Irene Hervey Movies

Natalie Wood plays what was touted as her first "grown up" role in the tense melodrama A Cry in the Night. Based loosely on the Caryl Chessman case, the film showcases Raymond Burr as a psycho who stalks and attacks young couples on Lover's Lane. Overpowering Wood's boyfriend, Burr kidnaps the girl and locks her up in a seedy one-room apartment. Though he barely lays a hand on her, Wood has every reason to be terrified of her captor, who has a disturbing habit of brutally killing small animals. Meanwhile, Wood's police-captain father Edmond O'Brien brusquely ignores all manner of civil liberties as he and fellow officer Brian Donlevy turn the town inside out in search of the girl and her abductor. Carol Veazie appears as Burr's blowsy, dominating mother, while Mary Lawrence offers an interesting characterization as Wood's plain-Jane sister, who is jealous of all the attention showered on her missing sibling. Cry in the Night is a surprisingly lively offering from the normally uninspired director Frank Tuttle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Veteran movie leading man Bert Lytell warmed the director's chair for Along Came Love. Irene Hervey plays a shopgirl, while western star Charles Starrett dons civvies in the role of a pediatrician. Through a series of bizarre but credible complications, Hervey's mother (Irene Franklin) is arrested during a raid at a burlesque house, which plot device serves to bring hero and heroine together. All misunderstandings are ironed out within the film's 65-minute time frame, as we all knew they would be. Along Came Love was cowritten by Arthur Caesar, miles away from his Oscar-nominated original story for 1934's Manhattan Melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Goldie Hawn won an Oscar for her performance as a Greenwich Village free spirit in Cactus Flower. Middle-aged dentist Winston (Walter Matthau) is enjoying an affair with Toni (Goldie Hawn) but doesn't want to be hemmed in by marriage. He prevails upon his non-glamorous assistant Stephanie (Ingrid Bergman) to pose as his wife so as to keep from campaigning for a ring. Then, to justify his "infidelity," Winston talks his pal (Jack Weston) into pretending to be Stephanie's illicit lover. Flattered by all the attention, Stephanie begins to "doll up." Confronted by a newly gorgeous Stephanie, Winston realizes that his Dream Girl has been right there in his office all along. As for Toni, she ends up in the arms of a writer (Rick Lenz), who has loved her since Reel One. Cactus Flower was adapted by Billy Wilder's frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond from the play by Abe Burrows -- which in turn was adapted from a French farce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tough reporter Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) wants to get the full story behind the apparent suicide of a young woman. It seems that the girl left behind a notebook with a list of seemingly unrelated names. Adams tracks down each one of the persons cited in the notebook, slowly but surely putting the pieces together. Once the basic mystery is solved, however, there's one surprising loose end left to be tied up. June Havoc co-stars as Leona, self-styled best friend of the decedent, who helps Adams in his quest. As the victim, Donna Reed appears exclusively in flashbacks. Based on a story by veteran suspense scrivener Tiffany Thayer (of Thirteen Women fame), Chicago Deadline was remade for television in 1966 as Fame is the Name of the Game. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1933 film of the same name, the 1942 Universal programmer Destination Unknown stars William Gargan as a pilot for General Chennault's Flying Tigers. As such, Gargan is on hand to witness Japanese skullduggery in China, long before Pearl Harbor. When a cache of jewels, intended to finance Chiang Kai-Shek's fight against the Japanese invaders, disappears, Gargan and adventuress Irene Hervey desperately search for the missing gems. Everyone seems to be awfully mercenary, but patriotism wins out before the end. As was customary in wartime films, the Japanese in Destination Unknown are depicted as offensively as traffic would allow, so it's best to regard this film within the context of its times. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his roommate, dour doorman Mischa Auer, Crosby offers care and shelter to the infant until he can locate the parents. The baby brings in some unwanted publicity for Crosby, which costs him his job--no real problem, in that a happy ending is obviously in the offing. East Side of Heaven was the first of a two-picture deal between Bing Crosby and Universal Pictures, which turned out to be a smart move money wise for both parties. Crosby's leading lady is the vivacious Joan Blondell, who later characterized her costar as "Aloof...I think he was born that way." The infant in the story is played by Baby Sandy (Sandra Henville), who was subsequently launched into a brief "B" series of her own before retiring at the advanced age of four. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kaye Stevens guest-stars as nightclub singer Julie Madden, another of Bill's many lady friends. As a favor to Bill, Julie agrees to give singing lessons to Buffy, who hopes to join her school glee club. Alas, poor, tone-deaf Buffy has what could be described as "Van Gogh's ear for music". Kaye Stevens sings "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You", while series regular Johnnie Whitaker (Jody) performs "Every Boy Should Be President", a fascinating preview of Whitaker's song renditions on his later series Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a popular radio series, this Universal serial, produced in 13 chapters, starred two of the studio's better B-movie leads, Kent Taylor and Irene Hervey. Despite their fine work, the serial's preposterous plot -- a mad scientist assembling a League of Murdered Men to wreak havoc on the city -- proved too much even for die-hard serial fans. The League consisted of criminals who were injected with a death-stimulating drug and declared officially dead, only to rise from their graves fortified by Professor Mortis' reviving drug. The gangbusters of the title consisted of the mustachioed Mr. Taylor, his assistant Robert Armstrong and girlfriend Irene Hervey. The latter played a news photographer and mostly got in the way of what little action the serial offered. The leading villain was played by Ralph Morgan, brother of MGM stalwart Frank Morgan, an always watchable character actor who nevertheless often seemed to be called in whenever a studio failed to engage Boris Karloff or Lionel Atwill. Morgan had very little to work with this time around; considering Universal's proud heritage, the professor's scientific lab looked surprisingly mediocre. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Half Way to Shanghai is Burma, according to this Universal B-grade actioner. The film takes place almost in its entirety on a train bound from Lashio to Rangoon in the days just prior to the Japanese invasion. Passenger Alexander Barton (Kent Taylor) becomes the reluctant hero of the piece when he comes into possession of a map showing Chinese defense sites. When he's not trying to elude Nazi agents Zerta (George Zucco) and Van Simet (Lionel Royce), Barton is dealing as best he can with the film's two heroines, Vicki Nelson (Irene Hervey) and Caroline Wrallins (Charlotte Wynters). Half Way to Shanghai bears traces of the earlier Universal suspenser Bombay Clipper, which took place on a cramped passenger plane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dick Foran is back for another seven-reel melange of music and comedy in Universal's He's My Guy. Foran is cast as defense-plant worker Van Moore, who is casting about for ways of boosting morale amongst his fellow workers. Coming to the rescue are a group of veteran vaudevillians, who stage a spectacular show for the plant. Among these beloved performers are Gertrude Niesen, the Mills Brothers, Louis Da Pron, Lorraine Krueger, The Diamond Brothers and the Dorene Sisters. The feminine angle of the storyline is handled by heroine Irene Hervey and comedienne Joan Davis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood Party was planned as a lavish, star-studded MGM musical titled Hollywood Revue of 1933. Under the less-than-sterling guidance of "kicked upstairs" MGM producer Harry Rapf, production dragged on interminably, using up the talents of five directors (none of whom were credited) and seven writers. The "all star" cast lineup slowly dwindled down to comparatively inexpensive contract players Jimmy Durante and Jack Pearl (radio's Baron Munchhausen) and a passel of non-MGM personalities. The final product wove a goofy story about The Great Schnarzan (Durante), a jungle-movie star whose films are suffering at the box office because his lions are anemic. Schnarzan schemes to purchase several healthy lions from Baron Munchhausen; to get the baron into a bargaining mood, Schnarzan throws a huge Hollywood party in Munchhausen's honor. Liondora (George Givot), Schnarzan's "hated rival", hopes to purchase the Baron's lions for himself, and crashes the party disguised as a Greek Baron. Also figuring into the plot are the members of the Klemp family (Charles Butterworth, Polly Moran and June Clyde), who are filthy rich and thus quite attractive to both Schnarzan and Liondora; poor-but-honest Eddie Quillan, who romances the Klemp's daughter; and Schnarzan's ex-girlfriend Lupe Velez, who shows up at the party in an astonishingly revealing gown for the express purpose of making trouble. In an amusing animated sequence courtesy of Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse introduces the Technicolor musical exploits of "The Hot Chocolate Soldiers." Shortly before the end, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy make a welcome appearance as a pair of lion-farm owners who wish to collect a debt from Baron Munchhausen. This segues into the classic egg-breaking sequence involving Stan, Ollie, and Lupe Velez. Now we've reached the 65 minute mark, with no logical ending in sight. Director Allan Dwan, brought into the project at the last minute, took a look at the existing footage and declared "It's a nightmare!" Inspired, Dwan directed a closing sequence which suggested that the whole plot had been dreamed by Jimmy Durante; Durante is wakened from his slumbers by his wife--played by Mrs. Jimmy Durante. Hollywood Party makes no sense at all, but it's a must for comedy lovers and 1930s film buffs. Don't miss that opening number, written by Rodgers and Hart and performed by Frances Williams and a chorus of barely dressed telephone operators; and keep an eye peeled for a lengthy uncredited appearance by the Three Stooges. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tragedy strikes the Ironside team when policewoman Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson) is seriously injured in a shooting. As Eve hovers between life and death, Ironside (Raymond Burr) flashes back to his first meeting with the socialite-turned-cop, a time when he was unconvinced that she was cut out for police work (and incidentally, when he was still able to move around without a wheelchair). Meanwhile, Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway) is poised to take the law in his own hands and kill Eve's attacker unless Ironside and Mark (Don Mitchell) can talk him out of it. Featured in the cast of this "retrospective" episode Quinn Redeker, who later shared an Oscar for his screenplay contributions to the 1978 theatrical feature The Deer Hunter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced by Paramount's Pine-Thomas unit, Manhandled is a no-nonsense film noir with a well-chosen cast. Small-time hoodlum Karl Benson (Dan Duryea) uses and abuses several innocent people in his efforts to get ahead. Among Benson's victims is Merl Kramer (Dorothy Lamour), who doesn't find out about her boyfriend's perfidy until it's almost too late. Sterling Hayden co-stars as insurance investigator Joe Cooper, who likewise exploits poor Merl, albeit for a good cause: Cooper is on the trail of some missing jewels. A subplot involves a married couple (Irene Hervey and Alan Napier) and the wife's would-be lover (Phillip Reed). Manhandled's level of tension never lets up, not even in its final scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide