Todd Karns Movies

In this Korean War drama, a strong-willed, stubborn greenhorn pilot becomes obsessed with avenging the death of his brother who died during an aerial skirmish with the deadly Chinese "volunteer" pilots. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Rookie officer Russell Clark (Todd Karns) is accused of robbing and assaulting a drunken man at a prizefight arena. The alleged victim insists that Clark be prosecuted, threatening to go to the newspapers if justice isn't done immediately, With Clark on suspension and in police custody, detectives Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) search for the only eyewitness to the incident: The doctor who examined the injured man after he fell down a flight of stairs. Based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of June 1, 1950, this episode marks the first of several acting appearances by popular LA sports announcer Bill Brundige. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Edward Dmytryk returned from a few unhappy years on the Blacklist in the early 1950s, to direct a handful of programmers before being restored to "A" pictures. Dmytrk's Mutiny is set during the War of 1812. Mark Stevens, captain of the American ship Concord, finds himself at the mercy of mutineer Patric Knowles, who is supposedly loyal to Britain. Actually all Knowles is concerned with is the gold bullion carried by the Concord, which he plans to squander in the company of treacherous femme fatale Angela Lansbury. Stevens recaptures the ship and torpedoes the British fleet, with the aid of a pioneering submarine-like vessel. Mutiny was produced by the estimable King Brothers who allegedly trafficked in illegal gambling devices before hitting upon the more lucrative arena of independent motion pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filled with the kind of Red Scare propaganda that must have delighted members of McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee, this drama chronicles the attempts of two All-American parents to save their son from the temptations of Communism. Unfortunately, they are too late. The arrogant and intellectual young man, a worker in a federal agency, returns home from a long absence spouting pro-Ruskie doctrine and deriding the beliefs of capitalism and US at every opportunity. Enraged at his son's mocking ways, he beans him with the family bible. Things get worse when an FBI agent shows up to tell the horrified parents that their son is an enemy spy. The mother blows a gasket and flies to Washington, DC where her son works to make him swear on the same book that the FBI agent is wrong. The son does so, but its a lie. The mother soon finds this out. She also learns that her treacherous son's girlfriend is a Commie. What's a mother to do? Fortunately, before it is too late, her son realizes the error of his ways and tries to double-cross his Pinko superiors. Unfortunately, it is too late and they shoot him and just before he gaspingly dies upon the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he tapes his final confession and gives American youth everywhere a potent message about honor. The star of the film, Walker, best remembered for his gripping portrayal of a psychopath in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, died before production finished and so scenes from that film were spliced into My Son, John. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Obviously designed as an exploitationer, It's a Small World isn't bad within its own limits. Paul Dale, a real-life radio disc jockey, stars as midget Harry Musk, who is met with cruelty and insensitivity wherever he goes because of his small stature. Unable to adjust to the "big" world, Harry falls in with bad company and becomes a criminal. Redemption comes in the form of midget Dolly Burke (Anne Sholter), who convinces Harry to go straight and pursue an honest living as a performer with the Cole Bros. circus. The "normal-sized" cast is populated with such familiar faces as Will Geer, Steve Brodie, Todd Karns and Margaret Field. Director William Castle also shows up in a cameo role as a police officer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Producer Samuel Goldwyn dishes up sentiment by the bowlful with My Foolish Heart. Susan Hayward is (somewhat unconvincingly) cast as a wide-eyed girl from Idaho who meets bon vivant Dana Andrews at a Manhattan party. Their brief affair results in a pregnancy, but since Andrews has been killed in the war, Hayward marries a man she doesn't love to give her child a name. The experience turns the girl into an embittered alcoholic, but she sees the light before she can cause grief for her baby. Based on a story by J. D. Salinger (the only one of this reclusive author's stories ever translated to film), My Foolish Heart strains credulity to the breaking point, but was popular enough to yield a hit title song, which is still a standard on "easy listening" FM radio stations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed: rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist (H.B. Warner) to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life. Capra's first production through his newly-formed Liberty Films, It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was percieved as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With America's Air Force not completely mobilized in mid-1942, Universal paid tribute to those foresighted Yankee flyboys who joined England's Royal Air Force before America's entry into WW2 in Eagle Squadron. Robert Stack stars as Chuck Brewer, one of several US flyers participating in RAF bombing raids of Germany. The film stresses the importance of hands-across-the-sea teamwork in this massive undertaking, concluding with Brewer leading his British compatriots on a Commando raid behind enemy lines, the better to capture a revolutionary new Nazi war plane. Every so often, the story slows to a walk as Brewer romances British lass Anne Partridge, played by the unfortunate Diana Barrymore in her last truly important screen role. Producer Walter Wanger made special arrangements with the British government to incorporate several exciting shots of authentic air battles in the film's 108 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide