Russell Gaige Movies

A jewel thief is at large on the Riviera, and all evidence points to retired cat burglar Cary Grant. Escaping the law, Grant heads to the Cote D'Azur, where he is greeted with hostility by his old partners in crime. All of them had been pardoned due to their courageous activities in the wartime Resistance, and all are in danger of arrest thanks to this new crime wave. But Grant pleads innocence, and vows to find out who's been copying his distinctive style. With the reluctant aid of detective John Williams, Grant launches his investigation by keeping tabs on the wealthiest vacationers on the Riviera. One such person is heavily bejeweled Jessie Royce Landis, who is as brash and outspoken as her daughter Grace Kelly is quiet and demure. But "still waters run deep," as they say, and soon Kelly is amorously pursuing the far-from-resistant Grant. Part of Kelly's attraction to Grant is the possibility that he is the thief; the prospect of danger really turns this gal on. Being Cary Grant, of course, he can't possibly be guilty, which is proven in due time. But by film's end, it's obvious that Kelly has fallen hard for Grant, crook or no crook. Occasionally written off as a lesser Alfred Hitchcock film (did we really need that third-act fashion show?), To Catch a Thief is actually as enjoyable and engaging now as it was 40 years ago. Though the Riviera location photography is pleasing, our favorite scene takes place in a Paramount Studios mockup of a luxury hotel suite, where Grant and Kelly make love while a fireworks display orgasmically erupts outside their window. And who could forget the scene where Jessie Royce Landis disdainfully stubs out a cigarette in an expensive plate of eggs? Adapted by frequent Hitchcock collaborator John Michael Hayes from a novel by David Dodge To Catch a Thief won an Academy Award for cinematographer Robert Burks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in 3-D, Sangaree is a satisfactory swashbuckler adapted from a novel by Frank G. Slaughter. Fernando Lamas portrays the son of an 18th century slave whose fortunes take a radical turn when he inherits a huge cotton plantation in the American colonies. Arlene Dahl (later Mrs. Fernando Lamas) is the haughty aristocrat whom the rough-hewn Lamas tames, while Francis L. Sullivan is a pirate chieftain who plans to sack Lamas' property. Best unintentional laugh: Two different villains, in two separate scenes, say "I've waited this long...I can wait a little longer." Sangaree enjoyed its widest distribution when released "flat," thereby rendering pointless the various 3-D stunt effects. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Vanquished represented another winner from Paramount's Pine-Thomas unit. John Payne plays Rock Grayson, a Civil War POW who returns to his Southern home to find carpetbagger Roger Hale (Lyle Bettger) in charge of things. An old enemy of Grayson's, Hale has commandeered the Grayson family-mansion as his headquarters. He has also set his sights upon Grayson's girlfriend Jane Colfax (Colleen Gray) as his own. Urged by the townsfolk to spearhead a revolt against the despotic Hale, Grayson surprises everyone by agreeing to become Hale's chief tax collector. What no one knows is that Grayson is secretly planning to gather enough evidence to topple Hale through legal methods. Even so, the film is capped by a cathartic outburst of violent action. The Vanquished is based on a novel by cinematographer/screenwriter/director Karl Brown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Producer Darryl F. Zanuck had high hopes that Wilson would immortalize him in the manner that Gone With the Wind did for David O. Selznick. The notion of bringing the life story of Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States, to the big screen was a labor of love for Zanuck, and accordingly the producer lavished all the technical expertise and production values he had at his disposal. Though Alexander Knox seems a bit too robust and overnourished for Wilson, his is a superb performance, evenly matched by those of Ruth Nelson as Wilson's first wife Ellen, Geraldine Fitzgerald as second wife Edith, Thomas Mitchell as Joseph Tumulty, Sir Cedric Hardwycke as Henry Cabot Lodge, Vincent Price as William Gibbs McAdoo, Sidney Blackmer as Josephus Daniels, and the rest of the film's enormous cast. The story begins in 1912, a time when Wilson is best known as the head of Princeton University and the author of several books on the democratic process. Urged into running for Governor of New Jersey by the local political machine, Wilson soon proves that he is his own man, beholden to no one-and that he is dedicated to the truth at any cost. From the governor's office, Wilson is nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate, an office he wins hands-down over the factionalized Republicans. The sweetness of his victory is soured by the death of his wife Ellen, but Wilson ultimately finds lasting happiness with Edith Galt. When World War I breaks out in Europe, Wilson vows to keep America out of the conflict, despite pressure from such political foes as Henry Cabot Lodge (who is depicted as a thoroughly unsympathetic power broker). After being elected for a second term, however, Wilson finds it impossible to remain neutral, especially in the wake of the Lusitania sinking. Reluctantly, he enters the war in April of 1917. Deeply disturbed by the mounting casualties, Wilson decides that, after the Armistice, he will press for a lasting peace by helping to organize a League of Nations. Unfortunately, the isolationist congress, urged on by Lodge and his ilk, refuses to permit America's entry into the League. His health failing, Wilson nonetheless embarks on a whistle-stop tour, imploring the public to support the League of Nations and Wilson's 12-point peace program. During this campaign, he is felled by a stroke, whereupon Mrs. Wilson begins acting as liason between the president and the rest of the country (the commonly held belief that Edith Galt Wilson virtually ran the nation during this crisis is soft-pedalled by Lamar Trotti's script). All hopes for America's joining the League of Nations are dashed when, in the 1920 election, the Republicans gain control of the White House. The film ends as the ailing but courageous Woodrow Wilson bids farewell to his staff and walks through the White House doors for the final time. Idealistically ignoring the negative elements of the Wilson regime (notably his attitudes toward racial relationships), Wilson is not so much a biography as a paean to the late president. Though too long and overproduced, the film survives as one of Hollywood's sturdiest historical films of the 1940s. However, audiences did not respond to Wilson as Zanuck had hoped; the film was a terrific flop at the box office, so much so that it was for many years forbidden to speak of the project in Zanuck's presence. Still, Wilson garnered several Academy Awards: best original screenplay, best color art direction (Wiard Ihnen), best color cinematography (Leon Shamroy), best sound recording (E. H. Hansen), best film editing (Barbara McLean) and best color set decoration (Thomas Little). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The surrealistic opening sequence, featuring a WW2 calendar as written "by A. Hitler", should be indication enough that Once Upon a Honeymoon is no ordinary lighthearted romantic trifle. Ginger Rogers plays Katie, an American chorus girl who seeks to better herself by marrying titled European Baron von Luber (Walter Slezak), despite the warnings of reporter Pat (Cary Grant). Katie thinks Pat is just jealous, but both he and the audience are aware that Von Luber is secretly a high-ranking Nazi, whose "unofficial" visits to Czechoslovakia, Poland and France precipitate the German invasions of those countries. When Katie wises up, she agrees to help counterespionage agent LeBlanc (Albert Dekker) in his efforts to stop Von Luber before he can reach New York-and along the way, she falls in love with the ubiquitous Pat. The bizarre ending, in which one of the main characters is casually murdered, is played for laughs, as if WW2 is merely fodder for a screwball comedy. In the film's most unsettling scene, Katie and Pat, mistaken for Jews, are briefly interred in a Polish concentration camp; their outrage over this treatment seems to be founded not on Germany's crimes against humanity, but over the fact that the Gestapo would have the audacity to incarcerate two non-Jewish Americans! A curious and often tasteless misfire from producer-director Leo McCarey, One Upon a Honeymoon is an undeniably fascinating historical artifact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide