Elisabeth Fraser Movies
Character actress Elizabeth Fraser first appeared onscreen in One Foot in Heaven (1941). ~ All Movie Guide- 1949
A sequel to 1947's Dear Ruth, this movie has William Holden and Joan Caulfield portraying a young married couple with some definite in-law problems. When Caulfield's younger sister gets Holden to run for the State senate, a whole new kettle of worms is opened--his opponent is his Father-in-law. In spite of former suitors trying to break up their relationship and the obvious stress caused by the campaign, everything works out Hollywood-style. This was followed by a sequel for the younger sister, entitled Dear Brat. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Holden, Joan Caulfield, (more)
- 1948
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
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Burt Lancaster, (more)
- 1942
Everybody seems to have had a good time making the overripe melodrama The Hidden Hand, especially cadaverous Milton Parsons as insane-asylum escapee John Channing. In her efforts to protect her brother from the authorities, John's sister Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham) opens the door for a series of grisly murders. Hero Peter Thorne (Craig Stevens) and heroine Mary Winfield (Elizabeth Fraser) try to stop John before he overracts-er, kills-again. Absolutely impossible to take seriously, The Hidden Hand is nonetheless worth a glance, if for no other reason than to see perennial bit player Parsons in a juicy leading role. The film was based on Invitation to a Murder, a play by Rufus King. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Stevens, Elisabeth Fraser, (more)
- 1942
Long before Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock joined forces in Speed (1994), there was the strikingly similar Warner Bros. B-picture Busses Roar. A gang of Axis spies decide to use a California passenger bus to secretly transport a demolition bomb to a coastal oil field. The bomb is set to go off upon arrival, wiping out the passengers along with the oil deposits. Among those passengers is Army sergeant Ryan, who senses that something's amiss and then races against time to save himself and the others from being blown to smithereens. Another of the hapless commuters is played by Eleanor Parker, making an excellent impression in her first feature film appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Travis, Julie Bishop, (more)
Scripted by Irwin Shaw from a story by C. S. Forester (of "Captain Horatio Hornblower" fame), Commandos Strike at Dawn is a wartime morale-booster, largely set in coastal Norway. Paul Muni stars as Eric Toresen, an apolitical and basically pacifistic Norwegian fisherman who is galvanized into action when his village is occupied by the Nazis. With a group of courageous resistance fighters, Toresen first endeavors to sabotage and demoralize the German troops then escapes to Britain, there to help organize commando raids against his country's oppressors. The supporting cast includes Anna Lee as the hero's true love, Alexander Knox (two years away from his starring stint in the patriotic biopic Wilson) as an icy Nazi commandant, Cedric Hardwicke as a stiff-upper-lip British officer, and Lillian Gish (in her first film appearance since 1931) as an iron-willed Norwegian townsperson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1941
Author Hartzell Spence's popular biography of his preacher father was the source for One Foot in Heaven. Fredric March stars as Methodist cleric William Spence, whose calling requires him to move his family from parish to parish on a near-monthly basis. The children resent the fact that they're never able to sustain friendships, while Reverend Spence is equally upset by what he perceives to be encroaching immorality in the early 20th century. Spence's stubbornness loses him as many parishioners as he gains, but he is gradually humanized by a series of random events. In the best of these, the Reverend, who has railed against movies from the pulpit, attends a "scandalous" picture show--and as the picture reaches its climax, he finds himself cheering on the good guys as loudly as everyone else! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fredric March, Martha Scott, (more)
The George S. Kaufman/Moss Hart Broadway hit The Man Who Came to Dinner was inspired by the authors' mutual friend, waspish critic/author Alexander Woollcott. Generously bearded ex-Yale professor Monty Woolley, no mean curmudgeon himself, plays the Woollcott character, here rechristened Sheridan Whiteside. While on a lecture tour in Ohio, Whiteside slips on the ice outside his hosts' home; until his broken leg heals, the hosts (Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke) are forced to put up (and put up with) the imperious Whiteside. This means enduring an unending stream of Whiteside's whims, caprices and vitriolic bon mots, as well as his long-distance phone calls, eccentric guests and a variety of critters, ranging from penguins to octopi. Like the real Woollcott, Whiteside insists upon stage-managing the lives of everyone around him. He is particularly keen on discouraging a romance between his faithful secretary Maggie Cutler (top-billed Bette Davis) and local newspaper editor Bert Jefferson (Richard Travis). Once he realizes he's gone too far in this respect, Whiteside is forced to reunite the lovers. That's only one aspect of a three-ring-circus plotline that accommodates a Lizzie Bordenish axe murderess, takeoffs of Woollcott intimates Harpo Marx, Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, and a general practitioner who's willing to let his patients suffer for a chance to pitch his interminable memoirs to Whiteside. Featured in the cast are Jimmy Durante as "Banjo" (the Harpo clone), Reginald Gardiner as the Noel Coward-like Beverly Carlton, Anne Sheridan as the predatory Gertrude Lawrence counterpart Lorraine Sheldon, and Mary Wickes as the long-suffering Nurse Preen ("You have the touch of a love-starved cobra!") The script, by the Epstein brothers, manages to retain most of the play's best lines and situations, even while expanding Bette Davis' role to justify her start status; it's a shame, though, that we are robbed of Sheridan Whiteside's imperishable opening line, "I may vomit!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, (more)
