Walter Huston Movies

Based loosely on the Dostoyevsky novel, The Gambler stars Gregory Peck as a sensitive 19th-century Russian author. His "great sin" is gambling, which starts when he attempts to rescue aristocratic Ava Gardner from the gaming tables. He succeeds, only to lose himself to gambling fever, which costs him his friends, his reputation and his talent. Director Robert Siodmak was never happy with the screenplay for The Great Sinner, constant revisions bloated the film's rough-cut running time to nearly six hours! After Siodmak pared the film down, MGM insisted that the director reshoot the love scenes. Siodmak refused, thus the new sequences were filmed sans screen credit by Mervin LeRoy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Summer Holiday is a musical remake of the 1935 MGM comedy-drama Ah, Wilderness!, which in turn was adapted from the play by Eugene O'Neill. Mickey Rooney (who played a supporting role in the 1935 film) stars as O'Neill's alter ego Richard Miller, a young man coming of age in early 20th century New England. Anxious to live life to the fullest, Richard ignores the cautionary admonitions of his father Nat (Walter Huston), preferring instead to follow the example of Uncle Sid (Frank Morgan), the family's "black sheep". In his ongoing quest for wine, women and song (he gets precious little of the first two commodities, but plenty of the third!) Richard ignores the fact that the true love of his life, sweet young Muriel (Gloria De Haven), has been under his nose all along. Director Rouben Mamoulien's obsession with cinematic innovations is largely absent here; what emerges is a staid, conventional MGM musical, albeit gorgeously photographed in Technicolor by Charles Schoenbaum. Filmed in 1946 but not released until 1948, Summer Holiday would not be the last musicalized version of Ah, Wilderness!; that honor went to the 1959 Broadway musical Take Me Along, which starred Jackie Gleason as Uncle Sid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun, Jennifer Jones stars as Pearl Chavez, whom everyone has tagged as a "bad girl" foredoomed to an unhappy end. She is taken into the home of wealthy, greedy rancher McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) and his kindly wife Laura Belle (Lillian Gish), who'd once been the sweetheart of Pearl's recently executed father (Herbert Marshall). Almost immediately, Pearl becomes the object of an emotional tug-of-war between McCanles' virtuous son Jesse (Joseph Cotten) and wicked ne'er-do-well offspring Lewt (Gregory Peck). After killing a man (Charles Bickford) who'd tried proposing to Pearl, Lewt becomes a fugitive, secretly working to undermine the railroad that threatens to cut across McCanles' land. The level-headed Jesse tries to negotiate with the railroad men, and as a result is ordered from the ranch by McCanles. While all this is going on, Pearl, sick to death of being told what a bad job she is, decides to become the Jezebel everyone assumes she is. Duel in the Sun was based on the novel by Niven Busch, who'd written the work hoping that his wife Teresa Wright would play Pearl--but that was before Selznick fell head over heels in love with Jennifer Jones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the classic novel by mystery author Agatha Christie that was later adapted as the Broadway hit Ten Little Indians , And Then There Were None begins with ten characters, each with a skeleton in his or her closet, on a remote island off the English coast. They soon realize that they have been brought there by an insane judge, who has tried each of them for criminal behavior in the past, and who now feels it is his duty to render proper justice for each. The struggle to stay alive begins as each "guest" is eliminated in a fashion that corresponds to the titular nursery rhyme. Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, and C. Aubrey Smith are among those marked for death. The film's ending differs from that of the novel, and later remakes in 1966, 1975, and 1989 (all using the title Ten Little Indians), alternated between Christie's original finale and this film's climax. Depending on one's taste, the film's pacing is either excruciatingly slow or suspenseful, but the storyline has become a cinematic staple in everything from horror (Theatre Of Blood) to satire (Murder By Death). ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

In this bit of WWII propaganda (designed to boost support of America's alliance with Russia against Germany), Kolya (Dana Andrews), Kurin (Walter Huston), Damian (Farley Granger), and Marina (Anne Baxter) are members of a farming collective in the Ukraine known as the North Star. The hard-working but happy members of the North Star find their way of life shattered when Germany, in defiance of previous treaties, storms the nation and begins a brutal occupation. Dr. Otto Von Harden (Erich Von Stroheim) begins gathering children -- who are to be used for blood transfusions and medical experiments. Many of the outraged farmers take to the hills to fight with the anti-Nazi resistance, while those who stay behind bravely destroy precious crops and materiel rather than turn them over to the Nazi war machine. Producer Samuel Goldwyn made The North Star at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (whose son James was an executive at Goldwyn's studio). Ironically, several members of the film's creative team (including screenwriter Lilian Hellman) later found their motivations for making the film questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee, who declared it Communist propaganda. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Soviet Union. As played by Walter Huston, Davies is a pillar of incorruptable integrity, reporting the facts "as I saw them" (only in later years was Davies revealed to be something less than a paragon of virtue who was willing to alter opinions for political, personal and financial expedience). Sent to Moscow by FDR as a means of finding out if Russia is a potentially trustworthy ally in case of war, Davies and his family are given the royal treatment by the Commissars, who display the social, technological, agricultural and artistic advances made under the Stalin regime. Invariably, the Russian citizens are shown to be singing, smiling, freedom-loving rugged individuals-in contrast to the Nazis, who are depicted as humorless automatons. In its efforts to present the USSR in the best possible light, the film glosses over the notorious Purge Trials of 1937, presenting the trials as scrupulously fair and the defendants as unabashed traitors to the Soviet cause. At one point, Russia's annexation of Finland in 1939 is "justified" by Davies' explanation that the Soviets merely wanted to protect their tiny neighbor from Nazi domination! It is unfair to label Mission to Moscow as Communistic or even left-wing, since it was merely parroting the official party line vis-a-vis US/Soviet relations in 1943. Even so, screenwriter Howard Koch found it very difficult to get film work after the war because of his contributions to this "Pinko" project (conversely, Jack Warner pulled a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter by insisting that he was strongarmed into making the film). Seen objectively, Mission to Moscow is top-rank entertainment, superbly and excitingly assembled in the manner typical of Warners and director Michael Curtiz. The huge cast includes Gene Lockhart as Molotov, attorney Dudley Field Malone as Winston Churchill, Maynart Kippen as a benign, pipe-smoking Stalin, Charles Trowbridge as Secretary Cordell Hull, Leigh Whipper as Hailie Selassie, Georges Renavent as Anthony Eden and Alex Chirva as Pierre Laval, along with the more familiar faces of Ann Harding (as Mrs. Davies), George Tobias, Eleanor Parker, Moroni Olsen, Minor Watson, Jerome Cowan, Duncan Renaldo, Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Edward van Sloan, Louis-Jean Heydt, Monte Blue, Robert Shayne and even Sid (sic) Charisse. Original prints of Mission to Moscow include a 6-minute prologue delivered by the real Joseph Davies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The semi-feature-length wartime documentary Report From the Aleutians was written and directed by Captain John Huston. It was one of three such films turned out between 1942 and 1945 while Huston was assigned to the Signal Corps. In detailing the day-to-day activities of protecting Alaska's Aleutian Islands from Japanese attack, Huston concentrates on the personal element, stressing the courage under stress of the regular Joes assigned to this bleak part of the world. Huston himself narrates the film with the emphatic compassion that he would later bring to his acting work. Report from the Aleutians was nominated for an Academy Award in 1943. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Battle of Britain was the fourth of the US government's Why We Fight documentaries. The film uses newsreel footage and a few re-created scenes to illustrate the courage of the British people under the bombardment of Hitler's Luftwaffe. Much is made of the fact that Britain stood alone in 1940 when it was besieged by bombs, and that the little island was virtually the only Nazi target that refused to capitulate. The film concludes with scenes of the Royal Air Force preparing to pay Hitler back. Like the rest of the Why We Fight series, Battle of Britain was directed (or rather, assembled) by Frank Capra. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Yankee Doodle Dandy is no more the true-life story of George M. Cohan than The Jolson Story was the unvarnished truth about Al Jolson -- but who the heck cares? Dandy has song, dance, pathos, pageantry, uproarious comedy, and, best of all, James Cagney at his Oscar-winning best. After several failed attempts to bring the life of legendary, flag-waving song-and-dance man Cohan to the screen, Warners scenarist Robert Buckner opted for the anecdotal approach, unifying the film's largely unrelated episodes with a flashback framework. Summoned to the White House by President Roosevelt, the aging Cohan is encouraged to relate the events leading up to this momentous occasion. He recalls his birth on the Fourth of July, 1878; his early years as a cocky child performer in his family's vaudeville act; his decision to go out as a "single"; his sealed-with-a-handshake partnership with writer/producer Sam Harris (Richard Whorf); his first Broadway success, 1903's Little Johnny Jones; his blissful marriage to winsome wife Mary (a fictional amalgam of Cohan's two wives, played by Joan Leslie -- who, incredibly, was only 17 at the time); his patriotic civilian activities during World War I, culminating with his writing of that conflict's unofficial anthem "Over There" (performed by Nora Bayes, as played by Frances Langford); the deaths of his sister, Josie (played by Cagney's real-life sister Jeanne), his mother, Nellie (Rosemary DeCamp), and his father, Jerry (Walter Huston); his abortive attempt to retire; and his triumphant return to Broadway in Rodgers & Hart's I'd Rather Be Right.

His story told, Cohan is surprised -- and profoundly moved -- when FDR presents him with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first such honor bestowed upon an entertainer. His eyes welling up with tears, Cohan expresses his gratitude by invoking his old vaudeville curtain speech: "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you." Glossing over such unsavory moments in Cohan's life as his bitter opposition of the formation of Actor's Equity -- not to mention George M.'s intense hatred of FDR! -- Yankee Doodle Dandy offers the George M. Cohan that people in 1942 wanted to see (proof of the pudding was the film's five-million-dollar gross). And besides, the plot and its fabrications were secondary to those marvelous Cohan melodies -- "Give My Regards to Broadway," "Harrigan," "Mary," "You're a Grand Old Flag," "45 Minutes from Broadway," and the title tune -- performed with brio by Cagney (who modifies his own loose-limbed dancing style in order to imitate Cohan's inimitable stiff-legged technique) and the rest of the spirited cast. Beyond its leading players, movie buffs will have a ball spotting the myriad of familiar character actors parading before the screen: S.Z. Sakall, George Tobias, Walter Catlett, George Barbier, Eddie Foy Jr. (playing his own father), Frank Faylen, Minor Watson, Tom Dugan, John Hamilton, and on and on and on. In addition to Cagney, music directors Ray Heindorf and Heinz Roemheld also won Oscars for their efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In This Our Life is not a "for the ages" classic of the Golden Age of Cinema, but as a highly effective and entertaining melodrama, it more than fits the bill. Howard Koch's screenplay is a trifle predictable, but it's well structured and provides the requisite juicy roles for its pair of female stars. It also provides a number of little surprises -- a sympathetic and (for the time) non-stereotypical portrayal of a black character and two characters living not only in sin but adulterously so -- that give it some distinction. The script's main drawback is its initial lack of focus; it doesn't seem to quite know exactly what its story is and where the real conflict will lie. Ultimately, this doesn't really matter, for John Huston knows where it's going, and he shepherds the story along very efficiently, throwing in a little social commentary here, heightening the atmosphere there, tossing in a hint of the unsavory elsewhere. Although he doesn't really know what to do with the male actors (save for Charles Coburn and Frank Craven, each of whom is just right in entirely different ways), he handles the women in exactly the right way, including Billie Burke as the coddling, neurotic mother. It's Bette Davis, of course, who gets the showiest role, and she sinks her teeth into it and plays it for all it's worth. It's a great Davis performance, but she's still outdone by Olivia de Havilland, whose quiet, understated work anchors the film and ultimately makes the greater impression. It's terribly fine film acting, and immensely satisfying. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

This classic fantasy was based on a story by Stephen Vincent Benet. Jabez Stone (James Craig) is a simple New England farmer who has been suffering from a long run of bad luck. One day he mutters that he'd sell his soul for a little money and a decent crop. Moments later, who should appear but The Evil One himself, Mr. Scratch (Walter Huston). Scratch offers Stone seven years of wealth and good fortune in exchange for his soul; Stone, assuming it's some sort of joke, agrees. Soon Stone's fields are plentiful and money is rolling in, but his financial success comes with a price; he becomes a cold and greedy tyrant, losing the affection of his family and the respect of his peers. In time, Stone realizes that he's made a terrible mistake and that Scratch won't let him out of their deal without a fight. Desperate to regain his soul, Stone turns to the greatest legal and oratorical mind of his day, Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold), who challenges Scratch to put his contract with Stone to the test in a fair trial. While a critical success and a favorite of film buffs, The Devil and Daniel Webster fared poorly at the box office; it was eventually released under five different titles and clipped to 85 minutes in hopes of winning a larger audience, though it was restored to a 107-minute length for release on home video. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Josef von Sternberg made his first return to exotic Shanghai since 1932's Shanghai Express in this baroque conflagration, based on a 1925 play by John Colton that required 30 revisions before it was sufficiently sanitized to pass muster with Hays Office censors. The film takes place in the gambling den of Mother Gin Sling (Ona Munson), who finds her casino threatened with closing by stuffed shirt English financier Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston). Gin Sling knows that the key to keeping her casino open is to dig up some dirt on Sir Guy, and it's quick in coming. She finds that Sir Guy was compelled to leave China in a hurry some time in the past, stealing his wife's money and plotting to kill her. Sir Guy ended up abandoning his wife in China and leaving her with an infant daughter. She also finds out that Sir Guy's grown-up daughter, Poppy (Gene Tierney, is a frequent and deeply indebted guest of Gin Sling's casino. Gin Sling is now ready to blackmail Sir Guy into keeping her casino open. He tracks down his daughter and tries to convince her to leave town. But Poppy refuses to budge, having fallen in love with Doctor Omar (Victor Mature). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide