Frank Darien Movies

In this anti-Communist film, a journalist goes on vacation to a small town and is surprised by the coldness of the residents. This makes him curious. His resulting investigation reveals the commies are planning to use the town as the launch pad for a biological warfare campaign. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Of the many film versions of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, this 1949 MGM adaptation is by far the prettiest. Set in New England during the Civil War, the film relates the various adventures of the March sisters: Jo (June Allyson), Beth (Margaret O'Brien), Amy (Elizabeth Taylor) and Meg (Janet Leigh). Jo emerges as the main character, as she leaves hearth and home to try her luck as a novelist in New York. Moments of high comedy (the sisters' amateur theatricals) are counterpointed with grim tragedy (the death of the youngest March girl), with romantic interludes provided by the faithless Laurie (Peter Lawford) and the loyal Professor Bhaer (Rossano Brazzi). Unlike Selznick's 1933 Little Women or Gillian Armstrong's 1994 adaptation, this 1949 version tends to be more an extension of the old Hollywood contract-player typecasting system than a heartfelt evocation of the Alcott original. Even so, Little Women is consistently pleasing to the eye, especially when seen in its original Technicolor hues. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a wealthy heiress marries hastily and realizes her mistake on her honeymoon in New York. Though it is her wedding night, she decides not to consummate the union and so ends up hiding in the room of a fellow whose airplane cargo company is facing financial ruin. He assumes that the frightened girl is poor and homeless and so takes her in. She then overdoses on sleeping pills and cannot wake up. The fellow is forced to take her back to California. The flight back is tumultuous as she, a fugitive criminal, two enamored newlyweds, a cigar smoking chimp, a corpse, and a shipment of lobsters are aboard the plane. Mayhem really ensues when the plane crashes in a farmer's field. By this time, the woman and the fellow have fallen in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Former army pilot Robert Taylor is accused, on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence, of his wife's murder. Suffering from periodic blackouts, Taylor isn't so certain of his innocence himself. When offered a brain operation, Taylor refuses, knowing that if he is proven sane he will be executed for murder. Instead, he opts for confinement in a high-walled veteran's mental institution. A compassionate lady doctor (Audrey Totter) falls in love with Taylor, convincing him to have the operation. Even after emerging from the ether, Taylor cannot remember any of the details concerning his wife's death--but he does recall that the dead woman had recently taken a job with a publisher (Herbert Marshall) of religious books. While the killer's identity is tipped off by this revelation, the audience is never certain that Robert Taylor isn't a murderer--especially since he'd previously appeared as a homicidal maniac in the 1946 film Undercurrent. The best moment in High Wall is the casual disposal of the sole witness to the murder, via a long, dark elevator shaft. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Secret Heart is a psychological drama starring June Allyson as a disturbed teenager obsessed with the memory of her dead father and unable to embrace her stepmother. Following the suicide of her father, Penny Addams (Allyson) begins to behave strangely, even locking herself in her room and playing the piano in his memory. Greatly worried, Penny's brother, Chase (Robert Sterling), and stepmother, Lee (Claudette Colbert), consult a psychiatrist, Dr. Rossiger (Lionel Barrymore), who suggests that Penny be returned to the family's country home. Since the site is where the suicide took place, Rossiger believes that confronting the scene will force the young woman to mentally face the reality of her father's death. Once there, however, Penny becomes disenchanted with her father's memory -- which causes her to become even more despondent than ever. Eventually, Penny tries to kill herself in the same manner of her father, but she fails, and the healing process proceeds for all concerned. This dark tale, offbeat for its time, was narrated by Hume Cronyn. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A woman struggling to rebuild her life becomes the victim of uncharitable rumors in this sudsy drama. After the recent death of her husband, and with her sons away at school, Jessica Drummond (Barbara Stanwyck) is lonely and out of sorts -- and uninterested in the potential suitors her mother, Mrs. Kimball (Lucile Watson), chooses for her. Jessica joins her close friend Ginna Abbott (Eve Arden) on a skiing trip and meets Maj. Scott Landis (George Brent), a handsome man who is clearly attracted to her. Jessica makes it clear that she has no interest in a short-term fling, and upon returning home, she meets Frank Everett (Warner Anderson), a sweet but dull man whom she begins dating. Frank is willing to marry Jessica, but by chance she meets Scott again, and while she's not willing to be seduced by him, she finds him more exciting and alluring than Frank. As Jessica debates the merits of passion vs. security, she becomes the subject of mean-spirited gossipmongers who speculate that her relationship with Scott has become inappropriately intimate for a new widow. My Reputation was shot in 1944, but it wasn't released until 1946, as the studio believed that it would be better received after the end of WWII. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Bad Bascomb is an expensive MGM western, tailor-made for the blubbery talents of Wallace Beery. Beery plays the badman of the title, whose heart is softened by a sweet little child (Margaret O'Brien at her most cloying). Just about to make a clean getaway, Beery realizes that the child is in danger of being killed by marauding Indians. He rides back to warn the cavalry, which results in his arrest but saves the girl. Sentenced to be hanged, Beery tearfully sends O'Brien off to her foster parents, never letting the precocious little tot know that he's about to have his neck stretched. Bad Bascomb is at its best whenever Beery shamelessly pulls every trick in the book to steal scenes from the estimable Margaret O'Brien. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marjorie Main's first solo starring vehicle for MGM finds the formidable character actress cast as a tough-but-tender female outlaw. Living on her tumbledown ranch in Oklahoma territory, Annie Goss (Main) shelters her desperado sons (Henry Morgan, Paul Langton) from the authorities. While planning to pull up stakes and return to Missouri, the Goss family befriends marshal Lloyd Richland (James Craig), who suspects that Annie's offspring are responsible for a recent train robbery, but is hesitant to arrest them because he believes that their motivations were noble. Likewise befriended by Gentle Annie and her brood is a stranded waitress named Mary Lingen (Donna Reed), with whom Richland falls in love. If the film can be said to have a villain, it is surly Sheriff Tatum (Barton MacLane), who unlike the soft-hearted Richland is determined to uphold the letter of the law. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sgt. Andy Mason Jr. (James Ellison) is on the eve of shipping out from New York with his unit -- he's the son of Andrew Mason Sr. (Eugene Pallette), a wealthy, blustery Wall Street financier. While paying respects to his father and the latter's business partner, dithering fuss-budget Peyton Potter (Edward Everett Horton), at the Club New Yorker, he spots chorus girl Eadie Allen (Alice Faye) and turns on the charm and all of the allure that the ne'er-do-well son of a Wall Street millionaire can muster. That, however, doesn't impress Eadie, who ignores his invitation so she can do her patriotic bit helping servicemen at the Stage Door Canteen (or, as it's called here, the "Broadway Canteen"). Realizing how down to earth and genuine she is -- exactly the kind of girl who doesn't care about his money or social position -- Andy shows a bit of the boyish innocence he has hidden beneath the arrogance that comes from his background of wealth and privilege, and also some humility, hiding that background and his real name. Before the night and their "date" on the Staten Island Ferry are over, they're genuinely in love with each other, but that presents a problem -- since age 12, Andy has been unofficially "engaged" to Potter's daughter Vivian (Sheila Ryan), who expects to marry him, and he can't quite bring himself to hurt Vivian by telling her that he's met someone else.

Flash forward a few months, and Andy is on his way home on leave, a hero in the Pacific, and his father is so proud that he has to do something special to honor him, trying to rent out the Club New Yorker for a party but discovering that it's closed for rehearsals of a new production. Suddenly, his fatherly devotion, patriotism, and Wall Street experience all click together -- he brings the entire performing company, plus Benny Goodman's band, up to his and Potter's adjoining estates in Westchester to stage their act for his upscale neighbors and friends as part of the biggest War Bond rally ever seen (minimum admission a new 5,000-dollar War Bond), and in the process giving his son the biggest party he's ever seen. This leads to more comic turns for Horton's Potter, as a man who would make coffee nervous -- especially around show people -- but delights his ex-dancer wife (Charlotte Greenwood). That's also how Eadie and Vivian end up at the Potter mansion together, comparing notes on their remarkably similar respective fiancés. When the show's star, Dorita (Carmen Miranda), lets the cat out of the bag, it looks like Andy may lose Eadie, who can't bear to lose Andy but also won't even try to take him away from Vivian, who loves him too, but has loved him a lot longer. But while they sort out their romance, the show must go on, and go on it does. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Tales of Manhattan is a sumptuous multipart film centered around a formal tailcoat. The coat is specially designed for stage actor Charles Boyer, who wears it during a rendezvous with his lady friend (Rita Hayworth). The lady's husband (Thomas Mitchell) shoots Boyer, thus the tailcoat is damaged merchandise and sold at a discount to a bridegroom (Cesar Romero). When the groom's peccadillos catch up to him, the bride (Ginger Rogers) chooses to marry the best man (Henry Fonda) instead, and the coat is shipped off to a second hand store. It is purchased by a would-be composer (Charles Laughton), who wears it the night that he is to conduct his first symphony; alas, the coat is too tight and tears apart, nearly ruining the conductor's debut. Stitched back together, the coat is donated to a skid row mission, wherein the kindly proprietor gives the coat to a down and out drunkard (Edward G. Robinson) so that the shabby gentleman can attend his 25th college reunion. Later on, the coat is stolen by a crook (J. Carroll Naish) in order to gain entrance to a fancy charity ball. The crook holds up the ball and stuffs the loot in the pockets of the coat, but while escaping in an airplane he loses the outer garment. The coat floats down to an impoverished African American shanty community; a farmer (Paul Robeson) decides to distribute the "money from heaven" amongst his needy neighbors. At the end, the tattered coat adorns the shoulders of a scarecrow. Tales of Manhattan is one of the best "portmanteau" dramas turned out by Hollywood; it was directed by French expatriate Julien Duvivier, a past master of the multi-story technique. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this grim melodrama, Barbara Stanwyck plays the eldest of three wealthy sisters who become orphans when their father dies in France. Threatened with the danger of losing the opulent family home, Big Sister makes a grand sacrifice and secretly marries a real estate developer so she can inherit her aunt's fortune. A few years later, she learns that he is after the family estate and wants to tear it down so she leaves him and tries to stop him. More time passes and the husband ends up taking her to court when he learns that she has borne him a son without telling him. The part of "Gig Young" was played by actor Byron Barr who later assumed the name before he became famous. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on the Ben Hecht/Charlie McArthur play Chicago, Roxie Hart is a short-but-sweet satire of highly publicized court trials. Ginger Rogers plays showgirl Roxie Hart, whose no-good husband kills a man and insists that Roxie take the blame, since juries seldom send a woman to the chair. She agrees, figuring that the publicity will be beneficial to her career. Roxie's case is taken by grandstanding attorney Adolphe Menjou, who regards the sacred halls of justice as his own three-ring circus. George Montgomery plays the reporter covering the trial, who falls in love with Roxie and eventually marries her after she dumps her cowardly hubby. Roxie Hart plays fast and loose with legal ethics, but is no less hilarious because of it. Some of the best moments belong to Iris Adrian, as an imprisoned "Bonnie Parker"-type killer who's jealous that Roxie is stealing all the headlines. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed with Mabel Normand in 1920, the old Rose Melville stage property Sis Hopkins was trotted out in 1941 for Republic's newest star, raucous cornpone comedienne Judy Canova. Sporting pigtails and dressed like a potato sack, Sis Hopkins (Canova) shows up at the doorstep of her snooty rich relations in the Big City after her family farm burns down. Though she immediately ingratiates herself to her uncle, bathroom-appliance mogul Horace Hopkins (Charles Butterworth), Sis runs afoul of her bitchy, beautiful cousin Carol (played by a pre-stardom Susan Hayward). Determined to humiliate our heroine and send her packing, Carol arranges for Sis to partipate in a sorority-initiation striptease. Fortunately, Sis wins out in the finale, while Carol must endure such indignities as a well-aimed pan of water and a misplaced bathroom plunger. As a bonus, Sis wins the heart of college bandleader Jeff Farnsworth (Bob Crosby). Adding to the general merriment of Sis Hopkins is Jerry Colonna as a zany college professor. Judy Canova sings several of her patented country-western ditties, then surprises her fans with a "straight"operatic rendition from La Traviata. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide