Neva Patterson Movies

In this romantic comedy, a middle-aged postmistress from a small town goes to a post office convention in New York and promptly falls in love with a man who is engaged to another. His fiancee is a widow with a teenage son. The man really wants a family, but he also really wants the postmistress.Trouble ensues while he makes up his mind. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This stark and spare look at the world of the mentally disturbed was one of the beacons of the new American independent film movement. Keir Dullea and Janet Margolin star as two adolescents who make contact with each other in a home for disturbed youngsters. Dullea is David Clemens, who is placed in the home by his mother because of his constant fear of being touched. Margolin is Lisa, a 15-year-old schizophrenic who speaks only in rhyme, when she speaks at all. David rejects the help of psychiatrist Alan Swinford (Howard Da Silva) but makes an emotional connection with Lisa. Because of his contact with Lisa, David eventually opens up to Swinford and his mother. But his mother is dissatisfied with his progress and takes him back home. Home life, however, consists of his mother's domineering ways and parental quarrels, so David runs away and returns to the home for disturbed youngsters. But then an argument with Lisa leads to a climactic confrontation. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Based on the Broadway play by Robert Fryer and Lawrence Carr, Desk Set represents the eighth screen teaming of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn plays the head of a TV network research department; Tracy plays an efficiency expert, hired to modernize Hepburn's operation. When Tracy has a huge computer installed, Hepburn and her co-workers (including Joan Blondell and Sue "Miss Landers" Randall) fear that they're going to lose their jobs. Their suspicions are confirmed when the computer merrily begins issuing pink termination slips. But something is obviously amiss: the computer not only fires the ladies, but also the head of the network--and Tracy, who isn't even on the company payroll! At this point, Tracy explains that the computer was designed to help Hepburn and her staff and not replace them; he also confesses that, given the pink-slip incident, this might not have been such a hot idea. But Hepburn, who has fallen in love with Tracy, is in just the right mood to forgive him--and doesn't need to consult her research files to come up with this decision. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Solid Gold Cadillac was adapted from the George S. Kaufman-Howard Teichmann Broadway hit of the same. Both the play and film were predicated upon the notion of a humble ten-share stockholder triumphing over a corrupt big-business board of directors, but there was one significant difference. In the stage version, septuagenarian Josephine Hull starred as Laura Partridge, a sweet little old lady who asks several embarrassing questions at a stockholder's meeting. In the film version, Laura's age is lowered by at least four decades to accommodate star Judy Holliday. In both versions, a romance develops between Laura Partridge and Edward L. McKeever, the owner of the corporation she takes on. McKeever (played in the film by Paul Douglas, Holliday's co-star in the Broadway version of Born Yesterday) is an honest man, which is more than can be said for his self-serving board of directors (Fred Clark, John Williams, Ray Collins et. al.) With McKeever's covert help, Laura, who has been given a dummy executive position in the corporation in hopes that she'll shut up, forms a stockholder's association intent upon throwing the rascals out. Though the dialogue in Solid Gold Cadillac is consistently entertaining, the film's best line goes to Judy Holliday: Describing her brief career as an actress in a Shakespearean troupe, she recalls ruefully that "No one's allowed to sit down unless you're a king." George Burns, taking over from the stage version's Fred Allen, provides the wry scene-setting narration. Currently available TV prints of The Solid Gold Cadillac have restored the original Technicolor final shot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taxi stars Dan Dailey as Ed Nielson, a been-there-done-that Manhattan cabbie. Nagged by his mother (Blanche Yurka) to find himself a wife, Ed must also contend with a blood-sucking loan company, demanding huge payments for his cab. His life is further complicated when he falls in love with one of his fares: Mary, a young Irish immigrant (Constance Smith), freshly arrived in New York in search of her husband. The girl discovers that her hubby is a louse, but she's forced to stay with him lest she face deportation. Despite his own problems -- not to mention the huge cab fare that Mary's running up while searching for her husband -- Ed vows to rescue his new love from an ungovernable fate. Though running only 77 minutes, Taxi boasts no fewer than six screenwriting credits. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide