Milt Kibbee Movies

In this musical, a lovely and ambitious young woman masquerades as the daughter of a formerly beloved stage actress to help launch her Broadway career. She chooses one entertainment columnist in particular. But the starlet's carefully-made plans begin to unravel when a rival columnist learns of her ruse and tries to expose her. Songs include: "Let's March Together" (Saul Chaplin), "I Bumped My Head on a Star" (Cindy Walker), "Honk, Honk" (Roy Jacobs, Gene De Paul), "Timber Timber" (Don Reid, Henry Tobias), "Moon on My Pillow" (Charles, Henry, Elliot Tobias). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The fact that star Errol Flynn had been recently embroiled in a real-life rape trial only served to increase the box-office "pull" of Warner Bros. Northern Pursuit. Flynn is cast as Canadian mountie Steve Wagner, assigned to track down and capture downed Nazi pilot Hugo von Keller (Helmut Dantine) in the snowier Hudson Bay regions. Once Wagner and fellow mountie Jim Austin (John Ridgely) catch up with Von Keller, they pretend to be on his side, hoping that he'll reveal his espionage plans. Taken in, Von Keller leads the mounties towards a secret Nazi hideaway, where the Germans have hidden a huge bombing plane, to be used against North America. The fact that Wagner is posing as a Nazi sympathizer hardly endears him to Von Keller's hostage Laura McBain (Julie Bishop), but when the truth is revealed she professes her love for him. In the light of Flynn's recent legal problems, one line in Northern Pursuit invariably brought down the house in 1943: After assuring Laura that she's the only woman he's ever loved, Wagner/Flynn turns to the camera and quips "What am I saying?" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Juilliard-educated former opera-singer George Houston once again played vigilante turned champion of justice Tom Cameron, known colloquially as "The Lone Rider," in this low-budget PRC series entry. Cameron comes to the aid of his friend, the sheriff of Big Horn (Dennis Moore), who's having trouble with a bandit (Carl Sepulveda) masquerading as the legendary outlaw Joaquin Murietta. Sepulveda has been hired by a saloon keeper (Glenn Strange) to scare the area's prospectors into selling or abandoning their claims. Leading lady Vicki Lester refuses to sell, and her house is promptly torched. Enter heroic Cameron, who in between warbling such tunes as "I'm the Best Man in the West" and "Down the Moonlit Trail," manages to put a stop to Strange's reign of terror. Al St. John was once again Houston's comic sidekick, Fuzzy Jones, and the Western also featured future singing cowboy Eddie Dean in a bit part. Lester had "appropriated" her screen moniker from Janet Gaynor's character in A Star Is Born (1937). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Based on Cornell Woolrich's novel The Black Curtain (later dramatized several times on the radio series Suspense), Street of Chance top-bills Burgess Meredith as an amnesia victim. He awakens in the middle of the street, with nary a clue of who he is or what he's done. Meredith comes to learn that his past year of darkness has been a crowded one--and that he might be a murderer! Louise Platt plays Meredith's wife, but it's total stranger Claire Trevor who seems most interested in probing Meredith's past. Street of Chance is worth spending 74 minutes with, even though the true identity of the killer becomes obvious halfway through. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A woman's attempt to disguise herself as an underage girl mushrooms into a series of humorous deceptions in this romantic comedy. Ginger Rogers stars as Susan Applegate, a young woman living in New York who, nearly broke and sick of the city, decides to head home to Iowa. Lacking the money for a regular ticket, she pretends to be an unusually tall 11-year old girl named Sue-Sue in order to pay half-price. The train conductors catch on to her scheme, however, forcing her to take refuge in the car of Major Philip Kirby (Ray Milland). The kindly major virtually adopts the "lost little girl," and circumstances force Susan to play along and accompany him to the local military academy. There the fun begins, as she struggles to deal with the unwelcome romantic attentions of countless young cadets and her own increasing attraction to the engaged Major Kirby. The Major and the Minor was the first Hollywood feature helmed by the legendary Billy Wilder. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

Burlesque stripper-turned-thespian Ann Corio plays yet another white girl brought up in the jungle after her missionary parents are killed in this unintentionally funny espionage thriller from PRC. As Kuhlaya, Corio rescues a couple of Americans, Captain Gary Hart (!) (Buster Crabbe) and Sgt. Mike Jenkins (Paul Bryar), from the ubiquitous Nazis. But just as they all feel safe, the party discovers that their hotel in the jungle is operated by a fifth columnist named Herr Lukas (Arno Frey). The latter's bored wife, Anna (Evelyn Wahl), attempts to seduce Captain Hart, much to the consternation of Kuhlaya, who has fallen in love with the handsome American. An evil chief (Jess Brooks) performs a bit of voodoo but Dr. Harrigan (Milton Kibbee), Kuhlaya's foster-father, calls his bluff and the jungle is soon free from both Nazi sympathizers and evil natives. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Director Curtis Bernhardt hadn't wanted to make Juke Girl, but he was under contract to Warner Bros. and had to tow the line lest he find himself drawing Unemployment. One of Bernhardt's gripes against the film is that it starred Ronald Reagan, whom he considered an "unimportant" screen personality. In all fairness, Reagan is pretty good in his role as itinerant fruit-picker Steve Talbot, who gets involved in the middle of a labor dispute between the farmers and the packers. Talbot casts his lot with the farmers, while his longtime pal Danny Frazier (Richard Whorf) goes with the packers. Juke-joint hostess Lola Meers (Anne Sheridan) falls for Steve and supports his cause, only to be fired for her troubles at the behest of powerful packing-plant operator Henry Madden (Gene Lockhart). She and Steve try to escape Madden's influence, but when their farmer friend Nick Garcos (George Tobias) is murdered, the couple is framed for the crime. There follows "orgies of fights" (director Bernhardt's description) and a lynching attempt before Steve's old buddy Danny comes to the rescue. Anne Sheridan is at her most gorgeous in Juke Girl, making it difficult for the viewer to remain concentrated on the story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maybe Errol Flynn was never the war hero that he often played, but he was a capable boxer, and Gentleman Jim makes full use of this skill. Flynn stars as Jim Corbett, the 19th-century American pugilist who introduced "scientific" methods to bare-knuckle boxing. Originally an office clerk, Corbett is introduced to the then-illegal sport of fighting when one of the bank executives sponsors the young man's training at the Olympic Club. His arrogance wins Corbett a few enemies, including high-born lady Victoria Ware (Alexis Smith), whose dislike turns to casual affection when she realizes that Corbett is a sincere young fellow who can back up his boasts. What "Gentleman Jim" desires most in life is a match with reigning heavyweight champ John L. Sullivan (Ward Bond). Corbett and Sullivan finally meet in a bout governed by those new Marquis of Queensbury rules that Corbett has helped popularize. Twenty-one epoch-making rounds later, Corbett emerges victorious. At the victory celebration, Sullivan and Corbett graciously exchange mutual words of respect and affection. At this point, Corbett has totally won over the lovely Victoria -- but hasn't quite convinced his brawling brothers that "scientific" boxing is the wave of the future, and the film ends with a typical Raoul Walsh-directed battle royal. More faithful to the facts than most Errol Flynn biopics (but still with enough poetic license to drive historical purists up a wall), Gentleman Jim is broad, boisterous entertainment. Though it looks expensive, the film was made under Warner Bros.' standard pinchpenny restrictions; if you look closely at that moored ship where Corbett has one of his first professional fights, you'll notice that it's a leftover set from the 1940 Errol Flynn swashbuckler The Sea Hawk. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this, one of the last episodes of the Lone Rider series, the hero must prove himself innocent after his charged with the murder of a prison guard. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

With its slight resemblance to Destry Rides Again (1939) -- probably not entirely coincidental -- this rousing Western from Republic Pictures remains a joy throughout. John Wayne plays Tom Craig, a mild-mannered druggist from Boston who opens a shop in wild and woolly Sacramento shortly before the Gold Rush. The town is "owned" by the Dawson brothers, Britt (Albert Dekker) and Joe (Dick Purcell), who poison Craig's tonic when saloon hostess Lacey Miller (Binnie Barnes) takes too much of an interest in the handsome newcomer. Town drunk Whitey (Emmett Lynn) has one drink too many, and all of Sacramento is soon in a lynching mood. The news of "gold in them thar hills" saves the druggist in the nick of time, but his business is destroyed. While everyone is heading for the gold fields, Craig prepares to leave town with snobbish debutante Ellen Sanford (Helen Parrish), whom he intends to marry. News of typhoid fever among the prospectors changes his mind, however, and the man once referred to as "a human hitchin' post instead of a two-legged man," risks his own life to save the suffering populace. The Dawson brothers, meanwhile, plan to hijack the medical supplies and sell them to the highest bidder, but when Britt Dawson learns that Lacey is helping the sick and may be stricken with the disease herself, he has a change of heart and eventually confesses to spiking Craig's medicine. Cast against type for most of the film, John Wayne fails to make his amiable druggist entirely believable but remains simply John Wayne throughout -- which is as it should be. Binnie Barnes is rowdy and fun whether leading a chorus of "California Joe" by Johnny Marvin and Fred Rose, or jealously interrupting a tête-à-tête between Wayne and 19-year-old Helen Parrish. Usually cast as glacial "other women" in Hollywood films, the British-born Barnes had actually begun her professional career touring Europe and South Africa with bucolic American headliner Tex McLeod, which was as good a preparation as any to play In Old California's saloon belle. Patsy Kelly, who shoots down her laundry with a Winchester, and Edgar Kennedy, as Wayne's tooth-ache plagued sidekick, add to the general fun. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A pregnant Alice Faye was forced to bow out of this colorful Fox musical, which instead went to Rita Hayworth, whom the studio borrowed from Columbia. Hayworth plays the highly fictitious Sally Elliott of the title, a musical star teaming up with Indiana boy Paul Dresser (Victor Mature), a runaway who after a brief stopover in a tank town medicine show arrives in Gay Nineties New York full of verve and vigor. There he composes the title tune for the fair lady and becomes the toast of Tin Pan Alley. There are the obligatory bumps on the road along the way, of course, but everything ends, as any Fox musical should, with a grand and glorious finale. Although Fox publicity claimed that My Gal Sal was based on a My Brother Paul, a biography by the composer's brother, Theodore Dreiser, it was actually concocted from an unpublished manuscript by Dreiser and his wife Helen Richardson. The film earned Oscars™ for art and set decoration and included such Dresser songs as "On the Banks of the Wabash", "I'se Your Honey, If You Wants Me, Liza", "Come Tell Me What's Your Answer (Yes or No)" and "Mr. Volunteer. House songwriters Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger contributed "Me and My Fella" and "On the Great White Way. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

MGM's The Trial of Mary Dugan was based on the popular stage play by Bayard Vellier, previously filmed as a Norma Shearer vehicle in 1929. This time, Laraine Day is cast as Mary Dugan, a young stenographer who is falsely accused of murdering her philandering employer Edgar Wayne (Tom Conway). In the course of her trial, Mary falls in love with her attorney Jimmy Blake (Robert Young). The original Trial of Mary Dugan was highlighted by the heartfelt testimony of the tarnished heroine, who recounted a life of shame and degradation endured on behalf of her impoverished law-student brother. Thanks to the tightened censorial restrictions of 1941, Mary Dugan's checkered past is eliminated, leaving the viewer with just another courtroom melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide