Lumsden Hare Movies

For a generation of radio fans, Lionel Barrymore was the definitive Ebeneezer Scrooge. Alas, Barrymore was crippled by arthritis by the time MGM got around to filming Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in 1938, so the Scrooge role went to contract player Reginald Owen - who, though hardly in the Barrymore league, does a splendid job. Hugo Butler's screenplay must make some adjustments from the source material. The Ghost of Christmas Past, for example, is played not by a robust middle-aged man but by a beautiful young woman (Ann Rutherford). Impeccably cast, the film includes such reliable character players as Leo G. Carroll (Marley's Ghost), Barry McKay (Scrooge's nephew Fred) and Gene and Kathleen Lockhart (Bob and Mrs. Cratchit). The Lockhart's teenaged daughter June makes her screen debut as one of the Cratchit children, while Terry Kilburn is a fine, non-sentimental Tiny Tim. Commenably short for a major production (69 minutes), MGM's Christmas Carol is one of the best adaptations of the oft-filmed Dickens Yuletide classic, and definitely on equal footing with the more famous 1951 Alastair Sim version. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Always Goodbye was credited to two directors: Kenneth MacKenna told the actors where to move and when to speak, while William Cameron Menzies concerned himself with the overall production design. Elissa Landi plays Lila, who has been jilted by practically every man she has ever met. Middle-aged diamond dealer Lewis Stone falls in love with Landi, but she spurns him until convinced that he intends to extend the relationship to the altar. While wearing a few of Stone's diamonds just for a lark, Landi is mistaken for an heiress by callow John Darrow and crooked Paul Cavanaugh. Darrow pursues Landi for her looks, while Cavanaugh goes after her for her gems. 20th Century-Fox's 1938 programmer Alway Goodbye is not a remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this action-packed drama, Rozika, a Hungarian peasant girl (Mary Nash), comes to America with her anarchist brother. She winds up singing in a trashy bar in New York's Lower East Side, but she is saved from her sleazy life by David Trevor, the rich owner of a steel plant. He funds her efforts -- ultimately successful -- to become an opera singer and then he marries her. With the outbreak of World War I, one of Hungary's enemies orders ammunition from Trevor's plant. Rozika begs him to refuse but he ignores her. Her brother receives orders to blow up the plant, and although Rozika does her best to stop him, he succeeds. It takes Trevor's financial ruin for him to finally see his wife's point, and he has to agree that the plant's destruction is all for the better. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

British stage favorite Kitty Gordon made her American film debut in As in a Looking Glass. Gordon plays an alluring espionage agent, working on behalf of The Enemy. This lasts only so long as she steers clear of handsome American F. Lumsden Hare. Falling in love with Hare, Gordon turns her back on her old colleagues, going so far as to betray them to the authorities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this bizarre drama, a young wife and mother begins dabbling in voodoo and soon finds herself hopelessly entangled in practicing black arts. Meanwhile her poor husband finds himself powerless to stop her. The matter comes to a terrifying head when she begins participating in human sacrifices and decides to offer up her own baby. Fortunately her husband shows up and puts a permanent hold on her evil activities. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A "new" Lassie (once again, a male collie in drag) starred in A Challenge to Lassie, MGM's fourth entry in their series based on characters created by Eric Knight. This time, Lassie is plunked into the plotline of William Ludwig's novel Greyfriars Bobby (remade by Disney under its original title in 1963). In 19th-century Edinburgh, crusty sheepherder Jock Gray (Donald Crisp) rescues a puppy and raises it into a champion sheep dog. When Gray is murdered by rustlers, his faithful collie keeps a night-and-day watch over his late master's grave, despite local laws banning the presence of unleashed canines. The rest of the film is a battle of wills between kindly innkeeper John Traill (Edmund Gwenn) and by-the-book constable Davie (Reginald Owen) over the dog's well-being. A romantic subplot is capably handled by Geraldine Brooks and Ross Ford, both of whom went on to healthy character-actor careers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ronald Colman plays Robert Clive, a true-life 18th century Britisher who works up the ranks to become leader of Britain's military forces in India. Though produced on a superficially lavish scale, the film inexpensively sidesteps several of Clive's more famous battles with Indian insurrectionists, relegating them to offscreen events described by subtitles. The notorious Sepoy Mutiny "Black Hole of Calcutta" incident, hardly a costly event to recreate, is faithfully presented. In real life, Clive was ruined by a trial in the House of Commons, after which he suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide. The film tactfully closes on the trial and Clive's reunion with his faithful wife (Loretta Young). Typically jingoistic in its "White Man's Burden" approach to East Indian affairs, Clive of India is best viewed in context of the time it was filmed (1935), when the sun still hadn't set on the British Empire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Don Ameche, an American news bureau chief stationed in London, is frustrated by the British government's censorship of his wildly speculative dispatches to the United States. Joan Bennett is the government Teletype operator assigned to make sure that Ameche doesn't send out any story that hasn't been cleared. At first adversarial towards each other, Ameche and Bennet fall in love while huddled in various bomb shelters during the 1940 London blitz. Clearly inspired by Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (40), Confirm or Deny was one of many "preparedness" films turned out by Hollywood in the months just prior to Pearl Harbor. Any political proselytizing, however, takes second place to the Don Ameche/Joan Bennett love story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This comedy follows the attempts of a young woman to have her cake and eat it too. She is dating two nice young men, but she cannot decide which one she really wants. The men do not help as neither is willing to bow out. A dashing young engineer solves her problem after he bowls her over with his charm. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When undercover secret agent Tyrone Power is thwarted in his efforts to obtain a vital document with details of the Russian invasion of Yugoslavia by the death of the courier at the hands of two Russian agents, played by Mario Siletti and Charles Buchinski (aka Charles Bronson), it becomes his duty to go after the murderers and retrieve the papers. With more loops and turnabouts than a snake, the plot has surprises with agents, double agents, mistaken information and is, all in all, a surprisingly exciting spy vehicle. Michael Ansara and Lee Marvin also make brief appearances in this early cold war story. A script with a lot of holes in it is pulled off by the fine performances and tight direction given in this film. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of Walt Disney's two-part miniseries Moochie of Pop Warner Football, diminutive Moochie Morgan (Kevin Corcoran) has put baseball aside to concentrate on the gridiron. Alas, in order to meet the 60-pound weight requirement to join Pop Warner Football League, Moochie must gain five pounds. Should he fail, he'd be forced to play in the Peewee league -- and their current isn't a team for that league in his small town. Then another crisis develops, this one of a political nature. "The Peewees vs. City Hall" originally aired as part of the Walt Disney Presents anthology and was later serialized on the syndicated version of The Mickey Mouse Club. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Envy was intended as the first of seven films based upon the Deadly Sins (much like Claude Chabrol's later filmic cycles). Farm girl Eve Leslie (Shirley Mason) falls for the line handed her by millionaire Adam Moore (George Le Guere). She enjoys her sumptuous new lifestyle but doesn't like the attentions paid by Moore to actress Betty Howard (Ann Murdock). Growing jealous of Betty, Eve suppresses her impulses to nurse her rival when it seems that Betty has but a short time to live. The story comes to a screeching halt shortly after the introduction of Betty's no-good boyfriend Stanton Skinner (Lumsden Hare); perhaps the up-in-the-air denouement was meant to segue into some sort of live-action afterpiece. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide