Selmar Jackson Movies

The first of director Frank Capra's independent productions (in partnership with Robert Riskin), Meet John Doe begins with the end of reporter Ann Mitchell's (Barbara Stanwyck) job. Fired as part of a downsizing move, she ends her last column with an imaginary letter written by "John Doe." Angered at the ill treatment of America's little people, the fabricated Doe announces that he's going to jump off City Hall on Christmas Eve. When the phony letter goes to press, it causes a public sensation. Seeking to secure her job, Mitchell talks her managing editor (James Gleason) into playing up the John Doe letter for all it's worth; but to ward off accusations from rival papers that the letter was bogus, they decide to hire someone to pose as John Doe: a ballplayer-turned-hobo (Gary Cooper), who'll do anything for three squares and a place to sleep. "John Doe" and his traveling companion The Colonel (Walter Brennan) are ensconced in a luxury hotel while Mitchell continues churning out chunks of John Doe philosophy. When newspaper publisher D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), a fascistic type with presidential aspirations, decides to use Doe as his ticket to the White House, he puts Doe on the radio to deliver inspirational speeches to the masses -- ghost-written by Mitchell, who, it is implied, has become the publisher's mistress. The central message of the Doe speeches is "Love Thy Neighbor," though, conceived in cynicism, the speeches strike so responsive a chord with the public that John Doe clubs pop up all over the country. Believing he is working for the good of America, Cooper agrees to front the National John Doe Movement -- until he discovers that Norton plans to exploit Doe in order to create a third political party and impose a virtual dictatorship on the country. The last of Capra's "social statement" films, Meet John Doe posted a profit, although Capra and Riskin were forced to dissolve their corporation due to excessive taxes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man trying to make his dying father happy makes his love life very complicated indeed in this musical comedy starring Deanna Durbin. Jonathan Reynolds Jr. (Robert Cummings) is the playboy son of multi-millionaire business magnate Jonathan Reynolds, Sr. (Charles Laughton). Junior has told his father that he's finally met the woman he's going to marry while on a recent trip to Mexico, and Father, who has been given a very short time to live by his doctors, wants to meet her right away. However, the woman in question is not available, so Junior persuades Anne Terry (Durbin), a hat-check girl and aspiring singer, to pose as his fiancée for the sake of his father's peace of mind. Father takes quite a liking to Anne, which is fine and good until he defies all the expectations of his doctors and makes a complete recovery. Now Father is spending a great deal of time with the woman he thinks is going to be his future daughter-in-law, and Junior isn't sure how to tell him that Anne isn't really the woman he wants to marry. As usual, Durbin sings several songs, including "Clavelitos" by Valverde and "Going Home," adapted from Symphony for the New World by Dvorak. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Harold Bell Wright's bestselling novel The Shepherd of the Hills had been previously filmed in 1919 and 1928 before Paramount offered the first talkie version in 1941. In one of his least typical roles, John Wayne plays a young Ozark backwoodsman forsworn to kill his father, who years earlier abandoned his mother. Against this personal crisis is played the larger drama of outsiders who threaten to push Wayne's friends and family off their land. Fate plays a hand when a mysterious stranger wanders into the community. Not at all the action picture one would expect from star John Wayne and director Henry Hathaway, Shepherd of the Hills takes its own sweet time, unfolding its story in a leisurely pace befitting its slow-moving characters. The film's rich Technicolor photography adds to the restfully rustic ambience of this unusual entertainment.. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this humorous adventure, a Puerto Rican explorer shares a drink with his oddball millionaire double. For a lark, they decide to pull a switcheroo and exchange places. Unfortunately, the millionaire is killed in a car accident. His poor grieving wife, doesn't realize that the dead man is the explorer. Meanwhile the real rich man endeavors to prove his true identity. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Invisible Stripes is a cookie-cutter Warners prison drama which rounds up the usual suspects. George Raft and Humphrey Bogart are top-billed, and as is often the case in such a circumstance, it is Raft who is given the larger (albeit less interesting) role. Raft plays Cliff Taylor, an ex-convict who finds that his "invisible stripes" prevent him from getting a decent job. Cliff's younger brother (William Holden) shows unfortunate signs of following his older sibling's footsteps when he is pressured into crime to support himself and his girl friend (Jane Bryan). To save his brother, Cliff joins Humphrey Bogart's gang and earns enough dishonest money to set his brother up in business. But movie censorship prevails, and all of the miscreants in Invisible Stripes--even those motivated by good intentions--must pay the penalty. Side note: The prankish Humphrey Bogart spent so much time needling newcomer William Holden that Holden nearly came to blows with the older actor; the animosity persisted into the Bogart-Holden costarring feature Sabrina, made fourteen years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Telecast dozens of times on cable television back in the 1980s, Columbia's Babies for Sale was another stepping-stone on Glenn Ford's road to stardom. The story concerns a crooked adoption racket, operating out of a supposedly charitable maternity home. The establishment's staff uses methods of persuasion both subtle and overt to convince the unfortunate mothers-to-be to give up custody of their unborn children, which are then sold to adoptive parents who've had no luck within legal channels. Those expectant mothers who protest against these shady goings-on have a habit of disappearing without a trace. The racket is exposed by crusading reporter Steve Burton (Glenn Ford), with the aid of inquisitive maternity-home inmate Ruth Williams (Rochelle Hudson). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 13-episode Universal serial The Green Hornet is based on the radio series of the same name. Gordon Jones stars as Britt Reid, crusading young publisher of the Daily Sentinel, who matches wits with the underworld by disguising himself as the Green Hornet. So far as police are concerned, the Hornet is himself a criminal; this misunderstanding enables Reid to operate "outside the law" to battle criminals and racketeers. In the course of the serial, Reid and his faithful valet Kato (Keye Luke), the only living person who knows the true identity of the Hornet, take on a crooked insurance racket, an auto-theft ring and a dishonest flying school. Others in the cast include Anne Nagel as Reid's secretary Lenore "Casey" Case, and Wade Boteler as thick-headed detective Michael Axford. A TV version of The Green Hornet appeared in 1966, with Van Williams as Reid and no less than Bruce Lee as Kato. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

S.N. Behrman's hit Broadway show about a guy who writes hit Broadway shows comes to the screen in this comedy. Gaylord Esterbrook (James Stewart) is a reporter from Minnesota who writes a play about life in New York City -- a place he's never visited. To his surprise, a Big Apple producer wants to stage Gaylord's show and asks him to come to New York immediately. While Gaylord hardly seems like a Big City sophisticate, his regular-guy charm makes a big impression on leading lady Linda (Rosalind Russell), who is tired of jaded braggarts like her director, Morgan (Allyn Joslyn). Gaylord and Linda get married, and he becomes one of the most successful playwrights in town, but his new popularity goes to his head, and Linda wonders what happened to the man she married. However, Gaylord's career takes a turn for the worse when he meets Amanda (Genevieve Tobin), a snooty high society type who convinces him that he ought to be writing the Great American Tragedy instead of crowd-pleasing comedies. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this Navy drama, a young sailor finds himself interested in everything but marriage. But then he encounters a runaway orphan who sees the sailor and decides that he would do anything to make him become his father. He begins dogging the salt, who does everything he can to get rid of the troublesome kid. Eventually he can't help but care for the poor lad and so adopts him. A pretty woman comes along and soon their little family is complete. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Set in the Central American jungle, Lucille Ball plays plantation owner Joan Grant in The Marines Fly High. When a platoon of US Marines need a safe place to stay, Joan (Ball) allows them inside of her home, oblivious to the fact that two of the Marines would later compete for her affections. All conflict must be put aside, however, after she's kidnapped by a gang of bandits. The troop of Marines quickly unite, and immediately set off to save her. The Marines Fly High was directed by Ben Stoloff and George Nichols Jr., and also includes actors Richard Dix, Chester Morris, Steffi Duna, John Eldredge, and Paul Harvey. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Santa Fe Trail, Errol Flynn's third western, has precisely nothing to do with the titular trail. Instead, the film is a simplistic retelling of the John Brown legend, with Raymond Massey playing the famed abolitionist. The events leading up to the bloody confrontation between Brown and the US Army at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, are treated in a painstakingly even-handed fashion: Brown's desire to free the slaves is "right" but his methods are "wrong." Whenever the leading characters are asked about their own feelings towards slavery, the response is along the noncommittal lines of "A lot of people are asking those questions," "I don't have the answer to that," and so forth. Before we get to the meat of the story, we are treated to a great deal of byplay between West Point graduates Jeb Stuart (Flynn) and George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan), who carry on a friendly rivalry over the affections of one Kit Carson Halliday (Olivia DeHavilland). Just so we know that the picture is meant to be a follow-up to Warners' Dodge City and Virginia City, Flynn is saddled with Alan Hale and "Big Boy" Williams, his comic sidekicks from those earlier films. Despite its muddled point of view, Santa Fe Trail is often breathtaking entertainment, excitingly staged by director Michael Curtiz. The film's public domain status has made Santa Fe Trail one of the most easily accessible of Errol Flynn's Warner Bros. vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, two disparate twins ride the range. One is a real troublemaker while the other is a government agent. When the bad brother is sent to prison, the good one begins posing as him so he can capture two outlaws. He does so, but then finds himself accosted by an angry dance-hall girl who says that he (the bad brother) had promised to marry her. The good brother's girl friend has a thing or two to say about that and romantic mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The publisher of a popular gossip magazine causes a scandal of his own when he hires his bastard son as a reporter. The cub journalist does not realize that his new boss is his father. After only a week, the impetuous youth quits and starts working for his father's rival. Ironically, it is he who learns that his father killed someone. He does not realize that the father committed the murder to protect him from scandal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide