Charles Halton Movies

This musical presents a romantic and sanitized biography of distinguished American songwriter Stephen Foster. The story begins with the romance between Foster (Don Ameche) and a pretty southern belle and sets up a home in Kentucky--actually the real Foster married a girl from Pittsburgh. His songwriting career takes off when he sells a song to the famous minstrel E.P. Christy (Al Jolson). His career takes off until the Civil War erupts. Accused of siding with the Confederates, Foster and his family flee to the North. There, he begins to literally drink himself to death. The Oscar-nominated soundtrack feature some of Foster's most loved standards including the title song, "Camptown Races," "Oh, Susanna" and "My Old Kentucky Home." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this boxing drama, an ex-champ finds himself working as a doorman at a nightclub. His son aspires to a high caliber career on Wall Street; he is getting ready to marry a banker's daughter. When not working at the club, the boxer trains a welterweight with championship potential. Later the son gets caught embezzling funds. To help him pay it back the boxer asks that his trainee throw his next fight while he bets everything on the opponent. The young fighter refuses to take a dive and wins the fight. Fortunately, the ex-champ's assistant knew this and bet even more money on their protegee. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Movie buffs are nearly unanimous in agreement: Charlie Chan at Treasure Island is the best of the Sidney Toler "Charlie Chan" entries. The film wastes no time getting started, with Chan (Toler) and his son Jimmy (Sen Yung) on hand when Charlie's writer friend Paul Essex (Louis Jean Heydt) dies on the Honolulu Clipper while en route to San Francisco. The police rule Essex' death a suicide, but Chan believes differently. He follows the trail of clues to the mysterious Zodiac, a crooked spiritualist. The oriental detective is aided in his investigation by Rhadini (Cesar Romero), a charming stage magician who hopes to expose Zodiac as a phony and blackmailer. After several plot twists and a couple of additional murders, all the likely suspects are gathered together during one of Rhadini's performances at Treasure Island, the San Francisco branch of the 1939 World's Fair. In a truly eerie climax, mystic Eve (Pauline Moore) who really does have psychic powers, prepares to name the killer. The revelation of the culprit is a genuine surprise, staged with topnotch showmanship by director Norman Foster, whose wife Sally Blane (Loretta Young's sister) appears in a small role as Essex's widow. Many of the magicians' props utilized in Charlie Chan at Treasure Island would do service again in 1942 in the Laurel & Hardy vehicle A-Haunting We Will Go. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Garfield once more plays a social outcast who's had nothing but lousy breaks. Released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, Garfield is promptly arrested as a vagrant and sent to a work farm. He falls in love with Priscilla Lane, stepdaughter of the farm's no-good foreman. Garfield marries Priscilla, but his happiness is short-lived when the foreman drunkenly goads him into a fight. Arrested again for killing the foreman, Garfield is defended by a compassionate attorney (Moroni Olsen), whose summation to the jury places the blame for Garfield's plight squarely on the shoulders of Society. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This prison film features an inventive escape from Alcatraz. They do it by planning a phony wedding in a prison chapel. The fugitives are soon captured by a brave hero who stops them by crashing his car into their getaway plane. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This landmark western -- which, along with Stagecoach, has often been credited with revitalizing what had become a stagnant genre -- stars Errol Flynn as Wade Hatton, a cattle man who arrives in the frontier community of Dodge City, which is overrun by footloose cowboys and outlaws. When Hatton helps Dodge City lawmen capture a gang of cattle rustlers led by Jeff Surrett (Bruce Cabot), he's asked to help guide a wagon train into town with his friends Rusty Hart (Alan Hale, Sr.) and Tex Baird (Guinn Williams). En route, an impulsive young cowpoke named Lee Irving (William Lundigan) needlessly fires off his pistol, sparking a cattle stampede that leads to his death. When Hatton and his men arrive in Dodge, they discover Surrett is once again at large, and his gang has taken over the city. Appointed the city's new sheriff, Hatton is determined to clean up the town and put the outlaws out of business. In his rare moments off duty, Hatton tries to win the affections of Abbie Irving (Olivia de Havilland), but she believes that Hatton is responsible for the death of her brother Lee; Hatton's habit of flirting with dance hall girl Ruby Gilman (Ann Sheridan) does nothing to improve her opinion of him. A solid box office hit, Dodge City was the first of a series of westerns for swashbuckling star Flynn; his next oater, Virginia City, followed in 1940. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The great Ernst Lubitsch directed this farce (written by Charles M. Brackett and Billy Wilder) about a free-wheeling millionaire, Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper), who enjoys getting married but has a hard time staying married: he's had seven wives and is looking for number eight. He thinks he may have found her in the person of Nicole de Loiselle (Claudette Colbert), whom he meets in a shop on the French Riviera. Unfortunately for Michael, Nicole doesn't like him very much and keeps rebuffing his advances, even though most women would be only too happy to marry him for his money. For just that reason, Nicole's father (Edward Everett Horton), a financially embarrassed French nobleman, strongly suggests that matrimony with Michael would be a good idea, especially since Michael doesn't want to take no for an answer. Nicole eventually relents and weds Michael, but when she tries to get him to change a few of his habits during the honeymoon, he makes plans to divorce her. But Nicole has finally decided that she loves Michael after all, and, as he tries to flee from her, she gives chase, determined to win his heart once and for all. The same story was previously filmed as a silent picture in 1923. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this entry in in the children's series, very loosely adapted from Booth Tarkington's popular story, the young Hoosiers get involved with confusing adults and kidnappers because they look so much alike. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Having paid $255,500 for the rights to John Murray and Allen Boretz' Broadway hit Room Service, RKO Radio then scouted about for a "perfect" cast. Thanks to the persistence of show-biz agent Zeppo Marx, RKO was able to secure the services of Zeppo's brothers Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx for $100,000. The result is an uneven but entertaining blend of traditional stage farce and Marxian madness. Groucho plays two-bit producer Gordon Miller, who has gone deeply into debt while trying to stage a turgid production called "Hail and Farewell". Miller and his entire cast are ensconced in the Great White Way Hotel, managed by his brother-in-law Gribble Cliff Dunstan, who is fed up with the troupe's inability to pay its bills. As Miller, his director Harry Binelli (Chico) and his business manager Faker Englund (Harpo) try to figure out new methods of raising money, in walks Leo Davis Frank Albertson, the wide-eyed playwright, who is unaware that his masterpiece is in danger of closing before it even opens. He soon figures out what's what after Harry and Faker hock his typewriter for eating money. When hotel inspector Wagner Donald MacBride threatens to throw Miller and his entourage out bag and baggage, the producer and his cronies fake a measles epidemic so that Wagner will be forced to allow them to stay. Salvation seems at hand when Jenkins Philip Wood, a potential backer, arrives with a blank check in hand. But after sampling a bit of the lunacy that has surrounded the play since its inception, Jenkins dashes off, refusing to finance such a chancy property. Miller manages to mollify Wagner by pretending that Jenkins has invested money in the show, but when this scheme falls through, our hero resorts to really drastic measures by pretending that Davis and Faker have both committed suicide because of Wagner's persecution. Weaving in and out of the proceedings are nominal heroines Lucille Ball and Ann Miller, as well as Philip Loeb (who played Faker in the original Broadway production), brilliantly cast as a mild-mannered bill collector. Room Service is hardly typical Marx Bros. fare, despite the efforts by screenwriter Morris Ryskind to inject characteristic verbal gags and visual bits into the action; the film works better as a situation comedy than as a Marx vehicle (Groucho's only comment on the subject was that his brother Zeppo should have arranged a larger salary). In 1943, RKO Radio remade Room Service as a musical titled Step Lively, which was actually something of an improvement on the original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

In this upbeat drama, a disillusioned millionaire, sick to death of the attempts of greedy friends and relatives to sponge off of him, becomes a bum to search for a decent human being. The tale begins as the wealthy man is about to commit suicide by leaping off of his yacht into the sea. He is just about to go when he spies a bum attempting suicide himself. The rich man saves the bum. He takes the bedraggled hobo and tells him his frustration. He then claims that he will give a million francs to the first person to treat him kindly without thinking about his wealth. The next day, the tramp awakens to find his raggedy old clothes have been replaced by the finest togs. Beside them is a large role of francs. The bum then begins circulating the millionaire's words around the town. As a result, people all over the country begin treating the homeless with kindness and respect. Eventually the disguised millionaire marries a circus performer and donates his million francs to the whole community. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Saint, Leslie Charteris' charming but deadly criminal-turned-sleuth, made his first film appearance in RKO Radio's The Saint of New York. Faithful to Charteris' original concept, this first movie Saint is a cold-blooded murderer, redeemed by the fact that all of his victims are notorious gangsters who'd otherwise elude the clutches of the law. Hired by a coterie of businessmen, Simon Templar (Louis Hayward), aka the Saint, methodically rids New York of its worst criminals, though "The Big Fellow", aka Hutch Rellin (Sig Rumann), continues to elude him. He is aided by Rellin's enigmatic mistress Fay Edwards (Kay Sutton), who pays for her actions with her life. The film's most memorable moment finds Templar disguising himself as a nun to dispose of a particularly nasty villain. The success of The Saint of New York prompted RKO to negotiate with Charteris for a series of "Saint" films, with George Sanders and Hugh Sinclair taking over from Louis Hayward as the title character. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide