Nancy Gates Movies

Joan Crawford's first Technicolor feature has come to be known as a textbook example of "high camp." Crawford stars as musical comedy luminary Jenny Stewart, who has been hardened by the worst life has to offer. Romance enters her life in the form of her new piano accompanist, blinded war-veteran Tye Graham (Michael Wilding). The fact that Graham refuses to kowtow to the temperamental Jenny's demands, coupled with the adversarial behavior of Graham's seeing-eye dog, makes the pianist all the more attractive to the lonely songstress. Torch Song is a favorite of bad-movie buffs and female impersonators the world over: Highlights include Crawford's blackface musical number, and the now-classic scene in which she simulates blindness to better understand the taciturn Graham. Director Charles Walters, a former choreographer, appears as Crawford's two-left-feet dancing partner in the opening scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The city of the title is Los Alamos, where nuclear physicist Gene Barry lives and works. Terrorists kidnap Barry's son and demand that the physicist turn over the H-bomb formula. It's cat-and-mouse for a while, but when the FBI gets on the case, the criminals haven't got a chance. Outdated almost before its release, The Atomic City is still effective on a purely melodramatic level. There's a particularly tense climax played out along the mountain mesas surrounding Los Alamos. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Columbia quickie stars Richard Denning as an American soldier of fortune who wanders into Hong Kong. He is hired by interested parties, both business and military, to prevent the tiny British-owned island from falling into the hands of the Communist. Had the film's "head Red" Ben Astar been willing to wait until 1997, he would have had Hong Kong free and clear when its ownership reverted to the Chinese. But he wasn't willing, thus Denning and his pals kick the Commies out, and also rout a few Chinese river pirates while they're at it. This is not what one could call a slice of life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jim Bannon is back as enduring cowboy hero Red Ryder in Eagle-Lion's Roll, Thunder, Roll. As ever, Ryder's cohorts are Little Beaver and the Duchess, here played by "Little Brown Jug" (aka Don Kay Reynolds) and Marin Sais. This time, Ryder tries to prove that a series of cattle raids and ranch fires were not the handiwork of masked Mexican do-gooder El Conejo (I. Stanford Jolley). One of the genuine villains is played by Glenn Strange, a year or so after his impersonation of The Monster in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. While Jim Bannon's "Red Ryder" films made money, there were many "B"- western aficionados who felt that Bannon was an inadequate sub for previous screen "Ryders" Don Barry and Allan Lane; the late film-historian Don Miller suggested that Roll, Thunder Roll should have been renamed Stop, Bannon, Stop. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Whip-wielding westerner Lash LaRue closes out his 1947 schedule with Cheyenne Takes Over. Once again teamed with comical sidekick Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John), the Cheyenne Kid (LaRue) investigates the murder of a prosperous rancher. The audience knows that PRC's all-purpose villain George Cheseboro is the culprit, and so does saloon owner Fay (Nancy Gates). Intimidated into silence by the bad guys, Fay turns to Cheyenne and Fuzzy for help. Surprisingly, Lash LaRue lays his legendary bullwhip aside in the last reel, preferring to use his fists to bring the criminals to justice. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bride by Mistake is a remake of the 1934 Miriam Hopkins vehicle The Richest Girl in the World, with a wartime angle providing topicality. Tired of being romanced by fortune hunters and being rejected by poor-but-proud suitors, fabulously wealthy Norah (Laraine Day) decides to pose as her own secretary Sylvia (Marsha Hunt), and vice versa. The plot thickens when Norah falls in love with convalescing fighter pilot Tony (Alan Marshall)-while he in turn falls for the very married Sylvia. All sorts of manic complications ensue, with Sylvia's hapless husband (Allyn Joslin) the "odd man out". RKO Radio revived Richest Girl in the World for a third time in 1954 as the Jane Russell musical The French Line. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a remake of Hat, Coat and Glove (1934), a hard working attorney is upset when he learns that his long-suffering, neglected wife is having an affair with an accused murderer. This does not prevent the highly principled lawyer from representing the man and his wife in court. Not only does he get them acquitted, he also manages to keep the whole mess out of the newspaper. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, Gildersleeve is assigned to be a contentious jury foreman who refuses, despite the opinions of all the other jurors, to believe that the gangster being tried is really guilty. He seems oblivious to the wealth of evidence around him. His redemption comes when the gangsters catch him and make him drive the getaway car. To stop them, he crashes into a tree and they are captured. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Behind the Rising Sun is a rarity: a WW2 film with a handful of sympathetic Japanese characters. His eyes slanted by the RKO makeup department, Tom Neal plays Taro, the Americanized son of a Japanese diplomat (J. Carroll Naish). During the Sino-Japanese war, Taro's father insists that the boy leave the US and join the Japanese army. Indoctrinated in the "Banzai" mentality of the empirical government, Taro is transformed into an enemy of the West, going so far as to betray his best friend ly inebriated millionaire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Orson Welles' followup to Citizen Kane (1941) was utterly different from Kane in style and texture, but just as brilliant in its own way. Writer/director Welles does not appear on camera, but his voiceover narration superbly sets the stage for the movie's action, which fades in valentine fashion on Amberson Mansion, the most ostentatious dwelling in all of turn-of-century Indianapolis. Its mistress is the haughtily beautiful Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello). When Isabel's beau, erstwhile inventor Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten), inadvertently humiliates her in public, she breaks off the relationship and marries colorless Wilbur Minafer (Donald Dillaway). The neighbors are certain that, since Isabel can't possibly love Wilbur, she will spoil her children rotten. As it turns out, she has one child, George Minafer (Tim Holt), and that one is enough as far as the rest of Indianapolis is concerned. There are those who live for the day that the arrogant, insufferable George will get his comeuppance. When George returns home from college, his mother and grandfather (Richard Bennett) hold a gala reception in his honor. Among the guests is the older-and-wiser Eugene, now a prosperous automobile manufacturer, and his pretty daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter). George takes to Lucy immediately, but can't warm up to Eugene, especially after learning from his uncle Jack Amberson (Ray Collins) and his maiden aunt Fanny (Agnes Moorehead) that Eugene and Isabel had once been sweethearts. After the death of Wilbur Minafer, the widowed Eugene feels emboldened enough to propose to Isabel again. This time she is willing, but the obstreperous George refuses to allow his mother to see Eugene. His imperious bullheadedness will lead to tragedy for all concerned--and, at long last, a chastened George Minafer will indeed receive his comeuppance. The film's real villain is not George but that old intangible bugaboo called "Progress." As the automobile age comes to fruition, the elegant, cloistered lifestyle of the Ambersons fades from view, finally disappearing altogether. This is superbly foreshadowed in the "winter outing" sequence (filmed in an L.A. icehouse) in which George's two-horse sleigh is abandoned in favor of Eugene's clunky horseless carriage. Welles evokes performances that his actors seldom (if ever) matched in later years; even the very limited Tim Holt is wholly believable-and even a bit pitiable-as the blinkered George Amberson Minafer. The current version, however, is but a pale shadow of Welles' original concept. Out of time and overbudget, the movie previewed badly and was eventually sliced down to an abrupt 88 minutes (by, among others, editor Robert Wise, who would go on to direct such films as West Side Story and The Sound of Music). Even though the film therefore must be regarded as a marred masterpiece, the remaining two-thirds of Welles' original concept is still a thrilling cinematic experience, especially whenever Agnes Moorehead is on the screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide