Harry Harvey, Jr. Movies

This episode is based on a mystery story penned by no less than Ellery Queen. When his son is mysteriously murdered, religious fanatic John Cooley (R.G. Armstrong) embarks upon a "mission from God" to wreak vengeance for the boy's death. Using a fragmentary clue found at the murder scene, Cooley heads to the small town of Northfield, where he holds the populace in a grip of terror. Hoping to prevent Cooley from destroying the town, Northfield sheriff Will Pearce (Dick York) sets about to solve the murder himself. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rear Admiral Matt Sherman (Cary Grant) visits the submarine Sea Tiger on the morning of its decommissioning and reminisces about his time as the first commander of the boat, in 1941. Three days after Pearl Harbor, the sub is damaged during an enemy air raid in the Philippines; rather than abandoning her, Sherman and his chiefs refloat the boat. He's forced to accept the services of Lt. (jg) Nick Holden (Tony Curtis), who has no sea experience. Sherman appoints Holden -- a born conniver, deal-maker, and scrounger (his motto: "In confusion, there is profit") -- as supply officer, and through a series of burglaries and petty thefts he gets the Sea Tiger seaworthy again. Up to this point, the movie is an increasingly amusing service comedy, akin to the lighter moments of Mr. Roberts, running on Grant's wry exasperation and Curtis's cool arrogance, coupled with Arthur O'Connell's periodic sardonic yet optimistic jabs at their situation and Gavin MacLeod's fidgety nervousness. The Sea Tiger puts to sea ahead of the Japanese with a quintet of stranded army nurses aboard. The film shifts to a new level of humor as the officers and crew try to cope with living in close quarters with five attractive women in their midst. Grant gives a very witty performance as a man who is both exasperated by the situation he is in, having to adjust his masculinity to keep it from clashing with the feminine sensibilities of his guests, and also trying to control the mating urges of his men, starting with Holden, who can't stay away from Lt. Duran (Dina Merrill). Complicating matters more is Grant's awareness that the Sea Tiger is a "virgin" -- she has never engaged the enemy, but when they finally do, the accident-prone Lt. Crandall (Joan O'Brien) causes their torpedo to miss a tanker and sink a truck (probably the funniest sight gag in the movie). The boat also gets an accidental coat of pink paint when their supply of red and white runs low, and ends up carrying several Filipino families -- including two pregnant women. Since neither the Japanese nor the Americans officially has a pink submarine, the Sea Tiger ends uphunted by both sides and come under attack by an American destroyer. That's where the women's presence becomes a godsend. The movie ends 18 years later, with Holden a serious career navy man and responsible father, married to Duran, and Grant married to Crandall, who is as accident prone as ever. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Four hot rods have been stolen by thieves who intend to strip the cars for parts and accessories. Investigating, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) cannot help but notice that three of the four missing cars had been entered in the same race just before their disappearance. As in the case of the earlier episode "The Big Rod", the two detectives are assisted in their efforts to track down the criminals by members of the National Hot Rod Association. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Marlon Brando went out on yet another creative limb when he insisted upon playing sly, philosophical Okinawan interpreter Sakima in the 1956 filmization of John Patrick's Broadway play Teahouse of the August Moon. While he occasionally lapses into "flied lice" stereotyping, for the most part Brando is quite effective and amusing, especially when facing up to the difficult task of speaking directly to the audience. The story is set in Okinawa in the months following V-J Day. Paul Ford (repeating his Broadway role - and replacing Louis Calhern, who died at the start of production) plays an American colonel in charge of the occupation troops. Determined to bring Western civilization to the Okinawans, the colonel assigns captain Glenn Ford to do his bidding. A habitual screw-up, Captain Ford hopes to make good by organizing the Okinawan women into a social club and by building a schoolhouse. But the villagers would rather erect a teahouse, serviced by pretty geisha girls. The ever-resourceful Sakima (Brando) does his manipulative best to curry favor with the Americans while still mollifying his own people. Co-starring in Teahouse of the August Moon is Machiko Kyo, leading lady of such Japanese film classics as Rashomon and Gate of Hell. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

