Pat Flaherty Movies

Girl with Ideas was Universal Pictures' version of MGM's matchless Libeled Lady. Wendy Barrie plays a society girl miffed at the bad press she's been getting in a local newspaper. Unable to convince publisher Walter Pidgeon to cease and desist, Barrie takes her case to court. She wins not only the case but the newspaper itself, whereupon Pidgeon uses his sneakiest journalistic wiles to force new editor Kent Taylor into bankruptcy. Though plainly derivative of earlier heiress vs. editor epics, Girl with Ideas was praised for its originality by contemporary critics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Star is Born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a "true behind-the-scenes" story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. Janet Gaynor stars as Esther Blodgett, the small-town girl who dreams of Hollywood stardom, a role later played by both Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand in the 1954 and 1976 remakes. Jeered at by most of her family, Esther finds an ally in her crusty old grandma (May Robson), who admires the girl's "pioneer spirit" and bankrolls Esther's trip to Tinseltown. On arrival, Esther heads straight to Central Casting, where a world-weary receptionist (Peggy Wood), trying to let the girl down gently, tells her that her chances for stardom are about one in a thousand. "Maybe I'll be that one!" replies Esther defiantly. Months pass: through the intervention of her best friend, assistant director Danny McGuire (Andy Devine), Esther gets a waitressing job at an upscale Hollywood party. Her efforts to "audition" for the guests are met with quizzical stares, but she manages to impress Norman Maine (Fredric March), the alcoholic matinee idol later played by James Mason and Kris Kristofferson. Esther gets her first big break in Norman's next picture and a marriage proposal from the smitten Mr. Maine. It's a hit, but as Esther (now named Vicki)'s star ascends, Norman's popularity plummets due to a string of lousy pictures and an ongoing alcohol problem. The film won Academy Awards for director William Wellman and Robert Carson in the "original story" category and for W. Howard Greene's glistening Technicolor cinematography. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the play by Arthur Miller, All My Sons is a drama of man's duty to man that retains a potent impact. Edward G. Robinson plays a manufacturer of parts for World War II airplanes who lives a full, satisfied life in a small town. But his idyll is shattered by the arrival of the fiancée of the manufacturer's oldest son, who is missing in action. The younger son begins to fall in love with the girl, but her own brother is against the relationship because, he claims, the manufacturer and his partner delivered defective parts to the war effort. The younger son (Burt Lancaster) investigates, even going as far as visit his father's former partner in jail, and discovers the awful truth -- that his father's corrupt actions were responsible for both the partner's incarceration and the deaths of 21 U.S. pilots. The tale ends with a bitter and tragic confrontation that drives home the message that we are all our brother's keepers, and we cannot push aside that responsibility for personal gain. Thoughtful and intense performances by Robinson and Lancaster bring humanity and life to this powerful theme. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

One of John Wayne's most mystical films, Angel and the Badman is also the first production that Wayne personally produced. The star plays a wounded outlaw who is sheltered by a Quaker family. Attracted to the family's angelic daughter Gail Russell, the hard-bitten Wayne undergoes a slow and subtle character transformation; still, he is obsessed with killing the man (Bruce Cabot) who murdered his foster father. The storyline traces not only the regeneration of Wayne, but of the single-minded sheriff (Harry Carey) who'd previously been determined to bring Wayne to justice. Not a big hit in 1947, Angel and the Badman has since become the most frequently telecast of John Wayne's Republic films, thanks to its lapse into Public Domain status in 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Black Diamonds of the title are diamonds, and diamonds are a boy's best friend in this Richard Arlen-Andy Devine actioner. Arlen plays newspaperman Walter Norton, who attempts to investigate a mine explosion in which his father was injured. Norton's "inside man" helper is jovial miner Barney Tolliver (Andy Devine), who is in love with Norton's sister Nina (Mary Treen). Utilizing spool upon spool of stock footage from earlier Universal films, Black Diamonds builds steadily to an exciting cave-in finale. Reviewers in 1940 were kindly disposed to the film but didn't like the title, suggesting that it wasn't condusive to good business (Silly boys: the Arlen-Devine vehicles always made money). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This film, which is one of a series based on the characters from the Blondie comic strip, finds Dagwood entering the Army Reserve. Blondie visits, only to discover that he has caused all sorts of problems which lead to numerous conflicts. The ORC Training Center, Fort MacArthur, California was used for the setting of this film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

James Cagney made his first Technicolor appearance in the morale-boosting aviation flick Captains of the Clouds. Cagney plays Brian MacLean, a hotshot Canadian bush pilot who delights in stealing jobs-and women-away from his competitors. Brian is forced to shape up in a hurry when he's assigned to train other pilots for the Royal Canadian Air Force. At the ending of the training period, he is given his first real RCAF assignment: The seemingly unimportant task of shepherding American bomber planes across the Atlantic to England. With startling suddenness, Brian comes to realize the true importance of his job when he is forced into a deadly confrontation with a fleet of Nazi raider planes. Real-life Canadian WW1 flying ace Billy Bishop plays a small but pivotal role in Captains of the Clouds, while the leading-lady duties were handled by Warner Bros. stock actress Brenda Marshall (aka Mrs. William Holden). Cinematographer Sol Polito earned an Oscar nomination for his vivid color photography, though aerial photographers Elmer Dyer, Charles Marshall and Winston Hoch were certainly just as deserving. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

China Seas proved that the recently imposed Hollywood production code had little if any effect on the popularity of MGM sex symbols Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Gable plays the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong. Harlow is Gable's ex-main squeeze, a "woman of the world" who books passage on the steamer at the same time that another of Gable's former loves, aristocratic Rosalind Russell, shows up. Wallace Beery plays Gable's supposedly lovable first mate, who is actually in league with a gang of pirates who plan to steal the gold shipment being carried in the hold of the steamer. Harlow tumbles to Beery's secret, but is unable to convince Gable, who is sore at Harlow for mean-mouthing Russell. Out of pique, Harlow casts her lot with the crooked Beery, but when the pirates attack the steamer, she returns to Gable's side. A subplot involves the regeneration of ship's mate Lewis Stone, who has been cashiered out of the navy for cowardice and who redeems himself during the final battle. Based on a novel by Crosbie Garstin, China Seas is a programmer at heart, but is decked out with full A-picture trappings by MGM producer Irving Thalberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There are three key characters in Anatole Litvak's filmization of Aben Kandel's novel City for Conquest, as opposed to the six or more in the book -- but the real star, to a large extent, is New York City and its entire population. For purposes of the movie, however, the dramatic arc is linked to James Cagney, as honest, unpretentious truck driver Danny Kenny, whose life is involved with two other people -- his kid brother, Ed (Arthur Kennedy), a gifted musician trying to survive in the rough-and-tumble world of New York's Lower East Side, and Peggy Nash (Ann Sheridan), the neighborhood girl from the Lower East Side whom he's loved, one way or another, since he was a kid. Danny is happy doing what he does, driving a truck, but when Ed's scholarship is cut in half, he reluctantly takes an offer of a boxing match to raise the cash he needs, going into the ring under the fighting name "Young Samson." At about the same time, Peggy -- who loves to dance -- has her head turned by Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn), an ambitious but sleazy aspiring professional dancer. Eventually Peggy goes into partnership with Murray and is ultimately driven by her own ambition to leave Danny after she accepts his marriage proposal. By now, he's getting up in the boxing world, and in his bitterness over losing Peggy he accepts a bout for the world's welterweight championship. He's not overmatched as a boxer, but the money involved in this fight is just too big for it to be honest, and Danny is left all but blinded when his opponent's handlers slip resin dust onto his gloves. Danny is left seemingly a shell of a man, though he's content with his lot in life as far as it goes. He doesn't want any special attention or favors from anyone; the only thing he would like, though he's too proud to admit it, would be for Peggy to come back. But by now her dancing career with Murray has fallen apart, and she's too tortured by guilt, over the sequence of events she helped start, to come near Danny. It falls to Ed, who has never given up composing, to express the inexpressibles that each of these characters feels through his music. His first major classical work is a symphony ostensibly about New York City, which he conducts in its premiere at Carnegie Hall; but it's also about Danny and his life, and his dreams. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Monogram's seemingly endless series of inexpensive crime mellers continued with Convict's Code. Robert Kent plays a star football player who is framed by gamblers on a robbery charge and sentenced to prison. Serving three years behind bars, Kent is paroled in the custody of the same gambling boss (Sidney Blackmer) who engineered the frame. Unaware that his benefactor is also the guy who sent him up, Kent falls in love with the gambler's innocent sister Anne Nagel. Ten points to anyone who can figure out the relevance of the film's title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This gripping, gritty film noir begins as a mortally wounded physician staggers into the apartment of a vicious vixen, the leader of a notorious gang of thieves. Shots ring out, and the police rush to the scene. Sergeant Leonard gets there to find the doctor dead, and the woman failing fast. As she lay gasping she decides to tell the sergeant the whole terrible story that began when she got involved with a cop-killing robber who was captured and sentenced to death. Before his fateful date with the gas chamber, he lets the rest of the gang know where he hid the $40,0000 they netted from the caper; he, with her help, also arranges to ingest the doctor's newly developed drug, an antidote to cyanide, to escape his "execution." The plot works, and eventually, the gangster is back in business. He gives his girl half of the map, but unfortunately gets shot by a rival before he can give her the other half. The ruthless woman and another gang member then force the doctor to assist them with their search. They are heading off to the location, when the double-crossing she-devil kills the other gangster in a horrible manner and continues on with the doctor. They find the chest containing the loot and they get an awful surprise. The woman begins laughing hysterically as if on the verge of a full-blown break down. She shoots the doctor and then flees, thereby bringing the story up to the present. Just before she dies, the ruthless woman reveals the astonishing contents of the chest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This musical parody follows the exploits of American performers in Hungary. The story begins as a Yankee wrestling trainer becomes friends with a gringo singer who works in the same Budapest nightclub as a female ventriloquist. When the singer is dumped, the trainer offers to help him with his romantic life. The singer then gets involved with the ventriloquist who is married to a notorious swordsman who has successfully killed 40 men in duels. Trouble ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide