John Damler Movies

This light western comedy finds the lovely widow Laura Breckenridge (Angie Dickenson) offering a $20,000 reward for the return of some gold her late husband had stolen from the Denver mint. She seduces the virginal Sam (Burt Reynolds) into leading a team to retrieve the gold, now lying at the bottom of the Platte River. With the help of local blacksmith Jedidiah Hooker (Ossie Davis) and the inventor O.W. Bandy (Clint Walker), the trio agrees to go for the gold in order to receive the reward and restore the good name to the Breckenridge family. Meanwhile, the villains (Rick Davis and Del Reeves) trail the heroes in hopes of grabbing the gold for themselves. The good guys must break into the mint to put back the money, but they need to fool the wary watchman and superintendent (William Shallert). ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Paladin (Richard Boone) must once again come to the defense of a "devil incarnate"--in this case, the much-feared, much-hated gunslinger Virge Beech (Sherwood Price). The citizens of Tabelrock, who have long lived in mortal terror of Beech, are determined to get revenge by hanging the gunman on a murder charge--even though everyone in town knows that Virge shot in self-defense. In his efforts to assure Beech a fair trial, Paladin characteristically puts his own life in dire jeopardy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast in his school's spring pageant, Beaver (Jerry Mathers) is assigned the role of a bunny -- complete with long-eared, fuzzy-tailed costume. It's bad enough that he has to wear his bunny outfit while Lumpy (Frank Bank) is driving him to the show, but it's even worse when the car breaks down and Beav is forced to walk the rest of the way to school. No, it gets worse -- pack of bunny-hating dogs spot the costumed Beaver, and the chase is on! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While on a hunting trip, Ted Dolliver (Alfred Ryder) and his pals Pete Rankin (Mark Roberts) and Alec Brown (Douglas Dick) relax in a warm and cozy cabin. To pass the time, the three men play a fortune telling game with an old Chinese box which is supposed to have mystical powers. Following the directions on the box, Ted pulls out a small wooden chopstick...the first step in a series of bizarre manifestations, culminating in a shocking surprise for at least two of the three hunters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Vicki Gaye (Cyd Charisse) is a dancer at a night club in early 1930's Chicago. A healthy cynic who still possesses some ideals, she entertains no illusions about the "invitation" (or the $100 that goes with it) that she gets to a party hosted by mob kingpin Rico Angelo (Lee J. Cobb) -- but she still won't let Angelo's head torpedo Louis Canetto (John Ireland) get near her. Angelo's attorney Thomas Farrell (Robert Taylor) is another story -- he's a more complicated than the men he defends, and still enough of an idealist so that when he and Vicki cross swords about who is the worse hypocrite, it actually affects him. Farrell, whose right leg has been crippled from birth and getting worse, took the easy way to success by pursuing a criminal practice, including getting Canetto off a murder rap -- but after meeting Vicki he starts to see another path to take, and also embarks on a year of surgical procedures to cure the worst of the pain in his leg. And he comes out a new man, with a new plan in life, including starting over in a practice that doesn't involve criminal law. But Angelo plans on having Farrell fight an old friend, prosecutor Jeffrey Stewart (Kent Smith), who is trying to indict Angelo's associate Cooky La Motte (Corey Allen). Farrell resists, until Angelo threatens to harm Vicki -- and when the case and the trail blow up in both sides' faces, he finds himself caught between the mob and the law, with Vicki urging him to do the right thing. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Nightclub singer Ilona Vance (Vera Ralston) is Accused of Murder in this Republic programmer. And from the looks of things, Ilona is guilty; she was, after all, the last person to see crooked lawyer Hobart (Sidney Blackmer) alive. But Lt. Roy Hargis (David Brian) is convinced that Ilona is innocent, and he intends to prove it. Except for the mildly surprising denoument, there is little in Accused of Murder that is not thoroughly predictable. Star Vera Ralston, the wife of Republic chieftan Herbert J. Yates, is her usual expressionless self. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One critic has noted that The Prodigal was aptly titled, inasmuch as it was all too prodigal with the funds of the then-flagging MGM studios. In its retelling of the 22-verse Biblical story of the Prodigal Son, the film helpfully fills in the story details inconsiderately left out of the Old Testament. Edmond Purdon plays Micah, the wastrel son of Eli (Walter Hampden) who takes his share of his father's fortune and blows it all in wicked old Damascus. Micah's one redeeming feature is his unserving faithful in the Lord God Jehovah. Pagan princess Samarra (Lana Turner at her most giddily exotic) intends to seduce Micah into renouncing his faith, only to get stoned to death for her troubles. Nearly two hours pass before Micah returns home and the fatted calf is killed in his honor. If for nothing else, The Prodigal would be memorable for Lana Turner's pagan-ritual costume, which is little more than a glorified bikini. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the gutsiest movie musicals of the 1950s, Love Me or Leave Me is the true story of 1930s torch-singer Ruth Etting, here played by Doris Day. While working in a dime-a-dance joint, Ruth is discovered by Chicago racketeer Martin "The Gimp" Snyder (fascinatingly played with nary a redeeming quality by James Cagney). The smitten Snyder exerts pressure on his show-biz connections, and before long Ruth is a star of nightclubs, stage and films. Ruth continues to string Snyder along to get ahead, but she can't help falling in love with musician Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell). After sinking his fortune into a nightclub for Ruth's benefit, Snyder is rather understandably put out when he finds her in the arms of Alderman. Snyder shoots the musician (but not fatally) and is carted away to prison. Upon his release, Snyder finds that Ruth is still in love with Alderman; he is mollified by her act of largesse in keeping her promise to perform in his nightclub at a fraction of her normal salary. No one comes off particularly nobly in Love Me or Leave Me, even though the still-living Ruth Etting, Martin Snyder and Johnny Alderman were offered full script approval. The fact that we are seeing flesh-and-blood opportunists rather than the usual sugary-sweet MGM musical stick figures naturally makes for a more powerful film. In his autobiography, James Cagney had nothing but praise for his co-star Doris Day, and bemoaned the fact that she would soon turn her back on dramatic roles to star in a series of fluffy domestic comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

During her brief stay at MGM, starlet Jarma Lewis received starring roles in two programmers. One of these was The Marauders, in which she appeared with Dan Duryea, Keenan Wynn and Jeff Richards. The bulk of the film's drama is handled by Richards, cast as a homesteader who refuses to move despite the threats of land baron Harry Shannon. After Shannon's death, the persecution of Richards is supervised by Dan Duryea, an unhinged frustrated soldier who fancies himself a second Napoleon. The looney Duryea manages to kill James Anderson, weak-willed husband of Jarma Lewis, with the help of hired gun Keenan Wynn. But Richards stands his ground, winning Jarma in the process. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Mickey Spillane, The Long Wait stars Anthony Quinn as an amnesiac who may or may not have committed a murder. Picking up the pieces of his life, Quinn wanders into a hotbed of small-town intrigue and corruption. Characters essentially to the action are highly respectable bank president Charles Coburn, gangster Gene Evans, and silky femme fatale Peggie Castle. The climax, described by historian William K. Everson as "a typical Spillane head-on collision of sex and violence", finds the trussed-up Quinn and Castle struggling to kiss each other while being goaded on by sadistic gunsel William Conrad. As for the story's surprise outcome. . .well, some things are better seen than said. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

1954's Rose Marie is the third film version of the 1924 Otto Harbach-Oscar Hammerstein-Rudolph Frinl operetta of the same name. Though not a completely faithful adaptation, this version is closer to the original than the (admittedly enjoyable) Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald version of 1936. Ann Blyth stars as Rose Marie Lemaitre, a hoydenish French-Canadian lass who is "tamed" by cheerful mountie Mike Malone (Howard Keel). At first, Mike is only interested in using Rose Marie to capture her sweetheart, renegade trapper Duval (Fernando Lamas), but eventually he falls in love with her, and she with him. Counterpointing the romantic main plot are the comic antics of Bert Lahr, who elucidates his sorry lot in life with the song "I'm the Mountie Who Never Gets His Man." The original Rudy Friml score is well in evidence, along with several new Friml compositions and a few extra tunes penned by Georgie Stoll and Herbert Baker. There's also a remarkable "Indian sacrifice" production number spotlighting a young Rita Moreno. Original Cinemascope prints of Rose Marie included a nine-minute prologue, wherein conductor Alfred Wallenstein led the MGM orchestra in a rendition of "Poet and Peasant Overture" (this was evidently inspired by the similar symphonic prologue which opened 20th Century Fox's How to Marry a Millionaire). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide