Lloyd Bridges Movies
Working from the ground up in stock companies, Lloyd Bridges was a member of the progressive Actors Lab company in the mid 1930s. He made his Broadway debut toward the end of that decade in a production of Othello. Signed by Columbia in 1941, Bridges appeared in everything the studio assigned him, from Three Stooges 2-reel comedies to such "A" pictures as Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Talk of the Town (1942), and Sahara (1943). He began freelancing in 1945, accepting the prescient role of a deep-sea diver in 1948's 16 Fathoms Deep, among other films. The most memorable of his '50s assignments was the leading role in the cult science-fiction programmer Rocketship X-M (1950) and the part of the look-out-for-number-one deputy in High Noon (1952).Thanks to his earlier involvement in the Actors Lab and his admission at the HUAC hearings that he'd once flirted with communism, Bridges was "graylisted" during the mid-'50s, able to find work only in lesser pictures and TV shows. He was rescued by producer Ivan Tors, who cast Bridges as diver-for-hire Mike Nelson in the TV series Sea Hunt. Filmed between 1957 and 1961, Sea Hunt was the most popular syndicated program of the era, turning Bridges into a millionaire. Alas, neither of his subsequent series of the '60s, The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962) and The Loner (1965), survived their first seasons. Undaunted, Bridges continued working into the '90s, displaying a hitherto untapped flair for zany comedy in such films as Airplane! (1980), Joe vs. the Volcano (1990), and the two Hot Shots films. Bridges was the father of actors Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges. A committed environmentalist, he was involved in several organizations including the American Oceans Campaign and Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles-based group. Bridges died of natural causes on March 10, 1998. Shortly before his passing, he had completed work on two films, Jane Austen's Mafia and Meeting Daddy; in the latter film, Bridges co-starred with his eldest son Beau. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1942
In this war comedy, an army reject becomes a war hero by rounding up a ring of Nazi spies. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1942
Columbia's belated effort to cash in on the popularity of Abbott & Costello's Buck Privates was the raucous and generally amusing wartime comedy Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. Jackie Gleason (the same!) and Jack Durant are teamed for the first and only time as Hank and Jed, a pair of dimwitted barbers who are forced into bankruptcy because all their customers have marched off to war. Figuring that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, Hank and Jed try to join the Army themselves, only to be rejected for a variety of reasons (When asked to read the eye-chart, Hank says he can't-not because he can't see, but because he can't read). Still wishing to serve their country, our heroes set up a "home guard" unit, and in this capacity manage to trap a gang of homicidal crooks. To his credit, Jackie Gleason does not try to imitate his idol Lou Costello, but the A&C influence is felt throughout this trivial little laughspinner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Gleason, Jack Durant, (more)
- 1942
One of the most fondly remembered of the "Blondie" series entries, Blondie Goes to College is predicated on the notion that Dagwood Bumstead (Arthur Lake) must receive a college diploma or lose his job with the Dithers Construction Company. Not wishing to be separated from her husband, Blondie (Penny Singleton) enrolls in college as well-but the rules stipulate "no married couples", forcing our hero and heroine to pretend that they're not married. This causes quite a dilemma when coed Laura Wadsworth (Janet Blair) begins flirting with Dagwood and B.M.O.C. Rusty Bryant (Larry Parks) does same with Blondie. Making things worse-Blondie is expecting another child (who will make her first appearance in the next installment, Blondie's Blessed Event), but she daren't tell anyone lest both she and Dag be expelled. The student body at this particular seat of learning is comprised of quite a few familiar faces (most well past college age), including Lloyd Bridges, Sid Melton, and Adele Mara. The biggest laughs in Blondie Goes to College are garnered by famed double-talk expert Al Kelly, playing an uncredited cameo as a tangle-tongued professor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, (more)
- 1942
In this musical comedy, an agent for an advertising agency begins trying to push a new "Blind Date" service and so engages two popular USO singers to perform for the Navy. He hides the young women and keeps their looks a secret because the two singers are terribly unattractive. To keep the sailors from booing them off the stage, the adman decides to have two prettier models lip-sync the songs. Unfortunately, the ad agent's plans go awry when the homely singers decide to elope with two nice sailors. Songs include: "I Surrender Dear" (Harry Barris, Gordon Clifford), "We Did It Before and We Can Do It Again," "All Over the Place" (Charles Tobias, Cliff Friend), and "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Davis, Jinx Falkenburg, (more)
- 1942
There are moments in Columbia's Flight Lieutenant that approach "high camp"; indeed, one is hard pressed to remember if any cliché is left unturned. Pat O'Brien plays air pilot Sam O'Doyle, who is professionally disgraced when he survives a crash in which his co-pilot is killed. He tries to get work elsewhere, but finds that he can't shake the onus of his apparent dereliction of duty (Even the newspapers conspire against him, trumpeting his humilitation in front-page headlines!) Finally O'Doyle escapes to the tropics, leaving his young son in the care of his best friend Sanford (Jonathan Hale). As the years pass, young Danny Doyle (Glenn Ford), an aviator himself, grows to despise his father's memory-especially since he has married Susie Thompson (Evelyn Ankers), the daughter of Sam's unfortunate co-pilot. When WW2 breaks out, Danny is promoted to flight lieutenant, whereupon his father enlists as an Army Air Corps private under Danny's command. The elder Doyle finally redeems himself when he knocks Danny out and takes over a suicidal test-pilot assignment (That darn fool kid-er, darn fool grownup!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pat O'Brien, Glenn Ford, (more)
- 1942
In this western, a community revives the legend of Billy the Kid after robbers attack a stage coach. The deputy marshal believes the Kid is dead and even goes to the cemetery to exhume his body. Unfortunately, the grave is empty and as the marshal ponders the mystery, a masked rider shoots at him. The eagle-eyed lawman recognizes the man's horse and realizes that he is a prominent businessman in town. The businessman admits his deed and says he only did it to keep the marshal away from the grave so he wouldn't discover the fellow's true identity. He also claims that he is innocent of the other crimes. Later, the lawman arrests the businessman's son for participating in the robbery. He doesn't know the boy is the other's son. The businessman believes his son is innocent and so rides out to find the real culprits. Unfortunately, he ends up ambushed by them. As bullets whiz around the hapless entrepreneur, the lawman frees his son and together they ride to rescue him. Justice soon follows. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Starrett, Russell Hayden, (more)
- 1942
In this western, three Texas Rangers decide to do their part to save the world and join the Army, but before they can, they are sent to Alaska to destroy a secret Nazi operation involving a submarine refueling station. The outpost is located behind an impenetrable tangle of barbed wire. The rangers get a little help, and discover a traitor. Then to get through the wire, they start a cattle stampede and save the day. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Starrett, Russell Hayden, (more)
- 1942
In this entry in the "Boston Blackie" series, the suave ex-thief returns to prison to see a Christmas show. There he is impressed by the talent of the inmates. One particularly talented fellow uses his magic act to break out of prison. Now Blackie must find him. Meanwhile the fugitive searches for his look-alike, the man who really committed the crime. Clever Blackie manages to catch them both and then insures that the real crook goes to jail while the innocent man goes free. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1942
Like Harmon of Michigan and Smith of Minnesota, Columbia's Spirit of Stanford is built around the talents of a real-life college football star, in this instance all-American quarterback Frankie Albert. The story is cut from a familiar cloth, with Albert's arrogance getting him into all sorts of trouble before he gets his head on straight. At first intending to quit school before graduation to go professional, our hero relents at the last moment when his roomate falls ill just before the Big Game. The climax is well worth the wait, with Albert performing admirably and convincingly on the football field against a formidable lineup of genuine college athletes. Columbia contractee Marguerite Chapman is the love interest, while another Stanford gridiron great, Ernie Nevers, shows up in a cameo role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frankie Albert, Marguerite Chapman, (more)
- 1942
In this espionage caper, a government spy must keep enemy agents from spying upon a defense plant. His work is made easier by his newest invention, a word scrambler which makes it difficult for the enemy agent. The good guy spy then hires a crack team to assist him; among them is the pretty young plant worker he inadvertently got fired. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1941
The title of this series entry may strike some as a tad redundant: After all, isn't crook-turned-sleuth Michael Lanyard, aka the Lone Wolf, always taking a chance? On this occasion, Lanyard (Warren William) and his trusty valet Jamison (Eric Blore) are framed on a murder charge. The actual miscreants are a gang of counterfeiters, shipping their plates into the country in a thief-proof carrier invented by Johnny Baker (Lloyd Bridges). In the course of clearing their names, Lanyard and Jamison are sealed up with poor Johnny in one of his own carriers, which is then filled with poison gas. Will they escape? Is there really any doubt? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- June Storey, Warren William, (more)
- 1941
A daffy romantic comedy released in Great Britain under the title Good Morning Doctor, this film reunites the two stars of The Lady Eve. Henry Fonda plays Peter Kirk, a wealthy but bored playboy who has a skiing accident while admiring a beautiful woman. The woman turns out to be a doctor, Helen Hunt (Barbara Stanwyck), who treats the injuries to his rear end. The two fall in love and marry. But Peter, who has too much time on his hands, becomes jealous of his wife's time with her male patients. Helen makes him look for a job to keep him from stewing. Because he has no experience, the only position that Peter can get is as a department store clerk. The other workers there discover that he's a millionaire and force him to leave, causing him to rethink how he is going to spend his free time. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, (more)
Robert Montgomery plays saxophone-playing boxer Joe Pendleton, who insists upon piloting his own plane, much to the consternation of his manager Max Corkle (James Gleason). Just before a championship bout, Joe's plane crashes. When he revives, he finds he has been whisked away to Heaven by the overanxious Messenger #7013. Checking with the man in charge, one Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), Pendleton discovers that he isn't scheduled to die for another 50 years. Joe heads back to earth, only to learn to his chagrin that his body has been cremated. Mr. Jordan is obliged to find Joe a new body; the "candidate" is a business mogul named Farnsworth, who is in the process of being murdered in his bath by his wife (Rita Johnson) and her lover (John Emery). Joe takes over Farnsworth's body, astonishing the murderers by emerging from the bathroom, very much alive (while Joe still looks like Joe to himself and the audience, he looks like Farnsworth to everyone else). Still desirous of winning the upcoming championship, Joe begins to whip Farnsworth's body into shape, even hiring Max Corkle to manage him. It takes some doing, but Joe convinces Max that he is indeed Joe and not Farnsworth (their scenes together are priceless, far better seen than described). Meanwhile, Joe has fallen in love with Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes), a woman whose father had been ruined by the real Farnsworth. For her sake, he pays back millions of dollars that the crooked Farnsworth had finagled out of his investors. This prompts Mrs. Farnsworth and her lover to kill "Farnsworth" again, and once more Joe Pendleton is without a body. How Mr. Jordan arranges for Joe to win the championship, expose the murderers and walk off arm and arm with Bette is a bit too complex to detail here. Here Comes Mr. Jordan is one of the most consistently clever romantic comedies of the 1940s, and richly deserving of the Oscars won by screenwriters Sidney Buchman, Seton I. Miller and Harry Segall. A sequel, Down to Earth, was filmed in 1947, with Roland Culver as Mr. Jordan; and in 1978, the original Jordan was remade by Warren Beatty as Heaven Can Wait. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, (more)
- 1941
In this drama, which blends romance with suspense, Prince Kurt von Rotenberg (George Brent) is attempting to flee his native Austria one step ahead of German troops. In his travels, he meets Marta Keller (Martha Scott), and amidst the chaos that surrounds them, the two fall in love, even though she is already engaged to another. Kurt and Marta set their sights on Czechoslovakia, but they lose track of each other along the way, and in time Kurt decides to make a profound sacrifice for the woman he loves -- when he learns that Marta's fiancé has been captured by Nazi troops, Kurt offers to turn himself in to German authorities in exchange for his release. They Dare Not Love proved to be the last feature film credited to British director James Whale, though he did not in fact complete the project; midway through the shooting, Whale was replaced by Charles Vidor. Lloyd Bridges and Peter Cushing both appear in minor roles. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Brent, Martha Scott, (more)
- 1941
Faith, Hope and Charity motivate the wacky storyline of Columbia's Three Girls About Town--or to be more exact, gorgeous sisters Faith, Hope and Charity Banner, played respectively by Binnie Barnes, Joan Blondell and Janet Blair. Faith and Hope are gainfully employed as New York hotel hostesses, whose job it is to entertain wealthy out-of-town conventioneers (but no hanky panky, if you please!) They've remained in this profession in order to afford the expensive private-school education of their sister Charity, who shows up in the Big Apple in pursuit of her own career, or a wealthy husband, or both. Charity's arrival coincides with several big-time conventions, one of which is being covered by Faith's newspaper-reporter boyfriend Tommy Hopkins (John Howard). Things get dicey when the three girls discover a corpse in one of the hotel rooms. Certain that they'll be blamed for the death (or at the very least fired from their jobs!), the sisters conspire with Tommy to hide the body from the cops. Trouble is, the body just won't stay hidden, not even when our heroines try to dispose of the awkward stiff in one of the coffins brought into the hotel for an undertaker's convention. Blessed with a generous supply of belly-laughs and an unending stream of familiar character actors, Three Girls About Town sustains a proper level of zaniness right up to the cop-out finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Blondell, Binnie Barnes, (more)
- 1941
Harmon of Michigan was the first in a trio of Columbia sports films, each starring a real-life athlete. In this case, the title character is All-American halfback Tom Harmon, who when introduced in the film is on the verge of graduating from Michigan and turning professional. Shortly thereafter, he becomes a college football coach, surprisingly resorting to illegal (or at least unethical) tactics to drive his team to victory. Even more surprising is that he is never called on the carpet for these tactics, which seem to have been given the tacit approval of the film's producers. Harmon's former teammate Forest Evashevski and Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Henry also appear as themselves. Though Anita Louise is cast as Tom Harmon's wife, the real-life Mrs. H. would ultimately turn out to be actress Elyse Knox (their children included 1980s screen star Mark Harmon and future "Mrs. Ricky Nelson" Kris Harmon). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Harmon, Anita Louise, (more)
- 1941
Bill Elliot took time out from his "Wild Bill Hickok" westerns series to essay the title role in Son of Davy Crockett. During the Reconstruction era, Davy Jr. (Elliot) is hired by President Grant (Harrison Greene) to convince the residents of a small territory on the Texas border to align themselves with the United States. Opposing this move is local outlaw leader King Canfield (Kenneth MacDonald), who wants nothing to interfere with his dictatorial hold over the territory. For a while, it looks as though young Crockett has cast his lot with Canfield, but his true loyalties are revealed at a crucial plot juncture. Despite its potential, Son of Davy Crockett falls short due to his overabundance of dialogue and its paucity of action. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Iris Meredith, Dub Taylor, (more)
- 1941
While in Hawaii, Velez begins the film as a risque nightclub act and due to her involvement with a group of sailors becomes a beauty queen. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1941
Medico of Painted Springs was the first of western hero Charles Starrett's appearances as frontier doctor Steven Monroe. Riding into a small town, Dr. Monroe finds himself smack-dab in the middle of a range war between cattlemen and sheepmen. It doesn't take long for Monroe to figure out that the trouble has been stirred up by a gang of crooks, who hope to play one side against the other so that they can move in and take over. When the time is ripe, the doc lays down his thermometer and stethoscope and comes out fighting-just as he would in all future "Dr. Monroe" epics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Starrett, Terry Walker, (more)
- 1941
Next to Ann Miller, few Columbia contractees made more B musicals than Jinx Falkenberg. In Sing for Your Supper, Falkenberg is cast as Evelyn Palmer, the gorgeous proprietor of a dime-a-dance emporium. Bandleader Larry Hays (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) is the official owner of the joint, but when he finds himself in financial hot water, Evelyn, a wealthy socialite, secretly buys up the lease and takes a job as one of the dancers to keep tabs on her money-and the handsome Mr. Hays. Much of the film's running time is given over to comedian Bert Gordon, better known as radio's "Mad Russian" ("How do you doooooo?") Eve Arden is rather wasted as a wisecracking taxi dancer, but better things were to come her way within a few short years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jinx Falkenburg, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, (more)
- 1941
Two Latins From Manhattan was Columbia's 1941 contribution to the "Good Neighbor Policy" towards South America. Joan Davis heads the cast as pushy nightclub press agent Joan Daley, while Jinx Falkenberg and Joan Woodbury are costarred as Joan's roommates, aspiring showgirls Jinx Terry and Lois Morgan. Having heavily promoted the upcoming nightclub appearance of a famous Cuban singing-sister team, Joan is left in the lurch when the sisters fail to show up. But not to worry: our heroine gives Jinx and Lois a crash course in Cuban dialects, and in a twinkling the two Manhattanites are successfully posing as the Cubanos. The fun begins when the real Cubans show up unannounced. Evidently, Columbia was so enamored with this plotline that the studio used it again, with only minimal changes, as Two Senoritas From Chicago (1942), which also featured Joan Davis and Jinx Falkenberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Davis, Jinx Falkenburg, (more)
- 1941
Western star Charles Starrett makes one of his periodic forays into the Great White North in Columbia's Royal Mounted Patrol. When villainous lumberman Frenchy Duvalle (Donald Curtis) refuses to limit his wood-chopping activities, he inadvertently touches off a forest fire. Trapped in the middle of the conflagration, Frenchy's only hope for rescue is mountie Tom Jeffries (Charles Starrett), presently scouring the countryside in his scout plane. Jeffries' reasons for bringing Frenchy out safely are twofold: he must deliver the renegade lumberjack to the authorities, and he happens to be in love with Frenchy's sister Betty (Wanda McKay). A very young Lloyd Bridges appears in a supporting role, as does Kermit Maynard, previously the star of his own "mountie" series at Ambassador Films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Starrett, Russell Hayden, (more)
