Lee Powell Movies

In this serial action film, a group of criminals, led by a costumed villain named the Lightning, are in possession of a dangerous device. A pair of marines set out to find the weapon and foil the crooks. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Made in 1942 but released early in 1943, Secret Enemies is a Warner Bros. espionage quickie, putting the studio's second-echelon contractees to good use. Craig Stevens, Faye Emerson and John Ridgely are the leads in this hour-long meller about a Nazi spy ring operating covertly in America. The FBI sniffs out the "secret enemies," striking another blow against Uncle Adolf. Secret Enemies enabled Faye Emerson to step up into "A" pictures and secured a contract extension for reliable utility player John Ridgely. But Craig Stevens was drafted almost immediately after the film's release; unable to regain his lost footing after the war, it would take Stevens until 1958 to establish himself as a full-fledged star on the TV series Peter Gunn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, guns blaze, fists fly, horses run, and justice prevails in the end. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, two deputies go undercover to save a scientist from his evil kidnappers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Western debut of former opera bass George Houston, The Lone Rider Rides On also inaugurated a new series from struggling small-scale company PRC. Perhaps not an obvious choice for action movie stardom, the heavyset Houston was hired mainly for his voice, and he offered ample proof of his prowess performing the series' signature tune "I'm the Lone Lone Rider", "Roll Along Prairie Wagon", and "Nobody's Fault But My Own", all by house composers Johnny Lange and Lew Porter. The story crafted around all this warbling was the old one about a young boy, the sole survivor of a bandit attack, who grows up to become a lone avenger searching for his family's killers. Tom Cameron (Houston) does indeed locate the guilty party, now a judge (Karl Hackett), but also discovers that one of the judge's henchmen, Curly (Lee Powell), is his own brother Jimmy, presumed to have died in the massacre. With the aid of pretty rancher Sue Brown (Hillary Brooke) and general store manager Fuzzy Q. Jones (Al St. John), "The Lone Rider" kidnaps the judge in order to flush out the entire gang. In the ensuing melee Curly heroically takes a bullet meant for Tom. With the entire gang behind bars, Fuzzy nominates Tom to be the town's new judge, but "The Lone Rider" declines in favor of continuing his lonesome wandering. Although The Lone Rider Rides On in typical PRC fashion skimped on production costs, producer Sigmund Neufeld did surround the new star with an attractive cast that also included former silent screen stars Buffalo Bill, Jr. (aka Jay Wilsey) and Buddy Roosevelt. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Amid the political chaos sweeping across the world in 1939, a new terror arises -- the Purple Death -- and people around the world succumb at random by the hundreds, then thousands, with the identifying symptom being a purple spot on the victim. The authorities are baffled as to the cause or the treatment, and panic is spreading. Dr. Alexis Zarkov (Frank Shannon) determines that the Purple Death is linked to extraterrestrial events. Along with Flash Gordon (Larry "Buster" Crabbe) and Dale Arden (Carolyn Hughes), Zarkov finds an alien spaceship, which they recognize as being from the planet Mongo, home of their old enemy, Ming the Merciless, spreading some sort of dust in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Flash, Dale, and Zarkov head for Mongo, where they discover that Emperor Ming (Charles B. Middleton), whom they believed had been killed at the end of their battle with him on Mars (told in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars), is still alive. He is threatening not only to conquer all of Mongo, but is attacking Earth again, using a "Death Dust" spread by his spaceships that will eventually destroy everyone on Earth.

Flash, Dale, and Zarkov form an alliance with their old friend, Prince Barin (Roland Drew), the rightful ruler of Mongo, who with his wife, Princess Aura (Shirley Deane) -- Ming's own daughter -- rules the peaceful kingdom of Arboria, resisting Ming's military might with their small fleet of ships, the aid of neighboring free kingdoms, and the help of a tiny handful of officers within Ming's own palace who remain loyal to the prince. Their first task is to secure a neutralizing agent for the Death Dust, which exists in the frozen northern kingdom of Frigia, but before they can do that, they have to free the imprisoned Frigian military leader General Lupi (Ben Taggart), who has been captured by Ming. Flash rescues the general, who is about to be used as the subject of a scientific experiment, and secures the aid and gratitude of the Frigians. This barely slows Ming in his plans for conquest, however, and over the next 11 chapters, Flash Gordon and his friends and allies -- including Ronal (Donald Curtis), Roka (Lee Powell), and Captain Suden (William Royle) -- take their battle for the safety of the Earth and the freedom of Mongo to the far reaches of the planet. Battling Ming and his villainous henchmen -- including Captain Torch (Don Rowan) and Lady Sonja (Anne Gwynne) -- from Mongo's frozen northern wastes to its uncharted deserts, Flash and his allies outmaneuver and generally outfight and outwit Ming's larger, better equipped army and spaceship fleet, but they are nearly undone by the spies that Ming has placed in Barin's own household. The bravery of the Earth hero and his friends, and the patriotism and sacrifices of Mongo's people ultimately prove too much for the evil emperor, who finally faces impending destruction from one of his own fiendish inventions. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Singer-songwriter Art Jarrett was given a tryout as a singing cowboy in Grand National's Trigger Pals. His cohorts included Lee Powell, herein billed as Lee "Lone Ranger" Powell because of his recent starring stint in the same-named Republic Serial, and all-purpose comedy relief Al St. John. The villains are a band of rustlers headed by Harvey Kent (Ted Adams), who tries to pin the blame of a recent hijacking on hero Lucky Morgan (Jarrett). Even heroine Doris Allen (Dorothy Fay) believes that Lucky is the guilty party until he clears himself in a slam-bang finale. Though Trigger Pals was well produced, Art Jarrett looked ill at ease in the Wide Open Spaces, thus his first starring western was also his last. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide