Jane Greer

During the Korean War, Frank Fletcher, late husband of mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury), was forced to bail out of the "Dixie Damsel", a crippled C97 cargo plane. Now, 36 years later, the wreckage of the "Dixie Damsel" has been found--with the remains of a murdered man inside! An Air Force inquiry is established to determine if Frank Fletcher had committed murder, prompting Jessica to team up with her old friend, retired pilot Lee Goddard (Dale Robertson), to clear her husband's name and find out what really happened. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A remake of Jacques Tourneur's noir classic Out of the Past (1947), in this version a labyrinthine web of corruption touches on the world of pro football. When an injury-riddled body causes pro football player Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges) to be cut by his team, Jake Wise (James Woods), a shady gambler friend, hires him to locate his spoiled, erratic girlfriend Jessie (Rachel Ward). Terry's attempt to glean Jessie's whereabouts from the girl's coldly aristocratic mother (Jane Greer) leads to a lucrative counteroffer to keep Jessie away from Jake if he finds her. After refusing, Terry heads for scenic Cozumel, where he eventually runs down the stunning young woman. A mutual attraction quickly develops and the pair are less than eager to return to California. Painfully, Terry tells Jessie about his involvement in a betting scandal which has put him under Jake's control. Meanwhile Jake, who is angered by the delay, senses that something is going on, and sends Terry's conditioning coach, Sully (Alex Karras), to find the couple. When he finally locates them, sweatily making love in a Mayan temple, tragedy ensues, spinning the ill-fated Terry into a world of boundless deceit and corruption. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

After a woman whose face was horribly disfigured in a bungled cosmetic operation commits suicide, Quincy investigates Emile Green (Garnett Smith), the doctor who performed the surgery. Though Green is not a qualified plastic surgeon, the current medical laws allow him to perform such operations whether he's capable of doing them or not. Outraged, Quincy vows to move heaven and earth to plug up this legal loophole--or at the very least, to bring Dr. Green to justice before he destroys any more lives. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Billie is a screen version of Ronald Alexander's perennial stage favorite Time Out For Ginger. Patty Duke plays a tomboyish high schooler who excels in athletics but who continues to strike out socially. Jim Backus and Jane Greer perform yeoman service as Duke's parents, who wonder how long it's going to be before their daughter stops trying to be their son. Backus is particularly concerned because he's running for mayor on a platform of "male supremacy" (this is 1965, remember?). From time to time, Duke expresses her frustration in song: her big number finds her holding her gym shoes in one hand, a bottle of perfume in the other. Warren Berlinger also stars as Duke's long-suffering boyfriend. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A nurse (Jane Greer) suspects that something is amiss when her patient, a woman on the verge of recovery, suddenly dies. Nonetheless, the nurse marries the woman's widower, Gilbert Hughes (Jane Greer). Later on, she relates her suspicions to lawyer Paul Brett (Robert Webber), who informs her that no matter what she thinks about her husband, she cannot testify against him in court. Ultimately Hughes commits suicide and the nurse ends up marrying Brett -- then makes a startling confession. This episode was originally telecast under the title "A True Account." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Every so often, the prestigious 1950s CBS anthology Playhouse 90 would digress from its "live" format and offer a sumptuously produced film presentation. One of these was the suspenseful 1958 offering No Time at All, a fascinating precursor to the Airport films of the 1970s. On a routine night flight from Miami to New York, an airliner loaded with passengers is suddenly plunged into darkness due to an electrical failure. Losing contact with the plane, the ground crew in New York worries that all on board may be lost--especially since the weather has turned ugly. In a brilliant dramatic device, the viewer never sees the plane in flight nor its passengers and crew: Instead, the play stays on solid land, concentrating on the reactions of the friends and families of those on board. This Playhouse 90 entry boasts perhaps the most impressive cast ever assembled for the series, among them dramatic actors Bill Lundigan, Jane Greer, Betsy Palmer, Sylvia Sidney and Keenan Wynn; comedians Buster Keaton, Chico Marx (with a Jewish accent), and Harry Einstein (aka "Parkyakarkus", and the father of contemporary comic actors Bob Einstein and Albert Brooks); and musical-comedy favorites Jack Haley (in a rare unsympathetic role) and Cliff Edwards (the voice of Jiminy Cricket in the 1940 cartoon feature Pinocchio). Also seen in the supporting cast is an up-and-coming young player named Charles Bronson, here cast as a sentimental boxer; and "Floyd the Barber" himself, Howard McNear--who, indirectly, is the hero of the piece. Long considered a "lost" film, No Time at All was made available on the home-video market in the early years of the 21st century, complete with the original commercials and a preview of the next week's Playhouse 90. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in Mexico, Run for the Sun was the second official remake of Richard Connell's classic suspense yarn The Most Dangerous Game. This time, Trevor Howard stars as Browne, the wealthy hermit who thrives on hunting down human beings like wild animals. As a means of updating the story, Howard is transformed into a British traitor, hiding in the Mexican jungle with his wartime compatriots, Nazis Van Anders (Peter Van Eyck) and Jan (Carlos Henning). When their plane is forced to land in Browne's domain, Mike Latimer (Richard Widmark) and Katy Conners (Jane Greer) are captured by the villains. Browne offers his captives an hour's head-start to freedom, then sics his hunting dogs on the hapless pair. The rest of the film details the strenuous efforts by Latimer and Conners to escape with their lives. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An unofficial remake of The Champ, The Clown concerns Dodo Delwyn (Red Skelton), a down-and-out performer with abundant and obvious talent, but also a self-destructive tendency to overindulge his drinking and gambling habits. Once a Ziegfeld headliner, Dodo is now lucky to get jobs playing a clown at cheap amusement parks and even cheaper burlesque. Dodo's addictions cost him his marriage, but he somehow is able to maintain custody of his son Dink (Tim Considine), whose love for and faith in his father knows no bounds. Dink and Dodo's desperate need for each other is threatened when Dink's mother -- married again and capable of providing him with a better life -- reappears and explains that she wants to take care of the boy herself. Dink goes behind his father's back to locate his old agent, and begs him to help Dodo; but the agent cannot do anything. Dink goes away with his mother, but is miserable and runs back to his father. The agent, meanwhile, has managed to wrangle a TV show for Dodo -- and now that his son is back and needs him, Dodo resolves to find the courage to take up this offer and make a success of it. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

You for Me stars Peter Lawford as a profligate playboy who's a nice guy underneath. After suffering a hunting accident which leaves him with a butt full of buckshot, Lawford is interred in the hospital that his donations have kept afloat. Nurse Jane Greer refuses to treat Lawford any better than any other patient, which of course makes him adore her all the more. Gig Young is once more the poor schlemiel who loses the girl--but this time Young deserves it, since he encourages Jane to make goo-goo eyes at Lawford so the donations will keep on coming (there's a word for that sort of thing where we come from, stranger). You for Me was directed by Don Weis, whose MGM films are often so lightweight that they're in danger of floating away. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gary Cooper stars in this broad naval farce, directed by Henry Hathaway and based upon a John W. Hazard New Yorker magazine story. Cooper plays Lieutenant John Harkness, a wet-behind-the ears naval lieutenant who is given command of his first ship. Unfortunately, not only is Harkness new to commanding a naval vessel, but the crew and his subordinate officers are also new at their jobs. Only two old deck hands know the score. And, while Harkness is trying to figure out naval protocol, he also has to deal with the contraption in the engine room, which turns out to be an elaborate steam engine that powers the ship. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This breezy and unpretentious film noir from director Don Siegel starts off with fireworks. Duke Holliday (Robert Mitchum), an American army lieutenant, is on his way to Mexico by boat when he's confronted in his cabin by Blake (William Bendix), gun in hand, who plans on taking him back to the United States. Holliday gets away, pummeling Blake pretty hard in the bargain and stealing his identification, and crosses paths with Joan Graham (Jane Greer). It turns out that she's looking for the same man he is, a smooth-talking hood and grifter named Fiske (Patric Knowles), who took Holliday at gunpoint for 300,000 dollars in army payroll money and Graham for 2,000 dollars, in addition to her hand in marriage. They spend a lot of their time sizing each other up, not knowing how much to believe about the other while trying to catch up with Fiske, while Blake -- an army captain who's after Holliday for his alleged part in the robbery -- stumbles along a step or two behind them. These four end up playing cat-and-mouse across Veracruz, with Fiske always a half-step ahead, while police Inspector General Ortega (Ramon Novarro) calmly keeps tabs on all of them, trying to figure out (along with the rest of us) exactly who is on the level (in those days, especially after Out of the Past, there was no built-in assurance for audiences that Mitchum and Greer played characters with clean hands, and Mitchum is almost too good with the rough stuff here to be an obvious hero). Holliday and Graham engage in some surprisingly playful and suggestive banter during their travels, in between her keeping Holliday -- whose command of Spanish is less than minimal -- from adding too many new permutations to the phrase "the ugly American" in his dealings with the Mexicans. The mood is decidedly brisk and light-hearted at times, given the gunplay and violence that explodes at key intervals. The addition of John Qualen -- in one of the strangest roles of his career -- as a decidedly fidgety and neurotic presence in the last quarter of the story only adds to the undertone of quirkiness in this superb film noir. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Out of the Past is so perfect a film noir that it is considered practically a textbook example of the genre. In his first starring role (it had previously been offered to John Garfield and Dick Powell), Robert Mitchum plays Jeff Bailey, the friendly but secretive proprietor of a mountain-village gas station. As Jeff's worshipful deaf-mute attendant (Dick Moore) looks on in curious fascination, an unsavory character named Joe (Paul Valentine) pulls up to the station, obviously looking for the owner. Jeff is all too aware of Joe's identity; he's been dreading this moment for quite some time, knowing full well that it will mean the end of his semi-idyllic existence, not to mention his engagement to local girl Ann (Virginia Huston). In a lengthy flashback, the audience is apprised of the reasons behind Jeff's discomfort. Several years earlier, he'd been a private detective, hired by gangster Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) to find his mistress Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer), who shot him and ran off with $40,000. Jeff traces Kathie to Mexico, but when he meets her he falls in love and willingly becomes involved in an increasingly complicated web of double-crosses, blackmail, and murder. The flashback over, Jeff agrees to meet Whit face to face in Lake Tahoe. Surprisingly, Whit apparently bears no malice, and even offers Jeff an opportunity to square himself by retrieving Whit's tax records from mob attorney Eels (Ken Niles). Even more surprisingly, Kathie has returned to Whit on her own volition. When Jeff is taken to Eels' apartment by the beautiful Meta Carson (Rhonda Fleming), he quickly figures out that he has been set up and tries to clue Eels into the plot, but Eels is later found murdered, and Jeff is accused of the crime. Worse yet, Whit has forced Kathie to sign an affadavit that also pins another murder on him. Crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses abound for the next few reels, culminating in disaster for the oh-so-clever Whit, who has fatally underestimated the deceitful (and icewater-veined) Kathie. And in the end, it is Jeff who must resort to drastic measures to force Kathie to pay the price for her cold-hearted treachery. Out of the Past was remade in 1984 as Against All Odds, with Jane Greer cast as the mother of her original character. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide