Lester Dorr Movies

Peter Bogdanovich's attempt to direct a homage to the great musicals of the 1930s is now remembered as one of the embarrassments of the 1970s. The film's thin plot, standard for the genre, centers on the romantic entanglements and misunderstandings among six stock characters: the bored playboy (Burt Reynolds), his never-ruffled valet (John Hillerman), the debutante (Cybill Shepherd), the Broadway diva (Madeline Kahn), her gambler boyfriend (Duilio Del Prete), and her maid (Eileen Brennan). All six are likely to burst into song and dance at any time, and they often do (the performances were recorded live on the set, not pre-recorded), but sixteen Cole Porter tunes, lavish sets and costumes, and an expensive production cannot hide the fact that Reynolds and Shepherd, the two leads, are way out of their depth. A notorious failure, At Long Last Love left a permanent stain on Bogdanovich's career. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

The focus in this classic Green Acres episode is on that porcine superstar, Arnold the Pig. The complications begin piling up as Oliver (Eddie Albert) and Lisa (Eva Gabor) agree to take care of Arnold while his owners, the Ziffels, are on their second honeymoon. But the fun really gets underway when Arnold receives an interesting piece of government mail -- namely, his draft notice! Watch for Ray Teal (aka Sheriff Coffee of Bonanza fame), and cartoon voice-over artist John Stephenson (aka Mister Slate in The Flintstones) in key supporting roles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ex-fire chief Carey York (Tom Tully) hires Perry (Raymond Burr) to sue TV repoter Tommy Towne (Frank Aletter) for slander, after Towne claims on the air that York burned down his own warehouse for the insurance money. To avoid ponying up $1.5 million, Towne issues a "retraction"--still insisting that York is an arsonist, but now claiming that he was trying to save his son Dorian (Wynn Pearce) from bankruptcy. Ultimately, Towne is murdered, York is charged, and Perry must find out who is really going around setting fires and killing people. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Feeble in the action department, this drama directed by Thor Brooks fizzles before the arsonist gets his due. John (Steve Brodie) is the leader of an arson squad and he does not realize that it is one of his men who is setting the disastrous fires around town. The duplicitous and secretly criminal member of the squad is a part of an arson ring that preys on the victims of the fires they set in order to get them to divvy up the insurance money. To assure cooperation, the arsonists use either blackmail or intimidation. In-between fires, John is intent on tracking down the arsonists. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Marjorie Morgenstern (Natalie Wood) is an 18-year-old, middle-class, Jewish girl from New York who wants nothing more than to be an actress, despite the hopes and wishes of her parents (Everett Sloane and Claire Trevor) that she graduate from college, marry, and settle down to have a family. At the urging of her more worldly friend Marsha Zelenko (Carolyn Jones), she takes a job at an upstate camp, and, one night when sneaking onto the grounds of a neighboring resort, meets and falls wildly in love with the entertainment director, Noel Airman (Gene Kelly). A Lothario with a gift of song as well as dance, Airman romances Marjorie and tries to teach her something of theater, suggesting that she change her name to Marjorie Morningstar, which she does. He intends to enjoy her company for the summer, until her aging uncle Samson (Ed Wynn), who is also working at the resort, tells him of the family's concerns for the girl. Noel and Marjorie end up linked romantically, despite their best efforts to stay away from each other. Marjorie gives up a potential romance with a slightly older, successful doctor (Martin Balsam) and resists the honest entreaties of Airman's assistant, Wally Wronken (Martin Milner), and tries to get Airman to straighten up and fly right; she can't get her own acting career off the ground, but she owns Airman's heart. Instead of biding his time at writing a musical that he's been working at for four years, and spending his summers working in the Catskills, Noel tries to work in the advertising world -- he also finds himself just as troubled by the stable family life and religious life that Marjorie comes from as he is attracted to her personally. He is also bitterly disturbed by the fact that his one-time assistant Wally Wronken is now a successful Broadway playwright, the darling of critics and audiences, with backers eager to sign checks to produce his work. Unable to pursue a life in business, or remain faithful to Marjorie, he reaches a crisis point from which only she can rescue him -- together they try to build a life and he tries to finish his long-gestating masterpiece, which proves a disaster when it gets to Broadway. Noel abandons Marjorie, and when she goes to find him, Wally warns her off, explaining that Noel has to return to a place where he can feel successful, like the Catskills resort where they met, where he can be the big fish in the tiny pond. Her marriage over and her girlish ideals behind her, she sees Noel back in his element, wowing young acting students with his skills, and finally turns to the one man who has loved her for precisely who she is all along, Wally. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In this comedy sequel to Wonderful Town (a popular Broadway musical), Kim, a museum worker from Providence, Rhode Island, inherits half ownership of a Las Vegas hotel when her father dies. She and her Aunt Clara go there to learn more about it. Unfortunately, just before they arrive, the other owner, Ether Ferguson, gambles the hotel away. When Kim and Clara arrive, Kim is led to believe that the hotel she co-owns is the Flamingo Hotel which is really owned by Victor Monte. Victor finds the naive lass charming and so allows the delusion to persist. Eventually they fall in love. Songs include: "An Occasional Man," "Take a Chance," "We're Alone," "The Girl Rush," "Champagne," "Birmingham," "Out of Doors," "Choose Your Partner," and "My Hillbilly Heart." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Killers from Space in this low-budget sci-fier are a group of aliens bent on conquering the earth. To this end, they overtake the mind and body of atomic scientist Peter Graves, using the poor man as a combination spy and saboteur. When Graves realizes this, he tries to warn mankind, but no one believes him. Marching defiantly back to the aliens' Bronson Canyon headquarters, where the slimy villains are busily syphoning off electrical power from a nearby generator, Graves vows to stop the extraterrestrials at any cost...including his own life (or what there's left of it). The makeup used for the aliens is laughable, but the film works so long as it concentrates on Graves' plight. Produced and directed by W. Lee Wilder, the brother of the more celebrated Billy Wilder, Killers from Space was distributed in the US by RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Superman (George Reeves) rescues Corky, a sweet, playful dog, from the well into which he's fallen, and returns the dog to his owner, Joyce (Dona Drake). He later discovers that the dog has bonded with him and is seeking him out -- the problem is that Corky recognizes him in his Clark Kent guise and is just as gregarious in greeting him at those times, in his office at the Daily Planet. Joyce's husband Hank (Ben Welden), a small-time hood with big-time ambition, figures this out, and plans to use the dog to uncover Superman's secret identity, and blackmail him into giving his bookmaking operation protection. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

A congressional witness against crime boss Lou Cranek (Dan Seymour) suddenly refuses to testify--then abruptly drops dead. The reason? The unfortunate witness has fallen victim to a deadly mind-controlling machine, created for the "good of mankind" by kindly Dr. Stanton (Griff Barnett), but used instead for evil purposes by Cranek and his gang. Superman (George Reeves) must locate and destroy the machine before the next witness, Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates), comes to harm as well. This episode marks the first appearance of familiar Superman bad guy Ben Welden (he's the guy with the bald head and the toothy grin). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Billy Winder directed and co-wrote this bitterly satiric comedy-drama which turns a jaundiced eye towards both the news media and its consumers. Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a talented but short-tempered reporter whose fondness for booze and unwillingness to bow to authority has cost him jobs at some of America's most prestigious newspapers. When Tatum's car breaks down in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tatum persuades the editor of the local paper (Porter Hall) to give him a job until he can make enough to get his jalopy running and find a story that will put him back in the good graces of the Big City journals. After a year in Albuquerque, Tatum begins to wonder if a big scoop will ever cross his path, but when he's sent to Los Barios to cover the annual rattlesnake hunt, he lucks into a great human interest story -- Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), who runs a local diner, motel and curio emporium, is caught in an abandoned mine shaft after a rockslide, which some superstitious locals attribute to an Indian curse. Tatum writes up the story with all the flourish he can muster, and portrays Leo's wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling) as a devoted spouse fearful for her husband's life, even though she can barely stand Leo and is planning to leave him. Tatum's story is picked up by the wire services and he makes friends with local sheriff Kretzer (Ray Teal) to insure he has an inside line on updates on Leo's rescue. When Tatum learns that Leo can be freed in a mere twelve hours, he persuades Kretzer and his men to adopt another rescue method that will take several days, which will generate more copy for Tatum, more press attention for Ketzer's re-election campaign, and more business for Lorraine's diner. Soon Los Barios is the biggest tourist attraction in the state, but as the media circus mounts, Leo begins to fall seriously ill. Also released as The Big Carnival, Ace In The Hole was a major box-office disappointment upon its original release in 1951, even though it was sandwiched between two of Wilder's biggest hits, Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17. Despite never being released in home video until 2007, Ace In The Hole's bitter tone earned it an enthusiastic cult following, and it's now regarded as one of Wilder's best films of the Fifties. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Follow the Sun is the filmed biography of golf champion Ben Hogan. Glenn Ford, no mean duffer himself, stars as Hogan, here depicted as a single-purposed individual to whom golf is everything. Anne Baxter co-stars as Hogan's supportive wife Valerie, who sticks with him through thick and thin. On the brink of his greatest success, Hogan is seriously injured in an auto accident. His recovery and return to the links provides the dramatic momentum of the film's final reels. Co-starring as themselves in Follow the Suns are such golfing legends as Sam Snead, Jimmy Demaret, and Dr. Cary Middlecoff. An uncredited Harold Blake appears as Ben Hogan at the age of 14. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mickey Rooney, with his kid roles and musicals behind him, went for a major change of image in this harrowing film noir. He gives what many consider to be the best performance of his career as Danny Brady, a well-meaning grease monkey whose life is destroyed in less than a week. Danny finds himself short of cash when he's supposed to take out Vera (Jeanne Cagney), a waitress whom he's just met who works at a hash-house. He borrows 20 dollars from the cash register, planning on paying it back with 20 dollars that a buddy owes him the next day, but the friend doesn't turn up. To get the 20 dollars, he buys a 100-dollar watch on a payment plan and then hocks it for the 20 dollars, but a detective picks up on the purchase and threatens to have him jailed if he doesn't pay the full 100 dollars immediately; desperate to raise the money, he robs a drunken bar patron of his bill-fold. His money problems seemingly behind him, Danny takes Vera out with the extra cash, but gets into a fight with her former boss, Nick (Peter Lorre), who picks up a clue that Danny did the robbery. Nick pressures Danny to provide him with a new car (a hard-to-get commodity in 1950) from the garage where he works, in return for keeping quiet. Danny steals the car and turns it over to Nick, but he and Vera decide to get even by robbing Nick's safe that night -- now they've got 3,600 dollars, which they split. But Danny's boss, Mackey, tells him he knows who stole the car, and wants either the car back or the full value, or he'll turn Danny in to the police. Vera has already blown her share on a mink coat, and he goes back to Mackey with what he has, 1,800 dollars. Mackey takes it and proceeds to call the police. Danny attacks him and leaves him for dead. Danny goes on the run, convinced he's wanted for Mackey's murder. Danny runs into Helen (Barbara Bates), a nice girl that he was dating and then dumped, and they end up fleeing together, hijacking a car and holding an innocent man at gunpoint. Impending tragedy seems to loom up even larger when they cross paths with police officers on a manhunt. Realizing that Helen has been good to him, he ends up on the run alone, with a gun in hand, as the law closes in. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Jimmy Durante plays the patriarch of a down-on-their-luck family of acrobats, who suddenly finds a great deal of money hidden in his house amid the depths of the Great Depression. The authorities suspect Durante of being a thief, but in fact the culprit is a benevolent little squirrel named Rupert. This clever critter has been pilfering money from the obnoxious, wealthy miser who lives in the adjoining house and who decided to stash most of his funds in the wall separating the two residences. The stop-motion animation is the handiwork of George Pal. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi