Adele Jergens Movies

The Day the World Ended was filmmaker Roger Corman's modest entree into the realm of science fiction. The film begins at "The End"--or rather, the years following an all-out atomic war. A group of survivors find refuge in a well-protected valley owned by Maddison (Paul Birch) and his daughter Louise (Lori Nelson). Conflicts of a romantic nature erupt among Louise and her two erstwhile suitors, gun-wielding Tony (Touch--later Mike--Connors) and geologist Rick (Richard Denning), but these are shunted aside when it develops that the valley is infested with mutated, radioactive animals. Before long, a few similarly mutated human beings begin wandering into view (one of these is played by Jonathan Haze, the future star of Corman's Little Shop of Horrors). Carefully staying within its limited budget, The Day the World Ended is a well-crafted, thought-provoking apocalyptic fable. The film was inadequately remade in 1966 as Year 2889. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this entry in the long running Bowery Boys series, the boys begin working as free-lance photographers. Trouble ensues when they take a picture of a crime lord. They are in such a rush to get the picture back to the paper they work for that they accidently destroy the negative. To get another photo, one of the boys begins impersonating a Chicago gangster. He then sneaks his camera into a nightclub. While there he gets fake money from the crimelord, which he gives to the police as evidence. Thanks to his efforts, the boss and his gang are brought to justice. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

William Gibson's novel The Cobweb was brought to the screen by MGM with an impressive, hand-picked cast. Richard Widmark plays the head of a posh psychiatric clinic. Widmark's wife Gloria Grahame jockeys for the honor of selecting new drapes for the hospital's library. One wouldn't think that such a trivial decision would spark so much melodrama; but thanks to those drapes, we are allowed to probe the disturbed psyches of martinet business affairs director Lillian Gish, philandering doctor Charles Boyer, lonely activities director Lauren Bacall, and suicidal patient John Kerr. Oscar Levant, who spent most of his life in and out of "little white rooms", is ideally cast as a neurotic musician, while Fay Wray has a superb cameo as Boyer's long-suffering wife. Cobweb served as the screen debuts for both John Kerr and Susan Strasberg. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Greer Garson's first non-MGM starring vehicle was the stylish western Strange Lady in Town. That lady is Julia (Garson), who arrives in 1880 New Mexico to set up practice as a doctor. The townsfolk are not only resistant to the notion of a lady sawbones, but they become downright hostile when Julia turns out to be a tireless advocate of the Women's Suffrage movement. Rival doctor O'Brien (Dana Andrews) doesn't feel that there's any room in the medical profession for ladies; his personal feelings for the lovely Julia are another matter. Faced with such roadblocks as prejudice, ignorance and downright stupidity, Julia nonetheless perseveres with O'Brien eventually seeing things her way. When Julia's hotheaded younger brother David (Cameron Mitchell) turns outlaw, the townspeople are prepared to ride her out of town on a rail, but she is rescued by the intervention of the local Mexicans and Indians, who have accepted her presence and her ministrations without reservation. Hmmmm . . . could Strange Lady in Town be the direct ancestor of TV's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman? ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Fireman Save My Child started out as an Abbott and Costello picture, but then Lou Costello became ill with rheumatic fever. Or Costello turned down the script. Or the team decided to film Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde instead. Whatever the reason, when the film was finally released, Hugh O'Brian and Buddy Hackett were playing the roles originally intended for Bud and Lou (A and C can still be seen in some long-shots, however). Set in San Francisco in the early 1900s, the film casts Hugh and Buddy as a pair of bumbling firemen. Buddy invents a new fire-extingushing device, which the bad guys attempt to steal. Naturally, the film affords plenty of opportunity for slapstick chase sequences, and even allows Buddy Hackett time to do a potted version of his "inferiority complex" monologue. Top-billed over O'Brian and Hackett is the zany musical aggregation of Spike Jones and His City Slickers, who likewise are given several opportunities to shine. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Written and directed by Irving Brecher, best known for his weekly TV series Life of Riley and The People's Choice, Somebody Loves Me is the highly fictionalized life story of vaudeville and Broadway star Blossom Seeley (Betty Hutton) and her husband-partner Benny Fields (Ralph Meeker). Unflatteringly, the film depicts Fields as something of an opportunist, who maneuvers Blossom into marriage for the benefit of his own career. Eventually he does penance for his callousness, particularly in a scene wherein Fields is reduced to playing straight for a pair of crummy Burlesque comedians. Meanwhile, Blossom also goes into an eclipse as a "single." The tearful finale is, like the rest of the film, a bit at odds with the truth, but effective nonetheless. Betty Hutton does pretty well as Seeley, even though she looks and sounds nothing like genuine article; Meeker seems uncomfortable, except when lip-synching to the prerecorded voice of Pat Morgan as Benny Fields. Jack Benny makes an amusing cameo appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Billed "Jack Mahoney" for the occasion, former stunt man Jock Mahoney steps up to the plate as a leading man in this average Western originally released in an inexpensive color process. Mahoney plays Ross Granger, a railroad agent masquerading as a telegrapher and looking into a series of Comanche raids on the railroad construction near Oaktown. But as Ross quickly establishes, the raids are sponsored by local businessmen Del Stewart (William Bishop) and Broden (George Eldredge), who want to force the railroad through land they possess. Stewart, an old friend of Granger's, is in love with Ann Dennison (Peggie Castle), the daughter of the railroad surveyor, but not even he can prevent Broden from having old man Dennison (Walter Sande) killed. Jock Mahoney had recently starred on television's Range Rider series when hired by former Columbia Pictures colleague Fred Sears for this independently produced Western. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Randolph Scott stars as a former Confederate Army officer known only as "Sugarfoot." Hoping to start life anew in Arizona, Sugarfoot manages to incur the wrath of territorial bigwigs Jacob Stint (Raymond Massey) and Asa Goodhue (Hugh Sanders), who've carried a grudge against him since the Civil War. Fortunately he also gets on the good side of saloon-hall singer Reva Cairn (Adele Jergens), which if nothing else affords him comfort during the plot's darker moments. Somewhere along the way, Sugarfoot loses Reva's affections, and nearly loses his life to Stint and Goodhue's hired guns. The aggressively mittel-European S.Z. Sakall is featured in the cast as a local merchant named Don Miguel. Based on a novel by Clarence Buddington Kelland, Sugarfoot was renamed Swirl of Glory when released to television, to avoid confusion with the TV series Sugarfoot--which, in turn, was based on the 1954 feature Boy From Oklahoma. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Blues Busters is a first-rate entry in the otherwise hit-and-miss "Bowery Boys" series. After having his tonsils removed, Sach (Huntz Hall) finds himself blessed with a beautiful singing voice. He becomes a popular crooner, inspiring Slip (Leo Gorcey) to convert Louie's sweet shop into a swanky nightclub (in the Bowery?) Rival club owner Craig Stevens tricks Sach into signing with him, which causes a rift in the lifelong friendship between Sach and Slip. But Sach returns to his old friends in the end--just in time for his mellifluous singing voice to disappear, replaced by his old familiar nasal bray. In addition to the surprising presence of the classy Craig Stevens (eight years removed from Peter Gunn), Blues Busters boasts fine supporting performances from a brace of favorite B-picture babes, Phyllis Coates and Adele Jergens. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Some auteur critics feel that director Richard O. Fleischer did his best work while laboring in the "B" mills of RKO Radio. Fleischer's minimalist noir exercise Armored Car Robbery stars William Talman as the chief crook and Charles McGraw as the detective dogging his trail. A shade smarter than his gang underlings, Talman manages to elude capture, and even travels freely about in the company of his flashy lady friend Adele Jergens. But McGraw's persistence eventually pays off. Don McGuire, later a prolific TV producer/director, provides a welcome touch of comic relief as McGraw's rookie-cop assistant. A powerful (and slightly gruesome) climax caps this low-budget gem. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed under the title Radar Patrol, Lippert's Rader Secret Service wastes no time getting down to business. Indeed, with a 59-minute running time, no waste would have been tolerated. John Howard and Ralph "Dick Tracy" Byrd star as Bill and Static, a pair of secret service operatives, in search of stolen uranium ore. Per the film's title, Our Heroes use radar to track down the atomic bandits. This was hardly necessary: any dyed-in-the-wool movie fan could have told Bill and Static from the get-go that the villains are Moran (Tom Neal) and Michael (Tris Coffin). Lippert's resident comic relief Sid Melton provides some amusing moments, while the feminine angle is handled by Adele Jergens and Myrna Dell, two of the best "bad girls" in "B"-pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In the late 1940s - early 1950s, Columbia Pictures enjoyed a great deal of success with a series of slapsticky feature films built around the talents of such gifted funsters as Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, William Bendix and Jack Carson. In this tradition, Columbia's Traveling Saleswoman is a showcase for the delightful Joan Davis. The star plays Mabel King, who heads westward to sell her father's soap. Tagging along is Mabel's erstwhile beau Waldo (Andy Devine). In the course of the film's 74 minutes, Mabel wins over a hostile Indian tribe, makes short work of an outlaw named Cactus Jack (Joe Sawyer) and a saloon chirp named Lilly (Adele Jergens), and even gets to warble a song or two in her own inimitable fashion. Traveling Saleswoman was produced by Tony Owen, who later prospered as producer of a long-running TV sitcom starring his wife, Donna Reed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi