Leon Ames Movies

In the sixth and final Thin Man whodunit, Nick (William Powell) and Nora Charles (Myrna Loy) look into the mysterious killing of bandleader Tommy Drake (Phillip Reed). The police quickly hone in on the owner of a gambling ship, Phil Brant (Bruce Cowling), who was about to lose Drake's band to a competitor. Also among the many and varied suspects are: Phil's new wife, socialite Janet Thayar (Jayne Meadows); the band's voluptuous vocalist, Fran Page (Gloria Grahame); and the troubled clarinetist, Buddy Hollis (Don Taylor). With the assistance of jive-talking "Clinker" Krause (Keenan Wynn) and the clever terrier Asta, Nick and Nora are soon able to gather all the suspects at the reopening of the floating gaming establishment. In between the skullduggery and the usual wisecracks, Gloria Grahame performs a sultry version of Herb Magidson and Ben Oakland's "You're Not So Easy to Forget." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this WWII musical, a young hero and his buddy decide to celebrate his receiving the Medal of Honor by partying. He is terribly excited about seeing his fiancée again. Unfortunately, she has fallen for another in his absence. He is later consoled by a lovely radio singer. Songs include "All the Time" (Ralph Freed, Sammy Fain, sung by Pat Kirkwood), "Isn't It Wonderful" (Kay Thompson, sung by Kirkwood), "Love on a Greyhound Bus" (Thompson, Ralph Blane, George Stoll), "It'll Be Great to Be Back Home" (Charles Martin), "Old Sad Eyes" (Irving Kahal, Fain), "When It's Love" (Edgar De Lange, Nicholas Kharito), "Oye Negra" (performed by Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Robert Montgomery is the director and star of the film noir mystery Lady in the Lake, adapted for the screen by source novelist Raymond Chandler. Montgomery plays detective Philip Marlowe, a private eye who just wants to publish his own crime stories. Kingsby Publications editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) meets with Marlowe, but offers him a job as a detective instead of a writer. She wants him to find the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby (Leon Ames). (Adrienne wants them to proceed with their divorce so she can marry Kingsby herself.) Marlowe accepts the job and goes looking for clues at the home of the wife's sometime lover, Chris Lavery (Dick Simmons). When Marlowe gets knocked out and picked up for drunk driving, he decides to drop the case. He is drawn back in, however, when Adrienne suggests that Kingsby's wife is responsible for the murder of a mysterious lady in the lake. Lloyd Nolan and Tom Tully play two police detectives also on the case. Lady in the Lake is remembered as being filmed with a subjective camera -- almost entirely from Marlowe's point of view -- and subsequently hyped by an MGM ad campaign. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

James M. Cain's novel received its first authorized screen treatment in this MGM production. Drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) takes a job at a roadhouse run by slovenly but likeable Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway). Nick's sexy young wife Cora (Lana Turner) takes an immediate liking to Frank, but he senses that she's trouble and he keeps his distance--for a while, anyway. Inevitably succumbing to Cora's tawdry charms, Frank enters into her scheme to murder Nick and claim the old boy's insurance money. Not long after committing the foul deed, Frank and Cora are arrested. Thanks to the conniving of slimy attorney Arthur Keats (Hume Cronyn), the illicit lovers are able to beat the murder rap--but, as the film's title symbolically indicates, they eventually pay for their misdeeds in an unexpected manner. Fans of the James M. Cain original--not to mention Cain himself--were aghast at the changes made in the novel by screenwriters Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch; many of the alterations were made to conform with censorship standards of the era, while others simply existed to massage the egos of the stars. Even so, the 1946 version of The Postman Always Rings Twice is infinitely more satisfying than the no-holds-barred 1981 remake, directed by Bob Rafelson with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Brickley (Robert Montgomery) believes in PT boats, and as a lowly U.S. Navy lieutenant stationed in the Philippines, that makes him a radical thinker. "Your boats maneuver beautifully," an admiral (Charles Trowbridge) tells him, "but if I'm going into combat, I prefer something a little more substantial." The gently delivered but stinging dismissal stirs the resentment of Lt. "Rusty" Ryan (John Wayne), who tartly tells Brickley that he wants to be transferred to destroyers. The Pearl Harbor bombing makes transfer impossible, especially with the Japanese preparing to invade the islands. So Brickley and Ryan go to work, first as message carriers between the Philippines and Corregidor, then, finally, as ship hunters. They record some successes, but it's a doomed effort: The Americans are hopelessly outnumbered by the Japanese, and with almost all of the Pacific Fleet destroyed at Pearl Harbor, they know help won't arrive to save them. As the Japanese push the U.S. forces back, Brickley and Ryan and their crews hop from island to island, scrounging supplies and taking casualties but keeping up the fight. Just as it appears that they will be forced to fight on Corregidor against the Japanese, they get rescued; they're ordered home to promote their PT-boat successes, and they take the last plane out, hoping to return and avenge their defeats. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide

Son of Lassie is about a courageous collie named Laddie, played by a dog named "Pal". A sequel to Lassie Come Home, the film stars Peter Lawford and June Lockhart as the grown-up counterparts of the characters played in the earlier film by Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor. When WW2 breaks out, young Yorkshireman Joe Carraclough (Lawford) signs up with the British air force, bringing Laddie along. The inquisitive canine sneaks aboard the plane which takes Joe on his first mission. Their aircraft hit by enemy fire, Joe and Laddie are forced to parachute into Nazi-occupied Norway. Injured in the landing, Joe lies in a daze while the dog seeks help for his master. Once Laddie ascertains that the Nazis aren't his friends, the film evolves into one long chase, as dog and master try to make their way back to their own lines?while back at home, Joe's sweetheart Priscilla (June Lockhart, who of course would later costar in the Lassie TV series) bites her nails in anticipation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sally Benson's short stories about the turn-of-the-century Smith family of St. Louis were tackled by a battalion of MGM screenwriters, who hoped to find a throughline to connect the anecdotal tales. After several false starts (one of which proposed that the eldest Smith daughter be kidnapped and held for ransom), the result was the charming valentine-card musical Meet Me in St. Louis. The plot hinges on the possibility that Alonzo Smith (Leon Ames), the family's banker father, might uproot the Smiths to New York, scuttling his daughter Esther (Judy Garland)'s romance with boy-next-door John Truett (Tom Drake) and causing similar emotional trauma for the rest of the household. In a cast that includes Mary Astor as Ames' wife, Lucille Bremer as another Ames daughter, and Marjorie Main as the housekeeper, the most fascinating character is played by 6-year-old Margaret O'Brien. As kid sister Tootie, O'Brien seems morbidly obsessed with death and murder, burying her dolls, "killing" a neighbor at Halloween (she throws flour in the flustered man's face on a dare), and maniacally bludgeoning her snowmen when Papa announces his plans to move to New York. Margaret O'Brien won a special Oscar for her remarkable performance, prompting Lionel Barrymore to grumble "Two hundred years ago, she would have been burned at the stake!" The songs are a heady combination of period tunes and newly minted numbers by Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin, the best of which are The Boy Next Door, The Trolley Song, and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. As a bonus, Meet Me in St. Louis is lensed in rich Technicolor, shown to best advantage in the climactic scenes at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fifth entry in MGM's off-and-on "Thin Man" series maintains the high production and story values of the first four. Per the title, retired private detective Nick Charles (William Powell) pays a visit to his home town of Sycamore Springs, with wife Nora (Myrna Loy) in tow. Poor Nick is amusingly browbeaten by his parents (Harry Davenport and Lucile Watson), who wanted their boy to study medicine, is frustrated by the fact that there isn't a good stiff drink to be had in town, and is hilariously defeated by a recalcitrant hammock. In a more serious vein, Nick and Nora become involved in international intrigue while investigating the murder of a local house painter. If the identity of the murderer seems obvious today, it is only because the actor in question has played so many "surprise killers" in other films of this genre. A refreshing change of pace for the usually urbanized "Thin Man" series, The Thin Man Goes Home features such colorful suspects as Gloria DeHaven, Edward Brophy, Lloyd Corrigan, Leon Ames, and, best of all, Ann Revere as a local eccentric named "Crazy Mary". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Iron Major is the saga of WW1 hero-cum-football coach Frank Cavanaugh, played with his usual no-nonsense professionalism by Pat O'Brien. Leaving home and hearth behind to serve his country in the Great War, Cavanaugh goes on to lead the Dartmouth, Boston College and Fordham football teams to victory. His credo throughout is "Love of God?Love of Country?Love of Family"-inspiriational words indeed in war-torn 1943. Based on the memoirs of Cavanaugh's wife Florence (played in the film by Ruth Warrick), The Iron Major suffers from repetition and overkill. But, as Humphrey Bogart once said in an unrelated interview, "Pat O'Brien was good? Pat was always good." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The dangers of the dread venereal disease syphilis are depicted in this earnest drama from the 1940s. The story centers upon an intrepid health commissioner who is out to get rid of the tawdry hookers responsible for spreading the disease. He is assisted by a reporter. In a different subplot a young philanderer contracts the disease and gives it to his pregnant wife. Later a rotten doctor claims that he is cured, but it is not so and the young man returns, picks a fight, and accidentally kills the doctor. Later the young fellow is persuaded into giving his reasons for the killing; he does, and his name is cleared. At the same time, the reporter and health commissioner have fallen in love, and the town council finally gives the go ahead for the commissioner to clean up the streets. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This gangster film is based upon fact as it tells the tale of a determined reporter who has decided to make sure a certain notorious gangster gets his just desserts. It takes a long time, but eventually the reporter succeeds and the gangster is sent up river. Unfortunately, once there, he becomes the leader of the prisoners and, though incarcerated, is soon up to his old tricks of trying to corrupt local politicians and the warden. The obsessed journalist is infuriated and so gets himself sent to prison to stop the gangster once and for all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This sequel to Grand National's 1938 actioner Cipher Bureau once again stars Leon Ames as bureau head Major Philip Waring. In case you're wondering, the Cipher Bureau is a government agency in charge of decoding enemy messages. Teamed with agent Helen Lane (Charlotte Wynters), Major Waring is dispatched to the Panama Canal. Here the two operatives discover that an Oriental spy ring (no nationalities, please: this is still 1939) is stealing vital secrets concerning the Canal. Almost as dangerous as the spies is Abner Biberman in the role of a turncoat bureau agent. The very brief "Cipher Bureau" series was created by Arthur Hoerl and Monroe Sheff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide