Jimmy Moss Movies

Clemson Reade (Cary Grant) is the kind of man who wants to marry an old-fashioned girl, one who will stay home and take care of her husband. However, he's fallen in love with Priscilla "Effie" Effington (Deborah Kerr), who has an exciting career with the State Department that she has no intention of giving up. Clemson has the poor timing of proposing marriage to Effie just as she's in the middle of trying to resolve a major political crisis with the Middle Eastern nation of Bukistan; the United States wants to stay on Bukistan's good side, thanks to their plentiful reserves of oil. Tired of waiting for Effie, Clemson decides that he needs to find a potential bride who will follow his lead instead of her own, and he soon meets Princess Tarji (Betta Saint John), daughter of the King of Bukistan, who has spent her life learning to faithfully serve her man. Clemson half-seriously sends a telegram proposing marriage to Tarji, which touches off a political tempest in a teapot when Tarji responds by visiting the United States. The State Department decides that someone should look after Tarji while she's in America, and who should be given the assignment but Effie; to Clemson's chagrin, Effie uses her time with Tarji to enlighten her about the more liberated status of women in the West. By the way, don't bother looking for Bukistan in your atlas, the country doesn't really exist. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Not up to the classic 1935 presentation, this is still an excellent adaptation of Victor Hugo's epic novel. The familiar characters of Valjean and Javert and the agonies of injustice are all portrayed convincingly against a backdrop of 18th century France. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Burt Lancaster stars as Jim Thorpe, the Native American sports whiz whom many consider the greatest athlete of the 20th century. We first see Thorpe as a child on the reservation, highly resistant to the notion of going to school. He proves to be an excellent student, eventually attending the all-Indian college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Still, Thorpe doesn't feel like mixing much with the other students until coach Charles Bickford encourages the lad to go out for the track team. Thorpe finds that he can be more "articulate" as an athlete than as a scholar, and soon excels at all school sports. He also marries his college sweetheart, non-Indian Phyllis Thaxter. After graduation, Thorpe tries to get a coaching job, but is frozen out by the white establishment. Determined to make a name for himself, he enters the 1912 Olympics at Stockholm, where he earns more gold medals than anyone else and is praised as the world's greatest athlete by the King of Sweden. Unfortunately, the fact that Thorpe briefly played semi-professional baseball while attending Carlisle costs him his amateur status--and every one of his medals. Things go from bad to worse for Thorpe after this; his son dies, his marriage disintegrates, and he crawls into a bottle. Thorpe has hit rock bottom when he is reunited with his old coach Bickford, who offers Jim a ticket to the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. It is the first small step on the road to regeneration for Jim Thorpe (alas, real life was not so kind; Thorpe died in near-poverty, and it was not until years after his death that his Olympic medals were restored). Jim Thorpe, All American was directed by Michael Curtiz, who previously had secured small acting roles for the real Thorpe in such films as Knute Rockne: All American (1940). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A woman's desire to rise above her drab lower middle-class life take her down the road to destruction in this gripping crime melodrama. The story opens as she cowers insider her old home, fearing the inevitable arrival of the murderous gangsters pursuing her. Her tragic tale unfolds via flashback. It all began when she became frustrated by her humble life in a squalid factory town. She was married to a laborer and lived with her parents. Soon after her child accidentally dies, the distraught woman abandons her old life to take a job where she meets an exceptional, but dull as dishwater accountant. He is a bit spineless and so allows the woman to convince him to get involved with a powerful gangster. Though she had promised to marry the accountant, she reneges and becomes the illicit moll of the married gangster. Wanting her to be a bit more elegant so he can pass her off as a Texas heiress to his west-coast rival, the gangster hires an impoverished socialite to teach her social graces. Soon she appears as an elegant, cultured woman. Still, despite her sophisticated exterior, she is conniving and ruthless inside and tries to double-cross both her new lover and his rival. Eventually the two crime lords meet in a bloody confrontation that leaves one mobster dead. Her lover is about to shoot her but the accountant (who still loves her) intervenes and she escapes back to her home town. She waits there through the night and the next morning goes outside and finds her gangster lover waiting to get his revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, two ex-hoods find their attempts to straighten up and fly right are foiled by a blackmailing gangster who threatens to expose their past who forces them to rob the department store they work at. Outwardly, the crooks go along with the scam, but they have also devised a scam of their own. In the end, the extortionist is killed by a cop and the two reluctant robbers turn themselves in. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide