Mae Clarke Movies

The action in A Big Hand for the Little Lady centers around a high-stake poker game. The participants include some of the wealthiest men in the West (among them Jason Robards Jr., Kevin McCarthy, Charles Bickford and Paul Ford). Into this rarefied atmosphere trudges impoverished farmer Henry Fonda, who despite the protests of his wife Joanne Woodward plunks down his last dollars to join the game. Halfway through the proceedings, Fonda falls ill. With quiet desperation, Woodward sits down daintily at the table and says in a firm voice, "Gentlemen, how do you play this game?" End of story? Not by a long shot! This O. Henry-style shaggy dog story is based on a Dupont Show of the Week TV presentation Big Deal at Laredo. Keep an eye out for two movie veterans in bit parts: silent screen comic Chester Conklin and 1930's leading lady Mae Clarke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Veteran boxing trainer Jimmy West (played by Robert Armstrong of King Kong fame) thinks he's finally found a "golden boy" in the form of young pugilist Davey Carroll (a young, pre-2001 Gary Lockwood). But sports promoter Tod Richards (Mark Roberts) also wants control of Danny, and is willing to resort to any means, fair or foul, to get what he wants. When Richards turns up dead, Perry Mason enters the ring to defend West from a charge of first-degree murder. Seen in a very small role is Mae Clarke, immortalized as the recipient of James Cagney's grapefruit in the 1931 gangster drama Public Enemy; ironically, Ms. Clarke and Robert Armstrong had previously shared costar billing in 1932's The Penguin Pool Murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this sensitive drama, a commercial artist is devastated by his tiny daughter's death and takes to drinking to numb the terrible pain. Soon he has become a full-blown alcoholic. His loving wife and caring doctor are unable to help. He wants to stop drinking, but he simply cannot until he meets another alcoholic who is also desperate to stop. Together, they support each other as they withdraw from the debilitating drug. Later the fellow founds an organization designed to help other drunks dry out by offering them the same kind of support he had. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this upbeat drama, a reformed father returns to the Arkansas farm of his estranged family after having spent too many years living in the fast lane. Included in the family are his mute daughter and his baby son, whom he'd never seen. The father is determined to set things right and immediately begins fixing up the run-down farm. The film's climax occurs when the father, hearing screams, saves his heretofore mute daughter who has fallen into a mine shaft. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, a young man tries to walk the straight and narrow, but he is impeded by his past. The trouble begins when the young fellow flees his family's Texas dirt farm and becomes an outlaw. He is advised by one of the desperadoes to return home. The boy does, and with hard work, makes the farm successful. Harvest time rolls around. He is just about to celebrate when the outlaws ride up and force him to help them pull a local bank job. He refuses and kills the gang leader and his brother. Meanwhile, the boy's past is revealed to the town banker. Seeing that he truly has gone straight, the banker forgives him. The boy marries and lives with his lovely bride upon his land. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Filmed around the same time as Gunfight at the OK Corral, Wichita is a more modest--and to some, more entertaining--slant on the Wyatt Earp legend. Joel McCrea does his usual smooth, underplayed job as Earp, who aims to bring law and order to the wide-open cow town of Wichita. His least popular move is to take away the guns of everyone in town, no matter how important. Only when town banker McCoy (Walter Coy) is hit with a personal tragedy does Earp's no-guns edict begin to make sense. Linking the episodic storyline is an offscreen ballad, sung High Noon style by Tex Ritter. Interestingly, Joel McCrea would later star in the 1959 TV western Wichita Town--though not, of course, as Wyatt Earp (Hugh O'Brien was busy with that character on another network!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I Died a Thousand Times is a scene-by-scene remake of the 1941 crime-drama classic High Sierra. Jack Palance steps into the old Humphrey Bogart role as Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, the ageing bank robber who intends to pull off one last heist before retiring. Sprung from prison by likeable crime boss Big Mac (Lon Chaney Jr.), Earle is commissioned to mastermind the robbery of a resort hotel. His partners in crime include the hotheaded, immature Babe (Lee Marvin) and Red (Earl Holliman), as well as "inside man" Mendoza (Perry Lopez). Also along for the ride is Marie (Shelley Winters), a dance-hall girl whom Babe has picked up. Marie falls in love with Earle, but he has eyes only for Velma (Lori Nelson), the club-footed daughter of a farmer (Ralph Moody) whom Earle had earlier befriended. Intending to use his share of the loot to finance Velma's operation, Earle goes through with the robbery, only to be thwarted by the ineptitude of his partners, the treachery of the late Big Mac's successors, and, finally, the fickle Velma. With the faithful Marie by his side, Earle makes a desperate escape into the High Sierras, but fate is still against him. Essentially an itinerary of what has previously "clicked" in High Sierra, I Died a Thousand Times makes a few concessions to changing tastes and mores; the stereotype comedy-relief character played by black actor Willie Best in the original film, for example, has been replaced by the more "acceptable" (at least by 1950s terms) stereotyped Mexican played by Gonzales-Gonzales. While the 1955 film cannot match the excellence of its 1941 role model, I Died a Thousand Times works pretty well on its own terms. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) follow up reports that a shabbily dressed eight-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl have been going door to door in a fashionable Bel-Air neighborhood, begging for food. A tip from a servant in one of the homes indicates that the little beggars are two of three severely malnourished youngsters who are living in squalor in a large, decaying house. The detectives find out that the children have been abandoned (and not for the first time) by their alchoholic mother--and that the youngest of the three kids is dying of a skull fracture. This episode is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of February 1, 1951. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in the years following the Civil War, Horizons West stars Robert Ryan as Dan Hammond, one of three Texans who decide to return home after the cessation of hostilities. While his brother Neal (Rock Hudson) and his friend Tiny (James Arness) decide to become ranchers, Dan opts for a more adventurous life out West. Through means both fair and foul (mostly foul), he builds up a veritable empire, defending his turf with legions of hired gunmen. Eventually, the honest Neal is forced to face down his brother Dan, whose megalomania has reached dictatorial dimensions. Julie Adams, still billed as "Julia," plays a self-reliant widow who sets her cap for Dan, who in an earlier scene had gunned down the woman's husband (Raymond Burr)--a characteristically ironic grace-note from director Budd Boetticher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fans of Loretta Young were rather taken aback by the early scenes of Because of You, wherein Young is seen as brash, uninhibited bleach-blonde Christine Carroll. On the verge of marrying gangster Mike Monroe (Alex Nicol), Christine is arrested by the cops, and sent to prison on the strength of incriminating evidence slipped into her purse by the duplicitous Monroe. Through the kindness of prison psychiatrist Dr. Breen (Alexander Scourby), Christine turns her life around in prison, becoming a nurse's aid in the infirmary. Upon her release, Christine gets a job at a respectable hospital, where she falls in love with wounded combat pilot Steve Kimberly (Jeff Chandler). Will she ever be able to reveal her sordid past without sending the emotionally fragile Steve off the deep end? And what about that no-good Mike Monroe? The supporting cast of Because of You includes two of Loretta Young's contemporaries of the 1930s, Frances Dee and Mae Clarke, in strongly defined character roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Esther Williams generously shares screen time with Joan Evans and Vivian Blaine in Skirts Ahoy! The three leading ladies play WAVE officers who experience a daunting series of romantic misadventures. Whitney Young (Williams) had joined the WAVES after leaving her fiancé at the altar. Conversely Mary Kate Yarbrough (Evans) was jilted on her wedding day by her intended, while Una Yancy (Blaine) has donned a uniform in hopes of finding a husband. Much of the humor is of the gender-switch variety, with the three lady sailors ogling and whistling at every eligible male who crosses their path. Inevitably, Williams sheds her navy duds in favor of a swimsuit, while Blaine performs a comic torch song in the manner of her "Miss Adelaide" characterization in Guys and Dolls. Poor Joan Evans isn't given a musical number, but she does get her man (Keefe Brasselle) at the end. Guest performers include the singing DeMarco Sisters and youthful aquatic champs Russell and Kathy Tongay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fish-market worker Johnny O'Hara (James Arness) is named as a suspect when his boss -- with whom he had a dispute the previous day -- is shot to death in an apparent robbery. When he's arrested, his family appeals to their old friend James Curtayne (Spencer Tracy), who was once a renowned criminal attorney but is now in civil practice. He resists their entreaties until he realizes that no decent attorney will handle the case properly; his daughter (Diana Lynn) watches with alarm, however, for we soon learn that Curtayne is an alcoholic, and that the major factor in his life that pushed him over the edge was the stress of having someone's life in his hands. He discovers soon enough just how much Johnny's life is in his hands when his client refuses to level with him about his real whereabouts on the night of the murder. He also realizes as the trial starts precisely how rusty he is in the courtroom, and the old stresses return -- and with them, his drinking. Curtayne not only manages to lose the case but destroys his career when he tries to buy off a larcenous prosecution witness. His client facing a death sentence and his own life and career in ruins, he's seemingly hit bottom, but then new evidence surfaces, of a nature that not even the ambitious prosecutor (John Hodiak) can ignore. Recognizing that his client was actually innocent and also acting in his silence -- however stupidly -- from the noblest of motives, Curtayne is willing to redeem himself by putting his own life on the line, confronting a killer who has taken more than one life without any compunction whatsoever, and who has no reason to spill anything.

The People Against O'Hara was a well-made, largely location-shot crime drama set in New York City, but it wouldn't have been nearly so prestigious a movie were it not for the presence of Spencer Tracy in the role of Curtayne. Ironically enough, he only agreed to do the film on the condition that his friend Pat O'Brien, who hadn't been in a major studio release in a couple of years, be given a large role, which he got as the lead detective on the case, and O'Brien and Tracy get a couple of really good scenes together. The film also includes an unbilled appearance by Charles Bronson, who was still working as Charles Buchinski in 1951, and is highlighted by a superb prominent supporting performance by William Campbell, who seems to quietly relish every nuance of his portrayal of a totally slimy character. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Re-edited from the serial King of the Rocket Men, this adventure is an account of a scientist who dons a jet-pack in order to pursue a madman. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide