Warren Hymer Movies

Tala Birell, one of the more talented of the Garbo wannabes of the 1930s, stars in the Universal quickie She's Dangerous. The star is cast as Stephanie, a glamorous private detective who's been hired to track down a gang of bond thieves. She charms her way into the confidence of gang leader Nick Shelton (Cesar Romero), knowing full well that the outwardly gracious Shelton won't hesitate to kill her if she's found out. Eventually, Stephanie proves too smart for her own good, and it's up to sidelines hero Dr. Logan (Walter Pidgeon) to bail her out. She's Dangerous bears a marked resemblance to 20th Century-Fox's 15 Maiden Lane, which also featured Cesar Romero as a charming-but-deadly crook. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A tough sailor bets his pals that he can win the love of a prissy librarian and so masquerades as a candidate for the Naval Academy to catch her eye. Unfortunately for him, she is not so easily fooled. He immediately changes his story and "admits" that he is actually a Navy spy. Enemy spies, who have come to assassinate a visiting ambassador, over hear this and kidnap both the sailor and the librarian. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama a chorine endeavors to become a star, but it isn't easy. Her wealthy boyfriend wants to marry her until his snooty family rejects her. At her job, her boss is cruel to her. Still the woman persists and even gets jobs waiting tables and modeling. Luckily for her, a good friend stands behind her regardless of her luck and by the story's end, she comes to appreciate this and romance ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, an aspiring socialite heads for a vacation in Monte Carlo where she befriends a wealthy widowed duchess and then begins blackmailing her after she steals a scandalous letter. This letter could destroy her upcoming nuptials to a stuffy Englishman. The duchess enlists the aide of an American thief to get the damning letter back. Meanwhile, her English lover continues to ardently pursue her; he is blissfully unaware that something is amiss. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The real "message to Garcia" was delivered by an American lieutenant to Cuban rebel General Garcia, asking for the General's help in the Spanish-American war. The fact that the lieutenant made his way to Garcia in absolute safety was ignored in 20th Century-Fox's Message to Garcia--which is just as well, since otherwise the movie would have been eight minutes long. In the film version, lieutenant John Boles is guided through the treacherous Cuban jungle by Barbara Stanwyck, doing her best to convince us that she's an Hispanic senorita. Also along for the trip is renegade marine Wallace Beery, who may not be as friendly as he seems. Fighting off Spaniards and spies at every turn, Boles successfully completes his mission. As history, Message to Garcia is about as reliable as the Hearst newspaper dispatches which triggered the Spanish-American war in the first place. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The MGM historical "spectacular" San Francisco was allegedly based on a three-sentence synopsis, submitted verbally to producer B.F. Zeidman by studio troubleshooter Bob Hopkins. The story begins on the Barbary Coast on New Year's Eve, 1906, as rakish but likeable political boss Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) hires demure young singer Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) to perform at his rowdy Paradise gambling house. Local priest Father Mullin (Spencer Tracy), Blackie's best friend, disapproves of the exploitation of the lovely Mary, feeling that she's suited for classier surroundings. Jack Hurley (Jack Holt), Nob Hill socialite and Blackie's political rival, agrees with Father Mullin and offers the girl the opportunity to sing with the San Francisco Opera. Blackie, who's fallen in love with Mary but won't admit it to himself, jealously holds on to her contract, forcing Mary to walk out on him. For the rest of the film, Mary is torn between the "respectable" lifestyle offered her by Hurley and the baser creature comforts provided by Blackie. It looks for a while that Hurley has won out, but fate takes a hand in the form of the devastating San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906 (a special effects tour de force for art directors Arnold Gillespie and his uncredited associate James Basevi). Hurley is killed in the holocaust, while Blackie, desperately searching for Mary in the rubble, at long last finds religion and prays to God for his sweetheart's salvation. At the end, an unidentified bit player shouts defiantly "We'll build a new San Francisco!" -- and by golly, they do! The Hollywood censors were not so much bothered by the sexual subtext of San Francisco or its harrowing earthquake finale as they were by a scene in which Father Mullin is knocked down by an unrepentant Blackie. To "purify" this potentially blasphemous sequence, screenwriter Anita Loos quickly added an earlier scene in which Mullin and Blackie, both dressed in turtleneck sweaters, genially duke it out at an exercise gym, whereupon the priest cold-cocks Blackie with the greatest of ease. By establishing that Mullin could have punched out Blackie, but chooses not to in the controversial later scene, not only allows that scene to pass, but also strengthened the priest's character. San Francisco proved to be one of MGM's biggest hits, remaining in almost constant reissue for the next three decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This interesting low-budget Western was advertized as "A lightning trigger action drama of the glorious west .. packed with thrills and colorful adventure!" If it didn't quite live up to the hyperbole, Desert Justice nevertheless managed to surprise its mostly juvenile audience, especially by killing off one of the comic relief characters, Fred "Snowflake" Toones, in the very first reel. Toones' death during a bank robbery is just one of many surprises in a story that deftly combined the gangster film with traditional Western clichés. Former silent star Jack Perrin played Jack Franklin, a city patrolman who discovers that his kid brother (David Sharpe) has escaped reform school to hook up with a gang of bank robbers. Following the killing of a bank porter, the gang hides out in Jack's desert cabin. Jack arrives just in time to see kid brother Dave being mortally wounded in a gunfight. On his horse Starlight, Jack rides hell for leather to fetch a doctor but he is too late and Dave dies in his arms. With the assistance of a police buddy (Warren Hymer), the police commissioners daughter (Maryan Dowling), and the latter's dog Braveheart, an embittered Jack is finally able to brings his brother's killers to justice. Desert Justice was co-produced by its director, William Berke (who billed himself "Lester Williams" for the occasion) and Perrin himself. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The second screen version of Anna Katherine Green's 1878 whodunit stars Donald Cook as Dr. Truman Hartnell, a dedicated physician who after declaring old Silas Leavenworth (Frank Sheridan) fit for fight is appalled to learn that the wealthy broker is found dead, an apparent suicide. But Silas, who had bandied about the idea of leaving his ill-gotten gains to charity, had plenty of enemies within his own household. And sure enough, as Detective Bob Gryce (Norman Foster) soon learns, the mean old geezer was murdered by a person or persons unknown. Among the suspects: Henry Clavering (Gavin Gordon), Silas' disgruntled business partner; Eleanor (Jean Rouverol), Leavenworth's pretty niece; and Phoebe (Maude Eburne), the victim's cranky old-maid of a sister. A pet monkey also figures prominently in the plot but the original denouement was too gruesome for the British censors and Republic filmed a copout ending for foreign release versions. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Singer-bandleader Phil Regan, Republic Pictures's answer to Dick Powell, stars in Laughing Irish Eyes. Regan plays Danny O'Keefe, a pugnacious County Cork blacksmith who rises to prizefighting fame in the U.S. Fight manager Pat Kelly (Walter C. Kelly) isn't above using his pretty daughter Peggy (Evelyn Knapp) to keep Danny happy, but things turn out OK when the boxer and the girl fall in love for keeps. The film is predicated on the notion that every true Irishman is a fighter or a singer at heart, a notion that worked just fine in 1936 but which might not go over quite as well in these more ethnically sensitive times. Serving as film editor on Laughing Irish Eyes was future cult-favorite director Joseph H. Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taking refuge from a rainstorm in a deserted farmhouse, young married couple Joe and Loretta Martin (Edward Norris and Rochelle Hudson) soon discover to their horror that the house is being used as a hideout for a gang of kidnappers. Gang leader Tobey (Cesar Romero), a comparatively reasonable sort, elects not to kill the couple because they have an ailing baby with them. But Tobey's psychotic henchman Pitch (Bruce Cabot) is not quite so sentimental, and awaits the opportunity to knock off all three "intruders." When the G-Men, tipped off by the serial numbers on some ransom money, manage to track down the crooks, Tobey is killed, leaving Loretta and her baby at the mercy of Pitch -- at least until she picks up a machine gun and mows him down! As brutal as it was possible to get under the newly strengthened Production Code, Show Them No Mercy (inspired by the real-life Weyerhauser kidnapping case) is an excellent entry in the "FBI cycle" of the mid-1930s. The film was remade in a western setting as Rawhide (1951). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Daring Young Man is hotshot-reporter Don McLane, played by James Dunn. Always on the prowl for a good story, McLane is persistently outscooped by his rival, sob sister Martha Allen (Mae Clarke). After several reels of double-crossing one another, hero and heroine give in to the inevitable and fall in love. But as Martha waits at the altar in her wedding gown, McLane is off on another crusade, this time getting himself arrested to expose corruption within the prison system. This last assignment provides the films biggest laughs, as well-connected prison inmates live the Life of Riley while waited upon hand-and-foot by supplicative guards. The Daring Young Man was co-written by real-life newspaper columnist Sidney Skolsky, later one of the most vocal of the "Red-baiters" of the 1940s and 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Errol Flynn makes his Hollywood screen debut as a corpse in this funny, fast-paced whodunit, the third of six Perry Mason vehicles produced by Warner Bros. from 1934 to 1937. Flynn's murder victim is one Gregory Moxley, the estranged and long-thought dead husband of Perry's client, Rhoda Montaine (Margaret Lindsey), who, in the meantime, has married a millionaire (Donald Woods) and is ripe for blackmail. Perry agrees to meet with Moxley, but finds him very much dead and this time for good. Rhoda naturally becomes the prime suspect, but, with the able assistance of his wisecracking secretary Della Street (Claire Dodd), Perry is able to reveal the identity of the real culprit, not in the courtroom this time, but at an elegant cocktail party. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide