John Rutherford Movies

A partial remake of Universal's Heroes of the West (1932), this 15 chapter serial was based on pulp writer Peter B. Kyne's The Tie That Binds. Burly Johnny Mack Brown played an Indian scout who helps Tom Grant (Ralph Bowman) and his sister Mary (Eleanor Hansen) fight off a gang of outlaws out to steal their potentially valuable gold mine. Young Bowman later changed his name to John Archer. He was the father of actress Anne Archer. Although defeated in the final chapter, "Duel to the Death," chief villain Charles B. Middleton was offered more than adequate support from Universal, who hired some of the best black hats in the business, including Charles King, Edward Cassidy, Roy Barcroft, Jim Corey, Iron Eyes Cody, Blackjack Ward, Frank LaRue, and the ubiquitous Charles "Slim" Whitaker. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Superior locations, above-average direction, better than usual lighting and competent acting were the ingredients that made producer Harry Sherman's Hopalong Cassidy vehicles perhaps the finest series of B-Westerns of its time. The fifth in the series, North of the Rio Grande introduced former grip Russell Hayden in the continuing role as young Lucky Jenkins and remains one of the best of the early entries. When Hopalong's brother Buddy is murdered during a train holdup, and it is pronounced an accidental death by the town's kangaroo court, Cassidy (William Boyd) and sidekick Windy (George Hayes) hasten back to Cottonwood Gulch. The former arrives disguised as Wild Bill Dynamite McGrew, a "notorious" train robber, while Windy obtains a job tickling the ivories at the local saloon. Hayes' stint as an Irish-accented bar pianist leads to one of the film's many delights, as veteran silent screen villain Walter Long leads the assembly in a sing-along of Wearing of the Green. Hopalong, meanwhile, robs a train to get the attention of the mysterious Lone Wolf, the master criminal responsible for his brother Buddy's death. Lone Wolf is soon revealed to be leading citizen Henry Stoneham (Stephen Morris alias Morris Ankrum), who in desperation kidnaps Windy and the train. With Hopalong, Lucky, and the posse in hot pursuit, the chase ends with Windy making the unwanted acquaintance of a painful-looking cactus. Saloon Belle Bernadene Hayes, the film's otherwise rather superfluous leading lady, is awarded the closing line: "Funny, all my life, men like Cassidy have been saying goodbye to me." Lee J. Cobb (billed simply as "Lee Cobb") made his screen debut as a railroad president, and Bernadene Hayes' sister Lorraine played Hopalong's grieving sister-in-law. With one "Hayden" and two "Hayes" already in the cast, producer Sherman renamed the actress Lorraine Randall for the occasion. North of the Rio Grande was filmed on locations at Sonora, California, with interiors done at the Grand National studios in Hollywood. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Easily the best of Eddie Cantor's gargantuan musical comedies for producer Sam Goldwyn, Roman Scandals begins in the middle-America community of West Rome, where our hero Eddie (Cantor) is employed as a delivery boy. A self-styled authority of Ancient Roman history, Cantor bemoans the fact that the local shanty community is about to be wiped out by scheming politicians, certain that such an outrage could never have happened during Rome's Golden Days. After a blow on the head, Cantor wakes up in Imperial Rome, where he is sold on the slave auction block to good-natured tribune Josephus (David Manners). Cantor soon discovers that the evil emperor Valerius (Edward Arnold) is every bit a crook and grafter as the politicians in West Rome, and he intends to do something about it. He gets a job as food taster for Valerius -- a none-too-secure position, inasmuch as the emperor's wife Agrippa (Veree Teasdale) is constantly trying to poison her husband -- and does his best to smooth the path of romance for Josephus and recently captured princess Sylvia (Gloria Stuart). Cantor's well-intentioned interference earns him a session in the torture chamber, but he escapes and commandeers a chariot, setting the stage for a spectacular slapstick climax. On the verge of recapture, Cantor wakes to find himself in West Rome U.S.A. again, where he quickly foils the modern-day despots and brings about a happy ending for all his friends.

Co-written by George S. Kaufman, Robert E. Sherwood, George Oppenheimer and Arthur Sheekman (the soon-to-be husband of leading lady Gloria Stuart), Roman Scandals manages to get off a few clever satirical licks, but essentially it's a "lappy" lowbrow vehicle for Eddie Cantor, and in this it succeeds immensely. The Busby Berkeley-staged musical numbers, written by Harry Warren, Al Dubin and L. Wolfe Gilbert, must be seen to be believed: In "No More Love", Ruth Etting, playing the Emperor's cast-off mistress Olga, sings a plaintive torch song as dozens of enslaved Goldwyn Girls (including Lucille Ball and Barbara Pepper), wearing nothing but long, blonde wigs, are chained to a rotating pedestal; and in "Keep Young and Beautiful", these same maidens gleefully cavort around a Roman bathhouse in the near-altogether while Cantor, in blackface, hops about, rolls his eyes and claps his hands -- just before a jet of steam "shrinks" him, at which point he metamorphoses into midget Billy Barty! The quintessence of Depression-era escapism, Roman Scandals is must-see entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After serving as comedy relief in three big-budget RKO Radio musicals, the comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were rewarded with their own starring vehicle, the dated but still delightful Half Shot at Sunrise. Set in Paris during WWI, the film casts Bert and Bob as Gilbert and Tommy, two AWOL doughboys. When not posing as officers to impress the local mademoiselles, our heroes spend their time ducking a pair of diligent MPs, and while doing so make the acquaintance of the hoydenish Annette (Dorothy Lee), the daughter of dyspeptic Colonel Marshall (George MacFarlane) and Marshall's snooty wife (Edna May Oliver). Tommy falls in love with Annette, while Gilbert is equally enamored of Olga (Leni Stengel), the Colonel's sultry lady friend. Hoping to save the boys from court-martial by turning them into war heroes, Annette and Olga contrive to send Gilbert and Tommy to the Front with "borrowed" secret orders. After nearly being killed by enemy shellfire, the two errant soldiers are arrested and brought to Marshall's headquarters, averting a firing squad only by revealing that their "secret orders" were actually love letters written to the Colonel by the flirtatious Olga. There are many funny routines in Half Shot at Sunrise (the scene in which Wheeler and Woolsey pose as French waiters is a riot), and the songs, particularly the Wheeler-Lee duet "Whistling the Blues Away," are quite entertaining. But the film's highlight is an uncharacteristic "straight" scene toward the end, when a panic-stricken Woolsey risks death to rescue an injured Wheeler from No Man's Land (and never mind that the scene ends with a satirically comic punch line). Half Shot a Sunrise proved beyond all doubt that Wheeler and Woolsey could carry a picture by themselves; they would remain top box-office attractions until Bob Woolsey's death in 1938. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide