Rochelle Hudson Movies

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

This earnest, socially-conscious road drama centers on two California teenagers who find their comfortable lives thrown into turmoil during the Great Depression. To find work for themselves, the adventurous lads sneak aboard a Chicago-bound train. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Walls of Gold is based on the Kathleen Norris novel of the same name. Sally Eilers stars as Jeanie Satterlee, a level-headed blue-collar gal to becomes the mistress of wealthy J. Gordon Ritchie (Ralph Morgan). This she does to spite her sweetheart, Ritchie's nephew Barnes (Norman Foster), who while stewed to the gills has married Jeanie's younger sister. The sister dies in childbirth, whereupon the elder Ritchie adopts the baby. Suffering a heart attack brought on by a vengeful woman from his past, Ritchie dies, leaving Jeanie in charge of her sister's child. Touched by Jeanie's dedication as a surrogate mother, Barnes begs her forgiveness just in time for a happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

Edna May Oliver makes the first of three appearances as Hildegarde Withers, the schoolteacher/sleuth created by mystery writer Stuart Palmer. While conducting her students on a tour of the Battery Park Aquarium, Hildegarde spots a dead body in the penguin pool. Police inspector Piper (James Gleason) believes it's an open-and-shut case when he collars the faithless wife (Mae Clarke) of the victim, but Hildegarde suspects there's more to the case than meets the eye. Detective and teacher mellow from antagonists to friends in the course of the investigation, the denouement of which isn't revealed until the suspect is put on trial, where she is defended by her attorney-lover (Robert Armstrong). The murderer's identity isn't too surprising, but Penguin Pool Murder takes several unexpected twists all the same, including a neat reversal on the old "reunited lovers" finale. At the end, Hildegarde and Piper are contemplating marriage, but in the subsequent Edna May Oliver/James Gleason "Hildegarde Withers" films (Murder on the Blackboard, Murder on a Honeymoon) they retain their single status. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

David O. Selznick is listed as producer of the RKO western programmer Beyond the Rockies, but don't expect Duel in the Sun here. Within its own modest limits, however, this Tom Keene vehicle is quite enjoyable. Keene plays a cowpoke who battles a greedy land baron. The gimmick here is that the villain is a beautiful young woman, played by Marie Wells. In anticipation of Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious (1952), Ms. Wells uses her ranch as a "safe house" for various rustlers and sidewinders. Naturally, Keene is too chivalrous to shoot down a woman, but the same cannot be said for Wells' scruffy partners in crime. ~ 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