Lewis L. Russell Movies

The talented David Wayne is afforded a rare movie starring role in Allied Artists' The Naked Hills. Wayne plays prospector Tracy Powell, whose all-consuming lust for gold motivates the plot. Heading to California during the '49 Gold Rush to try his luck in the mineral-rich mountains, Powell is forever one step behind those who are smarter and swifter than he. Meanwhile, Powell's wife Julie (Marcia Henderson) waits patiently at home for her husband to return from his many lengthy absences. At film's end, the older-but-no-wiser Powell is still chasing rainbows, with the fabled pot of gold still just beyond his reach. The excellent supporting cast includes James Barton as Powell's grizzled partner and Keenan Wynn and Jim Backus as a pair of claim-jumping sharpsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season Two of the Adventures of Superman opened with a bang, and a new level of sophistication in the writing and directing, with "Five Minutes To Doom". Clark Kent (George Reeves) and Lois Lane (Noel Neill) are at the death house in state prison to try and get an interview out of Joe Winters (Dabbs Greer), who is about to be executed for murder; but even for the Daily Planet's offer of $5000 for his honest account of the killing -- which Winters would dearly love to give to his wife and young son -- he can't bring himself to admit to a murder he didn't commit. Kent, using his super-powers, determines that Winters is telling the truth about being innocent; and a murder attempt against the two reporters while on their drive back to Metropolis convinces Lois and their editor, Perry White (John Hamilton), that Kent is onto something. The reporters find some shady aspects to the case surrounding Winters, and a connection to a ruthless, powerful businessman named Wayne, who seems to be hiding something. But can even Superman work fast enough to save a man scheduled to be executed in less than a day? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

When the Redskins Rode is set during the French and Indian Wars of the mid-18th century. Jon Hall stars as Prince Lennoc, the son of Delaware-chief Shingiss (Pedro de Cordoba). The English are on the verge of signing an alliance with Shingiss, but their efforts are stymied by alluring French spy Elizabeth (Mary Castle). As part of her strategy, Elizabeth romances Lennoc, who almost falls for her seductive wiles. The film finally delivers the goods actionwise in an exciting climactic battle. Producer Sam Katzman, a man not known for lavish budgets, manages to make When the Redskins Rode seem far more expensive than it really was. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Written by murder-mystery specialist Craig Rice, The Underworld Story concerns a corrupt newspaperman (Dan Duryea), who is in the pocket of a gangster (Howard da Silva). When he's fired by a big-city paper, the newsman buys an interest in a small-town weekly. It is while thus occupying that man reforms, devoting himself to clearing a black woman falsely accused of murder. Gale Storm co-stars as Duryea's assistant, who helps him expose an intricate and insidious conspiracy of silence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another entry in Columbia's bucolic "Rusty" series, My Dog Rusty again pairs apple-cheeked Ted Donaldson with Flame the Dog. This time around, Hugh Mitchell (John Litel), father of mischievous Danny Mitchell (Donaldson) is running for mayor. Thanks to Danny's propensity for lying, the elder Mitchell is disgraced in the eyes of the community. Somehow, Danny's faithful hound Rusty (Flame) not only cinches the election for Mitchell, but also helps him to understand the underlying psychological reasons for his son's prevarications. Columbia contact actress Ann Doran does her usual fine job as Mrs. Mitchell, while Whitford Kane, former member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater, delivers an effective performance as a philosophical blind man. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a scatter-brained professor nearly starts a riot when he writes a book claiming that women like to be treated roughly. A paper publishes snippets from the book and later the professor, feeling he was misquoted, begins suing for libel. The paper then sends out a female reporter to dredge up some dirt on the sexist academic. Not only does she do her job and prevent the suit, she and the professor end up falling in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now is the heavily laundered musical biopic of sentimental songwriter Joe E. Howard. As played by Mark Stevens (whose singing voice was dubbed by Buddy Clark), Howard is a humble 19th century organ salesman who rises to Broadway fame as the composer of maudlin ballads like "What's the Use of Dreaming" and jaunty ditties like "Hello My Baby". Along the way, he enjoys several romantic interludes, but it is fresh-faced American chorine Katie (top-billed June Haver) who lands Howard as her hubby. In real life, Joe E. Howard, who lived well into his eighties, was married several times; he was also a notorious "lifter" who regularly claimed credit for songs he never wrote (including this film's title tune!) But producer George Jessel chooses not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, maintaining a policy established by his earlier The Dolly Sisters and sustained through such subsequent musical life stories as Oh, You Beautiful Doll The I Don't Care Girl. Singer/dancer/director Gene Nelson makes his screen debut as Tommy Yale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a puritanical math teacher at a midwestern university is forced by the dean's wife to go to New York to collect the royalties for a naughty romance the latter wrote under a penname. Unfortunately, while there, the professor suffers a blow to the noodle and wakes up believing that she wrote the torrid little tome. Now she finds herself being manipulated by a clever publisher who has the phony writer become passionately involved with a bogus Russian nobleman. Later the woman's memory returns and she goes back to her dull, well-ordered life on campus. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a Chicago team of radio scriptwriters must split up when he takes a job with his bride-to-be's father, and the other must write commercial jingles. Their agent then appears and tells them they have a $1,000 per week assignment in Tinseltown provided they work together. They accept and board a train with their girl friends. There they meet the sponsor and a millionaire who offers them twice the money to work for him. They take the latter offer, but then two orderlies from an asylum board the train and grab the millionaire who turns out to be a nut case. They quickly go back to the sponsor and re-sign their contract. Unfortunately, once in California, the learn that it is the sponsor who is bonkers, not the millionaire. Now the two couple reboard the train and begin looking for the millionaire. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

True Confession was one of the unfunniest of the "screwball" comedies of the 1930s, and its musical remake, Cross My Heart, isn't much of an improvement. Betty Hutton steps into the old Carole Lombard role as Peggy, a compulsive liar who'll do anything to help her attorney fiance Oliver Clarke (Sonny Tufts) get ahead. When it looks as though an unsolved murder case will be Clarke's ticket to success, Peggy, sticking her tongue in her cheek (as she always does when she's about to tell a whopper), glibly confesses to the killing. Peggy's plan is to allow her boyfriend to prove her innocence, thereby cementing his reputation as a man of integrity-but things don't go quite as planned. The subsequent trial is enlivened by the antics of looney Russian actor Peter (Michael Chekhov), who may or may not be the actual murderer. Betty Hutton's song numbers are just about as mediocre as the rest of the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A servant with no experience ends up teaching the master of the house a thing or two in this comedy. Molly Barry (Gracie Fields) is a struggling actress who is short on money and needs paying work. When she learns that John Graham (Monty Woolley), a wealthy and respected former politician, needs a housekeeper, Molly figures that being a maid can't be that much different than playing one, and she takes the job. However, the straight-laced and prickly Graham has a habit of rubbing people the wrong way, having driven away his wife and seriously alienated his son Jimmy (Roddy McDowell). Graham's butler Peabody (Reginald Gardiner) is one of the only people willing to stand by him. But Molly tolerates no nonsense from Graham and teaches him how to better get along with people, including his son. Meanwhile, as various members of the staff quit, Molly begins to replace them with old friends from her days in the theater, until Graham's estate is practically a refuge for out-of-work thespians (Molly also makes a surprise discovery about Peabody's work history). Molly and Me also features several songs sung by Gracie Fields, a major musical comedy star in Great Britain. This proved to be her last feature film, though she remained active in television and on the stage. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

"You can live a long time in three days -- sometimes when you're in a tight spot, you can live a year in ten seconds." US Army Air Force Major Bob Collins (Robert Cummings), Captain "Shakespeare" Anders (Don Defore), and Lt. "Handsome" Janoshek (Charles Drake) are three happy-go-lucky combat pilots, decorated heroes who are on a tour promoting War Bonds. Their public relations representative from the Treasury Department, Ivy Hotchkiss (Lizabeth Scott), finds at first that can't do much more than tag along, picking up after them and observing their carousing, especially Collins, who seems to have a wide array of female acquaintances in every city they visit. Indeed, although she says little about it, their carousing is out-of-proportion to their circumstances -- yes, their current mission involves a lot of cramped traveling cross-country. shaking hands, endless speechifying, and even more endless listening to tributes to the heroism of the air corps, all of which gets boring and tiring very fast; but these men act like they're burning the candle at both ends, almost manic in their pursuit of women and laughs, and just as devoted to the three of them enjoying anything they do together, past the point of pilots' usual comraderie. They go so far as to sneak out ahead of one extremely important rally, but eventually Ivy gets them to straighten up and fly right, at least when they're supposed to, and the trio -- who has taken a liking to her for being such as good sport -- agrees to behave, at least when they're supposed to be meeting the public. After a few more misunderstandings, some of them comical, she actually gets to like the trio; the four of them become friends, and Ivy starts getting especially close to Bob, despite his womanizing ways -- but whenever she asks Handsome and Shakespeare about Bob's story, they get very close-mouthed and vague. She doesn't think too much of it, enjoying the time she's having with them, until the truth is accidentally dumped in her lap by a well-meaning medical officer (Rhys Williams) -- that Bob, for all of his freewheeling, happy-go-lucky outlook on life and love, is terminally ill. She suddenly understands their behavior and the true depth of the friendship that Handsome and Shakespeare share with him -- she's also nearly shattered, but she dares not let Bob know that she knows, for fear of destroying what little time he has left. The trio at last becomes a true foursome, bound together around Bob and Ivy. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This curious mixture of comedy, romance and melodrama teams up comic actor Eddie Bracken and glamour girl Veronica Lake, two of Paramount's most popular stars of the mid-1940s. He plays Ogden Spencer Trulow III, a wealthy kleptomaniac; she plays Sally Martin, who may or may not provide the "cure" for the lovesick Trulow. As it turns out, Sally is a professional thief, part of a gang planning to rip off the Romanoff necklace. Trulow tries to prevent this, and in so doing divest himself of his own kleptomania. Sally's cohorts aren't at all interested in Trulow's problems, and accordingly spend half the film trying to bump him off. Buried somewhere in the glossy silliness of Hold That Blonde is a pre-WW1 play by Paul Armstrong; some of the sight gags in the film are even older than the Armstrong original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide