Budd Fine
- 1951
- NR
Robert Ryan plays Jim Wilson, a tough police detective embittered by years of dealing with low-life urban scum, in Nicholas Ray's moving film noir. After severely beating several suspects, Jim is assigned to a case far from the city to find the killer of a young girl. Joining the manhunt, in snow-covered terrain, Wilson finds himself paired with the victim's father, Walter Brent (Ward Bond), who plans to shoot the killer himself. When the two men come upon a cabin occupied by Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), a blind woman who is also the killer's sister, Wilson's life is changed forever. Mary, a generous and loving person who has cared for her mentally ill brother Danny (Sumner Williams) since the death of their parents, convinces Wilson to protect Danny from Brent. Wilson also promises to get help for Danny if he surrenders to him. Inspired by Mary's courage and recognizing Brent's rage as the mirror image of his own, Wilson gains the insight to free himself from his own blindness. The film includes a memorable score by Alfred Hitchcock favorite Bernard Herrmann. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, (more)
The creative team of producer Harry Joe Brown and star Randolph Scott turned out some of the best westerns of the 1950s, and Santa Fe is no exception. Set in the years following the Civil War, the film casts Scott as Britt Canfield, one of four ex-Confederate brothers who head West to carve out a new life. While his three siblings (Jerome Courtland, Peter Thompson and John Archer) cast their lot on the wrong side of the law, Britt accepts a job with the Santa Fe Railroad. Inevitably, Britt is obliged to bring his wayward brothers to justice, though he knows full well that the person responsible for their downfall is "untouchable" gambling boss Cole Sanders (Roy Roberts). In a well-staged climax, Britt squares accounts with the evil Sanders and his hulking henchman Crake (Jock O'Mahoney). Curiously, many TV prints of Santa Fe were processed with the soundtrack slightly out of sync with the action. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Randolph Scott, Janis Carter, (more)
Judy Garland was originally slated to star in MGM's film version of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, but she was forced to pull out of the production due to illness (recently discovered out-takes reveal a gaunt, dazed Garland, obviously incapable of completing her duties). She was replaced by Betty Hutton who, once she overcame the resentment of her co-workers, turned in an excellent performance--perhaps the best of her career. Hutton is of course cast as legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley, who ascends from dirty-faced backwoods gamin to the uppermost rungs of international stardom. Her mentor is Buffalo Bill, played by Louis Calhern (like Hutton, Calhern was a last-minute replacement: the original Buffalo Bill, Frank Morgan, died before production began). Annie's great rival is arrogant marksman Frank Butler (Howard Keel) with whom she eventually falls in love. She goes so far as to lose an important shooting match to prove her affection--a scene that hardly strikes a blow for feminism, but this is, after all, a 1950 film. Of the stellar supporting cast, J. Carroll Naish stands out as Sitting Bull, whose shrewd business acumen is good for several laughs. Virtually all the Irving Berlin tunes were retained from the Broadway version, including "Doin' What Comes Naturally", "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun", "Anything You Can Do", "The Girl That I Marry", "My Defenses are Down", "They Say It's Wonderful" and the rousing "There's No Business Like Show Business", which was later tantalizingly excerpted in MGM's pastiche feature That's Entertainment II. Alas, due to a complicated legal tangle involving the estates of Irving Berlin and librettists Herbert Fields and Dorothy Fields, Annie Get Your Gun hasn't been shown on television in years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, (more)
- 1949
Widely regarded as a "model" B-movie thriller, The Window stars Bobby Driscoll as a young boy prone to fibs. Thus, no one believes him when he claims to have seen a murder in a neighboring apartment. No one, that is, except the killers (Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman). Realizing he won't get any help from his parents (Barbara Hale and Arthur Kennedy) or the law, the boy must figure out a way to save himself from being shut up permanently by the murderers. The film's hair-rising and oft-imitated climax, which takes place in a rotting abandoned tenement, has lost none of its edge over the past five decades. A much-needed hit for financially strapped RKO Radio Pictures, The Window was remade in 1960 as The Boy Cried Murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Hale, Bobby Driscoll, (more)
- 1948
Summer Holiday is a musical remake of the 1935 MGM comedy-drama Ah, Wilderness!, which in turn was adapted from the play by Eugene O'Neill. Mickey Rooney (who played a supporting role in the 1935 film) stars as O'Neill's alter ego Richard Miller, a young man coming of age in early 20th century New England. Anxious to live life to the fullest, Richard ignores the cautionary admonitions of his father Nat (Walter Huston), preferring instead to follow the example of Uncle Sid (Frank Morgan), the family's "black sheep". In his ongoing quest for wine, women and song (he gets precious little of the first two commodities, but plenty of the third!) Richard ignores the fact that the true love of his life, sweet young Muriel (Gloria De Haven), has been under his nose all along. Director Rouben Mamoulien's obsession with cinematic innovations is largely absent here; what emerges is a staid, conventional MGM musical, albeit gorgeously photographed in Technicolor by Charles Schoenbaum. Filmed in 1946 but not released until 1948, Summer Holiday would not be the last musicalized version of Ah, Wilderness!; that honor went to the 1959 Broadway musical Take Me Along, which starred Jackie Gleason as Uncle Sid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Alexander, Mickey Rooney, (more)
John Garfield, in the best performance of his career, portrays Joe Morse, an ambitious attorney who has long since abandoned his scruples in favor of monetary reward. Morse now represents the interests of crime boss Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts), who plans to take over the numbers racket in New York. Morse has devised a way of doing this legally and above-board, with no violence: Tucker's people will bring about the collapse of the illegal numbers racket in the city, using a race track-betting scam that will bankrupt the small-time underworld numbers banks; an investigation will ensue, along with a call for a legal numbers operation in the form of a lottery, which Tucker will control through Morse's machinations. The whole plan hinges on Morse's estranged brother, Leo (Thomas Gomez), a small-time numbers banker who is to be shielded from the collapse, and who will serve as the "legitimate" front for Tucker. Leo is the flaw in the plan, however, because not only can't he stand the sight of Joe, but he is also too honest to participate in the plan -- he doesn't want his employees, all decent people just looking to earn a living, forced into the employ of real gangsters. Joe orchestrates a series of police raids that force Leo into his corner, and Joe's plan seems to be working out, but then the whole enterprise is threatened when a rival mob, run by Tucker's former Prohibition-era partner, Fico (Paul Fix), starts pressuring Leo, trying to get to Joe and Tucker. Fico and his men aren't any different from Tucker's mob, except that they're prepared to start shooting sooner to get what they want. Tucker decides to hang tough and expects everyone, including Leo, to do the same, even when Fico starts sending thugs around to frighten everyone. Soon Joe is beset by problems on three fronts -- he wants his brother out of Tucker's combination and safe; he is trying to romance Leo's bookkeeper (Beatrice Pearson), who is too nice a girl for who he is; and his own well-being is threatened by both Fico and Tucker, and a state investigator who has already tapped the phone of Joe's otherwise respectable partner. All of these threads are pulled together in the final section of the film, which is as violent and disturbing, yet poetic and graceful a resolution as any crime film of the 1940s ever delivered. Force of Evil was star-crossed almost from the start, as many of the people involved, including star John Garfield and director Abraham Polonsky (a writer making his debut behind the camera, with help from assistant director Don Weis in doing the camera set-ups and blocking), were suspect at the time for their leftist political views. Indeed, the company that made Force of Evil, Enterprise Productions, was also in trouble for the leftist leanings of its films in the midst of the Red Scare, and went out of business just as the movie was finished -- dropped by United Artists and picked up by MGM, of all studios, Force of Evil made it into theaters during Christmas week of 1948, not the ideal schedule for something as grim (albeit great) as this film was. As it turned out, it was Polonsky's last chance to direct for more than 20 years, and Garfield's last completely successful film. And a movie that should have been a triumph for all concerned ended up a cult favorite. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, (more)
- 1947
Usually associated with erudite, urbane comedies, the legendary screen team of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy goes intensely dramatic in the expensive western Sea of Grass. Tracy plays cattle baron Colonel James Brewton, who staunchly opposes opening the western frontier to homesteaders. Standing steadfastly beside Brewton-at least at the beginning--is his headstrong wife Lutie (Hepburn). Eventually disillusioned by the stern implacability of her husband, Lutie leaves Brewton and goes off to Denver, where she falls in love with liberal attorney Brice Chamberlain (Melvyn Douglas), the champion of the homesteaders' cause. Upon giving birth to Chamberlain's son, Lutie confesses her indiscretion to Brewton, who takes the news with commendable restraint, even offering to accept the baby as his own. Unfortunately, the Brewtons' standing in the community is weakened by the revelation of Lutie's infidelity, causing her to leave her husband for a second time. Years later, Lutie's grown-up boy Brock (Robert Walker) drifts to the wrong side of the law, leading to his death at the hands of a posse. Though it hardly seems possible under the circumstances, Brewton and Lutie are at long last reconciled through the intervention of their daughter Sara Beth (Phyllis Thaxter). Elaborately produced in the traditional MGM manner and adroitly directed by Elia Kazan, Sea of Grass is still one of the lesser Tracy-Hepburns. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, (more)
Just as Bob Hope's My Favorite Blonde (1942) was a takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock, Hope's My Favorite Brunette was a lampoon of the noirish "hard-boiled detective" school popularized by Raymond Chandler. Awaiting execution on death row, Hope tells the gathered reporters how he got into his present predicament. It seems that Hope was once a baby photographer, his office adjacent to the one leased by a private detective (played in an amusing unbilled cameo by Alan Ladd). While hanging around the p.i.'s office, Hope is mistaken for the detective by beautiful client Dorothy Lamour. She hires Hope to search for her missing uncle, and also entrusts him with a valuable map. Hope's diligent (if inept) sleuthing takes him to a shady rest sanitarium, where he runs afoul of lamebrained henchman Lon Chaney, Jr. and sinister, knife-throwing Peter Lorre. Both are in the employ of attorney Charles Dingle, who is responsible for the disappearance of Lamour's uncle. Escaping the sanitarium with Lamour in tow, Hope follows the trail of evidence to noted geologist Reginald Denny. The geologist is murdered, and Hope is accused of the crime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, (more)
- 1946
Robert Montgomery is the director and star of the film noir mystery Lady in the Lake, adapted for the screen by source novelist Raymond Chandler. Montgomery plays detective Philip Marlowe, a private eye who just wants to publish his own crime stories. Kingsby Publications editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) meets with Marlowe, but offers him a job as a detective instead of a writer. She wants him to find the missing wife of her boss, Mr. Kingsby (Leon Ames). (Adrienne wants them to proceed with their divorce so she can marry Kingsby herself.) Marlowe accepts the job and goes looking for clues at the home of the wife's sometime lover, Chris Lavery (Dick Simmons). When Marlowe gets knocked out and picked up for drunk driving, he decides to drop the case. He is drawn back in, however, when Adrienne suggests that Kingsby's wife is responsible for the murder of a mysterious lady in the lake. Lloyd Nolan and Tom Tully play two police detectives also on the case. Lady in the Lake is remembered as being filmed with a subjective camera -- almost entirely from Marlowe's point of view -- and subsequently hyped by an MGM ad campaign. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, (more)
- 1946
In this crime drama, a fading movie star plays a similar character in her farewell film, a B crime-drama about a lonely-hearts club that masks a racketeering operation. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon 'em." Firmly in the latter category is Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), a feckless wartime 4-F who must stand by helplessly as his sweetheart Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) entertains every visiting GI in town. One morning after a particularly wild night, Trudy labors under the apprehension that last eve, she'd married a soldier named Ratzkywatzky or something. Evidently something had happened that night, for soon Trudy discovers that she's pregnant. Hiding this information from her bombastic policeman father (William Demarest), Trudy begs Norval to tell the world that he's the father. He agrees, but only after secretly wedding Trudy under an assumed name. Complications and disasters pile up thick and fast, and before long Norval is facing arrest on a variety of charges. Providentially, Trudy gives birth to sextuplets-and suddenly Norval is a national hero! This vintage Preston Sturges farce plays so fast and loose with the censorial restrictions of mid-1940s Hollywood that critic James Agee was moved to comment that, "the Hays office must have been raped in its sleep." As usual, Sturges populates his cast with steadfast members of his stock company-- including, in guest roles, Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff, the stars of his previous film, The Great McGinty. Originally filmed in 1942, Miracle was held from release from two years, not because of censor problems but because its parent studio, Paramount, was overloaded with product. Miracle of Morgan's Creek was remade (and considerably laundered) as the 1958 Jerry Lewis vehicle Rock-a-bye Baby. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, (more)
- 1943
- NR
One of Cary Grant's most financially successful 1940s vehicles, Mr. Lucky finds Grant atypically cast as a shifty, out-for-number-one gambler. Having dodged the draft by adopting the identity of a dead man, Grant sets his sights on purchasing a fancy gambling ship. To raise the necessary funds, he pretends to be working hand in glove with the American War Relief society. Once he meets Laraine Day, however, Grant is seized by an uncontrollable bout of honesty. It takes him awhile, but he finally does the right thing. The film is framed in flashback, as old seaman Charles Bickford explains why a tearful Laraine Day waits at the dock each evening for a certain ship to come in. Also in the cast is Paul Stewart as a cold-eyed but nonetheless semi-comic hoodlum, and Kay Johnson and Gladys Cooper as elegant but gullible society women. The best aspect of this breezy comedy-drama is Grant's cockney propensity for "rhyming slang," a running gag better heard than described. Mr. Lucky was later adapted into a TV series in 1959, with John Vivyan in the Cary Grant part and with Blake Edwards at the production controls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Laraine Day, (more)
- 1942
Secret Agent of Japan sometimes looks like a B-grade "answer" to Warner Bros.' Casablanca, except that the answer was released several months before the question. The principal character is Roy Bonnell (Preston Foster), the cynical American owner of Shanghai nightclub. On the lam from a criminal charge in the US, Bonnell prefers to keep a low profile, especially in political matters. His long-dormant patriotism is revived when he finds out that Japanese spies are buying up property in Shanghai and are mistreating the local citizens. Teaming up with glamorous British secret agent Kay Murdock (Lynn Bari), Bonnell turns spy himself, secretly reporting Axis activities to the British government-even though he's putting his own life on the line by doing so. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Preston S. Foster, Lynn Bari, (more)
- 1942
An innocent man is put on trial, but is he really as innocent as he claims? Diplomat David Talbot (William Powell) and his bride Lucienne (Hedy Lamarr) are enjoying a honeymoon in Paris when David is confronted by extortionists who demand money in exchange for not turning him in to the police. David has no idea what the men are talking about and ignores their threats, but the men prove good to their word, and David finds himself on trial for a series of thefts. At the trial, David's name is cleared when Henri Sarrow (Basil Rathbone) testifies that he knew the man who committed the crimes, a friend of his who recently died. However, after the trial, David meets Sarrow, who informs David that he lied under oath; according to Sarrow, David did indeed commit the robberies while suffering from amnesia after a severe blow to the head, and if he wants to keep the facts quiet, he'll do whatever Sarrow says. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, (more)
- 1941
Chester Morris makes his second screen appearance as crook-turned-detective Boston Blackie in this superior series entry. This time, Blackie gets into trouble when he attends an art auction with his millionaire pal Arthur Manleder (Lloyd Corrigan). It so happens that the auction gallery is run by thieves, which heroine Diane Parrish (Harriet Hilliard) has just discovered. To keep her quiet, head crook Joe Buchanan (Ralph Theodore) takes a shot at Diane, but though he only wounds her he kills sculptor Allison (Walter Soderling). Conclusion-jumping Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) assumes that Blackie fired the shot, forcing our hero to spend the rest of the film eluding both the police and the criminals. Highlights include a hilarious fit of rage perpetrated by secondary villainess Joan Woodbury, and an amusing if slightly sadistic running gag involving hapless ice-cream vendor Billy Benedict. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Morris, Richard Lane, (more)
Though the United States still wasn't at war when Phantom Submarine was made, the film emphasizes the importance of "preparedness." Plucky newspaperwoman Madeleine (Anita Louise) is sent to the Panama Canal to get the lowdown on a mysterious enemy submarine that has been bedevilling Allied shipping lanes. Stowing away on a salvage vessel, Madeleine immediately runs afoul of diver Sinclair (Bruce Bennett), who's ostensibly looking for sunken gold off the Carribean. In truth, Sinclair is testing out a diving suit of his own invention, which previously had been rejected by the Navy. Between them, Madeleine and Sinclair manage to discover the purpose behind the "phantom submarine", exposing an Axis spy ring in the process. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anita Louise, Bruce Bennett, (more)
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
- Starring:
- Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, (more)
"Strange" is right: this mystical MGM melodrama has to be the oddest of the studio's Clark Gable-Joan Crawford vehicles. When eight prisoners escape from a New Guinea penal colony, they are picked up by a sloop commandeered by another escapee named Verne (Gable) and his trollop girl friend Julie (Joan Crawford). Among the fugitives is Cambreau (Ian Hunter), a soft-spoken, messianic character who has a profound effect on his comrades. One by one, the escapees abandon their evil purposes and find God-and a peaceful death--through the auspices of the Christlike Cambreau. The last to succumb to Cambreau's ministrations is Verne, who agrees to return to return to the prison colony serve out his sentence if Julie will wait for him (which she does). A superb Franz Waxman score provides a touch of show-biz grandeur to this haunting fable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, (more)
- 1939
Thunder Afloat is set during the first world war. Wallace Beery plays an veteran tugboat captain who harbors a grudge against younger ex-pal Chester Morris. When Morris joins the navy as an officer, he runs across Beery, who resparks the feud. Both men bury the hatchet and work shoulder to shoulder when German U-boats threaten innocent shippers. Though the action takes place in 1918, the film was intensely topical in 1939 given the renewal of maritime hostilities in Europe and the Far East. Thunder Afloat made money by the bushel basket, as did most of Wallace Beery's formula vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Beery, Chester Morris, (more)
Virtually a textbook example of Howard Hawks' "macho" mode, Only Angels Have Wings takes place high in the Peruvian Andes. Cary Grant heads a ramshackle airmail and freight service, forced to fly in the most perilous of weather conditions to the most treacherous of destinations. Facing death on a near-hourly basis, Grant and his flyers have adopted a casual, all-in-day's-work attitude towards mortality. If a pilot cracks up and dies, it's simply because he didn't have what it took, and that's that. Stranded showgirl Jean Arthur can't stand this cavalier attitude at first, but before long she becomes, in true Hawksian fashion, "one of the guys". Complicating the story is the presence of Richard Barthelmess, who has been persona non grata with the other pilots ever since his carelessness cost the life of one of their number. In addition to a surfeit of guilt, Barthelmess is saddled with a faithless wife, played by Rita Hayworth in her first important A-picture role. Hayworth makes a play for Grant, but he spurns her, finally realizing that, in spite of himself, he's in love with Arthur. Grant himself is riddled with guilt when near-blind pilot Thomas Mitchell insists upon taking on one final flight. Having lost his best friend, Grant drops his hard-bitten shell, and for the first time opens himself up emotionally to Arthur-which of course leads to a nail-biting climax wherein Arthur suffers mightily as Grant faces certain death. Scripted by Jules Furthman from a story by Hawks, Only Angels Have Wings is a treasure trove of terse, pithy dialogue: our favorite scene occurs when, upon discovering that he's about to die, Thomas Mitchell says he's often wondered how he'd react to imminent death-and, now that death is but a few moments away, he'd rather that no one else be around to witness his reaction. Though sometimes laid low by obvious miniatures, the aerial scenes in Only Angels Have Wings are by and large first-rate, earning a first-ever "best special effects" Oscar nomination for Roy Davidson and Edwin C. Hahn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, (more)
- 1937
In this classic Three Stooges short, the boys are tramps on the lam from the railroad police when they happen in on an athletic club. They are enlisted as sparring partners, but when a wrestler, Bustoff, takes a liking to them, they are given the tough assignment of keeping him sober until his big match that night. Of course they are unsuccessful -- in fact, they add insult to injury by knocking him out with a pair of barbells and a locker -- but, with a quick exchange of whiskers they decide that Curly Howard looks enough like Bustoff to go in the ring. Earlier in the picture, it has been revealed that Curly goes haywire when he smells the perfume "Wild Hyacinth," and luckily a woman in the audience has a bottle of the scent. Curly goes from being a sure loser to braining everyone in his general vicinity -- including himself, with the help of the bell. This short has quite a lot in common with the Stooges' 1934 comedy, Punch Drunks. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1937
When Walter Pidgeon wasn't playing Greer Garson's perfect husband at MGM, he could usually be found portraying a newspaper editor. This is how we find him in My Dear Miss Aldrich, the first MGM flick in which Pidgeon was awarded top billing. Maureen O'Sullivan plays the title character, a glamorous schoolteacher who receives an inheritance from a wealthy relative. That legacy turns out to be the very newspaper managed by Mr. Pidgeon--and the usual fireworks result. My Dear Miss Aldrich was written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, a former newspaperman who would cap his cinematic reminiscences with his 1940 screenplay for Citizen Kane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edna May Oliver, Maureen O'Sullivan, (more)
- 1936
The sequel to 1934's The Notorious Sophie Lang, The Return of Sophie Lang once more stars Gertrude Michael in the title role. Before reforming, Ms. Lang was a jewel thief; now she is the scrupulously honest traveling companion of an elderly dowager (Elizabeth Patterson). When the old lady's diamonds disappear during an ocean voyage, suspicion immediately falls upon Sophie. The ex-thief turns amateur sleuth, tracking down the guilty party in order to escape incarceration. A young but very self-assured Ray Milland provides the romantic angle in The Return of Sophie Lang. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gertrude Michael, Guy Standing, (more)
- 1936
Anything Goes is a fun-filled but hardly faithful adaptation of the same-named Cole Porter Broadway musical, with additional songs by Hoagy Carmichael, among many many others. Set on a luxury liner, the story gets under way when Moonface Mullins (Charlie Ruggles), Public Enemy No. 13, slips on board disguised as a bishop. As he weaves in and out of the story, Billy Crocker (Bing Crosby) romances Hope Harcourt (Ida Lupino), titled Englishman Evelyn Oakleigh (Arthur Treacher) also pursues Hope, and brassy entertainer Reno Sweeney (Ethel Merman) chases after Sir Evelyn. Critics in 1934 complained that the original Broadway production's Victor Moore was replaced by Charlie Ruggles, but none could fault Ethel Merman's rendition of "I Get a Kick Out of You", nor her duet with Bing Crosby, "You're the Top" (the only two songs retained from the Porter score!) Anything Goes was remade in 1956, again with Bing Crosby, and again with little fidelity to the original (this remake required MCA Television to retitle the 1936 version as Tops is the Limit). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, (more)
Although Larry "Buster" Crabbe earns top billing, the hero of Drift Fence is former Western star Tom Keene as Jim Travis, who, at a rodeo, meets city dweller Jim Traft (Benny Baker), who has come west to erect a fence that will prevent Clay Jackson (Stanley Andrews) from continuing his cattle rustling business. A tough Western type, Travis suggests that he impersonate Traft and the building of the fence soon begins. But Travis is opposed by Slinger Dunn (Crabbe) and his family, whose small ranch will suffer from the division of the land. A romance between Travis and Slinger's sister, Paula (Katherine DeMille), paves the way for a meeting of the minds, however, and Slinger switches sides completely upon learning that Travis is a Texas Ranger in disguise. An in-house production (as opposed to Harry Sherman's Hopalong Cassidy Westerns), Drift Fence was the closest Paramount came to a B-Western in the mid-'30s. Zane Grey's original novel was published in 1932. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Katherine de Mille, (more)
