William Post, Jr. Movies

Those who fail to learn from history, the saying goes, are destined to repeat it. This is the lesson propounded by the 60-minute documentary Farewell to Yesterday. Producer Edmund Reek and screenwriter Joseph Kenas, both members of the Fox Movietone Newsreel team, demonstrate through a series of well-chosen filmclips the tragic errors of judgment, diplomacy and omission that brought about World War II. Much of the material is drawn from the Movietone vaults, though certain scenes were contributed by foreign film services. Farewell to Yesterday benefits from the insightful voiceover narration by Sidney Blackmer, John Larkin, Kermit Murdock and William Post Jr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Filmed in semi-documentary fashion, House on 92nd Street is a "now it can be told" drama about the smashing of a Nazi spy ring operating the U.S. Thanks to covert surveillance, the FBI learns of the presence of several suspicious persons in NYC. William Eythe is a German-American college student approached by the spies to become a secret Nazi operative. Eythe instead heads directly to FBI chief Lloyd Nolan and offers his services as a double agent. His mission is to locate the head of the spy ring, an unseen figure known only as Mr. Christopher, and to that end Eythe infiltrates the ring, headquarted in a town house on 92nd street. Among the conspirators are an erudite German colonel (Leo G. Carroll) and the beautiful female owner of the house (Signe Hasso). Part of the plot involves the smuggling to Germany of America's atomic secrets by a weak-willed document clerk (played by Gene Lockhart, one of the best "cringers" in the business). Dwelling a bit too long on the meticulous research techniques of the FBI, House on 92nd Street picks up momentum in the final sequence, wherein "Mr. Christopher" is revealed and double agent Eythe barely escapes with his skin intact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bride by Mistake is a remake of the 1934 Miriam Hopkins vehicle The Richest Girl in the World, with a wartime angle providing topicality. Tired of being romanced by fortune hunters and being rejected by poor-but-proud suitors, fabulously wealthy Norah (Laraine Day) decides to pose as her own secretary Sylvia (Marsha Hunt), and vice versa. The plot thickens when Norah falls in love with convalescing fighter pilot Tony (Alan Marshall)-while he in turn falls for the very married Sylvia. All sorts of manic complications ensue, with Sylvia's hapless husband (Allyn Joslin) the "odd man out". RKO Radio revived Richest Girl in the World for a third time in 1954 as the Jane Russell musical The French Line. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this downbeat drama based on a novel by John Steinbeck (which was also adapted for the stage), German troops invade Norway during WWII, and Nazi forces occupy a small town. Col. Lanser (Cedric Hardwicke), the officer in charge of the occupation, believes that reason and the illusion of cooperation will achieve more than open hostility against the townspeople, and he tries to persuade the city fathers to work with him. However, an anti-Nazi resistance force soon springs into action, and they begin sabotaging German installations and materiel and assassinating Axis officers. Mayor Orden (Henry Travers) gently but stubbornly refuses to assist Lanser in any way, as he tacitly aids the resistance movement. Eventually, Lanser is forced to respond to the continuing anti-Nazi actions with a series of arrests and executions, but the Norwegians bravely remain steadfast against the enemies to the end. One of the children in the village is played by Natalie Wood, who was a mere five years old at the time (it was her second film, following a small role in Happy Land). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Pacific Rendezvous is a B-picture remake of the 1935 MGM A-picture Rendezvous, updated to accommodate WW2. Lee Bowman plays the old William Powell role as a American naval intelligence operative (this time named Lt. Bill Gordon) assigned to decipher enemy code. His mission is compromised by his romance with dizzy debutante Elaine Carter (Jean Rogers, in the role originated by Rosalind Russell). Despite Elaine's well-meaning ineptitude, our hero is able to foil the plans of a group of Nazi agents. Easy to take, Pacific Rendezvous may not be any classic-but then, neither was the original film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of Universal's "modernized" Sherlock Holmes films pits the Great Detective (Basil Rathbone, of course) against that "Napoleon of Crime," Professor Moriarty (Lionel Atwill). Surpassing his previous skullduggery, Moriarty has now aligned himself with the Nazis and has dedicated himself to stealing a top-secret bomb sight developed by expatriate European scientist Dr. Franz Tobel (William Post Jr.). Before being kidnapped by Moriarty's minions, Tobel was enterprising enough to disassemble his invention and distribute its components among several other patriotic scientists. Racing against the clock, Holmes and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) try to stem the murders of Tobel's colleagues and prevent Moriarty from getting his mitts on the precious secret weapon. The now-famous climax finds Holmes playing for time by allowing Moriarty to drain all the blood from his body, drop by drop ("The needle to the last, eh Holmes?" gloats the villain). Dennis Hoey makes his first appearance as the dull-witted, conclusion-jumping Inspector Lestrade. Constructed more like a serial than a feature film, Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (based loosely on Conan Doyle's The Dancing Men) is one of the fastest-moving entries in the series; it is also one of the most readily accessible, having lapsed into public domain in 1969. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Advertised as a sort of sequel to MGM's Babes in Arms (1939), Babes on Broadway reunites the two stars of the earlier film: Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. Rooney is the guiding force of a group of young showbiz hopefuls who are trying to make it on Broadway. When things look darkest, he goes into his "Say, kids!" routine, rousing his companions to put on their own show. Highlights include a sequence in which Rooney and Garland go through a series of imitations of past theatrical greats. As cute and perky as Garland is, she has nothing on the "Carmen Miranda" takeoff performed--in full makeup and platform shoes--by the ubiquitous Rooney. Babes on Broadway ends with a typically overproduced production number stage by the film's director, the immortal Busby Berkeley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actress Shelah Fane (Dorothy Revier) is in Honolulu to shoot a movie, but her chaotic personal life is keeping her from concentrating on work. She's supposed to marry millionaire playboy Alan Jaynes (William Post Jr.), but she's also got an ex lurking around and a possible skeleton in her closet in the form of her one-time lover, actor Danny Mayo, who was murdered in Hollywood three years earlier in a case that's still officially unsolved. Fane seems to have resolved some of her problems and is prepared to move forward with her life -- with help from phony mystic Tarnevarro (Bela Lugosi) -- when she turns up murdered. Inspector Chan (Warner Oland) is up to his neck in possible suspects, including Tarnevarro, who was getting inside information on Fane and working some kind of scam; Fane's assistant, Julie O'Neil (Sally Eilers), who felt compelled to tamper with evidence; her would-be fiance, Jimmy Bradshaw (Robert Young), who tried to keep Julie from finding the body; Fane's oily ex (Victor Varconi); Smith (Murray Kinnell), a painter and beachcomber who was lurking around the murder scene; and two servants, Jessup (Dwight Frye) and Anna (Violet Dunn), one of whom seems very nervous. Several of these people had motive and opportunity, and the plot thickens considerably when some seemingly innocuous witnesses admit to hiding evidence, others start turning up dead, and yet others seem to be destroying evidence. Chan, juggling this list of suspects (and the thinly veiled racism of some of them) and the presence of his well-meaning but inept assistant Kashimo (Otto Yamaoka), as well as his family life, maintains his cool, cerebral demeanor throughout, despite attempts on his own life and the slang-laden yammering of his children, which the detective scarcely understands. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide