Billy Engle 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

Taken (as far as possible) from the Cole Porter musical comedy of the same name, Red, Hot and Blue stars Betty Hutton as an ambitious chorus girl. Hutton gets a job with a musical comedy bankrolled by gangsters, and is the wrong girl at the wrong place when one of the show's backers (William Talman) is bumped off. She is arrested for suspicion of murder, then is kidnapped by the villains to keep her from spilling the beans. The plot requires that she be rescued by hero Victor Mature, though many disgruntled audience members may have been rooting for the boisterous Hutton to be dumped in the East River. The stage version of Red Hot and Blue starred Ethel Merman, Jimmy Durante, and Bob Hope. Hutton is no Merman, but she gives her all to the brassy production numbers and the self-absorbed ballads--written not by Cole Porter, whose score was dispensed with, but by Paramount's in-house tunesmith Frank Loesser, who also plays a small role as one of the gangsters. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

William Powell plays a cynical con man who graduates from penny-ante operations to a big-time charity racket. The scam involves collecting money on behalf of St. Dismas, bringing Powell in close contact with several men of the cloth. As the racket rolls on, Powell is touched by the sincerity of the religious men and the plights of the charity's rightful recipients. He has a change of heart, confessing his original criminal intentions but seeing to it that the money goes to the right people. Hoodlum Saint was typical of the facile religiosity often found in MGM pictures of the period. The film is best remembered as the first non-aquatic performance of MGM swimming star Esther Williams. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Johnny Hart (Rod Cameron) is on the run from the law after killing one of the men who shot his partner. He passes through a town and stops at a saloon owned by singer Lorena Dumont (Yvonne de Carlo). The two seem a good, albeit tempestuous match, although Johnny has no plans to marry -- Lorena has other ideas and a shotgun wedding ensues. Blackie (Sheldon Leonard), an outlaw who is jealous of the marriage, informs Lorena of Johnny's wanted status, and he ends up getting caught by the law after their wedding night. He serves six years and returns to find that he and Lorena don't get along any better than they did before, and that he's also the father of a five-year-old girl (Beverly Simmons). Also lurking about is Blackie, whom he recognizes as one of the men who killed his partner, and Blackie wants Johnny out of the way so he can marry Lorena. Johnny and Lorena fight over custody of their daughter and Blackie nearly gets them each killed at one point or another. He kidnaps their daughter before Johnny dispatches him. He finally realizes that the only way he can win Lorena is to meet her cup for cup and blow for blow, until she understands that he loves her. The film, a sort of Western Taming of the Shrew, ends on a note of romance and reconciliation. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

As Academy Award-winning films go, Mrs. Miniver has not weathered the years all that well. This prettified, idealized view of the upper-class British home front during World War II sometimes seems over-calculated and contrived when seen today. In particular, Greer Garson's Oscar-winning performance in the title role often comes off as artificial, especially when she nobly tends her rose garden while her stalwart husband (Walter Pidgeon) participates in the evacuation at Dunkirk. However, even if the film has lost a good portion of its ability to move and inspire audiences, it is easy to see why it was so popular in 1942-and why Winston Churchill was moved to comment that its propaganda value was worth a dozen battleships. Everyone in the audience-even English audiences, closer to the events depicted in the film than American filmgoers-liked to believe that he or she was capable of behaving with as much grace under pressure as the Miniver family. The film's setpieces-the Minivers huddling in their bomb shelter during a Luftwaffe attack, Mrs. Miniver confronting a downed Nazi paratrooper in her kitchen, an annual flower show being staged despite the exigencies of bombing raids, cleric Henry Wilcoxon's climactic call to arms from the pulpit of his ruined church-are masterfully staged and acted, allowing one to ever so briefly forget that this is, after all, slick propagandizing. In addition to Best Picture and Best Actress, Mrs. Miniver garnered Oscars for best supporting actress (Teresa Wright), best director (William Wyler), best script (Arthur Wimperis, George Froschel, James Hilton, Claudine West), best cinematography (Joseph Ruttenberg) and best producer (Sidney Franklin). Sidebar: Richard Ney, who plays Greer Garson's son, later married the actress-and still later became a successful Wall Street financier. Mrs. Miniver was followed by a 1951 sequel, The Miniver Story, but without the wartime setting the bloom was off the rose. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this crime drama, a grizzled cabbie is scammed out of his life savings by a fake finance company. He tries to no avail to get police assistance. Finally he becomes a wanted criminal and escapes to California where he meets the girl who will become his wife. She helps him go straight by helping him set up a garage. When she gets pregnant, she talks him into to confessing his crimes to the police. He agrees, but before he goes, he decides to commit one last crime to ensure that his wife and child will not starve while he serves his prison sentence. He then steals a million dollars only to learn that the money is worthless. He is subsequently killed in a police shoot-out. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Carter Family finds itself in serious financial difficulty when its patriarch, druggist Doc Carter (Frank Craven), is all but forced out of business by a neighboring chain store. Doc isn't worried so much for himself and his wife Emma (Fay Bainter) as he is for his five children, played by Scotty Beckett, Bennie Bartlett, Donald Brenon, Mary Thomas and Gloria Carter (who real name is the same as her "reel" name). But there may be a way out: wealthy Bill and Gloria Hastings (Edmund Lowe, Genevieve Tobin), longtime friends of the Carters, have offered to adopt the couple's polio-stricken son Dickie (Beckett) for a substantial fee. Doc and Emma refuse this offer, but their somewhat more practical children offer themselves up for adoption rather than separate little Dickie from his parents. The ultimately happy denoument suggests that Paramount Pictures hoped to develop a "Carter Family" series, though no such project developed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In his starring film for Universal Pictures, W.C. Fields plays circus manager and all-around flim flam man Larson E. Whipsnade. When he's not trying to fleece the customers or elude the sheriff, Whipsnade busys himself trying to break up the romance between his daughter Vicky (Constance Moore) and carnival ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (playing himself). He also carries on a running feud with Bergen's nattily attired dummy Charlie McCarthy ("I'll slash you into venetian blinds!"). Bergen's other dummy is Mortimer Snerd, who occasionally comments upon the action in his own thickheaded fashion. Anxious to arrange a marriage between Vicki and the wealthy Roger Bel-Goodie III (James Bush), Whipsnade disposes of Bergen and his dummies by sending them aloft in a hot-air baloon. Attending a party at the Bel-Goodie mansion, Whipsnade makes a pest of himself by constantly referring to snakes, a subject that invariably causes Mrs. Bel-Goodie (Mary Forbes) to swoon. He also engages in a zany ping-pong tournament with socialite Ronnie (Ivan Lebedeff). But it is Vicki, and not Whipsnade, who breaks up the engagement by telling off her pompous fiance. At that very instant, Bergen, having escaped from the balloon, arrives to claim Vicki and to help Whipsnade escape the sheriff once more. A partial remake of the W.C. Fields silent Two Flaming Youths, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man was scripted by Fields under the pseudonym "Charles Bogle." As published in the 1973 compendium W.C. Fields by Himself, the original screenplay was to have had dramatic overtones, including the death of Fields' trapeze-artist wife and a climactic soul-baring scene wherein Fields expresses his genuine love for his daughter. All this was jettisoned when it was decided to capitalize on the Fields-Charlie McCarthy "feud" then blazing on radio's Chase and Sanborn Show. While nowhere near as funny as Fields' subsequent Universal feature The Bank Dick, You Can't Cheat an Honest Man still contains a generous supply of laughs. Our favorite line: "Somebody's taken the cork out of my lunch." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In their first starring feature away from the Hal Roach studios, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of fish peddlers from Des Moines on a Cook's Tour of Paris. While stopping over at quaint suburban inn, Ollie falls in love with innkeeper's daughter Georgette (Jean Parker). At Stan's prodding, Ollie pops the question to Georgette, who gently refuses because there is Someone Else. Disconsolately, Ollie decides to commit suicide by jumping into the Seine, insisting that Stan join him in his plunge to oblivion. The boys are halted from this drastic action by the timely arrival of Francois (Reginald Gardiner), an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Francois convinces Stan and Ollie that they'll forget all about Ollie's lost love if they join the Legion, and within a few days our heroes are in uniform at an outpost in French Morocco, where they are promptly assigned to laundry detail. Alas, try as he might, Ollie can't forget his beloved Georgette-until Stan suggests that he pretend to forget so that they can get back in their own clothes and head home. This Ollie does, but not before accidentally setting fire to a mountain of laundry. After leaving behind a rather nasty letter of resignation for their scowling commandant (Charles Middleton), Stan and Ollie pack their bags and head for the airport-where Ollie is reunited with Georgette, who turns out to be the wife of their commanding officer Francois! Sentenced to death for desertion, the boys tunnel their way out of their jail cell and hide out in an airplane, which Stan accidentally sends into flight. After a wild and noisy ride, the plane crashes, leading to the flm's hilarious-and somehow touching--"freak" ending. Officially a remake of Les Aviateurs, a French vehicle for Fernandel and Toto, The Flying Deuces also owes a lot to the earlier Laurel & Hardy Foreign Legion farce Beau Hunks. Highlights include Stan and Ollie's impromptu soft-shoe rendition of "Shine on Harvest Moon", and Stan's lunatic excursion into Harpo Marx territory as he plays a bed-spring "harp". Produced by Boris Morros and released by RKO Radio, Flying Deuces is unquestionably the best of Laurel & Hardy's non-Hal Roach vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Test Pilot is one of those irresistible MGM potboilers of the 1930s that coast along on sheer star power. Clark Gable plays a courageous test pilot, who compromises his achievements with his frequent bouts of drinking. Gable's mechanic, Spencer Tracy, does what he can to keep his boss out of trouble. While testing a new aircraft, Gable is forced to land on a Midwestern farm, where he meets and falls in love with Myrna Loy. Gable and Loy marry, whereupon he is fired by his boss Lionel Barrymore, who is of the opinion that flying and dames don't mix. Gable goes off on another bender, compelling Loy to leave him. Once more, Tracy comes to Gable's rescue by reuniting the couple and arranging for Barrymore to give Gable his job back. Later, Gable and Tracy are assigned to test a huge army bomber. Something goes wrong, and the plane goes into a dive. The self-sacrificing Tracy sees to it that Gable is saved from a flaming death--at the cost of his own life. Gable is so devastated by Tracy's death that it looks as though he'll never fly again. But with Loy's help, Gable regains his self-confidence. As one can see, there's little in Test Pilot that hasn't been done before. But with Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Myrna Loy at the controls, the film proved a real audience-pleaser in 1938. In fact, it's still pretty good today. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Starving artist Robert Montgomery could care less if his paintings sell, so long as he's happy. Montgomery falls in love with Rosalind Russell, an heiress who's gone "slumming" in Greenwich Village. Russell becomes Montgomery's patroness as well as his wife, urging him to make his paintings more commercial. He becomes a success following her advice, but popularity goes to his head and soon Russell realizes she's created a monster. She walks out, he gets his act together, she comes back, and they return to their blissful hand-to-mouth existence. Live, Love and Learn scores its biggest laughs unintentionally with MGM's prettified concept of what a "run down" Greenwich village apartment looks like. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Working on the theory that the only thing funnier than Laurel and Hardy is two sets of Laurel and Hardys, Our Relations milks its central mistaken-identity situation for all it's worth. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two solid citizens, happily married and highly respected in their community. One morning, Hardy receives a letter from his mother, containing an old photo of himself and Laurel with their twin brothers, Alf Laurel and Bert Hardy. Mamma also reveals that Alf and Bert turned out to be "bad lads" and ran off to sea, and that reportedly they'd been hanged for taking part in a mutiny. "Isn't that calamitous!" remarks Hardy, who conspires with Laurel to hide the facts about their no-good brothers from their wives. Meanwhile, in another part of town, the S.S. Periwinkle pulls into port. Among the crew members are the selfsame Alf and Bert, who have decided to entrust their pal Fin (James Finlayson) with their month's salary. Fin has promised to invest the dough so that the boys will become millionaires "before you can say Jack Robinson". Alf and Bert are then summoned to the cabin of their captain (Sidney Toler), who orders them to pick up a valuable package for him, then meet him later at Denker's Beer Garden. While waiting for the captain at Denker's, Alf and Bert are captivated by a pair of waterfront floozies, Alice (Iris Adrian) and Lily (Lona Andre). Talked into buying the girls a huge meal for which they haven't the necessary funds, Alf and Bert decide to go back to Fin and reclaim their money, leaving the contents of the captain's package-a valuable pearl ring-with tough waiter Joe Groagan (Alan Hale) as security. Later, Laurel and Hardy take their wives Betty (Betty Healy) and Daphne (Daphne Pollard) to lunch-and, inevitably, they end up at Denker's Beer Garden, where the equally inevitable mix-ups begin to occur. Things snowball from bad to worse before both sets of twins, an angry captain, a disgruntled Fin, the wives, the floozies, a genial drunk (Arthur Housman) and a brace of smooth gangsters (Ralf Harolde and Noel Madison) all converge at the upscale Pirate Club. Several slapstick complications later, Laurel and Hardy are captured by the gangsters, who threaten to dump the boys in the river with their feet encased in cement if they don't cough up the pearl ring. Alf and Bert come to the rescue, and all is well, at least until the film's boffo punchline. Based on W.W. Jacobs' short story The Money Box, Our Relations is perhaps the most plot-heavy of Laurel and Hardy's features for Hal Roach Studios. It is also one of their funniest, as well as their most lavishly produced. The film was officially listed as "A Stan Laurel Production"-as if Laurel hadn't been the prime creative force behind all of the team's previous films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

W.C. Fields stars in a remake of his silent comedy So's Your Old Man. Fields plays Sam Bisbee, an erstwhile inventor who is the laughingstock of his small town. Returning in defeat from a disastrous big-city demonstration of his latest invention, Sam makes the acquaintance of a beautiful young woman (Adrienne Ames) who happens to be an incognito foreign princess. After Bisbee tells her of how he'd like to be a success for the sake of his family, the princess decides to use her celebrity to Sam's benefit. She arrives in his town and lets it be known of her high regard for the downtrodden Bisbee. Suddenly Sam is the town's big shot, enabling him to merchandise his inventions and do right by his wife and daughter. Sam earns the respect he's so long deserved--but he's never completely convinced that the princess is who she claims to be, and keeps congratulating her on her "racket." Based on a story by Julian Street, You're Telling Me is climaxed by a sidesplitting recreation of W.C. Fields' Ziegfeld Follies golf routine. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi