John Royce Movies

Sealed Cargo was based on The Gaunt Woman, a novel by Edmund Gilligan. Dana Andrews stars as Pat Bannon, a Newfoundland fishing-boat captain during WW II. Coming to the rescue of an endangered vessel, Bannon finds himself in the middle of a nest of Nazi spies. Reasoning that he'll never be able to alert the authorities, Bannon takes it upon himself to scuttle an impending large-scale German submarine attack. Claude Rains is the personification of cultured evil as the head Nazi naval officer, while Carla Balenda co-stars as an innocent bystander who may well lose her life as a result of Bannon's planned heroics. Sealed Cargo was one of several moneymaking films released by RKO Radio during one of the studio's most profitable years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Excellent Technicolor photography, principally in the aerial scenes, is the main asset of the cliché-ridden Fighter Squadron. Set in the months just prior to D-Day, the plot zeroes in on Marjor Ed Hardin (Edmond O'Brien) leader of a squadron of fearless combat pilots. In keeping with the conventions of the era, the training and flying sequences are counterbalanced with comic byplay involving wheeler-dealer Sergeant Dolan (Tom D'Andrea), whose flippant attitudes towards the opposite sex are a bit hard to take today. Far more effective is the performance of 15-year-old Jack Larson, making his screen debut in the role of a rookie pilot who grows up in a hurry after scoring his first kill (Larson later gained TV immortality as Jimmy Olsen on Superman). Also making his first screen appearance, in a role so small it isn't even billed, is a former truck driver named Rock Hudson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Billy Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo is the third take on Lajos Biro's theatrical tale of romance and espionage, Hotel Imperial. This time, the action is transplanted from World War I Galicia to World War II Egypt as Rommel's Afrika Corps viciously forces the British Army to retreat towards Cairo. Protagonist John J. Bramble (Franchot Tone) is stranded in the Sahara, the lone survivor of a British tank crew. In shock and suffering from sunstroke, Corporal Bramble deliriously staggers across the desert searching for the nearest outpost. What he finds is the Empress of Britain Hotel in the Libyan border town of Sidi Halfaya. The city has been deserted and destroyed; no one remains but the Inn's owner, Farid (Akim Tamiroff), and the French chambermaid, Mouche (Anne Baxter). To the woman's chagrin, Farid conceals the English soldier as the Germans commandeer his hotel for the lodging of General Rommel (Erich Von Stroheim). Mouche is unsympathetic toward the plight of any Englishman. She feels the British had abandoned the French Army at Dunkirk, where one of her brothers was killed and another was captured. She has remained in Sidi Halfaya only to wait for the German Army and to bargain for her sibling's freedom, not to help the British. Despite Mouche's protests, Bramble assumes the identity of the hotel's deceased waiter, Davoss, who was crushed during an air raid. Surprisingly, the disguise affords him an immediate audience with Rommel. Davoss was, in fact, a top-secret Nazi spy. This access to Rommel, the invincible Desert Fox, inspires Bramble to remain at the Empress. It becomes his mission to steal the crucial secret of the five supply depots the Germans have buried from Tobruk to Cairo -- which gave them a fighting advantage -- and possibly turn the war in Britain's favor. Meanwhile, after being rejected by the General, Mouche is desperately reduced to "entertaining" Rommel's deceitful lieutenant in order to help her brother. She and Bramble inevitably grow closer as they each struggle to save what is dear to them. When the body of the real Davoss starts to emerge from the rubble in the Empress' basement, it becomes Mouche's fate to make the ultimate decision between saving one brother and saving many. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

With Dorothy Arzner in the director's chair, it's no wonder that First Comes Courage has a more feminist slant than most WWII "underground" films. Merle Oberon plays Nicole Larsen, a member of the Norwegian resistance. To obtain important war information, Nicole romances Nazi major Paul Dichter Carl Esmond, enduring the slings and arrows of those villagers unaware of her motives. Her mission is further complicated when she is reunited with British commando Allan Lowell Brian Aherne, with whom she'd had a prewar affair. Forced to choose between love and duty, Nicole makes the only decision possible under the circumstances. First Comes Courage was based on The Commados, a novel by Elliot Arnold. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide