Joseph Crehan Movies
American actor Joseph Crehan bore an uncanny resemblance to Ulysses S. Grant and appeared as Grant in a number of historical features, notably They Died With Their Boots On (1941) and The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944). Appearing in hundreds of other films as well, the short, snappish actor's field-commander personality assured him authoritative roles as police chiefs, small-town mayors and newspaper editors. Because he never looked young, Joseph Crehan played essentially the same types of roles throughout his screen career, even up until 1961's Judgment at Nuremberg. Perhaps Joseph Crehan's oddest appearance is in a film he never made; in West Side Story (1961), it is Crehan's face that appears on those ubiquitous political campaign posters in the opening Jets vs. Sharks sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1945
In time-honored fashion, a couple of supporting players -- George Dolenz and Bill Kennedy -- found themselves elevated to starring roles in this minor Universal serial. They played Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers investigating the murder of a miner. The story, of course, was less important than speed and action, which directors Ray Taylor and Lewis D. Collins delivered in typical slap-dash Universal style. Starlet Daun Kennedy did not make much of an impression as the imperiled leading lady, and former star Robert Armstrong (of King Kong fame) was wasted in a subordinate role. Rondo Hatton, a non-actor whose grotesque appearance (caused by acromegaly, the so-called "Elephant Man" disease) was tastelessly exploited by Universal in the '40s, appeared as one of the outlaws. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1945
In this drama, a hard-boiled juvenile court judge orders that a popular road house be raided because she knows it is a popular hangout for young punks. She is appalled when the cops bring her own daughter in with the rest of the rabble. The judge's daughter and her creepy boy friend manage to escape. Fortunately, the other youths are only too happy to snitch upon them. The whole situation forces the judge to consider the wisdom of putting her career before her home life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cora Sue Collins, Eric Sinclair, (more)
- 1944
A new invention, known as the Paratron and vitally important for America's war effort, becomes the focal point in yet another war-time serial from the Universal B-movie factory. An important missing ingredient is discovered in Alaska, leading the inventor of Paratron, Dr. Miller (Ralph Morgan), his daughter Ruth (Marjorie Weaver), Jim Hudson (Milburn Stone), and the latter's sidekick Bosun (Edgar Kennedy) on a wild chase to get to the secret location ahead of a gang of Fascists led by Dr. Hauss (Martin Kosleck). The usually dignified Samuel S. Hinds, a lawyer turned actor late in life, appeared as Hauss' chief lieutenant, Herman Brock. The Great Alaskan Mystery offered a rare starring role for Milburn Stone, a dependable character actor later very popular as Doc Adams on the television series Gunsmoke. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Johnny Jersey (Robert Lowery) learns The Navy Way in this typical Pine-Thomas actioner. A product of the streets, Johnny has no time for authority and protocol, thus has a lot of difficulty adjusting to the regimen at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station (where much of the film was shot). Gradually, however, Johnny comes to appreciate the value of cooperation and teamwork. It helps a bit, of course, that he falls for pretty WAVE Ellen Sayre (Jean Parker). But even after losing Ellen to fellow seaman Mal Randall (Bill Henry), Johnny remains loyal to the Navy and all it stands for (which is evidently quite a lot!) Not so much a movie as a patriotic tract, The Navy Way is definitely a product of its times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Lowery, Jean Parker, (more)
- 1944
A nebulously sinister title disguises the fact that this is actually a "Boston Blackie" mystery, the seventh in Columbia's series. Reformed criminal Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) is accused of stealing the Niles diamond from a charity function. The police cut a deal with Blackie: If he'll locate the gem, they'll drop the charges. This time the cops go so far as issuing Blackie a police badge, which he uses with amusing abandon. One Mysterious Night, together with The Chance of a Lifetime (43) and The Phantom Thief (46), was given a non-identifiable title so that Columbia could coerce non-"Boston Blackie" fans into the theatre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Richard Lane, (more)
- 1944
In this drama, a young couple ignores the advice of their elders and get married. Soon afterward, the young groom is inducted into the war. Overseas, he suffers from shell shock and must return home. Much of the drama centers upon his reminiscences as he rides the train homeward. Later the people he thought about on his journey home help him to recover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jimmy Lydon, Grant Mitchell, (more)
- 1944
Melodramatic gangster action characterizes this tough and freely fictionalized biography of notorious, murderous Chicago mobster Roger Touhy. Set during Prohibition, it centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Capone (who is referred to, but never named in the story). It is his rival who frames Touhy for kidnapping and arranges for him to serve a life-long term in Stateville prison. Determined to be free again, the desperate Touhy and his cellmate Basil "the Owl" Banghart, begin plotting a violent break out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Preston S. Foster, Victor McLaglen, (more)
- 1944
Meeting at Midnight is the reissue title of Black Magic, a Charlie Chan "B" effort from Monogram Studios. A murder occurs during a seance conducted by a fraudulent medium. Scared chauffeur Mantan Moreland, who happens to be on the premises when the killing occurs, summons Chan (Sidney Toler). He pokes around a bit, dispenses a bit of fortune-cookie wisdom, then suggests that the crime be re-enacted. Never was there a more likely suspect than the least likely suspect. The novelty of Meeting at Midnight is that Charlie Chan's daughter (played-no kidding-by Frances Chan) helps solve the mystery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1944
Jim Bannon, fresh from his radio success on I Love a Mystery, stars in this taut suspenser. The jurors of a celebrated murder case are being bumped off one by one. Now only six jurors are left, and one of them has disappeared, whereabouts unknown. Bannon must find the missing juror before the killer does. The cast includes Janis Carter (menaced) and George MacReady (menacing). The Missing Juror was an excellent post-grad course for future "cult" director Bud Boetticher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Bannon, Janis Carter, (more)
- 1944
Complete with a final production number filmed in Technicolor, this tuneful musical depicts the highly fictive ups and downs of fabled vaudeville headliners Jack Norworth (1879-1959) and Nora Bayes (1880-1928). After rejecting a partnership with songstress Blanche Mallory (Irene Manning), Norworth (Dennis Morgan) discovers Miss Bayes (Ann Sheridan), who is wasting her considerable vocal talents by working in a honky tonk. Jack convinces the girl to become his partner but Nora's controlling boss, Costello (Robert Shayne), insures that the team is blacklisted everywhere. Despite this setback, the talented husband-and-wife duo finagles an engagement with the 1907 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies and vows the audiences with Jack's newest composition, the lilting "Shine on Harvest Moon." In reality, Norworth met the already famous Bayes at the office of a music publisher and later became one of her five husbands. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, (more)
- 1944
Engineer Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) is at a seedy midtown Manhattan bar early one evening, drowning his sorrows over a failed marriage, when he strikes up a conversation with a woman (Fay Helm). She's well dressed, with a very ornate hat topping off her ensemble, and also seems even sadder and more lost than he is. Henderson persuades her to join him in taking advantage of the two theater tickets he has. They attend the show -- a song-and-dance showcase by a Brazilian artist (Aurora) -- and then part company without ever exchanging names. He returns home to find three detectives in his apartment and his wife strangled. Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez) questions Henderson and tries to verify his alibi, but no one -- not the bartender, the cabbie who hauled them to the theater, or the drummer in the band who was watching her -- admits to remembering the woman. Henderson can't prove that he was elsewhere when his wife was strangled and is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His assistant, Carol Richman (Ella Raines), who has watched all of this happen, can't sit by while Scott is destroyed, and decides to get at the truth, joined by Inspector Burgess, who now believes Henderson to be innocent. Carol hounds the bartender (Andrew Tombes) until he seems ready to crack, but before he talks, he tries to get away from her and dies in an accident. The drummer, Cliff Milburn (Elisha Cook Jr.), proves more talkative and reveals that someone paid him 500 dollars to forget about the woman, but before Burgess can question him, he's strangled. It seems as though there's no hope left, even with the added help of Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone), Scott's best friend, newly returned from Brazil, when Carol gets a line on the unusual hat the woman was wearing. She traces the hat to its owner in a mansion on Long Island, where she is recovering from a breakdown over the death of her fiancé -- that was her trouble on the night she crossed paths with Scott Henderson. It is only on returning to New York, while awaiting Burgess' arrival, that she realizes that Jack Marlow is the murderer -- that he returned after having dinner with them, following their fight, and strangled Henderson's wife; paid off the bartender, the cab driver, and Cliff Milburn to keep them from revealing the existence of the woman that Scott was with; and killed Milburn to prevent him from talking; and he plans to kill Carol before she can talk to Burgess. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, (more)
- 1944
Dismissed by critics as corny and obvious in 1944, this overlong but sincere biopic looks pretty good when seen today, cliches notwithstanding. Fredric March, 47 at the time, convincingly plays American author Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from his early 20s to his death at 75. In typical movie-biography fashion, every single incident that happens in Twain's life is an INSPIRATION: he hears the depth-indication call "Mark Twain" while working on a riverboat and his face lights up; he engages in a jumping-frog contest against Bret Harte (John Carradine) and comes up with his first popular published story; and so on. Alexis Smith is better than usual in the role of Twain's wife Olivia Langdon, even keeping a straight face while Twain courts her in Fluent Quotation ("Everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it", he says during a Hollywood-romance cloudburst). Though the script barely touches upon the dark side of Twain's nature, we are not spared his financial reverses (brought about by bad investments and his struggle to publish Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs. The closing sequence, with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn beckoning the spirit of Mark Twain to heaven as Halley's Comet fills the skies, may seem laughable on paper, but works quite well on film; even director Irving Rapper expressed amazement at the effectiveness of this scene! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Alexis Smith, (more)
- 1943
Republic's False Faces is a choice example of wartime "victory casting", with all the male cast members drawn from the ranks of the undraftable. Rex Williams plays morose saloon patron Craig Harding, who is on hand during a barroom brawl which leads to the death of songstress Joyce Ford (Veda Ann
org). Suspected in the murder are Harding and his pal Don Westcott (Bill Henry). Harding's father, district attorney Stanley Harding (Stanley Ridges), faces a difficult decision: on the basis of circumstantial evidence, he may be forced to send his own son up the river for life. It's giving nothing away to reveal that the Most Likely Suspects didn't do it, but the Least Likely Suspect did. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stanley Ridges, Rex Williams, (more)
- 1943
For his first independently-produced starring effort, James Cagney chose the sentimental drama Johnny Come Lately. Cagney plays itinerant newspaperman Tom Richards, who wanders into a small corruption-ridden town. Striking up a friendship with elderly Vinnie McLeod (Grace George in her only movie appearance), the editor of the local newspaper, Tom tries to help Vinnie exposed the community's crooked politicians. He is thwarted in his efforts until Gashouse Mary (Marjorie Main), a wealthy dowager with a shady past, exposes the machinations behind a phony Orphan's Fund. At the insistence of star Cagney, the cast of Johnny Come Lately was filled with familiar character actors (Hattie McDaniel, Edward McNamara, George Cleveland, Margaret Hamilton, Lucien Littlefield) who are herein offered a lot more screen time than was customary. Based on the Louis Bromfield novel McLeod's Folly, Johnny Come Lately was produced by Cagney's brother William; the film garnered an Oscar nomination for Leigh Harline's nostalgic musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Grace George, (more)
- 1943
The wartime leading-man shortage obliged Republic Pictures to star draft-proof supporting player Frank Albertson in Mystery Broadcast. Albertson plays detective-fiction writer Michael Jerome, who carries on a friendly rivalry with radio scrivener Jan Cornell (Ruth Terry). Jan works for an "unsolved mysteries" series which is in the ratings doldrums. To boost listenership, she begins offering solutions to the unsolved crimes on the air, and this leads to the reopening of a long-dormant murder case-and also to a rash of new murders. Pooling their talents, Michael and Jan try to solve the case at hand, with startling results. Among the suspects in Mystery Broadcast are two former film luminaries, Nils Asther and Wynne Gibson, both on the comeback trail. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Terry, Frank Albertson, (more)
- 1943
Honeymoon Lodge is a musical variation on the old Awful Truth plotline. Divorce-bound Bob and Carol Sterling (David Bruce, June Vincent) make a last-ditch attempt to avoid their legal breakup by restaging their mountain-resort honeymoon. Things get complicated when a rancher named Big Boy (Rod Cameron, in a Ralph Bellamy-style "sap" role) shows up at the resort in ardent pursuit of Carol, while Lorraine Logan (Harriet Hilliard) sets her cap for Bob. Though it has more plot than usual for a film of this kind, Honeymoon Lodge is worth seeing only for its musical highlights, including a few delightful numbers teaming Harriet Hilliard with her real-life bandleader husband Ozzie Nelson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Bruce, June Vincent, (more)
- 1943
- NR
One of Cary Grant's most financially successful 1940s vehicles, Mr. Lucky finds Grant atypically cast as a shifty, out-for-number-one gambler. Having dodged the draft by adopting the identity of a dead man, Grant sets his sights on purchasing a fancy gambling ship. To raise the necessary funds, he pretends to be working hand in glove with the American War Relief society. Once he meets Laraine Day, however, Grant is seized by an uncontrollable bout of honesty. It takes him awhile, but he finally does the right thing. The film is framed in flashback, as old seaman Charles Bickford explains why a tearful Laraine Day waits at the dock each evening for a certain ship to come in. Also in the cast is Paul Stewart as a cold-eyed but nonetheless semi-comic hoodlum, and Kay Johnson and Gladys Cooper as elegant but gullible society women. The best aspect of this breezy comedy-drama is Grant's cockney propensity for "rhyming slang," a running gag better heard than described. Mr. Lucky was later adapted into a TV series in 1959, with John Vivyan in the Cary Grant part and with Blake Edwards at the production controls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Laraine Day, (more)
- 1943
Several veterans of the "Dead End Kids" series are prominently featured in the Columbia programmer Junior Army. Grown-up child star Freddie Bartholomew acquits himself nicely as Freddy Hewlitt, newly arrived at a strict military academy. Freddy tries to set a good example for hell-raising cadet Jimmy Fletcher (Billy Halop), but Jimmy soons alienates everyone around him-even his old pals Cowboy (Bobby Jordan) and Bushy (Huntz Hall). Eventually, however, Jimmy comes through with flying colors when he helps Freddy and his buddies smash a gang of saboteurs. While Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan and Huntz Hall would continue appearing in films well into the next decade, Freddy Bartholomew eventually abandoned acting to become a successful advertising executive. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Freddie Bartholomew, Billy Halop, (more)
In this melodrama, a group of women live in a boardinghouse near a prison to await the release of their men. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1943
More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Soviet Union. As played by Walter Huston, Davies is a pillar of incorruptable integrity, reporting the facts "as I saw them" (only in later years was Davies revealed to be something less than a paragon of virtue who was willing to alter opinions for political, personal and financial expedience). Sent to Moscow by FDR as a means of finding out if Russia is a potentially trustworthy ally in case of war, Davies and his family are given the royal treatment by the Commissars, who display the social, technological, agricultural and artistic advances made under the Stalin regime. Invariably, the Russian citizens are shown to be singing, smiling, freedom-loving rugged individuals-in contrast to the Nazis, who are depicted as humorless automatons. In its efforts to present the USSR in the best possible light, the film glosses over the notorious Purge Trials of 1937, presenting the trials as scrupulously fair and the defendants as unabashed traitors to the Soviet cause. At one point, Russia's annexation of Finland in 1939 is "justified" by Davies' explanation that the Soviets merely wanted to protect their tiny neighbor from Nazi domination! It is unfair to label Mission to Moscow as Communistic or even left-wing, since it was merely parroting the official party line vis-a-vis US/Soviet relations in 1943. Even so, screenwriter Howard Koch found it very difficult to get film work after the war because of his contributions to this "Pinko" project (conversely, Jack Warner pulled a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter by insisting that he was strongarmed into making the film). Seen objectively, Mission to Moscow is top-rank entertainment, superbly and excitingly assembled in the manner typical of Warners and director Michael Curtiz. The huge cast includes Gene Lockhart as Molotov, attorney Dudley Field Malone as Winston Churchill, Maynart Kippen as a benign, pipe-smoking Stalin, Charles Trowbridge as Secretary Cordell Hull, Leigh Whipper as Hailie Selassie, Georges Renavent as Anthony Eden and Alex Chirva as Pierre Laval, along with the more familiar faces of Ann Harding (as Mrs. Davies), George Tobias, Eleanor Parker, Moroni Olsen, Minor Watson, Jerome Cowan, Duncan Renaldo, Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Edward van Sloan, Louis-Jean Heydt, Monte Blue, Robert Shayne and even Sid (sic) Charisse. Original prints of Mission to Moscow include a 6-minute prologue delivered by the real Joseph Davies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Huston, Ann Harding, (more)
- 1943
There's practically no western action in Hands Across the Border, but there's music aplenty. Roy Rogers stars as a wandering cavalier (named "Roy Rogers", naturally), who comes to the aid of entertainer Kim Adams (Ruth Terry). The daughter of a rancher, Kim does her patriotic bit by raising prize horses for the Army. But villainous Brock Danvers (Onslow Stevens) does his best to keep Kim's stock from reaching the Army, and that's when Rogers comes to the rescue. The final two reels of Hands Across the Border is a virtual nonstop parade of musical numbers by the likes of Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington, and featuring Rogers, Ruth Terry, Janet Martin and that zany European comedy trio The Wiere Brothers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roy Rogers
- 1943
In the tradition of his earlier Carnival in Flanders and Tales of Manhattan, director Julien Duvivier's Flesh and Fantasy is a "pormanteau" film, consisting of several short stories. Linking the three tales unfolded herein are clubmen Doakes (Robert Benchley) and Davis (David Hoffman), who carry on a spirited debate about Destiny. In the first story, homely Henrietta (Betty Field) is made beautiful through the love of handsome Mardi Gras reveller Michael (Robert Cummings)-and the help of an enigmatic mask-maker (Edgar Barrier). The second story, based on Oscar Wilde's "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime", concerns a fortune teller named Septimus Podgers (Thomas Mitchell) who predicts that socialite Marshall Tyler (Edward G. Robinson) will commit a murder. In the final tale, psychic high wire artist Paul Gaspar (Charles Boyer) dreams that he will meet his doom during the performance of his act-and then falls in love with Joan Stanley (Barbara Stanwyck), who looks exactly like the girl who appeared in that dream. A fourth story, detailing the doomed romance between a fugitive from justice (Alan Curtis) and a blind girl (Gloria Jean), was cut from Flesh and Fantasy, then expanded and released separately as Destiny (1944). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Charles Boyer, (more)
After the box office success of The Old Maid, Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins were reunited for this catty drama. Kitty Marlowe (Davis) is a well-respected author who returns to the small town of her birth, where she becomes reacquainted with her childhood friend Millie Drake (Hopkins). While Millie is happy as a wife and mother and loves her husband Preston (John Loder), she's envious of Kitty's success, and Kitty's visit prompts Millie to sit down at the typewriter herself. Millie turns out a sexy potboiler that, with Kitty's help, attracts the attention of a publisher. To the surprise of them both, Millie's book is a runaway bestseller, and a decade later she's one of the most successful authors in America, easily eclipsing Kitty's more highbrow work. Preston finds himself growing disenchanted with Millie once success begins to go to her head, and he finds himself attracted to Kitty; while Kitty tries to dissuade Preston's advances, a scorned Millie believes that her old friend has been trying to steal her husband away from her. Old Acquaintance was remade in 1981 as Rich and Famous. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, (more)
- 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)
- 1943
In this musical, a lovely and ambitious young woman masquerades as the daughter of a formerly beloved stage actress to help launch her Broadway career. She chooses one entertainment columnist in particular. But the starlet's carefully-made plans begin to unravel when a rival columnist learns of her ruse and tries to expose her. Songs include: "Let's March Together" (Saul Chaplin), "I Bumped My Head on a Star" (Cindy Walker), "Honk, Honk" (Roy Jacobs, Gene De Paul), "Timber Timber" (Don Reid, Henry Tobias), "Moon on My Pillow" (Charles, Henry, Elliot Tobias). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jinx Falkenburg, Tom Neal, (more)
