Oliver Eckhardt Movies

Buck Jones, the auteur of the prairies, frequently wrote and/or directed his own westerns. Jones composed the screenplay for Cowboy and the Kid, but allowed Ray Taylor to warm the director's chair. Per its title, the film revolves around the relationship between Jones and tousle-headed orphan Billy Burrud. Our hero raises the boy after his father is killed; upon meeting schoolmarm Dorothy Revier, Jones begins sizing her up as a potential stepmother. Cowboy and the Kid for the most part pleased Jones' army of youthful fans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"She" is secretary Claudette Colbert and "Her Boss" is Melvyn Douglas. Once married, Colbert discovers that Douglas expects her to work as usual. She must also contend with his wealthy, snooty family, whose most hateful member is his spoiled brat of a daughter (Edith Fellows) by a previous marriage. Rebelling against her repressive existence, Colbert eventually puts her in-laws in their place and arouses the ardor of the "strictly business" Douglas. While consistently amusing throughout, the highlight of She Married Her Boss is a first-reel bit of pantomimic whimsy involving Claudette Colbert and a roomful of department store mannequins. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: "I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me!" But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the "screwball" comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Lone Star Ranger was a superior entry in western star George O'Brien's Zane Grey series for Fox Studios. Lensed on location in Utah's Monument Valley (long before it was "adopted" by John Ford), the film was adapted for the screen by Zane Grey from a novel by Max Brand, which had previously done service as a Tom Mix vehicle (and would later be remade by Fox with John Kimbrough in the lead). At the outset of the film, Buck Duane (O'Brien) is an outlaw, but upon rescuing Mary Aldridge (Sue Carol) from a runaway stagecoach, he vows to turn over a new leaf. He takes to ranching, whereupon the governor offers him a pardon -- if he will agree to lasso a gang of cattle rustlers. What no one knows is that the leader of the outlaws is Mary's father Colonel Aldridge (Russell Simpson). There are plenty of well-rehearsed thrills in Lone Star Ranger, but the film's most charming moment is purely spontaneous: upon meeting Sue Carol for the first time, a shirtless George O'Brien instinctively sucks in his stomach! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The greatest western star of his day, Tom Mix performed several dangerous stunts without the benefit of a double in The Last Trail. One exciting scene had Mix mounting the front wheels of a crashing wagon, riding them like a Roman chariot. Director Lewis Seiler and cameraman Daniel Clark filmed the scene in a way that left no room for doubt as to whether Mix actually performed the dramatic stunt himself. The story, based on a Zane Grey original, has Mix coming to the aid of an old friend (Lee Shumway), the sheriff of Carson City, Nevada, who is having trouble with a gang of stage robbers. Along for the ride is a small child, (Jerry the Giant, who provides the film with added appeal). Jerry the Giant later changed his name to Jerry Madden and played "Slats" Fogarty in Penrod and Sam (1937) and its sequel Penrod and His Twin Brother (1938). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide