Raymond Largay Movies

Tonight we Sing is the life story of legendary impresario Sol Hurok, impersonated herein by David Wayne. A lover of the arts, young immigrant Hurok despairs when he realizes he has no musical or artistic talents. Thus it is that, despite great personal and financial sacrifice, Hurok devotes his life to discovering and nurturing other performers and bringing them to Broadway. Among his more celebrated protégés are Russian opera-singer Feodor Chaliapin (Ezio Pinza) and violinist Eugene Ysaye (Isaac Stern). Other notables making guest appearances are singer Jan Peerce and Roberta Peters and ballerina Tamara Toumanova. Anne Bancroft co-stars as Hurok's gentle, patient wife Emma. Based on the autobiography by Sol Horuk (co-written with Ruth Goode), Tonight We Sing was produced for 20th Century-Fox by George Jessel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the vein of Spellbound and Rebecca comes this 1951 film noir from director James V. Kern. Robert Young stars as Jeff Cohalan, a successful architect who is tormented by the fact that his fiancée was killed in a mysterious car accident on the night before their wedding. Blaming himself for her death, Colahan spends his time alone, lamenting in the cliff-top home he'd designed for his bride-to-be. To make matters worse, ever since the accident, Colahan seems to be followed by bad luck. His horse and dog turn up dead without explanation, leading him to wonder if he has been cursed. Enter Ellen Foster (Betsy Drake), an independent and intelligent insurance investigator who just might be able to help Colahan figure out who or what's behind all of his misfortune. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

Experiment Alcatraz stars John Howard as a doctor who develops a serum to cure radioactive poisoning. He tests it on several Alcatraz "lifers," who have volunteered for the experiment on the promise of freedom if they survive. A murder within the group casts aspersions on the doctor, but the mystery is solved before the allotted hour's running time is up. While hardly a surefire candidate for box office success, Experiment Alcatraz was purchased for release by RKO for a sum of $100,000. The film had been independently produced a year before its distribution, its lack of production polish betraying its shoestring origins. Coincidentally, leading man John Howard "continued" in the medical profession as the star of the mid-1950s TV series Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, artist George Petty was famous for his "Petty Girl" illustrations; lovingly detailed renderings of ripe young damsels wearing next to nothing, and sometimes not even that. In The Petty Girl, George Petty is portrayed by Robert Cummings, while Joan Caulfield co-stars as strait-laced college professor Victoria Braymore. The plot contrives to have Petty abandon his nubile creations in favor of avant-garde art, all because he's been told to do so by his new patroness (Audrey Long). Somewhere along the way, Petty and the prim Miss Braymore find themselves in a compromising situation at a Greenwich Village nightclub. Thus it is only a matter of time before Petty goes back to the sort of artwork he does best, and Miss Braymore loosens her inhibitions -- and everything else -- to serve as Petty's latest model. Incredibly, this amusing exercise in old-fashioned male chauvinism was based on a story by novelist Mary McCarthy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Columbia's heartwarming "Rusty" series came to a close with Rusty's Birthday. As in previous series entries, the doggie hero is played by "Flame", while his human master Danny Mitchell is portrayed by Ted Donaldson. This time, Rusty is taken to parts unknown by a group of tourists who think they've bought the pooch. Later on, Rusty falls into the hands of a migrant worker (Ray Teal) and his family. The worker is a decent sort, meaning that a happy ending is in the offing. Featured as the migrant's son is Jimmy Hunt, later to achieve fame as the youthful protagonist of the 1953 sci-fi classic Invaders from Mars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A safecracker risks his own life to save an endangered child from an oncoming truck and finds his life changes forever in this drama. During the rapid rescue, the crook breaks his leg and while he heals, he is befriended by a good-hearted priest who guides him toward the straight and narrow. Now the former thief is determined to return all the loot to the bank, even if it means destroying everyone in his gang to do it. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

John Garfield, in the best performance of his career, portrays Joe Morse, an ambitious attorney who has long since abandoned his scruples in favor of monetary reward. Morse now represents the interests of crime boss Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts), who plans to take over the numbers racket in New York. Morse has devised a way of doing this legally and above-board, with no violence: Tucker's people will bring about the collapse of the illegal numbers racket in the city, using a race track-betting scam that will bankrupt the small-time underworld numbers banks; an investigation will ensue, along with a call for a legal numbers operation in the form of a lottery, which Tucker will control through Morse's machinations. The whole plan hinges on Morse's estranged brother, Leo (Thomas Gomez), a small-time numbers banker who is to be shielded from the collapse, and who will serve as the "legitimate" front for Tucker. Leo is the flaw in the plan, however, because not only can't he stand the sight of Joe, but he is also too honest to participate in the plan -- he doesn't want his employees, all decent people just looking to earn a living, forced into the employ of real gangsters. Joe orchestrates a series of police raids that force Leo into his corner, and Joe's plan seems to be working out, but then the whole enterprise is threatened when a rival mob, run by Tucker's former Prohibition-era partner, Fico (Paul Fix), starts pressuring Leo, trying to get to Joe and Tucker. Fico and his men aren't any different from Tucker's mob, except that they're prepared to start shooting sooner to get what they want. Tucker decides to hang tough and expects everyone, including Leo, to do the same, even when Fico starts sending thugs around to frighten everyone. Soon Joe is beset by problems on three fronts -- he wants his brother out of Tucker's combination and safe; he is trying to romance Leo's bookkeeper (Beatrice Pearson), who is too nice a girl for who he is; and his own well-being is threatened by both Fico and Tucker, and a state investigator who has already tapped the phone of Joe's otherwise respectable partner. All of these threads are pulled together in the final section of the film, which is as violent and disturbing, yet poetic and graceful a resolution as any crime film of the 1940s ever delivered. Force of Evil was star-crossed almost from the start, as many of the people involved, including star John Garfield and director Abraham Polonsky (a writer making his debut behind the camera, with help from assistant director Don Weis in doing the camera set-ups and blocking), were suspect at the time for their leftist political views. Indeed, the company that made Force of Evil, Enterprise Productions, was also in trouble for the leftist leanings of its films in the midst of the Red Scare, and went out of business just as the movie was finished -- dropped by United Artists and picked up by MGM, of all studios, Force of Evil made it into theaters during Christmas week of 1948, not the ideal schedule for something as grim (albeit great) as this film was. As it turned out, it was Polonsky's last chance to direct for more than 20 years, and Garfield's last completely successful film. And a movie that should have been a triumph for all concerned ended up a cult favorite. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

It Happened in Brooklyn was released at a time when the mere mention of the eponymous New York borough elicited loud laughter and extended applause. Frank Sinatra stars as ex-GI Danny Webson Miller, who makes a sentimental journey to the Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up. Danny moves in with an old pal, high school janitor Nick Lombardi (Jimmy Durante), then inaugurates a romance with music teacher Anne Fielding. He also resolves to turn stuffy uptowner Jamie Shelgrave (Peter Lawford) into a true "son of Flatbush." The plot thickens when Jamie himself falls for Anne and when Danny tries to secure a scholarship for Anne's prize pupil, Nick's granddaughter Rae (Marcy McGuire). Since MGM was giving Peter Lawford the big build-up, it is Jamie who ultimately wins Anne's heart, but Danny finds consolation with an old "goil friend" (Gloria Grahame). Musical highlights include Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante's imitations of one another in "The Song's Gotta Come From the Heart" and Sinatra's rendition of the standard-to-be "Time After Time". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This story of two young hopefuls who come to Hollywood is merely a thin device to feature almost every star working for Paramount Studios in 1947. Mary Hatcher plays Catherine Brown, a woman of humble origins who arrives in Hollywood, where she meets another wanna-be movie star, Amber La Vonne (Olga San Juan). They work their way through the Paramount studios, trying to impress every important person. Mostly, the film is a cavalcade of songs by various stars that take place at several studio and Hollywood locations, including the famous Brown Derby restaurant. Many of the film's songs were written by Frank Loesser. Dorothy Lamour and Alan Ladd sing "Tallahassee"; Bing Crosby and Bob Hope play golf and sing a duet, "Harmony"; the Original Dixieland Jazz Band plays "Tiger Rag"; and a host of other top performers of the era appear in brief cameos. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a puritanical math teacher at a midwestern university is forced by the dean's wife to go to New York to collect the royalties for a naughty romance the latter wrote under a penname. Unfortunately, while there, the professor suffers a blow to the noodle and wakes up believing that she wrote the torrid little tome. Now she finds herself being manipulated by a clever publisher who has the phony writer become passionately involved with a bogus Russian nobleman. Later the woman's memory returns and she goes back to her dull, well-ordered life on campus. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Hidden Eye was the second of two MGM films featuring mystery writer Baynard Kendrick's blind detective Duncan McLain. As in Eyes in the Night, sightless sleuth McLain is played by Edward Arnold. This time, our hero tackles a series of murders apparently tied in with an ancient oriental cult. The one clue to the killer's identity is the scent of a rare Oriental perfume. Refusing to jump to conclusions, McLain, accompanied by his faithful seeing-eye dog Friday, meticulously follows the trail of evidence to the Least Likely Suspect. The finale finds the judo-trained McLain taking on his evil adversary; though it's obvious that stunt doubles are used, it's an exciting sequence all the same. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide