Olaf Hytten Movies

After James Stewart's financial windfall attending his "percentage of profits" deal on Winchester 73, Errol Flynn decided to cash in by making his own deal with Universal Pictures, accepting a moderate fee up front and a huge chunk of the gross for Against All Flags. Set in the 16th century, the film casts Flynn as a British naval officer unjustly condemned for desertion. He escapes punishment and joins Anthony Quinn's pirate band, wherein he and Quinn vie for the attentions of glamorous female buccaneer Maureen O'Hara. Flynn incurs O'Hara's wrath when he rescues a lovely middle-eastern princess (Alice Kelley) from slave traders, but O'Hara still comes to Flynn's aid when he is left to die by Quinn. Flynn and O'Hara team up to thwart Quinn's evil schemes, whereupon it is revealed that Flynn's "disgrace" was a ruse, concocted by the British government to stem pirate activities in Madagascar. Though suffering several injuries during shooting, Errol Flynn was back in his old fighting form in Against All Flags, requiring a double only in a few scattered longshots. The film was poorly remade in 1967 as The King's Pirate, with Doug McClure inadequately filling Errol Flynn's seven-league boots. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When wealthy Mrs. Bullion informs her husband, Ajax that they are adopting a "little refugee" -- a common event amongst society people during World War II -- he is less than thrilled. But a trip to the dentist changes his perspective. Instead of getting his tooth pulled by his regular guy, Dr. I. Yankum, he winds up with three building janitors -- none other than The Three Stooges -- working on his mouth. Later, when he finds them hiding out in his car, he decides to take them home to Mrs. Bullion as not one, but three, long-awaited refugee children. But Bullion doesn't realize what he's in for -- Johnnie (Moe Howard), Frankie (Curly Howard) and Mabel (Larry Fine) steal his cigars and play craps with the butler. Mrs. Bullion throws a party to introduce the little darlings to her friends, but the festivities are interrupted when her furious husband chases the Stooges from the house with an ax. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

When widower Stephen Blake (Melvyn Douglas) and divorcee Edith Farnham (Mary Astor) are the only guests at a snowed-in mountain resort, sports director Snirley (Romaine Callender) and hostess Alma Peabody (Dorothy Stickney) try to promote a romance between Stephen and Edith. However, Stephen's son Tommy (Jackie Moran) and Edith's daughter Brenda (Edith Fellows) think this is a rotten idea and do what they can to prevent them from getting together. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Jean Peters is at her feisty best in Anne of the Indies. Harboring a grudge against all men (and not without reason), Anne becomes "Captain Providence," one of the most notorious pirate leaders of the Spanish Main. Anne is pursued by French captain Pierre la Rochelle (Louis Jourdan), who intends to bring her to justice. To this end, La Rochelle makes romantic overtures to Anne, but she gloms onto his scheme and abducts the captain and his wife Molly (Debra Paget). After leaving her victims to die on a desert island, Anne relents and rescues them. She later fully redeems herself (at great personal cost) during a battle with her fiercest rival, Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez). Few actresses could have pulled off the contrarily-written title character in Anne of the Indies with as much determination and conviction as Jean Peters; surprisingly, the actress was reportedly never comfortable before the cameras, often insisting that she'd rather be a schoolteacher! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Now famous as the first feature film produced in the three-strip Technicolor process, Becky Sharp is also an enjoyable effort in its own right. Adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the film stars Miriam Hopkins as Becky Sharp, a resourceful, totally self-involved young lady who manages to survive any number of setbacks and deprivations in the years following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. In her efforts to advance herself, she manages to link up with a number of not altogether attractive gentlemen, including the Marquis of Steyne (Cedric Hardwicke), Joseph Sedley (Nigel Bruce), Rawdon Crawley (Alan Mowbray), and George Osborne (G. P. Huntley Jr.) She rises to the pinnacle of British society, only to tumble and fall into the humiliation of singing for her supper in a cheap back-alley beer hall, but, like her spiritual sister Scarlet O'Hara, Becky never stays down for long. The film ends on an ambiguous note, never hinting that Becky will eventually drop her current beau and settle down to a life of smug piety, as she does in the novel. Begun in 1934 with Lowell Sherman in the director's chair, Becky Sharp was forced to shut down production when Sherman died; he was replaced by Rouben Mamoulien, whose unerring eye for cinematic splendor exploited the new color process to the utmost, especially during the opening Brussels Ball sequence. Until its recent archival restoration, Becky Sharp was available only in a shortened, two-color version, which had the negative effect of diminishing the film's strong points and overemphasizing its weaknesses (This version is still available on the public-domain market). Becky Sharp is an enormous improvement over the low-budget 1932 version of Vanity Fair, which updated the story to the 20th century and cast dumb-blonde specialist Joyce Compton in the role of Becky. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Bells of San Angelo was the second Republic Roy Rogers western to be filmed in the "new" Trucolor process (actually the old Magnacolor process). Set in the modern west, the story involves a silver-smuggling racket headed by rotten Rex Gridley (John McGuire). In a novel scripting touch, Roy Rogers doesn't outwit the villains-and in fact is soundly beaten by the bad guys halfway through the film. It's up to heroine Lee Madison (Dale Evans), a writer of fanciful cowboy novels, to save the day! By taking Roy Rogers off his "King of the Cowboys" pedestal, Bells of San Angelo succeeds in humanizing this western icon, and the film is all the better for it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell's classic tale of a beautiful horse is adapted in a disappointingly flat fashion by independent producer Edward L. Alperson. Unlike the novel, which is told from the horse's point of view, the film concentrates on the animal's first owner, a young English girl (Mona Freeman). Raising the horse into a prize-winner called "Black Beauty," the motherless girl is thrown into a panic when Beauty disappears. She locates the horse in a barn that is about to catch fire; knocked unconscious, the girl is saved by the valiant Beauty. The film's script utilizes only one of the many episodes in Sewell's 1879 novel, and not the most fascinating one at that. Had Black Beauty been produced by 20th Century-Fox instead of merely being released by the studio, the film might have had the saving grace of Technicolor photography. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The great Ernst Lubitsch directed this farce (written by Charles M. Brackett and Billy Wilder) about a free-wheeling millionaire, Michael Brandon (Gary Cooper), who enjoys getting married but has a hard time staying married: he's had seven wives and is looking for number eight. He thinks he may have found her in the person of Nicole de Loiselle (Claudette Colbert), whom he meets in a shop on the French Riviera. Unfortunately for Michael, Nicole doesn't like him very much and keeps rebuffing his advances, even though most women would be only too happy to marry him for his money. For just that reason, Nicole's father (Edward Everett Horton), a financially embarrassed French nobleman, strongly suggests that matrimony with Michael would be a good idea, especially since Michael doesn't want to take no for an answer. Nicole eventually relents and weds Michael, but when she tries to get him to change a few of his habits during the honeymoon, he makes plans to divorce her. But Nicole has finally decided that she loves Michael after all, and, as he tries to flee from her, she gives chase, determined to win his heart once and for all. The same story was previously filmed as a silent picture in 1923. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This action drama features John Wayne in an early, non western role. He plays a trucker who owns half of a small but increasingly successful trucking firm. When Duke's company begins stealing business away from LeRoy Mason's firm, Mason retaliates by engineering the violent death of Wayne's partner, Emerson Treacy. He falls in love with the head of the railroad shipping department. Unfortunately, the evil competitor murders the Duke's partner in a mysterious explosion. The Big Guy then joins forces with an even larger company and destroys Mason's business causing Mason to team up with a train magnate and plot his revenge. The film's highlight, is a cross country race between Duke's trucks and Mason's trains. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set during the war of 1812, Hal Roach's Captain Caution is an unusual swashbuckler in that the "hero" is actually the heroine. Louise Platt plays Corunna, the daughter of Captain Dorman (Robert Barrat), skipper of the American vessel The Olive Branch. When Dorman is killed in battle, Corunna courageously assumes command of the ship, with the help of muscular first mate Dan Marvin (Victor Mature). While trying to bring a valuable cargo to America, the Olive Branch is captured a number of times by the British, but on each occasion Corunna and Marvin manage to wriggle free and carry on their mission. Making life tougher for Corunna is the presence of the lacivious Slade (Bruce Cabot), who'd like to claim both the girl and the ship as his own personal property. Based on a novel by Kenneth Roberts (Northwest Passage), Captain Caution is currently available on video in a computer-colorized version; the reader is advised to hold out for the black-and-white original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

War hero Dennis Morgan becomes the object of a publicity stunt staged by magazine publisher Sidney Greenstreet. The corpulent print mogul announces that Morgan has won a Christmas dinner, to be prepared by the magazine's housekeeping expert Barbara Stanwyck in her own Connecticut home. The catch: Not only does Stanwyck not have a home in Connecticut, but she's never been in a kitchen in her life! She also doesn't have a husband (as her articles claim), so Stanwyck's erstwhile beau Reginald Gardiner is pressed into service as the hubby. As for the cooking, that will be handled by master chef S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall. This solves everything, right? No way, Jose. Long dismissed as a lesser film farce, Christmas in Connecticut has its own irresistible charm, and has in recent years become a perennial Christmas-eve TV attraction. Pay absolutely no attention to the 1992 TV remake, starring Dyan Cannon and directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide