the ransom bill, though the identity of the actual miscreants aren't revealed until the last two reels. Louise Platt costars as Ellen Frazier, a harried witness to the kidnapping who winds up being taken "for a ride" along with the unconscious Cassidy. Also figuring prominently in the action is gambling boss Arno (Gene Lockhart) and his weakling brother Phil (Tom Collins), not to mention musical-comedy star Lorna Travers (Florence George), the main attraction at a Policeman's benefit show (another highlight). Showing up unbilled is one Jack Carlton, later known as Clayton Moore. Tell No Tales definitely deserves to be better known. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edward G. Robinson shines in a fine comic role as Dr. Clitterhouse, a brilliant psychiatrist doing research into the criminal mind. The good doctor wants to gain a clearer understanding of how a thief feels when he's in the midst of a robbery, so strictly for academic purposes he tries to crack a safe at a high society party to which he's been invited. While trying to get rid of the jewels he swiped in the course of this experiment, Clitterhouse makes the acquaintance of "Rocks" Valentine (Humphrey Bogart), the tough-as-nails leader of a group of professional thieves. Clitterhouse is fascinated by Valentine and discovers that he enjoys committing robberies, so he joins forces with Valentine's gang and uses his superior intellect to mastermind a series of daring and profitable heists. Clitterhouse is also beguiled by Jo Keller (Claire Trevor), a beautiful dame who fences stolen gems. But Valentine doesn't appreciate how Dr. Clitterhouse has worked his way into the gang, and he is soon looking for an opportunity to get him out of the picture. The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse was co-written by John Huston and features several key members of the Warner Brothers stock company in supporting roles, including Allen Jenkins and Donald Crisp. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Preston S. Foster and Frank Jenks play Bill Crane and Doc Williams, the pulp-novel detectives created by mystery writer Jonathan Latimer. Crane and Williams tackle the case of a morgue robbery; the missing body is that of a young woman who died mysteriously. As the detectives follow the clues, they uncover a deeper mystery, seemingly unconnected with the stolen corpse. Ultimately they discover that the person or persons unknown who swiped the lady in the morgue has a great deal to hide, and won't stop at thievery to hide it. Lady in the Morgue was the third film in Universal's Crime Club series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the "Torchy Blane" series, the plucky young reporter tries to expose a ring of counterfeiters led by a man pretending to be a G-man assigned to investigate the case. He asks her not to print any of the information she has gathered so as not to blow his cover. The ploy works until Torchy figures it out and brings the gang to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Fugitive in the Sky closely resembles such earlier aviation programmers as 13 Hours by Air and Absolute Quiet. Once again, a plane-load of diverse passengers is hijacked by a fugitive criminal, who this time forces the plane to land during a dust storm. This incident opens a whole new can of worms concerning a still-unsolved murder case, which seemingly involves everyone on the plane. The carefully disguised killer is revealed in a devilishly clever (and cinematically inventive) manner, though the identity of this worthy is inadvertently tipped off in the opening credits. This is the sort of "good, little picture" which, once seen in childhood, is never forgotten. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hoping to ape the success of Sol Lesser's Bobby Breen musicals, Republic Pictures fashioned Dangerous Holiday as a movie vehicle for pint-sized violin prodigy Ra Hould. The star is appropriately cast as preteen violin virtuoso Ronnie Campbell who is so coddled and protected by his family and handlers that he never has a chance to be a "real boy." When he can stand no more, Ronnie runs away from home, whereupon everyone -- including the cops -- assume that the boy has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, Ronnie, together with his new street-urchin friends, stumbles upon a gangster hideaway. In time-honored "Our Gang" fashion, the kids outwit the crooks, whereupon Ronnie's mom and dad promise to give him more freedom of movement in the future. Billed second after Ra Hould is matronly actress Hedda Hopper, who within a year would become one of Hollywood's most powerful (and feared) gossip columnists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Westland Case was the opening volley in Universal's "Crime Club" series. The film was based on Headed for a Hearse, a novel by Jonathan Latimer which had to be toned down considerably for the filmgoers' consumption. Latimer's cynical private-eye team of Bill Crane and Doc Williams are here played by Preston S. Foster and Frank Jenks, who'd repeat these roles in subsequent entries. This time out, Bill and Doc try to clear a wrongly condemned man before his date with the electric chair. This they do on behalf of the poor fellow's desperate fiancee Emily Lou (Carol Hughes) -- who, like most of the other characters in the film, knows a lot more than she's telling. If The Westland Case doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it certainly can't be faulted for a lack of energy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This hard-hitting Warner Bros. courtroom drama begins with the usual "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental" disclaimer. Filmgoers with long memories, however, recognized Robert Rossen and Aben Kandel's screenplay as a blow-by-blow recreation of the Leo Frank-Mary Phagan case of 1915. Phagan, a 14-year-old employee in a Marietta, GA pencil factory, was found murdered. The bulk of the evidence pointed to a black janitor (who actually confessed to the crime years after the fact), but race-baiting Atlanta newspaper publisher Tom Watson decided to go after Leo Frank, the Northern Jew who owned the factory where Mary worked. "We can lynch a nigger any time," the politically ambitious Watson is alleged to have said, "but when do we get a chance to hang a Yankee Jew?" Thanks largely to Watson's "guilt by headline" campaign, and to Fulton County's cooperative solicitor general, Frank was found guilty and sentenced to death. Georgia Governor John M. Slaton, who all along smelled something fishy in the case, commuted Frank's case to life imprisonment (and was ruined politically as a result). En route to prison, Frank was abducted by a mob and lynched, an incident that boosted the prestige of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan. Aben Kandel dramatized this appalling miscarriage of justice in his novel Death in the Deep South, which served as the basis for They Won't Forget. In Mervyn LeRoy's film version, Lana Turner (in a star-making turn) plays Mary Clay, a teen-aged typing school student who dresses garishly and flirts with every man she meets. Mary is later found murdered; the last person to see her alive was her teacher, recently arrived Northerner Robert Hale (Edward Norris). Once more, a black janitor (played as a superstitious moron by Clinton Rosemond) is the most likely suspect, but the ambitious district attorney (Claude Rains) seems sincere in his belief that Hale is guilty. Once Hale is sentenced to death, the governor, played by Paul Everton, commutes his sentence, serene in the belief that, once his career is finished, he'll be able to retire peacefully (real-life governor Slaton did not go down so benignly). Except for the removal of the original case's anti-Semitic elements, They Won't Forget is stark, powerhouse filmmaking, one of the best of Warners' "social protest" films of the 1930s. It was remade as the 1987 TV movie The Murder of Mary Phagan starring Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, Peter Gallagher, and Charles S. Dutton (as well as as the unsuccessful 1998 Broadway musical Parade). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1928, the old Willard Mack stage melodrama The Noose was updated and streamlined in 1936 as I'd Give My Life. Hoping that his son Nick (Tom Brown) will follow in his footsteps, jaded gangster-gambler Buck Gordon (Robert Gleckler) arranges to have the boy thrown into reform school. The kid is saved from a life of crime when Buck's ex-wife (Janet Beecher) marries Governor Bancroft (Sir Guy Standing). Enraged that his plans have been thwarted, Buck blackmails his former wife, threatening to reveal her shady past to her present husband. Rushing to his mother's defense, Nick shoots and kills Buck then refuses to explain his motives -- even as he is sentenced to hang for his crime. Frances Drake co-stars as Nick's sweetheart Mary, the role played on Broadway by Barbara Stanwyck. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ex-cop Russell Hopton, framed for a crime he didn't commit, gets a second chance in life after enduring a train wreck. His face mashed to pulp in the disaster, Hopton undergoes plastic surgery, emerging from the gauze with a brand-new face. Heading back to New York to find out who framed him, Hopton falls in love all over again with his former girlfriend Cecilia Parker, who-like everyone else--fails to recognize him. The writer/ director team of Charles W. Lamont and Ewart Adamson seemed more comfortable with the 2-reel comedies they'd been doing at Educational Studios than they were with the feature-length convolutions of Below the Deadline. The film was produced by the dying firm of Chesterfield-Invincible, then picked up for distribution by Grand National. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This crime drama is set in the fictional San Francisco eatery, Mary Grady's Chowder House which is presided over by the crusty Mary, a tough broad with a marshmallow heart. One of her regulars is a newspaper reporter who decides to write about the widow Grady's long lost son who disappeared 15-years-ago. The trouble begins when a vagabond fugitive, who got in trouble after trying to prevent a murder, learns of the reporter's search and decides to pretend to be the prodigal son. At first the gruff Mary and her adopted daughter are skeptical. But later when the detective who pursues the killer closes in, they end up defending the young man. When the fugitive sees a picture of Mary's late husband, he realizes that the real killer is Mary's estranged son. Soon the widow and the reporter begin putting things together and find themselves closer to finding her real son. They do not know what he has done so the good-hearted fugitive tries to thwart them at every turn. This puts him in grave danger, but this doesn't sway him. Unfortunately, he fails and Mary finds her long-lost offspring, and just after he admits that he is her son, he is killed in a police shoot out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Italian immigrant George Raft uses his wits and his fists to rise to prominence in a local political machine. He falls in love with Rosalind Russell, the wife of a prominent banker, but discreetly hides his feelings even as he and Russell are thrust together by social circumstances. The banker turns out to be an embezzler, but Raft comes to the rescue by replacing the stolen funds. Accused of conspiring with the banker because he'd failed to make the original embezzlement public, Raft is grilled by a grand jury. Once cleared, Raft is finally able to wed the divorced banker's wife, who it turns out had always had a crush on him. It Had to Happen is most entertaining in its early scenes wherein we see George Raft strongarming his way to success. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Broadway producer George White, who was the title character of 1934's George White's Scandals, heads for Florida following his latest hit. He makes it to Georgia where he sees an advertisement for a show called White's Scandals. Suspicious, he attends and learns that it is a hodge-podge variety show put on by another fellow named White. The show isn't very good but for the talent of its star, a beautiful singer. He is deeply impressed and hires her to headline his next show in New York. Well, just having only one of the entertainers come just won't do and George ends up taking an entire entourage including the Georgia White and the singer's love-interest. Still it's for the best and the New York production is a tremendous success. Things go well until a seductress shows up and steals the singer's beau. This creates personal friction that reflects in their performances. Things get sticky for awhile and it looks as if the show is going to fall apart until the singer's peach of an aunt shows up and puts it all back together. Eleanor Powell makes her screen debut as the troublesome vamp. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide