Lloyd Bridges Movies

Unlike many westerns, City of Bad Men is placed within a specific historical time frame. The scene is Carson City, Nevada, in the year 1897. As the city prepares itself for the much-ballyhooed prizefight between Gentleman Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons, soldier-of-fortune Brett Stanton (Dale Robertson) rides into town with a few of his cronies. Stanton takes into consideration the enormous gate proceeds that the prizefight will yield and immediately begins formulating plans to steal the loot. He is deflected from this by his former girlfriend Linda Culligan (Jeanne Crain), whose good example sets Stanton on the right path. Corbett and Fitzsimmons are played, respectively, by ace stunt men John Day and Gil Perkins. Actual film footage exists of their legendary bout, and this brief ribbon of celluloid might make an interesting companion feature to City of Bad Men. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Despite the lighthearted promotional campaign mounted by 20th Century-Fox when the film was first released, The Kid from Left Field is not a comedy. The title character is young Christy Mathewson Cooper (Billy Chapin), the son of former big-league ballplayer Larry Cooper (Dan Dailey), who is now reduced to hawking peanuts at the ballpark. Securing a job as a batboy with a team called the Bisons, Christy amazes the players and management by giving them tips on how to win games. What no one knows is that Christy is passing along information provided by his father. Impressed by Christy's apparent expertise, third baseman Pete Haines (Lloyd Bridges) tells team secretary Marion Foley (Anne Bancroft) about the boy. She, in turn, tells Bisons owner Whacker (Ray Collins), a "Bill Veeck" type ever on the alert for a new publicity gimmick. Whacker promptly appoints the pint-sized Christy as manager of the team, replacing the ill-tempered Billy Lorant (a truly venomous performance by Richard Egan). Larry is about to spill the beans concerning Christy's baseball knowledgeability, but he decides not to, considering himself a burnt-out has-been. And that's all that can be revealed without giving away the ending. Its whimsical premise notwithstanding, Kid from Left Field is treated as a straight drama, with several near-noir long shots of the shadow-drenched ballpark. The film was remade for television in 1978 as a vehicle for Gary Coleman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Plymouth Adventure earned a footnote in film history as the last directorial effort by the prolific Clarence Brown. Otherwise, this colorful re-creation of the Pilgrims' journey to America is a workmanlike job, never inspired but always interesting. Spencer Tracy stars as bull-stubborn Captain Christopher Jones, who intends to guide the Mayflower to its destination come Hell, high water or any other obstacle. Since Jones is spiritually "wed" to his job, the film's romantic angle is handled by Van Johnson as John Alden and Dawn Addams as Patricia Mullen. Gene Tierney is second-billed as Dorothy Bradford, the ill-fated bride of future Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford. Though the film makes several departures from the facts (there's even a villain!), Plymouth Adventure tells its tale professionally and with satisfactory entertainment value. The film earned MGM artisan A. Arnold Gillespie an Academy Award for best special effects. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy-drama, Frank Keeler (Lloyd Bridges is an American G.I. stationed in Italy whose less-than-legal side business has earned him a small fortune. However, he is eventually caught, convicted, and imprisoned by authorities, but not before he can hide the money. After Keeler is released, he goes back to Italy to pick up his money, only to discover that someone also has already found it, sending Keeler on a manhunt to find the person who made off with his nest egg. Likely suspects include ex-girlfriend Elena (Lea Padovani), cemetery worker Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi) and transplanted mobster Jack Conway (William Tubbs. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ninety per cent of Little Big Horn takes place before Custer's Last Stand; thus, the emphasis is on character and suspense rather than spectacle (just as well, since spectacle was well out of the range of parsimonious Lippert Studios). Lloyd Bridges heads a small band of cavalrymen who desperately try to reach the Little Big Horn in time to warn Custer of a Sioux ambush. One by one, the men are picked off by Indian sharpshooters. The only survivors are Bridges and John Ireland, longtime enemies who may very well knock each other off before ever getting to Custer. Little Big Horn was the first directorial assignment for western-writer Charles Marquis Warren. It was hardly the last: Warren would later be one of the most prolific contributors to the Gunsmoke TV series of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Together with The Steel Helmet and Baron of Arizona, Rocketship X M is one of the best films ever turned out by the usually unimpressive Lippert Studios. Set sometime in the future, the film details the first manned space flight to the moon. John Emery plays the head of the expedition, with Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, Hugh O'Brian and Noah Beery Jr. in the crew. Blown off its course by a meteor shower, Rocketship X-M misses the moon and lands on Mars instead (the Mars scenes were originally tinted pink). During an exploratory expedition, the crew finds evidence of a once-mighty civilization, evidently destroyed by atomic warfare. A savage band of surviving Martians attack the earthlings, killing two and wounding a third. The survivors head back to the ship, but run out of fuel before reaching Earth. Out of this failure springs the hope that future space flights will prove successful. Generally avoiding cliches (except for the stereotypical comedy relief by Noah Beery Jr.), Rocketship X M is a reasonably intelligent outer-space yarn. While it's true that the film falters in the scientific-accuracy department, it is best to assess the film within the context of its times. Produced for $94,000, Rocketship X M reportedly grossed over a million dollars. A "restored" video version with new special effects was released in 1976 by entrepreneur Wade Williams. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Sound of Fury is better known by its general release title, Try and Get Me. Based on Jo Pagano's novel The Condemned, the film recreates a dismal chapter in American history. In 1933, the otherwise peace-loving citizens of San Jose, CA, were stirred up by blind hatred into forming a mob and lynching two accused kidnappers (this same incident was fictionalized in the 1935 Fritz Lang film Fury). Frank Lovejoy and Lloyd Bridges play a couple of down-and-outers who kidnap a wealthy youngster in hopes of getting a huge ransom. Things go terribly wrong, and the boy is killed. When the two kidnappers are arrested, a local journalist (Richard Carlson) inflames the populace with a series of hate-filled articles about the two prisoners. The journalist then stands by in mute horror as he watches the terrible results of his irresponsible print campaign. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Reliable serial and western leading lady Adrian Booth is awarded top billing in Republic's Hideout. Hannah (Booth) and Edie (Sheila Ryan) vie for the attentions of naïve attorney George Browning (Lloyd Bridges). Our hero wises up in a hurry when he takes on a gang of jewel thieves, headed by Fogerty (Ray Collins). Comic actor Alan Carney, of the "Brown and Carney" comedy team, turns in an unexpectedly sinister performance as Collins' chief henchman. Hideout was based on a serialized Saturday Evening Post story by William Porter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When nearly perfect counterfeit 20-dollar bills start turning up, the Treasury Department recognizes them as the work of Tris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges), a man already doing a long prison stretch. They offer Stewart a break on his sentence if he'll help them find out who got hold of his old plates, but he initially refuses. Some weeks later, while being transferred to another prison, Stewart escapes from custody -- it turns out that this is a set-up to free Stewart to search for the plates with a treasury agent keeping tabs on him; then he turns on the T-man as well, escaping for real. What Stewart doesn't know is that the agents expected and desired this move, believing that he would only go for the plates if he thought he could make some money from the bills and get out of the country with his girlfriend Laurie (Barbara Payton). They've got her apartment bugged, and one of their own men, Downey (John Hoyt), has been put in place as a customer at the nightclub where she works, quietly establishing himself as a man with some angles of his own and a yen to know her better. Stewart follows the trail to one of his ex-distributors, now in business for himself with the plates. But the man needs money, and Stewart thinks he can get it with help from Downey -- he doesn't like him trying to impress her, but does like it that he is a grifter with some money. They become partners, putting up Downey's cash to get the 250,000 dollars in counterfeit twenties, which Stewart will spend at face value where he and Laurie are going, in countries where they need U.S. currency and there are no treasury agents around to help identify counterfeit bills. Before the deal can be closed (and the arrest made), a new round of possible double-crosses starts between the hoods, and Downey's cover is suddenly blown by accident -- Stewart tries to kill him but is captured instead. Downey's superiors want to pull him out, but the agent thinks he can still salvage the operation if he can get to the plates before Laurie can talk to anyone. That leads to the denouement, an extended series of split-second plot developments with several lives at risk. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

An especially good casts helps lift Republic's Secret Service Investigator well above the norm. Lloyd Bridges plays disillusioned ex-GI Steve Mallory, who falls in with a gang of wily crooks. Convincing Mallory that they're U.S. secret service agents, the villains persuade our hero to help them in a phony rare-coin scheme. When he realizes he's being flim-flammed, Mallory risks his neck by agreeing to work as a double agent for the real Feds. The film is effortlessly stolen by George Zucco as Otto Dagoff, the erudite but slimy head of the fake-coin racket. In case there's any question that Secret Service Investigator is a Republic film, the presence of Roy Barcroft as one of the heavies should remove all doubt. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

All of his life, Danny Hawkins (Dane Clark) has been taunted and mistreated by most of the people around him, enduring innumerable beatings and other humiliations as a boy because his father was a murderer who died on the gallows. He finds it not much better as an adult, living with his aunt in the small Virginia town of Woodville -- especially when he is contending for the attentions of young schoolteacher Gilly Johnson (Gail Russell) with his boyhood tormentor Jerry Sykes (Lloyd Bridges), whose bullying and arrogance are made worse (and more galling) by the fact that he's the son of the town banker (and its richest man). Sykes picks a fight with Danny and loses for the first time, but he dies in the process. Knowing how the town thinks of him because of his father, Danny tries to hide the body. But for all of his bitterness over how he's been treated, he can't truly escape the feelings of guilt over what he's done -- nor can he escape his fear of what people will probably think. For a time, his new romance with Gilly distracts him, but he's unable to put it out of his mind for long, especially when he's forced to join his good friend Mose (Rex Ingram) on a raccoon hunt that takes them right to the pond where the body is hidden. Soon the sheriff (Allyn Joslyn) is investigating, and he can't help but confer with the one man in town whose judgment he respects nearly as much as his own -- Danny. And when Danny's deaf-mute friend, Billy (Harry Morgan), unknowingly uncovers a key piece of evidence, Danny is pushed almost to the breaking point. He's driven by his own instincts to run away, and invite almost certain capture or death, but Gilly and the sheriff see this as a chance for Danny not only to free himself of the torment over what he's done but from the past that has haunted him and blighted his life -- if only they can reach him and make him understand. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This cowboy drama from Hungarian director Andre De Toth was the first of several films based on the stories of Western author Luke Short. Veronica Lake stars as Connie Dickason, strong-willed daughter of Ben Dickason (Charles Ruggles), a ranch owner who has become the toady of a powerful local cattleman, Frank Ivey (Preston Foster), whom Ben once wanted Connie to marry. Connie instead married a sheep rancher and inherited his spread. With her husband out of the picture, Connie becomes determined to run the ranch despite the opposition of Ivey and her father. In her camp are the town drunk, veteran cowhand Dave Nash (Joel McCrea) and a crew of anti-Ivey locals. The resulting bloody range war is much to the dismay of Dave, who wants to resolve Connie's problems with Ivey legally. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Dana Andrews -- in one of the best performances of his career -- plays Logan Stuart, a bold, ambitious general store and freight company owner based in the mining settlement of Jacksonville, OR, in 1856. He and his best friend, local banker and express company owner George Camrose (Brian Donlevy), share an attraction for young, beautiful Lucy Overmire (Susan Hayward). However, that's all the two men share -- Stuart sees life in the Oregon territory as a challenge, to be worked out and overcome with thought and time, with the opportunity to build something lasting and significant in the process. Camrose only sees the opportunity to get rich fast and live easy, and he's addicted to gambling at the local saloon. What no one knows is that he's been doing his gambling with the gold dust that the miners have left on deposit in his vault -- and he's been losing. He wants to get out of the territory, to someplace like San Francisco, and plans to take Lucy away. Stuart, by contrast, is as much a frontiersman as a businessman, and so much a part of the community and so trusted and liked that he might even be a potential political leader, if he ever had the time and the willingness to settle down and stay put. He finds consolation over his loss of Lucy in an engagement to Caroline Marsh (Patricia Roc), a daughter of an Englishman who came to Oregon only to see her father killed by Indians, who lives with the homesteading family of Ben Dance (Andy Devine) and his wife (Dorothy Peterson) and their children. Out of friendship, and also a little guilt over the fact that he would love to be engaged to Lucy, Stuart gives Camrose the money to get even, but Camrose can't resist one last card game, and not only loses what Stuart gave him, but the gold dust of one miner -- who shows up unexpectedly in town that night, planning on getting his dust the next day. When the man turns up drowned, Camrose is accused of murder; Stuart stands by his friend, but he's found guilty and the miners, led by hot-headed young Johnny Steele (Lloyd Bridges), plan on hanging him, and shooting anyone who tries to get in the way. But before his fate can be settled, an Indian war starts over the killing of a young Native American woman, and the lives of every white settler in and around Jacksonville are suddenly endangered. There's all of that, plus four songs (including "Old Buttermilk Sky") from Hoagy Carmichael (who does a great acting job), all convincingly woven into the drama along with one of the music legend's best acting performances. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide