Paul Hurst Movies

Everything clicks in this tuneful, colorful and profitable Betty Grable musical. The star plays Katie Farley, a gyrating saloon entertainer in turn-of-the-century New York. Convinced that Katie is destined for Bigger Things, Coney Island impresario Eddie Johnson (George Montgomery) tries to turn the raucous song-and-dance girl into a refined entertainer, at one point handcuffing her wrists and ankles so she'll be forced to rely on her voice rather than her undulations. Sure enough, Katie becomes a high-class Broadway star under the aegis of showman Willie Hammerstein (Matt Briggs) -- and equally sure enough, she and Eddie grow apart. After a desultory romance with Eddie's rival, slick saloon owner Joe Rocco (Cesar Romero), Katie eventually returns to the arms of the man she truly loves, as comedy relief Frankie (Phil Silvers) looks on in myopic glee. Among the musical highlights of Coney Island is Betty's delightful rendition of the old chestnut "Cuddle Up a Little Closer". The film was remade, again with Grable, as Wabash Avenue (1950). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is a restored, 82-minute version of 1943's December 7th, originally commissioned by the U.S. Navy to document the events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Cinematographer Gregg Toland and filmmaker John Ford quietly made a full-length feature that intimated that the attack would have failed had the Navy not been asleep at the switch. The film also contained other material deemed offensive by the Navy (such as African-Americans and Asian-Americans fighting bravely against the enemy). As a result, the orginal version was cut down to 34 minutes. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 43-minute Hal Roach "streamliner" Dudes are Pretty People was one of three films teaming Jimmy Rogers (son of Will) with Noah Beery Jr. (son of Noah Sr.) Our heroes play Jimmy and Pidge (Beery's real-life nickname), a pair of cowhands who work near a posh dude ranch. A bit slow on the uptake, Pidge is easily taken in by the amorous machinations of fickle blonde tourist Marcia (Marjorie Woodworth). Jimmy tries to break up this romance by pretending that Pidge is already married, and when this fails he stages a phony holdup. Neither of these strategies does much to liven up the picture, which would remain one of the dullest of the Roach efforts of the 1940s. For TV, Dudes Are Pretty People has been combined with another Rogers-Beery streamliner, the 46-minute Calaboose. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A solid Jonathan Latimer screenplay is one of the "plusses" of the medium-budget mystery A Night in New Orleans. Preston S. Foster plays police lieutenant Steve Abbott, at present engrossed in a baffling murder case. As he pieces the clues together, Abbott comes to the sobering conclusion that his own wife Ethel (Patricia Morrison) may be intimately involved in the murder. It gets worse: soon Abbott himself is accused of the crime. The film is full of clever little touches, notably a scene in which the heroine is seen reading a book written by none other than Jonathan Latimer! Featured in the cast of A Night in New Orleans is Ginger Rogers' former stand-in Jean Phillips, whom Paramount briefly groomed for stardom in the early 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ralph Bellamy made his fourth and final appearance as literary sleuth Ellery Queen in Columbia's Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring. On this occasion, Ellery and his police-inspector father (Charley Grapewin) are summoned to a private hospital by its owner, philanthropist Mrs. Stack (Blanche Yurka). There've been some very weird goings-on at the hospital as of late, and Mrs. Stack wants to get to the bottom of things. Soon after Ellery's arrival, however, the old woman is injured in a suspicious motor accident, then strangled to death on the operating table. Suspects include Mrs. Stack's avaricious son John (Leon Ames), head nurse Miss Tracy (Mona Barrie) and medical director Dr. Janney (George Zucco). Despite the fact that Ellery seems to be as dumb as a stone, he manages to solve the mystery. After Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring, Ralph Bellamy relinquished his Ellery Queen duties to William Gargan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One would never know it from the title, but This Woman is Mine is a virile seafaring yarn dealing with the northern fur trade. Based on a sprawling novel by Gilbert W. Gabriel, the film takes place during a trading expedition from New York to Oregon, bankrolled by John Jacob Astor (played by Sig Ruman!) Ship's captain Jonathan Thorn (Walter Brennan) is a stern taskmaster in the Captain Bligh tradition, who demands 110 percent from his passengers and crew members, among them bookkeper Robert Stevens (Franchot Tone), French-Canadian adventurer Ovide de Montigny (John Carroll) and pretty stowaway Julie Morgan (Carol Bruce). The anticipated romantic triangle develops, but this is forgotten when Thorn's vessel is besiged by hostile Indians on the banks of the Columbia River. A literally explosive conclusion more than compensates for the narrative silliness that precedes it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Great Mr. Nobody is an easygoing classified ad salesman, appropriately nicknamed Dreamy (Eddie Albert). All Dreamy wants out of life is to own a boat and drift aimlessly across the ocean in the company of his good pal Skipper (played by Alan Hale-ironically the father of Gilligan's Island's "Skipper" Alan Hale Jr.) Only one problem: Dreamy is bereft of cash, and is constantly in danger of losing his job because he continues to reserve the best of the classifieds which cross his desk for his unemployed friends. Our hero's saving grace is that he is a veritable fountain of surefire moneymaking ideas; now all he needs is someone to listen. 16-year-old Joan Leslie was obviously being groomed for bigger things when she costarred with Eddie Albert in this low-pressure B picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

If Selznick could make a Gone With the Wind, reasoned Paramount Pictures in 1941, anyone can. Paramount's own spin on Scarlet and Rhett was Virginia, starring British actress Madeleine Carroll as Southern belle Charlotte Dunterry. A first a showgirl, Charlotte arrives in Fairville, Virginia to take charge of her family plantation. Intending to sell the estate for a quick turnover, Charlotte is dissuaded when she falls in love with impoverished local aristocrat Stonewall Elliot (Fred MacMurray). Though devoted to Elliot, she must find a way to keep herself solvent, and to that she enters into a loveless marriage with wealthy northerner Norman Williams (Sterling Hayden). The rest of the story finds Charlotte wavering between Elliot and Williams, while the audience settles in for a good long nap. As in Gone with the Wind, Virginia is distinguished by the performance of one of its black supporting players, namely Leigh Whipper as an elderly ex-slave who returns to Fairville to die (he doesn't sing "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny", but one can hear it anyway). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

17-year-old Linda Darnell received her first big break in the appropriately titled 20th Century-Fox production Star Dust. Discovered by talent scout Thomas Brooke (Roland Young), teenager Carolyn Sayre (Darnell) is brought to Hollywood, where she is turned down for a contract because she is considered too young. Down but not out, Carolyn falls in love with studio contractee Bud Borden (John Payne), who promises to help her achieve her career goals. Teaming up with Brooke, Borden succeeds in winning a screen test for Carolyn, and the rest is gravy. As can be seen, Star Dust draws most of its inspiration from Linda Darnell's real-life rise to fame, which gives the cliched screenplay a bit of added depth and humanity. It's also amusing to watch William Gargan, cast as studio executive Dane Wharton, perform a devastating (albeit affectionate) take-off of 20th Century-Fox head man Darryl F. Zanuck, right down to DFZ's habit of swinging a polo mallet during story conferences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The town of Vinegaroon, TX, is the home to Judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan), who calls himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos." Bean keeps a saloon, where he also conducts trials, using his office to get fat on fines and the seizure of property, and hanging most of those who get in his way, sometimes more than one a day. Cole Hardin (Gary Cooper) is a saddle-tramp brought in on a charge of stealing a horse belonging to Bean's chief stooge, Chickenfoot (Paul Hurst). Hardin's conviction by a jury made up of Bean's hangers-on (with the undertaker, played with low-key comic zeal by Charles Halton, waiting eagerly for the verdict and the hanging) seems certain, despite his contention that he bought the horse from another man, until Hardin recognizes the judge's obsession with the English actress Lily Langtry. Hardin feigns having seen, met, and known Miss Langtry intimately, and he cons the judge into delaying the death sentence until Hardin can send for a lock of the actress' hair that he supposedly has in El Paso -- that's long enough for the real horse thief (Tom Tyler) to show up and get killed.

By the time the dust settles, the judge, for all of his warped sense of justice and corrupt nature, finds himself genuinely liking Hardin as something of a kindred spirit, as bold and daring as he was in his youth, and feeling something like friendship for him. But Bean also tries to shoot Hardin when he decides to cast his lot with the homesteaders, led by Jane-Ellen Mathews (Doris Davenport) and her father, Caliphet (Fred Stone), who have been fighting for survival against Bean and his cattle-rancher allies every step of the way. Hardin tries to appeal to the better nature within the judge, and also saves him from an attempted lynching, but when that fails, and a corn crop is burned and Mr. Mathews killed, he sees no choice but to take action. He gets an arrest warrant sworn out and is deputized by the county sheriff. Taking Bean in his saloon or anywhere in his town (renamed Langtry by the judge, in honor of the actress) is impossible, but then it's announced that Lily Langtry will be appearing in Texas, a long day's ride away from Bean's stronghold. The judge, dressed in his full Civil War regalia and with his men in tow, rides to see the performance while Hardin gets ready to try and arrest him. The kind of climactic shoot-out that follows has been done to death in the decades since, but it was something new and revelatory in a Western in 1940, and still plays beautifully on a dramatic level, capturing in full the complexity of the relationship between these two antagonists. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Torrid Zone star James Cagney once described the film as "The Front Page among the bananas." Indeed, the screenplay diligently follows the Front Page plot device of a tough boss (Pat O'Brien) pulling every underhanded trick in the book to keep his top man (Cagney) from quitting. This time the setting is a Central American plantation owned by O'Brien, which supervisor Cagney would dearly love to leave behind. Complicating the plot is a nightclub singer (Anne Sheridan) over whom O'Brien and Tracy do battle; a bored married woman (Helen Vinson) with eyes for Cagney; and a gang of Latino bandits, led by George Tobias (providing comic relief). What Torrid Zone lacked in originality it made up for in sheer energy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charles Bickford and James Craig are the rough-and-ready leads in Universal's South to Karanga. Running guns in South Africa, Bickford and Craig are hired to deliver ammunition to a mining community. The reason: the natives are restless (again!) Our heroes come through in smashing form, making the area safe for white supremacy. More than a little dated, South to Karanga is a hodgepodge of stock footage from earlier Universal epics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hoping to get an early start on a fishing trip to the East River, the Our Gang kids board a double-decker bus at the crack of dawn. Alas, the kids' bulky fishing equipment causes nothing but discomfort for the rest of the passengers, to say nothing of the irascible driver (Paul Hurst). Thanks to the gang's unintentional interference, the bus' regular pick-up and drop-off schedule is thoroughly disrupted, and even worse, it turns out that the kids are on the wrong bus. A simple but hilarious exercise in comic frustration, the one-reel Our Gang comedy Goin' Fishin' was originally released on October 26, 1940. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide