Brenda Marshall Movies

With great reluctance, Ricky (Desi Arnaz) allows Lucy (Lucille Ball) to purchase a new gown at the trendy establishment owned by designer Don Loper -- provided she spends no more than one hundred dollars. Unfortunately, there is nothing that cheap at Loper's, and thus Lucy tries to figure out a way to get a gown without paying a cent. Her opportunity comes when the wife of Gordon MacRae is forced to pull out of a charity fashion show featuring celebrities' wives as models. Armed with the knowledge that she'll get to keep the gown she wears, Lucy arranges to take Mrs. MacRae's place in the show -- but first, she must get herself a deep "California tan" so that she'll fit in with the Beverly Hills crowd. Alas, her overnight tan degenerates into a "burn" -- and it is very red-faced (and red-everything) Lucy who appears in the fashion show wearing a most uncomfortable tweed outfit. ~ Rovi

This fact -based western follows a soft-spoken railroad detective (Alan Ladd) as he brings a murderous ring of robbers to justice and rekindles an old flame. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Eric Ambler's intriguing novel Uncommon Danger is brought down to a Republic serial level in Warner Bros.' Background to Danger. George Raft, who always seems miscast, plays an American undercover intelligence agent operating in Turkey. Sultry Osa Massen passes on some valuable secret papers to Raft just before she is killed. Our Hero then finds himself at the mercy of enemy agent Sidney Greenstreet, who knows that the papers contain Nazi plans to invade Turkey. Despite several brutal beatings, Raft and his cohorts Peter Lorre (a good guy for a change) and Brenda Marshall turn the tables on Greenstreet. Background to Danger was the first of many Warner Bros. follow-ups to the studio's megahit Casablanca; it's also the film wherein the prankish Peter Lorre stole George Raft's hat between takes--an affront that rankled the touchy Raft to his dying day. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This French Underground melodrama stars George Sanders as a seemingly apolitical Parisian doctor who is actually a resistance leader. Sanders' nurse (Brenda Marshall) is likewise a French patriot--less so the nurse's husband (Philip Dorn), who has become disillusioned after two years in a POW camp. The husband changes his mind and joins the Resistance, though he and several other freedom fighters lose their lives to German bullets. Worth noting in Paris After Dark is the fact that several of the personnel involved were actual French refugees, including director Leonide Moguy and husband-and-wife supporting actors Marcel Dalio and Madeleine LeBeau. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

James Cagney made his first Technicolor appearance in the morale-boosting aviation flick Captains of the Clouds. Cagney plays Brian MacLean, a hotshot Canadian bush pilot who delights in stealing jobs-and women-away from his competitors. Brian is forced to shape up in a hurry when he's assigned to train other pilots for the Royal Canadian Air Force. At the ending of the training period, he is given his first real RCAF assignment: The seemingly unimportant task of shepherding American bomber planes across the Atlantic to England. With startling suddenness, Brian comes to realize the true importance of his job when he is forced into a deadly confrontation with a fleet of Nazi raider planes. Real-life Canadian WW1 flying ace Billy Bishop plays a small but pivotal role in Captains of the Clouds, while the leading-lady duties were handled by Warner Bros. stock actress Brenda Marshall (aka Mrs. William Holden). Cinematographer Sol Polito earned an Oscar nomination for his vivid color photography, though aerial photographers Elmer Dyer, Charles Marshall and Winston Hoch were certainly just as deserving. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Footsteps in the Dark is a comedy/mystery, starring Errol Flynn as a wealthy investment counselor who secretly doubles as a dilettante detective, the better to write mystery novels. Brenda Marshall plays his wife, who can't understand why he is never home and begins to suspect hanky-panky. In fact, Flynn is investigating the murders of a jewelry smuggler and an exotic dancer. The trail of evidence leads to the Least Likely Suspect -- portrayed, as is often the case, by an actor who's always the one who "did it" in murder mysteries. Not nearly as funny a film as the producers seem to think it is, Footsteps in the Dark is an obvious attempt by Warner Bros. to create a "Nick and Nora Charles" team, in emulation of MGM's popular Thin Man series. Footsteps ends with wife Marshall vowing to join hubby Flynn in his next murder mystery, leaving the door wide open for a sequel...which was never filmed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This remake of Dangerous is set in Singapore and chronicles the exploits of a woman who believes herself cursed. To recover, she is taken to the rubber plantation of a handsome young man. There she finds true happiness and love. Suddenly, her abusive ex-husband shows up. She had thought him dead, and his presence terrifies her. Fortunately an auto accident takes care of him and she can resume her happy life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In the 1580s, the Sea Hawks -- the name given to the bold privateers who prowl the oceans taking ships and treasure on behalf the British crown -- are the most dedicated defenders of British interests in the face of the expanding power of Philip of Spain. And Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) is the boldest of the Sea Hawks, responsible for capturing and destroying more than 50 Spanish ships and ten Spanish cities. His capture of a Spanish galleon, however, leads to more than he bargained for, in a romance with the ambassador's niece (Brenda Marshall) and the first whiff of a plan to put Spanish spies into the court of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson). Thorpe's boldness leads him to a daring raid on a treasure caravan in Panama which, thanks to treachery within Elizabeth's court, gets him captured and, with his crew, sentenced to the life of a slave aboard a Spanish ship. Meanwhile, Philip of Spain decides to wipe the threat posed by Elizabeth's independence from the sea by conquering the island nation with his armada. Thorpe, though chained to an oar, knows who the traitor at court is and plans to expose him and Philip's plans, but can he and his men break their bonds and get back to England alive in time to thwart the plans for conquest?

The Sea Hawk was the last and most mature of Flynn's swashbuckling adventure films, played with brilliant stylistic flourishes by the star at his most charismatic, and most serious and studied when working with Flora Robson, whom he apparently genuinely respected. Boasting the handsomest, most opulent production values of a Warner Bros. period film to date, The Sea Hawk was made possible in part by a huge new floodable soundstage. Another highlight was the best adventure film score ever written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold; and the script's seriousness was nailed down by various not-so-veiled references not to 16th century Spain but 20th century Nazi Germany. The movie was cut by over 20 minutes for a reissue with The Sea Wolf, and the complete version was lost until a preservation-quality source was found at the British Film Institute. Since then, that 128-minute version -- which actually contains a one-minute patriotic speech by Robson as Elizabeth that was originally left out of U.S. prints, as well as amber tinting in all of the Panamanian sequences -- has become standard. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

South of Suez is where diamond-mine foreman John Gamble (George Brent) plies his trade. When his boss is murdered, Gamble is held for murder, forcing him to take it on the lam. With the reluctant aid of heroine Katherine Sheffield (Brenda Marshall), Gamble endeavors to prove his innocence. He is finally cleared not because of any exceptional detective work, but through the bungling of the actual killer (no, his name will not be revealed here). Strictly B-grade material, South of Suez is a virtual compendium of stock shots from earlier Warner Bros. films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Unlike many another pre-WW II spy melodramas, Espionage Agent clearly identifies the villains as Germans. Joel McCrea plays Barry Corvall, the son of a recently deceased US diplomat. Boarding a Berlin-bound train, Corvall attempts to swipe a briefcase stuffed with documents which will prove that the Nazis have been infiltrating vital industrial centers in the United States. He is helped along by Brenda Ballard (Brenda Marshall), whose behavior suggests at times that she might not be all that trustworthy. According to the Warner Bros. publicity machine, Warren Duff's screenplay was based on actual events. Coming on the heels of the studio's Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Espionage Agent was indication enough that Warners had declared war on Germany long before President Roosevelt made it official. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi