Myrtle Anderson Movies

Kim Novak is clearly out of her depth as legendary Broadway actress Jeanne Eagels, but one can't fault her for trying very hard. As this filmed biography gets under way, wide-eyed Eagels finds herself stranded in a tank town by a smooth-talking traveling salesman. Carnival operator Sal Satori hires Eagels as a kootch dancer, but her ambition is to become a serious dramatic actress. When she and Sal reach New York, she signs up for acting lessons under the tutelage of a Mme. Neilson (Agnes Moorehead). Before long, Jeanne is understudying on Broadway, and in 1922 she takes audiences and critics by storm with her unforgettable portrayal of Sadie Thompson in Rain, a role she landed by ruthlessly double-crossing the actress originally slated for the part (Virginia Grey). When her rival commits suicide, the chastened Jeanne turns to booze and drugs to assuage her conscience. The real-life Jeanne Eagels died of narcotics addiction in 1929, a fact that the Hollywood version skims over. Eagels' family sued Columbia Pictures over the "distortions" offered in Jeanne Eagels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Follow the Sun is the filmed biography of golf champion Ben Hogan. Glenn Ford, no mean duffer himself, stars as Hogan, here depicted as a single-purposed individual to whom golf is everything. Anne Baxter co-stars as Hogan's supportive wife Valerie, who sticks with him through thick and thin. On the brink of his greatest success, Hogan is seriously injured in an auto accident. His recovery and return to the links provides the dramatic momentum of the film's final reels. Co-starring as themselves in Follow the Suns are such golfing legends as Sam Snead, Jimmy Demaret, and Dr. Cary Middlecoff. An uncredited Harold Blake appears as Ben Hogan at the age of 14. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this compelling and unusual psychological melodrama Ann Sutton (Gene Tierney), a woman tormented by her secret kleptomania seeks help from a unscrupulous hypnotist David Korvo (Jose Ferrer). Although she is married to a successful psychiatrist (Richard Conte), and has no need to steal the items which she could easily purchase, she finds herself powerless to control her urge. She is finally caught when she attempts to steal a brooch from a department store but she is saved by Korvo who persuades the store not to prosecute. Grateful and desperate for help, Ann allows Korvo to treat her. Korvo, taking advantage of Ann's vulnerability, hypnotizes her and sends her to the home of a former mistress whom he has stolen money from and subsequently murdered when she threatened to turn him in to the police. Ann is charged with the murder. Convinced of his wife's innocence, Richard must crack Korvo's seeming airtight alibi. Richard tricks Korvo into returning to the scene of the crime to find some evidence in the exciting conclusion. This unusual tale of murder and mental illness was written by a blacklisted Ben Hecht under the pseudonym "Lester Barstow" and bears a striking resemblance to another Hecht thriller, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

The third of four films bearing the title of The Perils of Pauline, this musical biopic purports to tell the life story of famed silent serial queen Pearl White. Right at the beginning, however, an introductory title informs the audience that what follows is merely "suggested" by incidents in White's life and career. Translation: The film is a fabrication from beginning to end, but an enjoyable one. Played on all four cylinders by Betty Hutton, White is introduced as a frustrated factory worker who aspires to become a dramatic actress. She joins a touring theatrical troupe managed by handsome but pompous Mike (John Lund), but fame and fortune elude her because she's unable to suppress her natural rambunctiousness. In desperation, White takes a job at a movie studio, where she promptly finds herself in the middle of a slapstick pie fight. With the help of bombastic director Mac (William Demarest), top-hatted villain portrayer Timmy (Billy De Wolfe), and imperious dramatics coach Julia (Constance Collier), Pearl soon becomes world-famous as the star of such cliffhanging, tied-to-the-railroad-tracks serials as The Perils of Pauline (hence the title of this film). At the height of her fame, she arranges for her theatrical mentor Mike to get a job as her leading man, forcing him to swallow his pride and admit that he's been in love with her from the moment he met her. A series of clichéd complications contrive to separate White and Mike, but he returns to her arms when she's seriously injured during a Parisian stage performance. A few fairly credible recreations of silent moviemaking techniques aside, The Perils of Pauline is wildly anachronistic and inaccurate (for one thing, Pearl White made most of her serials in New Jersey rather than Hollywood). As a musical comedy, however, the film passes muster, especially during the performance of such Frank Loesser tunes as "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" and "The Sewing Machine." As a bonus, the film rounds up several silent-movie veterans in cameo roles, including William Farnum, Chester Conklin, Jimmy Finlayson, Creighton Hale, Hank Mann -- and Paul Panzer, who played the sneering villain in the original 1914 Perils of Pauline. ~ All Movie Guide

Mitchell Leisen directed this romantic comedy with melodramatic overtones, starring Marlene Dietrich in a sympathetic role as famed stage star Elizabeth Madden. Elizabeth longs for motherhood but has no husband. Her desire appears to be fulfilled when she finds an abandoned baby, but she doesn't have a clue on how to raise it. She finds divorced pediatrician, Dr. Corey McBain (Fred MacMurray), to help her with the child. Elizabeth names the child after him and makes Corey an offer. Since she's single, she cannot adopt the child. But if Corey would marry her in name only, she could be the adopted mother and Corey could stay in a section of her apartment where she would support his research. Corey agrees to the deal, but it's not too long before Corey and Elizabeth fall in love. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The Green Pastures began life as a group of "revisionist" Biblical stories titled Ol' Man Adam and His Chillun, written in exaggerated Negro dialect by white humorist Roark Bradford. These Old Testament stories were purportedly told from the point of view of an elderly black Sunday School teacher, who translated the Biblical prose into words that his congregation ("untutored black Christians" was Bradford's description) could readily understand. Thus, "De Lawd" behaves very much like a Southern black Baptist preacher; Heaven is a wondrous bayou-like land of big cigars and eternal fish fries; "Cap'n" Noah is a languid ferryboat skipper who argues with De Lawd over the advisability of bringing along a couple of kegs of liquor on the Ark; and the court of the Pharoah is redefined as a "Mystic Knights of the Sea" type lodge hall, with Moses introduced as a "conjure man". It is, of course, a white man's perspective on black life, but both the original "Ol' Man Adam", and the subsequent Pulitzer Prize-winning stage version written by Marc Connelly and retitled Green Pastures, have a lot more clarity, profundity and spiritual reverence than most "serious" Biblical adaptations. In this 1936 film version of the Connelly play, Rex Ingram is nothing less than brilliant as De Lawd, speaking the most ludicrous of lines with dignity and quiet authority. Others in the all-black cast include Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as Noah, Frank Wilson as Moses, George Reed as Rev. Deshee, and Oscar Polk as Gabriel, who has the film's single most stirring line: "Gangway! Gangway for de Lawd God Jehovah!" Unlike many other so-called racist films of decades past, The Green Pastures nearly always charms and captivates its modern-day audiences; even the most adamant of "P.C" advocates will probably thoroughly enjoy the experience. Playwright Marc Connelly is credited as director of Green Pastures, as he was for the original stage version, but co-director William Keighley and director of photography Hal Mohr deserve most of the credit for the film's strong cinematic sense. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide