William Gargan Movies

This minor but entertaining screen version of the Monte Barrett-Russell E. Ross comic strip The Adventures of Jane Arden stars Warner contractee Rosella Towne as the title character. Dapper villain Dr. Vanders (James Stephenson) has been using beautiful, gullible young women as pawns in a clever smuggling ring. After rather nastily disposing of socialite Lola Martin (Peggy Shannon), Vanders is virtually a marked man himself: intrepid gal reporter Jane Arden vows to bring the criminals to justice, and never mind that her managing editor sweetheart Ed Towers (William Gargan) warns her off the case. Jane's adventures range from a dangerous ocean voyage to an exciting equestrian chase across the California countryside, with nary a pause for breath (after all, the picture runs only 55 minutes). Benny Rubin and Dennie Moore provide barely relevant comedy relief. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a gangster's moll gets tired of the mob scene and returns to her mother's house. Her mom is a wealthy family's housekeeper. One of the rich children dreams of being a reporter; he is eager to get his first big scoop. He gets his chance when he stumbles upon a series of clues to a murder that may involve the ex-moll's former lover. He is assisted a seasoned reporter and his photographer who have been hanging around to get a chance to meet the moll. The boy's investigation leads him into a dangerous situation where the mobster begins to shoot at him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a thieving employee sticks her stolen goods into the locker of a co-worker and causes all sorts of trouble. The stolen items are found in the locker of a store clerk who ends up imprisoned. The store owner's son knows that she is innocent, but he says nothing. The enraged clerk spends her three imprisoned years studying law and learns all about the ins and outs of legal loopholes. Upon her release, she begins using her new-found knowledge. She also tries to seduce the owner's son. Despite her vengeful efforts, the poor woman makes a lousy criminal and again is punished. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This medical melodrama, set in the moist Sumatran jungles, centers around bacteria research. To find a cure for red fever, a dreaded disease, a young doctor with a healthy Park Avenue clientele, leaves his practice and ventures into the jungle. The native doctors do not welcome his to Sumatra as they are already researching for a cure. The New York doctor is given only small, meaningless tasks. Still he continues his research independently in a small jungle clearing. He finally succeeds and finds a cure. Unfortunately, he himself is infected by the disease. The other doctors inject him with their cure which has no effect. The doctor dies. Afterwards his rivals find his notes. They feel badly about their treatment of him and they decide to continue his research. To pay for it, they forge $4,000 worth of his travelers checks. They hire a new assistant, and she falls in love with one of them. Later, the late doctor's wife appears. She is angry and accuses the researcher of fraud and murder. Then she gets sick. Using the new cure, they heal her. The new cure is a success. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Not a remake of the 1932 James Cagney vehicle of the same name, The Crowd Roars is set in the sweat-stained world of professional boxing. Handy with his fists, young Tommy McCoy (Robert Taylor) is virtually pushed into the ring by his alcoholic father Brian (Frank Morgan). During his climb to the championship, Tommy accidentally kills one of his opponents in the ring, and is thereafter tagged "Killer McCoy". He then falls in with crooked gambling czar Jim Cain (Edward Arnold), who uses various methods of persuasion to get Tommy to do his bidding. Though the film at first seems to holding the fickle fight fans responsible for the cesspool that professional boxing had become by 1938, the blame is ultimately laid squarely on the shoulders of men like Jim Cain. The Crowd Roars was remade by Mickey Rooney as Killer McCoy (1947). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Some Blondes are Dangerous is a remake of 1931's The Iron Man, using the same W. R. Burnett novel as its source. Noah Beery Jr. stars as Bud "Iron Man" Mason, a talented but rather dimwitted prizefighter. Against the advice of his crusty old manager George Regan (William Gargan), Mason dumps his ever-loving girlfriend Judy Williams (Nan Grey) in favor of sexy blonde chorine Rose Whitney (Dorothea Kent in a rare unsympathetic role). Immediately after his marriage to the selfish Rose, Mason's ring career goes right into the dumpster. Upon finding on that Rose has been "carrying on" behind his back, Mason gives her the ozone, but by now he's so out of shape that his pugilistic career is over. With the help of faithful Judy, Mason finally realizes that there's more to life than boxing and blondes. Some Blondes are Dangerous was refilmed under the property's original title The Iron Man in 1951. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, the only one singer/dancer Alice Faye, made for Universal, a Broadway producer is in a quandary when he discovers that the opening of his newest big production coincides with that of a major charity event. He despairs that the show will close after opening night until an ingenious writer suggests that he simply give the production snob-appeal by making the tickets nearly impossible to get by fabricating a story that they were all purchased by a flamboyant Texas oil baron who is totally besotted by the show's star, Faye. Unfortunately things go haywire when a young fellow suggests that the writer (who impersonates the oilman) sign to a lucrative advertising contract. Songs include: "You're a Sweetheart," "My Fine Feathered Friend," "Who Killed Maggie?" "Scraping the Toast" and "So It's Love." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Framed by the fast-paced world of horse racing, this romance centers upon the wealthy young owner of a racing stable who falls in love with a beautiful singer who has just been given Galaxy, a promising young horse, by one of her beaus. Galaxy is accompanied by a trainer, who is also in love with the girl. Later all three get tangled up with crooked bookies and trouble follows. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Archetypal depression-era stars Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney are felicitously teamed in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Fonda plays an ex-convict who can't get a break on the "outside". He marries Sidney, who like her husband is one of life's losers. Framed on a murder rap, Fonda is forced to take it on the lam, with his wife and baby in tow. In trying to avoid capture, Fonda becomes a murderer for real, condemning himself and Sidney to an early demise. Partly based on the legend of Bonnie and Clyde, the Gene Towne-Graham Baker screenplay stacks the deck against its protagonists to such an extent that the audience is virtually forced to hate their various antagonists. As superb as Henry Fonda is in portraying the foredoomed hero, Sylvia Sidney is even better as his wife; her reading of such lines as "We just call him...baby" are enough to shrivel the heart even after six decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The all-purpose title Man Hunt was trotted out for this 1936 Warner Bros. "B". Aging country newspaper editor Chic Sale is laughed off by the rest of his community for his tall tales. When an escaped Public Enemy (Ricardo Cortez) shows up in the vicinity, Sale decides to prove his worth by tracking down the criminal himself. The G-Men on the case tell Sale to mind his own business, but it is the old codger who collars Cortez and drags him in. No one made gangster pictures as well as Warner Bros., so even a low-priority item like Man Hunt has its moments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the funniest, most sharply paced comedies of the 1930s, and perhaps the best of all of Harold Lloyd's talkies, The Milky Way was based on the Broadway play by Lynn Root and Harry Clork. Lloyd plays Burleigh Sullivan, a mild-mannered milkman who intercedes one night when his sister Mae (Helen Mack) is being accosted on the street by two obnoxious drunks -- they turn their wrath on him, his sister runs for help, and when she returns less than a minute later, both men are out cold on the pavement, with Burleigh standing over them. As one of them, Speed MacFarland (William Gargan), is the world's middleweight boxing champion, and the other, Spider Schultz (Lionel Stander), is his sparring partner, Burleigh makes the front page of every newspaper in New York. McFarland's manager, Gabby Sloan (Adolphe Menjou), has to figure out how to salvage the champ's career, but first he has to figure out exactly what happened, since both fighters were too drunk to remember anything about it. It turns out that Sullivan couldn't beat an egg, but he is good at one thing -- ducking. He can dodge any punch, and the two fighters knocked each other out in the process of trying to pummel him. What's more, on hearing this, they're so angry that Schultz accidentally knocks MacFarland out again, just ahead of the press' arrival, and the little milkman is given credit once more by the reporters for decking the champ. Burleigh loves the attention, even though he never claims to have hit anyone. Meanwhile, Sloan comes up with a way of salvaging his fighter's career, and convinces Burleigh to go along with it for a promised cash sum -- all Burleigh has to do is get in the ring in six fights, to build up his standing and reputation, and finish his "career" in a fight with MacFarland, who will win. In the meantime, complications arise when MacFarland falls in love with Burleigh's sister, while Burleigh himself meets and falls in love with Polly Pringle (Dorothy Wilson), a helpful neighbor. Gabby, Spider, and Speed also discover that turning tiny, wiry Burleigh Sullivan into something that even looks like a fighter is easier said than done -- all of his fights have to be fixed (and then some) behind his back to make his victories look remotely genuine. Finally, after starting to believe his own publicity, and then discovering that the fights were fixed, Burleigh goes through with the final match-up against MacFarland, the culmination of a comedy of errors involving horses, foals, and a wild chase to the arena. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Winchellesque radio commentator Perry Travis (William Gargan) fancies himself a brilliant amateur detective; the cops wish he'd just stick to his microphone and let them do the detecting. This proves impossible when a famed scientist is murdered in Perry's studio, right in the middle of an interview. All the evidence points to Perry as the guilty party, which of course means that he isn't. With the help of the dead man's secretary Lois Allen (Marguerite Churchill), Perry tries to figure out how a man could be murdered in a locked room with no visible weapon or assailant. A hectic car chase winds up this cookie-cutter Columbia mystery, which features appearances by such familiar "B"-picture faces as Gene Morgan, John Gallaudet and Dwight Frye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide