Mona Freeman Movies

Set just after the close of the Civil War, a former Confederate officer (Ray Milland) joins a vaudeville target-shooting show to avoid detection by the Union army. Working his way West, he falls in league with a group of Southern copper-miners being harassed as they try to make a living. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Streets of Laredo is a streamlined and Technicolorful remake of Paramount's 1936 box-office champ The Texas Rangers. William Holden, William Bendix and MacDonald Carey star as roguish outlaws Jim Dawkins, Wahoo Jones and Lorn Remming. After rescuing a little girl named Rannie Carter from a wicked tax collector, Dawkins and Jones decide to switch to the right side of the law; Remming, however, has other ideas. Years later, Rennie has grown up quite prettily into Mona Freeman, while Jim and Wahoo have become scrupulous members of the newly-formed Texas Rangers. Jim is in love with Rennie, but she has eyes for the still-crooked Lorn -- at least until Lorn proves to be the louse that the audience knew he was from the first reel. Streets of Laredo meticulously recreates the most famous scene from Texas Rangers, wherein one of the film's more sympathetic characters is abruptly shot to death from under a table; the scene still works, though it packed a bigger wallop in the original. Alfonso Bedoya, the "I don't have to show you any stinking badges" bandit from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, is appropriately menacing as the tax collector. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Henry James based his 1881 novella Washington Square on a real-life incident, wherein a young actor of his acquaintance married an unattractive but very wealthy young woman for the express purpose of living the rest of his life in luxury. Washington Square was turned into a stage play in 1946 by Ruth and Augustus Goetz; this, in turn was adapted for the movies under the title The Heiress. Olivia DeHavilland won an Academy Award (her second) for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper, the plain-Jane daughter of wealthy widower Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson). Catherine is not only unattractive, but lacks most of the social graces, thanks in great part to the domineering attitudes of her father. When Catherine falls in love with handsome young Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), she is convinced that her love is reciprocated, else why would Morris be so affectionate towards her? Dr. Sloper sees things differently, correctly perceiving that Morris is a callow fortune hunter. Standing up to her father for the first time in her life, Catherine insists that she will elope with Morris; but when Dr. Sloper threatens to cut off her dowry, Morris disappears. Still, Catherine threatens to run off with the next young man who pays any attention to her; Sloper, belatedly realizing how much he has hurt his only child, arranges to leave her his entire fortune. Years pass: Morris returns, insisting that he'd only left because he didn't want to cause Catherine the "grief" of being disinherited. Seemingly touched by Morris' "sincerity", Catherine agrees to elope with him immediately. But when Morris arrives at the appointed hour, he finds the door locked and bolted. Asked how she can treat Morris so cruelly, Catherine replies coldly "Yes, I can be very cruel. I have been taught by masters." Though The Heiress ends on a downbeat note, the audience is gratified to know that Catherine Sloper has matured from ugly-duckling loser to a tower of strength who will never allow herself to be manipulated by anyone ever again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A woman looks back at her childhood in show business in this musical comedy. At the turn of the century, Myrtle McKinley (Betty Grable) is working her way through business school and gets a job dancing at a San Francisco vaudeville house. She meets fellow hoofer Frank Burt (Dan Dailey), and they soon fall in love. Marriage follows, and Myrtle and Frank begin performing a song and dance act on the road. Myrtle leaves the act when she becomes pregnant with the first of two children, but when the kids are old enough to go out on tour, she and Frank work them into the act, and they learn to live out of a suitcase like their parents. Years later, Iris (Mona Freeman) and Mikie (Connie Marshall) are attending college when they learn that Mom and Dad have pulled their act out of mothballs -- and are booked to perform at a theatre near their campus. Mother Wore Tights won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score, and it was nominated for Best Song ("You Do") and Best Color Cinematography; the great Mexican ventriloquist Senor Wences appears as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the popular stage play of the same name, Dear Ruth features Mona Freeman as teenaged Miriam Watkins, who can't keep her nose out of other people's affairs. Fired up by patriotism, Miriam inaugurates a warm pen-pal relationship with an overseas air force officer (William Holden), hinting at a future marriage. When the airman arrives in town, he insists upon seeing Miriam's older sister Ruth (Joan Caulfield). It seems that Miriam, in an effort to appear older, signed her letters with her sister's name, and even enclosed her sister's picture. Ruth, however, is engaged to her nerdish employer (Billy DeWolfe), and it isn't hard to imagine the plot convolutions that ensue from this set-up. Dear Ruth was written by Norman Krasna, who based the Watkins household on the family of his old friend Groucho Marx (whose first wife's name was Ruth). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Our Hearts Were Growing Up is the sequel to Paramount's surprise 1944 hit Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. The first film was based on the memoirs of actress Cornelia Otis Skinner; the sequel was inspired by the fevered imaginations of the screenwriters. Gail Russell plays Ms. Skinner, while Diana Lynn costars as Cornelia's best friend Emily Kimbrough. This time the girls visit the college boyfriends, only to become involve with a pair of benign bootleggers, portrayed by Brian Donlevy and William Demarest. Their misguided association with the criminal results in consternation for Cornelia's father, the eminent stage actor Otis Skinner (Charlie Ruggles). Ironically, Gail Russell, who played Cornelia Otis Skinner in both of the Our Hearts films, was cast opposite the real Ms. Skinner in the 1943 ghost chiller The Uninvited--and was nearly murdered by the older actress in the course of the plotline! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This odd combination of roughneck comedy and serious domestic drama was adapted by Louise Randall Pierson from her own autobiographical novel. Rosalind Russell is cast as young Louise Randall, the headstrong daughter of a New England merchant. Inheriting her father's business, Louise intends to persevere in a "man's world," and to that ends takes business courses at Yale. Here she meets and marries banker's son Rodney Crane (Donald Woods), with whom she has four children. When wishy-washy Rodney runs off with another woman, Louise marries a second time to irresponsible but likable gambler Harold Pierson (Jack Carson) -- and gets pregnant again. Though Louise and Harold are as different as night and day, theirs is a lasting union, which remains solid despite whatever misfortunes come their way. The story ends at the outbreak of WW II, with Louise and Rodney bidding a tearful but hopeful goodbye to their three grown sons as the boys prepare to enter military service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an amoral, manipulative womanizer gets his comeuppance. The story begins as the handsome cad is witnessed quickly leaving a hotel room in the East. He has just stolen money, and a wedding band from a dead woman. He is next seen in L.A. living under an alias. There, he begins victimizing two naive sisters and uses them to substantially increase his wealth. Eventually, the two figure out the man's evil game, but there is little they can do to thwart him. Meanwhile, the gigolo is being stalked by the husband of the woman he robbed in the film's beginning. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One of Hollywood's favorite film titles (next to Never a Dull Moment and The Man Who Dared) is given another go-round with 1944's Till We Meet Again. Ray Milland stars as an American combat pilot forced to crash-land in occupied France. He is sheltered by nun Barbara Britton, who finds herself attracted to the brash flyboy. Britton poses as Milland's wife when the twosome becomes involved with the activities of the French underground. This being a 1944 film, it wouldn't do for Britton to renounce her vows in favor of connubial bliss, so someone (guess who?) has to conveniently die before the climax of Till We Meet Again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide