Edmund Elton Movies

Robert Montgomery plays saxophone-playing boxer Joe Pendleton, who insists upon piloting his own plane, much to the consternation of his manager Max Corkle (James Gleason). Just before a championship bout, Joe's plane crashes. When he revives, he finds he has been whisked away to Heaven by the overanxious Messenger #7013. Checking with the man in charge, one Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), Pendleton discovers that he isn't scheduled to die for another 50 years. Joe heads back to earth, only to learn to his chagrin that his body has been cremated. Mr. Jordan is obliged to find Joe a new body; the "candidate" is a business mogul named Farnsworth, who is in the process of being murdered in his bath by his wife (Rita Johnson) and her lover (John Emery). Joe takes over Farnsworth's body, astonishing the murderers by emerging from the bathroom, very much alive (while Joe still looks like Joe to himself and the audience, he looks like Farnsworth to everyone else). Still desirous of winning the upcoming championship, Joe begins to whip Farnsworth's body into shape, even hiring Max Corkle to manage him. It takes some doing, but Joe convinces Max that he is indeed Joe and not Farnsworth (their scenes together are priceless, far better seen than described). Meanwhile, Joe has fallen in love with Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes), a woman whose father had been ruined by the real Farnsworth. For her sake, he pays back millions of dollars that the crooked Farnsworth had finagled out of his investors. This prompts Mrs. Farnsworth and her lover to kill "Farnsworth" again, and once more Joe Pendleton is without a body. How Mr. Jordan arranges for Joe to win the championship, expose the murderers and walk off arm and arm with Bette is a bit too complex to detail here. Here Comes Mr. Jordan is one of the most consistently clever romantic comedies of the 1940s, and richly deserving of the Oscars won by screenwriters Sidney Buchman, Seton I. Miller and Harry Segall. A sequel, Down to Earth, was filmed in 1947, with Roland Culver as Mr. Jordan; and in 1978, the original Jordan was remade by Warren Beatty as Heaven Can Wait. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gene Autry battles a crooked mine owner in this his signature western from Republic Pictures. Years earlier, Gene promised to take watch over his employer's son Tom (Edward Norris), a young hothead who enjoys the so-called finer things in life. Tom has to be corralled out of the wicked city after finally inheriting the old homestead but life in the supposedly pastoral Arizona hamlet of Solitude proves less than idyllic when greedy copper miner E.G. Blaine (Arthur Loft) begins poisoning the water supply. Not patient enough to let law abiding Gene handle things, Tom takes matters into his own hands and is promptly slapped with a murder charge. Since the local authorities are controlled by Blaine, Gene has Judge Bent (Edmund Elson secure a change of venue for the upcoming trial but the enemy may have an ace up his sleeve. When not shooting it out with Blaine and his henchmen, Gene, Smiley Burnette, leading lady Jacqueline Wells and girl singer Mary Lee perform "Good Old-Fashioned Hoedown", "Swingin' Sam, the Cowboy Man", "When the Cactus is in Bloom", "I'm an Old Cowhand", "Where the River Meets the Range", "I'm in the Jailhouse Now", "You Are My Sunshine", "Ninety-Nine Bullfrogs" and Ray Whitley's title tune. Back in the Saddle has been restored to its original length by the Westerns Channel and Gene Autry Entertainment. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A romantic comedy drama directed by former art director Mitchell Leisen and based on a skillful Preston Sturges screenplay. Barbara Stanwyck stars as Lee Leander, a New York City shoplifter who is arrested just before Christmas after trying to filch an expensive piece of jewelry. Her trial delayed until after the holiday, Lee comes to the attention of an assistant district attorney, John Sargent (Fred MacMurray). Although he will be expected to prosecute Lee in a few days, John takes pity on the prisoner, who is from his home state of Indiana. He arranges for her to be released for the holidays and escorts her home, but her mother (Georgia Caine) is not interested in a reunion. So John takes Lee to his own festivities, where Lee is bowled over by the love and affection of the Sargent family, particularly John's mother (Beulah Bondi), who is so unlike her own. Lee and John fall in love, but their return to the Big Apple and Lee's trial loom large over their romance. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

This Technicolor sequel to 1939's Jesse James does without the services of the earlier film's star Tyrone Power, who after all was shot dead by that "dirty little coward" Bob Ford (John Carradine). Repeating his portrayal of western outlaw Frank James, Henry Fonda is promoted to top billing here. As depicted by scenarist Sam Hellman, Frank has retired from his life of crime to become a peaceful farmer, though he has never given up his search for the treacherous Ford. The killer and his cohorts are eventually rounded up, but are pardoned due to political intervention. That's when Frank slaps on six-guns once more to seek his own form of justice. Featured in the cast is Henry Hull as a top-of-his-lungs crusading newspaperman and Jackie Cooper as a headstrong young sprout who pays the ultimate price for his bullheadedness. Making her screen debut is Gene Tierney, in the role of an Eastern reporter who wants to tell Frank's true story to the world. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Should a Girl Marry? never completely answers its own question, inasmuch as the story concentrates primarily on the male lead. Warren Hull stars as Dr. Robert Benson, so dedicated to his profession that he sorely neglects his ever-loving wife Margaret (Anne Nagel). Things come to a sorry pass when Benson is accused of murder through the machinations of his medical rival Dr. White (Lester Mathews). The outcome hinges on the behavior of hard-boiled Betty Gilbert (Mayo Mathot) and the revelation of a skeleton in Margaret's family closet. Critics in 1939 weren't exactly enchanted by Should a Girl Marry?, citing the film's corny dialogue and Anne Nagel's ever-disappearing British accent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The visual wizardry in this period action picture about Alaskan fishermen won a special honorary Oscar in the years before special effects got its own category. Henry Fonda stars as Jim Kimmerlee, a salmon fisherman in Alaska who has become at odds with a childhood friend, Tyler Dawson (George Raft). While Jim attempts to make an honest living, Tyler, whose frustrated dreams of buying his own schooner don't look to be realized anytime soon, has signed on with a Russian crew that steals the catch from others' nets. While the rivalry between the two one-time pals heats up, Jim begins romancing Dian Turlan (Louise Platt), the daughter of a local newspaperman and renowned tippler, Windy Turlon (John Barrymore). Spawn of the North (1938) was remade as Alaska Seas (1954). ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Metro's eight-reel adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was released during same October week in 1916 that Fox's version of the same play hit the screen. While Fox's version boasted the star power of Theda Bara, the Metro version had the advantage of two "big names" in the cast: Francis X. Bushman as Romeo, and Beverly Bayne as Juliet. Kept secret from the public was the fact that Bushman and Bayne were married in real life; the studio did not want to destroy Bushman's image as an "attainable" romantic star. The pantomimic performances of the two stars were so persuasive and convincing that the dialogue subtitles, drawn from the original Shakespearean text, were regarded as intrusions! Still, some few critics preferred the Fox version of Romeo and Juliet, if only because J. Gordon Edwards was more talented than Metro's John W. Noble. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide