Dick Dickinson Movies

One of the most entertaining of the Western movies to come out of the 1950s, this is a Stewart vehicle in which he must take on the ruthlessness of the frontier. Set in the Yukon, Stewart and his friends are driving cattle to market from Wyoming to Canada, where the boom towns pay top dollar for beef. When they arrive in Skagway, the corrupt sheriff of the town (John McIntire) steals the cattle and Stewart et al are forced to fight for their herd. Together with the female saloon keeper of another town (Ruth Roman), they find themselves up against an evil they were not prepared for. When Stewart's friend (portrayed by Walter Brennan) is killed, he is forced to go up against the evil sheriff. Good versus evil in incredible Yukon settings makes this an above average Western. ~ Tana Hobart, Rovi

The Dangerous Profession of the title is the bail-bond business. George Raft stars as Kane, a former cop turned professional bail-raiser. When one of his customers, robbery suspect Brackett (Bill Williams), is mysteriously murdered, Kane wants to know why. His reasons are twofold: he has an insatiable curiosity, and he's fallen in love with Brackett's widow Lucy (Ella Raines). As his business partner Farley (Pat O'Brien) looks on in mute bewilderment, Kane risks life and limb to solve the mystery. The plot doesn't always make sense, but in 1949 it was reassuring to see George Raft and Pat O'Brien harking back to their cinematic halcyon days of the 1930s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Pirates of Monterey is set during the early 19th century, at a time when California was asserting its independence from Mexico. Rod Cameron plays Phillip Kent, a devil-may-care mercenary hired to transport a shipment of rifles to the American army detachment at Monterey. Along the way, he is forced to do battle with Mexicans, Indians and various and assorted thieves. Somehow, he finds time to pitch woo with the tempestuous Marguerita (Maria Montez), whose fiery Mexican dance routines are something to behold. Less exciting to watch than it is to read about, Pirates of Monterey at least has the advantage of Technicolor. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Frank Borzage and star Ginger Rogers both came acropper in the lavish but dull historical biopic Magnificent Doll. The usually ebullient Rogers seems encased in wax as Dolly Madison, first lady of the United States in the early 19th century. The story begins as young Washington socialite Dolly Payne, previously and unhappily wed to one John Todd (Horace McNally), can't make up her mind romantically between idealistic politician James Madison (Burgess Meredith) and firebrand Aaron Burr (David Niven). Burr solves that problem when he flees the country after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, leaving the field clear for Madison. What should have been the film's highlight, Dolly's rescue of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution during the 1812 burning of Washington, is treated as a throwaway. Told in flashback, the film ends just before Madison's ascendancy to the White House, with Dolly chastely charming the current chief executive Thomas Jefferson (Grandon Rhodes). Magnificent Doll is anything but . ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This Universal "monster rally", an immediate sequel to House of Frankenstein, would seem to have been deliberately designed as the final entry in the studio's B-horror cycle. Onslow Stevens plays psychiatrist Dr. Edelman, who suddenly has a thriving business when two of Universal's "fright" personalities come calling. Count Dracula (John Carradine) wishes to be weaned away from his vampiric tendencies, while Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney), aka the Wolfman, wants to be cured of his werewolfism. Edelman does his best to help, simultaneously attempting to bring the Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange) back to life. Unfortunately, Edelman inherits the madness, killer instincts and other antisocial habits of his celebrated patients. Only Lawrence Talbot manages to escape from Edelman's lab unscathed, ambling off into the sunset with heroine Militza (Martha O'Driscoll). Universal contract starlet Jane Adams, perennially cast as unfortunate young women with physical afflictions, plays Edelman's faithful hunchbacked nurse. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Having briefly abandoned his standard "Nevada Jack McKenzie" characterization in Flame of the West, cowboy star Johnny Mack Brown was back as Nevada Jack in Monogram's The Lost Trail. Vowing to bring in a gang of stagecoach outlaws, Nevada redoubles his efforts when he learns that the owner of the stagecoach line is pretty Jane Burns (Jennifer Holt). Meanwhile, comic-relief Sandy (Raymond Hatton) is appointed sheriff of the town by local bigwig John Corbett (Kenneth McDonald), who hopes to deflect suspicion by turning public opinion against the new lawman. Imagine Corbett's dismay when he discovers that Sandy is actually a federal marshal, and that he's been working undercover with Nevada all along. Reviewers of The Lost Trail noted that, by 1945, former football star Johnny Mack Brown was not so much tall in the saddle as he was wide. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The general perception of the Technicolor costume adventure movies that Maria Montez and Jon Hall made for Universal in the early 1940's is that they were pure escapist entertainment, intended to make people forget for an hour or so about the Second World War and the general world situation. And generally that is true about them -- they were mostly no "about" much more than having fun for 90 minutes or so amid pretty sets with lots of action and some pretty women in exotic outfits. But watching Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, one has to wonder if even here the screenwriter, Edmund L. Hartmann, was able to totally get away from the day-to-day reality around him. The opening Mongol invasion of Bagdad and the murder of the old Caliph (Moroni Olsen) while trying to set up a government-in-exile without thinking of the German and Japanese conquests and occupations of various nations that would have been going on at the time; additionally, the fact that the old Caliph is murdered with the help of a traitor in his own noble ranks -- a "quisling" in the term coined during World War II -- wouldn't have been missed by audiences at the time. Further, the screenplay very specifically paints the forty thieves as heroes who have gone from being criminals to an active resistance force against the occupying Mongols -- indeed, at the denouement, their invasion of the palace is greeted as a day of liberation by the people of Bagdad. The movie walks a strange tightrope, casting about veiled topical references of that sort, even as is otherwise sufficiently tongue-in-cheek to cast Andy Devine as a desert bandit. Obviously, Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves was sold as -- and mostly intended as -- light entertainment, but just below that glitzy Technicolor surface were some fascinating allusions to the real world. None of this stops Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves from being immense fun -- it is, even if the "fun" isn't totally escapist in nature -- and it's great to look at as well, even 60 years on; Universal has apparently kept preservation-quality source materials on this and Hall and Montez's other Technicolor costume romps. And this particular entry in that group of movies also contains one very instructive clue to the morays and censorship of the time in one scene, in which the hero meets the heroine bathing at an oasis -- the makers seem to have been forced to insert a particular shot that is there for no other reason then to make it clear that she is not totally naked when he sees her. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In his starring film for Universal Pictures, W.C. Fields plays circus manager and all-around flim flam man Larson E. Whipsnade. When he's not trying to fleece the customers or elude the sheriff, Whipsnade busys himself trying to break up the romance between his daughter Vicky (Constance Moore) and carnival ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (playing himself). He also carries on a running feud with Bergen's nattily attired dummy Charlie McCarthy ("I'll slash you into venetian blinds!"). Bergen's other dummy is Mortimer Snerd, who occasionally comments upon the action in his own thickheaded fashion. Anxious to arrange a marriage between Vicki and the wealthy Roger Bel-Goodie III (James Bush), Whipsnade disposes of Bergen and his dummies by sending them aloft in a hot-air baloon. Attending a party at the Bel-Goodie mansion, Whipsnade makes a pest of himself by constantly referring to snakes, a subject that invariably causes Mrs. Bel-Goodie (Mary Forbes) to swoon. He also engages in a zany ping-pong tournament with socialite Ronnie (Ivan Lebedeff). But it is Vicki, and not Whipsnade, who breaks up the engagement by telling off her pompous fiance. At that very instant, Bergen, having escaped from the balloon, arrives to claim Vicki and to help Whipsnade escape the sheriff once more. A partial remake of the W.C. Fields silent Two Flaming Youths, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man was scripted by Fields under the pseudonym "Charles Bogle." As published in the 1973 compendium W.C. Fields by Himself, the original screenplay was to have had dramatic overtones, including the death of Fields' trapeze-artist wife and a climactic soul-baring scene wherein Fields expresses his genuine love for his daughter. All this was jettisoned when it was decided to capitalize on the Fields-Charlie McCarthy "feud" then blazing on radio's Chase and Sanborn Show. While nowhere near as funny as Fields' subsequent Universal feature The Bank Dick, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man still contains a generous supply of laughs. Our favorite line: "Somebody's taken the cork out of my lunch." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A Bar-20 cattle drive ends in rustling in this fine Hopalong Cassidy Western from producer Harry Sherman. Windy (George "Gabby" Hayes) makes the mistake of accusing the buyer, Lazy-J owner Tom Hamilton (Frederick Burton), of the theft, but Lucky (Russell Hayden) suspects the foreman Dave Talbot (Stanley Ridges). Hamilton is murdered, however, and Talbot has the perfect alibi: He was playing cards at the Mirage Bar where Hoppy (William Boyd) had gotten himself a job under the guise of being the noted gambler Bill Thompson. With Talbot not able to be in two places at the same time, the marshal (Jack Rockwell) has no choice but to arrest Lucky for murder. Silver on the Sage was Hopalong Cassidy series entry number 25. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Trail Dust was the eighth entry in the 66-film "Hopalong Cassidy" series. William Boyd, of course, is Hoppy, while his sidekicks Johnny and Windy are portrayed respectively by James Ellison and Gabby Hayes. This time the story is motivated by a huge cattle drive, some of which is lifted from such silent epics as North of 36, but much of which was specially staged for this film. The villains are members of a cattlemen's cartel who conspire to kill off the herds of their less-prosperous competitors. But Hoppy and his chums deliver the cows and bulls on time, and even round up the baddies for the benefit of The Law. At 77 minutes, Trail Dust was the longest "Hopalong Cassidy" to date -- but it would soon be eclipsed by the 82-minute Borderland. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Assigned to write and direct the John Wayne western West of the Divide, Robert N. Bradbury dug out the plotline he'd used so often and to such good effect in his son Bob Steele's vehicles. Wayne plays frontiersman Ted Hayden, who spends most of the picture searching for the man who killed his parents. Along the way, he "tames" spoiled heroine Fay Winter (Virginia Brown Faire) and rediscovers his long-lost brother Spud (Billy O'Brien). John Wayne's fistfights with chief heavy Yakima Canutt aren't in the same league as his later Canutt-supervised stunt sequences, but they're pretty good by their own standards. West of the Divide was the fourth entry in Wayne's "Lone Star" series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A good idea never really gets off the ground in this circus melodrama/western starring Bob Steele. The bantamweight cowboy plays Kit Denton, whose father, Charles (George Hayes), the owner of a traveling circus, is forced to admit that he is unwanted in the western town of Big Ben. As Charles explains, he has been on the run for 18 years after being falsely accused of a murder he didn't commit. To elude the law in general and Big Ben politico Chris McDonald (John Elliott) in particular, Charles must wear his clown makeup at all times. McDonald, however, takes umbrage to any circus visiting his town, especially since his wife, Martha (Vane Calvert), ran off to join one 18 years earlier. Is Kit actually Martha's son and will the Flying Dantons get through their act without interference from McDonald and his lackeys? Like most of Bob Steele's early talkie western melodramas, The Gallant Fool was directed by his real-life father, Robert North Bradbury. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi