Caroline Cooke Movies
- 1943
Keep 'Em Slugging was the last of Universal's "Little Tough Guys" series-which, like Monogram's "East Side Kids", was an offshoot of Warner Bros.' "Dead End Kids" films. This time around, the kids decide to mend their troublemaking ways and get real jobs. Tommy (Bobby Jordan) is hired by the department store where his sister Sheila (Evelyn Ankers) is already employed. Frank (Frank Albertson), Tommy's supervisor, is mixed up with a gang of hijackers. When Tommy refuses to join the crooks, Frank frames the kid on a robbery rap. With the help of fellow Little Tough Guys Pig (Huntz Hall), String (Gabriel Dell) and Ape (Norman Abbott, nephew of comedian Bud Abbott), Tommy not only proves his innocence, but gives the criminals a real soaking. By the time Keep 'Em Slugging was released, Huntz Hall and Gabriel Dell were already repeating their antics in Monogram's "East Side Kids" flicks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, (more)
- 1942
The Mystery of Marie Roget is more faithful to its Edgar Allan Poe original than most Universal films of its ilk, even though the Poe story and the film aren't exactly twins. Based on the factual unsolved 1842 murder of one Mary Rogers, the film stars Maria Montez as the unfortunate heroine, a popular Parisian entertainer. No innocent young damsel, Marie Roget spends a great deal of her time plotting the demise of her younger sister Camille (Nell O'Day). Shortly afterward, Marie herself disappears, and before long the mutilated, unidentifiable corpse of a young woman turns up. It is up to master detecive Dupin (Patric Knowles) and his Dr. Watson-ish assistant Gobelin (Lloyd Corrigan) to piece all the clues together. The film's best moments belong to Maria Ouspenskaya as Maria's sardonic grandmother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patric Knowles, Maria Montez, (more)
- 1942
A college student's passion for swinging music leads him to found his own band. When he starts spending more time playing music than studying, his father, a prominent hotelier, steps in and sends the lad to a dude ranch in Arizona. Undeterred, the boy brings the band with him. Once there, he encounters a pretty girl. Unfortunately, her father owns a rival hotel chain. Fortunately, after much singing, dancing and misunderstanding, the two young people finally manage to fall in love. Though only an hour long, the film is packed with 16 popular songs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Healy, Richard Davies, (more)
- 1941
"Even a man who is pure at heart/And says his prayers by night/May become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms/And the moon is full and bright." Upon first hearing these words, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney) dismisses them as childish folderol. After all, this is the 20th Century; how can a human being turn into a werewolf? Talbot soon learns how when he attempts to rescue Jenny Williams (Fay Helm) from a nocturnal attack by a wolf. Collapsing, Talbot discovers upon reviving that Jenny is dead-and, lying by her side, is not the body of a beast, but of a gypsy named Bela (Bela Lugosi). The son of fortune teller Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), Bela was a lycanthrope, or "wolf man." And now that he has been bitten by Bela, Talbot is cursed to suffer the torments of the damned whenever the moon is full. Arguably the best of the "original" Universal horrors (original in the sense that it was not based on an existing literary property, a la Frankenstein, Dracula and The Invisible Man), The Wolf Man boasts one of the most stellar casts ever to grace a "B" picture: Lon Chaney Jr., Claude Rains, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Warren William, Patric Knowles, Maria Ouspenskaya and Bela Lugosi. The man-to-wolf transformation sequences -- one of which took a full 24 hours to film -- are thoroughly convincing, thanks to the cosmetic genius of Jack P. Pierce (Chaney had wanted to emulate his father by developing his own werewolf makeup, but existing union rules would not permit this). Alas, after this powerhouse opening volley, the Wolf Man character was relegated to a series of cheap sequels, teaming him with other Universal shock stars: Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945). The final ignominy was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1945), in which Lawrence Talbot (Chaney again), having been cured of lycanthropy in House of Dracula, reverts to his werewolf status -- and has to endure the one-liners of Lou Costello to boot! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lon Chaney, Jr., Claude Rains, (more)
- 1923
Although its popularity didn't endure, The Cricket on the Hearth was originally the favorite of Charles Dickens' Christmas Books (the most well-known today is, of course, A Christmas Carol. Director Lorimar Johnston makes an imposing Josiah Tackleton (also known as "Old Gruff"), and producer Paul Gerson is a handsome and likable John Peerybingle. The rest of the cast is filled with favorites of the silent era -- Fritzi Ridgeway has the pivotal role of Bertha Plummer, the blind girl, and character actor Josef Swickard is her father, Caleb. Virginia Brown Faire is Dot Peerybingle. Peerybingle marries his much-younger sweetheart Dot and they establish a happy home in the little village of Tindsley. Nearby lives a poor toymaker, Caleb Plummer who weaves idealistic fibs of his rich home and life for his blind daughter, Bertha. But Old Gruff, the town's most powerful figure, wants young, beautiful May Fielding (Margaret Landis), who loves Plummer's son Edward (Paul Moore). After knocking down Tackleton in a fight, Edward is forced to leave town for a year. He returns disguised as an old man in time to save May from a forced marriage to Tackleton. Tackleton, meanwhile, has played on Peerybingle's jealousy in an attempt to destroy his happiness, and Bertha has learned that her father's tales are untruths. But Edward has brought a fortune in Brazilian diamonds with him, enough to make his father's stories a reality. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Gerson, Virginia Brown Faire, (more)
