John T. Murray Movies

Beverly Ross (nn Miller) is a would-be radio personality, but the closest she gets to being on the air is running the switchboard at a local station. Worse yet, the blustery station owner Mr. Kennedy (Tim Ryan) wants no part of programming "jive" (i.e., swing music) that she loves, preferring the classics. But she manages to con Vernon Lewis (Franlin Pangborn), the host of the station's early morning classical show, into believing that he needs a vacation and slips into his time-slot at 5 am, where she starts running records by Bob Crosby's band, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra in place of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. The soldiers at the local army base pick up on the new show, and two of them, wealthy candy company magnate Barry Lang (William Wright) and his former chauffeur Andy Adams (Dick Purcell, decide they want to meet this new disc jockey, and as luck would have it her brother (Larry Parks) is in their platoon and invites them to his home. But the two men decide to switch identities, Barry denying his wealth and pretending to be Andy, and Andy presenting himself as the candy heir Barry -- and as if matters aren't complicated enough for Beverly, coping with their antics, she has to fight to keep her radio show. But when the soldiers listening to her start writing in by the thousands, and Barry suggests she call her 5am show "Reveille," she takes it one step further and "Reveille With Beverly," and becomes a smash. But can she sort out the intertwining romantic overtures of the two men in her life? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Jane Withers, 20th Century-Fox's second-feature Shirley Temple, plays the favorite daughter of a wealthy man (Cecil Kellaway). Real-life debutante Cobina Wright Jr. plays Jane's snobbish sister, who is pushed into society by her mother (Katherine Alexander). The hostility between the down-to-earth dad and the snooty mom is mirrored by the rivalry between Withers and Wright. Eventually, however, the kids make up, then set to work on reuniting their parents. Small Town Deb represents the first time that child actress Jane Withers was permitted to play a character closer to her own age (she was 16 and looked it). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fourteen scriptwriters spent five years toiling over a movie adaptation of war correspondent Vincent Sheehan's Personal History before producer Walter Wanger brought the property to the screen as Foreign Correspondent. What emerged was approximately 2 parts Sheehan and 8 parts director Alfred Hitchcock--and what's wrong with that? Joel McCrea stars as an American journalist sent by his newspaper to cover the volatile war scene in Europe in the years 1938 to 1940. He has barely arrived in Holland before he witnesses the assassination of Dutch diplomat Albert Basserman: at least, that's what he thinks he sees. McCrea makes the acquaintance of peace-activist Herbert Marshall, his like-minded daughter Laraine Day, and cheeky British secret agent George Sanders. A wild chase through the streets of Amsterdam, with McCrea dodging bullets, leads to the classic "alternating windmills" scene, which tips Our Hero to the existence of a formidable subversive organization. McCrea returns to England, where he nearly falls victim to the machinations of jovial hired-killer Edmund Gwenn. The leader of the spy ring is revealed during the climactic plane-crash sequence--which, like the aforementioned windmill scene, is a cinematic tour de force for director Hitchcock and cinematographer Rudolph Mate. Producer Wanger kept abreast of breaking news events all through the filming of Foreign Correspondent, enabling him to keep the picture as "hot" as possible: the final scene, with McCrea broadcasting to a "sleeping" America from London while Nazi bombs drop all around him, was filmed only a short time after the actual London blitz. The script was co-written by Robert Benchley, who has a wonderful supporting role as an eternally tippling newsman. Foreign Correspondent was Alfred Hitchcock's second American film, and remained one of his (and his fans') personal favorites. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dick Powell stars as a Brooklynite who becomes a cowboy in spite of himself. Drifting into a small western town, Powell takes the only job available as a ranch hand. He likes to sing in his spare time, which attracts the attention of talent scout Pat O'Brien. Before you can say Gene Autry, Powell is promoted into America's favorite singing cowboy--though he's hard pressed to prove his western skills when the plot situations demand it. Rather condescending in its attitude towards western stars (as non-western movies tended to be in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s), Cowboy From Brooklyn was another step backward in the (temporarily) fading career of Dick Powell. The only good thing to come out of the film was the song "Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride", which became the leitmotif of many a Warner Bros. cartoon short. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Down on the Farm was yet another entry in the seemingly endless saga of the Jones Family. The plot is set in motion when the Joneses' Aunt Ida (Louise Fazenda) invites the family to spend the summer on her farm while their house is undergoing repairs (thanks to an unfortunate encouter with a fire hose). Patriarch John Jones wins a cornhusking contest, whereupon he is invited to run for a local political office. The usual complications ensue, culminating in a ribtickling "drunk" scene and the ultimate exposure of the community's crooked politicians. Many of the biggest laughs are provided by Eddie Collins as Aunt Ida's moon-faced husband. Elements of several earlier Will Rogers vehicles managed to work their way into the screenplay of Down on the Farm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A lovely stenographer, tired of men falling all over her, tries to make herself homely in this comedy. With her horn rim specs and tweed suits, she finds that she is actually able to get some work done. She begins working as a writer's secretary to help him make his deadline. When the writer catches her without her suit and glasses, he instantly falls in love. Songs include: "Wreaths of Flowers", "Ever Since Eve", and "Shine on Harvest Moon". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

It took British author James Hilton six weeks to write his visionary novel Lost Horizon. It took director Frank Capra two years-and half of his home studio Columbia's annual budget-to bring it to the screen. After a lengthy preamble, inviting audiences to imagine their own ideas of Utopia, the film opens on a chaotic scene at a Chinese airfield. As hordes of bandits approach, hundreds of refugees scramble to board the last plane out. Only five people make it: Mildly disenchanted Far Eastern diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman), his hotheaded younger brother George (John Howard), embezzler Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), dithery fossil expert Lovett (Edward Everett Horton) and consumptive prostitute Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell). As the plane flies off towards the Himalayas, Robert realizes that he and his fellow passengers are heading in the wrong direction. They are, in fact, being kidnapped-but why? And where to? The plane crash-lands in the snowy Tibetan interior. The pilot is killed, but the passengers are safe. By and by, a strange caravan approaches, led by an enigmatic Chinese named Chang (H. B. Warner). Joining the caravan, Conway and his party are led through a treacherous mountain pass and into a land of temperate weather and dazzling beauty. This is Shangri-La, the idyllic lamasery presided over by the aged, wizened High Lama (Sam Jaffe). In this fertile valley, people are not encumbered by such exigencies as crime, dictators and hatred; instead, everyone is devoted to the pursuit of wisdom and self-improvement-and best of all, the aging process has been slowed to a walk, allowing people to live well past the two-century mark. Though he still does not know why he was brought here, Conway is quicker to adapt to Shangri-La than his wary fellow passengers. He even falls in love with Sondra (Jane Wyatt), an attractive, intelligent young woman. Finally granted an audience with the High Lama, Conway discovers that the old man is actually Father Perrault, the Belgian missionary who founded Shangri-La-over two hundred years earlier. Dying, the High Lama has selected Conway, whose idealism and even-handedness is world famous, to succeed him-and hopefully spread the "love thy neighbor" edict of Shangri-La to the rest of the war-torn world. Conway is willing to assume leadership, but younger brother George, his mind poisoned by spiteful Shangri-La resident Maria (Margo), insists upon escaping to the outside world. The older Conway warns that, despite her youthful appearance, Maria is well past sixty and will surely perish once she leaves Shangri-La; but Maria retorts that the high lama is insane, and that everything he has told Conway is a lie. Disillusioned, Conway agrees to leave with Jack and Maria. The trek back to civilization is a grueling one, especially for Maria, who-true to Conway's prediction-shrivels from age and dies. Appalled that he has been misled, George kills himself. Weeks later, and amnesiac Conway stumbles into a Tibetan mission, where he is rescued and brought back to England. When his memory is restored, however, Conway runs back to Shangri-La, and into the arms of Sondra. When Lost Horizon was shown to preview audiences, it ran nearly three hours-and it was a disaster. In his autobiography, Capra claims to have rescued his pet project by merely burning the first two reels and opening the film with the evacuation scene; In fact, while Capra did remove the film's "flashback" framework, he made most of his cuts in the body of the picture. The release length of Lost Horizon was 132 minutes, pared down to 119 when it when into general distribution. When it was reissued in the 1940s and 1950s, it was rather clumsily pared down to anywhere from 95 to 100 minutes. Only in the mid-1980s was Lost Horizon restored to its original length, with stills used to illustrate certain scenes for which only the soundtrack existed. While not the enormous hit Capra and Columbia had hoped it would be, Lost Horizon was popular enough to allow the name "Shangri-La" enter the household-word category. In 1973, producer Ross Hunter felt the urge to inflict a wretched musical remake onto an unsuspecting public. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eric Linden and Cecilia Parker, the stars of Grand National's first release In His Steps (1936), were reunited in the same studio's Girl Loves Boy. Linden plays Bob Conrad, the playboy son of town squire Charles Conrad. Much against his dad's wishes, Bob falls in love with Dorothy (Parker), the daughter of penniless widow Mrs. McCarthy (Dorothy Peterson). At the insistence of Conrad Sr., Bob weds Sally Lacy (Bernadene Hayes), but Dorothy's broken heart is mended when it turns out that Sally's divorce from her previous husband was never finalized. Like the previous In His Steps, Girl Loves Boy was scripted by cinematographer-director Karl Brown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a press agent loses his job and becomes a Hollywood radio columnist. He is angry about having to change careers and ends up launching a smear campaign upon the actor who got him fired. He begins by announcing that the star's brother is a gangster. This causes the star to be blackballed. The columnist's wife begs him to stop, telling him that she will leave him if he doesn't. He does and peace is restored. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This second of MGM's Thin Man films reteams William Powell and Myrna Loy as, respectively, bibulous private detective Nick Charles and his socialite wife Nora. The Charleses are sucked into another murder case via Nick's lovely cousin Elissa Landi, whose husband Alan Marshall has vanished. Hubby has been conducting an affair with nightclub thrush Dorothy McNulty (later known as Penny Singleton) and is also blackmailing gangsterish Joseph Calleia. When the corpses begin piling up, Nick and Nora try to piece the clues together, with the earnest assistance of Jimmy Stewart, who carries a torch for Landi. You won't believe who turns out to be the murderer in this one--then again, given the plot's strict adherence to "least likely suspect" formula, you probably will. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third screen version of Jack London's classic adventure story was also the first with sound, and it toyed with the original story a bit to add a love interest for leading man Clark Gable. Jack Thornton (Gable) is a would-be prospector who has headed to Alaska hoping to cash in on the gold rush. However, he loses most of his stake in a poker game and instead ends up buying a Saint Bernard named Buck. He's able to pick up Buck for a song because he's too ill-tempered to pull a sled; Smith (Reginald Owen), Buck's former owner, treated him with cruelty and the dog mangled Smith's hand in retaliation. Jack loves the dog, though, and treats him with care and kindness. Buck bonds with Jack and soon becomes a loyal companion and a good sled dog. Angry and astounded, Smith bets Jack that Buck can't pull a half-ton sled 100 yards; while the old Buck would never have done it, with Jack's urging the dog manages the feat and Jack now has the funds to set out with his friend Shorty (Jack Oakie) to stake their claim. While searching for gold, Jack and Shorty discover Claire Blake (Loretta Young), the wife of a miner who abandoned her to look for a fresh vein of gold. A warmth grows between Claire and Jack in the frozen North, but Jack is forced to help her husband when he runs afoul of thieves trying to steal his claim. Six more films based on The Call of the Wild would follow this to the screen. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide