John Wray Movies

Johan David Wyss' novel Swiss Family Robinson had been in print for nearly fifty years before the first film version was made by RKO in 1940. Thomas Mitchell is top-billed as the patriarch of the Robinson family, who, as in the book, are shipwrecked on a tropical island and compelled to bring the edicts and values of civilization to their tiny patch of the world. To give the story a bit of topicality, screenwriters Walter Ferris, Gene Towne and Graham Baker contrive to depict the Robinsons as refugees from a foreign war (Napoleonic rather than Hitler-inspired). Produced independently by The Play's the Thing Productions and released by RKO, Swiss Family Robinson was completely withdrawn from circulation on the occasion of the 1960 Disney remake. Side note: The 1940 version represented the feature film debut of Orson Welles, who functioned as offscreen narrator. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Wallace Beery trots out his "lovable lout" act for the zillionth time in Man From Dakota. Beery plays a Union army sergeant who, along with his superior officer (John Howard), is captured and incarcerated in a Confederate prison. Upon escaping, Beery and Howard cross the path of Dolores Del Rio, playing a Russian refugee (with a Mexican accent). Dolores helps the escapees in their efforts to reach Northern lines and deliver secret information to General Grant. Based on a novel by MacKinlay Kantor, The Man From Dakota was distorted and truncated so that Wallace Beery would end up with the largest role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Gone With the Wind boils down to a story about a spoiled Southern girl's hopeless love for a married man. Producer David O. Selznick managed to expand this concept, and Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel, into nearly four hours' worth of screen time, on a then-astronomical 3.7-million-dollar budget, creating what would become one of the most beloved movies of all time. Gone With the Wind opens in April of 1861, at the palatial Southern estate of Tara, where Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) hears that her casual beau Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) plans to marry "mealy mouthed" Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). Despite warnings from her father (Thomas Mitchell) and her faithful servant Mammy (Hattie McDaniel), Scarlett intends to throw herself at Ashley at an upcoming barbecue at Twelve Oaks. Alone with Ashley, she goes into a fit of histrionics, all of which is witnessed by roguish Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), the black sheep of a wealthy Charleston family, who is instantly fascinated by the feisty, thoroughly self-centered Scarlett: "We're bad lots, both of us." The movie's famous action continues from the burning of Atlanta (actually the destruction of a huge wall left over from King Kong) through the now-classic closing line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Holding its own against stiff competition (many consider 1939 to be the greatest year of the classical Hollywood studios), Gone With the Wind won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to win an Oscar). The film grossed nearly 192 million dollars, assuring that, just as he predicted, Selznick's epitaph would be "The Man Who Made Gone With the Wind." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Otis Ferguson has said of Each Dawn I Die that "the story is of the kind you would have to see to disbelieve." And to be sure, the film is nothing more than a sampler of '30s prison-film conventions. But with the brilliant acting by James Cagney and the fast-paced and hard-edged direction of William Keighley, the film clatters past like an express train. Cagney plays Frank Ross, an innocent newspaperman who is railroaded into prison by a corrupt district attorney. In prison, he meets hardened-con Stacey (George Raft). Frank, at first, doesn't want to associate with Stacey and the other prisoners, but trapped in the hellhole prison, he more and more turns into a bitter con. Finally granted a hearing from the parole board, Frank pleads his innocence, but the parole board is headed by Grayce (Victor Jury), the man responsible for his imprisonment, and his parole is denied, and Frank becomes more hardened and embittered. By this point, Stacey has befriended him and agrees to help Frank prove his innocence. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Director Rouben Mamoulian often claimed that he'd been inspired to make Golden Boy after reading a newspaper clipping about a recently deceased boxer. While Mamoulian may have genuinely believed that he was the true "auteur" of Golden Boy, he probably wouldn't have made the picture at all had not Clifford Odets started the ball rolling by writing the property for the stage in 1936. In his first starring role, William Holden plays Joe Bonaparte, a promising young boxer. While boxing promoter Tom Moody (Adolphe Menjou) and Menjou's mistress Lorna Moon (Barbara Stanwyck) urge Joe to pursue a ring career, Joe's Italian father (played with a surfeit of Chico Marx by 27-year-old Lee J. Cobb) wants his boy to become a famous violinist. Moody tells Lorna to romance the boy to get him into the ring. She does so, but regrets her callous actions when she genuinely falls in love with Joe. Having already broken his father's heart, Joe is further devastated when he accidentally kills a ring opponent. In the original play, both Joe and Lorna pay for their "sins" by dying in an auto accident. This would never do in Hollywood, so at fadeout time the chastened Joe returns to his forgiving father, with a tearful Lorna by his side. Clifford Odets' overrated purple prose seems to flow naturally from the actors, though it is obvious that William Holden had a long way to go. Still, Holden is pretty good in his first bonafide lead, a fact that he would ever after attribute to the patience and encouragement of his co-star Barbara Stanwyck; each year on the anniversary of Golden Boy's Hollywood premiere, Holden would send Stanwyck flowers as a sign of his eternal gratitude. While much of Golden Boy seems like a cliche-ridden museum piece when seen today, the film comes to life during the boxing sequences, helmed in exciting montage fashion by the always innovative Rouben Mamoulien. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This remake of 1932's Okay America is in many ways superior to the original. George Murphy scores in a rare unsympathetic role as Winchellesque radio columnist Dan Clifford, who doesn't care how many lives he has to destroy in pursuit of a good story. When a young debutante is kidnapped by gangsters, Clifford decides to act as the go-between between the criminals and the victim's parents himself. At first he cares only about outscooping the competition, but the deeper he becomes involved in the case, the more his essential decency seeps through. Still, he must pay for all his past sins, and pay he does in a spectacularly tragic but quite dramatically logical denoument. The stellar supporting cast includes Eduardo Cianelli as a snarling gangster, Dorothea Kent as Clifford's dumb-like-a-fox assistant, and El Brendel as a comedy-relief janitor. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An outbreak of cholera threatens a luxury liner in this surprisingly low-budget melodrama from RKO. En route from Shanghai to San Francisco, chief engineer Crusher McKay (Victor McLaglen) and shipboard doctor Tony Craig (Chester Morris) become rivals for the attention of nurse Ann Grayson (Wendy Barrie). A Chinese stowaway, meanwhile, infects the stokehold with cholera and it is left to Crusher to keep the engines at full throttle until reaching harbor. But morale sinks to an all-time low when Crusher himself is stricken and the overworked men threaten with mutiny. Tony attempts to keep the stokers in check but the situation is growing more dangerous by the minute when a heroic Crusher rises from his sickbed. Leaving their previous petty squabbles behind, Tony and Crusher manage to guide the ship safely to harbor, where the doc and Ann rekindle their romance. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

A remake of 1933's One Man's Journey, A Man to Remember was the auspicious film directorial debut of Garson Kanin. Told in flashback from the vantage point of a funeral, the film details the life of small-town general practioner Doctor Abbott (Edward Ellis). Arriving in the town of Westport during WW1, Abbott continues to practice without fanfare--and with precious little appreciation from his patients--for the next two decades. Working behind the scenes, Abbott endeavors to prevent a budget-cutting move fomented by crooked politicians; and during a deadly polio epidemic, the ever-selfless Abbott performs far above and beyond the call of duty. At last recognized for the true humanitarian that he is, the doctor has little time to bask in this latter-day glory: shortly after the polio crisis, he dies of a sudden heart attack. Written by Dalton Trumbo, A Man to Remember was lensed in 15 days for a budget of less than $120,000. No matter: despite its humble "B" origins, the film was lauded by critics and moviegoers alike as one of RKO Radio's best 1938 efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When this politically charged crime drama came out in 1938, many viewers saw that the themes therein echoed those of the ongoing New York gubernatorial race between Dewey and Lehman. The plot centers on a tough, driven district attorney with an excellent track record who is thrust into politics by supporters. Wanting to clean up what he sees as a corrupt race, he frames an innocent man and proceeds to prosecute him until the gangster behind it all finally confesses. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The visual wizardry in this period action picture about Alaskan fishermen won a special honorary Oscar in the years before special effects got its own category. Henry Fonda stars as Jim Kimmerlee, a salmon fisherman in Alaska who has become at odds with a childhood friend, Tyler Dawson (George Raft). While Jim attempts to make an honest living, Tyler, whose frustrated dreams of buying his own schooner don't look to be realized anytime soon, has signed on with a Russian crew that steals the catch from others' nets. While the rivalry between the two one-time pals heats up, Jim begins romancing Dian Turlan (Louise Platt), the daughter of a local newspaperman and renowned tippler, Windy Turlon (John Barrymore). Spawn of the North (1938) was remade as Alaska Seas (1954). ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Ace the Wonder Dog, RKO's Rin Tin Tin-wannabe, plays Picardy Max, a mongrel dog adopted by Dan Preston (James Ellison) when both are thrown in jail for vagrancy. Dan's legal problems are quickly done away with but his pretty boarder, Shirley Haddon (Helen Wood), is increasingly troubled by Dan's obsessive competitiveness with fellow dog owner Robert Mabrey (Robert Kent). In fact, the young man's grudge against the entire Mabrey family threatens to ruin his burgeoning relationship with Shirley but everything works out fine when Picardy helps locate a kidnapped Marian Mabrey (June Clayworth). Almost a Gentleman was the second of three programmers starring Ace the Wonder Dog and produced by RKO 1938-1940. Ace also worked for Republic Pictures and was featured in the 1943 serial The Phantom. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Harold Lloyd plays a professor of Egyptology, frightened by the notion that he has fallen under an ancient Egyptian curse. Lloyd has the opportunity to join an archeological expedition to search for a missing tablet that will determine his fate, but he has to travel from Los Angeles to New York before the party sails to Egypt. Alas, Lloyd is also required to appear in court to answer charges of "indecent exposure" (it's a long story). The rest of the film is a frantic chase with the authorities pursuing the fugitive professor across the country, highlighted by a daredevil sequence atop a moving train. Most of the individual gags are funny, but Professor Beware is several notches below the standard set by Harold Lloyd's silent films. The lukewarm boxoffice response to this film would convince Lloyd that he should retire from performing--which he did, returning to the screen only for 1947's Sins of Harold Diddlebock. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi