Joel Friedkin Movies

While taking a well-deserved vacation in Canada, reporter Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) ends up at a seedy motel where the owner's wife (Ann Doran) is behaving in a strangely terrified fashion. It turns out that the motel is the refuge for a pair of gunmen who are awaiting the arrival of a paid killer. Before long, Lois has been kidnapped by the villains--and when cub reporter Jimmy Olsen (Jack Larson) comes to her rescue, he is snatched as well. Looks like this is another job for Superman (George Reeves). Watch for the notorious scene in which supporting actor Frank Richards accidentally knocks Phyllis Coates unconscious for real! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Forget what you've been led to believe: Bedtime for Bonzo is a most enjoyable film, and Ronald Reagan is not outacted by the chimpanzee. Reagan is cast as psychology professor whose reputation is sullied by the fact that his father was a convict. To prove that environment rather than heredity dictates a man's personality, Reagan uses Bonzo the chimp to test out his theories. The hairy little guy seems to be responding to the kindnesses lavished upon him--and then he is accused of robbery. Reagan nearly goes to jail in Bonzo's stead, but everything turns out all right in the end (we're not giving anything away; after all, everybody knows that there was a Bonzo Goes to College in 1952). While it's an uphill climb, Ronald Reagan and his able costars Diana Lynn and Walter Slezak manage to keep Bonzo from running away with the picture. And yes, director Fred DeCordova is the same guy who produced Johnny Carson's late-night show in the 1980s and 1990s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Durango Kid rides again in Lightning Guns. As ever, the masked Durango (alias Steve Brandon) is played by Charles Starrett, who this time around is on the trail of a gang of cold-blooded killers. Rancher Dan Saunders (Edgar Dearing) is held responsible for the killings because of his opposition to a politically expedient dam project. Durango believes that Saunders is innocent, and he intends to prove it. Appearing in a secondary role is Jock O'Mahoney (later known as Jock Mahoney), who also doubles for Charles Starrett during many of the action scenes. Starrett's leading lady is Gloria Henry, whom couch potatoes of the 1950s will remember as Alice Mitchell on TV's Dennis The Menace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though he doesn't know it at first, industrialist Walter Williams (Brian Donlevy) shouldn't trust his wife Irene (Helen Walker) any farther than he can throw her. Irene schemes with her lover Jim Torrance (Tony Barrett) to kill Walter in an "accidental" car crash. The plan fails, and it is Jim who is killed. When it develops that he is assumed to have also died in the accident, Walter changes his name and heads to a small town where no one knows him. Here he starts life all over again as a humble garage mechanic, falling in love with his boss Marsha Peters (Ella Raines) in the process. Disaster looms when detective Quincy (Charles Coburn) comes sniffing around; it seems that Lt. Quincy suspects the incognito Williams of murdering Torrance. To reveal any more would be giving the game away. Impact co-stars longtime favorite Anna May Wong, making her first screen appearance since 1942. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin' starts off on a tense note as a struggling man is led through the streets of a western town, presumably headed for his own execution. Within a few minutes, however, we discover that the "victim" is a reluctant trainee for an upcoming foot-race between the feuding towns of Rim Rock and Big Bend. With an appalling lack of local talent in Rim Rock, it looks as though Big Bend is once again going to win the annual event. Into this melancholy situation walks travelling salesman Wilbur McMurtry (Donald O'Connor). When he proves to be very light on his feet, Wilbur is kidnapped by the townsfolk and ordered to run on behalf of Rim Rock -- with the understanding that if he loses, he really loses. Musical highlights include Donald O'Connor's duet with Penny Edwards (a western ingenue who seldom got a chance to demonstrate her dancing skills), a vocal contribution by the Sportsman Quartet of Jack Benny Show fame, and the byplay between Rimrock mayor Maribel Mathews and stableman Billy Caswell, played by Ma and Pa Kettle co-stars Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Muller (Paul Henreid), an intelligent, arrogant criminal who has been a medical student and a phony psychoanalyst, believes that people are only interested in themselves and do not notice what is happening around them. Paroled from prison to a boring job, Muller is more interested in a big score, and along with his old cronies robs a crooked gambling joint owned by Rocky Stansyck (Thomas Brown Henry). Although he gets away with the money, some of his men are caught by Stansyck and identify John as the ringleader. On the run from Stansyck's gang, he is mistaken for Dr. Bartok, a psychiatrist also played by Henreid. Curious, Muller goes to the doctor's office, and meets Bartok's secretary and lover, Evelyn Nash (Joan Bennett). Needing to avoid capture, he assumes Bartok's identity, but first must scar his face like the doctor's. Working from a photograph printed from a reversed negative, he applies the scar to the wrong side. Though fooled at first, when Evelyn discovers the truth, she decides to leave, although she is in love with Muller/Bartok. Steve Sekely's Hollow Triumph (aka The Scar) is a film that requires an exceptionally hefty suspension of disbelief in its reliance on coincidence and the literal acceptance of Muller's cynical view of human blindness. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide

James Thurber wasn't too happy with the Sam Goldwyn film adaptation of his 1939 short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but the Technicolor musical comedy proved to be a cash cow at the box office. Danny Kaye stars as Walter, a milquetoast proofreader for a magazine publishing firm. Walter is constitutionally incapable of standing up for himself, which is why his mother (Fay Bainter) has been able to arrange a frightful marriage between her son and the beautiful but overbearing Gertrude Griswold (Ann Rutherford). As he muses over the lurid covers of the magazines put out by his firm, Walter retreats into his fantasy world, where he is heroic, poised, self-assured, and the master of his fate. Glancing at the cover of a western periodical, Walter fancies himself the two-gun "Perth Amboy Kid"; a war magazine prompts Walter to envision himself as a fearless RAF pilot; and so on. Throughout all his imaginary adventures, a gorgeous mystery woman weaves in an out of the proceedings. Imagine Walter's surprise when his dream girl shows up in the flesh in the person of Rosalind van Horn (Virginia Mayo). The girl is being pursued by a gang of jewel thieves headed by Dr. Hugo Hollingshead (Boris Karloff), a clever psychiatrist who manages to convince Walter that he's simply imagining things again, and that Rosalind never existed. At long last, Walter vows to live his life in the "now" rather than in the recesses of his mind: he rescues Rosalind from the gang's clutches, tells his mother and Gertrude where to get off, and fast-talks his way into a better position with the publishing firm. Substituting the usual Danny Kaye zaniness for James Thurber's whimsy, Secret Life of Walter Mitty works best during the production numbers, especially Kaye's signature tune "Anatole of Paris." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Reading-of-the-will melodramatics substitute for the usual B-Western shootin' and fightin' in this late entry in the long running Hopalong Cassidy series, which has sidekick California Carlson (Andy Clyde) as one of six heirs to the supposedly worthless Baxter property. During the reading of Hiram Baxter's will, one of the heirs, Phineas Phipps (Joel Friedkin), is murdered, presumably by the same mystery figure who had earlier taken pot shots of the arriving Hoppy (William Boyd), Lucky (Rand Brooks), and California. Soon panels are sliding, spectral voices are heard, and shots are fired. Yet another heir, Ralph Baxter (Nedrick Young), is murdered and crooked attorney Potter (John Parrish) points the finger at Lucky. Meanwhile, Hoppy discovers that there is oil in them thar hills, a fact that Potter and co-conspirator Ogden (Robert B. Williams) conveniently forgot to mention to the heirs. After performing a bit of detective work, Hoppy catches the mystery killer in the act, so to speak, and the ranch is eventually returned to the surviving heirs, Ruth Baxter (Patricia Tate), housekeeper Mathilda Hackett (Una O'Connor), ranch hand Joshua Colter (Earle Hodgins), and California. The latter, however, relinquishes his share in favor of returning to the Bar 20 with his friends. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Though 20th Century-Fox was phasing out its B-picture unit in the late 1940s, a few inexpensive films, some made in England to utilize the studio's wartime "frozen funds", still managed to trickle into theaters. The Jewels of Brandenburg stars Richard Travis as Johnny Vickers, a US government agent operating in London. Vickers puts a tail on a double agent named Marcel Grandet (Leonard Strong), with whom he'd worked during the war. Grandet has stolen a fortune in jewels with which he intends to finance a neo-Nazi movement. Posing as a fellow fascist, Travis is able to infiltrate the villains-but will he be able to return the gems and save his own skin? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Former army pilot Robert Taylor is accused, on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence, of his wife's murder. Suffering from periodic blackouts, Taylor isn't so certain of his innocence himself. When offered a brain operation, Taylor refuses, knowing that if he is proven sane he will be executed for murder. Instead, he opts for confinement in a high-walled veteran's mental institution. A compassionate lady doctor (Audrey Totter) falls in love with Taylor, convincing him to have the operation. Even after emerging from the ether, Taylor cannot remember any of the details concerning his wife's death--but he does recall that the dead woman had recently taken a job with a publisher (Herbert Marshall) of religious books. While the killer's identity is tipped off by this revelation, the audience is never certain that Robert Taylor isn't a murderer--especially since he'd previously appeared as a homicidal maniac in the 1946 film Undercurrent. The best moment in High Wall is the casual disposal of the sole witness to the murder, via a long, dark elevator shaft. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

That dependable sleuth of pulp fiction fame, Nick Carter, apparently had an equally stalwart son. Chick Carter, Boy Detective did his sleuthing on radio before Columbia producer Sam Katzman brought him to the screen in Chick Carter, Detective. The juvenile hero of the radio waves had underwent certain changes in order for grown-up actor Lyle Talbot to portray him. Talbot's Chick Carter, however, remained strangely inactive in his own serial, allowing crusading reporter Rusty Farrell (Douglas V. Fowley) to perform most of the necessary derring-do. As plainly told as the title would suggest, Chick Carter, Detective was more or less a straightforward crime melodrama that eschewed the usual ray guns, invisibility inventions, and other paraphernalia of the genre. Former MGM starlet Pamela Blake did some snooping of her own as a rival detective, and a gangster bearing the unfortunate name of Nick Polio (George Meeker) indulged in a bit of insurance fraud on behalf of Charles King. With only two bona fide cliffhanger endings, Chick Carter, Detective found little favor with the small fry, its target audience. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

James M. Cain's novel received its first authorized screen treatment in this MGM production. Drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) takes a job at a roadhouse run by slovenly but likeable Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway). Nick's sexy young wife Cora (Lana Turner) takes an immediate liking to Frank, but he senses that she's trouble and he keeps his distance--for a while, anyway. Inevitably succumbing to Cora's tawdry charms, Frank enters into her scheme to murder Nick and claim the old boy's insurance money. Not long after committing the foul deed, Frank and Cora are arrested. Thanks to the conniving of slimy attorney Arthur Keats (Hume Cronyn), the illicit lovers are able to beat the murder rap--but, as the film's title symbolically indicates, they eventually pay for their misdeeds in an unexpected manner. Fans of the James M. Cain original--not to mention Cain himself--were aghast at the changes made in the novel by screenwriters Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch; many of the alterations were made to conform with censorship standards of the era, while others simply existed to massage the egos of the stars. Even so, the 1946 version of The Postman Always Rings Twice is infinitely more satisfying than the no-holds-barred 1981 remake, directed by Bob Rafelson with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide