Susan Peters Movies

Santa Fe Trail, Errol Flynn's third western, has precisely nothing to do with the titular trail. Instead, the film is a simplistic retelling of the John Brown legend, with Raymond Massey playing the famed abolitionist. The events leading up to the bloody confrontation between Brown and the US Army at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, are treated in a painstakingly even-handed fashion: Brown's desire to free the slaves is "right" but his methods are "wrong." Whenever the leading characters are asked about their own feelings towards slavery, the response is along the noncommittal lines of "A lot of people are asking those questions," "I don't have the answer to that," and so forth. Before we get to the meat of the story, we are treated to a great deal of byplay between West Point graduates Jeb Stuart (Flynn) and George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan), who carry on a friendly rivalry over the affections of one Kit Carson Halliday (Olivia DeHavilland). Just so we know that the picture is meant to be a follow-up to Warners' Dodge City and Virginia City, Flynn is saddled with Alan Hale and "Big Boy" Williams, his comic sidekicks from those earlier films. Despite its muddled point of view, Santa Fe Trail is often breathtaking entertainment, excitingly staged by director Michael Curtiz. The film's public domain status has made Santa Fe Trail one of the most easily accessible of Errol Flynn's Warner Bros. vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fact that James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, Mildred Pearce et. al.) was responsible for the storyline is the sole distinguishing feature of the pedestrian Warner Bros. melodrama Money and the Woman. Roger Pryor plays bank teller Charles Patterson, an outwardly honest soul who is actually a conscienceless embezzler. When Patterson becomes seriously ill, his wife Barbara (Brenda Marshall) calls upon bank president Dave Bennett (Jeffrey Lynn), beginning his forgiveness for her husband's past misdeeds. It turns out that Patterson isn't worth the effort, since he's been carrying on a torrid affair with coworker Miss Church (Lee Patrick). But Barbara doesn't have time to grieve, inasmuch as she's fallen in love with the handsome Bennett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Scattergood Pulls the Strings was the second in a series of B pictures based on the long-running radio series Scattergood Baines. Guy Kibbee returns as Baines, the philosophy-dispensing proprietor of the general store in the village of Coldriver. Living up to the film's title, Scattergood manages to solve practically everyone's problems in the course of the film's brief running time. He is especially effective in helping a pair of young lovers (Susan Peters and James Corner) achieve their life's ambition, and in reuniting a 10-year-old boy (Bobs Watson) with his long-missing father (silent screen veteran Monte Blue). If this film were any more heartwarming, it would catch fire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Buck Privates knockoff concerns the misadventures of the three Patterson brothers: Charley (Wayne Morris), Eddie (Tom Brown) and Kenneth (William T. Orr). Pampered by their pacifistic mother Margaret (Irene Rich), the Patterson boys do everything they can to avoid being drafted into the Army. Once they've donned unifom, however, our heroes calmly and courageously do their patriotic duty, while their mother at last realizes it's all for the best. Before this happens, however, the audience is subjected to all manner of goofy slapstick setpieces, including a trained-seal bit right out of the Mack Sennett era. Incidentally, Three Sons O' Guns costar William T. Orr was the son-in-law of Jack L. Warner, whose studio produced the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) realizes that it's time to appoint a new assistant to replace young Dr. Kildare. Gillespie is obliged to choose from three highly qualified candidates: Dr. Randall "Red" Adams (Van Johnson), Dr. Lee Wong How (Keye Luke), and Dr. Dennis Lindsay (played by future director Richard Quine). To test their mettle, he gives all three interns a chance to diagnose a separate delicate case. Though the results aren't quite to Gillespie's liking, the ending is "open" enough to suggest that at least two of the three candidates will be around for the next series entry, Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case. Side note: Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant co-stars Richard Quine and Susan Peters were married in 1943. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Just because Humphrey Bogart had been promoted to the A-list by way of The Maltese Falcon (1941), that didn't mean that he was completely free of such minor potboilers as The Big Shot. Bogart stars as mob leader Duke Berne, a three-time loser who tries in vain to reorganize his old gang upon being sprung from prison. Falling in love with Lorna Fleming (Irene Manning), the wife of crooked attorney Martin Fleming (Stanley Ridges), Berne ends up back behind bars for life, thanks to the vengeful Fleming's courtroom chicanery. Escaping during a prison variety show (dominated by Chick Chandler as an incarcerated blackface comedian), Berne makes a beeline for Lorna, who deserted the duplicitous Fleming when the latter railroaded an innocent young man into jail. Hoping to find happiness in a remote mountain hideaway, Berne ultimately realizes that he's no good for Lorna and spends the rest of the picture atoning for past sins. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Young Ideas is a deliberately "small" MGM feature designed as a trial balloon for up-and-coming director Jules Dassin. Hardly in the league of Dassin's later Naked City, Rififi or Never on Sunday, the film nonetheless satisfies within its own modest limits. Susan Peters and Elliot Reid play Susan and Jeff Evans, the grown-up children of widowed author-lecturer Jo Evans (Mary Astor). When mom falls in love with staid professor Michael Kingsley (Herbert Marshall), Susan and Jeff do their best to break up the romance. Susan is briefly distracted from her dubious mission when she herself falls for handsome drama prof Tom Farrell (Richard Carlson). Ava Gardner appears in an uncredited bit role; like director Dassin, she would do rather better for herself in later years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One can only imagine the reaction of arch-conservative MGM head Louis B. Mayer when Song of Russia first tumbled over the spools in the studio projection room. It must be remembered, however, that back in 1944 it was politically expedient for Hollywood to offer hosannas to America's Russian allies, and to gloss over the less-attractive aspects of the Stalin regime. Based on Scorched Earth, a story by Leo Mittler, the film stars Robert Taylor as John Meredith, a famous American symphony conductor who is touring Russia just before the war. Meredith falls in love with Russian lass Nadya Stepanova (Susan Peters), who impresses him with her conviviality and charm: why, she's almost like a typical American girl! In the course of their romance, Meredith and Nadya visit a collective farm, where the peasants sing, dance and smile all day. The lovers marry, only to have their honeymoon abruptly halted when the Nazis invade the Soviet Union. Nadya promptly joins the Resistance, solemnly assembling molotov cocktails and shooting down Germans with her comrades. Just before the Nazis swarm into Nadya's village, the peasants set fire to the place so that Hitlers minions will not be able to plunder its resources. All of this is played out against the music of Tschiakovsky and other Russian composers. During the HUAC investigations in the early 1950s, several of the personnel involved in Song of Russia were required to explain why they'd been involved in so blatantly "pro-communist" a project. Louis B. Mayer blithely explained that he "just wanted to make a picture about Russians, not communists," while star Robert Taylor -- likewise a staunch anti-Red -- insisted that he'd been forced to make the film, and that he'd demanded script deletions throughout productions. In the end, the losers were screenwriters Richard Collins and Paul Jarrico, both of whom ended up on the egregious Hollywood Blacklist, simply for adhering to America's wartime pro-Soviet sentiments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Susan Peters, a fine actress of the 1940s whose career was curtailed by an accident which left her wheelchair-bound, utilizes her handicap to her advantage in Sign of the Ram. Peters plays an invalid wife and mother who exercises dictatorial control over all around her. Peters' loved ones are willing to forgive her nastiness due to her condition--a fact that she realizes fully and exploits to the utmost. Eventually her atrocious behavior leaves Peters alone and friendless, but even in her darkest moments she insists upon being a "control freak" and engineers her own spectacular death. Far more tasteful than it sounds, Sign of the Ram was a worthwhile valedictory vehicle for Susan Peters, who died a few years after the film's release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide