Inez Palange Movies

With location scenes lensed in Italy, September Affair is consistently good to look at, even when the pacing flags and the dialogue becomes too verbose. Joan Fontaine and Joseph Cotten star as married couple Manina and David. Trouble is, they're not married to each other. Through a series of misunderstandings, Manina and David are listed among the victims of a plane crash. Since the world at large considers them dead, the couple decides to start a whole new life together. Eventually, however, the guilt they share regarding their respective spouses overrides their passions. September Affair is remembered today as the film that catapulted a 12-year-old record -- Walter Huston's rendition of "September Song" -- to the top of the 1950 hit parade. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Most of this Republic B-plus mystery yarn is set in a penthouse, next door to a music hall where a strange song-and-dance extravaganza is being staged. This production incorporates several ice-skating sequences--a good excuse as any for the presence of leading lady Vera Hruba Ralston, Republic's answer to Sonja Henie. Ralston and orchestra leader William Marshall come across the body of producer Edward Norris. Almost everyone in the cast is placed under suspicion, since Norris was a cad and blackmailer. The surprise killer is (as usual) not that much of a surprise, though the scenarists keep us going with some last-minute red herrings. Murder in the Music Hall was reissued in a shortened version titled Midnight Melody in 1951. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this grim melodrama, Barbara Stanwyck plays the eldest of three wealthy sisters who become orphans when their father dies in France. Threatened with the danger of losing the opulent family home, Big Sister makes a grand sacrifice and secretly marries a real estate developer so she can inherit her aunt's fortune. A few years later, she learns that he is after the family estate and wants to tear it down so she leaves him and tries to stop him. More time passes and the husband ends up taking her to court when he learns that she has borne him a son without telling him. The part of "Gig Young" was played by actor Byron Barr who later assumed the name before he became famous. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a has-been stage thespian finds that his alcoholism is ruining his life. When his daughter, a cripple, attempts to show her concern, he rebuffs her with his cruel, razor sharp witticism. His drinking and cynicism continue to increase, but, through it all, his daughter stands steadfastly beside him until her heart is stolen away by a handsome composer. He begins helping her to convince the theatrical community that her father is still a talented actor. Meanwhile, the father, thinking the composer will take his daughter away, remains suspicious of the young man's motives. Finally, after working in a series of odd jobs, the old man lands the lead in King Lear where he is a smash. He then renews a relationship with a wealthy old girlfriend. Meanwhile, the young couple also begin their relationship in earnest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Caught in the Act was filmed under the title You Betcha My Life, in honor of its star, Italian character comedian Henry Armetta. The plot concerns a construction foreman named Mike (Armetta) who inherits a whole passel of headaches when he's promoted to salesman. Among these is a gang of crooks who make their living peddling "protection" to hapless building contractors. Before Mike is able to brings the villains to heel, he himself is tossed behind bars, much to the dismay of his long-suffering spouse Mary (Inez Palange). Though amusing in small doses, Henry Armetta gets a bit wearisome when he's on-screen for nearly a full hour. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of dirt-poor Dust Bowl migrants by 4-time Oscar-winning director John Ford starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who opens the movie returning to his Oklahoma home after serving jail time for manslaughter. En route, Tom meets family friend Casey (John Carradine), a former preacher who warns Tom that dust storms, crop failures, and new agricultural methods have financially decimated the once prosperous Oklahoma farmland. Upon returning to his family farm, Tom is greeted by his mother (Oscar-winner Jane Darwell), who tells him that the family is packing up for the "promised land" of California. Warned that they shouldn't expect a warm welcome in California--they've already seen the caravan of dispirited farmers, heading back home after striking out at finding work--the Joads push on all the same. Their first stop is a wretched migrant camp, full of starving children and surrounded by armed guards. Further down the road, the Joads drive into an idyllic government camp, with clean lodging, indoor plumbing, and a self-governing clientele. When Tom ultimately bids goodbye to his mother, who asks him where he'll go, he delivers the film's most famous speech: "I'll be all around...Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat...Whenever there's a cop beating a guy, I'll be there...And when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build. I'll be there too." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actress/ballerina Vera Zorina stars as a phony countess, working in cahoots with two international con artists (Erich von Stroheim and Peter Lorre). She renounces her earlier life after falling in love with one of her victims (Richard Greene), but her old crooked cronies show up to blackmail her. Zorina confesses to her husband, who forgives all. Von Stroheim and Lorre steal everything but the cameras in their brief scenes, outshining both hero and heroine with their patented rascality. I Was an Adventuress ends with a George Balanchine ballet sequence, which like all such film "highlights" goes on too long and is strictly a matter of taste. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Virtually a textbook example of Howard Hawks' "macho" mode, Only Angels Have Wings takes place high in the Peruvian Andes. Cary Grant heads a ramshackle airmail and freight service, forced to fly in the most perilous of weather conditions to the most treacherous of destinations. Facing death on a near-hourly basis, Grant and his flyers have adopted a casual, all-in-day's-work attitude towards mortality. If a pilot cracks up and dies, it's simply because he didn't have what it took, and that's that. Stranded showgirl Jean Arthur can't stand this cavalier attitude at first, but before long she becomes, in true Hawksian fashion, "one of the guys". Complicating the story is the presence of Richard Barthelmess, who has been persona non grata with the other pilots ever since his carelessness cost the life of one of their number. In addition to a surfeit of guilt, Barthelmess is saddled with a faithless wife, played by Rita Hayworth in her first important A-picture role. Hayworth makes a play for Grant, but he spurns her, finally realizing that, in spite of himself, he's in love with Arthur. Grant himself is riddled with guilt when near-blind pilot Thomas Mitchell insists upon taking on one final flight. Having lost his best friend, Grant drops his hard-bitten shell, and for the first time opens himself up emotionally to Arthur-which of course leads to a nail-biting climax wherein Arthur suffers mightily as Grant faces certain death. Scripted by Jules Furthman from a story by Hawks, Only Angels Have Wings is a treasure trove of terse, pithy dialogue: our favorite scene occurs when, upon discovering that he's about to die, Thomas Mitchell says he's often wondered how he'd react to imminent death-and, now that death is but a few moments away, he'd rather that no one else be around to witness his reaction. Though sometimes laid low by obvious miniatures, the aerial scenes in Only Angels Have Wings are by and large first-rate, earning a first-ever "best special effects" Oscar nomination for Roy Davidson and Edwin C. Hahn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this lively boxing comedy, Steve Bishop is a cowboy who works a waiter in an Italian restaurant. He agrees to participate in a prizefight for charity. He has a lucky punch and knocks out his famous opponent. This leads him to become a famous and wealthy prizefighter. What he doesn't know is that gamblers have fixed all of his fights. Thinking he is indeed a champion, the fighter soon acquires an ego to match his reputation. This inspires the ire of female sportswriter Julie Harrison. She really likes him, but decides to teach him a humbling lesson before things get too out of hand. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Sidney Howard/Paul de Kruf Broadway play Yellow Jack was transferred to the screen by MGM in 1938. The film is set at the turn of the century, when yellow fever was the Number One killer in Latin America. Army doctors Lewis Stone, Charles Coburn and Stanley Ridges gather in Cuba to attempt to find the cause and cure of the dreaded disease. Five US soldiers--Robert Montgomery, Buddy Ebsen, Alan Curtis, Sam Levene and William Henry--volunteer to expose themselves to yellow fever as a means to test the experimental vaccines. In a very well handled close-up setpiece, the audience discovers long before the medical staff that the humble mosquito is the disease carrier. The "Let me be the first to die" brand of heroics is sometimes hard to take, but otherwise Yellow Jack is inspiring entertainment in the grand old Hollywood tradition. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this exciting action film, a young Indy driver endeavors to emulate his famous father, and restore his dad's good reputation after he was killed in a racing in an accident caused by ruthless racketeers who made it look as if the veteran driver was drunk. The young son is assisted by trucker and racing aficionado Blake who helps him defeat the crooks that are trying to kill him too. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Flirting with Fate is one of the lesser Joe E. Brown vehicles for independent producer David L. Loew. Brown is cast as Dixon, the manager of a third-rate vaudeville troupe stranded in a mythical South American country. Completely broke, Dixon hits upon a plan to finance the actors' trip home: he'll take out a huge life insurance policy, then arrange to get himself killed by bandit chieftan Sancho (Leo Carrillo). Unfortunately, Sancho has no interest whatsoever in knocking off our hero, nor can he be insulted into committing the deed. By the final reel, of course, Dixon has decided to go on living-and that's when his life is really in danger, courtesy of a cannister of nitroglycerine. Hungarian-born Steffi Duna provides unintentional laughs as an offkey Latin American songstress. The title Flirting with Fate had previously been used by Douglas Fairbanks in 1917; coincidentally, that film also had a leading character with suicidal notions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide