Albert Dekker Movies

Director James Whale, well known for his witty horror films, tackled comedy head-on in this period piece, set in the 18th Century. David Garrick (Brian Aherne) is a gifted but supremely arrogant British actor whose fame is exceeded only by his ego. After finishing a starring run at London's Drury Lane Theatre, Garrick informs the audience his next engagement will be at the Comedie Francaise in Paris, and adds that he plans to use the opportunity to teach the French a few things about acting. Stung by the insult, the Comedie Francaise company plan to take their revenge against Garrick by pulling an elaborate prank; on his first night in Paris, Garrick is taken to an inn where, unbeknown to him, the staff and clientele have been taken over by actors, who stage an lively evening for his benefit. Garrick soon sees through the ruse but plays along, and acts cool towards a lovely young woman, Germaine De Le Corbe (Olivia de Havilland), even though he's smitten with her. After giving Germaine the brush off, Garrick informs the assembled thespians that he saw through their trick, only to discover that Germaine happened upon the inn by accident and wasn't part of the act. Garrick realizes he's alienated the woman who has stolen his heart, and his grief begins to effect his performance as Don Juan. The Great Garrick also features Lionel Atwill, Edward Everett Horton, and Melville Cooper; a young Lana Turner has a bit part. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

After a three-year absence, Columbia's "Lone Wolf" series resumed with the uneven The Lone Wolf in Paris. Francis Lederer stars as Louis Joseph Vance's thief-turned-detective Michael Lanyard, alias The Lone Wolf. While vacationing in Paris, Lanyard finds the gorgeous Princess Thania (Frances Drake) hiding in his hotel bedroom. The Princess is trying to retrieve her country's crown jewels from the treacherous Grand Duke Gregor (Walter Kingsford) and his minions. Before our hero can recover the gems and expose Gregor for the power-hungry rat that he really is, he and Thania are kidnapped by Gregor's men, nearly meeting their doom at the hands of an expert knife-thrower. An unconvincing exercise in international intrigue, The Lone Wolf in Paris was an inauspicious jump-start for the Columbia series: far better was the next entry, the delightful Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, in which Warren William replaced the charming but somewhat hollow Francis Lederer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This "Crime Club" series entry is based on a novel by Jonathan Latimer. Preston Foster and Frank Jenks make return appearances as Latimer's freewheeling private eyes Bill Crane and Doc Williams, here assigned to protect millionaire John Essex (Ray Parker) and John's sister Linda (Frances Robinson) from harm. Someone has been sending Linda threatening notes, eventually carrying out those threats by kidnaping the girl and holding her for ransom. Piecing clues together with the aplomb of two veteran jigsaw-puzzle aficionados, our heroes expose the Least Likely Suspect as the culprit, leading to even more surprises before fadeout time. Perennial dumb blonde Joyce Compton enlivens the proceedings as Doc's addlepated girl friend Dawn Day. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This second of three movie versions of P.C. Wren's adventure novel Beau Geste is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of the 1927 silent version. We open on the now-famous scenes of a remote, burning desert fort, manned by the dead Foreign Legionnaires, then flash back to the early lives of the Geste brothers. As children, the Gestes swear eternal loyalty to one another and to their family. One of the boys, young Beau (played as a youth by Donald O'Connor), witnesses his beloved aunt (Heather Thatcher) apparently stealing a valuable family jewel in order to finance the Geste home; Beau chooses to remain silent rather than disgrace his aunt. Years later, the grown Beau (Gary Cooper) again protects his aunt by confessing to the theft and running off to join the Foreign Legion. He is joined in uniform by faithful brothers John (Ray Milland) and Digby (Robert Preston), who in turn are pursued by a slimy thief (J. Carroll Naish). The crook is in cahoots with sadistic Legion Sgt. Markov (Brian Donlevy, in one of the most hateful portrayals ever captured on celluloid), who is later put in charge of Fort Zinderneuf, where Beau and John are stationed. When the Arabs attack, Markov proves himself a valiant soldier; it is he who hits upon the idea of convincing the Arabs that the fort is still fully manned by propping up the corpses of the casualties at the guard posts. Beau is seriously wounded, and while the greedy Markov searches for the jewel supposedly hidden on Beau's person, he is held at bay by loyal John. The suddenly enervated Beau kills Markov, then dies himself--but not before entrusting two notes to John, one of which requests that John give Beau the "Viking funeral" he'd always wanted (this is why the fort is in flames at the beginning of the film). After the battle, Digby Geste, a bugler with the relief troops, comes upon Beau's dead body, and appropriates the notes. As it turns out, John Geste is the only one who survives to return to England. He gives his aunt Beau's letter, which explains why Beau had confessed and run off--"a 'beau geste', indeed" comments his tearful aunt. No one missed nominal leading lady Susan Hayward in this essentially all-male entertainment. For years available only in muddily processed or truncated versions, Beau Geste was restored to its pristine glory by the American Film Institute in the late 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bob Hope and an all-star cast have great fun in this frothy romantic comedy about a wealthy tycoon who learns that he only has one month left to live. Not realizing that the tests were wrong, he decides to make hay while the sun still shines. He dumps his fiancee and then heads for the lovely Bad Gaswasser Spa in Switzerland. There he meets a young heiress who is being forced to marry a prince rather than the bus driver she loves. Taking pity on her and having nothing to lose, he marries her and plans to leave her his fortune so she will be free to marry anyone she wants. During their honeymoon, on which the bus driver accompanies them, the groom learns that he will live. Unfortunately for the bus driver, true romance has bloomed between the newlyweds. Of course they don't find this out until a little later. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set in the South Seas, Seven Sinners stars Marlene Dietrich as a cabaret singer whose reputation as a troublemaker has gotten her kicked out of one port of call after another. Once more causing a riot, Dietrich takes refuge on the first ship out, together with her underhanded cohorts Broderick Crawford and Mischa Auer. During her next stopover at the Seven Sinners Cafe, Dietrich meets handsome Naval officer John Wayne. He falls in love with her, much to the consternation of island governor Samuel S. Hinds, who knows that any romantic entanglement with Dietrich invariably results in dissension, disarray and brawls. He tells her to lay off Wayne or she'll be deported. But Dietrich insists upon performing one last song for the Duke...and sure as shootin', a battle royal ensues. This time, however, Wayne works tirelessly behind the scenes to solve everyone's problems. Maintaining the fascination level of Seven Sinners is a limitless array of top character actors, including Oscar Homolka, Billy Gilbert, Albert Dekker and Reginald Denny. The film was remade in 1950 as South Sea Sinner, starring Shelley Winters and--are you holding on to something?--Liberace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fred MacMurray stars as a US Army misfit who, with pals Albert Dekker and Gilbert Roland, roam the west in search of adventure. Arriving in a small town, they befriend the elderly newspaper editor (Arthur Allen) and his young granddaughter (Betty Brewer). The trio learns that the community is under the thumb of a covetous land baron (Joseph Schildkraut), who is endeavoring to push out the ranch owners and take over the territory. Advertised by Paramount Pictures as a standard western, Rangers of Fortune is full of startling surprises, not the least of which is the fact that Fred MacMurray doesn't get the girl (Patricia Morison). In one scene, villain Joseph Schildkraut explains his motivations so persuasively that he seems to be more in the right than the heroes. And despite Paramount's promotional buildup of their new child star Betty Brewer, the studio had no qualms about killing off her character some ten minutes before the end! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Blonde Inspiration was one of the few non-musical directorial efforts of Busby Berkeley. MGM contract players John Shelton and Virginia Grey head the cast of this leisurely second-echelon comedy. Shelton plays a western novelist who is inspired to incredible productivity by buxom blonde Marion Martin. Trouble is, he writes more books than his publisher (Albert Dekker) can handle; thus, efforts are made to break up Shelton's romance--and that's where Grey comes in. Blonde Inspiration was based on John Cecil Holm's stage farce Four Cents a Word. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the eerier chillers of its period -- and one of the best ever to come out of Paramount -- Stuart Heisler's Among the Living is a strange and compelling mix of social drama, horror film, and suspense thriller. The story opens with the funeral of Maxim Raden, the patriarch who was pretty much responsible for building up the town that bears the family name, and which has been dominated for decades by the now-idle mill that he owned. Present at the funeral is Dr. Ben Saunders (Harry Carey Sr.), Raden's oldest friend, and the surviving Raden son John (Albert Dekker), who has been away for most of the last 25 years and recently married Elaine (Frances Farmer), a beautiful young woman from New York. John was one of a pair of twin boys; the other, Paul, died in an accident a quarter century ago, just after John was sent away to school. But Saunders and Maxim Raden had a secret between them -- that Paul Raden didn't die, but went dangerously insane, and has kept been alive all of this time, in a hidden room in the decaying Raden mansion, tended to by the doctor and the faithful family servant Pompey (Ernest Whitman). Paul was a victim of abuse by his overbearing father, and suffered brain damage from a beating he received while trying to protect his mother. He has never stopped "hearing" his father's threats or his mother's weeping, and they leave him prone to violent, potentially murderous outbursts of rage. Worse still, the death of his father has agitated him into a state where he is able to escape the mansion. Once freed and relieved of his quarter century of isolation, Paul is at once confused by and delighted with the company of people; he heads to the town and rents a room at a seedy boarding house, where he immediately attracts the attention of the landlady's frisky (and avaricious) daughter Millie (Susan Hayward) with his large bankroll, free-spending habits, and lost-puppy-dog demeanor. Meanwhile, the doctor reveals the truth about Paul to John, who wants to notify the authorities that his brother is loose and potentially dangerous -- but the doctor won't hear of it, fearing that news of the insane son will tarnish the Raden name and the reputation of the clinic that Maxim founded and funded on the doctor's behalf, in return for his covering up the son's existence.
The stakes get raised higher when the coroner reveals that a death the doctor tried to cover up was, in fact, a murder, and then a young woman is found strangled. While John is torn between sympathy for his brother, who never got the help or care he needed, and his feeling of responsibility to the town, the doctor tries to continue the cover-up by posting a 5,000-dollar reward for the capture of the killer. This sets off an orgy of assaults and destruction as the work-starved townspeople, led by Millie's ex-boyfriend Bill Oakley (Gordon Jones), begin rounding up anyone who looks even the least bit suspicious or out of place, trying to get the reward. Millie's greed is also brought to the fore and she persuades her new boyfriend, Paul, to go with her to the one place no one has searched yet -- the Raden mansion. Paul's veneer of calm unravels as he finds himself back in the location of his imprisonment, and in the course of the fight and the chase that ensues, John is caught and accused, by Millie and all of the other witnesses to Paul's outbursts, as the killer. Now it looks like a lynching is in the offing as hundreds of angry, drunken, greedy townspeople gather together to mete out justice -- and John must make them believe that he has a twin who is responsible for the murders. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Bandleader Orrin Tucker and his featured vocalist "Wee" Bonnie Baker are the stars of the Paramount pocket musical You're the One. It all begins when showbiz agent Joe Frink (Edward Everett Horton) tries to get Baker a singing job with baton-wielder Luke Laramie (Albert Dekker). Part of the scheme involves a trip to a screwy health spa, managed by the even screwier Dr. Colonna (Jerry Colonna, of course) As everyone in the audience had figured out in Reel One, Bonnie ends up singing with the Tucker aggregation, while Frink and Laramie stew on the sidelines. Among the musical highlights in You're the Oneis Bonnie Baker's signature tune, "Oh, Johnnie, Oh." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wessel Smitter's semicomic novel FOB Detroit was the source material for Reaching for the Sun. Joel McCrea plays a North Woods clam digger who orders an outboard motor for his business. Figuring he'll save shipping money by picking the motor up himself, he heads for Detroit. Here he decides to take a job at an auto plant, the better to support wife Ellen Drew and the couple's baby. Paramount remembered that Joel McCrea's fans expected a few action scenes, and obligingly included a sequence in which a jealous coworker tries to kill McCrea with a grappling iron. Reaching for the Sun is easy to take, though not quite on the level of Joel McCrea's later work with director Preston Sturges. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a dedicated forest ranger begins suspecting that a recent series of fires has been caused by arson. He investigates in a neighboring town. There he meets a beautiful rich girl, and they fall in love and get married. Unfortunately, the other rangers do not react well to the female's intrusion into their domain. Meanwhile, the daughter of a lumber baron, who has always secretly loved the ranger, is deeply disturbed by the nuptials. When the fires begin running wild, the two women rally together and help. Unfortunately, they are trapped by a wildfire and the ranger must save them by parachuting into their locale. While en route, he discovers that it is the pilot of the airplane who has been setting the fires. The two get into a fight, the arsonist torches the plane and jumps, and the ranger lies unconscious on the airplane floor as it spirals into a fatal nose dive. Fortunately, he wakes up just in time to jump out. He lands near the women, and together they put out the blaze. Later they learn that the arsonist died when his chute drifted into one of the blazes he himself had set. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The winner of four Oscar nominations, Wake Island was one of the first major Hollywood films to deal with America's forced participation in World War II. The first two reels takes place in the weeks prior to Pearl Harbor, as Wake Island military commander Brian Donlevy carries on a friendly rivalry with Seabee supervisor Albert Dekker. Once the US is in the shooting war, all previous differences are forgotten and the Wake Island personnel begin pulling together. Despite being heavily outnumbered during the subsequent Japanese attack on Wake, the Americans put up a valiant fight, at great cost to the Imperial Forces. In a scene calculated to evoke long, loud cheers from the audience, Donlevy, weary and battle-stained, relays to the American mainland the legendary (if offensive) challenge "Send us more Japs!" As in the like-vintage Bataan, the military defeat of the Americans is treated-and justifiably so--as a moral victory. Utilizing some of the top male talents in Paramount's contract pool-Donlevy, Dekker Robert Preston, MacDonald Carey, William Bendix--Wake Island remains an excellent example of propaganda-as-entertainment ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide