Francis McDonald Movies

Ceiling Zero is an adaptation of the Broadway play by Frank "Spig" Wead. James Cagney and Pat O'Brien are supremely typecast as, respectively, Dizzy Davis, a cocky civil aviator and Jake Lee, a sober-sided ground commander. Dizzy ducks out of a dangerous mission in order to dally with pretty Tommy Thomas (June Travis). Texas Clark (Stuart Erwin) takes Dizzy's place, and the unpolished young pilot dies in a fiery wreck. Disgraced in the eyes of his co-workers after Clark's death, Dizzy redeems himself by taking a crucial test flight in fog-laden "ceiling zero." Dizzy dies a hero, leaving behind his pal Jake to deliver the eulogy. Isabel Jewell co-stars as Clark's wife, given yet another opportunity to shake the rafters with her emotionally supercharged acting. Ceiling Zero was remade in a wartime setting as International Squadron (1940). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy with musical numbers set in the Old South, Bing Crosby plays a singer (talk about a casting stretch!) from Philadelphia named Tom Grayson, who has fallen in love with Southern heiress Elvira Rumford (Gail Patrick). Tom wants to marry Elvira, but a man called Major Patterson (John Miljan) has announced his desire to do the same, and he challenges Tom to a duel to decide who will have Elvira's hand. Tom is not at all agreeable to this idea, which leads Elvira's father (Claude Gillingwater) to proclaim Tom to be a coward and deny him permission to wed his daughter. Elvira's sister Lucy (Joan Bennett), who is infatuated with Tom, thinks that he's merely being sensible, but Tom thinks that Lucy is too young for a serious relationship. In need of work and not especially welcome in the Rumford's community, Tom takes a job performing on a riverboat piloted by the blustery Commodore Orlando Jackson (W.C. Fields). One night, Tom finds himself in a barroom brawl with a man named Captain Blackie (Fred Kohler), who dies accidentally from a shot fired by his own gun. Hoping that his infamy will draw crowds, Jackson begins billing Tom as "The Singing Killer." Tom comes to realize that Lucy may be the right woman for him after all, but Lucy is not interested in a man with blood on his hands, and now Tom must convince her that he's not a killer at all. Noted gambling aficionado Fields has a hilarious poker-playing bit, and he steals most of his scenes from the rest of the cast. Mississippi was loosely based on the play "Magnolia" by Booth Tarkington. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, an experienced newspaperman caves in to the constant badgering of his thoughtless family and ends up losing his job. Fortunately, he finds a new niche on the radio. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

If you can accept blonde, blue-eyed Marion Davies disguising herself in blackface, chances are you'll swallow the rest of Operator 13. Davies plays a Belle Boyd-like actress who agrees to become a Northern spy during the Civil War. She assumes the identity of an octoroon servant and heads into Southern territory. Marion meets dashing Confederate captain Gary Cooper, and instantly falls in love with him. Later, she assumes the disguise of a Southern belle to prevent Cooper from recruiting Southern sympathizers in the north. This time Cooper falls for Davies, which makes it hard for her to carry out her mission. After several more reels of espionage and romantic interludes, including a gently kinky sequence in which Cooper and Davies are handcuffed together, the lovers part company, promising to meet again when the war is over. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A far from factual filmed biography of Mexican patriot Pancho Villa, Viva Villa! was written by lengendary screenwriter Ben Hecht. We first meet the young Villa when his father is beaten to death after protesting Diaz' seizure of the Mexican peons' land. Pancho exacts a temporary revenge by knifing one of his father's killers, then heads for the hills, where he organizes a band of renegades. As he "matures," Pancho is played by child actor Phillip Cooper and adult star Wallace Beery. Though ruthless in his treatment of the rich, Pancho is a hero to the poor, who receive the spoils of Villa's raids. Befriended by American reporter Johnny Sykes (Stuart Erwin), Villa becomes internationally famous thanks to Sykes' articles concerning his exploits. Pancho also finds a strong ally in Don Felipe de Castillo (Donald Cook), who introduces the rebel bandit to Madero (Henry B. Walthall), the leader of the peon revolt. Madero convinces Villa to join forces with him, the better to oust the Diaz regime. His principal rival in this goal is ambitious General Pascal (Joseph Schildkraut), who intends to set up an even more despotic regime once Diaz is eliminated. Emerging victorious in his fight against the federales, Villa is encouraged to go back home by Madero. Illiterate and dangerously naïve, Villa quickly runs into trouble with the new government, giving Pascal a chance to humiliate his former "comrade in arms." Later, Pascal shows his true colors by assassinating Madero and assuming control of Mexico. Thirsting for revenge, Villa and his men go on a bloody rampage, culminiating in the ritualistic murder of the treacherous Pascal (he is staked out on an anthill and covered with honey). Made president of Mexico upon the elimination of Pacal, Villa once more finds himself in over his head. Unable to deal with political infighting, Villa retires to his ranch. One day, after running into his old friend Johnny Sykes (Stu Erwin), Villa is shot and mortally wounded by his onetime friend Don Felipe, who holds Pancho responsible for the death of his sister Teresa (Fay Wray). As he dies, Villa begs Johnny to tell him what his epitaph will be. Improvising quickly, Johnny tells of Villa's love for Mexico and his many accomplishments. Partially filmed on location in Mexico, Viva Villa was plagued with a multitude of production problems, not least of which was the diplomatic gaffe committed by Lee Tracy, the film's original Johnny Sykes: While standing on a balcony watching a military parade, an inebrieated Tracy relieved himself on the troops below and was immediately fired. Another crisis arose when the Mexican government objected to star Wallace Beery, on the grounds that Beery usually played villains or buffoons. Despite these and other setbacks, Viva Villa was finally completed under the assured directorial hand of MGM troubleshooter Jack Conway and the expert supervision of David O. Selznick. Though some critics objected to the film's violence, Viva Villa was a financial success. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's Sadie McKee is a superb example of how the "committee" system of moviemaking in the 1930s could sometimes yield unexpected delights. It all begins when Sadie McKee (Joan Crawford) is brought to big bad old New York by glib vaudevillian Tommy (Gene Raymond), only to be unceremoniously dumped in favor of actress Dolly (Esther Ralston). Cast adrift, our Sadie lands a nightclub job, where she meets genially intoxicated millionaire Brennan (Edward Arnold). Accepting his drunken marriage proposal, Sadie must endure the slings and arrows of Brennan's friends and family, who consider her a gold-digger. Meanwhile, Sadie's former boss Michael (Franchot Tone), the one true love of her life, waits and waits and waits to see what's really on the girl's mind! And as a bonus, this is the film that introduced the peppy ditty "All I Do Is Dream of You". The labyrinth plotline of Sadie McKee is proof enough that more than one screenwriter had a hand in its creation: but instead of chaos, the film is irresistibly watchable, full of unexpected plot twists and marvelous little surprises. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Gargan plays his first movie detective (but definitely not his last) in Columbia's The Lineup. The hero, a gumshoe named Bob (Gargan), is on the trail of a gang of fur smugglers. Deducing that a posh nightclub serves as the front for the villain's activities, he arrests everybody in the joint and subjects them to the humiliation of a police lineup. One of the unfortunates dragged into headquarters is innocent hat-check girl Peggy (Marian Nixon), who's beautiful when she's angry. Smitten by Peggy, Bob ultimately enlists her aid in tracking down the genuine culprits (that's some way to treat your girlfriend!) For its initial New York engagement, The Lineup was shown on a double bill with another Columbia cops-and-robbers quickie, One is Guilty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fourth and last of Columbia's "Inspector Trent" mysteries, Girl in Danger once more stars Ralph Bellamy as the super-methodical Trent. The endangered girl is socialite Gloria Gale (Shirley Grey), who on a caprice steals a valuable emerald. Pursued by Inspector Trent, the playful Gloria leads the detective on a merry chase, apparently never realizing that Trent is merely trying to protect her from a murderous gang of jewel thieves. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Trent is murdered, leaving Gloria to her fate. Or is this what really happens? Nothing is quite what it seems to be in Girl in Danger, keeping the audience on guard throughout the picture -- and, incidentally, obscuring the film's many plot holes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tom Mix goes up against a ruthless gang of rustlers headed by a crooked army colonel in this, his penultimate Western for Universal. When a vigilante group assembled by Colonel Charles Ormsby (John St. Polis) fails to make a dent in the rustlings -- primarily because Ormsby and the local sheriff (Frank Brownlee) are the secret leaders of the gang -- rancher Tom Munroe (Mix) is assigned by the governor of Arizona to look into things. With the help of local cowboy Lucky Dawson (Raymond Hatton), Tom discovers that young rancher Bernie "Little Casino" Laird (Arthur Rankin), the weakling brother of Norma Laird (Naomi Judge), is secretly a member of the gang. When the rustlers turn to robbing the stage, Mix manages to arrest Bernie and two henchmen (Francis McDonald and Robert Kortman), but all three are freed from jail by Ormsby. During a climactic shootout at the Laird ranch, young Bernie reveals that Ormsby and the sheriff are crooked and the entire gang is rounded up and arrested. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Last Mile is the film version of the 1930 John Wexley play which previously brought stage fame to both Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable. Wrongly accused of murder, young businessman Richard Walters (Howard Phillips, repeating his stage role) is sentenced to Death Row. Here he gets swept up in a jail break engineered by the desperate Killer Mears (Preston S. Foster), who grabs the keys of a guard and takes control of the cell block, holding the guards as hostages and freeing the other condemned prisoners. Refusing to accede to Mears' demands for a fast car and head start, the warden precipitates a bloodbath, with Walters caught in the middle of the fray. Ultimately, however, Mears sacrifices his own life in hopes of sparing Walters. In the original play, the Richard Walters character was guilty and went to the electric chair halfway through the first act; in the film, Walters's pathetic farewell speech and "long walk" were inherited by secondary character Berg (George E. Stone). Fairly strong stuff for its time, The Last Mile is actually superior to its more explicit 1959 remake, which starred Mickey Rooney as Killer Mears. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed on glorious locations at the foot of California's Mount Whitney by ace cinematographer Archie Stout, this above-average Monogram B-Western starred wiry, little Bob Steele in an offbeat story of a cowboy searching for a lost tribe of Indians. Surviving in the seemingly impassable Hidden Valley, the tribe and its gold is threatened by villainous Kenneth McDonald and his gang. One of the gang members is heroine Gertrude Messenger's young brother, Jimmie (Ray Hallor), who is captured by the wild Indians and is about to be sacrificed to their god when rescued by Steele and the sheriff (Arthur Millett), who arrive, not with the cavalry, but in the Goodyear Blimp. The latter is piloted by Captain Verner L. Smith who, as George Turner and Michael H. Price so aptly put it, "plays himself with adequate conviction." The fantastic story was produced by Trem Carr and directed by Bob Steele's father, Robert N. Bradbury. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this WW II drama, the commander of the French cruiser Lafayette is sunk by a German U-boat. Following the rescue of the survivors, the commander undergoes an investigative hearing to determine his culpability in the sinking. He didn't know it at the time, but his philandering young wife was trysting with a handsome young officer and ended up stuck on the cruise. The woman survived the incident. To save her husband's career, she tearfully admits her adultery in court. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide