Anthony Ross Movies

MGM romantic Robert Taylor turns nasty in this low-budget crime melodrama. Taylor plays a cop who subsidizes his income with bribes and payoffs from various criminals and politicians. Taylor's brother (Steve Forrest), a rookie on the police force, is as honest as his brother is crooked. The younger brother witnesses a gangland murder; the killer goes to Taylor, demanding that he buy his brother off. When he realizes that his brother can't be corrupted, Taylor tells the Mob to lay off. An out-of-town torpedo is brought in to rub out both brothers, but he succeeds only in killing the honest sibling. His conscience aroused, Taylor goes after the mob leaders himself; though seriously wounded, he clears his family name. Rogue Cop set something of a schedule record at MGM, with only four months elapsing from the time the story was optioned to the time the film was released. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Juvenile delinquency is the subject of the misleadingly titled Universal-International potboiler Girls in the Night. Patricia Hardy plays Hannah Haynes, the sister of good-boy-gone-bad Chuck Haynes (Harvey Lembeck). When Chuck ends up facing a murder charge, Hannah takes decisive action. She goes after crime boss Irv Kelleher (Don Gordon), risking life and limb in the process. Top-billed Joyce Holden plays Hannah's best friend, who helps cook up a scheme to entrap Kelleher. Glenda Farrell delivers the film's best performance as Chuck and Hannah's careworn mother. Ironically, Girls in the Night co-star Harvey Lembeck would go on to play one of the most lovable "j.d."s in screen history: Eric Von Zipper in the "Beach Party" series of the 1960s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This serial is set during the American Civil War and is based on the Jules Verne story. A Union Army captain is captured by the Confederates and imprisoned in Richmond, Virginia. He and four other men escape in a balloon, but a hurricane blows them off course and they land on an uncharted island. There they encounter a tribe known as the Volcano People, are menaced by a wild savage, and run into a female alien from outer space bent on world domination. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

The Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur Broadway comedy Ladies and Gentlemen formed the basis of the Warner Bros. laughspinner Perfect Strangers. The title characters are Terry Scott and David Campbell, played by Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan. She's a divorcee, he's a husband and father. Terry and David are thrown together by fate -- or rather, the LA judicial system. While serving as jurors on a murder trial, the two fall in love. Ironically, the woman on trial allegedly killed her husband because he'd asked for a divorce. The seriocomic tension develops on two levels: will juror Isobel Bradford (Margolo Gillmore) be able to sway the others to vote for the death penalty, and will Terry and David continue to pursue their romance at the expense of the happiness of others? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Between Midnight and Dawn is a solid, no-frills detective drama from the Columbia studio mills. Mark Stevens and Edmond O'Brien star as police officers Barnes and Purvis, who tool around in their prowl car in the wee hours of the morning. Vengeful gangster Ritchie Garris (Donald Buka) would like nothing better than to get Barnes and Purvis out of his hair, especially after breaking out of jail. In a thrill-packed climax, Garris makes a desperate escape using a little kid as a shield, while Purvis tries to second-guess the homicidal gangster. As Kate Mallory, Gale Storm has little to do except serve as the bone of romantic contention between the two male protagonists. Curiously, Storm doesn't get to sing, though supporting actress Gale Robbins does--three times, in fact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Vincente Minnelli was slated to direct The Skipper Surprised His Wife, but Elliot Nugent stepped in when Minnelli was transferred to another MGM comedy, Father of the Bride. The titular skipper, Cmdr. William Lattimer, is played by Robert Walker, while his wife Daphne is portrayed by Joan Leslie. When Daphne is incapacitated by a broken leg, the skipper takes over management of their home. A stickler for nautical discipline, Lattimer tries to run things "the Navy way," but this proves not only futile but ridiculous. A secondary plot involves the efforts made by Lattimer and his superior officer Admiral Homer Thorndyke Edward Arnold to line up appropriate civilian jobs for other Navy husbands. Very slight stuff, The Skipper Surprised His Wife at least affords Robert Walker a rare opportunity to play comedy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based in part on a true story, Kiss of Death is given a veneer of reality by being filmed on location in New York, with a bare minimum of studio work. In one of his best performances, Victor Mature plays a cheap crook who is sent up the river for 20 years for robbery. District attorney Brian Donlevy, out of sympathy for Mature's two young daughters, gives him a chance to go free--if Mature will blow the whistle on his accomplices. Stubbornly adhering to the "code" of thieves, Mature refuses to do so, until his wife kills herself and his kids are placed in an orphanage. Once paroled, Mature is prevailed upon to extract additional information from sadistic mob torpedo Richard Widmark (in his chilling screen debut). Living with his children under an assumed name, Mature gradually divests himself of all criminal tendencies, and falls in love with sympathetic Coleen Gray. But Mature feels that it's only a matter of time before Widmark will come gunning for him, so he goes back to Donlevy, offering to turn over evidence that will send Widmark up for life. Thanks to a clever mob attorney, Widmark beats the rap, and Mature knows he is doomed. On his own, he schemes to arrange his impending demise so that the cops will have an air-tight case against Widmark. The last five minutes--one of the most tense 300 seconds on film--is devoted to the cat-and-mouse showdown and ultimate shootout between Mature and Widmark. Though much of Kiss of Death is a "conformist gangster film" (to quote critic Andrew Sarris), the presence of Richard Widmark makes up for any of the script's banalities. This is the film in which Widmark gigglingly pushes a wheelchair-bound old lady down a flight of stairs. Reviewer James Agee said it best: "You feel that murder is the kindest thing he is capable of". The film made Widmark a star--and also convinced him to start lobbying immediately for good-guy roles so that he wouldn't be typecast as maniacal killers for life. Kiss of Death was remade as the 1958 western The Fiend Who Walked the West, then re-remade under its original title in 1994, with David Caruso in the Mature role and Nicolas Cage in the Widmark part. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moss Hart's hit Broadway play Winged Victory was brought to the screen in 1944, with most of its original cast intact. The story, concerning regular Joes from all walks of life joining the Army Air Force, is secondary to such theatrical setpieces as a camp show wherein several virile Hollywood leading men cavort about in drag. As a break from the all-male atmosphere, Hart adds a scene in which several wives and sweethearts discuss their fighting men; among these ladies is 23-year-old Judy Holliday. Reflecting the fact that most of the cast was actually serving in the Armed Forces at the time of filming, many of the actors are billed with their rank included: Pvt. Lon McAllister, Sgt. Edmond O'Brien, Cpl. Lee J. Cobb, and so on. While the patriotic elements of Winged Victory have faded in the intervening five decades, the film is worth a glance for its heady cast lineup of celebrities-to-be, including Peter Lynd Hayes, Red Buttons, Barry Nelson, and future director Martin Ritt. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide