John Berkes Movies

Billy Winder directed and co-wrote this bitterly satiric comedy-drama which turns a jaundiced eye towards both the news media and its consumers. Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) is a talented but short-tempered reporter whose fondness for booze and unwillingness to bow to authority has cost him jobs at some of America's most prestigious newspapers. When Tatum's car breaks down in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tatum persuades the editor of the local paper (Porter Hall) to give him a job until he can make enough to get his jalopy running and find a story that will put him back in the good graces of the Big City journals. After a year in Albuquerque, Tatum begins to wonder if a big scoop will ever cross his path, but when he's sent to Los Barios to cover the annual rattlesnake hunt, he lucks into a great human interest story -- Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), who runs a local diner, motel and curio emporium, is caught in an abandoned mine shaft after a rockslide, which some superstitious locals attribute to an Indian curse. Tatum writes up the story with all the flourish he can muster, and portrays Leo's wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling) as a devoted spouse fearful for her husband's life, even though she can barely stand Leo and is planning to leave him. Tatum's story is picked up by the wire services and he makes friends with local sheriff Kretzer (Ray Teal) to insure he has an inside line on updates on Leo's rescue. When Tatum learns that Leo can be freed in a mere twelve hours, he persuades Kretzer and his men to adopt another rescue method that will take several days, which will generate more copy for Tatum, more press attention for Ketzer's re-election campaign, and more business for Lorraine's diner. Soon Los Barios is the biggest tourist attraction in the state, but as the media circus mounts, Leo begins to fall seriously ill. Also released as The Big Carnival, Ace In The Hole was a major box-office disappointment upon its original release in 1951, even though it was sandwiched between two of Wilder's biggest hits, Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17. Despite never being released in home video until 2007, Ace In The Hole's bitter tone earned it an enthusiastic cult following, and it's now regarded as one of Wilder's best films of the Fifties. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

My Dream Is Yours is a Technicolor remake of the jaunty 1934 Warner Bros. musical Twenty Million Sweethearts. But there's a significant difference here: whereas in the earlier film singing-waiter Dick Powell was turned into a crooning idol, in the remake it is Doris Day who is catapulted to stardom. Jack Carson (who was reportedly romantically involved with Day during filming) is the hot-shot promoter who makes a celebrity out of Day and lives to regret it, as does she, before the happy ending. The film's highlight is an animated dream sequence courtesy of Warners' cartoon division, directed by Friz Freleng and featuring cameos by Bugs Bunny and Tweety. Edgar Kennedy makes his final screen appearance in the role of Day's flustered uncle. The songs in My Dream Is Yours includes the big hit from Twenty Million Sweethearts, "I'll String Along With You." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This cute film is Doris Day's film debut and in it she plays Georgia Garrett, a substitute traveller on an ocean cruise. Her friend Elvira Kent (Janis Paige) had scheduled the cruise but at the last minute cancels when she suspects that her husband is cheating on her and she decides to stay at home to check up on him. So she gets her friend Georgia to go on the cruise in her stead. Meanwhile the husband hires a detective to watch Elvira while on the cruise, because, he too, suspects cheating. Of course, the detective falls for the substitute Elvira (Doris Day), making a somewhat complicated scenario with many possibilities. This is a fun-filled spoof with lots of good tunes by Doris Day. ~ All Movie Guide

Three years after song-and-dance man Dick Powell reshaped his nice-guy image by playing hard-boiled gumshoe Phillip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet, he returned to film noir with this crime-based thriller. Johnny O'Clock (Dick Powell) and his partner Pete Marchettis (Thomas Gomez) operate a gambling casino that has seen better days. Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon), a cop on the take, wants in on the casino, and he makes friends with Pete while trying to convince him that Johnny, the smarter of the two, should go. When Chuck's girlfriend Harriet (Nina Foch) is found dead, a supposed suicide, his sister Nancy (Evelyn Keyes) smells a rat, especially after Chuck skips town. Nancy is convinced that her sister was murdered, and she asks Johnny to help her prove it. Johnny, who already has a number of women in his life -- including Nelle (Ellen Drew), Pete's wife -- figures that one more can't hurt and agrees to help her. But Police Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb), convinced that Johnny and Pete were behind Harriet's death, is making it hard for Johnny to do much investigating, and matters get worse when Chuck's body is found floating in the river. Screenwriter Robert Rossen made his directorial debut with this film, 14 years later, he would return to this film's tough, gritty style for his best picture, The Hustler. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Reminiscent of the classic "screwball" comedy-mysteries of the prewar years, Columbia's The Corpse Came C.O.D stars Warner Bros. alumni George Brent and Joan Blondell as rival Hollywood-based reporters Joe Medford and Rosemary Durant. When movie star Mona Harrison (Adele Jergens) receives a dead body in her morning mail, Joe and Rosemary fall over each other trying to solve the mystery and deliver a newspaper story "that'll tear this town wide open." Joe deduces that the dead man was involved with a jewelry-smuggling racket, while Rosemary chases down the stolen gems. Three murders later, the two reporters expose the killer-and though it wouldn't be nice to reveal the killer's identity, it's also worth noting that it won't be much of a surprise, either. Topheavy with comedy at the expense of mystery, The Corpse Came C.O.D. is an entertaining trifle, with the actual Columbia backlot standing in for the movie's fictional film studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, two ex-hoods find their attempts to straighten up and fly right are foiled by a blackmailing gangster who threatens to expose their past who forces them to rob the department store they work at. Outwardly, the crooks go along with the scam, but they have also devised a scam of their own. In the end, the extortionist is killed by a cop and the two reluctant robbers turn themselves in. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Killers uses Ernest Hemingway's short story as a springboard for a complex film noir. Two mysterious men (William Conrad and Charles McGraw) muscle their way into a small town and kill an aging boxer (Burt Lancaster, making his screen debut), who offers no resistance and seems to be welcoming his death. An insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) is hired to locate the beneficiary to Lancaster's policy, and in the course of his investigation reopens a long-dormant robbery case. In a series of flashbacks, O'Brien makes the connection between Lancaster and the robbery and tracks down the "brains" behind the operation. He also comes in contact with Lancaster's former girlfriend (Ava Gardner), whose duplicity played a big part in Lancaster's demise -- and his indifferent reaction to it. Siodmak's hard-edged, moody direction of the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Anthony Veiller, makes The Killers one of the definitive films noirs, including what is considered to be one of the greatest opening sequences in movie history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, a chorus of convicts conspires to get a paroled crooner chucked back in the clink. Songs include: "Time Will Tell," "Now And Always," "Round The Bend," and "How Lovely." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The usual modus operandi for Hollywood "through the years" sagas was to gradually age its young actors in the course of the film. In Mrs. Parkington, 35-year-old Greer Garson appears in old-lady makeup for virtually the entire 124-minute running time, even though this filmization of Louis Bromfield's best-selling novel covers the years 1875 through 1938. Eightyish widow Mrs. Susie Parkington (Garson) gathers together all of her grown children in an effort to bail out son-in-law Amory Stilham (Edward Arnold), who's gotten in Dutch through crooked financial deals. As the children and grandchildren bicker over the "impossibility" of giving up any part of their inheritance, Mrs. Parkington's mind wanders back to her marriage to wealthy mine owner Maj. Augustus Parkington (Walter Pidgeon) and her own efforts, as an unlearned Nevada serving girl, to fit into proper Manhattan society. Augustus' ex-love Aspasia Conti (Agnes Moorehead, in a surprisingly sexy role) is engaged to teach Susie the in and outs of which fork to use and how low to curtsy. Shut out by the "400," Susie is avenged by her husband, who wheels and deals to ruin the snobs financially. Later on, he assuages his anger by conducting several extramarital affairs, before perishing in one of those convenient movie auto accidents. Just how all these incidents strengthen Mrs. Parkington's resolve to rescue her wastrel son-in-law is a mystery that even two viewings of this overlong soap opera may not solve. Incidentally, Greer Garson isn't the only one who is prematurely aged in Mrs. Parkington; keep an eye out for 27-year-old Hans Conried, convincingly playing a doddering musician. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a harem in a Middle Eastern palace, the guardian leads the women he protects in telling the tale of Halroun-Al-Raschid (Jon Hall), the Caliph of Bagdad, who found himself an enemy close to home in the form of his half-brother Kamar (Leif Erickson), who was ineligible for the throne because of his mother's having been a slave. Halroun and his followers initially put down Kamar's attempt at usurpation, until Halroun's ambitious vizier Nadan (Edgar Barrier) changes sides. In the confusion of the ensuing battle, Halroun is wounded -- spotted by the young acrobat Ali (Sabu), he is sheltered by a group of traveling players led by Ahmad (Billy Gilbert), whose ranks also include a player and storyteller (and, if he is to be believed, former sailor) named Sinbad (Shemp Howard) and a man named Aladdin (John Qualen) who is searching for a magic lamp -- and a dancer named Scheherazade (Maria Montez), who had beguiled Kamar and welcomes his ascent to the throne, because she has been told that she is destined to marry a king. She loves the wounded man in her care, whose identity she doesn't know, but is intent on marrying Kamar, now that he is Caliph. But her plans are thwarted by Nadan, who wants no competition from her in his sway over Kamar, and has arranged to have her killed; but when an avaricious officer (Turhan Bey)instead sells her and the entire performing troup to a dishonest slave trader (Thomas Gomez). From that moment, complications ensue for all concerned, as the new Caliph goes after his beloved, the deposed king Halroun tries to protect her and regain his throne, and Nadan hopes to come out sitting on the throne himself. Treachery and narrow escapes, and even a few thwarted plans ensue on all sides as the hero Haroun has to watch out for Scheherazade and himself from several sides at once, all while keeping his identity from her. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Just before entering the armed services, Gene Autry delivered one of his best Republic westerns, Cowboy Serenade. Many of Autry's previous vehicles had suffered from too much music and not enough action. Happily, Cowboy Serenade struck the happy medium common to Autry's vintage 1930s efforts. There's even time for a mystery angle as Autry tries to ascertain the identity of the head of a crooked gambling ring. Autry's leading lady this time out is Fay McKenzie, in real life the sister-in-law of comedian Billy Gilbert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

By PRC Studios standards, Mr. Celebrity is decidedly an "all-star" picture. The title character is a prize race horse, jointly owned by veterinarian Jim Kane (James Seay) and his orphaned nephew Danny Mason (Buzzy Henry). When not tending to ailing nags, Kane struggles to prevent Danny's snobbish grandparents (William Halligan and Laura Treadwell) from gaining custody of a boy. Naturally, Kane will be able to afford to officially adopt Danny himself, if only Mr. Celebrity wins that all-important Big Race. The film's highlight is the custody-hearing sequence, in which several human celebrities of yesteryear show up as witnesses: Silent film stars Clara Kimball Young and Francis X. Bushman, both of whom reminisce about their career highlights, and former boxing champion Jim Jeffries, who recalls his glory days of the 1890s. Incidentally, leading lady Doris Day is not the 1950s box-office champ of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide