Rochelle Hudson Movies

Eternal movie juvenile Eric Linden offers perhaps the best performance of his career in RKO's Are These Our Children? In this pioneering Juvenile Delinquent drama, Linden plays a know-it-all high school dropout who falls in with a bad crowd. While burglarizing the delicatessen of a family friend (William Orlamond), Linden accidentally kills the old man. No one can connect him with the crime, and for a while Linden privately gloats as he reads newspaper stories of the killing. But one of his friends (Ben Alexander), who was in on the robbery, spills the beans, and Linden winds up going to the chair. The true impact of Are These Our Children? is Linden's performance as an emotionally immature youth who cannot fully fathom the seriousness of his dilemma: he tries to jolly himself into believing that he hasn't killed anyone, and as he sits on death row he continues displaying a childish bravado, as if expecting to wake up from a bad dream at any moment. Despite its age and the corniness of some of the dialogue, Are These Our Children? is an unforgettably powerful film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After several years' faithful service in RKO Radio's short-subject department, director George Stevens was rewarded with his first feature-length assignment, the innocuous comedy Bachelor Bait. Stu Erwin plays Wilbur Fess, the busy owner of a matrimonial agency called Romance, Inc. So dedicated is Fess to his job that he fails to notice how much his girlfriend Linda (Rochelle Hudson) loves him. As consequence, he very nearly marries Linda off to someone else, but at the last moment he is saved from this boo-boo by good-time girl Alice (Pert Kelton). The title Bachelor Bait was later used by RKO for the British release of the 1949 Shirley Temple vehicle Adventure in Baltimore. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this actioner, an auto racer becomes a cab driver for a company that is being strong-armed by avaricious gangsters trying to gain control of all of the city's taxi companies. Anyone opposing them is framed, but the brave racer isn't so easily intimidated and he decides to take on the crooks himself. He is assisted by the head gangster's moll. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama set in the Canadian wilderness, Red North is a pilot who makes his living flying in and out of the bush country. However, his business gets some competition from an unexpected source -- his half-brother, Paul. The two are soon fighting over the relatively small amount of business the area generates, but when a call comes in to fly a load of highly explosive nitroglycerin to a mining camp, who is going to face the potentially deadly challenge? ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This adaptation of the oft-filmed Jean Webster novel Daddy Long Legs has been tailored to the talents of Shirley Temple. The orphaned daughter of vaudeville entertainers, Elizabeth Blair (Temple) is the most precocious charge at super-strict Lakeside Orphanage, regularly disrupting protocol with her extemporaneous performance of such songs as "Animal Crackers in My Soup" at the dinner table. While paying a visit to the orphanage, wealthy trustee Edward Morgan (John Boles) is enchanted by cute little Elizabeth -- and even more so by the girls more mature sister Mary (Rochelle Hudson). He secretly arranges for the sisters' release from the institution, sets them up in a lavish mansion, and finances their education. When Mary almost falls in love with another man, it is miss-fixit Elizabeth who brings Mary and Edward together, capping this bit of cupidity with her trademarked exclamation "Oh, my goo'ness!" The first Shirley Temple vehicle specifically aimed at children, Curly Top contains some wonderful character bits from its adult cast, notably Etienne Girardot, Rafaela Ottiano and Jane Darwell as the orphanage officials and by Arthur Treacher and Billy Gilbert as the hero's household servants. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Will Rogers is Dr. Bull, a small-town physician with precious little book learning. This doesn't stop him from ministering to the citizens, often substituting advice and witticisms for pills and sutures. There are those who resist Dr. Bull's everyday doses of common sense and humanity, especially the gossip mongers who read the worst into the doctor's frequent visits to a lonely widow (Vera Lewis). Bull triumphs over his adversaries when he stems a typhoid epidemic, proving that the disease was spread by pollution from the construction camp owned by the town's resident Scrooge (Berton Churchill). Directed by John Ford with his usual compassion towards sensible small-town types, Dr. Bull was adapted from The Last Adam, a novel by James Gould Cozzens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The inimitable Edna May Oliver makes a meal of the title role in the Technicolor backstage drama Fanny Foley Herself. The star is cast in the Marie Dressler-like role of a vaudeville performer who has trouble dividing her time equally between her career and her two daughters (Helen Chandler, Rochelle Hudson), and as a result she alienates both girls. Fanny Foley's true colors come through in the end, when she braves an airplane ride through a driving storm and makes a perilous parachute jump when she is led to believe that her daughter Carmen (Rochelle Hudson) has been sexually compromised by a cad. The fact that Carmen is living blissfully and respectfully with hubby Teddy (John Darrow) does not alter the fact that Fanny has proven her devotion to her progeny. The film was retitled Top of the Bill in Great Britain, where the name "Fanny" had an objectionable connotation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, six street-wise tough girls try to imitate the older sister of one who became a gangster's wife and lives a comfortable life. Unfortunately, because she married a crook, the young woman is sent to prison along with her man. When she is finally released, she gets hooked up with an ex-lover who sets her on the straight and narrow. The newly redeemed big sister attempts to help her little sister and her pals, but does not succeed until one of the gals is killed during a petty robbery at as department store. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Often referred to as an imitation of Warner's legendary prison drama I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), RKO's stirring Hell's Highway was actually released a few months earlier. The two films were in production at the same time, but RKO was determined to beat the competition (which also included Universal's Laughter in Hell, 1933) and not a few corners were cut. All three films were set in a generic Southern state (read Georgia) and depicted a horrid penal system more akin to the Middle Ages than the supposedly enlightened 1930s. In Hell's Highway, the chain gang prisoners wear uniforms with a large target printed on the back and the torture instrument du jour is a so-called sweatbox, in constant operation so that unscrupulous contractor Billings (Oscar Apfel) may construct his "Liberty Highway" on time and under budget. When a prisoner dies from exposure in the dreaded contraption, Duke Ellis (Richard Dix) concocts a plan to escape. The escape comes to an abrupt halt with the sudden arrival of his kid brother, Johnny (Tom Brown). The latter ends up in the sweatbox, but Duke has the kid transferred to office duty by using a bit of blackmail. There is a climactic prison riot, during which Duke is killed after saving his brother once again. Or at least that was what a preview audience saw. The death of the film's hero proved so shocking that RKO hastily filmed an alternative ending and Hell's Highway, as it survives today, concludes with Billings being charged with murder (the sweatbox situation) and Duke asked to testify against him. Typical of pre-code Hollywood, Hell's Highway features an openly gay prisoner (who bats his eyes at the prison guards), several scenes of torture, an appearance of near equality between black and white inmates, a bible-quoting polygamist (Charles Middleton), a wife-murdering guard (Warner Richmond), and, for added verisimilitude, a handicapped character who, when mortally wounded during the riot, signs his farewell to this world. Hell's Highway may not have enjoyed the status of I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, but it remains a powerful indictment of the Georgian penal system of 1931 and a fine, well-acted film in its own right. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The first of two film version of Fannie Hurst's novel, 1934's Imitation of Life chronicles the friendship between two women--one white (Claudette Colbert), one black (Louise Beavers). Colbert is a widow with a baby daughter who hires Beavers, who also has a daughter, as a housekeeper. Colbert is a working girl who yearns to operate her own business, which she does thanks to Beavers' special pancake recipe. A family friend (Ned Sparks) suggests that the ladies form a corporation to merchandise the "Aunt Delilah" pancake mix, and within ten years both women are quite wealthy. Colbert's relationship with her teenaged daughter (Rochelle Hudson) is strained when both ladies vie for the attentions of the same man, but these problems are minor compared to the travails of Beavers, who not only must deal with the De Facto segregation of the 1930s but must also contend with her restless daughter (Fredi Washington), who resents being an African-American and attempts to pass for white. The heartbroken Beavers dies, and at her funeral her now-chastened daughter weeps out her apologies for turning her back on her mother. Imitation of Life was remade in 1959, its story glamorized and updated to accommodate star Lana Turner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Will Rogers stars as Judge William "Billy" Priest, the common-sense Kentucky jurist created by humorist Irvin S. Cobb. The Judge's easygoing manner bothers many of the self-righteous good citizens of his small 19th-century hometown, imperiling his chances for re-election. The anecdotal plot boils down to a single storyline involving orphaned Anita Louise, reclusive David Landau (secretly Louise's father), and young attorney Tom Brown.The testimony that saves Landau from a murder charge is delivered by Civil War veteran H.B. Walthall, whose stirring loyalty to the Confederacy inspires everyone in town to organize an impromptu parade! Some of the best scenes are highlighted by Will Rogers' affectionate rapport with stereotyped black-actors Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel, though these scenes are frequently removed from TV showings of Judge Priest due to their undeniably racist overtones. If you haven't guessed by the first frame of the film that John Ford was the director, you'll recognize Ford's personal stamp the moment Will Rogers kneels by his wife's grave and carries on a warm conversation with his long-departed bride. Ford would remake (and improve upon) Judge Priest in 1953 as The Sun Shines Bright, with Charles Winninger as the judge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Boleslawski directed this lavish adaptation of Victor Hugo's oft-filmed epic novel. Fredric March stars as Jean Valjean, who is hauled into prison for stealing a loaf of bread. After ten years at hard labor, he escapes from the merciless prison but the years have taken their toll and Valjean is now a hard and embittered man. Valjean regains his compassion after the kindly Bishop Bienveenu (Cedric Harwicke) refuses to prosecute him for the theft of his candlesticks. Under an assumed name, Valjean becomes a widely liked and respected mayor. He devotes his life to helping others and adopts a young girl as his own. But the town's chief of police, Javert (Charles Laughton) is suspicious about the mayor and one day, after Valjean lifts a wagon off of a man, Javert remembers Valjean from his days on the prison galley. Javert sets out to uncover the mayor's true identity, but Valjean beats him to it -- when a man who claims to be Valjean is put on trial, Valjean appears at the court and reveals his secret. But before he is arrested, he escapes with his adopted daughter Eponine (Frances Drake) to Paris. In Paris, he assumes yet another identity. Eponine falls in love with student radical Marius (John Beal) and Javert, assigned to Paris to keep an eye on the revolutionaries, latches onto Valjean's trail once again. As Paris simmers in revolution, Valjean and Javert reveal themselves to each other for a final confrontation. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide