Katherine Emery Movies

The hero of The Maze turns out to be a giant frog, but that's hardly the most unbelievable aspect of this one-of-a-kind melodrama. It all begins when Scotsman Gerald McTeam (Richard Carlson) is called away to his ancestral mansion just before his marriage to Kitty (Veronica Hurst). Several weeks pass before it dawns on Kitty and her aunt Mrs. Murray (Katherine Emery, who narrates the film) that Gerald may not be coming back. The two women head to the mansion, where Gerald refuses to see them. The household servants likewise refuse access to Kitty and her aunt, but the two women intend to get to the bottom of the mystery, the solution of which seems to be somewhere in the huge maze in the rear of the castle. And that's all that can be revealed without giving the game away. Lensed in 3D, The Maze was one of two fascinating fantasy films directed in 1953 by production designer William Cameron Menzies: the other was Invaders from Mars. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When Vincent Edwards attained TV stardom as "Ben Casey" in 1961, his detractors took great delight in citing Edwards' earlier starring appearance in Monogram's Hiawatha. A great deal of fun was had by all when it was revealed that Edwards had to have his chest shaved on a daily basis while playing the hero of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem. This aside, Edwards is fairly credible as Hiawatha, while the film itself is easy to take (perhaps too easy; action fans may be disappointed). The nucleus of the story is Hiawatha's love for Minnehaha (Yvette Dugay), the daughter of his tribe's mortal enemy, Chief Igaoo (Morris Ankrum). As war clouds gather, Hiawatha struggles manfully to prevent bloodshed between the Ojibway and Dacotah tribes. The ending of Hiawatha is slightly at odds with the Longfellow original, but works within the context of the film. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Jeffrey Lynn plays a bookkeeper who fails in his attempt to get a raise from his employer (Richard Gaines). The boss explains that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and that he is planning to kill himself. He offers Lynn $10,000 if Lynn will make the suicide look like murder so that the boss' family will collect on his insurance policy. Lynn agrees--and finds himself the fall guy in a complicated fraud scheme. Much of the footage of Strange Bargain showed up as flashbacks in a 1989 episode of TV's Murder, She Wrote. By removing the original happy ending, the TV installment allowed Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) solve the mystery of the boss' murder--and to exonerate the long-imprisoned bookkeeper, played again by Jeffrey Lynn! Also appearing on this remarkable Murder She Wrote were Lynn's surviving Strange Bargain costars Martha Scott and Harry Morgan. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Writer/director Albert Lewin, ever on the lookout for esoteric story material that would accommodate his fascination with Egyptian sculpture and feline symbolism, managed to inject both into The Private Affairs of Bel Ami. Though based on a Guy de Maupassant story, Bel Ami seems to have been written by Oscar Wilde, another of Lewin's pets (e.g. The Picture of Dorian Gray). George Sanders plays an epigrammatic Parisian journalist, who rises to the top through the "kindnesses" of the various influential women that he's seduced and abandoned. This 19th-century rake's progress is ultimately halted by a duel, and somehow we're sorry that we don't get to see Sanders pull off at least one more caddish trick to save himself. Echoes from Lewin's previous works include his insertion of a Technicolor sequence (as he'd done in Dorian Gray and The Moon and Sixpence). George Sanders' stepping-stone ladies include Angela Lansbury, Frances Dee, Ann Dvorak, Marie Wilson, Katherine Emery and Susan Douglas. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Columbia mystery melodrama The Walls Came Tumbling Down is regarded in many circles as star Lee Bowman's finest hour-and-a-half. Bowman is cast as Winchellesque Broadway columnist Gilbert Archer, who insists upon investigating the death of an old friend, a priest. The police insist that the priest hanged himself, but Archer believes otherwise, and together with Boston socialite Patricia Foster (Marguerite Chapman) he begins to play detective -- though "play" is hardly the word. Key ingredients to the mystery are two rare Bibles and a painting of the fall of Jericho. The principal villainy comes at the grubby hands of Columbia contractees George Macready and Edgar Buchanan, while J. Edward Bromberg has a few amusing moments as a kooky art dealer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Edward Arnold made the first of his two screen appearances as Bayard Kendrick's blind detective Captain Duncan McLain in MGM's Eyes in the Night. The plot is set in motion by Norma Lawry (Ann Harding), whose stepdaughter Barbara (Donna Reed) has been keeping company with washed-up actor Paul Gerente (John Emery). Norma feels that Gerente, an ex-lover of hers, is a bad influence for Barbara, but the girl merely assumes that Norma wants Gerente all to herself. When the ageing actor is murdered, Barbara assumes that Norma committed the crime. Rather than go to the police, Norma heads to her old friend Duncan McLain, but when the detective arrives at the scene of the murder, the body has disappeared. Detecting the odor of violets in the room, McLain uses this tiny clue to build a case against a gang of Nazi spies, headed by the Lawry's butler Hansen (Stanley Ridges), with whom the late Mr. Gerente had been collaborating. Just knowing who did it isn't enough in this case, however: getting the drop on McLain and his associates, the villains hold the detective and Lawry prisoner until they are able to get their hands on a secret formula developed by Barbara's father (Reginald Denny). In true movie-serial fashion, it is McLain's faithful seeing-eye dog Friday (played by "himself") who saves the day. A "B" picture with "A" entertainment value, Eyes in the Night proved successful enough to warrant a sequel, 1945's The Hidden Eye. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi