Jerry Frank Movies

There's a measure of sympathy for the Apaches at the beginning of Fort Bowie. Under the tyrannical rule of ambitious Major Wharton (P. Ian Douglas), a cavalry detachment slaughters a band of Apache who've arrived with the intention of surrendering. A counterattack is inevitable, but before this happens the story is sidetracked by the jealous behavior of Colonel Garrett (Kent Taylor). When stalwart young Captain Thompson (Ben Johnson) resists the romantic overtures of Garrett's wife Allison (Jan Harrison), she screams "Rape!" and Thompson finds himself facing court-martial and execution. This plot strand and several others are resolved after the Cavalry is forced to attack its own fort following an Apache takeover. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jungle Heat is set in pre-WWII Hawaii. A group of pro-Japanese fifth columnists infiltrate the islands, intended to demoralize the populace long before the Pearl Harbor attacks. Specializing in sabotage, the spies target the pineapple and sugar plantations, not to mention the big-city industries. American doctor Jim Ransom catches on to what's happening (though it seems to take him forever), and, together with National Guard officer Richard Grey, foils the villains. It is worth noting that the principal villain in Jungle Heat is not Japanese, but an occidental traitor played (or overplayed) by James Westerfield. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Boris Karloff amiably walks through his undemanding starring role in Voodoo Island. Lensed in Hawaii, the film casts Karloff as Phillip Knight, a professional skeptic who enjoys skewering those who believe in the supernatural. Accompanied by his secretary, Sara (Beverly Adams), Knight arrives on a tiny Pacific island to disprove claims that a voodoo curse has invested itself in the community. After several horrible murders, however, it looks as though there really is voodoo activity in the region. Characters essential to the action are Elisha Cook Jr. as a zombie-fied petty thief, and a rather surly carnivorous plant! Some prints of Voodoo Island have eliminated a subplot involving lesbian interior decorator Claire Winter (Jean Engstrom). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three years after song-and-dance man Dick Powell reshaped his nice-guy image by playing hard-boiled gumshoe Phillip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet, he returned to film noir with this crime-based thriller. Johnny O'Clock (Dick Powell) and his partner Pete Marchettis (Thomas Gomez) operate a gambling casino that has seen better days. Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon), a cop on the take, wants in on the casino, and he makes friends with Pete while trying to convince him that Johnny, the smarter of the two, should go. When Chuck's girlfriend Harriet (Nina Foch) is found dead, a supposed suicide, his sister Nancy (Evelyn Keyes) smells a rat, especially after Chuck skips town. Nancy is convinced that her sister was murdered, and she asks Johnny to help her prove it. Johnny, who already has a number of women in his life -- including Nelle (Ellen Drew), Pete's wife -- figures that one more can't hurt and agrees to help her. But Police Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb), convinced that Johnny and Pete were behind Harriet's death, is making it hard for Johnny to do much investigating, and matters get worse when Chuck's body is found floating in the river. Screenwriter Robert Rossen made his directorial debut with this film, 14 years later, he would return to this film's tough, gritty style for his best picture, The Hustler. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Substantially, Lupe Velez' Columbia vehicle Redhead from Manhattan was the same as her previous RKO starrers-boisterous, unsubtle, and immensely profitable. La Lupe plays a dual role, as twin sisters named Rita and Elaine. Escaping from a torpedoed ship, Rita shows up in New York, where she takes the place of her Broadway-star sister Elaine, who's having problems with her marriage and needs to make a short but quick getaway. Naturally, neither Elaine's husband (Gerald Mohr) nor Rita's saxophone-player boyfriend (Michael Duane) are aware of the switch. Anyone who can't figure out what happens next should be drummed out of the theater in disgrace. And as always, a little of Lupe Velez goes a long, long way. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Unavailable for decades, this 15-chapter serial from Republic Pictures was finally re-released on video tape in the late 1990s. Based on a story by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jungle Girl featured former Paramount starlet Frances Gifford as Nyoka, a white girl raised by her father, Dr. Meredith (Trevor Bardette), among the savages of Darkest Africa. But the good doctor is mercilessly bumped off by his identical twin (also Bardette), who along with American gangster Slick Latimer (Gerald Mohr is searching for the famous Nakros diamonds. Along come Yankee fly-boys Jack Stanton (Tom Neal) and Curly Rogers (Eddie Acuff) who, again and again, are forced to rescue either Nyoka or each other from the evil machinations of both the girl's uncle and nasty witch doctor Shamba (Frank Lackteen). Miss Gifford, suffice it to say, is attractive if not much of an actress this early in her career, while Neal, who is best remembered today as the unfortunate protagonist in the noir classic Detour (1946), appears customarily dashing. Comic relief is provided by Acuff, who is never too tiresome, and Frank Lackteen adds his patented exotic villainy. All in all, if the viewer can get past the natives' fright wigs a la Harpo Marx, an overly cute child actor (Tommy Cook) who speaks pidgin-English and the build-in repetitiveness typical for action serials, there is much to enjoy, including eye-popping acrobatic stunts performed by the likes of Yakima Canutt, David Sharpe, Tom Steele and Carol Thurston, the latter doubling for Gifford. Jungle Girl was successful enough to warrant a sequel but by the time Perils of Nyoka was ready to go before the cameras, Frances Gifford had become unavailable and was replaced by former Powers model Kay Aldridge. In typical serial fashion, footage from both chapterplays ended up in Panther Girl of the Kongo (1955), starring Phyllis Coates in a skimpy yet tasteful outfit identical to those worn by her predecessors. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the long-running series of westerns, the Three Mesquiteers transform their ranch into a prison farm to provide a model for prison reform. They are opposed by a local contractor who wants to build a standard prison. He and his colleagues endeavor to destroy the ranch, but they are thwarted by the daring trio. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In his third of four action serials, horror star Bela Lugosi played Boroff, an internationally notorious fiend who's attempting to pawn off his deadly invention, a disintegrating gas, to the highest bidder. Before the gas can be manufactured, however, Boroff must go in search of certain hard to come by ingredients and the villain is thwarted at every step by US coastguard agent Terry Kent (Ralph Byrd and crusading newspaper woman Jean Norman (Maxine Doyle. In the serial's 12th and final chapter, "The Deadly Circle," Boroff is finally destroyed by his own invention, civilization thus saved for Democracy. Down on his luck by 1937, Lugosi could only watch as Republic Pictures' screenwriters Barry Shipman and Franklyn Adreon wickedly named his character "Boroff," an obvious reference to Lugosi-rival Boris Karloff. S. O. S. Coastguard nevertheless emerged as one of the Hungarian star's better vehicles, in no small measure due to its vigorous hero, Ralph Byrd, a handsome actor perhaps better remembered from Republic's Dick Tracy serials. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide