Sidney Dubin Movies
- 1950
Edmond O'Brien plays a telephone repairman whose electronic savvy earns him a job with a bookmaking concern. O'Brien's bookie boss Barry Kelly wants to get instant results from the nation's racetracks, and to this end O'Brien illicitly plugs into several communication centers. The wealthier O'Brien becomes, the more scruples he sheds. Eventually he runs afoul of the Big Boss of an Eastern bookie syndicate (Otto Kruger) and vainly attempts to escape with his life in a slam-bang final at Boulder Dam. 711 Ocean Drive was made to cash in on a then-current national newspaper expose of bookmaking operations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru, (more)
- 1950
The Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur Broadway comedy Ladies and Gentlemen formed the basis of the Warner Bros. laughspinner Perfect Strangers. The title characters are Terry Scott and David Campbell, played by Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan. She's a divorcee, he's a husband and father. Terry and David are thrown together by fate -- or rather, the LA judicial system. While serving as jurors on a murder trial, the two fall in love. Ironically, the woman on trial allegedly killed her husband because he'd asked for a divorce. The seriocomic tension develops on two levels: will juror Isobel Bradford (Margolo Gillmore) be able to sway the others to vote for the death penalty, and will Terry and David continue to pursue their romance at the expense of the happiness of others? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, (more)
- 1949
Eliot Ness may have gotten lots of publicity (especially long after the fact) for breaking the Capone mob, but as Joseph H. Lewis' The Undercover Man reminds us, it was the accountants and the numbers-crunchers that brought down Capone and his mob. Frank Warren (Glenn Ford) started out as an accountant, but now serves as an investigator for the Treasury Department. His job has frequently required him to go undercover, masquerading as a criminal to get the goods on the top-level tax-law violators that his unit targets. But now his assignment is to gather evidence on the operations of the nation's number-one crime boss and get proof of the income that he and his lieutenants are not declaring, and this proves not only frustrating but dangerous. Potential stoolies are murdered and witnesses intimidated, and when one otherwise "respectable" lawyer (Barry Kelley) starts mentioning Warren's wife (Nina Foch) in casual conversation, he takes the hint. He's ready to quit until the mother (Esther Minciotti) of a witness-turned-victim tells him about what life was like in Italy under the Black Hand, and why she came to America to raise her sons. Warren and his men (James Whitmore, David Wolfe) make one last attempt to get the proof they need, tracing signatures and handwriting to get evidence implicating a small man in the operation, using it to turn him and going for bigger fish. Finally, even the shyster lawyer who has been dogging Warren every step of the way ends up in the sights of the feds, and the mob turns its attention to getting rid of this new "liability" and taking care of Warren as well. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Nina Foch, (more)
- 1949
Though Humphrey Bogart is the official star of Knock on Any Door, the film is essentially a showcase for Columbia's newest young male discovery John Derek. The first production of Bogart's Santana company, the film casts Bogart as attorney Andrew Morton. A product of the slums, Morton is persuaded to take the case of underprivileged teenager Nick Romano (Derek), who has been arrested on a murder charge. Through flashbacks, Morton demonstrates that Romano is more a victim of society than a natural-born killer. Though this defense strategy does not have the desired result on the jury thanks to the badgering of DA Kernan (George Macready), Morton does manage to arouse sympathy for the plight of those trapped by birth and circumstance in a dead-end existence. As Nick Romano, John Derek would never be better, nor would ever again play a character who struck so responsive a chord with the audience. Nick's oft-repeated credo--"Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse"--became the clarion call for a generation of disenfranchised youth. Director Nicholas Ray would later expand on themes touched upon in Knock on a Any Door in his juvenile delinquent "chef d'oeuvre" Rebel without a Cause. Viewers are advised to watch for future TV personalities Cara Williams and Si Melton in uncredited minor roles. Knock on Any Door spawned a belated sequel in 1960, Let No Man Write My Epitaph. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, John Derek, (more)
Written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, Adam's Rib is a peerless comedy predicated on the double standard. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play Adam and Amanda Bonner, a husband-and-wife attorney team, both drawn to a case of attempted murder. The defendant (Judy Holliday) had tearfully attempted to shoot her husband (Tom Ewell) and his mistress (Jean Hagen). Adam argues that the case is open and shut, but Amanda points out that, if the defendant were a man, he'd be set free on the basis of "the unwritten law." Thus it is that Adam works on behalf of the prosecution, while Amanda defends the accused woman. The trial turns into a media circus, while the Bonners' home life suffers. Adam's Rib represented the film debuts of New York-based actors Jean Hagen, Tom Ewell, and David Wayne (as Hepburn's erstwhile songwriting suitor), and the return to Hollywood of Judy Holliday after her Born Yesterday triumph. One of the best of the Tracy-Hepburn efforts, it inspired a brief 1973 TV series starring Ken Howard and Blythe Danner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, (more)
