Ethan Laidlaw Movies

Described by one critic as a western version of The 39 Steps, Relentless stars Robert Young as a cowboy on the lam. Framed for murder, Young must find the one man who can clear him, while a posse dogs his trail. He briefly becomes an outlaw, hoping to make contact with his quarry by befriending the dregs of the west, notably mercenary saloon keeper Akim Tamiroff. Marguerite Chapman plays the love interest, while Barton MacLaine does his usual as the main heavy. Directed at a rapid clip by George Sherman, Relentless does its best to live up to its title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Acclaimed playwright George S. Kaufman made his directorial debut with this broad political satire. Senator Melvin G. Ashton (William Powell) is a long-time congressman for whom the phrase "dumb as a log" would be fitting if one were not afraid of insulting the trees. After more than twenty years of representing his clueless constituents, Ashton decides to take a shot at the presidential race, and hires Lew Gibson (Peter Lind Hayes) is his press agent. Party topkick Dinty (Charles D. Brown) considers Ashton an utterly hopeless candidate, especially after he begins making fantastic campaign promises no one could possibly keep, but Ashton turns out to be a bit more shrewd than expected. The senator has kept a detailed journal documenting the many underhanded deals his colleagues have had their hands in over the years; all he has to do is slip the diary to a reporter and most of congress will be run out of town on a rail. This possibility seem all the more urgent when Ashton starts dating Poppy McNaughton (Ella Raines), a journalist. The Senator Was Indiscreet boasts a fine supporting cast, including Ray Collins, Allen Jenkins, Hans Conreid, and a cameo appearance from Myrna Loy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Fans of William "Wild Bill" Elliot vastly prefer his B westerns to his big-budget Republic "specials", though the latter films have their adherents. In The Fabulous Texan, Elliot emulates his idol William S. Hart in the role of ex-Confederate officer Jim McWade. Returning to Texas to find his home turf under the jurisdiction of corrupt, despotic carpetbaggers, McWade shoots it out with the authorities after his father is slain. Forced to flee to the mountains with his war buddy John Wesley Barker (John Carroll), McWade vows revenge on those bluecoated thugs who've ravaged his beloved Texas. Eventually, McWade realizes that he'd be better off cooperating with the Federal government to rid his state of its plunderers, but Barker comes to enjoy the life of an outlaw, and refuses to surrender his independence. Thus it comes to pass that McWade is obliged to hunt down his old friend, thereby restoring Law and Order to Texas. Catherine McLeod costars as Alice Sharp, the woman who will become McWade's wife-- and, in old age, the torchbearer of his memory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bob Regan (Edmond O'Brien) -- a small-time attorney from the wrong side of the tracks who nonetheless has a lot of dedication -- is representing a vegetable pushcart owner (Tito Vuolo) in a damage suit against multi-millionaire Andrew Colby (Vincent Price). It seems Colby's car wrecked the man's cart, and he and his attorneys have been too busy running the world (or Colby's world) to deal with the case, so Regan barges right into the millionaire's office. Professing to be impressed with Regan's tenacity on behalf of his client, Colby offers to hire him, for a lot more money than he is making or ever stood to make, but not as an attorney -- rather, as a bodyguard/troubleshooter. It seems that Colby's been receiving threats lately, and he likes the way Regan looks after his clients. To aid him in his new job, Colby also secures a gun and permit for his new employee. Regan is so surprised at this whole turn of events in his life that he accepts the offer for the chance to finally get in on some the big money he sees around him. He's given entrée to Colby's upper-crust world, including his huge New York townhouse and all that goes with it, never smelling a rat. This is mostly because, apart from the money he's suddenly earning and traveling in the midst of, he's distracted by the presence of Colby's personal secretary, Noel Faraday (Ella Raines) -- about as pretty, intelligent, and seductive a female as Regan has ever seen, and who seems mutually intrigued by his rather earthy and plain-spoken presence in the Colby organization. Regan is a fresh dose of working-class honesty amid the elegance, affectation, and duplicity that oozes out of Colby's world, and on Regan's side of it he can hardly keep his hands off of her.

However, during Regan's first night on the job, a shot rings out from upstairs and he finds Colby in a struggle with an intruder carrying a gun -- and Regan shoots the man dead. The stranger turns out to be Leopold Kroner (Fritz Leiber), Colby's one-time business associate, who just finished a ten-year stretch for embezzlement of a million dollars. The threats seemed to come from Kroner, and there was a gun in his hand when Regan shot him, but that's not good enough for Lieutenant Damico of the NYPD; it's all a little too convenient that Colby's one-time partner gets himself killed that way, at the hands of some lawyer playing detective whose gun permit barely has the ink dry. Damico makes no secret of his doubts to Regan, or of the fact that he would like nothing more than to pull his friend in on a murder rap just for being a prize chump, mostly because he doesn't like murder and can't really see Regan as being as stupid as he seems. It turns out that he is just about that stupid, and is always a step behind Colby in trying to unravel the mystery of what really happened and how Kroner came to be in the house. Even Noel, for all of her intelligence and education, can't keep ahead of her employer's machinations; even as they dig deeper, more and more evidence gets planted implicating them both in a conspiracy, and before they can spring their trap, Damico is there ready to put the cuffs on both of them. But that's when matters get really interesting, as Damico begins to prove that if Regan isn't half as bright as he ought to be, the police lieutenant is a lot smarter than he looks or his job description calls for. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

With a title like Singin' in the Corn, how could the star be anyone else but rambunctious rustic comedienne Judy Canova. This time, Canova plays Judy McCoy, a carnival mind-reader playing the boonies in the company of her partner Glen Cummings (Allen Jenkins). Judy's travelling days come to an end when she inherits her late uncle's estate. But the will has a proviso: She won't get a penny unless she returns a ghost town to a local singing Indian tribe (That's right, operator, a singing Indian tribe). The villain, Honest John Richards (Alan Bridge), connives to turn the Indians against Judy, but she is rescued by the intervention of her uncle's ghost! Director Del Lord, a graduate of Columbia's comedy 2-reelers, relies heavily on stock footage from earlier films to bring the running time up to 64 minutes: one critic commented that editor Aaron Stell should have been credited as co-director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Killers uses Ernest Hemingway's short story as a springboard for a complex film noir. Two mysterious men (William Conrad and Charles McGraw) muscle their way into a small town and kill an aging boxer (Burt Lancaster, making his screen debut), who offers no resistance and seems to be welcoming his death. An insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) is hired to locate the beneficiary to Lancaster's policy, and in the course of his investigation reopens a long-dormant robbery case. In a series of flashbacks, O'Brien makes the connection between Lancaster and the robbery and tracks down the "brains" behind the operation. He also comes in contact with Lancaster's former girlfriend (Ava Gardner), whose duplicity played a big part in Lancaster's demise -- and his indifferent reaction to it. Siodmak's hard-edged, moody direction of the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Anthony Veiller, makes The Killers one of the definitive films noirs, including what is considered to be one of the greatest opening sequences in movie history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) comes to the aid of a young preacher (Tex Harding), who is battling a gang of land grabbers operating out of Dusty Gulch. As it turns out, The Kid, alias Steve Ranson, has a personal quarrel with town boss Blaze Howard (John Calvert), who had his brother, the marshal, killed. But as Steve, Tex and comedy sidekick Cannonball (Dub Taylor) learn, Howard isn't calling the shots at all but is taking orders from someone completely above suspicion. In a rare contemplative moment, Tex Harding and leading lady Mildred Law sing the Reverend W.B. Stevens' "Farther Along" while Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys interrupt the action with Wills and Tommy Duncan's swinging "Stay a Little Longer" and "Dev'lish Mary". ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The first "Road" picture in three years (the last was The Road to Morocco), Road to Utopia is set during the Alaskan gold rush. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby play a pair of third-rate San Francisco entertainers, Chester Hooton and Duke Johnson, who are obliged to skip town in a hurry. They book passage on a ship to Alaska, where they run afoul of escaped murderers Sperry (Robert H. Barrat) and McGurk (Nestor Paiva). Through a fluke, Chester and Duke overpower the killers, then get off the ship in Skagway disguised as Sperry and McGurk so that they themselves can evade the authorities. The boys can't understand why everyone is so afraid of them, nor why saloon owner Ace Larson (Douglas Dumbrille) and Larson's moll Kate (Hillary Brooke) are so chummy. It turns out that Sperry and McGurk had stolen a deed to a valuable gold mine before escaping to Alaska. Sal Van Hoyden (Dorothy Lamour) is the rightful owner of that deed, thus she too shows up in Skagway, hoping to extract the document from Chester and Duke. Whenever the plot threatens to become too difficult to follow, narrator Robert Benchley shows up to explain things -- which of course only adds to the confusion. At any rate, the whole affair ends up with Chester, Duke, and Sal running through the snowy wastes, with the villains in hot pursuit. Duke nobly stays behind to fight off the bad guys himself, handing the deed to Chester and Sal and wishing them Godspeed. Flash-forward to 1945: Chester and Sal, both old and wealthy, are reunited with their equally aged pal Duke, who wasn't killed after all. Sal tells Duke that Chester has been a wonderful husband and father. Yes, father...and wait till you see who plays their child ("We adopted him!"). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filling in for RKO's Western ace Tim Holt, who was fighting the war in Europe, a young Robert Mitchum starred in this fine version of Zane Grey's 1937 story of a wild and woolly West. Ordered by his doctor to get some exercise, Chicago meatpacking king Col. Lamberth (Thurston Hall) reluctantly travels west to his Texas hacienda accompanied by his headstrong daughter Rill (Barbara Hale) and her Parisian maid Suzanne (Rita Corday). En route, they witness the killing of a stagecoach driver (Bill Williams), a crime blamed on Pecos Smith (Robert Mitchum), but actually committed by a gang headed by Brad Sawtelle (Harry Woods). Rill, who decides to masquerade as a boy after being accosted by a couple of ruffians, convinces her father to hire Pecos and his Irish-Mexican sidekick Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin). Naturally, Pecos discovers Rill's true gender after a few dicey moments and they fall in love. But the threat from Sawtelle and his gang is ever present and soon the Lamberth hacienda is engaged in an all-out war. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Within its brisk 78 minutes, Jam Session manages to accommodate the singing, dancing and acting talents of Ann Miller, a romantic main plot, a comic subplot-and no fewer than six big-name orchestras. The story is the old saw about a small-town girl named Terry Baxter (Miller), who wins a trip to Hollywood. Unable to impress any of the tinseltown bigwigs, Terry is about to pack it in and head home until she meets go-getting screenwriter George Carter Haven (Jess Barker). Several mishaps and setbacks later, Terry not only lands a studio contract, but Haven as well. In addition to the terpsichorean talents of Ann Miller, the film spotlights such major big-band names as Charlie Barnet (playing "Cherokee," of course!), Louis Armstrong, Alvino Ray, Jan Garber, Glen Gray and Teddy Powell, along with vocalists Nan Wynn and the Pied Pipers. A tantalizingly brief clip of Jam Session was featured (wildly out of context!) in the 1968 Monkees film vehicle Head. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

U.S. marshal Ritter arrives in town to round up bandits who are attempting to fix the local elections. ~ All Movie Guide

The general perception of the Technicolor costume adventure movies that Maria Montez and Jon Hall made for Universal in the early 1940's is that they were pure escapist entertainment, intended to make people forget for an hour or so about the Second World War and the general world situation. And generally that is true about them -- they were mostly no "about" much more than having fun for 90 minutes or so amid pretty sets with lots of action and some pretty women in exotic outfits. But watching Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, one has to wonder if even here the screenwriter, Edmund L. Hartmann, was able to totally get away from the day-to-day reality around him. The opening Mongol invasion of Bagdad and the murder of the old Caliph (Moroni Olsen) while trying to set up a government-in-exile without thinking of the German and Japanese conquests and occupations of various nations that would have been going on at the time; additionally, the fact that the old Caliph is murdered with the help of a traitor in his own noble ranks -- a "quisling" in the term coined during World War II -- wouldn't have been missed by audiences at the time. Further, the screenplay very specifically paints the forty thieves as heroes who have gone from being criminals to an active resistance force against the occupying Mongols -- indeed, at the denouement, their invasion of the palace is greeted as a day of liberation by the people of Bagdad. The movie walks a strange tightrope, casting about veiled topical references of that sort, even as is otherwise sufficiently tongue-in-cheek to cast Andy Devine as a desert bandit. Obviously, Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves was sold as -- and mostly intended as -- light entertainment, but just below that glitzy Technicolor surface were some fascinating allusions to the real world. None of this stops Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves from being immense fun -- it is, even if the "fun" isn't totally escapist in nature -- and it's great to look at as well, even 60 years on; Universal has apparently kept preservation-quality source materials on this and Hall and Montez's other Technicolor costume romps. And this particular entry in that group of movies also contains one very instructive clue to the morays and censorship of the time in one scene, in which the hero meets the heroine bathing at an oasis -- the makers seem to have been forced to insert a particular shot that is there for no other reason then to make it clear that she is not totally naked when he sees her. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide