Jack Overman Movies

Johnny One-Eye was adapted from one of Damon Runyon's lesser-known stories. Pat O'Brien and Wayne Morris star as Martin Martin and Dane Cory respectively, former partners in crime who have long since split up. When a new district attorney puts the heat on, Cory, anxious to save his own hide, accuses Martin of an unsolved murder. Holed up in abandoned house, Martin is befriended by a little girl (Gayle Reed) and her dog. It so happens that the girl is the daughter of the crusading DA, and thereby hangs the rest of this tale. Produced by Benedict Bogeaus, Johnny One-Eye co-stars Bogeaus' wife Dolores Moran as a moll named Lily White. The film represented the last directorial assignment of Robert Florey, who retired shortly afterward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After the film-noir melodramatics of Lady in the Lake and Ride the Pink Horse, actor/director Robert Montgomery turned to comedy in Once More, My Darling. Montgomery plays a former movie idol hired by the government to woo a young heiress (Ann Blyth). Someone had previously given the girl some jewelry stolen by the Nazis during the war, and the government wants to find out who that someone was. In the grand tradition, Montgomery pursues Blyth until she finally catches him. Produced by longtime Alfred Hitchcock associate Joan Harrison, Once More, My Darling is more conservatively directed than Montgomery's earlier works, though the director earns at least one laugh by playing a clever editing joke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lucille Ball is Miss Grant, an efficient but naïve secretary hired by William Holden. Ostensibly a legit real estate salesman, Holden is actually the brains of a bookie ring. It takes forever for Ball to tumble to what's going on, but when she does she settles matters in the same fashion as her later I Love Lucy character would--by adopting a disguise and a line of snappy patter. The chastened Holden marries Ball and agrees to devote his life to running an honest real-estate firm on behalf of the deserving homeless. Among the contributors to the success of Miss Grant Takes Richmond are producer S. Sylvan Simon, director Lloyd Bacon and scenarist Frank Tashlin, all of whom would later team up again for the zany Lucille Ball vehicle The Fuller Brush Girl. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a priceless diamond is stolen from a museum exhibition all suspicion falls upon the notorious Lone Wolf, a former jewel thief who became a reporter. It doesn't help that he was in the museum to write a story on the gem at the time of its theft. Now he and his gal pal must play amateur detectives in order to ring the real crooks to justice. This was the final entry in the "Lone Wolf" series. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Joe Palooka, Ham Fisher's famed comic-strip fighter, risks his life to clear the name of his manager in this series entry. In this episode, Palooka is blinded during a fight. Although surgery restores his vision, the doctors strongly caution him not to fight again for at least a year. Meanwhile Knobby Walsh, his manager, begins managing another heavyweight fighter who gets himself mixed up with gamblers. To save his manager's good name, Palooka disregards the doctors' advice and reenters the ring. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

For their first independently-produced vehicle, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello chose to appear in a remake of the 1939 Universal programmer For Love or Money. Bud and Lou are cast as Ted and Tommy, two bumbling window washers hired by gangster Mike Craig (Joseph Calleila) to collect a $50,000 gambling debt. The boys manage to pick up the money, only to deliver it to the wrong person, a pretty private secretary named Carol (Cathy Downs). Ordered to retrieve the money within 24 hours "or else," Ted and Tommy trace the cash to Carol, who has mistakenly distributed it amongst the entries in a mailing list. As our heroes desperately concoct methods of escaping Craig's wrath, eccentric gambler Julius Caesar McBride (Leon Errol), the man who "never loses," comes to the rescue. Despite its seeming complexity, the plot exists merely as a peg on which to hang several of Abbott and Costello's best routines, including "Bet you 10 dollars you're not here," "Hole in the Wall," "Packing and unpacking," "Getting Arrested," and, best of all, "Mudder and Fodder." Beyond the seven credited actors, the huge unbilled supporting cast includes such reliable laugh-getters as Benny Rubin, Murray Leonard, Elvia Allman, Herb Vigran, Fred Kelsey, James Flavin, Lyle Latell, Isabel Randolph and Paul Maxey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Garfield, in the best performance of his career, portrays Joe Morse, an ambitious attorney who has long since abandoned his scruples in favor of monetary reward. Morse now represents the interests of crime boss Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts), who plans to take over the numbers racket in New York. Morse has devised a way of doing this legally and above-board, with no violence: Tucker's people will bring about the collapse of the illegal numbers racket in the city, using a race track-betting scam that will bankrupt the small-time underworld numbers banks; an investigation will ensue, along with a call for a legal numbers operation in the form of a lottery, which Tucker will control through Morse's machinations. The whole plan hinges on Morse's estranged brother, Leo (Thomas Gomez), a small-time numbers banker who is to be shielded from the collapse, and who will serve as the "legitimate" front for Tucker. Leo is the flaw in the plan, however, because not only can't he stand the sight of Joe, but he is also too honest to participate in the plan -- he doesn't want his employees, all decent people just looking to earn a living, forced into the employ of real gangsters. Joe orchestrates a series of police raids that force Leo into his corner, and Joe's plan seems to be working out, but then the whole enterprise is threatened when a rival mob, run by Tucker's former Prohibition-era partner, Fico (Paul Fix), starts pressuring Leo, trying to get to Joe and Tucker. Fico and his men aren't any different from Tucker's mob, except that they're prepared to start shooting sooner to get what they want. Tucker decides to hang tough and expects everyone, including Leo, to do the same, even when Fico starts sending thugs around to frighten everyone. Soon Joe is beset by problems on three fronts -- he wants his brother out of Tucker's combination and safe; he is trying to romance Leo's bookkeeper (Beatrice Pearson), who is too nice a girl for who he is; and his own well-being is threatened by both Fico and Tucker, and a state investigator who has already tapped the phone of Joe's otherwise respectable partner. All of these threads are pulled together in the final section of the film, which is as violent and disturbing, yet poetic and graceful a resolution as any crime film of the 1940s ever delivered. Force of Evil was star-crossed almost from the start, as many of the people involved, including star John Garfield and director Abraham Polonsky (a writer making his debut behind the camera, with help from assistant director Don Weis in doing the camera set-ups and blocking), were suspect at the time for their leftist political views. Indeed, the company that made Force of Evil, Enterprise Productions, was also in trouble for the leftist leanings of its films in the midst of the Red Scare, and went out of business just as the movie was finished -- dropped by United Artists and picked up by MGM, of all studios, Force of Evil made it into theaters during Christmas week of 1948, not the ideal schedule for something as grim (albeit great) as this film was. As it turned out, it was Polonsky's last chance to direct for more than 20 years, and Garfield's last completely successful film. And a movie that should have been a triumph for all concerned ended up a cult favorite. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Nice guys don't always finish last as can be seen in this crime drama. The story begins as a perfectly nice fellow finds himself arrested for murder. The trouble is, the man cannot remember a thing about the night of the murder. Though he insists he is innocent, all the evidence tells a different story. He was found at the scene with a bloody knife in his hand. Fortunately, a policeman friend, believes him. He gets him out of jail and together, they begin looking for the real killer. They soon find that the set-up was perpetrated by his uncle who strongly disapproved of his dating his ward. The woman who died had been the uncle's lover who was blackmailing him. To get even with them all, the uncle drugged his nephew, killed his mistress and planted the knife upon his unconscious relative. In the end, the uncle is arrested and the nephew and his lover live a long and happy life together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Raymond Chandler's famed detective Philip Marlowe (George Montgomery) is hired by a rich, eccentric widow, Mrs. Murdock (Florence Bates) to find and return a stolen gold coin. Marlowe quickly finds himself involved an a case which includes robbery, blackmail and murder. Just as Marlowe begins to solve the mystery, he is savagely beaten by Vannier (Fritz Kortner). Marlowe finally puts all the pieces of the puzzle together when he discovers a blackmail scheme involving Murdock's mentally-ill secretary, Merle Davis (Nancy Guild) which leads him to suspect his employer. The Brasher Doubloon, adapted from Chandler's novel, The High Window, and beautifully photographed by Lloyd Ahern captures a proper film noir sensibility with its moody, low-key images and dense, dark background shots, while failing to capture the complexity of the novel. Director John Brahm, who also directed the excellent films The Lodger and Hangover Square, is disappointing, failing to create the depth of characterization and plot which he showed in these films. The Brasher Doubloon remains bland, with undistinguished acting by the entire cast. The only exception is Fritz Kortner, a veteran character actor molded in the expressionist cinema of pre-war Berlin, who creates the grotesque character of Vannier, bringing a sense of evil vitality to an otherwise bland production. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, a soldier is granted a two-week furlough and returns home to discover that his girlfriend is engaged to someone else. At first, on the advice of her friends, the girl tries to hide her betrothal from the soldier, but it is not long before she recalls why she loved him in the first place. Conflict ensues when he discovers her deception. Eventually, they manage to straighten out the situation and things come out alright. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Runaround is a game attempt to return to the "screwball comedy" genre so popular in the 1930s. Rival detectives Kildane (Rod Cameron) and Prentice (Broderick Crawford) are hired simultaneously by millionaire Norman Hampton (Samuel J. Hinds). Their client informs the two gumshoes that he has a daughter named Penelope (Ella Raines) who has run off to get married, and he wants her back. After a chase extended from New York to San Francisco, Kildane manages to get the better of Prentice and catches with to Penelope. The two antagonists then embark on a riotous cross-country tug-of-war, with poor Penelope in the middle. Only upon returning to New York with Penelope does Kildane discover that he's been deliberately sent on the wrong track by Hampton, whose interest in the heroine-who isn't all that she seems--is anything but paternal. Throughout The Runaround, Ella Raines seems far too intelligent to be involved in the silly goings-on, and thoroughly undeserving of the rather rough treatment afforded her by her two leading men. Even so, the film is a pleasant diversion, with a satisfying (if not altogether logical) conclusion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Universal's 1946 The Dark Horse is not a remake of the 1932 Warner Bros. film of the same name, though both deal with a long shot political candidate. The 1946 film stars Phillip Terry as a war veteran, who is persuaded by machine politico Donald MacBride to run for alderman. Ann Savage plays the standard "Jean Arthur" role as the honest government functionary with whom the hero falls in love. Terry finds that disreputable politicians are using his war record to push through some shady legislation, so he renounces these hacks. He wins on the basis of his honesty, making one wish that things worked out this way in Real Life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide