Dennis Moore Movies

Recently returned from hunting Tigers in India, sportsman Ellsworth (Parley Baer) declares that he has been placed under a curse. Unless he can find a way to prevent it, Ellsworth is convinced that he will be killed by a huge tiger--even though he lives in Houston! Drawing upon his own experiences in India, Paladin (Richard Boone) does everything he can to dissuade Ellsworth from his seemingly unfounded fears...but this is one curse that is not to be taken lightly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) investigate the reported kidnapping of wealthy businessman Tony Richman. The victim's wife has already been contacted by phone, and a $50,000 ransom has been demanded. The case takes an unexpected turn when Richman manages to escape from his captors--leading to many more surprises before the closing "Mark VII" logo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Chicago Confidential may not have been the best of the late-1950s "expose" films, but it certainly boasted one of the most impressive casts. Based on the factual best-seller by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, the film stars Brian Keith as a State Attorney who vows to bring corrupt Chicago union officials to justice. It turns out that the union crooks are in cahoots with a gambling syndicate, conspiring to frame uncooperative union leader Dick Foran for murder. With the considerable assistance of his coworker-fiancee Beverly Garland, Keith strives to prove Foran's innocence and punish the genuine miscreants. Crucial to the plotline is nightclub comedian Buddy Lewis, cast as an impressionist who helps to frame the troublesome Foran; also in the cast are such crime-flick perennials as Elisha Cook Jr., Paul Langton, Douglas Kennedy, Jack Lambert, John Indrisano, Phyllis Coates, and Thomas B. Henry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With this film, the final American-produced motion picture serial, the once so powerful genre went out with a whimper. Starring a couple of nonentities -- Lee Roberts, a former bit-part player, and Dennis Moore, who had the dubious honor of also starring in the penultimate serial, Perils of the Wilderness (1956) -- the serial was produced by the notorious Sam Katzman and thus consisted mainly of overused stock footage with a few new scenes added for good measure. Roberts and Moore played an army scout and a pony express rider who come to the aid of settlers terrorized by a greedy rancher-turned-outlaw. If nothing else, the last American action serial offered brief employment for several veterans of the genre, including Reed Howes, Kermit Maynard, Al Ferguson, Harry Tenbrook, and the ever popular Bud Osborne. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This is one of the last episodes of the long-running Bowery Boys film series. This time the trouble begins when a spoiled child television star swipes their car. They go to get it back and in so doing teach the kid a lesson or two. TV executives, frustrated from trying to deal with the youth on their own are so impressed that they hire the boys to keep the kid in line. Of course, that's not nearly as easy as it sounds, especially after the little star gets kidnapped. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The second-to-last American serial ever made, this film series very uneasily combined two popular genres: The Northwest Mounted Police melodrama and Science Fiction. The mix of Medicine Men and airplane dog fights were too ridiculous even for the small fry who, by the '50s, had become the sole audience for this sort of fare. Dennis Moore played an undercover deputy marshal posing as an outlaw in order to infiltrate a gang headed by the nefarious Kenneth MacDonald, a self-styled "Gun Emperor of the Northwest," whose stirring up of the Indians proves a diversion from his smuggling activities. A dark-haired, tight-lipped also-ran cowboy star of the late '40s, Dennis Moore earned the dubious distinction of starring in the two last action serials made in America: Perils of the Wilderness and Blazing the Overland Trail, both low budget affairs heavily padded with stock footage from the genre's glory days in the '30s and '40s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

I Died a Thousand Times is a scene-by-scene remake of the 1941 crime-drama classic High Sierra. Jack Palance steps into the old Humphrey Bogart role as Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, the ageing bank robber who intends to pull off one last heist before retiring. Sprung from prison by likeable crime boss Big Mac (Lon Chaney Jr.), Earle is commissioned to mastermind the robbery of a resort hotel. His partners in crime include the hotheaded, immature Babe (Lee Marvin) and Red (Earl Holliman), as well as "inside man" Mendoza (Perry Lopez). Also along for the ride is Marie (Shelley Winters), a dance-hall girl whom Babe has picked up. Marie falls in love with Earle, but he has eyes only for Velma (Lori Nelson), the club-footed daughter of a farmer (Ralph Moody) whom Earle had earlier befriended. Intending to use his share of the loot to finance Velma's operation, Earle goes through with the robbery, only to be thwarted by the ineptitude of his partners, the treachery of the late Big Mac's successors, and, finally, the fickle Velma. With the faithful Marie by his side, Earle makes a desperate escape into the High Sierras, but fate is still against him. Essentially an itinerary of what has previously "clicked" in High Sierra, I Died a Thousand Times makes a few concessions to changing tastes and mores; the stereotype comedy-relief character played by black actor Willie Best in the original film, for example, has been replaced by the more "acceptable" (at least by 1950s terms) stereotyped Mexican played by Gonzales-Gonzales. While the 1955 film cannot match the excellence of its 1941 role model, I Died a Thousand Times works pretty well on its own terms. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Crooked gambler "Bet-a-Million" Butler (Trevor Bardette) wagers that he can keep Superman (George Reeves) occupied while a huge museum robbery takes place. The plan involves the abduction of Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates), who is placed in a room full of explosives, set to go off if Superman interferes with the robbery. But "Bet-a-Millon" manages to outsmart himself, and the Man of Steel proves that he can be in two places at once--figurative speaking, of course. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally filmed at Republic in 1948, Montana Belle was purchased by producer Howard R. Hughes, who'd loaned the services of the film's star, Jane Russell. After laying on the shelf for three years, Montana Belle was finally released by Hughes' RKO Radio Pictures in October of 1952. Russell plays notorious western outlaw Belle Starr, who after being saved by the Dalton Gang from the hangman's noose, falls in love with Bob Dalton (Scott Brady). This doesn't stop Belle and Dalton from trying to stab one another in the back for the next 8 reels. It is gambler Tom Bradfield (George Brent) who finally offers Belle a new start in life--and, incidentally, a new romance. The film's high point of imbecility arrives when Jane Russell disguises herself as a man. In other words, Montana Belle is lots of fun so long as no one takes it too seriously (it is clear that the people who made the film didn't!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tall (and a bit heavy) in the saddle, Johnny Mack Brown stars in Blazing Bullets. Too long in tooth to pass a romantic lead, Brown permits his sidekick House Peters Jr. to pitch woo to leading lady Lois Hall. The plot is the same as in Brown's ten previous Monogram westerns; coming into a corruption-ridden town, our hero ambles around innocently, sizing up the situation, then slaps leather. Up until the finale, the film's excitement level is virtually nonexistent. Johnny Mack Brown would close out his Monogram contract the following year with his 66th release for the company. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I Was an American Spy is a true story, based on a series of autobiographical Reader's Digest articles written by Claire Phillips. Ann Dvorak stars as Ms. Phillips, an American nightclub singer trapped in Singapore when the Japanese march in. Having lost her husband to the Bataan death march, Phillips agrees to join an American secret agent (Gene Evans) in undermining the Japanese occupation troops. She is captured by the enemy, tortured, and sentenced to be shot, but is rescued at the last minute by her American contact. I Was an American Spy handles its more brutal scenes with a marked degree of tastefulness, thanks to the careful direction of Lesley Selander. Just as in their wartime movie appearances, Chinese actor Richard Loo and Korean actor Philip Ahn are eminently hissable as the Japanese villains. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Colorado Ranger was the third in Lippert Studio's six-film "Four Star Western" series. All six entries were filmed simultaneously within the same month, and all starred Russell "Lucky" Hayden, James "Shamock" Ellison, Raymond Hatton, Fuzzy Knight, and Betty (later Julie) Adams. In this installment, "Shamrock" takes on the outlaw gang that kidnapped his father. "Lucky" tags along to give his pal a hand. The dialogue sounds as if it was being made up as the film went along, which may very well have been the case. Colorado Ranger was released to television as The Last Bullet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide