Byron Barr Movies

Al Goddard, (Alan Ladd) special investigator for the U.S. post office, is assigned to collar two criminals who've murdered a postal detective. Goddard must first locate the only witness to the crime, attractive young nun, Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert). Posing as a crook, Goddard gains the confidence of the murderers' boss Earl Boettiger (Paul Stewart), who has worked out a scheme to defraud the post office of one million dollars. Once they've tumbled to the deception, the crooks take Goddard and the nun prisoner, leading to a fight to the finish in a lonely industrial district. Appointment with Danger tends to draw chuckles rather than shivers nowadays, thanks to the casting of future Dragnet co-stars Jack Webb and Harry Morgan as the murderers -- and as icing to the cake, viewers are treated to a scene in which Webb bumps off Morgan! As a whole, the film, the last of Alan Ladd's series of film noir, is uneven and generally unsuccessful. However, it contains some crisp, tough dialogue and some terrific action sequences which make it worthwhile. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

No one is as good as Barbara Stanwyck when she's bad. Here Stanwyck plays Thelma Jordon, a woman who late one night shows up in the office of happily married Assistant DA Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) to seek help in solving the string of robberies at her wealthy aunt's estate. Before Cleve can stop himself, he and Thelma are involved in an illicit affair. But Thelma is a mysterious woman, and Cleve can't help wondering if she is hiding something. His suspicions are confirmed when Thelma confesses to him that she is married to Tony Laredo, though she swears that she never wants to see him again. When Thelma's aunt is found murdered, Cleve's suspicions are aroused once again, but he is too love-struck to keep himself from being drawn into the complicated series of events that ultimately lead to his ruination. Siodmak directs with his usual skill and polish, but the film really belongs to Barbara Stanwyck who is magnificent as Thelma. Unlike the usual cold, passionless femme fatale of film noir, Thelma has a heart and a conscience. She comes to love Cleve, and has concern for his life and his future. However, despite her wish that her life could be different, she realizes that she belongs in Tony's world, and despite her attempts to sacrifice herself to save Cleve, he is doomed, by his love for her and by his own weaknesses. The File on Thelma Jordan is a romantic, unusual mystery, with a great performance and superior direction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The darker side of the American dream is explored in the fascinating film noir Pitfall. Dick Powell stars as John Forbes, a successful insurance man with a trophy wife named Sue (Jane Wyatt) and a model child named Tommy (Jimmy Hunt). Despite all that he's achieved in life, Forbes feels somehow unfulfilled. During an attempt to recollect illegally purchased goods by a convicted bank robber, Forbes falls for his glamorous client Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott). When she "comes on" to him, it sparks an affair between them. Forbes suffers the pangs of guilt, a fact immediately capitalized upon by the seedy private eye MacDonald (Raymond Burr), who is upset because Mona has rejected him. If adultery has been committed, can murder be far behind? Many individual scenes in Pitfall are standouts, notably a brief moment wherein Forbes' son Tommy suffers a horrible nightmare -- in almost exactly the same manner that child actor Jimmy Hunt would endure a similar bad dream in 1953's Invaders from Mars. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This Pine-Thomas Production was scripted by Geoffrey Homes (aka Daniel Mainwaring), best known as the author of the novel upon which the "film noir" classic Out of the Past was based. Robert Lowery plays victim-of-circumstance Tom Durling, in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bank robbery occurs. As the only witness to the crime, Durling is sought after by June Reynolds (Barbara Britton), who wants to prove that her brother, killed in the holdup, was innocent of complicity. Trouble is, the police have fingered Durling as their primary suspect, so he naturally wants to remain scarce. By film's end, however, Durling and June have taken it upon themselves to track down the villains. Unusual for its time was the film's depiction of its policeman characters, who are shown to be reasonable and intelligent rather than conclusion-jumping and dull-witted. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Tokyo Rose is a standard wartime melodrama with the slight advantage of topicality. Lotus Long plays the title role, an American-educated Japanese woman broadcasting enemy propaganda to American troops. Captured GI Pete Sherman (Byron Barr) is one of a group of POWS slated to be interviewed on Tokyo Rose's radio program. Instead of advising his comrades to surrender (as ordered), Sherman uses his innate Yankee knowhow to hoist the treacherous oriental deejay on her own petard. Managing to make his escape, Sherman hooks up with the Japanese Underground, convincing anti-militarist Charlie Otani (Keye Luke) to aid in a kidnapping plot aimed at Tokyo Rose. This story wasn't any more believable when it was done on TV's Hogan's Heroes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

It all begins when popular actress Susan Darrell (Joan Fontaine) returns from a USO tour to marry business exectuive Richard Aiken (Walter Abel). During his bachelor party, Aiken commisserates with Susan's ex-husband, Broadway producer Roger Berton (George Brent), and two of her former sweethearts, lumberman Mike Ward (Don DeFore) and novelist Bill Anthony (Dennis O'Keefe). Each man recalls his experiences with Susan-and each has an entirely different impression of the girl's personality! While trying to determine who the "real" Susan is, her three previous beaux decide that the stuffy Aiken is not for her. Indeed, Susan does reconsider her impending marriage in order to renew her romance with one of her earlier amours, but it wouldn't be fair to reveal which one. An amusing distaff variation on Citizen Kane (with a bit of Rashomon thrown in), The Affairs of Susan is a tour de farce for Joan Fontaine, called upon to essay four different interpretation of the same character. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Directed by Billy Wilder and adapted from a James M. Cain novel by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, Double Indemnity represents the high-water mark of 1940s film noir urban crime dramas in which a greedy, weak man is seduced and trapped by a cold, evil woman amidst the dark shadows and Expressionist lighting of modern cities. Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) seduces insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) into murdering her husband to collect his accident policy. The murder goes as planned, but after the couple's passion cools, each becomes suspicious of the other's motives. The plan is further complicated when Neff's boss Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), a brilliant insurance investigator, takes over the investigation. Told in flashbacks from Neff's perspective, the film moves with ruthless determinism as each character meets what seems to be a preordained fate. Movie veterans Stanwyck, MacMurray, and Robinson give some of their best performances, and Wilder's cynical sensibility finds a perfect match in the story's unsentimental perspective, heightened by John Seitz's hard-edged cinematography. Double Indemnity ranks with the classics of mainstream Hollywood movie-making. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi