Esther Dale Movies

District attorney Walter Pidgeon pursues the conviction of criminals so diligently that word has gone out in the state prison to "get" Pidgeon at the first opportunity. The DA has several enemies on the outside as well, one of whom frames him on a bribery charge. Pidgeon is sentenced to the prison where he has sent so many miscreants in the past. Dodging attempts on his own life, Pidgeon makes several valuable convict friends and manages to clear himself during a climactic jailbreak. 6,000 Enemies runs only 61 minutes--an average of about 100 enemies per minute. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Song is Born is a musical remake of the 1941 comedy Ball of Fire, with the same producer (Sam Goldwyn) and director (Howard Hawks) at the helm. It will be recalled that the original film, co-scripted by Billy Wilder, was an amusing spin on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," wherein seven pedantic professors, working on a dictionary of slang, "adopted" an authority on the subject, breezy burlesque dancer Sugarpuss O'Shea. In the remake, the septet of scholars are working on an encyclopedia of music, but they're held up on the subject of "swing." When nightclub singer Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo), escaping from her gangster suitor Tony Crow (Steve Cochran), takes refuge in the professors' home, she offers to introduce them to the world of popular music. This proves to be quite a tuneful undertaking, since two of the professors are played by Danny Kaye and Benny Goodman! The tang and zest of original plotline has been muted to the point of harmlessness, but the film is saved by the presence of Goodman, his fellow bandleaders Charlie Barnet, Tommy Dorsey and Mel Powell, and specialty performers Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton and Buck & Bubbles. A Song is Born was Danny Kaye's final starring vehicle for Sam Goldwyn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 48-minute Hal Roach "streamliner" represents a rare directorial assignment for veteran Hollywood choreographer LeRoy Prinz, who also produced the film. Johnny Downs stars as Bob Sheppard of Quinceton University, who is appointed by his frat brothers to get even with the snotty sorority gals at all-female Marr Brynn U. This requires Bob to dress up in drag as a "blonde bombshell" and to enter Marr Brynn's annual beauty contest. When he's not flouncing around in curls and crinolines, Bob spends his time romancing pert co-ed Virginia (Frances Langford). The supporting cast ranges from silent-comedy veteran Harry Langdon to leggy newcomer Marie Windsor. The film's four musical numbers (representing approximately 25 percent of the running time!) include the Oscar-nominated "Out of the Silence". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Social-climbing Helen (Jean Muir) sends her less-pretentious younger sister Kate (Laraine Day) to a party in her stead, and there Kate strikes up a friendship with wealthy playboy Ridley Crane (Robert Cummings), but later, he clearly prefers Helen. One night he gets drunk, so Helen drives him home, but she accidentally kills a bicyclist then allows the crime to be pinned on Ridley. Kate learns who really was driving, but she cannot convince Helen to reveal the truth, and Ridley is sentenced to prison. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

A serious journalist is sent to France and forced to write fashion fluff pieces. Tiring of this, she decides to sneak off to find an elusive notorious rebel and write a hard-new first-hand-account of the Spanish Civil War. This lively romantic comedy chronicles her adventures after she finds him and saves him from prison by pretending he is her husband. After the break-out, they fly to France in a stolen plane. At first she only cares about her story and resists the advances of the amorous renegade. As soon as her tale hits the front page, she accepts an assignment in Berlin. She boards a train and takes off. She meets her "hubby" once again when the train accidentally runs into his car. At this point she realizes that she loves him. The two decide to hole up for a few days in a nearby French inn. While they tryst, WW II begins and she misses the scoop. That's okay, because all she and he care about now is each other. Their attitudes change dramatically when their New York-bound ship is torpedoed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A plucky orphan girl runs away from the orphanage. Her only possession is her beloved Bible in which she has complete faith and this helps her cope with the often cruel realities of life on the run. Eventually the young fugitive teams up with a street-wise shoe-shine boy who takes her to a kindly newspaper editor who provides her with the home she has searched for. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Despite its lurid title, Betrayed Women is more subdued than the usual "babes behind bars" melodrama. The scene is a Southern women's prison, where the inmates are subjected to all manner of sadism and brutality. State's attorney Jeff (Tom Drake) arrives to investigate prison conditions, whereupon he is taken hostage during a breakout fomented by gun moll Honey (Beverly Michaels) and lifer Kate (Carole Mathews). As it happens, another of the hostages, inmate Nora (Peggy Knudsen), has fallen in love with Jeff. Esther Dale does her usual as a cruel prison matron, stealing the show from the capable but colorless Tom Drake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Through a miscarriage of justice, John Ingram (Edward G. Robinson) is convicted of a crime he did not commit and sentenced to a long stretch on a chain gang in the deep South. In time, Ingram flees to Oklahoma, where he makes a living fighting oil fires under an assumed name. Several years later, he has a successful business, a loving wife (Ruth Hussey), and a child. But he still lives in fear that his secret will be revealed, and one day he's visited by William Ramey (Gene Lockhart). Ramey admits that he committed the crime for which Ingram was convicted; he proposes that they meet with the authorities together, and Ramey will sign a confession that will clear Ingram's name. But Ramey instead double-crosses Ingram, putting him back on the chain gang while Ramey lays claim to his business. Before long, Ingram learns that his wife and child are nearly broke thanks to Ramey's gutting of his once-thriving business, and he decides that he must once again escape if he is to protect the safety of his family. Blackmail marked one of Edward G. Robinson's first "good guy" roles after making his name in a series of gangster epics; a year later, he would be starring in prestigious biopics, such as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet and A Dispatch From Reuters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Few of Columbia's "Blondie" films went as far off the beaten path as the bizarre Blondie Has Servant Trouble. Things get under way when Blondie Bumstead (Penny Singleton) demands that her husband Dagwood (Arthur Lake) request a raise from his boss Mr. Dithers (Jonathan Hale), so that Blondie can afford to hire a maid. But Dithers has no time for any salary disputes: his construction firm is currently stuck with an unsaleable old mansion, which is rumored to be haunted. To disprove this theory, Dithers asks the Bumstead family to spend a night in the crumbling old house, throwing a retinue of servants into the bargain. Unfortunately, the mansion's butler is waylaid and replaced by homicidal maniac Vaughn (Arthur Hohl), who spends the rest of the picture stalking Dagwood, Blondie and Baby Dumpling (Larry Simms) with a huge, gleaming knife at the ready! Placing the lovable Bumsteads in dire jeopardy worked rather well in Blondie Has Servant Trouble, but it's just as well that this formula was not repeated too often, as it was in Columbia's Three Stooges and Hugh Herbert 2-reel comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a falsely convicted woman falls in love with the prison psychologist who tries to liberate her. She ended up in prison to protect her boyfriend who was just about to finish law school. The doctor and patient tryst in the prison furnace room. When he is not around, the woman must deal with the usual travails of a convict including a strict, domineering matron. A prison break occurs and violence erupts. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Crime Without Passion is an odd, almost existential murder yarn. Famed attorney Claude Rains, incensed that his mistress (Margo) has been seeing other men, kills the girl--or at least thinks he does. Rains believes he is "above" such irritations as conscience and morality, and calmly arranges to cover his crime, using his knowledge of the law to escape detection. But Rains cannot truly escape from himself, and is cajoled by a surprising turn of events to break down and confess. Crime without Passion was ostensibly directed by Ben Hecht, who cowrote the screenplay with his longtime partner Charles McArthur, but most of the actual direction was the responsibility of cameraman Lee Garmes. Watch for cameo appearances by Fanny Brice, by MacArthur's wife Helen Hayes, and by Hecht and MacArthur themselves. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marriage Forbidden is the film version of Eugene Briaux' once-notorious 1912 stage drama Damaged Goods. This pioneering study of the consequences of venereal disease had been praised by none other than George Bernard Shaw; the film version likewise boasted a "famous name", muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair, who is credited with the adaptation. George (Douglas Walton), a young man from a good family, makes the mistake of going "all the way" with Margie (Phyllis Barry), a girl with a bad reputation. Feeling guilty, George tries to wriggle out of his upcoming marriage to Henrietta (Arletta Duncan), the daughter of a congressman. The wedding proceeds as planned, however, with the expected long-range tragic results for Henrietta and her child. Acting as the "voice of reason" is Pedro de Cordoba as kindly Dr. Walker. Produced in 1936 by Phil Goldstone (who directed under the name of Phil Stone), the film was first released as Damaged Goods in 1937, then under its Marriage Forbidden cognomen the following year. Neither version was able to earn a production code seal, and both ran into heavy censorship problems when distributed nationally. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted by Lillian Hellman from Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play, Dead End concerns itself with several denizens of New York's East River district. Here the elite and the slum-dwellers rub shoulders due to the close proximity of the riverfront tenements with the East Side luxury hotels. Slum girl Drina Gordon (Sylvia Sidney) tries to prevent her younger brother Tommy (Billy Halop) from wasting his life as a member of the local street gang. Tommy and the other kids idolize Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart), a onetime East- sider who has hit the "big time" as a notorious gangster. Dodging the cops, Martin makes a sentimental journey to the neighborhood to visit his mother (Marjorie Main) and his old girlfriend Francie (Clare Trevor). But Martin's mother coldly tells him to get lost, while Francie reveals herself to be a consumptive prostitute. Despite his depressed state, Martin is still admired by the local kids; this displeases sign painter Dave Connell (Joel McCrea), who hopes to escape the slums via his romance with wealthy Kay Burton (Wendy Barrie). Attempting to kidnap a rich boy who'd earlier been beaten up by the street kids, Martin is prevented from making the snatch by Dave, who shoots Martin down. Receiving a large reward, Dave decides to give the money to Drina so that she can afford a lawyer to defend her brother Tommy, who has wrongfully been accused of masterminding the beating of the rich kid. His outlook on life altered by this unselfish act, Dave gives up his mercenary romance with Kay Burton, choosing instead the poverty-stricken Drina. The film introduces the Dead End Kids--Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey, Gabe Dell, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsley and Bobby Jordan--all of whom were veterans of the Broadway version of Dead End and would be metamorphosed into the East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide