Bill Nind Movies
- 1947
Alan Ladd stars in Calcutta as devil-may-care pilot Neale Gordon. With his equally fearless partners Pedro Blake (William Bendix) and Bill Cunningham (John Whitney), Gordon handles the air-freight route between Calcutta and Chungking. When Cunningham meets his death at the hands of jewel smugglers, Gordon vows to play judge and jury and bring the criminals to justice himself. Among the suspects are the film's two gorgeous leading ladies, sweetie-pie Virginia Moore (Gail Russell) and sultry nightclub singer Merina Tanev (June Duprez). Once Gordon figures out who his real friends are, he relies on his fists to mete out retribution, resulting in one sequence that's guaranteed to raise the hackles of every feminist in the crowd. Even with a short running time of 73 minutes, Calcutta secured top-of-the-bill bookings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Ladd, Gail Russell, (more)
This drama was one of the first major-studio efforts to confront anti-Semitism (beating the Oscar-winning Gentleman's Agreement by several months), and it features a standout performance from Robert Ryan as a bigoted soldier on the run. Monty Montogomery (Ryan) is a violent and unstable soldier who, while out on a pass, goes on a drinking spree with three buddies, Floyd (Steve Brodie), Arthur (George A. Cooper), and Leroy (William Phipps). While boozing it up in a tavern, the four men meet Joseph Samuels (Sam Levene) and strumpet Ginny (Gloria Grahame), who invite the soldiers back to their apartment for a party. Monty, however, has a fierce hatred of Jews, and he later goes into a drunken rage in which he beats Joseph to death. Monty's friends can barely remember the incident through their liquor-shrouded memories, but they recall just enough to make themselves scarce when police detective Capt. Finlay (Robert Young) begins making the rounds looking for information on Joseph's murder. Sgt. Kelly (Robert Mitchum), a soldier who knows the four men, begins to suspect that something is up, and he works with his wife and Finlay to help ferret out the killer in his ranks, while Monty kills Floyd when he becomes convinced that he's going to talk to the authorities. While director Edward Dmytryk showed real bravery in bringing this story to the screen, it had greater repercussions than he might have expected; the film's controversial themes led to Dmytryk's denunciation by the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy-era investigations of the 1950s. Luckily, unlike other filmmakers who suffered similar accusations by HUAC, Dmytryk continued to work steadily through the '50s and '60s. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, (more)
- 1944
Secrets of Scotland Yard is Republic's spin on a plotline first elucidated in the old E. Phillips Oppenheim novel The Great Impersonation. After losing WW I, the German high command, with remarkable foresight, prepares for the next war by planting a spy in the British Admiralty. Edgar Barrier plays the dual role of the German spy and his British twin brother. When one twin is killed, the other assumes his identity. The question: is the surviving brother the "good" one or the bad? It is up to C. Aubrey Smith, cast as Scotland Yard inspector Sir Christopher Belt, to sort out the mystery. Though it owes a great deal to the aforementioned Oppenheim yarn, Secrets of Scotland Yard is actually based on a novel by Denison Clift, who also wrote the screenplay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edgar Barrier, Stephanie Bachelor, (more)
- 1942
Pacific Rendezvous is a B-picture remake of the 1935 MGM A-picture Rendezvous, updated to accommodate WW2. Lee Bowman plays the old William Powell role as a American naval intelligence operative (this time named Lt. Bill Gordon) assigned to decipher enemy code. His mission is compromised by his romance with dizzy debutante Elaine Carter (Jean Rogers, in the role originated by Rosalind Russell). Despite Elaine's well-meaning ineptitude, our hero is able to foil the plans of a group of Nazi agents. Easy to take, Pacific Rendezvous may not be any classic-but then, neither was the original film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Bowman, Jean Rogers, (more)
