William Gould Movies

More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Soviet Union. As played by Walter Huston, Davies is a pillar of incorruptable integrity, reporting the facts "as I saw them" (only in later years was Davies revealed to be something less than a paragon of virtue who was willing to alter opinions for political, personal and financial expedience). Sent to Moscow by FDR as a means of finding out if Russia is a potentially trustworthy ally in case of war, Davies and his family are given the royal treatment by the Commissars, who display the social, technological, agricultural and artistic advances made under the Stalin regime. Invariably, the Russian citizens are shown to be singing, smiling, freedom-loving rugged individuals-in contrast to the Nazis, who are depicted as humorless automatons. In its efforts to present the USSR in the best possible light, the film glosses over the notorious Purge Trials of 1937, presenting the trials as scrupulously fair and the defendants as unabashed traitors to the Soviet cause. At one point, Russia's annexation of Finland in 1939 is "justified" by Davies' explanation that the Soviets merely wanted to protect their tiny neighbor from Nazi domination! It is unfair to label Mission to Moscow as Communistic or even left-wing, since it was merely parroting the official party line vis-a-vis US/Soviet relations in 1943. Even so, screenwriter Howard Koch found it very difficult to get film work after the war because of his contributions to this "Pinko" project (conversely, Jack Warner pulled a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter by insisting that he was strongarmed into making the film). Seen objectively, Mission to Moscow is top-rank entertainment, superbly and excitingly assembled in the manner typical of Warners and director Michael Curtiz. The huge cast includes Gene Lockhart as Molotov, attorney Dudley Field Malone as Winston Churchill, Maynart Kippen as a benign, pipe-smoking Stalin, Charles Trowbridge as Secretary Cordell Hull, Leigh Whipper as Hailie Selassie, Georges Renavent as Anthony Eden and Alex Chirva as Pierre Laval, along with the more familiar faces of Ann Harding (as Mrs. Davies), George Tobias, Eleanor Parker, Moroni Olsen, Minor Watson, Jerome Cowan, Duncan Renaldo, Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Edward van Sloan, Louis-Jean Heydt, Monte Blue, Robert Shayne and even Sid (sic) Charisse. Original prints of Mission to Moscow include a 6-minute prologue delivered by the real Joseph Davies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the "Dead End Kids" series (later they would reappear as "The Bowery Boys") the lads encounter a terribly ill young boy while they stay in a rural boarding house. The lad tries hard to keep up with the lads as they sneak into a train yard and begin playing amongst the box cars. Unfortuantely, when a railroad detective shows up, the sick boy is killed while trying to get away. The guilt-stricken kids attempt to tell the dead boy's mother, but she is too kind to hear them. Instead she takes the kids into her home. Tommy, the lead boy, manages to get a job as a gas jockey, but things go wrong when he entangles himself with racketeers. Eventually he is caught and taken to court where the mother of the dead child speaks movingly on Tommy's behalf. Just after he is acquitted, word of Pearl Harbor reaches them and the Dead End Kids decide to join the army. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Best described as "cute," Petticoat Larceny was intended as a showcase for RKO Radio's latest juvenile discovery, 11-year-old Joan Carroll. The story concerns a bratty radio star (Carroll) who wants to inject some blood-and-thunder plotlines and gangster lingo into her broadcasts. To this end, she arranges to be "kidnapped" by a trio of dimwitted burglars, played by Tom Kennedy, Jimmy Conlin and Vince Barnett. When a genuine kidnapper spoils the plan, it's up to the handsome fiancé (Walter Reed) of the girl's aunt (Ruth Warrick) to come to the rescue. This is the sort of film that Late Late Show aficionados never seem to see in its entirety: they usually doze off in the first reel and wake up at fadeout time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hot on the heels of his starring turn in The Mad Doctor of Market Street, Lionel Atwill was top-billed in another chiller-diller, The Strange Case of Dr. Rx. Somebody has been going around murdering known criminals who've escaped prosecution thanks to crooked lawyer Dudley Crispin (Samuel S. Hinds). That someone has also left a calling card at the site of each murder, signed "Dr. Rx". Private eye Patric Knowles suspects at first that the elusive murderer is sinister Lionel Atwill, whose "red herring" status is so obvious from the outset that his character name is Dr. Fish! Before the actual killer's identity is revealed, the audience is kept awake by the comic antics of Mantan Moreland and Shemp Howard, both of whom are far funnier than their material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

George Stevens' Talk of the Town is a quick-witted comedy driven by wonderful performances by Cary Grant, Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur. Michael Lightcap (Colman) is a stuffy law professor in line to a Supreme Court appointment, who is spending the summer at the house of schoolteacher Nora Shelley (Arthur). But Lightcap is not the only guest at the house. Shelley has also let Leopold Dilg (Grant)--a man who had recently escaped from prison, where he was serving a sentence for false accusations of immolating a local factory--stay at the house, telling Lightcap that he is a gardener. In addition to striking up a friendship, Lightcap and Dilg also compete for the affections of Shelley. Eventually, the professor learns of Dilg's true identity, finding out that Leopold was framed by a crooked government, led by the foreman of the factory, who supposedly died in the fire. When Dilg is captured by the police, Lightcap comes to his defense, bringing the still-alive foreman out of hiding and, in the process, clearing Leopold of all the charges. Talk of the Town received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Original Story, Best Score, Best Editing, and Best Interior Decoration, yet it lost in all of the categories. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

This remake of the 1934 WW I melodrama Madame Spy has been updated to the WW II era. Once again accepting a role unworthy of her talents, Constance Bennett stars as Joan Bannister, the wife of globe-trotting war correspondent David Bannister (Don Porter). Returning to the US, Bannister becomes suspicious when Joan begins keeping company with known Nazi functionaries, notably the sinister Mr. Peter (John Litel). Suspecting that his own wife may be the elusive "Madame Spy" wanted by American authorities, Bannister is in for quite a few surprises before the film's six reels expend themselves. The film's climax, in a deserted farm house, evokes memories of Hitchcock's better-known espionager Foreign Correspondent. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Murder in the Big House was a remake of the 1936 Warner Bros. programmer Jailbreak. In his first starring role, Van Johnson plays reporter Bert Bell, who wonders how it came to be that death-row inmate Dapper Dan Mallory (Michael Ames) was "accidentally" killed just before his appointment with the electric chair. Digging a little deeper, Bell discovers that Dapper Dan was planning to make a big revelation just before his execution, one which would expose the corrupt political machine for which he worked. With the help of heroine Gladys Wayne (Faye Emerson) and perenially drunken columnist Scoop Connor (George Meeker), Bell contrives to have himself thrown in jail to solve the mystery. Though the film passed unnoticed when first released, Murder in the Big House raked in a pile of cash when it was reissued as Born to Trouble in 1945, by which time Van Johnson had become the hottest male star in the movies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

City of Silent Men comes so close to being a "model" "B" picture that it's a downright shame it just misses the mark. The plot revolves around a group of ex-convicts who try to start life anew by relocating in a small town under assumed names. The mayor of the town welcomes the former cons with open arms, helping them re-open a dormant canning factory and encouraging them to hire other reformed criminals. Alas, the bigoted local newspaper editor stirs up public hostility towards the new cannery and its owners, but everything is resolved happily when the ex-cons are awarded a defense contract. City of Silent Men could easily have lapsed into pointless melodrama, but the sincerity of the performers and the strength of Joseph Hoffman's screenplay keep the events on an even and realistic keel. All City of Silent Men lacks is a decent budget, but that's to be expected in a PRC Picture from this period. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

W.C. Fields heads to Esoteric studios to pitch a story idea to producer Franklin Pangborn. The producer wants to make a conventional romantic musical starring Fields' niece, teen-aged soprano Gloria Jean, but "The Great Man" has other ideas. As Pangborn sits in dumbfounded silence, Fields unravels an incoherent farrago which begins with him travelling to a Russian colony in Mexico--by way of an airliner with an open observation platform. Fields dives from the plane when his precious flask of gin falls overboard; he lands safely at the mountaintop mansion of the formidable Mrs. Hemoglobin (Margaret Dumont). Playing a kissing game with Hemoglobin's beauteous daughter (Susan Miller), who has never seen a man before, Fields decides to make a quick exit when Mama wants to get in on the game too. Reunited with Gloria Jean in the Russian colony, Fields learns that Mrs. Hemoglobin is worth millions, so he climbs back up the mountain, ignoring such obstacles as a displaced African gorilla. Disposing of his rival Leon Errol, Fields is about to wed Mrs. Hemoglobin, but is talked out of it at the last moment by Gloria Jean. At this point in the narrative, producer Pangborn can stand no more. He tells Fields to take his nonsensical screenplay and vacate the premises. After a brief episode at a soda fountain ("This scene was supposed to be in a saloon, but the censors made us cut it out"), Fields drives off to new adventures with his niece--but not before a zany slapstick car-chase finale, prompted by Fields' mistaken belief that he's rushing a corpulent middle-aged lady to the maternity hospital. W. C. Fields' original screenplay for Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (written under the fanciful pseudonym of Otis Criblecoblis) made a lot more sense than what ended up on screen, but Fields' extended absences from the studio, coupled with Universal's desire to reshape the film into a vehicle for their new star Gloria Jean, necessitated a complete restructuring of the plot. While hardly Fields' best or most representative film, Sucker is an excellent example of the sort of nonsensical "nut" humor in vogue in 1941 thanks to Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin'. And, occasionally, the film stands still long enough to allow W. C. Fields to mutter a priceless aside or toss off a perfectly timed double-take. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first of director Frank Capra's independent productions (in partnership with Robert Riskin), Meet John Doe begins with the end of reporter Ann Mitchell's (Barbara Stanwyck) job. Fired as part of a downsizing move, she ends her last column with an imaginary letter written by "John Doe." Angered at the ill treatment of America's little people, the fabricated Doe announces that he's going to jump off City Hall on Christmas Eve. When the phony letter goes to press, it causes a public sensation. Seeking to secure her job, Mitchell talks her managing editor (James Gleason) into playing up the John Doe letter for all it's worth; but to ward off accusations from rival papers that the letter was bogus, they decide to hire someone to pose as John Doe: a ballplayer-turned-hobo (Gary Cooper), who'll do anything for three squares and a place to sleep. "John Doe" and his traveling companion The Colonel (Walter Brennan) are ensconced in a luxury hotel while Mitchell continues churning out chunks of John Doe philosophy. When newspaper publisher D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), a fascistic type with presidential aspirations, decides to use Doe as his ticket to the White House, he puts Doe on the radio to deliver inspirational speeches to the masses -- ghost-written by Mitchell, who, it is implied, has become the publisher's mistress. The central message of the Doe speeches is "Love Thy Neighbor," though, conceived in cynicism, the speeches strike so responsive a chord with the public that John Doe clubs pop up all over the country. Believing he is working for the good of America, Cooper agrees to front the National John Doe Movement -- until he discovers that Norton plans to exploit Doe in order to create a third political party and impose a virtual dictatorship on the country. The last of Capra's "social statement" films, Meet John Doe posted a profit, although Capra and Riskin were forced to dissolve their corporation due to excessive taxes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fifth film version of Jack London's The Sea Wolf stars Edward G. Robinson as "premature fascist" Wolf Larsen. The captain of the scavenger ship Ghost, Larsen is a heartless tyrant who can tolerate no sign of weakness in anyone. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" is Larsen's philosophy (borrowed from the character of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost), and accordingly he reigns over his hellish vessel in true satanic fashion. Idealistic writer Humphrey Van Weyden (Alexander Knox) and fugitive from justice Ruth Webster (Ida Lupino) are picked up by the Ghost when their ferryboat capsizes. Realizing that their chances of getting off the boat alive are nil, Van Weyden and Ruth conspire with embittered cabin boy Leach (John Garfield) to escape. They drift in a small open boat for days, only to return to the Ghost, which has apparently been scuttled by the mutinous crew. Larsen has gone blind, but refuses to allow his crew to learn this fact, forcing Van Weyden at gunpoint to perpetuate the illusion that Larsen can still see. Ultimately, the Ghost sinks beneath the waves, carrying Larsen and Van Weyden to their doom ("This is the end of Superman!" cries Van Weyden as the ocean envelops him); Ruth and Leach manage to save themselves, rowing toward the safety of a nearby island -- and hopefully escaping to a new life. The 1941 Sea Wolf would not be the last cinematic adaptation of London's novel; multiple versions have since been produced for both film and television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Texas was Columbia Pictures' lighthearted (and frankly more enjoyable) follow-up to its 1940 big-budget western Arizona. William Holden and Glenn Ford, looking collectively 28 years old, play a couple of ex-Confederate soldiers who get into all sorts of trouble in a wide-open Texas town. The two split up, whereupon Ford takes a job on Joseph Crehan's ranch; by and by, he falls in love with Crehan's daughter Clare Trevor. Meanwhile, Holden has joined a gang of rustlers headed by town dentist Edgar Buchanan (in real life, Buchanan had been a practicing dentist, retaining his license well into the sixties just in case things slowed down in Hollywood). Ex-friends Ford and Holden confront each other again when Holden tries to steal the cattle that Ford is driving across the state to Abilene. Complicating matters is the fact that Holden, too, carries a torch for Trevor. Though packed with action and suspense, Texas never loses its subliminal sense of humor, a fact that can be attributed to its director, slapstick comedy veteran George Marshall. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide