Catherine Craig Movies

Produced in garish Cinecolor, this aspiring "A" Western features John Payne as Clay Fletcher, an Eastern lawyer assigned to track down a judge whose signature is needed for some estate papers. Clay traces the judge, Henry Jeffers (Henry Hull), to El Paso, a lawless town ruthlessly run by saloon owner Bert Donner (Sterling Hayden) and a corrupt sheriff, La Farge (Dick Foran). The judge has become a hopeless drunk and is used as a pawn by Donner, who terrorizes the local farmers off their land. When one settler, John Elkins (Arthur Space), shoots and kills a deputy in self-defense, Clay is at first inclined to trust that justice will prevail and arranges for traveling salesman "Pesky" (George "Gabby" Hayes) to keep Judge Jeffers sober long enough to render a just verdict. But a threatened Donner has both Jeffers and Elkins brutally killed and against the wishes of the judge's daughter Susan (Gail Russell), Clay takes matters into his won hands by organizing a vigilante group. Grandfather Fletcher (H.B. Warner) arrives to remind Clay of his judicial pledges but he, too, is killed by the increasingly insane La Farge. In the end, only the prospect of a mass lynching brings Clay around and the guilty all face a jury of their peers. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Albert Dekker plays a crooked investment agent who embezzles a large sum from an estate, hoping to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress (Catherine Craig). The girl is already engaged, so Dekker arranges to have the fiance killed. The hit man's only means of identifying the victim-to-be is his picture in the society columns. But the girl changes her mind and agrees to marry Dekker--meaning that it is his picture that will appear in the columns, thereby condemning him to death. Desperately trying to contact the hit man, Dekker discovers that the man is dead...but the assassin's successor is still at large. A cheap but tidy "hoist on his own petard" melodrama, The Pretender was produced and directed by W. Lee Wilder, brother of the more famous (and frankly more talented) Billy Wilder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Randolph Scott puts in time with Paramount's Pine-Thomas unit in the big-budget western Albuquerque. Scott is cast as Cole Armin, the nephew of tyrannical town boss John Armin (George Cleveland). Defying his grasping uncle, Cole sides with a small wagon-train line which the elder Armin hopes to drive out business. In his spare time, he is wooed by local lovelies Letty Tyler (Barbara Britton) and Celia Wallace (Catherine Craig). Taking a break from his B-western duties, Russell Hayden plays Cole Armin's best buddy, while Lon Chaney Jr. does his usual as John Armin's chief henchman. Albuquerque was based on a novel by the prolific Luke Short. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Monsieur Beaucaire, Booth Tarkington's novel about an 18th-century French barber who poses as a swashbuckling aristocrat, was the surprising source for this Grade-A Bob Hope comedy. While in the original novel the tonsorial hero pretended to be someone he wasn't by choice, in this 1946 film Hope is coerced into posturing as a nobleman on the threat of death. It's "out of the frying pan" time here, since Hope will be a target for execution the moment he weds a Spanish princess in place of genuine noble Patric Knowles. Bob's actions will prevent a war between Spain and France, but it's likely he won't be around to celebrate the Peace. Hiding his cowardice by cracking wise at every opportunity, Hope manages to save both the day and himself; he even rescues Joseph Schildkraut, the film's nominal villain, from the guillotine. The female contingent is represented by Joan Caulfield as Bob's covetous girl friend, Marjorie Reynolds as a princess, and Hillary Brooke as a haughty schemer (who is given her just desserts in an early slapstick set-piece). Woody Allen has long expressed his affection for Monsieur Beaucaire, an affection made doubly obvious in "homage" fashion by Allen's 1975 costume comedy Love and Death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charmless films like The Bride Wore Boots helped to kill the postwar revival of the "screwball comedy" genre almost before it began. Here's the deal: Breeding-farm owner Sally (Barbara Stanwyck) loves horses. Novelist Jeff (Robert Cummings) hates horses, but loves Sally. Jeff and Sally marry, only to break up over their equestrian differences. They spend the rest of the film trying to get back together again, despite such hurdles as flirtatious Southern belle Mary Lou Medford (Diana Lynn) and charming "other man" Lance Gale (Patric Knowles). Is it any surprise that the film ends with a Big Race, and that horse-hating Jeff is astride the winning steed? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ayn Rand wrote this adaptation of Chris Massie's book Pity Mr. Simplicity, about a soldier who falls in love with a former comrade's wife -- an amnesiac who may have murdered her husband. The story begins in Italy when two soldiers, Allen Quinton (Joseph Cotten) and Roger Morland (Robert Sully), hatch a scheme concerning Singleton (Jennifer Jones), his girl back home. Allen agrees to write love letters to Singleton for his friend and, based on the heartfelt emotions evident in the letters, she falls in love with Roger. Returning home, Singleton and Roger marry, but Roger proves to be a drunken, abusive husband. One night, as Roger is beating Singleton, he is stabbed to death by her stepmother. Singleton goes in to shock, rendering her unable to recall the murder, while her stepmother has a stroke, making her unable to speak. Accused of murder, Singleton is sentenced to a year in jail. Allen, in the meantime, hears about the murder of his friend and comes to visit Singleton, and the two proceed to fall in love. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Freely adapted from a successful Broadway musical by Moss Hart, this story stars Ginger Rogers as Liza Elliott, the editor of a popular fashion magazine. Despite her beauty, wealth, and success in business, Liza is unhappy and out of sorts. And while three men are vying for her affections -- advertising director Charley Johnson (Ray Milland), newly single Kendall Nesbitt (Warner Baxter), and youthful and handsome Randy Curtis (Jon Hall) -- Liza has been unlucky in love, and she feels that she's come to the end of her emotional rope. She begins seeing Dr. Brooks (Barry Sullivan) in hopes of resolving her emotional crises and finding happiness, and her self-searching explorations of her past take the form of a handful of musical numbers. While the stage version of Lady in the Dark featured songs written by the estimable team of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, several of them were replaced for this screen adaptation; "The Saga of Jenny", "One Life to Love", and "Girl of the Moment" were the most notable among the Weill/Gershwin tunes that survived the editing process. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The genesis of The Story of Dr. Wassell is said to have been a story told by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to director Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper stars as Corydon M. Wassell, a real-life country doctor from Arkansas who worked as a medical missionary in China in the years prior to WWII. When America enters the war, Dr. Wassell joins the Navy and is shipped to Java. As the Japanese overtake the island, Wassell is placed in charge of the wounded evacuated marines. Ordered to leave the area immediately, the doctor disobeys his commands, staying behind to care for ten seriously wounded men from the USS Marblehead, even as Japanese bombs rain down upon his staff. With the help of other stranded allied troops, Wassell and his wounded make it to Australia, where despite his insubordination he is lauded as a hero. Not as much of a spectacular as earlier DeMille films, The Story of Dr. Wassell concentrates on personalities, with mixed results. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second and last of the Fred Astaire-Rita Hayworth vehicles, You Were Never Lovelier takes place in Argentina (courtesy of the Columbia Pictures art-direction department). Fred plays an American dancer whose fondness for betting on horse races has left him broke. Rita is the daughter of wealthy Argentinian nightclub owner Adolphe Menjou, who has vowed that his daughters will marry in the order of their ages-and since older sister Leslie Brooks is about to walk to the altar, Rita is next in line. To encourage his daughter to seek out an eligible husband, Menjou sends Rita unsigned love notes so that she'll think she has a secret admirer. Through a series of misunderstandings that could only happen in the movies, Rita becomes convinced that Fred is the man who's been plying her with notes and gifts. Menjou hires the impoverished Astaire as a potential son-in-law. Fred bridles at the thought of being a "bought spouse", but changes his mind when he falls in love with Rita on his own. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For his first feature-film appearance in two years, comedian Bert Wheeler (of Wheeler & Woolsey fame) teamed up with bandleader Phil Regan. The story gets under way when a quartet of vaudevillians-Bill Stevens (Regan), Stu Grant (Wheeler) and Norma and Mildred Jennings (Constance Moore, Lillian Cornell) show up in Vegas with nary a cent between them. Norma manages to win big at a gambling joint, whereupon the money is put in Stu's care. Alas, Stu makes a beeline to the gaming tables, where he manages to lose all. The winsome foursome is saved from utter ruin by a real estate operator who happens to be the father of one of the protagonists. Even Bert Wheeler admitted that Las Vegas Nights was a bomb, noting on "a picture like that can come back and haunt you." Still, it holds some historical value as the film that introduced Frank Sinatra, here appearing as the uncredited vocalist for the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the eerier chillers of its period -- and one of the best ever to come out of Paramount -- Stuart Heisler's Among the Living is a strange and compelling mix of social drama, horror film, and suspense thriller. The story opens with the funeral of Maxim Raden, the patriarch who was pretty much responsible for building up the town that bears the family name, and which has been dominated for decades by the now-idle mill that he owned. Present at the funeral is Dr. Ben Saunders (Harry Carey Sr.), Raden's oldest friend, and the surviving Raden son John (Albert Dekker), who has been away for most of the last 25 years and recently married Elaine (Frances Farmer), a beautiful young woman from New York. John was one of a pair of twin boys; the other, Paul, died in an accident a quarter century ago, just after John was sent away to school. But Saunders and Maxim Raden had a secret between them -- that Paul Raden didn't die, but went dangerously insane, and has kept been alive all of this time, in a hidden room in the decaying Raden mansion, tended to by the doctor and the faithful family servant Pompey (Ernest Whitman). Paul was a victim of abuse by his overbearing father, and suffered brain damage from a beating he received while trying to protect his mother. He has never stopped "hearing" his father's threats or his mother's weeping, and they leave him prone to violent, potentially murderous outbursts of rage. Worse still, the death of his father has agitated him into a state where he is able to escape the mansion. Once freed and relieved of his quarter century of isolation, Paul is at once confused by and delighted with the company of people; he heads to the town and rents a room at a seedy boarding house, where he immediately attracts the attention of the landlady's frisky (and avaricious) daughter Millie (Susan Hayward) with his large bankroll, free-spending habits, and lost-puppy-dog demeanor. Meanwhile, the doctor reveals the truth about Paul to John, who wants to notify the authorities that his brother is loose and potentially dangerous -- but the doctor won't hear of it, fearing that news of the insane son will tarnish the Raden name and the reputation of the clinic that Maxim founded and funded on the doctor's behalf, in return for his covering up the son's existence.
The stakes get raised higher when the coroner reveals that a death the doctor tried to cover up was, in fact, a murder, and then a young woman is found strangled. While John is torn between sympathy for his brother, who never got the help or care he needed, and his feeling of responsibility to the town, the doctor tries to continue the cover-up by posting a 5,000-dollar reward for the capture of the killer. This sets off an orgy of assaults and destruction as the work-starved townspeople, led by Millie's ex-boyfriend Bill Oakley (Gordon Jones), begin rounding up anyone who looks even the least bit suspicious or out of place, trying to get the reward. Millie's greed is also brought to the fore and she persuades her new boyfriend, Paul, to go with her to the one place no one has searched yet -- the Raden mansion. Paul's veneer of calm unravels as he finds himself back in the location of his imprisonment, and in the course of the fight and the chase that ensues, John is caught and accused, by Millie and all of the other witnesses to Paul's outbursts, as the killer. Now it looks like a lynching is in the offing as hundreds of angry, drunken, greedy townspeople gather together to mete out justice -- and John must make them believe that he has a twin who is responsible for the murders. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide