Eva Novak Movies

Wild Seed was produced by Universal as part of the studio's short-lived "new talent" policy, which permitted untried actors and/or directors a low-cost opportunity to prove themselves with a theatrical feature. Director Brian G. Hutton was no newcomer, having been a TV actor and director for several years, but Wild Seed was his first big-screen directorial effort. Michael Parks plays a young drifter who forms an alliance with runaway girl Celia Kaye. Parks helps guide the girl on her trek to California, falling in love along the way. The plotline is wafer thin, but Wild Seed was a particular favorite of cinematographer Conrad Hall, who welcomed the opportunity given him by director Hutton to tell most of the story through imagery and visual juxtapositions rather than dialogue (the film was also Hall's first major studio credit). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ride a Violent Mile is an economically produced western with a Civil War background. Penny Edwards stars as Susan, a Union spy who poses as a dance-hall girl in a Confederate-friendly frontier town. Susan hopes to prevent the Mexican government from casting its lot with the South, and to do that she must halt a Confederate cattle drive. Enlisting the aid of boyfriend Jeff (John Agar), our heroine does her best to scare off the cattle. The heavy of the piece is sheriff Marshal Thorne (John Pickard), who turns out to be a secret operative for the Johnny Rebs. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Some good performances overcome the scripted cliches in Dakota Incident. In the tradition of Stagecoach, the film offers a disparate group of travellers whose lives are imperiled when their coach heads deep into Indian territory. Linda Darnell plays Amy Clarke, the requisite you-know-what with a heart of gold. Dale Robertson costars as hard-bitten outlaw John Banner, who is willing to let a fellow passenger, bank clerk Carter Hamilton (John Lund), take the fall for a recent robbery. Ward Bond is Senator Blakely, whose "live and let live" policy regarding the Indians is a smokescreen for his corrupt activities. Regis Toomey is the obligatory drunk, here named Minstrel. And Whit Bissell is Mark Chester, the seemingly mild-mannered greenhorn who reveals hidden reserves of strength when the going gets rough. A clue as to who will survive the inevitable Indian attack is offered by the order of billing in the opening credits of Dakota Incident. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard ranks among the most scathing satires of Hollywood and the cruel fickleness of movie fandom. The story begins at the end as the body of Joe Gillis (William Holden) is fished out of a Hollywood swimming pool. From The Great Beyond, Joe details the circumstances of his untimely demise (originally, the film contained a lengthy prologue wherein the late Mr. Gillis told his tale to his fellow corpses in the city morgue, but this elicited such laughter during the preview that Wilder changed it). Hotly pursued by repo men, impoverished, indebted "boy wonder" screenwriter Gillis ducks into the garage of an apparently abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. Wandering into the spooky place, Joe encounters its owner, imperious silent star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Upon learning Joe's profession, Norma inveigles him into helping her with a comeback script that she's been working on for years. Joe realizes that the script is hopeless, but the money is good and he has nowhere else to go. Soon the cynical and opportunistic Joe becomes Norma's kept man. While they continue collaborating, Norma's loyal and protective chauffeur Max Von Mayerling (played by legendary filmmaker Erich von Stroheim) contemptuously watches from a distance. More melodramatic than funny, the screenplay by Wilder and Charles Brackett began life as a comedy about a has-been silent movie actress and the ambitious screenwriter who leeches off her. (Wilder originally offered the film to Mae West, Mary Pickford and Pola Negri. Montgomery Clift was the first choice for the part of opportunistic screenwriter Joe Gillis, but he refused, citing as "disgusting" the notion of a 25-year-old man being kept by a 50-year-old woman.) Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running musical version has served as a tour-de-force for contemporary actresses ranging from Glenn Close to Betty Buckley to Diahann Carroll. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Western star William Elliot always insisted that his idol was silent-film cowboy William S. Hart. Elliot's Hellfire, then, can be seen as his tribute to the 1916 Bill Hart classic Hell's Hinges. Elliot plays a hard-bitten frontier gambler whose life is saved by a preacher. When the preacher dies as a result, Elliot vows to mend his ways. He becomes a minister himself, planning to finish constructing a church that his predecessor had started. To finance this project, he hopes to collect the reward on female outlaw Marie Windsor. She resists all attempts to bring her to justice, but after a climactic shoot-out with the rest of the criminal element in town, the wounded Windsor repents her sins and agrees to turn herself in. Hellfire was written by Dorrell and Stuart E. McGowan, who later collaborated on the long-running TV anthology Death Valley Days. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When the family land is threatened with foreclosure, honest, hard-working rancher Ross McEwen (Joel McCrea) resorts to bank robbery in order to come up with the necessary cash. Although he leaves the bank an I.O.U., Sheriff Pat Garrett (Charles Bickford) is sent out to catch the criminal as he flees to escape capture. This western was originally titled They Passed this Way. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

A dude ranch, unemployed cowhands, modern-day bank robbers, and music are the main ingredients in this, Gene Autry's swan song for Republic Pictures, lovingly restored by UCLA and Gene Autry Entertainment in 2001. Swindled out of their savings, Gene and the Cass County Boys mistakenly get mixed up in a bank robbery. The local police chief (James Flavin) let them go, however, hoping the hicks will lead him to the stolen 100,000 dollars. And so they do, right to a dude ranch in the none-too-quiet town of Serenity. With Sterling Holloway supplying the comic relief as a vacationing hypochondriac, Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys perform Autry's own "The Merry-Go-Roundup" and "Good Old-Fashioned Hoedown"; "Goin' Back to Texas" by Carson J. Robison; and "You're the Moment of a Lifetime" by Sergio de Karlo and Kay Charles (in both Spanish and English). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Republic Pictures' reigning Bad Guy, Roy Barcroft, was at it again in this standard Allan Lane Western, this time playing Ben Jode, a nasty character conspiring with saloon owner Clyde Flint (Maine Geary) and crooked land agent Trent Parker (Tom London) to cheat the settlers from staking their claims during the Oklahoma Land Rush. The mean-spirited Barcroft attempts to achieve his goal of hegemony by recording false claims in the names of his henchman. Enter lone cowboy Chad Stevens (Lane) who is assisted by verbose Wild West lawyer Don Quixote Martingale (Earle Hodgins). The latter is rescued in the nick of time from a lynching when Chad reveals himself to be an undercover investigator for the U.S. Land Office. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Jack Benny wasn't even 39 yet when he starred in the maudlin backstage drama The Medicine Man. Benny plays Dr. John Harvey, the worldly and none-too-honest title character, who while passing through a small town falls in love with winsome Mamie Goltz (Betty Bronson), the victim of what one observer described as the most abusive father in movie history (E. Alyn Warren). Our hero puts his larcenous nature on the back burner to champion Mamie's cause when her despicable dad tries to force her into a marriage with an equally odious elderly millionaire. Forced out of town due to a scandal, the doctor is nowhere to be found during the wedding ceremonies, and for several uncomfortable minutes it looks like poor Mamie will have to go through with it. Not a good film by any standards, The Medicine Man is worth having if only to see Jack Benny in a virtually "straight" role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The epic 1927 Australian film For the Term of His Natural Life is set on the "Down Under" penal colony of Vandeman's Island. The time is 1827, long before Queen Victoria abolished this hell-on-earth isle. Taking the blame for a murder to save the reputation of his high-born mother, a young man (Arthur McLaglen) is shipped off to Vandeman's, where he stoically accepts the worst that life has to offer at the hands of his sadistic jailers. Even under these trying circumstances, the hero manages to fall in love with the warden's daughter (Eva Novak), and she with him. It takes a spectacular escape attempt and an even more spectacular shipwreck before the boy's name is cleared and his marriage to the girl can come off. Long regarded as the single most important Australian silent production, For the Term of His Natural Life was poorly preserved and today exists only in fragments. A TV-miniseries version of the same story was produced in 1982. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The ubiquitous J. P. McGowan warmed the director's chair for Red Signals. Though onetime matinee idol Earle Williams is starred, the film's real protagonist is Wallace McDonald, cast as a dishevelled hobo. When a series of train wrecks occur, railroad superintendent Williams is held responsible, but the real culprit is a crooked foreman who lusts after Williams' job. All of this is proven in due time by the superintendent's indigent brother McDonald -- who turns out to be a railroad detective in disguise. Some laughs are provided by Billy Franey and Frank Rice, usually cast as cowboy sidekicks but here playing McDonald's hobo companions. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Even minus the original musical score, this silent-film adaptation of the Broadway hit Irene is a delight. Colleen Moore stars as Irene O'Dare, an Irish colleen who comes to New York in search of a job. She lands a position at the fancy fashion salon owned by one Mme. Lucy, a male couturier campily portrayed by George K. Arthur. Becoming the establishment's top fashion model, Irene is a huge success, though it takes her a bit longer to find romantic happiness in the arms of wealthy Donald Marshall (Lloyd Hughes), thanks to the strenuous efforts by Donald's snooty mother (Ida Darling) to break up the relationship. The highlight of the film is a Technicolor fashion sequence, which remains a visual feast even though the colors have faded in most available prints. Irene was remade in 1940 with Anna Neagle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of cowboy star Tom Mix's best films for the Fox company, No Man's Gold was, according to the trade magazine Variety, "a first-class cowboy melodrama," despite the fact that the original director, Tom Buckingham, was replaced by Lewis Seiler mid-production. The story centers on a dying prospector who divides the map to his gold mine into three parts: one for the outlaw who shot him (Frank Campeau), one for comedy sidekick Harry Grippe, and the third to hero Mix. The latter must also care for the miner's now-orphaned son (Mickey Moore) and, at the same time, reach the mine before his enemies do. Director Seiler throws in some fine rodeo footage for good measure and a good time is had by all. No Man's Gold marked the tenth and final time that blond leading lady Eva Novak starred opposite Tom Mix. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi