J. Frank Hamilton Movies
- 1943
Making her first film appearance since 1941, Deanna Durbin plays the title role in The Amazing Mrs. Holliday. Truth to tell, however, there is no Mrs. Holliday: it's the guise assumed by idealistic missionary Ruth (Durbin) to sneak a group of Chinese war orphans into the US. With the help of ship's steward Timothy (Barry Fitzgerald), Ruth poses as the wife of a wealthy shipping magnate who was lost at sea. This enables her to safely sequester the orphans in the Holliday family mansion until she can cook up her next scheme. But things begin to unravel when Ruth falls in love with her "husband"'s grandson (Edmond O'Brien)-and, of course, when Mr. Holliday (Harry Davenport) himself turns up alive and well. The Amazing Mrs. Holliday was originally intended as Durbin's dramatic debut, and originally directed by Jean Renoir, but Universal insisted upon retakes and added songs. Though virtually all of Renoir's completed footage was retained, final directorial credit was bestowed upon Bruce Manning, the film's producer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deanna Durbin, Edmond O'Brien, (more)
- 1943
Though Republic's Shantytown keeps threatening to become a musical, it's essentially a romantic drama built around the thespic talents of new discovery Mary Lee. The star plays Liz Gorey, a hoydenish lass from the wrong part of town who'd rather play sandlot baseball than anything else. In the course of events, Liz is instrumental in the salvation of Bill Allen (John Archer), a young-and married-mechanic who gets mixed up with a gang of bank robbers. Of special interest to movie buffs is the fact that John Archer's screen wife is played by his real-life spouse Marjorie Lord. Though Archer and Lord eventually divorced, the union lasted long enough to produce a daughter, who grew up to become film actress Anne Archer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Lee, John Archer, (more)
- 1942
Surprisingly little known, Universal's Men of Texas boasts an impressive cast and a fairly exciting and complex storyline. Set just after the Civil War, the film stars Robert Stack as Chicago war correspondent Barry Conovan, who is sent by his newspaper to Texas to get the low-down on the martial law that has been imposed on the state. Conovan is accompanied by Sam Sawyer (Leo Carrillo), his photographer-and never mind that newspapers didn't run photographs in 1866! Despite the good intentions of General Sam Houston (William Farnum), Texas is in the hands of carpetbaggers, scallawags and tinhorn dictators, the worst of whom is Henry Jackson (Brod Crawford), a self-styled patriot who runs his section of the territory like his own private fiefdom, with an army of outlaws at his beck and call. The plot gets even hairier when both Conovan and Jackson fall in love with Jane Baxter Scott (Anne Gwynne), whose younger brother Robert (Jackie Cooper) is a living embodiment of the ideological confusion plaguing postwar Texas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Stack, Broderick Crawford, (more)
