Kit Guard Movies

Real-life college gridiron hero Red Grange heads the cast of the football drama One Minute to Play. Though his father wants him to attend Parmalee College, Red Wade (Grange) opts for Claxton U because the latter school has a better football team. Once he's enrolled, however, he is persuaded by his father (Charles Ogle) not to go out for football, but to concentrate on his studies instead. En route to Claxton by train, Red gets mixed up in a fight, and upon awakening he finds himself at Parmalee. Once he meets cutie coed Sally Rogers (May McAllister), Red decides to stick around -- and it isn't long before he breaks his promise to his dad and joins the football squad. Enraged, the elder Wade threatens to cancel a promised endowment to Parmalee if Red continues to play. Realizing that the college needs the money more than it needs him, Red pretends to go on a drunken binge so that the coach will kick him off the team. But when his football-hating father suddenly develops a love for the game during the annual Parmalee-Claxton confrontation, Red manages to make amends with the coach in time to score the winning touchdown. In addition to Red Grange, University of Washington football star George Wilson also appears in One Minute to Play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This routine drama, produced by F.B.O., was based on a story by Laura Jean Libbey. Although they'd both been in pictures for a number of years, this was the first relatively large production for both Charlotte Stevens and Kornelius Keefe. When Ed (Grant Withers) pulls off a heist stealing from wealthy Alice Gage (Marie Walcamp), his sweetheart Polly (Stevens) is jailed for the crime. While she cools her heels behind bars, Polly swears revenge, and when she gets out, she attempts to rob Alice's home. She is found by Alice's father (Tom Ricketts), however, and he decides to adopt her. Alice's fiancé, Martin Breen (Keefe), falls in love with Polly. Alice isn't exactly willing to let Breen go and she does everything in her power to put a wedge between the two lovers. But nothing works, and in the end, Polly gets her man -- so she really does steal something from Alice, after all. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A groom's heart breaks when he discovers that his new wife loves another. To ease his pain, the husband joins the Army and ships out to fight WW I in France. There he meets a charming young woman and falls in love. She too loves him and selflessly cares for him after he becomes mute and deaf after a serious injury. Later she returns to the states to continue caring for him until he recovers. As soon as he does, he gives his cheating wife the boot and settles down with his new, true love for a lifetime of happiness. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

No, Dead Man's Curve does not star Jan and Dean-mainly because it was filmed before either one of them was born. The film does star two of Hollywood's youngest and prettiest stars of 1928, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Sally Blane (sister of Loretta Young). Fairbanks plays a grease monkey who discovers a defect in an auto engine being turned out by his employer. But since our hero discovers this only after losing an important race, his boss chalks up the loss to Fairbanks' supposed cowardice. Thus it is that Doug Jr. spends the rest of the film clearing himself, with surreptitious aid from his sweetheart Sally, who happens to be the boss' daughter. Magnificently photographed, especially during the Big Race finale, Dead Man's Curve was scripted by Ewart Adamson, a man usually associated with slapstick comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this heartwarming drama, an amiable department store worker gets more than he bargained for when he accidentally slips a $10 tip he'd received into the hands of a nurse looking for donations to an orphanage on the way to the bank. By doing this, he unwittingly committed himself to supporting one of the orphans. As he rather likes the nurse, and his new boy, he takes on another job to fulfill his obligation. He finds himself quite happy with the situation until a wealthy man steps forward claims that he believes the boy is his grandson. He promptly adopts the lad. The distraught clerk then plots to kidnap the youth to get him back. Instead he proves that the boy is not related to the millionaire and regains custody. Then to make it all official, he proposes to the nurse, she accepts and a happy family is born. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Cowboy hero Tom Tyler dispenses Two-Fisted Justice in this energetic western. At the outbreak of the Civil War, President Lincoln assigns Kentucky Carson (Tyler) to guard an unprotected frontier outpost. In the company of his youthful sidekick (Bobby Nelson), Carson assumes his duties, which turn out to include saving a wagon train and rounding up a vicious band of stagecoach robbers. Former 2-reel comedy star Kit Guard enjoys one of his biggest talkie roles as a "Judge Roy Bean" type, while Barbara Weeks is the obligatory female lead. Two-Fisted Justice was directed by G. A. Durlam, production supervisor of the Tom Tyler unit at Monogram. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Assigned by the police commissioner to catch a notorious gangster, a young police captain discovers that his adversary is a former friend in this low-budget crime drama from Syndicate Film Exchanges. The gangster, Joe Velet (Robert Gleckler), is arrested for possession of a firearm and is revealed to be Phil Terry, a former sergeant with the Riffs in North Africa and the best friend of Police Captain Bill Houston (John Holland). Velet/Terry admits to having become a hoodlum because crime, as he puts it, "pays more than cigarette money." About to be extradited back east to stand trial for several killings, Velet is rescued by a couple of his henchmen masquerading as law officers. At liberty, he challenges Bill to a final confrontation at the Silver Slipper Club, which the gangsters are about to raid. Rival hoodlum Taroni (Paul Panzer), whose girlfriend (Mae Busch) is a police informer, is killed in the melee, but Velet manages to escape once again. In order to get even with Bill, the gang boss kidnaps his adversary's girlfriend, the police commissioner's daughter, Alice (Catherine Dale Owen), and the distraught commissioner (Edmund Breese) orders Bill off the case. Happily, our hero discovers Velet's hideout and Alice is rescued during the ensuing shootout. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Johnny Mack Brown stars in Flames as a cocksure young firefighter named Charlie. After rescuing a cat from a burning building, Charlie and his pal Fishy (George Cooper) try to make time with the cat's pretty owners, Pat (Noel Francis) and Gertie (Marjorie Beebe). After a plenitude of comic byplay, our hero gets down to business again by battling a blaze in the firetrap apartment building next door to Pat's place. Since the film was directed by cinematographer Karl Brown, it should be no surprise that Flames is far more interesting visually than verbally. TV prints of Flames bear the reissue title The Fire Alarm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Thirteen years after a dinner party where the wealthy host dropped, the thirteen guests are invited to reassemble at the dinner table. First to arrive is Ginger Rogers--who is promptly killed. It turns out that the dead woman was an impostor, hired to impersonate a real guest (Ginger Rogers again). Playboy detective Lyle Talbot is called in to investigate. It seems that the man who died 13 years ago was just about to announce the heir to his fortune, thus all the guests fall under suspicion. The culprit's true identity is hidden by a hood; the culprit's method of murder is a complex electrocution device. In an excitingly staged finale, Ginger is kidnapped by the hooded killer, but is rescued by Lyle Talbot. Made on a shoestring by Monogram Pictures, Thirteenth Guest is a marvelous "old house" mystery, with Ginger Rogers giving her all as the damsel in distress. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A young blue-blood gets jilted on his wedding day after his bride-to-be discovers that he lost his fortune during the stock-market crash. This melodrama follows his exploits when he becomes a hobo and then joins a traveling carnival. There he becomes buddies with a pugilist and petty thief. He soon becomes the new high diver after the old one misses and injures himself. The replaced daredevil is most unhappy and returns to challenge his usurper. A fight ensues and the former diver hits his head on a stump and dies. The rich boy's friends help hide the body and the story itself takes a dive after that. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this rough-and-tumble action comedy, Chuck Connors (Wallace Beery) and Steve Brodie (George Raft) are friendly rivals on New York's Bowery in the 1890s. Connors owns a fancy tavern and looks after a streetwise kid named Swipes McGurk (Jackie Cooper), while Brodie is a daredevil willing to do nearly anything to get the better of Connors. When both men fall in love with Lucy Calhoun (Fay Wray), who has fallen on hard times, Brodie takes her under his wing and helps get her back on her feet. Connors is furious that his rival has won her heart, so he goads Brodie into doing something spectacular to prove his love for her -- jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, for example. Reckless but not stupid, Brodie has no intention of making the jump and plans to use a dummy instead, but when Connors and his henchmen show up to make sure that Brodie doesn't back down, the dare is turned into a wager, and Brodie emerges the new owner of Connors' bar after successfully making the jump. In real life, George Raft and Wallace Beery were not nearly so friendly as their characters: Raft persuaded director Raoul Walsh to hire a number of his underworld cronies as extras, which irritated Beery no end. When the two actors had a fight scene, Beery refused to hold back, and the staged fistfight quickly turned into a for-real battle royale. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a recently convicted criminal boards a train bound for the prison where he will be hanged. His wife rides with him and en route tells a reporter how her husband had accidentally killed a man while protecting her. The reporter, who is dying of tuberculosis, is touched by the story and decides to help them by knocking out a guard, helping the man to escape and jumping off the train to his death. When authorities find the corpse, the assume it belongs to the young convict, and the real killer and his wife are free to start a new life. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

B-Western perennial Bob Steele made attempts at diversifying in 1933 by playing a circus acrobat in The Gallant Fool and a would-be boxer in The Fighting Champ, although, truth be told, never veering too far from the range in either. In The Fighting Champ, Steele plays Brick Loring, an itinerant cowboy who shows some promise as a prize-fighter. Crooked fight promoter Nifty Harmon (George Chesebro) attempts to bribe both Brick and his opponent Jock Malone (Charles King) to throw the match and although Brick only pretends to be interested, his backer, rancher Fred Mullins (Frank Ball), publicly accuses him of cheating. Mullins daughter Jean (Arletta Duncan), meanwhile, believes the young cowboy to be innocent and sets a trap for both Harmon and Malone. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide