Allan Lane Movies

Veteran character star Charles B. Middleton ("Ming the Merciless") escapes from a penitentiary after 15 years of imprisonment swearing vengeance on his former partner (Miles Mander) in this action adventure serial efficiently directed by the team of William Witney and John English. Kidnapping his former partner, Granville (Mander), Prisoner 39013 (Middleton) assumes the man's identity and sets out to destroy his various enterprises. At one of these, the Granville Amusement Pier, three athletes known as The Daredevils of the Red Circle swear vengeance when Prisoner 39013 blows up the pier, thereby killing the kid brother (Robert Winkler) of one of them. They align themselves with Granville's granddaughter (Carole Landis) and with a mysterious benefactor known only as The Red Circle. After 12 exciting chapters, the heroes finally destroy Prisoner 39013, leaving Gene Townley (Charles Quigley) and Miss Granville to plan their future together. A typically well-made Republic cliffhanger, Daredevils of the Red Circle starred not one but three heroes: Quigley, a former Columbia contract player, Herman Brix, who later changed his name to Bruce Bennett and enjoyed a modest leading man career at Warners, and stunt-man David Sharpe. Just starting out in films, leading lady Carole Landis was picked by none other than D.W. Griffith to star in One Million B.C. (1940), which earned her a studio contract with 20th Century Fox. Better known for her off-screen escapades, Landis, sadly, committed suicide in 1948. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

RKO's Conspiracy attempts to be an up-to-date (for 1939) espionage drama without using such problematic words as "Nazi" or "Fascist". The film solves this problem by taking place in a mythical Central American country, though the key figure of a despotic dictator is clearly meant to be an Hispanic Hitler. Allan Lane stars as an adventurer who joins forces with Linda Hayes, who plays a revolutionary dedicated to toppling the dictator's regime. If the average filmgoer of 1939 detected parallels to the recent Spanish Civil War, then screenwriter Jerome Chodhorov had succeeded. Conspiracy bears no relation to a 1930 RKO feature of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The RKO Radio backlot gets quite a workout in the peppy "B" comedy-mystery Fugitives for a Night. When movie executive Maurice Tenwright (Russell Hicks) is murdered, the prime suspect is would-be actor Matt Ryan (Frank Albertson). As stooge and "gopher" for arrogant rising star Poole (Bradley Page), Matt is a ready-made fall guy, much to the chagrin of the only person who truly cares for him, studio publicist Ann Wray (Eleanor Lynn). With the cops hot on their trail, Matt and Ann run off into the night, spending the rest of the film as the titular fugitives. Only when Ann convinces Matt to stop living in Poole's shadow and to stand on his own two feet does he gather up the gumption to solve the murder. Fugitives for a Night was the first of many RKO Radio assignments for celebrated screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

RKO Radio's ace short-subjects director Leslie Goodwins graduated to features with the economically produced Crime Ring. Allan Lane plays a hotshot newspaperman who takes on a phony spiritualist ring. The crooked soothsayers are in league with a band of stock swindlers, coercing the gullible into parting company with their life savings on the advice of the "dear departed." Teaming with unemployed actress Frances Mercer, Lane poses as a potential sucker to draw out the bad guys. Lane and Mercer prove to be too clever for their own good, however, and it's problematic as to whether or not they'll survive until the closing credits. Crime Ring was partially remade in 1950 as Bunco Squad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Better known today as the father of actors Bob Einstein and Albert Brooks, comedian Harry Einstein achieved radio fame in the 1930s as a tongue-tied Greek named Parkyakarkus. In Night Spot, Einstein/Parkyakarkus is given top billing as a gourmet gangster named Gasshouse, but the plotline is carried by Allan Lane as rookie policeman Pete Cooper. Going undercover, Pete tries to prove that a swank nightclub is the rendezvous spot for a gang of jewel thieves. Making life easier for our hero is nitery singer Marge Dexter (Joan Woodbury), who falls in love with the incognito cop. Since Paryakarkus is too lovable to be the villain of the piece, that responsibility is handled by mustachioed Bradley Page as chief crook Marty Davis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Fontaine was still two years away from full stardom when she appeared in the B-plus comedy Maid's Night Out. Future cowboy star Allan Lane plays Bill, a millionaire's son who, to win a bet with his father (George Irving), sets out to prove that he can succeed without his family's money. While working as a milkman, Bill offers a lift to Sheila (Fontaine), whom he takes to be a housemaid. In fact, Sheila was also born into wealth, but she doesn't let Bill know that, fearful that she'll lose his love; Bill likewise keeps his actual identity a secret for the same reason. Adding to the fun is the presence of Hedda Hopper, making one of her final acting appearances before devoting herself full-time to her gossip columnist. Film buffs will also enjoy a fleeting but hilarious jibe at Hopper's number-one rival Louella Parsons. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actual footage of the 1936 Berlin Olympics is rabbeted into the action of this superior Charlie Chan entry. Assigned by the U.S. Navy to track down a gang of international spies, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) heads to Berlin, where as luck would have it his son Lee (Keye Luke) is representing the United States as a member of the Olympic swimming team. Among Lee's teammates is Richard Masters (Allan Lane), who has unfortunately fallen under the spell of the alluring Yvonne Roland (Katherine De Mille), much to the dismay of his sweetheart Betty Adams (Pauline Moore). What no one knows (but Chan suspects) is that Yvonne is one of the spies, in league with the mysterious Arthur Hughes (C. Henry Gordon). Yvonne hides a stolen secret weapon in Betty's luggage, leading to a not-so-merry chase through Berlin, and the ultimate kidnapping of Lee Chan by the villains. Plus, there's a murder to be solved, and Berlin police chief Strasset (Fredrick Vogeding) isn't about to let Charlie Chan get the credit. Ironically, Charlie travels from New York to Berlin via the dirigible Hindenburg -- which crashed into flames the same week that Charlie Chan at the Olympics was released (PS: The Nazi swastika on the tail of the airship was matted out by the special-effects crew). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A strong-willed young man creates a rift with his father when turns down a safe position in the family business and becomes a traveling musician. Eventually he returns to his father's ad agency to settle down, but he proves to be a trouble maker. When he falls in love with the daughter of his father's biggest professional rival and both companies start fighting over a lucrative pickle account, things really turn topsy-turvy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this melodrama a championship boxer retires and marries a rich, aristocratic woman. The woman's father is furious, but comes to accept the situation. When the father gets in trouble for making a major business mistake, the dutiful boxer returns to the ring and wins the money his father-in-law needs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this murder mystery, a nurse with an unusual eye for detail solves a puzzling case. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

James Cagney stars as a popular prizefighter who loses his winnings through too much partying and too many women. Cagney's fans finance the boxer's regenerative stay at a New Mexico health resort. For the sake of pretty, poverty-stricken Marian Nixon, Cagney enters into a return bout. He splits his winnings with Nixon, then goes back to his old skirt-chasing pattern with fickle society girl Virginia Bruce. Having had his nose broken, Cagney fixes it up to please Bruce, and stops taking chances in the ring lest his beezer get smashed again. It doesn't take long for Cagney to plummet from popularity, but true-blue Nixon is there for him when he gets wise to himself. The beautifully staged fight scenes in Winner Take All, wherein James Cagney disdains the use of a double, were later excerpted in Cagney's last-ever film, 1985's Terrible Joe Moran. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Wellman's Night Nurse survives as a potentially interesting but ultimately unsatisfying melodrama about a nurse discovering evildoings in the household where she is caring for a couple of sick children. Based on a 1930 novel by Dora Macy, Wellman's probe into medical corruption is one of the director's more cynical looks on Depression-era America, but most of the characters are weakly drawn and the denouement a cheat, cinematically. Barbara Stanwyck plays Lora Hart, an ambitious student nurse whose first assignment after graduation is tending to a couple of deathly ill little girls, Nanny (Marcia Mae Jones) and Desney (Betty Jane Graham). Despite their posh surroundings, the girls are apparently suffering from malnutrition; their mother, Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam), is hopped-up on bootleg booze ("I'm a dipsomaniac! A dipsomaniac I tell ya! And I like it!"), and the girls' physician (Ralf Harolde) is a society quack with a facial tick. Lora soon realizes that the good doctor is deliberately starving the children to death in order to gain access to their trust fund and that Mrs. Ritchey is kept in line by Nick (Clark Gable), a black-clad gangster posing as the family chauffeur. A desperate Lora proposes to contact the authorities, but her medical sponsor (Charles Winninger) deems that unethical and instead suggests that she find a solution from inside the family. Nearly at the end of her ropes -- and having accepted one too many blows to the chin from Nick -- Lora is saved by an admirer, good-natured bootlegger Mortie (Ben Lyon), whose "friends" take the evil chauffeur on a final "ride." None of this makes much sense, and the film appears to have been tampered with along the way. One of the children disappears without any explanation halfway through, and the hospital establishment's reticence is never properly explained. Instead of a coherent plot, Night Nurse, in typical pre-Production Code style, offers quite a few scenes of Barbara Stanwyck and fellow nurse Joan Blondell dressing and undressing and a rather brutal portrayal by a very young Clark Gable on the threshold to fame. Warner Bros. had borrowed Gable from MGM to play the despicable chauffeur when the original choice, James Cagney, suddenly proved too valuable a commodity for what was actually a supporting role. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide