Maggie Hayes Movies
Brunette leading lady Margaret Hayes was signed by Paramount after a brief stage career in 1941. At first billed as Dana Dale, Hayes was seen in other-woman and villainess roles in such pictures as The Lady Has Plans (1942) and The Glass Key (1942). She truly blossomed as an actress in the 1950s, thanks largely to her extensive television work, wherein she was usually billed as Maggie Hayes. Her most conspicuous screen assignment of this period was the role of terrified inner-city schoolteacher Lois Hammond in The Blackboard Jungle (1955). After retiring from show business in 1962, Hayes pursued a variety of successful business ventures, ranging from jewelry design to public relations. Margaret Hayes was married twice, to actor Leif Erickson and producer Herbert Bayard Swope Jr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1963
Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) takes the case of self-made millionaire Otto Olney (John Larkin), who wants to sue art critic Colin Durant (John Larkin) for allegedly spreading rumors that the rare Gauguin painting recently purchased by Olney is a forgery. But Durant insists that he had never cast aspersions on Olney--and he offers to produce a witness, Maxine Lindsay (Erin O'Donnell), to prove his assertion. In his efforts to track down the elusive Maxine, Perry ends up in her bathroom--where Colin Durant, dead as a doornail, is taking his last shower! This episode is based on a 1962 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1962
Leaning heavily on violence to ostensibly deliver a pacifist message, this standard drama by Philip Leacock looks at the problem of teen gangs from a slightly different angle -- these teens are all wealthy. Everything starts off when aerospace engineer Walt Sherill (Alan Ladd) is accosted and severely beaten by a group of young punks. The victimized man decides to hunt down the thugs on his own, at first just for curiosity and then increasingly for vengeance. His actions spark retaliatory measures, and before the credits roll, the body count is elevated by a few more victims in what amounts to nothing more than a blood feud. In the end, justice of the legal and politically correct sort makes a token appearance. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Ladd, Rod Steiger, (more)
- 1962
In this prison drama, a remake of Caged, House of Women (1950), a pregnant woman is wrongly convicted of armed robbery. She is sentenced to five years in prison. After her child is born, the inmate is allowed to keep it. She then has three years to earn parole. If she does not, the babe will be put up for adoption. When the prison warden finds himself attracted to the woman, he makes her his personal maid. Time passes and he falls in love with her resulting in better treatment for the other prisoners. Three years pass and the woman's parole seems assured until the sadistic warden, not wanting to lose the woman he loves, decrees that she will not be paroled and that all imprisoned mothers will lose custody of their children. This harsh action spawns a bloody revolt amongst the inmates. It is the brave woman that quells the uprising. Later media coverage of the event results in her release. The warden is fired. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Knight, Andrew Duggan, (more)
- 1960
A teacher turns away a woman who's being attacked in the middle of the night. After she's found dead, he's treated as an outcast and his daughter is kidnapped. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1959
Set within the popular bohemian coffee houses of the late '50s where beatniks gathered to recite poetry and perform, this sensationalistic detective drama centers upon the attempts of an insensitive police detective to catch an arrogant serial rapist, a rich young man who believes himself mentally superior and therefore beyond the law. His favorite victims are married women. When he learns that the detective is after him, the rapist targets the cop's wife. Later the poor wife discovers she's pregnant and cannot be sure who fathered her child. The film is alternatively titled This Rebel Age. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Cochran, Mamie van Doren, (more)
- 1959
This sexually explicit, low-budget film makes no pretensions about being anything other than offensive. There is no plot since none is especially necessary. Director Charles Haas (his last film was the following year), opens with a scene of sexually active men and women at a party. Then one of these women, Silver Morgan (Mamie Van Doren), is mistakenly accused of a crime and sent to an institution, run by Catholic nuns, for wayward young women. As it turns out, the inmates in the institution actually run it through sadistic means. One of them is even more seriously mentally disturbed than the others, and so the nuns welcome her as a novitiate, making even a non-Catholic viewer grimace. The content of this story, such as it is, is made all the worse by an accompanying disregard of the craft of filmmaking. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mamie van Doren, Mel Tormé, (more)
- 1958
Case Against Brooklyn was based on an "expose" article by Ed Reid. Darren McGavin plays rookie cop Pete Harris, who goes undercover to help smash a Brooklyn bookie ring. The problem here as that the crooks have been bribing other cops to look the other way. As if Harris wasn't courting enough trouble by going up against his "own", he also falls in love with gambler's widow Lil Polombo (Maggie Hayes), even though he's already married to Jane Harris (Peggy McCay). Daniel B. Ullman's screenplay adheres to the facts as recorded by Ed Reid, right down to the semi-unhappy finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Darren McGavin, Maggie Hayes, (more)
- 1958
Margaret Hayes plays the title character in From the Desk of Margaret Tyding. A successful businesswoman, Margaret has reason to believe that someone wants to do her ill. Her suspicions are confirmed when it is discovered that somebody has been slipping her small doses of poison. The chief suspects: Margaret's loving husband and trusted assistant. First telecast in color in the spring of 1958 on TV's Matinee Theater, the 60-minute From the Desk of Margaret Tyding later resurfaced in kinescope form as part of the syndicated series Cameo Theater. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1958
About the only perils that heroine Dana Wynter avoids in Fraulein are being tied to the buzzsaw and chased across the ice by bloodhouds. Wynter plays a German girl of genteel upbringing who is forced to wake up and smell the coffee when her family is killed in a WW2 air raid. She helps American officer Mel Ferrer escapes the Gestapo, then must figure out a way to elude her Russian Army captors, headed by Theodore Bikel (who later ruefully commented that more people remembered him for this film than for anything else). Escaping to the American sector of Berlin, Wynter naively registers herself as a prostitute, leading to a daunting series of tribulations. The upshot of all this is that German officer Helmut Dantine lusts after Dana because of what he thinks she is, while American officer Ferrer loves her because he knows deep down that she's not what she's supposed to be. Filmed on location, Fraulein was based on a novel by James McGowan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Wynter, Mel Ferrer, (more)
- 1957
Frank Freeman Jr., son of the longtime head of Paramount Pictures, made his debut as producer with the opulent but empty Omar Khayyam. Cornel Wilde stars as the legendary Persian poet, here depicted as not only a philosopher but a scientist, politician and great lover. As the Persians gear up for war against the Byzantines, Omar occupies his time by romancing Sharain (Debra Paget), the favorite wife of the Shah (Raymond Massey). He also does his best to foil a plan by Hasani (Michael Rennie), leader of the Cult of Assassins, to murder the royal family. While many of the characters and events are based on fact, it is difficult to believe the story or the dialogue for more than ten minutes at a stretch. Singer Yma Sumac, then famous for her four-and-a-half octave vocal range, is somehow woven into the proceedings. When Omar Khayyam laid an egg at the box-office, a Hollywood wit, taking into consideration the Southern heritage of Frank Freeman Jr., assessed the results as "A loaf of bread, a bottle of coke and you-all." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cornel Wilde, Michael Rennie, (more)
- 1956
Two brothers face their personal demons in this crime melodrama. Donald Martin (Van Johnson) is an alcoholic criminal who has escaped from prison and needs help crossing the Mexican border to freedom. Desperate, he arrives at the ranch of his lawyer brother Martin (Joseph Cotten). Martin has little respect for his brother and would prefer his neighbors not know he's housing a fugitive, so he tries to convince people that Donald is actually someone else. Donald is crushed by his brother's shame and rejection, and, after a drinking binge, he decides that he should try to make the journey into Mexico on his own. Martin's wife Nora (Ruth Roman), who has her own issues with Martin, convinces him to put his differences aside and help Donald however he can. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Van Johnson, Joseph Cotten, (more)
- 1956
This video contains an episode of the television show The Johnny Rath Story. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1955
Three bank robbers (J. Carroll Naish, Lee Marvin, Stephen McNally) case a small Arizona mining town prior to pulling a holdup. The audience get to know the various townsfolk as they're scrutinized by the crooks. Victor Mature plays a man who is a disappointment to his son because he didn't serve in the war. Tommy Noonan is a meek bank manager with a habit of spying on a pretty customer as she undresses in her second-story bedroom. Sylvia Sidney is a petty thief who has deposited her stolen funds in the bank. Margaret Hayes is the cheating wife of a local leading citizen, who is killed in the holdup. And Ernest Borgnine is a pacifistic Amish farmer, forced to take violent action when his children are threatened by the criminals (Borgnine's pitchfork-wielding scene was reproduced for the print ads of this film, leading some critics to assume that he was the villain!) The hero of the day turns out to be the "unheroic" Mature, who after being kidnapped by the crooks frees himself and prevents their escape. Violent Saturday is based on a novel by William I. Heath. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Victor Mature, Richard Egan, (more)
In this gritty urban drama, war veteran Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford) wants to begin his career as a teacher and is given an assignment at a boys high school in inner-city New York. However, he soon discovers the school is overrun by delinquents, led by Artie West (Vic Morrow), an insolent hood who likes to call Richard "Mr. Daddy-O." Artie and his gang steal, destroy property, refuse to respect authority, and threaten the female teachers with rape. While most of the faculty have given up and meekly let the delinquents do what they want, Dadier is determined to bring order back to his classroom, even after Artie's thugs threaten Richard's pregnant wife. Keep your eyes peeled for a bit part by Jameel Farah, years before he would change his name to Jamie Farr. Blackboard Jungle was also the first major studio film to use rock & roll on the soundtrack; the film's success kick-started sales of "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets, which helped to spark the rock & roll boom of the 1950s. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Sidney Poitier, (more)
- 1943
In this entry in the "Lone Wolf" series, the sleuth and former jewel thief, the Lone Wolf finds himself accused of killing a blackmailer in front of the three women he was harassing. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Aircraft plant worker Robert Cummings is accused of sabotaging his factory and causing the death of a co-worker. Actually, Cummings is the fall guy for a clever ring of Nazi spies, headed by above-suspicion American philanthropist Otto Kruger. Our hero goes on a cross-country chase after genuine saboteur Norman Lloyd, all the while pursued himself by the police. Along the way, he acquires a reluctant "travelling companion" in the form of Priscilla Lane, who at first despises Cummings and intends to turn him over to the authorities at the first opportunity, but who gradually comes to realize that the boy is innocent. Alfred Hitchcock intended Saboteur to be the American equivalent to his British The 39 Steps, employing such details as the solid-citizen villain, the handcuffed hero, the unwilling blonde heroine, and any number of stopovers with a variety of offbeat characters (a travelling "freak" show, a compassionate blind man, a grizzled old prospector who turns out to be one of the spies, etc.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, (more)
- 1942
Take a Letter, Darling is from the "boss lady" school of 1940s comedies. Fred MacMurray is Darling (that's his last name), an unsuccessful artist who advertises for a position as male secretary. He is hired by female advertising executive Rosalind Russell, who is all business--during business hours. MacMurray learns that his job description includes escorting Ms. Russell and her clients to social gatherings. This goes on and on until Rosalind begins softening her steely exterior and MacMurray asserts his male prerogative (this of course was 1942, when gender stereotypes weren't subject to the ACLU). The film's best moments belong to Robert Benchley as Russell's ad agency partner, who'd rather play cards than tend to business. Though Rosalind Russell seems to be typecast in Take a Letter, Darling she was actually second choice for her role; it had been slated for Claudette Colbert, but Colbert became unavailable when she took over for the recently deceased Carole Lombard in The Palm Beach Story (42). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rosalind Russell, Fred MacMurray, (more)
- 1942
Long underappreciated by film buffs, The Lady Has Plans is a screwball comedy disguised as an espionage melodrama. The title character is not star Paulette Goddard, as one might assume, but Nazi agent Rita Lenox (Margaret Hayes), who sneaks into Lisbon with a secret message written on her bare back in invisible ink. Through a case of mistaken identity, perky Sidney Royce (Paulette Goddard), the assistant to globetrotting radio correspondent Kenneth Harper (Ray Milland) is presumed to be Rita Lenox. At the behest of British Intelligence chieftan Ronald Dean (Roland Young), who hopes to extract the vital information supposedly scribbled on Sidney's back, our nonplussed heroine is treated like royalty in a posh Lisbon hotel. Meanwhile, Rita, having summed up the situation, simultaneously poses as Sidney. Once he's figured out what's what, Harper manages to waylay Rita and intercept the message, but neither he nor Sidney are out of the woods yet-not if German spy chief Baron Von Kemp (Albert Dekker) has anything to say about it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, (more)
- 1942
The title neatly gives away the ending in RKO Radio's Scattergood Survives a Murder. Guy Kibbee once again stars as storekeeper Scattergood Baines, the sage of the small town of Coldriver. The story gets under way when two reclusive spinsters die under mysterious circumstances. Inasmuch the as the eccentric old ladies have left their fortune to their pet cats, Scattergood suspects that foul play was involved, with the victims' sinister housekeeper (Eily Malyon) high on the suspect list. Aiding and abetting our hero in his easygoing investigation are local newspaper editor John Archer and hotshot gal reporter Margaret Hayes (Archer, incidentally, was the father of present-day leading lady Anne Archer). Scattergood Survives a Murder was the latest in a series of B-pictures inspired by the long-running radio saga Scattergood Baines. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Guy Kibbee, John Archer, (more)
- 1942
Dashiel Hammett's The Glass Key, a tale of big-city political corruption, was first filmed in 1935, with Edward Arnold as a duplicitous political boss and George Raft as his loyal lieutenant. This 1942 remake improves on the original, especially in replacing the stolid Raft with the charismatic Alan Ladd. Brian Donlevy essays the role of the boss, who is determined to back reform candidate Moroni Olsen, despite Ladd's gut feeling that this move is a mistake. Ladd knows that Donlevy is doing a political about-face merely to get in solid with Olsen's pretty daughter Veronica Lake. It is Ladd who is left to clean up the mess when crime lord Joseph Calleila murders Olsen's wastrel son Richard Denning and pins the rap on Donlevy. As Ladd struggles to clear Donlevy's name, he falls in love with Lake--when he's not being pummeled about by Calleila's psychopathic henchman William Bendix. Far less complex than the Dashiel Hammett original (and far less damning of the American political system), The Glass Key further increased the box-office pull of Paramount's new team of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, (more)
- 1942
Bob Hope's first starring vehicle for producer Sam Goldwyn borrows the title of Bob's 1942 autobiography They Got Me Covered and very little else. Co-scripted by Leonard Q. Ross (aka Leo Rosten), Leonard Spigelgass and Harry Kurnitz (among many others!), the film casts Hope as Robert Kittredge, the Moscow correspondent for a major American news service, who is fired when he neglects to file a report about Hitler's invasion of Russia. Hoping to get back in the good graces of his boss Norman Mason (Donald MacBride), Kittredge steals another reporter's story about a Nazi spy ring operating in New York. Though officially a comedy, the film is curiously unfunny at times, with Hope playing an unsympathetic, unappealing character who'll step on anyone -- including his long-suffering sweetheart (Dorothy Lamour) and a hysterical kidnap victim (Phyllis Povah) -- to get ahead. Otto Preminger is funnier (perhaps intentionally) as the head Nazi. A few good gags notwithstanding, They Got Me Covered is nowhere near as satisfying as Hope's second Goldwyn effort, The Princess and the Pirate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, (more)
- 1941
Claudette Colbert and Ray Milland, stars of the 1940 hit Arise, My Love, were immediately reteamed for Skylark. Adapted from the play by Samson Rafaelson, the film stars Colbert as the wife of a neglectful businessman Milland (her role had been played on Broadway by Gertrude Lawrence). Brian Aherne is a handsome bachelor who hopes to win Colbert away from her husband. At first enjoying her vacation from marriage, Colbert finds she can't keep up with Aherne's peripatetic lifestyle, and returns to Milland. Skylark's comic highlight is a slapstick sequence in which Colbert tries to prepare lunch in a yacht during a storm. The scene was shot in a single take, an accomplishment in which the actress took justifiable pride. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudette Colbert, Ray Milland, (more)
In Preston Sturges' classic comedy of Depression-era America, filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), fed up with directing profitable comedies like "Ants in Your Plants of 1939," is consumed with the desire to make a serious social statement in his upcoming film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Unable to function in the rarefied atmosphere of Hollywood, Sullivan decides to hit the road, disguised as a tramp, and touch base with the "real" people of America. But Sullivan's studio transforms his odyssey into a publicity stunt, providing the would-be nomad with a luxury van, complete with butler (Robert Greig) and valet (Eric Blore). Advised by his servants that the poor resent having the rich intrude upon them, Sullivan escapes his retinue and continues his travels incognito. En route, he meets a down-and-out failed actress (Veronica Lake). Experiencing firsthand the scroungy existence of real-life hoboes, Sullivan returns to Hollywood full of bleeding-heart fervor. After first arranging for the girl's screen test, he heads for the railyards, intending to improve the lot of the local rail-riders and bindlestiffs by handing out ten thousand dollars in five-dollar bills. Instead, Sullivan is coldcocked by a tramp, who steals Sullivan's clothes and identification. When the tramp is run over by a speeding train, the world at large is convinced that the great John L. Sullivan is dead. Meanwhile, the dazed Sullivan, dressed like a bum with no identification on his person, is arrested and put to work on a brutal Southern chain gang. With its almost Shakespearean combination of uproarious comedy and grim tragedy, Sullivan's Travels is Sturges' masterpiece and one of the finest movies about movies ever made. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, (more)
- 1941
The Irving Berlin-Morrie Ryskind Broadway musical hit Louisiana Purchase came to the screen with surprisingly few emendations in 1941. Bob Hope replaces Broadway's William Gaxton in the role of innocent political flunkey Jim Taylor, set up to take the fall for wholesale graft by a group of corrupt Louisiana politicians. Taylor's friendly adversary is bumptuous U.S. senator Loganberry (Victor Moore, repeating his stage role), whose efforts at reform only end up getting him in hot water as well. Loganberry solves his own problems by marrying Mme. Bordelaise (Irene Bordoni), the temptress who'd been sent out to place him in a compromising position, forcing Taylor to straighten out the mess himself in a hilarious climactic courtroom filibuster. ("If it's good enough for James Stewart, it's good enough for me.") Some of the satirical bite of the Broadway version had to be blunted for movie-audience consumption, though Paramount managed to avoid potential lawsuits by using a device which originated in the play: an amusing opening "opera bouffe" wherein it was established beyond all doubt that Louisiana was a totally mythical state! (At one point, a bevy of chorus girls sing the "any resemblance to actual persons living or dead" disclaimer.) On a historical note, Louisiana Purchase was Bob Hope's first Technicolor appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, Vera Zorina, (more)