While John Ford and Howard Hawks received all the critical plaudits, Lesley Selander quietly went about his business directing some of the best westerns of the 1950s. In Selander's Shotgun, deputy sheriff Clay (Sterling Hayden) embarks upon a long, vengeful journey to track down Thompson (Guy Prescott), the man responsible for his boss' murder. Packing a sawed-off, double-barrelled shotgun for this purpose, Clay also carries a rifle and sixgun for such "lesser" threats as marauding Indians. Rescuing half-breed Abby (Yvonne de Carlo) from certain death, Clay takes her along on his manhunt, and later the two travellers are joined by bounty hunter Reb (Zachary Scott), who intends to get to Thompson first to collect the reward on the fugitive's head. Naturally, a bitter romantic triangle arises involving Clay, Abby and Reb, but this is briefly set aside when Thompson is finally cornered. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Between Midnight and Dawn is a solid, no-frills detective drama from the Columbia studio mills. Mark Stevens and Edmond O'Brien star as police officers Barnes and Purvis, who tool around in their prowl car in the wee hours of the morning. Vengeful gangster Ritchie Garris (Donald Buka) would like nothing better than to get Barnes and Purvis out of his hair, especially after breaking out of jail. In a thrill-packed climax, Garris makes a desperate escape using a little kid as a shield, while Purvis tries to second-guess the homicidal gangster. As Kate Mallory, Gale Storm has little to do except serve as the bone of romantic contention between the two male protagonists. Curiously, Storm doesn't get to sing, though supporting actress Gale Robbins does--three times, in fact. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this faithful remake of Blind Alley (1939), psychoanalyst Andrew Collins (Lee J. Cobb), his wife, his son, and some friends are taken hostage by escaped murderer Al Walker (William Holden) and his gang, including girlfriend Betty (Nina Foch). Collins, an advocate of rehabilitating criminals through psychiatry, induces his captor to talk about himself through the course of the night. By calmly and methodically piecing together the strands of the killer's unconscious motivation, Collins rids Walker of his literally murderous rage and prevents a massacre. Shrinks who practice in the noir universe are frequently painted as absurdly omnipotent. When not using their power for evil, like Dr. Cross (Vincent Price) in Alfred L. Werker's Shock (1946), they may be capable, like the benign Dr. Collins, of miracle cures. A more complex depiction of an unrealistically powerful, but ambiguously motivated, psychiatrist can be seen in Joseph Losey's The Sleeping Tiger (1954). In that British film, Dr. Clive Esmond (Alexander Knox) cures a criminal in a few short months but destroys his own marriage in the process. ~ Steve Press, Rovi

James Thurber wasn't too happy with the Sam Goldwyn film adaptation of his 1939 short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but the Technicolor musical comedy proved to be a cash cow at the box office. Danny Kaye stars as Walter, a milquetoast proofreader for a magazine publishing firm. Walter is constitutionally incapable of standing up for himself, which is why his mother (Fay Bainter) has been able to arrange a frightful marriage between her son and the beautiful but overbearing Gertrude Griswold (Ann Rutherford). As he muses over the lurid covers of the magazines put out by his firm, Walter retreats into his fantasy world, where he is heroic, poised, self-assured, and the master of his fate. Glancing at the cover of a western periodical, Walter fancies himself the two-gun "Perth Amboy Kid"; a war magazine prompts Walter to envision himself as a fearless RAF pilot; and so on. Throughout all his imaginary adventures, a gorgeous mystery woman weaves in an out of the proceedings. Imagine Walter's surprise when his dream girl shows up in the flesh in the person of Rosalind van Horn (Virginia Mayo). The girl is being pursued by a gang of jewel thieves headed by Dr. Hugo Hollingshead (Boris Karloff), a clever psychiatrist who manages to convince Walter that he's simply imagining things again, and that Rosalind never existed. At long last, Walter vows to live his life in the "now" rather than in the recesses of his mind: he rescues Rosalind from the gang's clutches, tells his mother and Gertrude where to get off, and fast-talks his way into a better position with the publishing firm. Substituting the usual Danny Kaye zaniness for James Thurber's whimsy, Secret Life of Walter Mitty works best during the production numbers, especially Kaye's signature tune "Anatole of Paris." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One-time movie song-and-dance man James Dunn won an Academy Award for his "comeback" performance in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Based on the best-selling novel by Betty Smith, the film relates the trials and tribulations of a turn-of-the-century Brooklyn tenement family. The father, Dunn, is a likable but irresponsible alcoholic whose dreams of improving his family's lot are invariably doomed to disappointment. The mother, Dorothy McGuire, is the true head of the household, steadfastly holding the family together no matter what crisis arises. The story is told from the point of view of daughter Peggy Ann Garner, a clear-eyed realist who nonetheless would like to believe in her pie-in-the-sky father, whom she dearly loves. Joan Blondell co-stars as the family's brash, freewheeling aunt, whose means of financial support is a never-ending source of neighborhood gossip. This first film directorial effort of Elia Kazan earned a special Oscar for "Most Promising Juvenile Performer" Peggy Ann Garner. A Tree Grows From Brooklyn was remade for TV in 1974, and also served as the basis of a Broadway musical. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After a year's absence, entertainer Eddie Cantor returned to the screen in the self-produced Show Business. The plot is loosely based on Cantor's own rise to fame, from vaudeville to Broadway. Covering the years 1914 to 1929, the film reflects the changing tastes in entertainment, though Cantor (as in real life) steadfastly remains the same. Co-stars George Murphy and Joan Davis likewise borrow from their own showbiz experience in playing their characters, while Constance Moore, who was still in her playpen when Cantor was at the height of his Ziegfeld Follies fame, provides the standard love interest. Highlights include such Cantor standards as "Curse of an Aching Heart," "Whoopee," and "Dinah," the latter performed in blackface. The best ensemble number is a devastating satire of Grand Opera, with Joan Davis particularly amusing as a Wagnerian soprano. A few excerpts from Show Business were reused as "flashbacks" in the subsequent Cantor-Davis starrer If You Knew Susie (1948). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A nostalgic and patriotic film from director Henry King similar to such later films as The Corn Is Green (1945). Claudette Colbert, stars as Nora Trinell, an aging schoolteacher awaiting a meeting with presidential candidate Dewey Roberts (Shepperd Strudwick). As Nora waits, she reflects on the past. It seems that a young Dewey (Douglas Croft) is Nora's pupil many years earlier in 1916, and has developed a schoolboy crush on his teacher, who encourages him to pursue his dreams. Nora, however, is quietly married to a fellow teacher, Dan Hopkins (John Payne), which inspires Dewey's jealousy when he discovers the truth. Tragedy awaits Dan, however, when he joins with the Canadian forces entering World War I. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In the 1930s and 1940s, Warner Bros. developed a positive genius for remaking earlier films in new, disguised fashion, retaining the plotlines but altering the circumstances and character names. Wagons Roll at Night was a 1941 reworking of the prizefight drama Kid Galahad, filmed only four years earlier. The original film was about a naive boxer who falls in love with the sister of his semi-crooked manager. The remake stars Eddie Albert as a bucolic lion tamer, Humphrey Bogart (who'd been the villain in Kid Galahad) as the circus manager, and Joan Leslie as the girl. The earlier film also included Bette Davis as the manager's put-upon mistress; her counterpart in Wagons Roll at Night is Sylvia Sidney as a worldly circus star. It's amazing how well the prizefight milieu adapts itself to the lion cage, and for this alone Wagons Roll at Night is memorable. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi