Georgia Backus Movies

Shortly before his death, horror film producer Val Lewton switched creative gears by overseeing the Universal western Apache Drums. The scene is the potentially prosperous western town of Spanish Boot, built from nothing by a group of determined settlers. Before they can enjoy the fruits of their labors, the townsfolk are threatened with an imminent Apache attack. Delivering this sobering news is gambler Sam Leeds (Stephen McNally), previously kicked out of town by the "proper" citizens. At first, no one believes Leeds, but soon the Apaches prove the veracity of the gambler's claims. The rest of the film is light on action but heavy on tension, as the true personalities of all concerned are revealed while they await the final, fatal Apache assault. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse were loaned to Universal for the Technicolor period piece Mark of the Renegade. Set in 19th-century California, the film stars Montalban as Marcos, in league with a band of pirates. Marcos falls into the hands of Don Pedro Garcia (Gilbert Roland), a despot who hopes to become dictator of California. Planning to force the cooperation of benevolent politico Jose De Vasquez (Antonio Moreno), Garcia orders Marcos to court De Vasquez' comely daughter Anita (Cyd Charisse). It soon develops that Marcos is not the criminal he appears to be, and that he is dedicated to the vanquishing of the evil Garcia. Somehow, Mark of the Renegade finds an excuse for Cyd Charisse to perform a bewitching dance number. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A woman is torn between a comfortable lie and the painful truth in this drama. After she is abandoned by her unfaithful boyfriend Stephen Morely (Lyle Bettger), Helen Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) discovers that she's pregnant, and she has no choice but to go home to her family. Shortly after boarding the train, Helen meets Hugh and Patrice Harkness (Richard Denning and Phyllis Thaxter), a recently married couple who are travelling to visit Hugh's parents, who have yet to met his bride. Patrice, who is also with child, strikes up a conversation with Helen, and allows her to try on her beautiful wedding ring. Moments later, the train becomes involved in a terrible accident in which Hugh and Patrice are killed; because she was still wearing Patrice's ring, Helen is mistaken for the late Mrs. Harkness by Hugh's parents (Jane Cowl and Henry O'Neill), and is taken home with them as she recovers and has her baby. Helen begins to feel a part of the family until Stephen arrives, demanding money to keep her true identity a secret. No Man of Her Own was remade in 1996 as the comedy Mrs. Winterbourne. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Though her acting range was limited, Wanda Hendrix was cute as all get out, and this cuteness is pretty much all that's required from her in Song of Surrender. The film is set in a small town of the early 1900s. Hendrix is cast as Abigail Hunt, the young bride of fiftyish museum curator Elisha Hunt (Claude Rains). Their connubial bliss is threatened when attorney Bruce Eldridge (Macdonald Carey) falls in love with Abigail, and she with him. When her neighbors discover her indiscretions, Abigail is driven from town. It is only during a near-tragedy that Abigail realizes that her true place is with her aging husband. Still, the script manages to wangle a happy ending for everyone concerned. Of interest in Song of Surrender is the utilization within the plotline of several vintage Enrico Caruso recordings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Garfield, in the best performance of his career, portrays Joe Morse, an ambitious attorney who has long since abandoned his scruples in favor of monetary reward. Morse now represents the interests of crime boss Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts), who plans to take over the numbers racket in New York. Morse has devised a way of doing this legally and above-board, with no violence: Tucker's people will bring about the collapse of the illegal numbers racket in the city, using a race track-betting scam that will bankrupt the small-time underworld numbers banks; an investigation will ensue, along with a call for a legal numbers operation in the form of a lottery, which Tucker will control through Morse's machinations. The whole plan hinges on Morse's estranged brother, Leo (Thomas Gomez), a small-time numbers banker who is to be shielded from the collapse, and who will serve as the "legitimate" front for Tucker. Leo is the flaw in the plan, however, because not only can't he stand the sight of Joe, but he is also too honest to participate in the plan -- he doesn't want his employees, all decent people just looking to earn a living, forced into the employ of real gangsters. Joe orchestrates a series of police raids that force Leo into his corner, and Joe's plan seems to be working out, but then the whole enterprise is threatened when a rival mob, run by Tucker's former Prohibition-era partner, Fico (Paul Fix), starts pressuring Leo, trying to get to Joe and Tucker. Fico and his men aren't any different from Tucker's mob, except that they're prepared to start shooting sooner to get what they want. Tucker decides to hang tough and expects everyone, including Leo, to do the same, even when Fico starts sending thugs around to frighten everyone. Soon Joe is beset by problems on three fronts -- he wants his brother out of Tucker's combination and safe; he is trying to romance Leo's bookkeeper (Beatrice Pearson), who is too nice a girl for who he is; and his own well-being is threatened by both Fico and Tucker, and a state investigator who has already tapped the phone of Joe's otherwise respectable partner. All of these threads are pulled together in the final section of the film, which is as violent and disturbing, yet poetic and graceful a resolution as any crime film of the 1940s ever delivered. Force of Evil was star-crossed almost from the start, as many of the people involved, including star John Garfield and director Abraham Polonsky (a writer making his debut behind the camera, with help from assistant director Don Weis in doing the camera set-ups and blocking), were suspect at the time for their leftist political views. Indeed, the company that made Force of Evil, Enterprise Productions, was also in trouble for the leftist leanings of its films in the midst of the Red Scare, and went out of business just as the movie was finished -- dropped by United Artists and picked up by MGM, of all studios, Force of Evil made it into theaters during Christmas week of 1948, not the ideal schedule for something as grim (albeit great) as this film was. As it turned out, it was Polonsky's last chance to direct for more than 20 years, and Garfield's last completely successful film. And a movie that should have been a triumph for all concerned ended up a cult favorite. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The overcrowding in WWII-era Washington, D.C., provided the concept for this comedy, as well as another film from the previous year, The More the Merrier (1943). Lee Stevens (Fred MacMurray) is an executive from a toy company owned by T.J. Todd (Edward Arnold). In hopes of landing a lucrative wartime production contract, Todd has dispatched Stevens and Jane Rogers (Paulette Goddard), a secretary, to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with a political fat cat. Once there, Jane foolishly cancels their hotel reservations, unaware that the capitol is so jammed that there is nowhere else to stay. She devises a plan -- she and Lee will pose as servants in the home of wealthy Ira Cromwell (Roland Young), where their lodging will be part of their salary. Lee is a disaster as a domestic, and when the very same politician they've come to meet arrives for a formal dinner, disaster looms. Standing Room Only (1944) was the third of five films in which MacMurray and Goddard would appear together. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

The best of Joe E. Brown's Columbia starring vehicles, Shut My Big Mouth is also one of Joe's funniest efforts since his heyday at Warner Bros. Brown is cast as wealthy easterner Wellington Holmes, who heads to the Wild West in search of peace and quiet (!) When Wellington's stagecoach is held up by masked bandit Buckskin Bill (Victor Jory), our hero accidentally fires off a lucky shot that sends the villain and his minions scurrying off into the hills. The local townsfolk appoint Wellington sheriff, failing to inform him that this "honor" is tantamount to a death sentence in these here parts. Several unbelievable complications and coincidences later, Wellington dresses up as a Mexican senorita in order to rescue heroine Conchita Montoya (Adele Mara) from Buckskin Bill's clutches. Incredibly, the villain falls madly in love with the disguised Wellington, resulting in the film's biggest bellylaughs. Though pushing fifty, Joe E. Brown could still pull off his "babe in the woods" act, which he does with finesse in Shut My Big Mouth. The film also served as stepping stones in the careers of up-and-coming Columbia contractees Lloyd Bridges and Forrest Tucker, billed eleventh and twelfth respectively. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anxious to do her bit for the war effort, Blondie (Penny Singleton) joins the Housewives of America, a home defense league. Husband Dagwood (Arthur Lake) soon finds that Blondie is neglecting her responsibilities at home in favor of her war work; also disgruntled are Dagwood's chauvinistic boss Mr. Dithers (Jonathan Hale) and a newlywed husband (Stu Erwin) whose wife is never home thanks to the defense league. Following a slapstick denouement at a power plant, in which the husbands are shown the error of their macho attitude, Blondie promises to devote more time to Dagwood--but at the same time delivers a patriotic speech to the women in the audience, exhorting them to align with the "Home Front". Blondie for Victory was twelfth in Columbia's series of comedy films based on Chic Young's popular comic strip Blondie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mitchell Leisen directed this romantic comedy with melodramatic overtones, starring Marlene Dietrich in a sympathetic role as famed stage star Elizabeth Madden. Elizabeth longs for motherhood but has no husband. Her desire appears to be fulfilled when she finds an abandoned baby, but she doesn't have a clue on how to raise it. She finds divorced pediatrician, Dr. Corey McBain (Fred MacMurray), to help her with the child. Elizabeth names the child after him and makes Corey an offer. Since she's single, she cannot adopt the child. But if Corey would marry her in name only, she could be the adopted mother and Corey could stay in a section of her apartment where she would support his research. Corey agrees to the deal, but it's not too long before Corey and Elizabeth fall in love. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this romance, a wealthy young heiress marries an avaricious foreigner to please her father and then dreams of finding herself an all-American boy who falls in love her and not her fortune. Not surprisingly, her marriage falls apart and soon afterward, she falls in love with and marries a fellow who works in the necktie department of her daddy's store. She does not tell her husband that she is going to someday going to someday inherit the store. Meanwhile, her husband gets a series of promotions and is happy until the truth slips out. Enraged, he immediately goes to work for the company's biggest rival. Fortunately for the marriage, that is not the end of the story. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A sequel to the zany backstage comedy Curtain Call, RKO Radio's Footlight Fever once again stars Alan Mowbray and Donald MacBride as fly-by-night theatrical producers Avery and Crandall. This time, our heroes try to weasel money out of a potential backer, spinsterish millionaire Hattie (Elisabeth Risdon). Part of the scheme requires Avery and Crandall to pose as the seafaring buddies of Hattie's long-lost fiance, leading to the usual complications when said fiance finally shows up. The romantic leads in this one are played by Elyse Knox, later the mother of actor Mark Harmon, and Lee Bonnell, later the producer-husband of Gale Storm. Posting a $40,000 loss, Footlight Fever effectively ended RKO's burgeoning Mowbray-MacBride comedy series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edith Fellows and Billy Lee, two of Hollywood's most talented second-echelon child stars, are teamed in the Columbia tearjerker Nobody's Children. The film was inspired by Walter White Jr.'s popular human-interest radio series, which ran from 1939 to 1941. The radio version of Nobody's Children was dedicated to finding loving homes for the orphaned and abandoned kids under the care of the Children's Home Society of Los Angeles. White himself appears in the film in the "framing" scenes, ostensibly taking place during one of his broadcasts. The story proper deals with the plight of orphaned siblings Pat (Fellows) and Tommy (Lee), whose efforts at finding adoptive parents have been thwarted by the fact that Pat is crippled. Many adults have offered to adopt Tommy alone, but he loyally refuses to be separated from his sister?and the plot wends its sentimental way from there. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide