Joyce MacKenzie

Carter Gilman (Walter Kinsella) abruptly vanishes from his home while he is having breakfast with his daughter Muriell (Kaye Elhardt). Investigating Gilman's disappearance, Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) finds evidence of a struggle in the man's workshop. He also finds a great deal of money--and before long a greater deal of money, specifically two million dollars, will enter into the proceedings, along with such diverse elements as blackmail and false identities. Ultimately, Perry must defend Gilman on a charge of murder. This episode is based on a 1960 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rails into Laramie is one of the more obscure Universal-International western programmers of the 1950s, but this is no reflection on its entertainment value. John Payne stars as "town tamer" Jefferson Harder, who intends to clean up the wide-open community of Laramie. Everyone knows that the outlaw gang headed by Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea) is responsible for preventing the railroad from building a line into Laramie, but Shanessy always manages to intimidate the all-male juries into releasing him. He and saloon-hall gal Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard) want to keep the rails out of Laramie so that both can pursue their criminal activities unabated. But when Lou switches sides and aligns herself with Harder, it's the beginning of the end for the scurrilous Shanessy. The film's resolution is "borrowed" from the 1941 western The Lady From Cheyenne and works just as well here as it did in the earlier picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This anthology film assembles five respected directors and a top-notch cast to bring a handful of stories by the great American author O. Henry to the screen. In The Cop and the Anthem, a tramp named Soapy (Charles Laughton) tries to get arrested so that he can spend the winter in jail, only to find that is not as easy as it used to be. Marilyn Monroe appears in this episode as a streetwalker. The Clarion Call features Dale Robertson as Barney, a cop forced to arrest an old friend, Johnny (Richard Widmark). Anne Baxter stars in The Last Leaf as Joanna, an elderly woman who sees her own illness reflected in the fall of the autumn leaves; she's convinced that when the last leaf drops from the tree outside her window, her life will go with it. The Ransom of Red Chief concerns Sam (Fred Allen) and Bill (Oscar Levant), two novice kidnappers who kidnap a child, only to discover that his parents don't want him back -- and after a few hours with the brat, they find out why. And The Gift of the Magi tells the story of a pair of cash-strapped newlyweds, Della (Jeanne Craine) and Jim (Farley Granger), who struggle to get each other the perfect Christmas gift, with unexpected results. John Steinbeck narrates. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The upbeat title belies the film's often melancholy subject matter. Based on a novel by Ferdinand Reyher, Nellie stars David Wayne as a small town barber in the early 20th century. Wayne's bored wife (Jean Peters) leaves him for a city slicker (Hugh Marlowe), whereupon both are killed in a train accident. Wayne does his best to raise his two children alone, but the oldest son (Tommy Morton) becomes a criminal and is shot down in a Chicago gang war (a startlingly graphic sequence for a 1952 film). Wayne's life seems to be one disaster after another, but he perseveres, and upon his town's 50th anniversary he is honored as a pillar of his community. Somehow all of the previous tragedies are compensated for by the presence of Wayne's doting granddaughter Nellie (Helene Stanley). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

On the Riviera is a remake of 1941's Weekend in Havana, which in turn was a remake of 1934's Folies Bergere. The plot remains the same in all three incarnations: for business purposes, a nightclub entertainer is coerced into posing as his look-alike, a powerful financier/aviator. This time it's Danny Kaye who essays the dual role of American cabaret comedian Jack Martin and French financial wizard Henri Duran. While impersonating Duran, Martin is forced to make amorous advances towards Duran's neglected wife (Gene Tierney), proving himself the better lover in the process. Meanwhile, Martin must mollify his genuine sweetheart (and nightclub partner) Collette (Corinne Calvet) without revealing his ruse. A little too top-heavy in the plot department, On the Riviera must be regarded as a second-echelon Danny Kaye vehicle, though Sylvia Fine's specialty numbers -- especially the eerily autobiographical "Popo the Puppet" -- are well up to standard. One of the uncredited specialty dancers is future Broadway star Gwen Verdon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Racket was based on a play by Bartlett Cormack, first filmed as a silent in 1928. The storyline was updated to include references to Estes Kefauver's Senate Crime Investigating Committee: otherwise, the plot (and much of the dialogue) was lifted bodily from the Cormack play. Racketeer Robert Ryan has managed to get several government and law-enforcement higher-ups in his pocket. But Ryan can't touch the incorruptible police officer Robert Mitchum, who refuses all attempts at bribery. Ryan pulls strings to get Mitchum transferred to a series of undesirable precincts, but Mitchum will not be dissuaded. The battle of wills between cop and criminal comes to a head when mob-connected nightclub singer Lizabeth Scott turns on her former protector Ryan. The Broadway version of The Racket starred Edward G. Robinson as the racketeer; the 1928 film version featured Louis Wolheim in the Robinson role and Thomas Meighan as the upright cop. Both the silent and sound versions of the property were personally produced by Howard R. Hughes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

What mother didn't tell Dorothy McGuire was that it's hard to be a doctor's wife. Marrying physician William Lundigan, Dorothy finds herself home alone most of the time, and also fumes silently as she watches her husband's parade of beautiful female patients. Further problems arise due to Dorothy's snooty mother-in-law (Jessie Royce Landis), who feels the girl isn't good enough for her precious son. When a pretty nurse (Joyce MacKenzie) sets her sights on the doc, Dorothy nearly packs and leaves, but relents when she realizes that her husband is faithful after all. Mother Didn't Tell Me was based on The Doctor Wears Three Faces a novel by Mary Baird. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stella is an out-of-left-field black comedy in which star Anne Sheridan is upstaged by an uproarious supporting cast. At a family picnic, a none too likeable uncle dies from accidentally eating poisoned mushrooms. The other family members don't want to be accused of murder, so they leave it to the stupidest branch of the clan, personified by David Wayne and Frank Fontaine, to dispose of the body. When it is learned that Uncle had a hefty insurance policy, the family tries to palm off various corpses as the genuine article. The final image is of Wayne and Fontaine digging hundreds of holes in the field where uncle is resting; it seems they can't remember where they buried him! Stella is based on a somewhat more serious novel by mystery specialist Doris Miles Disney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Ticket to Tomahawk has sometimes been described as a musical western satire, but in fact is more "straight" western than anything else--not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. Dan Dailey plays a travelling medicine show entrepreneur who comes to the aid of fast-shootin' Anne Baxter, daughter of a railroad man. Stagecoach line representative Rory Calhoun is doing everything he can to prevent a new train service from winning a Colorado territory franchise. The whole affair boils down to a race between the train and Calhoun's coaches. The film's never-take-a-breath action scenes are played out against some of the most gorgeous Colorado scenery ever captured on Technicolor. A Ticket to Tomahawk has achieved latter-day fame due to the unbilled presence of Marilyn Monroe as one of Dan Dailey's chorus gals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Elizabeth MacDonald (Claudette Colbert) is a newly married corporate librarian in 1918 Baltimore working for a chemical company owned by the Hamilton family and managed by Larry Hamilton (George Brent). Just as she is celebrating the armistice and anticipating the return of her husband John (Orson Welles), she learns he was killed in action, just days before the cease fire. Pregnant with their child and alone in the world, she is taken in by Larry Hamilton, who has loved her from afar and is driven by sympathy for her plight. She has her baby, a boy named Drew, and she and Larry marry, raising the child as his own and never telling the boy of his real father. Meanwhile, in an Austrian hospital, a horribly wounded and disfigured American officer (Welles) without any identification insists to the doctor treating him (John Wengraf) that he be allowed to die. The doctor saves his life, but the shock of his injuries and the strain of his recovery causes him to lose his memory, and he ends up adopting a new identity. Cut to 1939, and the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. Drew (Richard Long) is about to graduate from college and wants to join his fraternity brothers, who are planning on going to Canada, signing up with the Royal Canadian Air Force, and heading to England to fly against the Germans. Drew is not yet 21, however, and needs the permission of his parents, but Elizabeth is appalled by the notion of losing Drew to war the same way that she lost John.

Into their family comes a visitor, Erich Kessler (Welles), a crippled, ailing Austrian refugee and chemical expert hired by Hamilton's company, who arrives in Baltimore with his young daughter Margaret (Natalie Wood). Kessler starts to recognize places in the city, including the home where Elizabeth lived, and when they meet, despite her discomfort at having an Austrian army veteran in the house, she does her best to welcome him. Elizabeth also starts to notice little aspects of Kessler that remind her vaguely of John. But much as she is haunted by these strange similarities, she is appalled when Kessler seems to encourage Drew to pursue his goal of fighting the Nazis. Even Kessler's presence in their home, despite his genial and deferential manner, is a vexation to Elizabeth, bringing the horror of the war and what the Nazis represent into their midst and making Drew even more fervent in his desire to join up and fight. When Margaret displays terrible fears and nightmares, it comes out that she isn't really Kessler's child at all, but the daughter of the doctor who saved his life (he and his wife had been executed by the Nazis).

Larry, meanwhile, must watch from the sidelines, not aware of Kessler's real identity and unable to resolve the conflict between his admiration for Drew's intentions and his love for his wife. When Drew decides to ignore his parents' wishes and go to Canada and enlist without their permission, Kessler follows and stops him (despite his own weakened condition), and brings the young man home. A confrontation ensues upon their return, and Kessler explains to her that, whomever she thinks he might have been, the past has passed. Elizabeth finds the strength and courage to face the future, and the coming of the new war and what it may bring. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide