Suzette Harbin Movies
- 1952
Jungle Girl was the 7th entry in Monogram's "Bomba the Jungle Boy" series, based on the pulp novels by Roy Rockwood. This time, Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) tries to find the long-lost remains of his parents. He discovers that the person responsible for mom and dad's deaths was evil native chieftain Martin Wilkins. Only after the chief's daughter Suzette Harbin is herself accidentally killed (not by Bomba-rest, easy kids!) does the villain give himself up to the authorities. With the exception of Johnny Sheffield and co-stars Karen Sharpe and Walter Sande, most of the acting in Jungle Girl is strictly amateur night. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1952
Esther Williams generously shares screen time with Joan Evans and Vivian Blaine in Skirts Ahoy! The three leading ladies play WAVE officers who experience a daunting series of romantic misadventures. Whitney Young (Williams) had joined the WAVES after leaving her fiancé at the altar. Conversely Mary Kate Yarbrough (Evans) was jilted on her wedding day by her intended, while Una Yancy (Blaine) has donned a uniform in hopes of finding a husband. Much of the humor is of the gender-switch variety, with the three lady sailors ogling and whistling at every eligible male who crosses their path. Inevitably, Williams sheds her navy duds in favor of a swimsuit, while Blaine performs a comic torch song in the manner of her "Miss Adelaide" characterization in Guys and Dolls. Poor Joan Evans isn't given a musical number, but she does get her man (Keefe Brasselle) at the end. Guest performers include the singing DeMarco Sisters and youthful aquatic champs Russell and Kathy Tongay. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Esther Williams, Joan Evans, (more)
- 1952
Twenty-one-year-old Anne Francis carries off the title-character duties in 20th Century-Fox's Lydia Bailey with class and finesse. Set in Haiti during the Napoleonic era, the film concerns aristocratic landholder Lydia Bailey and her more-than-professional relationship with American attorney Albion Hamlin (Dale Robertson). The idealistic Hamlin becomes involved in the Haitian uprising against the French, aligning himself with rebel leader--and former slave--King Dick (William Marshall). At first, Lydia sides with the French, but she eventually realizes that Hamlin's way is the right way. Based on a novel by Kenneth Roberts, Lydia Bailey was slated for TV presentation on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies in 1963, but was pulled from the schedule because of a subplot involving miscegenation. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dale Robertson, Anne Francis, (more)
- 1950
Producer-director Edward L. Cahn's Prominent Pictures produced this low-budget thriller-noir which was then sold outright to RKO. Joyce MacKenzie stars as Laura Mansfield whose father (Franklyn Farnum) is killed in cold blood by smalltime hoodlum turned messenger boy Jackie Wales (Stanley Clements). But the latter has a seemingly ironclad alibi and Laura goes undercover as a nightclub cigarette girl to trap him. Unbeknownst to the heroine, however, Wales is blackmailing Armitage (Albert Dekker), the ruthless nightclub operator who had hired him to murder Mansfield in the first place. But is Armitage the real "Mr. Big" or is someone else pulling the strings? ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
- Starring:
- Joyce MacKenzie, Stanley Clements, (more)
- 1949
Film historian Leonard Maltin has labelled this final entry in Monogram's "Charlie Chan" series as "embarrassing," but it's not quite as bad as its reputation would indicate. True, star Roland Winters steadfastly refuses to take his characterization of Charlie Chan seriously, but that's part of the fun. Much of the action takes place on an airliner, where someone has drugged the passengers and crew and killed a courier who was carrying a quarter of a million dollars. The suspect list is a dream-come-true for movie buffs, populated with such reliable supporting players as Iris Adrian, Eleana Verdugo, Tim Ryan, Milburn Stone, Lyle Talbot, Paul Maxey and John Eldredge. Noel Neill, everyone's favorite Lois Lane, is also on hand as a stewardess. And of course, Charlie Chan is aided and abetted by Number One Son Lee Chan (Keye Luke) and pop-eyed chauffeur Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland). Though out of favor with dyed-in-the-wool Charlie Chan fans, Sky Dragon opened to good business and better-than-average reviews. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Roland Winters, Keye Luke, (more)
- 1948
Though atrociously directed, the all-black Look Out Sister is saved by its exuberant musical numbers. Bandleader Louis Jordan imagines that he's in charge of a dude ranch. Posing as a rootin' tootin' gunslinger, Jordan saves Suzette Harbin from the mustache-twirling machinations of Monty Hawley. The film's 64-minute running time easily accommodates eleven first-rate songs, most of them performed by Jordan and his Tympany Six. If you're looking for a genuine all-black western rather than a musical posing as a sagebrusher, try Herb Jeffries' Bronze Buckaroo or Harlem on the Prairie. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Louis Jordan, Suzette Harbin, (more)
- 1947
Frank Yerby's Foxes of Harrow was one of those long historical novels so popular in the 1940s. 20th Century-Fox boiled the novel down into 118 minutes' worth of essentials for this film version. In antebellum New Orleans, roguish Irish gambler Rex Harrison buys his way into society--something he couldn't do in his homeland because he is illegitimate. Sequestering himself in a mansion won in a card game, Harrison courts Southern belle Maureen O'Hara, but their subsequent marriage is befouled by Rex's incessant womanizing. Though tempted to walk out for good, O'Hara stays by her husband's side after he loses his fortune, hoping that the impoverished Harrison will now behave more responsibly. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Rex Harrison, Renee Beard, (more)
Humphrey Bogart plays Harry Morgan, owner-operator of charter boat in wartime Martinique. Morgan's right-hand man is Eddie (Walter Brennan), a garrulous alky whose pet question to anyone and everyone is "Ever get stung by a dead bee?" While in port, Harry is approached by Free French activist Gerard (Marcel Dalio), who wants to charter Harry's boat to smuggle in an important underground leader. Adopting his usual I-stick-my-neck-out-for-no-one stance, Morgan refuses. Later on, he starts up a dalliance with Marie Browning (screen newcomer Lauren Bacall), an attractive pickpocket. In order to help Marie return to America, Harry agrees to Gerard's smuggling terms. He uses his boat to bring resistance fighter De Bursac (Walter Molnar) and De Bursac's wife Helene (Dolores Moran) into Martinique. The Vichy police, suspecting that something's amiss, hold Morgan's pal Eddie hostage, tormenting the poor rummy by denying him liquor. Predictably, Morgan comes to Eddie's rescue and manages to escape Martinique, with the delectable Marie as cozy company. In the hands of director Howard Hawks and screenwriters Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, the end result bore only a passing relation to the original story by Ernest Hemingway: instead, it was a virtual rehash (but a good one!) of the recently released Casablanca, replete with several of that film's cast members. The film's enduring popularity is primarily -- if not solely -- due to the sexy chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, especially in the legendary "You know how to whistle, don't you?" scene. The most salutary result of To Have & Have Not was the subsequent Bogart-Bacall marriage, which endured until his death in 1957. It's widely believed that Lauren Bacall's singing voice was dubbed in by a pre-puberty Andy Williams; this is not true. For the record, a more faithful-to-the-source cinemadaptation of the Hemingway original was filmed in 1950 as The Breaking Point. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, (more)
