Emma Dunn Movies

Rosalind Russell stars in this marathon adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play. The O'Neill original transposed Euripides' Agamemnon/Clytemnestra legend to post-Civil War New England. Russell plays the daughter of a returning war hero (Raymond Massey), who comes home to find his wife (Katina Paxinou) in the arms of a younger man. The wife murders the husband, leaving it to her grown children--Russell and Michael Redgrave--to exact vengeance. This morbid plotline climaxes with Russell's descent into destructive self-righteousness and her brother's retreat into insanity. Though superbly acted, Mourning Becomes Electra scared away too many moviegoers in its original three-hour running time, which was still half the length of the O'Neill play. Even when pared down to 105 minutes for general release, the film lost tons of money for the ever-beleaguered RKO Studios; to complete the film's curse, Russell lost her long-cherished (and never-won) Best Actress Oscar to Loretta Young for The Farmer's Daughter. According to Oscar legend, Russell was so certain of winning, on the heels of her husband's massive promotional campaign, that she was already out of her seat when she heard Young's name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Country-western star Roy Acuff heads the cast of the modest Republic musical Night Train to Memphis. Taking time off from his musical duties, Acuff tries to patch up a feud between a family of hillbillies and a railroad company. Complicating matters is the fact that Roy's brother Don (Allan Lane) has sided with the family against the railroad, all the while romancing Constance (Adele Mara), daughter of train executive Stevenson (Joseph Crehan). For those not interested in bucolic backwoods comedy, the film offers several "funny" African American stereotypes, including Nicodemus Stewart (who later played "Lightnin" on TV's Amos N Andy) and Nina Mae McKinney (who once played the leading role in King Vidor's Hallelujah). Night Train to Memphis was produced by Dorrell and Stuart McGowan, of Death Valley Days fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though Jack Benny made a cottage industry out of joking about the purported rottenness of his 1945 vehicle Horn Blows at Midnght, the film is in fact a delightful comedy-fantasy-certainly not Benny's best film, but far from his worst. While dozing off during a radio broadcast, studio musician Athaniel (Benny) dreams he's a trumpet player in Heaven's celestial orchestra. At the behest of glamorous angel Elizabeth (Alexis Smith), Athaniel is brought into the lavish chambers of The Chief (Guy Kibbee), who has a job for our hapless hero. It seems that The Front Office, dissatisfied with the state of things on planet Earth ("just a six-day job"), has decided to destroy the tiny globe. Athaniel is to go down to New York City and blow his trumpet at midnight, thereby heralding the end of the world. Unfortunately he botches the job and remains stuck on earth as a "fallen angel" along with previous Heavenly dropouts Osidro (Allyn Joslyn) and and Doremus (John Alexander). Having persuaded The Chief to give Athaniel a second chance, Elizabeth herself comes to Earth to make sure that her sweetheart successfully completes his mission. Alas, the impoverished Athaniel has used his precious trumpet to pay for a meal, thereby setting off a chain reaction of comic complications, culminating with a Harold Lloyd-like climax wherein Athaniel is but one of six people precariously dangling from a skyscraper ledge. Evidence exists that the "dream" framework and slapstick finale of Horn Blows at Midnight were last-minute additions: A 1949 radio version of the Sam Hellman-James V. Kern screenplay is quite different, with a more sentimental and "meaningful" finale. Whatever the case, the screen version of Horn Blows at Midnight delivers plenty of laughs for Benny fans and casual viewers alike. Alas, the film proved a box-office disappointment, which was injurious for Benny's film career but a boon to his radio and TV shows, which thrived on derisive Horn Blows at Midnight jokes for the next two decades! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 1940s drama implies that children do indeed learn what they live as it tells the story of a teenage girl who runs away from her posh boarding school to be with her ne'er-do-well, blue-collar boy friend because she believes her wealthy parents do not care about her. Soon the idle kids are getting into minor trouble that turns major when they find themselves accused of murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

On the eve of their 50th anniversary, a couple argue about whether or not to reveal a story from the husband's past that explains how they met and came to be married. We flashback to the mid-1890's and Larry Stevens' (Dick Powell first day on the job as a reporter for a New York newspaper -- celebrating his release from writing obituaries with a few too many beers, he and his colleagues start to listen to aging newspaper employee Pop Benson (John Philliber) talk about the past and the future, and the fact that to him they're interchangeable. Larry goes out with his friends to check out a clairvoyant act featuring Cigolini, a phony Italian mystic (Jack Oakie), and a very pretty woman assistant, Sylvia Smith (Linda Darnell). He starts to woo Sylvia, who resists his charms, before heading back to the newspaper, where he meets Pop, who hands him what he says is the newspaper he wanted -- it's only later that Larry realizes that he has tomorrow night's newspaper, and that one story concerns a robbery at the opera house. He gets to the performance that night, with Sylvia accompanying him (at first unwillingly) and witnesses the robbery, writing it up before the police can even leave the scene. His editor (George Cleveland) is ecstatic, but police inspector Mulrooney (Edgar Kennedy) wants to know how Larry knew about the robbery. Sylvia tries to protect him by claiming that she predicted it in her act, and to cover herself and Larry she predicts the drowning of a woman that night in the river. Meanwhile, Larry meets Pop again, who tells him of tomorrow's paper and its account of his attempted rescue of a drowning woman -- he later realizes that the woman is Sylvia, attempting to save him and having to fake a drowning to convince the police of her predictions; he runs to the river and dives in to rescue her. By this time, the two of them are totally involved with each other emotionally, but now Larry must face a new threat. Pop appears again and hands him a newspaper from the next day, which includes a front page story about Larry being shot and killed at the St.George Hotel. Larry vows to avoid the hotel at all costs, and even tries to get some good out of the paper by betting on the winners in five consecutive horse races that afternoon; but it seems that no matter what he does to stay away, he's destined to be at the hotel, at the appointed time. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The time is World War II. A group of disillusioned French soldiers are approached by Nazi troops and promised safe passage to their homeland. The Frenchmen willingly surrender, only to discover that their next destination is a German concentration camp located near a Gallic village. The anticipated escape attempt results in an uprising from the French villagers--hence the film's title, which refers to the emblem of the Free-French underground. Cross of Lorraine compensates for its Hollywood's-eye view of France (no more realistic than the Paris of the Ernst Lubitsch musicals) with some remarkably graphic sequences showing the extent of German brutality. The melting-pot cast includes Frenchman Jean-Pierre Aumont as a patriot, Hungarian Peter Lorre as a hateful Nazi, American Gene Kelly as a cynical victim of German torture, and Canadian Hume Cronyn as the traditionally rodent-like informer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As she burns at the stake, a 17th century witch, Jennifer (Veronica Lake), places a curse on her accuser (Fredric March), so that from this day forward, all of his descendants (each played by him) will be unhappy in marriage. After several hilarious through-the-years examples (the Civil War-era Fredric March runs off to battle rather than endure his wife's nagging), we are brought up to 1942. Wallace Wooley (March) is a gubernatorial candidate, preparing to wed snooty socialite Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward) -- the well-to-do daughter of a publisher who is backing him. A bolt of lightning strikes the tree where Jennifer had been executed three centuries earlier, thereby freeing the spirits of Jennifer and her warlock father, Daniel (Cecil Kellaway). Wallace meets Jennifer when she materializes in a burning building, obliging him to save her life. The revivified sorceress does everything in her power to induce Wallace to fall in love with her -- even destroying the ceremony in which the wedding is supposed to take place. The attempts succeed, and the two marry, but on their wedding night, Wallace refuses to believe Jennifer's claims that she is a witch. Frustrated, she attempts to convince him by doctoring the gubernatorial election -- in his favor. Based on the Thorne Smith novel The Passionate Witch, the rollicking I Married a Witch can be considered the forerunner of the TV series Bewitched, but only on a surface level. The film had been scheduled to be directed by Preston Sturges and to be released by its producing studio, Paramount; the end result was helmed by René Clair (his second Hollywood film), and was distributed by United Artists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

By popular consensus, Allan Jones' best Universal mini-musical of the 1940s was the timely When Johnny Comes Marching Home. Jones is cast as war hero Johnny Kovacs, who wearies of the adulation heaped upon him and takes refuge under an assumed name in a theatrical boarding house. Here he befriends orchestra leader Phil Spitalny and his all-girl aggregation, including the inimitable Evelyn and Her Magic Violin. When Army officials trace Johnny to the boarding house, his new friends assume that he's a deserter and try to convince him to return to duty. All is explained during the closing production number, which in addition to Jones and the Spitalny girls spotlights Gloria Jean (singing "You and the Night and the Music"), Donald O'Connor, Peggy Ryan, Jane Frazee, and the Four Step Brothers. That Universal was able to bring this star-studded entertainment in under budget and within a 73-minute running time is nothing short of miraculous. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When MGM decided to move up-and-coming star Laraine Day out of the "Dr. Kildare" series, the studio did so in a startlingly dramatic fashion. In Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day, Dr. Jim Kildare (Lew Ayres) and nurse Mary Lamont (Laraine Day) are finally able to exchange their marital vows. Alas, the honeymoon ends abruptly when poor Mary is struck down and killed by a speeding truck (hopefully, it is safe to give away this plot twist at this late date). Numbed by grief, Kildare is snapped out of his doldrums by his crusty mentor Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore), who urges the young medico to honor Mary's memory by continuing to help others. The grimmer aspects of Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day are offset by several comic subplots, one of which involves an orchestra leader (Nils Asther) who suffers buzzing in his ears due to his eating habits! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a ruthless gangster's son is soon following in his father's footsteps. When his daddy kills an FBI agent and a cabby, the boy sees it all. Fortunately the courts intervene and send the lad off to live with a family of farmers. Country living agrees with the boy and soon with the family's loving support is completely reformed. When his father reappears to bring him home, the boy uses a gun to chase him off the property. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Inspired by the long-running (1937-1949) radio series of the same name, Scattergood Baines came to the screen in 1941, with Guy Kibbee replacing the radio version's Jess Pugh in the title role. In his first movie outing, storekeeper Scattergood Baines, resident philosopher of the town of Coldriver, tries to prevent a group of shifty financiers from taking control of a local railroad line which he manages. For a while, Baines loses the confidence and support of his friends and neighbors, but in the end he prevails as usual. Carried over from the radio series is Francis "Dink" Trout as eccentric train conductor Pliny Pickett. Like its radio role model, Scattergood Baines is based on characters created by Clarence Buddington Kelland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the most schizophrenic films ever to come out of the Paramount "B" mill, The Monster and the Girl starts out as a white-slavery melodrama and ends up as a horror picture! Emerging from the fog, heroine Susan Webster (Ellen Drew) tells her woeful tale to the audience. A young innocent from The Sticks, Susan arrives in New York to seek work as an actress, but instead is tricked into a sham marriage with Larry Reed (Robert Paige). Awakening "the morning after", Susan is informed that her missing husband is not her husband, and that, as a fallen woman, there is only one avenue of livelihood open to her-as one of the "paid hostesses" in the stable of gangster Bruhl (Joseph Calleia). Learning of his sister's plight, church organist Scot Webster (Philip Reed) shows up in town to set things right, only to be framed for murder by Bruhl and his mob. After his execution, Scot's body is appropriated by mad scientist Dr. Parry (George Zucco), who hopes to transplant the dead man's brain into the body of a gorilla. Driven by impulses it can't resist, the big ape escapes from his cage to kill off all those responsible for Susan's ruin and Scot's death. Undeniably fascinating, The Monster and the Girl is also undeniably silly at times, especially in the opening scenes, in which the censor-plagued screenwriters work overtime not to overtly state that Susan Daniels has been forced into prostitution. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide