Don Beddoe Movies

This is the celebrated Blondie episode that costars Rita Hayworth, who in 1940 was still just another Columbia contract actress. Hayworth plays an old flame of Dagwood Bumstead's (Arthur Lake), who moves into the Bumstead household when wife Blondie (Penny Singleton) advertises for a boarder. Blondie (Penny Singleton) tries to be civil when she meets Rita, but her true feelings are manifested in a superimposed montage of explosions and gunshots. Innocently caught in a compromising position with Hayworth at a local movie house, Dagwood is shown the door by the heartbroken Blondie. All misunderstandings are swept away by fadeout time in this fifth installment in Columbia's Blondie series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Grand Hotel formula that was so overworked in the 1930s made an encore appearance in 1940's Escape to Glory. The story is given timeliness by placing the characters on a British merchant ship on the very day that World War II is declared. The ship is attacked by a Nazi U-Boat, resulting in a variety of reactions from the diverse passengers--one of whom (Erwin Kalser) is a German doctor. Constance Bennett is glamorous, Pat O'Brien is boozy, John Halliday is pensive, and everybody else (except for the German medico) is plain fearful. Twenty years later, director John Brahm would masterfully recreate the shipboard tensions he sustained so well in Escape to Glory for his classic Twilight Zone TV playlet "Judgment Night." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Boasting Tony Martin and Rita Hayworth and bandleader Andre Kostelanitz as its leading players, it's surprising that Music in My Heart isn't better than it is. Martin plays European-born actor Robert Gregory, who while rehearsing for a Broadway musical falls in love with chorine Patricia O'Malley (Rita Hayworth). She likewise falls in love with him, even though she's scheduled to marry millionaire Charles Gardner (Alan Mowbray). The relationship is endangered when Gregory faces deportation to his own country, but baton-wieldig Kostelanitz comes to the rescue by making Gregory a radio singing sensation. Talented child actress Edith Fellows, who in previous films had been given top billing over Rita Hayworth, is somewhat wasted in the role of Rita's kid sister. Of the film's six songs, "It's a Blue World" is the singular highlight. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fiercely independent authoress June Cameron (Loretta Young) has no time for men in her life. Chauvinistic medical college professor Timothy Sterling (Ray Milland) has no use for women. So guess who is mistaken for June's husband, and guess who is forced by circumstances to pretend that she's married? The Doctor Takes a Wife maintains its exhausting comic pace until about five minutes before the end, when the scriptwriters are forced to take a breather to tie up all the loose plot ends. The "fantasy" closing gag went over so well that Columbia Pictures utilized variations of it in several subsequent screwball comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Rouben Mamoulian often claimed that he'd been inspired to make Golden Boy after reading a newspaper clipping about a recently deceased boxer. While Mamoulian may have genuinely believed that he was the true "auteur" of Golden Boy, he probably wouldn't have made the picture at all had not Clifford Odets started the ball rolling by writing the property for the stage in 1936. In his first starring role, William Holden plays Joe Bonaparte, a promising young boxer. While boxing promoter Tom Moody (Adolphe Menjou) and Menjou's mistress Lorna Moon (Barbara Stanwyck) urge Joe to pursue a ring career, Joe's Italian father (played with a surfeit of Chico Marx by 27-year-old Lee J. Cobb) wants his boy to become a famous violinist. Moody tells Lorna to romance the boy to get him into the ring. She does so, but regrets her callous actions when she genuinely falls in love with Joe. Having already broken his father's heart, Joe is further devastated when he accidentally kills a ring opponent. In the original play, both Joe and Lorna pay for their "sins" by dying in an auto accident. This would never do in Hollywood, so at fadeout time the chastened Joe returns to his forgiving father, with a tearful Lorna by his side. Clifford Odets' overrated purple prose seems to flow naturally from the actors, though it is obvious that William Holden had a long way to go. Still, Holden is pretty good in his first bonafide lead, a fact that he would ever after attribute to the patience and encouragement of his co-star Barbara Stanwyck; each year on the anniversary of Golden Boy's Hollywood premiere, Holden would send Stanwyck flowers as a sign of his eternal gratitude. While much of Golden Boy seems like a cliche-ridden museum piece when seen today, the film comes to life during the boxing sequences, helmed in exciting montage fashion by the always innovative Rouben Mamoulien. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a the journalist and editor of a prison newspaper is good enough, that he even contributes to outside publications, but still encounters difficulty after he is released. With the help of a prison loan, he buys his own little printing press and begins attacking the crooked politicians who have been dictating what the major dailies can and cannot print. His heated essays result in the firing of the prison warden. Fortunately, the ex-con successfully helps the ousted warden become the next state governor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Spunky Joan Blondell is practically the whole show in the diverting comedy Good Girls Go to Paris. Blondell is cast as ambitious college-campus waitress Jenny Swanson, who yearns to see the sights in Gay Paree. She gets her chance by latching onto British exchange professor Ronald Brooke (Melvyn Douglas), who is en route to the City of Light. Once she sets foot on French soil, Jenny proves the veracity of the film's title by straightening out the wayward family of dyspeptic millionaire Olaf Brand (Walter Connolly)-though for a while it looks as though she's a "bad girl", merely out to take the Brands for every penny they've got. In later years, Joan Blondell ruefully recalled that the film's original title was Good Girls Go to Paris Too, but the Hays Office nixed that harmlessly suggestive monicker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A scientist's greatest invention proves to be his darkest curse in this thriller that was part of Columbia and star Boris Karloff's "mad doctor" series. Karloff stars as Dr. Henryk Savaard, a brilliant heart expert who has created a pump that will allow him to place a patient in a state of death so that vital organs can be replaced with few problems. His first experiment on a human quickly goes awry when his nurse Betty (Ann Doran) sends for the police. The experiment is interrupted leaving the young man dead and Savaard in jail. He is sentenced to hang, but unleashes a bitter diatribe against his executioners promising to avenge his death. After his hanging, Savaard's assistant, Stoddard (Joseph DeStefani), hooks up the corpse to the heart pump and resurrects his boss. Several months pass and a local reporter (Robert Wilcox) discovers that six of the jurors in the case have mysteriously committed suicide -- all by hanging. The newsman's investigation leads him to follow the judge, the prosecutor, nurse Betty, and the surviving jurors to a specially arranged meeting at Savaard's former home. There, they are stunned to discover that Savaard is not only alive, but planning to execute them one by one every 15 minutes. As the bodies quickly begin to pile up, it is through the one person close to Savaard's heart that they can hope to make it out alive. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide

While working in a doctor's office, the Three Stooges are mistaken for psychiatrists Ziller, Zeller, and Zoller. Hired by millionaire Don Beddoe to cure his giddy wife, Lorna Gray, the Stooges proceed only to wreck a fancy dinner party as only they can. Their antics, however, cure the wife and they are rewarded for their good work. One of the team's better two-reelers, this riotous farce was written by the veteran Clyde Bruckman and directed by producer Jules White. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Cowboy star Bill Elliot makes his first appearance in his familiar guise of "Wild Bill" in Columbia's Taming of the West. When a gang of cattle rustlers knocks off several sheriffs in quick succession, it's up to Wild Bill to get to the bottom of things. The moment he pins on his marshal's badge, our hero is marked for extermination by head villain Rawhide (Dick Curtis). Fortunately, the usually eagle-eyed villains are lousy shots when t comes to bumping off Wild Bill, and justice prevails. Iris Meredith takes a break from Columbia's Charles Starrett series to play Elliot's leading lady, while Dub "Cannonball" Taylor provides dubious comedy relief. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A rancher and the farmer who fences in precious grasslands battle it out in this drama. The fight begins as the rancher's horses continually breach the farmer's fence and destroy his wheat fields. The irate farmer then begins shooting the rancher's horses including the rancher's beloved wild stallion, Konga. The rancher then shoots the farmer to get revenge. The feud is eventually settled when the rancher's son falls in love with the farmer's daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide