Fred O'Donovan Movies

As early as 1937's Young and Innocent, Alfred Hitchcock was beginning to repeat himself, but audiences didn't mind so long as they were thoroughly entertaining-which they were, without fail. Derrick De Marney finds himself in a 39 Steps situation when he is wrongly accused of murder. While a fugitive from the law, De Marney is helped by heroine Nova Pilbeam, who three years earlier had played the adolescent kidnap victim in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. The obligatory "fish out of water" scene, in which the principals are briefly slowed down by a banal everyday event, occurs during a child's birthday party. The actual villain, whose identity is never in doubt (Hitchcock made thrillers, not mysteries) is played by George Curzon, who suffers from a twitching eye. Curzon's revelation during an elaborate nightclub sequence is a Hitchcockian tour de force, the sort of virtuoso sequence taken for granted in these days of flexible cameras and computer enhancement, but which in 1937 took a great deal of time, patience and talent to pull off. Released in the US as The Girl Was Young, Young and Innocent was based on a novel by Josephine Tey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood leading-man John Lodge later became governor of Connecticut. Before he turned to politics, however, Lodge found time to squeeze the British melodrama River of Unrest into his schedule. Lodge plays a county inspector, smack in the middle of yet another set-to between the British and the Irish. John Loder, a British officer in love with Irish colleen Antoinette Cellier, is force to shoot rebel-fighter Niall MacGinnis. Loder has no inkling that MacGinniss was the brother of Cellier. She uses his ignorance to lure Loder into a trap, cursing herself all the way but remaining loyal to her people. River of Unrest was based on The Trouble, a play by Dudley Sturrock and Noel Scott. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a play by George A. Birmingham, General John Regan is a remake of the 1921 film of the same name. Henry Edwards, who also directed, stars as Dr. O'Grady, general practitioner of a small Irish village. As a gag, O'Grady convinces a visiting American newspaper publisher (played by future Superman villain Ben Welden) that a resident of this village was General John Regan, liberator of Bolivia. This harmless prank mushrooms into a major headache when the American spreads this "fact" to the rest of the world. Co-starring with Henry Edwards is his actress wife Chrissie White, whose last film this was. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mat Donovan (Brian Magowan) battles the evil representative of an absentee landlord in this old-fashioned Irish drama made in 1918. The landlord not only evicts the poor Irish tenement dwellers but often resorts to arson to justify his maniacal means. Cyril Cusack makes his film debut as a young child in this primitively produced feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide