Shirley Mills Movies

The combination of star Gloria Jean and director Arthur Dreifuss resulted in several pleasant if unmemorable late-1940s musicals. In An Old-Fashioned Girl, Jean is cast as Polly Milton, the poor relation of a prosperous 19th-century Boston family. Rather than accept financial support from her stuffy relatives, Polly elects to support herself as a music teacher. Mistreated and misunderstood by practically everyone she meets, our heroine at last finds true love in the arms of businessman Mr. Sydney (John Hubbard). The supporting cast includes former child star James Lydon and future adult star Elinor Donahue, as well as violin prodigy Sandra Berkova. An Old-Fashioned Girl is based on the story of the same name by Louisa May Alcott. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Donald Cook plays a fading actor whose son, Donald O'Connor, has just started his own theatrical career. It transpires that both Cook and O'Connor are up for the same part in a Broadway show, and the son is the winner. This results in jealousy from the father--and confusion from the audience, in that the stolid Cook and the loose-limbed O'Connor would never be considered the same "type" in any real-life situation. All is eventually forgiven, and as a bonus both father and son find the loves of their lives: Cook is paired with Frances Dee, and O'Connor gets Peggy Ryan. While Donald O'Connor is virtually the whole show in Patrick the Great, he is given formidable scene-hogging competition from supporting actress Eve Arden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Teresa Wright plays Charlie, a small-town high-schooler who enjoys a symbiotic relationship with her favorite uncle, also named Charlie (Joseph Cotten). When young Charlie "wills" that old Charlie pay a visit to her family, her wish comes true. Uncle Charlie is his usual charming self, but he seems a bit secretive and reserved at times. Too, his manner of speaking is curiously unsettling, especially when he brings up the subject of rich widows, whom he characterizes as "swine." When a pair of detectives (MacDonald Carey and Wallace Ford), posing as magazine writers, arrive in town and begin asking questions about Uncle Charlie, young Charlie's curiosity is aroused. Why, for example, has Uncle Charlie torn an article out of the evening newspaper? Rushing to the library, Young Charlie locates the missing item: the headline screams WHO IS THE MERRY WIDOW MURDERER? As the horrified Charlie reads on, the conclusion is inescapable: her beloved Uncle Charlie is a mass murderer, preying upon wealthy old women. And what happens next? Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville (Mrs. Hitchcock) based their screenplay on a story by Gordon McDowell, who in turn was inspired by real-life "Merry Widow Murderer" Earle Leonard Nelson. The casting, from stars to bit players, is impeccable; the best of the batch is Hume Cronyn, making his film debut as a wimpy murder-mystery aficionado. Lensed on location in Santa Rosa, California, The Shadow of a Doubt wasAlfred Hitchcock's favorite film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

True to Life stars Dick Powell as a radio writer in search of saleable material. He comes up with a weekly sitcom about a typical American family. To soak up inspiration, he hangs around the household of waitress Mary Martin and her parents (Ernest Truex, Mabel Paige), transcribing their conversations for use on the air. When Mary listens to the radio and discovers that Powell's attentions towards her are strictly professional, she runs to the arms of Franchot Tone. But Powell convinces her that his ardor is genuine--while musical fans are disappointed that only one song has been sung in the whole of True to Life. Devotees of two-reel comedies will note the presence of veteran second bananas Billy Bletcher and Bud Jamison as two of the "family members" in Dick Powell's radio series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

14-year-old Shirley Temple receives her first on-screen kiss in this innocuous romantic comedy. Temple is cast as the titular Annie Rooney, the starry-eyed, idealistic daughter of erstwhile --and impoverished--inventor Tim Rooney (William Gargan). Annie is swept off her feet by intellectual high-schooler Marty White (Dickie Moore), the son of a millionaire rubber magnate (Jonathan Hale). At first cold-shouldered by Marty's snooty friends, Annie wins them over at a party with a lively jitterbug dance (future choreographer Roland DuPree, who appears in the film as Joey, doubled for Dickie Moore in the dance sequence). It is, however, a different story with Marty's socially conscious parents, who are appalled by such riff-raff as Annie's dad and grandpop (Guy Kibbee). But circumstances change when, in true "touring stock company" fashion, Tim Rooney comes up with a new form of synthetic rubber which Mr. White simply cannot do without. In later years, Shirley Temple's co-star Dickie Moore would recall that the much-publicized scene in which he kisses Temple was extremely embarrassing for him, inasmuch as it was the first time he had ever kissed any girl; conversely, in her autobiography Temple cheekily pointed out that it most certainly wasn't her first time, and that she breezed through the scene with her customary professional aplomb. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having struck pay dirt with its Blondie films, Columbia Pictures launched another "domestic" film series, based on Margaret Sidney's "Five Little Peppers" stories. The third and last entry in the series was The Five Little Peppers in Trouble, neither the best nor worst of this negligible project. Once more, Dorothy Peterson plays the widowed Mrs. Pepper, while her five precocious and resourceful offspring are portrayed by Edith Fellows, Dorothy Ann Seese, Charles Beck, Tommy Bond (best remembered as "Butch" in the Our Gang comedies) and Bobby Larson (replacing Jimmy Leake, who appeared in the first Pepper outing in 1939). Unable to watch over her kids and go to work at the same time, Mrs. Pepper bundles the little Peppers off to boarding school. The Five Little Peppers in Trouble is describable only as "cute"; you take it from there. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of dirt-poor Dust Bowl migrants by 4-time Oscar-winning director John Ford starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who opens the movie returning to his Oklahoma home after serving jail time for manslaughter. En route, Tom meets family friend Casey (John Carradine), a former preacher who warns Tom that dust storms, crop failures, and new agricultural methods have financially decimated the once prosperous Oklahoma farmland. Upon returning to his family farm, Tom is greeted by his mother (Oscar-winner Jane Darwell), who tells him that the family is packing up for the "promised land" of California. Warned that they shouldn't expect a warm welcome in California--they've already seen the caravan of dispirited farmers, heading back home after striking out at finding work--the Joads push on all the same. Their first stop is a wretched migrant camp, full of starving children and surrounded by armed guards. Further down the road, the Joads drive into an idyllic government camp, with clean lodging, indoor plumbing, and a self-governing clientele. When Tom ultimately bids goodbye to his mother, who asks him where he'll go, he delivers the film's most famous speech: "I'll be all around...Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat...Whenever there's a cop beating a guy, I'll be there...And when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build. I'll be there too." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Released in typical "roadshow" manner with tag-lines such as "Where lust was called just!" and "A throbbing drama of shackled youth!", this exploitation melodrama set in Appalachia was ostensibly an outcry against the outmoded mountain custom of grown men marrying teenagers. The local schoolmarm (Diana Durrell) and her district attorney boyfriend (Frank Martin) work feverishly on the governor to raise the age of consent. Their efforts, however successful, are too late for young Jennie Colton (Shirley Mills) who is forced into an unseemly union with blackmailing Jake Bolby (Warner Richmond), a man close to thirty years her senior. The girl is saved in the nick of time by her age appropriate boyfriend Freddie Nulty (Bob Bollinger) and an ostracized dwarf, Angelo. The latter shoots and kills Bolby "in the act," so to speak. Despite impoverished production values and atrocious acting by the majority of the cast members, Child Bride at least appears to take its drama serious. Until, that is, two-thirds of the way through when producer Raymond Friedgen and veteran director Harry J. Revier finally show their hands. The sequence, a sort of coming-of-age scene between the prepubescent Mills and Bollinger, culminates in a completely gratuitous nude swim by Mills, made lurid by cross-cutting to villain Richmond, lustfully leering at the girl from a cliff above. The scene was obviously Child Bride's main selling point and the reason for its longevity on the exploitation circuit. Despite all that, little Shirley Mills, who earlier had played Ruth Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), actually makes a very appealing little heroine and her acting is flawless throughout. Mills, Warner Richmond and veteran Hollywood dwarf Angelo Rossitto (who for unknown reasons is billed "Don Barrett") appear to be the sole professionals among the cast members, some of whom are almost too realistic-looking for comfort. Typical for low-budget affairs such as this, Miss Mills' last name was misspelled "Miles" in the credits and in the usual outrageous art-work. Needless to say, the film was banned outright in many places -- a fate it shared with the later similarly themed Lolita -- not only because of subject matter and the gratuitous child nudity but also because Rossitto appeared to literally get away with murder. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide