Anne O'Neal Movies

Written by George Clayton Johnson, this elegiac Twilight Zone episode stars 72-year-old Ernest Truex as Charles Whitley, a reluctant resident of the Sunnyvale Rest Home. Becoming convinced that he'll never truly grow old so long as he "thinks young," Charlie begins indulging in such children's games as kick the can. Before long, Charlie has been joined in his youth-quest by the rest of Sunnydale's residents -- all except for his roommate Ben Conroy (Russell Collins), who pays dearly for his unwillingness to shed his inhibitions. Ernest Truex's real-life son Barry Truex appears in the opening scene as Charlie's insensitive son David, while the rest of the cast includes such familiar Hollywood "oldsters" as Burt Mustin, Hank Patterson, Marjorie Bennett, Anne O'Neal, and Earle Hodgins. Originally telecast February 9, 1962, "Kick the Can" was one of three Twilight Zone episodes that would be remade and included in the 1983 theatrical film Twilight Zone: The Movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another American-International opus which managed to attain top bookings on the strength of an exploitational titles, Runaway Daughters concentrates on the misadventures of a trio of teenaged girls. Audrey Barton (Marla English) wants something more out of life than her parents' money can buy; Dixie (Mary Ellen Kaye) wants to escape the tyranny of her misogynistic father; and Angela Forrest (Gloria Castillo) is a child of divorce, left to fend for herself in a hostile world. Not surprisingly, our three heroines end up in a heap of trouble in their pursuit of happiness; also not surprisingly, the film promises far more than it delivers. Of interest is the presence in the cast of 1930s film star Anna Sten. Runaway Daughters was originally released on a double bill with A-I's Shake, Rattle and Rock; it was remade for cable TV in 1994, as part of Showtime's "Rebel Highway" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Allan "Rocky" Lane plays the title role in the Republic oater Wells Fargo Gunmaster. Lane is sent westward by his employers to stem a series of stagecoach holdups. To bring the crooks out into the open, Lane pretends to turn bandit himself. One by one, the minor crooks are bumped off as they try to fence their ill-gotten gains. By process of elimination, Lane is able to expose the mysterious mastermind behind the robberies. Featured in the cast of Wells Fargo Gunmaster are moppet performers Mary Ellen Kay and Michael Chapin, who'd soon be spun off into their own western series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Some auteur critics feel that director Richard O. Fleischer did his best work while laboring in the "B" mills of RKO Radio. Fleischer's minimalist noir exercise Armored Car Robbery stars William Talman as the chief crook and Charles McGraw as the detective dogging his trail. A shade smarter than his gang underlings, Talman manages to elude capture, and even travels freely about in the company of his flashy lady friend Adele Jergens. But McGraw's persistence eventually pays off. Don McGuire, later a prolific TV producer/director, provides a welcome touch of comic relief as McGraw's rookie-cop assistant. A powerful (and slightly gruesome) climax caps this low-budget gem. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This whimsical fantasy about a local drunk's 6' 3 1/2" imaginary rabbit pal was a smash hit (and a Pulitzer Prize winner) on Broadway and was then adapted into this likeable farce that's also an allegory about tolerance. James Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd, a wealthy tippler whose sunny philosophy and inebriated antics are tolerated by most of the citizenry. That is, until Elwood begins claiming that he sees a "pooka" (a mischievous Irish spirit), which has taken the form of a man-sized bunny named Harvey. Although everyone is certain that Elwood has finally lost his mind, Harvey's presence begins to have magically positive effects on the townsfolk, with the exception of Elwood's own sister Veta (Josephine Hull), who, ironically, can also occasionally see Harvey. A snooty socialite, Veta is determined to marry off her daughter, Myrtle (Victoria Horne), to somebody equally respectable, and Elwood's lunacy is interfering. When Veta attempts to have Elwood committed to an insane asylum, however, the result is that she is accidentally admitted instead of her brother. Then the institution's director, Dr. Chumley (Cecil Kellaway), begins seeing Harvey, too. Hull, who reprised her part from the stage production, won an Oscar and a Golden Globe. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

The definitive Joseph H. Lewis-directed melodrama, Gun Crazy is the "Bonnie and Clyde" story retooled for the disillusioned postwar generation. John Dall plays a timorous, emotionally disturbed World War II veteran who has had a lifelong fixation with guns. He meets a kindred spirit in carnival sharpshooter Peggy Cummins, who is equally disturbed -- but a lot smarter, and hence a lot more dangerous. Beyond their physical attraction to one another, both Dall and Cummins are obsessed with firearms. They embark on a crime spree, with Cummins as the brains and Dall as the trigger man. As sociopathic a duo as are likely to be found in a 1940s film, Dall and Cummins are also perversely fascinating. As they dance their last dance before dying in a hail of police bullets, the audience is half hoping that somehow they'll escape the Inevitable. Some critics have complained that Dall is far too effeminate and Cummins too butch, but Joseph H. Lewis was never known to draw anything in less than broad strokes: recall the climax of Terror in a Texas Town, wherein Sterling Hayden participates in a western showdown armed with a whaler's harpoon. The best and most talked-about scene in Gun Crazy is the bank robbery sequence, shot in "real time" from the back seat of Dall and Cummins' getaway car. Originally slated for Monogram release, Gun Crazy enjoyed a wider exposure when its producers, the enterprising King Brothers, chose United Artists as the distributor. The film was based on a magazine article by MacKinlay Kantor; one of the scenarists was uncredited blacklistee Dalton Trumbo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Worthless from a historical aspect, Black Bart is nonetheless an enjoyable fabrication about the fabled Western outlaw. Rescued from a "necktie party," outlaws Charles E. Boles (Dan Duryea) and Lance Hardeen (Jeffrey Lynn) decide that it would be best to part as friends and go their separate ways. When next seen, Boles is a prosperous rancher who supplements his income by robbing the Wells Fargo gold shipments under the alias of Black Bart. Upon learning this, Hardeen rides back into Boles' life demanding a piece of the action. Both of the hero-villains are foiled when they succumb to the charms of the bewitching international courtesan Lola Montez (Yvonne DeCarlo). The story is related in flashback-from a jail cell by the outlaws' erstwhile partner Jersey Brady (Percy Kilbride). Obviously forgotten or ignored by the screenwriters was the fact that the actual Black Bart was really black, an ex-slave who "made bad" in the Wild West . Black Bart was remade in 1967 as Ride to Hangman's Tree. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Photographer Paul Lester (John Ireland) and his wife, Nancy (Jane Randolph), are invited to share an apartment with Paul's ex-army buddy Ed Stevens. They arrive to find Stevens gone, and a mysterious phone call gets Paul to the other end of town. While he's away, Nancy is assaulted by a would-be burglar. Paul thinks there's something more going on than a missing persons case or a burglary and tries to interest Detective Frontelli (Sheldon Leonard) of the police department in looking into it, but Frontelli is initially skeptical. When Stevens turns up under the wheels of a truck along with evidence tying him to an earlier hit-and-run murder, Paul is certain that there's some kind of organized conspiracy afoot. What he finds is a town slowly coming under siege from a secret band of anti-Semitic thugs masquerading as a patriotic organization, with whom Stevens had been involved and tried to quit. Paul and Nancy's situation goes from bad to dangerous when they accidentally stumble upon evidence that could hang the murderers. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

"This town ain't big enough to hold both of us," saloon owner Dink Davis (Cliff Clark) tells his new rival Steve Mawson (John Phillips) in the opening of this lighthearted Hopalong Cassidy Western. Schoolmarm Lucy Abbott (Anne O'Neal) couldn't agree more; in fact, the spinsterish teacher is outraged that Mawson is establishing his den of inequity more or less in her own backyard and decides to take matters into her own hands. But before she can do much more than hurl a couple of apples through the barroom window, Miss Abbott finds herself the victim of a gang of kidnapping thugs. "I'll box your ears," the aggrieved school mistress promises her abductors, all of whom used to be her pupils. Back in town, Mawson appears the most likely suspect of this newest outrage, but Hoppy (William Boyd) has his doubts. With California Carlson (Andy Clyde) left behind as a substitute teacher, Cassidy and sidekick Lucky Jenkins (Rand Brooks) do a little digging and come up with a most surprising result. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Edmund Gwenn plays Kris Kringle, a bearded old gent who is the living image of Santa Claus. Serving as a last-minute replacement for the drunken Santa who was to have led Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Kringle is offered a job as a Macy's toy-department Santa. Supervisor Maureen O'Hara soon begins having second thoughts about hiring Kris: it's bad enough that he is laboring under the delusion that he's the genuine Saint Nick; but when he begins advising customers to shop elsewhere for toys that they can't find at Macy's, he's gone too far! Amazingly, Mr. Macy (Harry Antrim) considers Kris' shopping tips to be an excellent customer-service "gimmick," and insists that the old fellow keep his job. A resident of a Long Island retirement home, Kris agrees to take a room with lawyer John Payne during the Christmas season. It happens that Payne is sweet on O'Hara, and Kris subliminally hopes he can bring the two together. Kris is also desirous of winning over the divorced O'Hara's little daughter Natalie Wood, who in her few years on earth has lost a lot of the Christmas spirit. Complications ensue when Porter Hall, Macy's nasty in-house psychologist, arranges to have Kris locked up in Bellevue as a lunatic. Payne represents Kris at his sanity hearing, rocking the New York judicial system to its foundations by endeavoring to prove in court that Kris is, indeed, the real Santa Claus! We won't tell you how he does it: suffice to say that there's a joyous ending for Payne and O'Hara, as well as a wonderful faith-affirming denouement for little Natalie Wood. 72-year-old Edmund Gwenn won an Oscar for his portrayal of the "jolly old elf" Kringle; the rest of the cast is populated by such never-fail pros as Gene Lockhart (as the beleaguered sanity-hearing judge), William Frawley (as a crafty political boss), and an unbilled Thelma Ritter and Jack Albertson. Based on the novel by Valentine Davies, Miracle on 34th Street was remade twice: once for TV in 1973, and a second time for a 1994 theatrical release, with Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a Bostonian socialite marries the owner of a racehorse and begins a life of globe-trotting from international track to track until her hubby runs out of money. In desperation, he borrows money from an ex-girlfriend who decides that she will not let him leave her again. Meanwhile, the wife is beginning to wonder why she married him and begins contemplating divorce. Things change when her philandering spouse dumps the other, decides to rebuild his stables, and bets every last nickel on his one remaining horse's Kentucky Derby run. His horse barely loses to his wife's horse. Fortunately, the couple makes up and they live a long, happy life together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Lucille Ball stars as the wife of a war correspondent, anxiously awaiting her husband's return. Ball is convinced that hubby (George Brent) is looking forward to feminine companionship after four long years at the front. Imagine her surprise when it looks as though her husband wasn't quite as lonely as she'd thought--thanks to sexy combat photographer Vera Zorina. Ball files for divorce, but the outcome is tipped off by the title: the Lovers come back. Lucille Ball is merely decorative for the most part in this film, though she has one delightful comic scene involving an attempt to smoke a cigar. To avoid confusion with a 1962 Doris Day/Rock Hudson epic of the same name, Lover Come Back was retitled When Lovers Meet for television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The motivating factor of The Missing Corpse is a feud between rival newspapermen Kruger (J. Edward Bromberg) and McDonald (Paul Guilfoyle). While Kruger tries to play fair, McDonald, a mob-connected slimeball who uses his publication for blackmailing purposes, does not. Before long, McDonald is murdered and his corpse is deposited in the back of Kruger's car. With the help of his fast-talking chauffeur Hogan (Frank Jenks), Kruger tries to dispose of the body to avoid being implicated in the crime, but the body just won't stay missing (despite the film's title). The revelation of the actual killer will undoubtedly amuse fans of the Superman television series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide