Stanley Ross Movies
- 1947
Albert Dekker plays a crooked investment agent who embezzles a large sum from an estate, hoping to cover his crime by marrying the estate's heiress (Catherine Craig). The girl is already engaged, so Dekker arranges to have the fiance killed. The hit man's only means of identifying the victim-to-be is his picture in the society columns. But the girl changes her mind and agrees to marry Dekker--meaning that it is his picture that will appear in the columns, thereby condemning him to death. Desperately trying to contact the hit man, Dekker discovers that the man is dead...but the assassin's successor is still at large. A cheap but tidy "hoist on his own petard" melodrama, The Pretender was produced and directed by W. Lee Wilder, brother of the more famous (and frankly more talented) Billy Wilder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ernie S. Adams, John Bagni, (more)
Screen Guild's Killer Dill trods a comedy path previously taken by such films as Mr. Lemon of Orange and The Whole Town's Talking. Stuart Erwin stars as Johnny Dill, milquetoast door-to-door salesman who happens to be the exact double of a notorious Prohibition gangster. When the bad guy murders a rival, poor Dill is really in a pickle. Our hero finds himself stuck between the forces of good, represented by crusading attorney Allen (Frank Albertson), and the minions of evil, played by such veteran movie heavies as Mike Mazurki, Anthony Warde and Ben Welden. Erwin's well-thought-out performance helps to cover the gaping story holes and logic gaps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Albertson, Stanley Andrews, (more)
