Danny Beck Movies
One screen legend tips his hat to another as James Cagney portrays horror film icon Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces. Joseph Pevney's bio-pic takes a somewhat whitewashed view of Chaney's career, but Cagney is nothing short of riveting in the lead. The film begins as Chaney, the son of two deaf parents, is tasting success in vaudeville as a knockabout juggler, mime, and quick-change artist. Chaney meets Cleva Creighton (Dorothy Malone) and hires her as his assistant. They fall in love and marry, but when Chaney reveals his parents are deaf mutes, she recoils in revulsion. When she gives birth to a son, she refuses to look at him, thinking their child will also be deaf. Chaney proves her wrong, but Cleva reveals an underlying psychological affliction that grows in intensity as Chaney's vaudeville success increases. When Chaney becomes a vaudeville star, Cleva walks out on both Chaney and her son. Chaney's son is sent to a home, since after Cleva's departure, he hasn't the money to support him. To get his son back, he travels to Hollywood and takes every bit role available, using his gift for creative disguises to land several roles in one film. Chaney becomes well respected for his talents and his popularity becomes greater, and he eventually becomes a superstar. Along the way, he meets Hazel Bennett (Jane Greer) and they fall in love and marry. But his happiness is shattered when Cleva comes back into his life and demands the return of her son. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Dorothy Malone, (more)
- 1947
One of the many Bowery Boys movies, in this one Slip and Sach are mistaken for two private investigators and risk their lives trying to solve a missing persons mystery. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide
- 1946
Mr. Hex was the first Bowery Boys epic in which the goofy Sach (Huntz Hall) is given superhuman powers. Hypnotized by a carnival magician (Ian Keith), Sach becomes a powerful boxer. Head Bowery boy Slip (Leo Gorcey) parlays this talent into a lucrative ring career for Sach, culminating in the championship bout. A gangster (Ben Welden) learns Sach's secret and hires his own hypnotist to put the "whammy" on the would-be champ. The fantastic elements of the story come crashing to earth when Sach's pal Gabe (Gabriel Dell) is shot by the gangster, but all ends sappily ever after. Mr. Hex was the fourth in Monogram's "Bowery Boys" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jimmy Aubrey, Danny Beck, (more)
- 1943
In this entry in the "Dead End Kids" series (later they would reappear as "The Bowery Boys") the lads encounter a terribly ill young boy while they stay in a rural boarding house. The lad tries hard to keep up with the lads as they sneak into a train yard and begin playing amongst the box cars. Unfortuantely, when a railroad detective shows up, the sick boy is killed while trying to get away. The guilt-stricken kids attempt to tell the dead boy's mother, but she is too kind to hear them. Instead she takes the kids into her home. Tommy, the lead boy, manages to get a job as a gas jockey, but things go wrong when he entangles himself with racketeers. Eventually he is caught and taken to court where the mother of the dead child speaks movingly on Tommy's behalf. Just after he is acquitted, word of Pearl Harbor reaches them and the Dead End Kids decide to join the army. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, (more)
- 1942
A true "guilty pleasure" crime melodrama with horror movie touches, the low-budget The Living Ghost stars future Academy award-winner James Dunn as Nick Trayne, a retired detective hired to look into the mysterious disappearance of banker Walter Craig. Working with Craig's pert secretary Billie Hilton (Joan Woodbury), Nick is questioning Craig's alarmingly suspicious friends and relatives when the missing banker (Gus Glassmire) suddenly turns up in a strange, zombie-like state. According to Dr. Bruhling (Lawrence Grant), Craig is suffering from a paralyzed cerebral cortex, a state that may render him dangerous and that is in all likelihood induced by someone else. And, sure enough, Nick has barely begun to understand what the good doctor is suggesting when Craig is found hovering over the dead body of his brother-in-law, George Phillips (J. Arthur Young). But is the cataleptic banker actually a killer or is someone even more dangerous behind the murder? The trail leads Nick and Billie to a nearby shack where strange experiments have recently been conducted and, in time, to the real culprit. The Living Ghost was released on videocassette as A Walking Nightmare, and a nightmare it certainly is. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Dunn
- 1941
Rather shaky as history, Birth of the Blues delivers the goods in terms of entertainment, thanks to the unbeatable star combination of Bing Crosby and Mary Martin. Set in New Orleans in the 'teens, the film stars Crosby as clarinetist Jeff Lambert, who breaks away from a traditionalist orchestra to form his own jazz band. His partners in this endeavor are songstress Betty Lou Cobb (Martin) and trumpeter Memphis (Brian Donlevy), a character obviously meant to be a white-bread version of Louis Armstrong. Inspired by the rhythms heard amongst the African American population of Louisiana, Jeff, Betty Lou and Memphis rise to fame and fortune, but internal jealousies and external gangster threats seriously compromise their success. An added complication is the presence of cute little orphan girl Phoebe (Carolyn Lee), Betty Lou's aunt, whom Jeff is obliged to hide from the child-welfare behemoths. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson is in his element as Jeff's long-suffering general factotum Louey, whose near-death experience towards the end of the story results in one of film's most powerful musical vignettes. The 14 songs heard in Birth of the Blues range from such classics as "St. Louis Blues" and "St. James Infirmary" to such newly-minted ditties as Johnny Mercer's "The Waiter, the Porter and the Upstairs Maid". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bing Crosby, Mary Martin, (more)
- 1941
To those under the age of 60, it should be noted that the title of this lively Universal filler was inspired by a popular song of 1941. Carrying over their antics from RKO Radio's "Mexican Spitfire" series, Lupe Velez and Leon Errol star respectively as Havana nightclub entertainer Madame La Zonga and South American aristocrat Senor Alvarez. What the audience knows but La Zonga doesn't is that Alvarez is a phony, who's no more Latin than a Coney Island hot dog. While the stars carry the comedy burden of the film, a romantic subplot develops between ambitious bandleader Steve (Charles Lang) and his Cuban sweetie Rosita (Helen Parrish). Astonishingly, this 62-minute film manages to crowd in an abundance of musical numbers, including the title tune. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, (more)
