William Harrigan Movies

This action-filled police drama chronicles the difficult first year of a rookie cop. The trouble begins on his very first day on the beat when he has a conflict with the criminally connected owner of the local tavern. Against the more moderate advice of his experienced partner, the rookie insists on strictly enforcing every law on the books. His unbending toughness creates hard feelings with the neighborhood toughs and soon he becomes their target. He becomes quite upset when a drunken woman leaps from his window to her death. He is then suspended. Later he redeems himself by solving a murder and bringing the corrupt tavern owner to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this fourth of the "Francis" series, former Army officer Peter Stirling (Donald O'Connor) becomes a reporter for a big city newspaper. His greatest source of news tips is his talking mule Francis (voice by Chill Wills), who has become friendly with all the police horses. When asked how he manages to stay abreast of the news, Peter tries to explain about Francis, and is not unexpectedly labelled a looney-tune. But when Peter is brought to court on a homicide charge, Francis breaks his self-imposed rule of talking only to Peter and testifies on his master's behalf. With Francis' aid, Peter cracks the murder case and is graduated to star reporter. At fadeout time, Francis is seen wooing a female zebra, explaining "Don't let the striped pajamas fool ya." Francis Covers Big Town is harmless fun, bolstered by an expert supporting cast, including the always reliable Gene Lockhart (as Peter's editor) and Gale Gordon (as a flustered D.A.). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Technicolor adventure epic Flying Leathernecks offers two things that film cultists can never get enough of: star John Wayne and director Nicholas Ray. Filmed at the behest of RKO chieftain Howard R. Hughes, Leathernecks is a paean to the Marine Flying Corps of World War II. Wayne plays Major Dan Kirby, a squadron commander, whose no-nonsense attitude is sharply at odds with the easygoing approach of executive officer Captain Carl Griffin (Robert Ryan). Griffin eventually learns the value of discipline at all costs, while Kirby becomes more humanized as he gets to know his pilots. Jay C. Flippen steals the show as a supply sergeant who "borrows" from other companies to keep his men happy. Though not entirely cliché-free, Flying Leathernecks is one of the more solid war films of the 1950s, and one that has remained readily available in theaters, on TV and in video stores to the present day. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The life and times of a modern miracle worker, Mother Frances Cabrini, are chronicled in this biography that features real film clips of the woman as the Pope canonizes her in Rome. Some of her best miracles are re-created. The film also chronicles her love of the church and her sustaining sense of humor. Among the miracles are a scene where she brings someone back from the dead, and gives a mute singer her voice. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Two newcomers, Robert Mitchum and Richard Crane, take center stage in this lavishly budgeted entry in the long-running Hopalong Cassidy series. The latter plays Tim Mason, a young hothead about to be inducted into the Texas Rangers on the behest of his good friend, Hoppy (William Boyd). Unfortunately, Tim has been persuaded into gambling away funds meant to save his floundering ranch by nasty Gunner Madigan (Anthony Warde). The lender, unscrupulous banker Simon Crandall (William Halligan), is in reality the leader of a gang of gun-runners and blackmails Tim into turning a blind eye to the gang's illegal activities on the border. Tim, however, refuses to play along, and is arrested when a driver implicates him in the crimes. Promising Tim's sister, Sue (Frances Woodward), that her brother will never go on trial, Hoppy is falsely accused of complicity when Tim is shot attempting to escape. In reality, the whole thing is a set-up, Tim having been murdered in cold blood by crooked Deputy Martin (Hugh Prosser), who is on Crandall's payroll. Pretending to leave the rangers in disgrace, Hoppy, to the disgust of sidekicks California Carlson (Andy Clyde) and Jimmy Rogers, instead joins the outlaws. It is all a ruse, of course, and Hoppy manages to get the goods on Gunner, his chief henchman, Drago (Mitchum), and the wiry Crandall, the latter two biting the dust in a climactic shootout in the bank. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

William K. Howard, a once-prestigious director fallen on hard times in 1939, proved that he still had the "right stuff" with the modest tearjerker Back Door to Heaven. Wallace Ford stars as Frankie, a pugnacious drifter stigmatized by his reform-school upbringing. Frankie and his former "classmate" Jud (Stu Erwin) try to go straight, but get mixed up in a robbery, during which a man is killed. Though not responsible for the murder, it is Frankie who is railroaded to the death house. Nonetheless, he manages to bust out -- just in time for his grammar school class reunion, presided over by teacher Miss Williams (Aline MacMahon), the only person who ever tried to give Frankie a break. Despite severe storytelling shortcomings and gaping logic holes, director Howard managed to make a silk purse out of the critically acclaimed Back Door to Heaven. However, what may once have been social realism, now seems more like a sentimental, mawkish melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this football drama, a college gridiron star attempts to leave the game, at the request of his girl friend who does not want to see him injured. Unfortunately, it is not that simple for his college will win a large donation if they can win the Big Game. When he learns that his family is betting heavily on the other team, he makes his decision--he will play. But there is one thing he did not count on--the conniving lawyer that gets him thrown in jail right before the game. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Federal Bullets is a leisurely paced Monogram crime melodrama with not a few clever plot twists. The FBI, represented by Milburn Stone and William Harrigan, investigates a seemingly respectable charitable organization. In fact, the enterprise is a front for a crime ring, headed by Ma Barker clone Zeffie Tilbury (Trivia note: Ms. Tilbury was totally blind, and had to learn her "blocking" by rote). Agent Stone poses as a crook in order to infiltrate Zeffie's mob. Federal Bullets was directed by Karl Brown, a onetime cinematographer who learned his craft under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith. The film was based on a story by federal operative Maj. George F. Elliot. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Myrna Loy plays the glamorous member of a trio of jewel thieves. G-Man Spencer Tracy goes undercover to join the gang when it transports its stolen jewels from Paris to New York. Loy falls in love with Tracy, has a change of heart, and quits the gang. But Tracy arrests her all the same when he recovers the jewels. The girl forgives Tracy when the latter is wounded in a climactic gun battle with the rest of the thieves. Why, oh why, is this thing called Whipsaw? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In G Men, Warner Bros. "bad boy" James Cagney plays James "Brick" Davis, a young lawyer whose education has been financed by soft-hearted racketeer McKay (William Harrigan). When Cagney's best pal, detective Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), is killed in a gangland shooting, James decides to become a G-Man. Though scrupulously honest, Davis is looked upon with suspicion by his fellow agents because of his association with the crooked McKay. He proves he's a "good guy" when his former girlfriend, Jean Ann Dvorak, now the wife of mobster Brad Collins (Barton MacLane), tips him off to a "Little Bohemia"-style gangster hideaway. Jean later sacrifices her own life to help James rescue his new girl, nurse Kay McCord (Margaret Lindsay), from the vengeful Collins. Based on Gregory Miller's book Public Enemy No. 1, G-Men was reissued in 1949, with an added prologue featuring David Brian as an FBI trainer who advises his students not to laugh at the old-fashioned costumes and slang in the 1935 film; seen today, it is Brian's superfluous opening comments that seem hopelessly dated, while the film itself is as exciting and entertaining as ever. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Silk Hat Kid is Lew Ayres, a babyfaced gangland "torpedo." Circumstances force the Kid to hole up in a slum settlement house, where priest William Harrigan puts him to work as a boxing instructor. The Kid begins to reform, and falls in love with tenement girl Mae Clarke. When rival Paul Kelly shows up, the Kid has the urge to kill, but Father Harrigan orders the two men to settle their differences in the ring. The Silk Hat Kid is handicapped by the miscast Lew Ayres, but it serves as an interesting precursor to the Dead End Kids school of filmmaking which became popular towards the end of the '30s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A large urban hospital provides the setting for this drama. The staff there has seen it all and this is reflected in their hard-bitten demeanor, their cynicism, and the cruel jokes they play. One of them, an excellent surgeon gains a new outlook on life after he gets involved with investigating the death of a mobster, fatally shot in his hotel suite during a card game. The police call him to the scene to look at the corpse. There he discovers a lipstick-stained cigarette butt. He begins to search for the woman who smoked it. Later that day, the woman, severely beaten, shows up in the hospital emergency room. The surgeon miraculously saves her, and then falls for her. As she lays healing, she is seen by a mobster who had come to pay his respects to the cop who killed two members of his rival gang. The mobster later sends one of his thugs to make sure that the woman stays eternally quiet. The thug's attempt to kill her is thwarted by a young intern who is wounded in the ensuing scuffle. The gangster then gets himself admitted into the hospital where he plans to kill the woman himself. This proves to be a fatal mistake as the vengeful intern "accidently" injects the gangster with a deadly poison and then claims that the mobster was D.O.A. The woman is now safe. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A mysterious stranger, his face swathed in bandages and his eyes obscured by dark spectacles, has taken a room at a cozy inn in the British village of Ipping. Never leaving his quarters, the stranger demands that the staff leave him completely alone. Working unmolested with his test tubes, the stranger does not notice when the landlady inadvertently walks into his room one morning. But she notices that her guest seemingly has no head! The stranger, one Jack Griffin, is a scientist, who'd left Ipping several months earlier while conducting a series of tests with a strange new drug called monocane. He returns to the laboratory of his mentor, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers), where he reveals his secret to onetime partner Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan) and former fiancee Flora Cranley (Gloria Stuart). Monocane is a formula for invisibility, and has rendered Griffin's entire body undetectable to the human eye. Alas, monocane has also had the side effect of driving Griffin insane. With megalomanic glee, Griffin takes Kemp into his confidence, explaining how he plans to prove his superiority over other humans by wreaking as much havoc as possible. At first, his pranks are harmless; then, without batting an eyelash, he turns to murder, beginning with the strangling of a comic-relief constable. When Kemp tries to turn Griffin over to the police, he himself is marked for death. Despite elaborate measures taken by the police, Griffin is able to murder Kemp, considerately taking the time to describe his homicidal methods to his helpless victim. After a reign of terror costing hundreds of lives, Griffin is cornered in a barn, his movements betrayed by his footsteps in the snow. Mortally wounded by police bullets, Griffin is taken to a hospital, where he regretfully tells Flora that he's paying the price for meddling into Things Men Should Not Know. As Griffin dies, his face becomes slowly visible: first the skull, then the nerve endings, then layer upon layer of raw flesh, until he is revealed to be Claude Rains, making his first American film appearance. So forceful was Rains' verbal performance as "The Invisible One" that he became an overnight movie star (after nearly twenty years on stage). Wittily scripted by R.C. Sherriff and an uncredited Philip Wylie, and brilliantly directed by James Whale, The Invisible Man is a near-untoppable combination of horror and humor. Also deserving of unqualified praise are the thorouhgly convincing special effects by John P. Fulton and John Mescall. With the exception of The Invisible Man Returns, none of the sequels came anywhere close to the quality of the 1933 original. Trivia alert: watch for Dwight "Renfield" Frye as a bespectacled reporter, Walter Brennan as the man whose bicycle was stolen, and John Carradine as the fellow in the phone booth who's "gawt a plan to ketch the h'invisible man." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi