Morris Ankrum Movies

Glenn Ford and Rhonda Fleming star in The Redhead and the Cowboy, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out who plays what. Fleming is cast as Confederate spy Candace Bronson, who makes her way through enemy lines to deliver an important message. She is accompanied by Gil Kyle (Glenn Ford), who needs Candace to testify on his behalf in a murder trial. Though not necessarily sympathetic to the Southern cause, Gil helps Candace complete her mission. Also around and about is Dunn Jeffers (Edmond O'Brien), a Union spy who pretends to help Gil and Candace. As Civil War westerns go, Redhead and the Cowboy is pretty good, with some particularly exciting action highlights. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the tradition of 20th Century Fox's semi-documentary "Now it can be told" films, Monogram Picture's "A" division Allied Artists came up with Southside 1-1000. The U.S. Secret Service goes after a gang of counterfeiters, whose engraver (Morris Ankrum) has covertly constructed his plates while in prison. A federal agent (Don DeFore) poses as the counterfeiters' contact man in order to purchase enough bills to incriminate the gang. The final fight-to-the-death scene was filmed aboard Los Angeles' "Angel's Flight," a cable-car service dangling 40 feet above the ground. Southside 1-1000 was based on a true story, as narrator Gerald Mohr points out on several occasions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The hero of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), a fiercely independent architect obviously patterned after Frank Lloyd Wright. Rather than compromise his ideals, Roark takes menial work as a quarryman to finance his projects. He falls in love with heiress Dominique (Patricia Neal), but ends the relationship when he has the opportunity to construct buildings according to his own wishes. Dominique marries a newspaper tycoon (Raymond Massey) who at first conducts a vitriolic campaign against the "radical" Roark, but eventually becomes his strongest supporter. Upon being given a public-housing contract on the proviso that his plans not be changed in any way, Roark is aghast to learn that his designs will be radically altered. Roark sneaks into the unfinished structure at night, makes certain no one else is around, and dynamites the project into oblivion. At his trial, Roark acts as his own defense, delivering an eloquent paean to individuality. He is acquitted, while the newspaper tycoon, upset that he could offer Roark no help during the trial, kills himself. This clears the way for a final clinch between Roark and Dominique on the skeleton of his latest building project. Ayn Rand's celebration of Objectivism didn't translate very well to film, with Gary Cooper coming off more selfish and petulant than anything else. The Fountainhead's saving graces are the solid direction by King Vidor, the rhapsodic musical score by Max Steiner, and the symbolism inherent in Cooper's manipulation of his power drill when he first lays eyes on Patricia Neal! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Kurt Neumann, more closely associated with science fiction and mystery programmers, delivers a powerhouse of a pocket western in Bad Men of Tombstone. Barry Sullivan and Broderick Crawford head the cast as a pair of gunslingers who hold no regrets and evidently harbor no consciences. They ride into a mining camp during the Gold Rush days and set about staking a claim--and woe be unto him who gets in the way. A blood-splattered gunfight is the logical conclusion when the two gunfighters have their final falling out. Screenwriters Philip Yordan and Arthur Strawn clearly hold their leading characters in contempt, but can't help imbuing them with a certain degree of fascination. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though not acknowledged by contemporary reviewers, Colorado Territory is a westernized remake of the 1941 crime drama High Sierra. Raoul Walsh, director of the earlier film, returns to helm the remake, doing a grand job on both occasions. Joel McCrea stars in the Humphrey Bogart role, playing a veteran outlaw who hopes to pull off one last, spectacular heist. Virginia Mayo portrays the Ida Lupino counterpart, a "bad" dance-hall girl who proves to be the only person who genuinely cares about McCrea's well-being. As in the earlier film, the climax finds McCrea making a futile bid for escape in the mountains, with tragic consequences. High Sierra was good for at least one more remake, the 1955 Jack Palance-Shelley Winters starrer I Died a Thousand Times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Victor Fleming's final film features Ingrid Bergman as a vivid and luminous Joan of Arc, the 15th-century French peasant girl who led the French in battle against the invading English, becoming a national hero. When she was captured, tortured, and ultimately executed by the English, she was made a Catholic saint. Bergman's Joan is a strong and spiritual figure who proves her devotion to the Dauphin (Jose Ferrer), later to become the King of France. Joan is compelling as she wins an alliance with the Governor of Vaucouleurs and the courtiers at Chinon, leads her army in the Battle of Orleans, is betrayed by the Burgundians, and edicts that "our strength is in our faith." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Usually associated with erudite, urbane comedies, the legendary screen team of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy goes intensely dramatic in the expensive western Sea of Grass. Tracy plays cattle baron Colonel James Brewton, who staunchly opposes opening the western frontier to homesteaders. Standing steadfastly beside Brewton-at least at the beginning--is his headstrong wife Lutie (Hepburn). Eventually disillusioned by the stern implacability of her husband, Lutie leaves Brewton and goes off to Denver, where she falls in love with liberal attorney Brice Chamberlain (Melvyn Douglas), the champion of the homesteaders' cause. Upon giving birth to Chamberlain's son, Lutie confesses her indiscretion to Brewton, who takes the news with commendable restraint, even offering to accept the baby as his own. Unfortunately, the Brewtons' standing in the community is weakened by the revelation of Lutie's infidelity, causing her to leave her husband for a second time. Years later, Lutie's grown-up boy Brock (Robert Walker) drifts to the wrong side of the law, leading to his death at the hands of a posse. Though it hardly seems possible under the circumstances, Brewton and Lutie are at long last reconciled through the intervention of their daughter Sara Beth (Phyllis Thaxter). Elaborately produced in the traditional MGM manner and adroitly directed by Elia Kazan, Sea of Grass is still one of the lesser Tracy-Hepburns. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

This second film version of the DeSylva/Brown/Henderson Broadway musical Good News may not be the best of the Arthur Freed-produced MGM musicals, but it's certainly one of the peppiest. The film is set at Tait college during the Roaring 20s. The wisp of a plot involves Tait football-star Peter Lawford, who will be ineligible to play in the Big Game if his grades don't improve. June Allyson is the demure Tait coed who takes on the task of tutoring Lawford, while campus vamp Patricia Marshall takes action when she believes (rightly so) that she is losing Lawford to Allyson. The film is deftly stolen by comic relief Joan McCracken, who stops the show with her energetic rendition of "Pass That Peace Pipe"--which, like the famous Lawford/Allyson duet "The French Lesson," was specially written for this 1948 version of Good News. Retained from the original score is the rousing "Varsity Drag." Mel Torme, Tom Dugan and Donald McBride are among the familiar supporting-cast faces in this bubbly Technicolor musical, which was adapted for the screen by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's "Maisie" series came to an end with this undistinguished entry. Eschewing show business for the time being, perennially stranded showgirl Maisie Revere (Ann Sothern) decides to join the Los Angeles police force. This she does primarily to be near her latest beau, Lt. Paul Scott (Barry Nelson). After an amusingly grueling training session, our heroine goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of confidence tricksters, headed by phony swami Willis Farnes (Leon Ames). When she's found out, Maisie is taken for a one-way ride by the crooks, but Lt. Scott comes to the rescue by following a trail of clues that Maisie has cleverly left behind. More slapsticky than most "Maisie" entries, Undercover Maisie subjects Ann Sothern to an incredible amount of physical abuse, though sharp-eyed viewers will be able to detect that she is extensively doubled by diminutive David Sharpe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Montgomery is the director and star of the film noir mystery Lady in the Lake, adapted for the screen by source novelist Raymond Chandler. Montgomery plays detective Philip Marlowe, a private eye who just wants to publish his own crime stories. Kingsby Publications editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) meets with Marlowe, but offers him a job as a detective instead of a writer. She wants him to find the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby (Leon Ames). (Adrienne wants them to proceed with their divorce so she can marry Kingsby herself.) Marlowe accepts the job and goes looking for clues at the home of the wife's sometime lover, Chris Lavery (Dick Simmons). When Marlowe gets knocked out and picked up for drunk driving, he decides to drop the case. He is drawn back in, however, when Adrienne suggests that Kingsby's wife is responsible for the murder of a mysterious lady in the lake. Lloyd Nolan and Tom Tully play two police detectives also on the case. Lady in the Lake is remembered as being filmed with a subjective camera -- almost entirely from Marlowe's point of view -- and subsequently hyped by an MGM ad campaign. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

It's The Champ all over again, with Wallace Beery as a down-and-out prizefighter and Dean Stockwell as the small boy whom he adopts. Mighty McGurk also borrows from Beery's earlier The Bowery (33) by placing its story in that New York neighborhood in 1900. The final echo from Wally Beery's movie past is Aline McMahon, who costarred with Beery in Ah, Wilderness (35). The plot of Mighty McGurk involves Beery's rescuing of the orphaned Stockwell, an English lad, from the clutches of his evil guardian Edward Arnold. The boy in turn inspires Beery to return to the boxing ring after several years of boozy grub work as a Bowery waiter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This glorified Technicolor commercial for the Fred Harvey restaurants stars Judy Garland as a 19th-century mail-order bride. Upon arriving in New Mexico, Garland discovers that her husband-to-be is the town drunk. She cuts her losses and takes a job at the local Harvey restaurant, an establishment which endeavors to bring a little civilization and class to the wide open spaces. Harvey's operation is challenged by saloon-owner John Hodiak, corrupt-judge Preston S. Foster, and local-madam Angela Lansbury. With the help of tenderfoot Ray Bolger, Garland and her fellow waitresses foil the corrupt elements in town. Prominent in the supporting cast are Cyd Charisse, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, Kenny Baker and Virginia O'Brien (whose musical numbers aren't quite as rambunctious as the contributions of the others, mainly because O'Brien was pregnant during filming). The songs are for the most part perfunctory, with the spectacular exception of the Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's Oscar-winning "Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe." The Harvey Girls is tenuously based on a more sober-sided historical volume by Samuel Hopkins Adams. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide