Virginia Hunter Movies
- 1955
With only a couple of new scenes added, this Three Stooges short comedy was actually 1948's I'm a Monkey's Uncle in disguise. The last purveyor of screen slapstick, Columbia's short subject department was feeling the competition from television by 1955. But the Stooges remained at the box office, especially if costs were cut to the bone. The results, unfortunately, were creaky, often disjointed efforts such as Stone Age Romeos. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1954
A remake, with stock footage, of the earlier Fiddlers Three (1948), this Three Stooges comedy short features the boys as court musicians attempting to prevent an evil potentate (Vernon Dent via stock footage) from marrying a lovely princess (Virginia Hunter, again via stock footage). Added cast members for this augmented release include Theila Darin (aka Diana Darrin), Norma Randall, and Joe Palma. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1950
The Desert Hawk deserves to be seen on the basis of its cast alone. No more believable than any of Universal's other sword-and-sand epics, this one stars Yvonne de Carlo as Princess Shaharazade (sic) and Richard Greene as Omar, aka the Desert Hawk. By day a humble blacksmith, the Desert Hawk spends his evenings battling against the oppresive regime of Prince Murad (George Macready). One of the Hawk's tactics is to trick Shaharazade into marriage, so that he can enlist the aid of the army commanded by the Princess' father. Murad retaliates by kidnapping Shararazade, leading to an exciting climactic rescue. Never mind all that: the real fun in Desert Hawk is spotting the celebrities-to-be in the supporting cast. Playing the villainous Captain Ras is none other than Rock Hudson, while the Desert Hawk's loyal companions Aladdin and Sinbad are played, respectively, by Jackie Gleason and Joe Besser--and surprise, Joe is heavier than Jackie! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yvonne De Carlo, Richard Greene, (more)
- 1949
No one is as good as Barbara Stanwyck when she's bad. Here Stanwyck plays Thelma Jordon, a woman who late one night shows up in the office of happily married Assistant DA Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) to seek help in solving the string of robberies at her wealthy aunt's estate. Before Cleve can stop himself, he and Thelma are involved in an illicit affair. But Thelma is a mysterious woman, and Cleve can't help wondering if she is hiding something. His suspicions are confirmed when Thelma confesses to him that she is married to Tony Laredo, though she swears that she never wants to see him again. When Thelma's aunt is found murdered, Cleve's suspicions are aroused once again, but he is too love-struck to keep himself from being drawn into the complicated series of events that ultimately lead to his ruination. Siodmak directs with his usual skill and polish, but the film really belongs to Barbara Stanwyck who is magnificent as Thelma. Unlike the usual cold, passionless femme fatale of film noir, Thelma has a heart and a conscience. She comes to love Cleve, and has concern for his life and his future. However, despite her wish that her life could be different, she realizes that she belongs in Tony's world, and despite her attempts to sacrifice herself to save Cleve, he is doomed, by his love for her and by his own weaknesses. The File on Thelma Jordan is a romantic, unusual mystery, with a great performance and superior direction. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, (more)
- 1949
A blend of melodrama and film noir, The Reckless Moment stars Joan Bennett as Lucia Harper, a suburban housewife whose husband is away on business. Her daughter, Bea (Geraldine Brooks), an aspiring artist, has fallen for Ted Darby (Shepperd Strudwick), a shady older man from Los Angeles who claims to be an ex-art dealer. One night, after a secret rendezvous in the Harpers' boathouse that turns into an argument, Bea accidentally kills Darby. When Lucia discovers his body in the morning, she panics and dumps it in the lagoon instead of contacting the police, who would surely charge her daughter with murder. Her problems only increase when a suave Irish gangster named Donnelly (James Mason) shows up with a package of love letters from Bea to Darby, and blackmail on his mind. With her husband out of town, Lucia has no choice but to give in to his demands, and brings him along on a desperate quest to raise the money that takes them from bank to loan office to pawn shop. Along the way, Donnelly seems to develop sympathy -- even affection -- for her. When his boss shows up to pressure him into finishing the job, Donnelly's surprising decision sets up the film's startling climax. The Reckless Moment was remade in 2001 by Scott McGehee and David Seigel as The Deep End. ~ Tom Vick, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Mason, Joan Bennett, (more)
- 1948
Filmed on standing sets from Columbia's Bandits of Sherwood Forest (1946), this average Three Stooges comedy featured the zany trio as fiddlers at the court of Old King Cole. They are forbidden by the king to marry their sweethearts until Princess Alicia weds Prince Valiant. An evil magician, who loves Alicia as well, does his level best to prevent that from happening. The Stooges remade the story in 1954 as Musty Musketeers. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1948
So often wasted in passive roles, Evelyn Keyes is virtually the whole show in The Mating of Millie. Keyes is cast as pretty businesswoman Millie McGonigle, who hopes to fill a gap in her life by adopting orphan boy Tommy Bassett (Jimmy Hunt, future star of 1953's Invaders from Mars). But this is 1948: self-supporting though she may be, Millie must have a husband to qualify as an adoptive parent. With the help of her neighbor Doug Andrews (Glenn Ford), Millie tries to trap an acceptable hubby. Guess who Millie falls in love with in the last reel. Just guess. Columbia mounted an elaborate and expensive promotional campaign for The Mating of Millie, resulting in excellent returns at the box office. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Evelyn Keyes, (more)
- 1948
Someone is stirring things up between the ranchers and the homesteaders in Phantom Valley and Marshal Steve Collins (Charles Starrett) is assigned to look into matters. The situation becomes even more critical when one of the nesters, Jim Durant (Sam Flint), is abducted after having withdrawn the group's money from the local bank. But who is behind the crimes? Is it elderly attorney Sam Littlejohn (Joel Friedkin), whose cane has a highly unusual double purpose? Or is the secret menace Bob Reynolds (Robert Filmer), the head of the ranchers' association? Despite the unwanted assistance by correspondence-course detective Smiley Burnette), Steve, alias The Durango Kid, manages to get goods on the mystery villain. In between muddling up the investigation and feuding with young apple-munching Chips (Teddy Infuhr), Smiley Burnette performs "I'll Be Glad to See You" while Ozie Waters and His Colorado Rangers take care of "Streets of Laredo (The Cowboy's Lament" and "The Big Corral. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, (more)
The "He" of the title is Richard Basehart, a clever but psychopathic burglar (based on real-life criminal Erwin Walker) Basehart stays one step ahead of the law by listening in to the police band on his radio. To avoid detection, he changes his M.O. on each crime, making it seem that the string of burglaries is the work of several thieves. But Basehart trips himself up when he kills a cop. His own personal Waterloo occurs in the Los Angeles sewer system--a stylish predecessor to the similar (and more widely praised) climax in Sir Carol Reed's The Third Man. Though the direction is credited to Hollywood old-timer Alfred Werker, most of He Walked By Night is the handiwork of an uncredited Anthony Mann. Featured in the film's cast is Jack Webb in the small role of a police lab technician. Impressed by first-hand experience with police procedure and by the semi-documentary quality of He Walked By Night Webb expanded on these elements for his own radio and TV project, Dragnet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, (more)
- 1948
One of the better Three Stooges comedy two-reelers of the "Shemp era," I'm a Monkey's Uncle featured the boys as cavemen chasing after a trio of prehistoric lovelies, Aggie, Maggie, and Baggie (aka Columbia starlets Dee Green, Virginia Hunter, and Nancy Saunders). The latter seems to have spent her days at Columbia trekking endlessly back and forth between the Stooges and B-Western star Charles Starrett. The Stooges recycled footage from I'm a Monkey's Uncle for Stone Age Romeos (1955). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
A semi-sequel to Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Columbia's Down to Earth is a camp- and kitsch-lover's delight. More beautiful than ever, Rita Hayworth stars as Terpsichore, the Goddess of Dance. From her perch Up Above, Terpsichore discovers that Broadway producer Danny Miller (Larry Parks) intends to put together a musical satire, lampooning herself and her fellow Greek Gods. Eliciting the aid of Heavenly emissary Mr. Jordan (Roland Culver, taking over from the earlier film's Claude Rains), Terpsichore descends to Earth in human form, landing a role in Miller's play. Through her bewitching influence, Miller agrees to abandon his plans for a satire, transforming his production into a portentiously serious "work of art"-which lays a large and noxious egg with the opening-night crowd. Somehow, our ethereal heroine manages to set things right, but there's still one nagging problem: Will she, a goddess, ever be permitted to fall in love with a mere mortal like Miller? Repeating their Here Comes Mr. Jordan roles, James Gleason and Edward Everett Horton appear respectively as the eternally flustered Max Corkle (formerly a fight promoter, now a theatrical agent) and the pompous, rule-bound Heavenly messenger #7013. Silly but immensely entertaining, Down to Earth was remade as the sillier but decidedly less entertaining Xanadu in 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Burke, Rita Hayworth, (more)
- 1947
Lucille Ball offers a seminal version of her Lucy Ricardo TV character in Her Husband's Affairs. Ball is cast as Margaret Weldon, the wife of advertising executive William Weldon (Franchot Tone). Though Weldon is successful, Margaret can't help but feel that he'd be more successful if she were to take an active part in his business affairs. The fun really begins when Margaret tries to help Weldon promote a crackpot inventor (Mikhail Rasumny) who's come up with a revolutionary new embalming fluid. As in the previous year's The Hucksters, Madison Avenue and Big Business are targetted for a great deal of derisive ribbing. If only Her Husband's Affairs were as funny as everyone involved seems to think it is. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lucille Ball, Nana Bryant, (more)
- 1947
In what was advertised as the last of Columbia's "Durango Kid" Westerns, Charles Starrett once again donned his patented black mask in pursuit of evildoers, accompanied this time by Curly Williams and his Georgia Peach Pickers who along with series regular Smiley Burnette performed such numbers as "The Prairie Dog Lament" and "Oh, Monah." Assigned to investigate a series of gold mine robberies, ranger Steve Mason and his magician pal Smiley are helped by pretty mine owner Doris McCormick (Virginia Hunter) and 12-year-old Mike Morton (Mark Dennis). The latter, who has been raised by town drunk Faro (George Chesebro), refuses to believe that his long-lost father is a notorious outlaw. In order to locate the elusive Morton, presumed to be the boy's father and a main suspect in the mine holdups, Steve disguises himself as the Durango Kid. Even less surprising than this rather commonplace plot was the fact that Columbia changed its decision to abandon the lucrative series, which instead continued through 1952. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1947
Filmed at the Providencia Ranch (today a cemetery in Burbank, CA), this entry in Columbia's long-running "Durango Kid" Western series features Texas Jim Lewis and his Lone Star Cowboys performing Lewis' own "Hootenanny Annie" and series regular Smiley Burnette singing "Top It," "Law and Order," and "Hill Billy Lil." In between all the music acts, Charles Starrett as Steve Larkin dons his usual guise of the Durango Kid in order to get the goods on the less desirable elements of Red Mound, TX. As local café proprietor Smiley Burnette explains, the white line dividing the town has been painted along main street to separate respectable businessmen such as himself from the lawless gunmen inhabiting the southern section, a dividing line that not even Deputy Marshal Tug Carter (Paul Campbell dares to cross. Despite Burnette's dire warnings, Steve purchases the abandoned Atkins ranch and soon all hell breaks loose. But dressed as his masked alter ego, Steve eventually discovers the true mastermind behind the lawlessness and Tug, now appointed town marshal, erases the white line that once divided the community. In her first of four appearances opposite Starrett, busy Columbia starlet Virginia Hunter played a real estate broker, and future leading men Jock Mahoney (billed as Jacques O'Mahoney) and John Carpenter make early screen appearances as the villain's henchmen. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1947
A precursor of sorts to the 1999 Julia Roberts vehicle The Runaway Bride, It Had to Be You stars Ginger Rogers as Victoria Stafford, a wealthy girl who has been engaged three times, and has three times chickened out at the altar just before saying "I do." Determined to wed her fourth fiancé, Oliver H.P. Harrington (Ron Randell), Victoria is on the verge of saying those two little words, when suddenly she sees the vision of her "dream lover," George (Cornel Wilde), whom she has envisioned since childhood. Ultimately our heroine meets an in-the-flesh lookalike for her imaginary sweetheart: a no-nonsense fireman named Johnny Blaine, who indeed was a childhood friend of Victoria's. So, do wedding bells finally ring? Not on your life. Though Victoria is ga-ga over Johnny, the feeling is far from mutual -- and besides, there are several reels to go before the end title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ginger Rogers, Cornel Wilde, (more)
- 1947
According to their storefront, The Three Stooges are "unaccustomed tailors" who do "Cleaning, pressing and altercations." But maybe not for long -- their equipment is in danger of being repossessed. When they hear that bank robber Terry Hargan is on the loose and there's a reward for his capture, Shemp believes that's their way out of debt. Moe is dubious but the crook actually does dash into the store while running from a detective. He poses among a group of mannequins and the oblivious Stooges strip him of his suit. Hargan shows up at his hideout in his underwear, but it's no laughing matter -- the combination to the next safe he has to crack was in his pants. The result of his attempts to get that slip of paper back is a melee between the Stooges and the crooks. The crooks are no match for the Stooges and the detective arrives just in time to handcuff the unconscious Hargan. The Stooges' reward turns out to be tickets to the policeman's ball, but all is not lost -- they ! snatch a wad of hundreds (and a fifty) from Hargan's coat. Much footage from this comedy -- and the whole substance of its plot -- was recycled for the Stooges 1953 picture, Rip, Sew and Stitch. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1947
Charles Starrett once more assumes the guise of the Robin Hood-like Durango Kid in Last Days of Boot Hill. The star is cast as US marshal Steve Waring, assigned to locate $100,000 in missing gold and round up the thieves. Much of the story takes place in flashback, permitting cost-conscious Columbia Pictures to sneak in several stock shots from earlier "Durango Kid" entries (notably Both Barrels Blazing). This moneysaving device worked well enough for Columbia to extend the practice to the studio's 2-reel comedies, which explains why so many of the Three Stooges shorts of the early 1950s look alike. For the record, Last Days of Boot Hill comes to a climax as Steve Waring, aka the Durango Kid, gallops to the rescue of pretty rancher Paula Thorpe (Virginia Hunter). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Starrett, Smiley Burnette, (more)
This glorified Technicolor commercial for the Fred Harvey restaurants stars Judy Garland as a 19th-century mail-order bride. Upon arriving in New Mexico, Garland discovers that her husband-to-be is the town drunk. She cuts her losses and takes a job at the local Harvey restaurant, an establishment which endeavors to bring a little civilization and class to the wide open spaces. Harvey's operation is challenged by saloon-owner John Hodiak, corrupt-judge Preston S. Foster, and local-madam Angela Lansbury. With the help of tenderfoot Ray Bolger, Garland and her fellow waitresses foil the corrupt elements in town. Prominent in the supporting cast are Cyd Charisse, Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, Kenny Baker and Virginia O'Brien (whose musical numbers aren't quite as rambunctious as the contributions of the others, mainly because O'Brien was pregnant during filming). The songs are for the most part perfunctory, with the spectacular exception of the Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's Oscar-winning "Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe." The Harvey Girls is tenuously based on a more sober-sided historical volume by Samuel Hopkins Adams. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Garland, John Hodiak, (more)
- 1946
Three years after its previous "Lone Wolf" entry Passport to Suez, Columbia Pictures revitalized the B-picture series with The Notorious Lone Wolf. Gerald Mohr succeeds Warren William in the role of jewel thief-turned-detective Michael Lanyard, while Eric Blore is back as Lanyard's faithful valet Jamison. Returning from WW2, Lanyard is immediately involved in another baffling case: Several priceless jewels have been stolen from a museum, and you-know-who is the most likely suspect. Racing against time-the theft occured on the eve of his reunion with the gorgeous Carla Winter (Janis Carter)-Lanyard follows the trail of clues to a group of kidnapped foreign dignitaries. The film's highlight finds Lanyard and Jamison disguising themselves as Arab potentates, complete with beards and turbans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gerald Mohr, Janis Carter, (more)
