John Hoyt Movies

With George Bernard Shaw safely in his grave, RKO chief Howard Hughes had no qualms about twisting and bending Shaw's Androcles & the Lion to accommodate his own notions of entertainment. Happier, wiser heads prevailed before the Hughes-commissioned "Vestal Virgins" sequence, complete with near-naked dancing girls, was foisted on the public. Originally, Harpo Marx was to have played Androcles, the simple-hearted Christian tailor whose friendship with a lion saves himself and his friends from martyrdom in the Roman Colosseum. A few days into shooting, however, Harpo was replaced by Alan Young, who was okay but not in Marx's league. RKO habitués Jean Simmons and Victor Mature co-star as, respectively, a courageous Christian girl and the bullheaded Roman captain who falls in love with her. Every Shaw play has one character who acts as the playwright's alter ego; in Androcles, it's none other than Caesar himself, here wittily essayed by Maurice Evans. Director Chester Erskine co-adapted the play for the screen with Ken Englund; serving as producer was Gabriel Pascal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Loan Shark was one of several independently-produced films made by George Raft in the early 1950s. Raft plays Joe Gargan, a good guy who pretends to turn bad to trap a gang of usurious loan sharks. In order to convince the crooks that he's on their side, Gargan is forced to call it quits with his sweetheart Ann Nelson (Dorothy Hart). Once he's accepted by the villains, Gargan dreams up an elaborate new method of siphoning money from an unsuspecting public. Inevitably, however, the villains get wise to Gargan's subterfuge, and for a while it looks like curtains for our hero. One of the most appealing aspects of Loan Shark is the no-frills cinematography of Joseph Biroc, who went on to such loftier pursuits as The Towering Inferno. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Gerry Mayer, nephew of MGM-head Louis B. Mayer, proved that nepotism had nothing to do with his hiring by turning out the first-rate historical melodrama Inside Straight. The film begins in 1870 San Francisco, as the city is threatened with financial disaster due to overspeculation on the Comstock Lode. David Brian stars as local tycoon Rip MacCool, who in a series of flashbacks recalls his rise to prominence. While wheeling and dealing with other people's money, MacCool loves and loses two wives: Lily Douvane (Arlene Dahl) takes him for every penny he's got, while Zoe Carnot (Paula Raymond) dies in childbirth. Back in the present, MacCool is forced to make a fateful decision that will, for once, benefit someone else rather than himself. In a supporting role as town banker Ada Stritch, Mercedes McCambridge figures prominently in the final sequence, in which everything hinges on the titular poker hand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this adventure-fantasy, an American rocket ship crashes upon a remote island in the Pacific and an Air Force pilot and a scientist are assigned to find it. They get to the island and suddenly discover that the island is populated by a myriad of extinct animals, including dinosaurs. Fortunately, there is an island girl around to help the handsome captain and his crew recover important pieces of their craft and get back home. Some of this film is comprised of clips from Rocketship X-M and The Terror of Tiny Town. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Desert Fox is a superb filmed biography of German general Erwin Rommel, concentrating on the period between his retreat from North Africa and his government-decreed death. A brilliant tactician, Rommel earns the respect not only of his own men but of the enemy. Unfortunately, Adolph Hitler (Luther Adler), laboring under the delusion that he too is a military genius, demands more of Rommel than he's able to provide. Ordered to stand his ground in Africa to the last man, Rommel realizes that it's more intelligent in the long run to retreat; this incurs Hitler's wrath, but Rommel is a war hero, and as such is virtually "untouchable". Increasingly disgusted by Hitler's behavior, Rommel joins in a plot to assassinate the Fuhrer. The attempt fails, and Rommel's complicity is discovered. He is given a choice: either face a horrible death by torture, or commit suicide, thereby saving his family and his reputation. Rommel opts for the latter; the official story given to the press is that Rommel died heroically of his war wounds. Also appearing in The Desert Fox are Jessica Tandy as Rommel's wife and Leo G. Carroll as an insufferably aristocratic Von Ruhnstedt. The film caused a critical stir in 1951 by providing a tense ten-minute dramatic sequence before the opening credits--a technique that is all but de rigueur today. The Desert Fox was based on the book by Brigadier Desmond Young, who narrates the film and appears as himself in the early scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Basehart stars as an ex-convict who has problems finding employment on the outside. He takes a job as a lab assistant in a seedy sanitarium, bringing him in contact with a number of disreputable characters. Basehart learns that the sanitarium is a front for a robbery syndicate; will he resume a life of crime, or will he turn the tables on the crooks? Though an inexpensive production, Outside the Wall benefits from a handpicked, powerhouse supporting cast. The director was Crane Wilbur, an expert at moody melodrama whose career stretched way back to The Perils of Pauline (1914). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A remake of Wife, Husband and Friend (1938), Everybody Does It is a frantic satire of the opera world. Businessman Paul Douglas is forced to suffer in silence when his wife (Celeste Holm) decides to become an opera star. Compelled to bankroll a concert for his missus, Douglas meets genuine opera diva Linda Darnell at the concert. While passing the time, Darnell discovers that Douglas in fact has a magnificent singing voice. Partly because he is flattered by Darnell's attentions, and partly to show up his wife, Douglas embarks on his own operatic career. But on the night of his debut, Douglas suffers a severe attack of stage fright, gets "doped up" on medicine in order to survive the performance, and hilariously humiliates himself in front of everyone. Darnell l angrily stalks out of the scene, and the sadder-but-wiser Douglas and Celeste Holm return to each other's arms. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman whose addiction to gambling all but ruins her life. Stanwyck's husband Robert Preston tries to stand by her side, but even he is driven away by her gambling mania. Stanwyck lies, cheats and steals in order to raise capital for her addiction, descending from comparative wealth to grinding poverty in the process. Eventually she is reduced to gambling for penny-ante stakes in back alleys, before she is rescued by her still-faithful spouse. The Lady Gambles includes an appearance by young Tony Curtis, in the bit role of a helpful bellhop. ~ 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

The most memorable aspect of Winter Meeting, and the one that stirred up the most publicity, was its teaming of two Davises: Bette Davis and Jim Davis (whose only "A"-picture starring role this was). Bette D. plays disenchanted poetess Susan Grieve, while Jim D. is cast as disillusioned war hero Slick Novak. Inexorably drawn to one another, these two lost souls fall in love while discussing their inner demons. Ultimately, both Susan and Slick decide to go their separate ways, though both have grown and matured during their brief affair. Adapted from a novel by Ethel Vance, Winter Meeting falls short of being the "important" picture Warner Bros. hoped it would be: even so, Bette and Jim Davis work quite well together, making one wonder why Jim D. didn't go farther in films (though he did become a star of sorts late in life as Jock Ewing on TV's Dallas). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this wartime drama, an American officer is accused of secretly working as an SS man. Though all evidence is against the officer, one Army prosecutor is not convinced of the man's guilt and begins working to prove his innocence. He is assisted by a beautiful woman who knows the defendant is innocent. Along the way the lawyer and the woman must endure constant assaults and accusations of treachery, but in the end they prevail. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Just as Bob Hope's My Favorite Blonde (1942) was a takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock, Hope's My Favorite Brunette was a lampoon of the noirish "hard-boiled detective" school popularized by Raymond Chandler. Awaiting execution on death row, Hope tells the gathered reporters how he got into his present predicament. It seems that Hope was once a baby photographer, his office adjacent to the one leased by a private detective (played in an amusing unbilled cameo by Alan Ladd). While hanging around the p.i.'s office, Hope is mistaken for the detective by beautiful client Dorothy Lamour. She hires Hope to search for her missing uncle, and also entrusts him with a valuable map. Hope's diligent (if inept) sleuthing takes him to a shady rest sanitarium, where he runs afoul of lamebrained henchman Lon Chaney, Jr. and sinister, knife-throwing Peter Lorre. Both are in the employ of attorney Charles Dingle, who is responsible for the disappearance of Lamour's uncle. Escaping the sanitarium with Lamour in tow, Hope follows the trail of evidence to noted geologist Reginald Denny. The geologist is murdered, and Hope is accused of the crime. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide