Gladys George Movies

Alias a Gentleman is impeccably tailored to the slovenly talents of MGM star Wallace Beery. He's cast as Jim Breeden, an ex-convict who finds himself wealthy overnight when oil is discovered on his property. His first order of business as a man of means is to locate his long-lost daughter. Hoping to get a piece of the financial action, several of Breeden's disreputable buddies try to palm off Elaine Carter (Dorothy Patrick) as his daughter -- and he falls for the ruse hook, line and sinker. Touched by Breeden's efforts to "do right" by her, Elaine comes to love the old soak and refuses to go through with his jailmates' shakedown scheme. They retaliate by kidnapping the girl, forcing Breedin to rely on his prison instincts to affect a rescue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This so-so light comedy vehicle for Douglas MacLean was based on the Saturday Evening Post story, "Yancona Yillies," by Herschel Hall. Because of a provision in his uncle's will, wealthy Deems Stanwood (MacLean) is forced to go live in the country. He starts liking it there when he meets the fetching Julia Stoneman (Gladys George), and decides to open up a chicken farm next to hers. The trustee for the Stanwood estate makes a few serious mistakes and all of a sudden, Deems finds himself flat broke. His chickens refuse to lay and he has to mortgage his farm to Willie Figg (Raymond Cannon), who is his rival for Julia. Deems' financial situation worsens; he can't pay his bills, much less contribute to any of the local charities. The townsfolk, who still believe he is rich, start to view him with disfavor. Julia, however, discovers the truth and she takes over Deems' mortgage from Figg, who wants to foreclose. Deems finds out about Julia's good deed, and the couple is united. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Detective Story was praised for its realistic view of an event-filled day in a single police precinct station. The film, directed by meticulous taskmaster William Wyler, manages to retain this realism, even allowing for the star-turn performance of Kirk Douglas. A stickler for the letter of the law, Detective James McLeod (Douglas) is not averse to using strong-arm methods on criminals and witnesses alike in bringing lawbreakers to justice. He is particularly rough on a first-time offender (Craig Hill), on whom the rest of the force is willing to go easy because of the anguish of his girlfriend (Cathy O'Donnell). But McLeod's strongest invective is reserved for shady abortion doctor Karl Schneider (George MacReady); McLeod all but ruins the case against Schneider by beating him up in the patrol wagon. When McLeod discovers that his own wife (Eleanor Parker) had many years earlier lost a baby in one of Schneider's operations, and that the baby's father was gangster Tami Giacoppetti (Gerald Mohr), it is too much for the detective to bear. Punctuating the grim proceedings with brief moments of humor is future Oscar winner Lee Grant, reprising her stage role as a timorous shoplifter; it would be her last Hollywood assignment until the early 1960s, thanks to the iniquities of the blacklist. Despite small concessions to Hollywood censorship, Detective Story largely upheld the power of its theatrical original, and it forms a clear precursor to such latter-day urban police dramas as NYPD Blue. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Nick Robey (John Garfield) is a down-on-his-luck two-bit hood, fast on his feet but a little slow on the uptake. His running buddy, Al Molin (Norman Lloyd), does most of the thinking for him, which includes a payroll heist that goes horribly wrong when a cop spots them just as they've slugged the man with the cash. Al is wounded and caught, but Nick manages to get away, shooting the police officer in the process. He remembers Al's last instructions, to act calmly and melt into the crowd, but Nick isn't quite able to do that -- he hides out at a public swimming pool, where he meets Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters), a nice but shy working girl, and convinces her to let him take her home. Once there, he tries to spend a normal evening, as though he were on a date, while her mother (Selena Royle), father (Wallace Ford), and younger brother (Bobby Hyatt) go out to a movie. But he can't relax, and their return rattles Nick enough so that he pulls his gun and reveals who he is and what he's done. This is one of several miscalculations that Nick makes in the course of holding the family hostage over the next two days. He initially plans on leaving in the morning, but when he discovers that the police officer whom he shot has died, and that they know who he is, he has to stay, letting the Dobbs family go about their business but always keeping at least one of them at home with him as a hostage, to make sure the others don't talk to the police. The family's plight is further complicated by the fact that Peg is truly attracted to him, despite what he's done, and seems willing to risk a great deal to see her family safe and him safely away from their home. She wants to love him, but discovers that someone who can't trust anyone for more than a few seconds at a time -- forget the gun he's always threatening to use -- can't even feel love, much less act on those feelings. Meanwhile, the police dragnet keeps getting tighter, and Peg's father knows he has to act soon to end this situation before the authorities come knocking on his door and Nick starts shooting. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

German director Joe May was light-years removed from his glory days at UFA when he helmed the "Little Tough Guys" entry Hit the Road. This time, the youthful protagonists-Tom (Billy Halop), Pig (Huntz Hall), String (Gabe Dell) and Ape (Bernard Punsley)-are all the orphaned sons of gangsters who'd been murdered by mob boss Spike (Edward Pawley). "Graduating" from reform school, the boys show every sign of follwing in their parents' footseps, so they're paroled in the custody of kindhearted reformed gangster Jimmy Ryan (Barton MacLaine). Taking the kids to his cattle farm, Ryan gives them more than enough chores and responsiblities to keep them out of trouble, and before long the boys have cleaned up their act-but not without a bit of strong-arm persuasion from Ryan's tough-talking wife Molly (Gladys George). When Spike and his mob try to steal the $50,000 which the Ryans have saved to build a Boys' Town-like school for wayward youths, the Little Tough Guys rally to the defense of their benefactors, throwing punches and wisecracks with reckless abandon. The most pleasant aspect of Hit the Road is the presence of charming leading lady Evelyn Ankers (who later recalled having to fend off the amorous advances of teenaged Huntz Hall by deploying a well-aimed knee!); the least pleasant is the lachrymose performance of child actor Bobs Watson, who never spoke when crying would do. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a Missouri mule breeder faces financial ruin after the market collapses. He takes his best mule to a Kansas livestock show where he impresses a representative from the British army. He, his wife, and his best mules then sail to England to sell them. Soon the Missouri couple are living high-on-the-hog amongst the cream of British society. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Love may be a headache, but without it, how would MGM programmers like this one ever have been made? Franchot Tone is cast as Winchellesque radio commentator Peter Lawrence, who becomes the unexpected savior of fading Broadway favorite Carlotta Lee (Gladys George). Suffering from a string of bad plays, Carlotta is vaunted back to public favor when she decides to adopt two orphans (Mickey Rooney and Virginia Weidler), a bit of "heart interest" exploited by the fast-talking Lawrence. Trouble is, Carlotta can't stand children and has only adopted the tykes for publicity purposes. This puts the kibosh on the blossoming romance between the actress and the commentator, and it takes a comic-opera kidnapping plot to set things right. Ted Healy, mentor of the Three Stooges, made one of his last screen appearances in Love is a Headache, which was released several months after Healy's death. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

M.G.M.'s opulent costume drama Marie Antoinette marked a return to the screen after a two-year absence for reigning Queen of M.G.M. Norma Shearer. Shearer plays the title role of an Austrian princess who is married off to Louis Auguste (Robert Morley), the Dauphin of France. Marie, by becoming the Dauphine, finds herself plopped smack in the middle of French palace intrigue between Louis's father King Louis XV (John Barrymore) and his scheming cousin, the Duke of Orleans (Joseph Schildkraut). With Louis unable to consummate his marriage to Marie, she takes to holding elaborate parties and gambling her fortune away. In a casino, she meets the handsome Count Axel de Fersen (Tyrone Power) and they have an affair. But when Louis XV dies and Louis becomes King Louis XVI, Fersen takes his leave, telling her that he could carry on an affair with a dauphine but not the Queen of France. Marie vows to be a great queen and remain loyal to her king. But the Duke of Orleans is plotting against Louis XVI, financing the revolutionary radicals. When the monarchy is overthrown, Louis and Marie are thrown into prison, awaiting execution. But when word gets back to Fersen, he travels back to France in an attempt to rescue Marie. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Unusually elaborate for a PRC film, Minstrel Man is a lively musical drama built around the talents of veteran vaudevillian Benny Fields. The star is cast as Dixie Boy Johnson, who rises from the ranks of minstrel shows to become a top Broadway attraction. On the opening night of his greatest stage triumph, Dixie Boy's wife dies in childbirth. Profoundly shaken, he walks out of the show, leaving the baby to be raised by his showbiz pals Mae and Lasses White (Gladys George, Roscoe Karns). The kid grows up to be an attractive young woman named Caroline (Judy Clark), who follows in her dad's footsteps by billing herself as-that's right-Dixie Girl Johnson. This leads to a tearful reunion between Caroline and the father she'd long assumed to be dead. If Minstrel Man seems at times to be a dress rehearsal for Columbia's The Jolson Story (1946), it shouldn't surprising: the PRC film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, who went on to helm Jolson Story's musical highlights. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When machinist Tod Burke (Charles Ray) heroically saves the company's owner, Peter Garton (William Conklin), from being crushed by a falling crane, the grateful old man adopts him. Garton's sister Cornelia (Mollie McConnell) tries to introduce the unrefined young man into society, with the kind of hilarious results expected in a Charles Ray picture. Tod is surprised when his sweetheart, Janet Muir (Gladys George) is not thrilled with his new situation. The reason becomes clear when her grandfather Angus (Charles Mailes) throws him out of their house. Grandpa Muir was once pals with Garton, but because of business conflicts they became enemies. Now Garton's company is destroying Muir's tiny machine shop. Tod and Janet try to save their romance, and Tod finds her a job at Garton's company as a stenographer. But Muir finds out about it, and he becomes even angrier when she is fired because Garton finds her dancing with Tod at work. Finally, the couple lock up the two old men and force them to make up and stay out of their love affair. The multi-faceted Burke is a pleasant standout amongst Charles Ray's usual "country bumpkin" characters. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In this crime comedy, a prominent judge's vacation is interrupted during a sudden storm that forces him to seek refuge in a shady nightclub where he is mistaken by the mobsters for a highly esteemed racketeer. Unfortunately, mayhem erupts when a moll recognizes him as the judge who sent her low-life lover to prison and she blows the whistle. Fortunately, by the story's end, the judge has managed to reform them all. Law and order ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The postwar classic The Best Years of Our Lives, based on a novel in verse by MacKinlay Kantor about the difficult readjustments of returning World War II veterans, tells the intertwined homecoming stories of ex-sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March), former bombadier Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), and sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell). Having rubbed shoulders with blue-collar Joes for the first time in his life, Al finds it difficult to return to a banker's high-finance mindset, and he shocks his co-workers with a plan to provide no-collateral loans to veterans. Meanwhile, Al's children (Teresa Wright and Michael Hall) have virtually grown up in his absence. Fred discovers that his wartime heroics don't count for much in the postwar marketplace, and he finds himself unwillingly returning to his prewar job as a soda jerk. His wife (Virginia Mayo), expecting a thrilling marriage to a glamorous flyboy, is bored and embittered by her husband's inability to advance himself, and she begins living irresponsibly, like a showgirl. Homer has lost both of his hands in combat and has been fitted with hooks; although his family and his fiancée (Cathy O'Donnell) adjust to his wartime handicap, he finds it more difficult. Profoundly relevant in 1946, the film still offers a surprisingly intricate and ambivalent exploration of American daily life; and it features landmark deep-focus cinematography from Gregg Toland, who also shot Citizen Kane. The film won Oscars for, among others, Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary William Wyler, Best Actor for March, and Best Supporting Actor for Harold Russell, a real-life double amputee whose hands had been blown off in a training accident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide