Arthur Belasco Movies

This might be a film about junk mail...but it isn't. Wallace Beery and Marjorie Main are teamed again for this rambunctious western comedy. Beery plays a horse thief who romances saloon owner Main. His goal is to marry the lady and take over her lucrative mail route. He accidentally becomes a hero; she completes the reformation. Jackass Mail made money, but it just wasn't the same as the classic Wallace Beery/Marie Dressler combo of the 1930s. Great title, though. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This fourth entry in MGM's Thin Man series could just as well have been titled "Nick and Nora Charles Go to the Races". Officially retired from sleuthing, Nick Charles (William Powell) does his best to be a dutiful husband to his lovely wife Nora (Myrna Loy) and a good father to his young son Nick Jr. (Dickie Hall). But when murder rears its ugly head at the local race track, Nick is called in by Major Jason I. Sculley (Henry O'Neill), head of the New York athletic commission, to help solve the case. As usual, there is no shortage of suspects: This time the "rogue's gallery" includes high-rolling gamblers Link Stevens (Loring Smith) and Fred Macy (Joseph Anthony); Link's hoity-toity girlfriend Claire Porter (played by legendary acting teacher Stella Adler); two-bit tout "Rainbow" Benny Loomis (Lou Lubin); reporters Whitey Barrow (Paul Kelly) and Paul Clarke (Barry Nelson); and Clarke's sweetheart Molly Ford (Donna Reed). Highlights include a zany episode on a department-store merry-go-round, an outsized brawl at a fancy sea-food restaurant, and the inevitable gathering together of suspects in the offices of police lieutenant Abrams (Sam Levene). The flippant nature of Shadow of the Thin Man can be attributed to screenwriters Irving Brecher and Harry Kurnitz, both longtime friends and associates of comedian Groucho Marx. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This box-office smash comedy of manners featured the popular Myrna Loy as Margot Sherwood Merrick, the stodgy editor of a glamorous women's fashion magazine. To protect herself from suitors and jealous wives of businessmen, she wears a gold band on the third finger of her left hand and pretends that she is married. But the wolfish artist Jeff Thompson (Melvyn Douglas) is undeterred. After his efforts to romance Margot fail repeatedly, her icy exterior finally melts and the two become involved. She then has to explain the ring to all her cronies. Jeff's idea is to pretend to be her long-lost husband, but this plan backfires and leads to some comic complications. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

When Walter Pidgeon wasn't playing Greer Garson's perfect husband at MGM, he could usually be found portraying a newspaper editor. This is how we find him in My Dear Miss Aldrich, the first MGM flick in which Pidgeon was awarded top billing. Maureen O'Sullivan plays the title character, a glamorous schoolteacher who receives an inheritance from a wealthy relative. That legacy turns out to be the very newspaper managed by Mr. Pidgeon--and the usual fireworks result. My Dear Miss Aldrich was written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, a former newspaperman who would cap his cinematic reminiscences with his 1940 screenplay for Citizen Kane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Faulkner's bestseller Sanctuary was so taboo in some circles that Hollywood couldn't even use the title when making the first film version. Thus, Paramount's adaptation of Sanctuary went out as The Story of Temple Drake, fooling no one who could read. Miriam Hopkins plays the title role, the promiscuous daughter of a Southern judge. Temple will do anything for a thrill, which plays right into the hands of a gang of kidnappers. Coerced into a pickup date at a roadhouse, Temple is held for ransom by the lascivious Trigger (Jack LaRue) and his mob. She is raped by Trigger, whereupon she kills him. One of Trigger's earlier murders is pinned on a hapless half-wit (Irving Pichel). Called to testify in the murder trial by her former boyfriend (William Gargan), the prosecuting attorney, Temple not only confesses to Trigger's killing, but proclaims to one and all that she secretly enjoyed the rape. Even though this hot material was considerably toned down from the novel (where the villain raped Temple with a corncob!), The Story of Temple Drake was one of many films responsible for incurring the wrath of the "clean up Hollywood" brigades--resulting in the restrictive Production Code of 1934. Sanctuary was remade under its original title in 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide