Dick Ryan Movies

This is the first of numerous westerns produced by A.C. Lyles which became famous not for their stories but for who played in them--all the stars being veterans not often seen on the screen anymore. As far as plot line, essentially we have a badguy who has become a good guy (read that ex gunfighter turned judge) and meets his past in his own court room. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

Tennessee Williams' Broadway play Summer and Smoke (expanded from his one-act piece Eccentricities of a Nightingale) was brought to the screen by adaptors James Poe and Meade Roberts and director Peter Glenville. Geraldine Page repeats her stage role as minister's daughter Alma Winemiller, who lives a spinsterish existence in her WWI-era Mississippi home town. Though her hateful mother (Una Merkel) has nothing but nasty things to say about men, Alma carries a torch for her handsome next-door neighbor and lifelong friend, Dr. John Buchanan (Laurence Harvey). The doctor prefers the companionship of Rosa (Rita Moreno), a "wrong side of the tracks" girl who is as open and freewheeling as Alma is shy and repressed. Desperate for Buchanan's attention, Alma begins behaving with uncharacteristic affection towards him. He misreads her signals and attempts to seduce her. Already on the edge, Alma goes ballistic, literally running out of Buchanan's life. When the doctor throws an engagement party for himself and Rosa, the neurotic Alma tells Buchanan's father (John McIntire) that a wantonly immoral get-together is taking place in the doctor's home--an act of vengeance that has long-range tragic consequences. By film's end, the previously strait-laced Alma, unhinged by previous events, has become as misguidedly passionate as her spiritual sister, A Streetcar Named Desire's Blanche DuBois. Summer and Smoke earned Academy Award nominations for both Geraldine Page and Una Merkel; while Merkel would never win an Oscar, Ms. Page finally collected her statuette for 1985's A Trip to Bountiful. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having gained a measure of TV fame by 1958, the nightclub comedy duo of Dan Rowan and Dick Martin decided to give movies a try with Once Upon a Horse. Dan and Dick play Dan Casey and Doc Logan, a pair of nitwitted cowboys who turn to outlawry because they can't make a go at any honest profession. Stealing a valuable herd of cattle, the boys' dreams of financial security are dashed when they're forced to raise money to feed their stolen bovines. Martha Hyer costars as Miss Amity Babb, a resourceful saloon hall owner who applies 20th century business methods to her 19th century operation. For nostalgia buffs, several western-movie favorites (billed as "Our Old Pals") make cameo appearances, including Tom Keene, Bob Livingston, Kermit Maynard and Bob Steele. Hal Kanter's screenplay is full of clever, satirical touches, most of which proved to be too smart for the room in 1958. A financial disappointment, Once Upon a Horse (aka Hot Horse) would be Rowan and Martin's last joint film effort until 1969's The Maltese Bippy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wild Is the Wind represents a (perhaps deliberate) reversal of the situation in The Rose Tattoo (1955). Whereas in Tattoo, Anna Magnani played a widow who could never find a man to measure up to her late husband, in Wind her character, Giola, marries widowed rancher Gino (Anthony Quinn), who is haunted by the memory of his first spouse. The situation is dicier in Wind, since Italian immigrant Gino's deceased wife was Giola's sister. Eventually tiring of her husband's mood swings, Giola turns to his son, Bene (Anthony Franciosa), for emotional and sexual gratification. A Hollywood approximation of the Italian neorealist school of filmmaking, Wild Is the Wind was based on Furia, a story by Vittorio Nino Novarese. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Loving You was the most autobiographical of all Elvis Presley's movies, and, not coincidentally, features the most naturalistic, easygoing performance of his early career. He plays Deke Rivers, a truck driver with a penchant for singing and a raw animal magnetism where women are concerned. He attracts the business interest of publicity agent Glenda Markle (Lizabeth Scott), who sees a potential gold mine in Deke. She hires him to appear with a band that she handles, fronted by aging country & western singer Tex Warner (Wendell Corey), who used to be romantically involved with Glenda and is now a client. Pretty soon he's pulling in bigger crowds and generating more excitement than Tex did during his best days (which drives the older singer to start drinking again), but also a lot more controversy, too. Deke is so provocatively sexual a presence on-stage that some citizens in the southern and border states where the band is working think that what he does is immoral. Girls can't keep away from him, their boyfriends despise what he symbolizes, and their parents are aghast, even as concert promoter Carl Meade (James Gleason) smells a fortune to be made from this boy. Glenda parlays these disputes and a ban on one of Deke's performances into a national television event. Amid all of this, Deke reveals the private, vulnerable side that no one ever knew -- that he's not even Deke Rivers (it was a name he took off a gravestone), but an orphan named Jimmy Tompkins, and that he's never had a home. He also reveals that he's attracted to Glenda, mistaking (with her encouragement) her interest in his talent with a personal involvement, but he's also drawn the the band's female singer, Susan Jessup (Dolores Hart), who could genuinely love him, and offers him a caring family of her own that would accept him. Deke and Glenda's conflicts are eventually straightened out, and Deke gets to say his piece and sing his music on network television. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The rate of recovery for stolen vehicles has dropped to an all-time low, and Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) want to know why. With information provided by a former thief (and current forger!), the detectives are able to close down on an unusually efficient auto-theft ring. Movie buffs will easily recognize supporting player Thomas E. Jackson as the same man who played police detective Flaherty in the 1931 crime classic Little Caesar. One of several black and white Dragnet episodes to lapse into public demand, thus making it eminently accessible to the home-video market, this installment is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of April 19, 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Glenn Miller Story traces Miller's rise from pit-orchestra trombone player to leader of the most successful big band of his era. June Allyson is on hand as Miller's wife, Helen, who learns the value of patience when Glenn spends his wedding night jamming with Gene Krupa and Louis Armstrong. Given an officer's commission during World War II, Miller helms the swingin'est military band ever heard. In December of 1944, a plane carrying Miller disappears while flying over the English Channel. In memoriam, radio stations all over the world suspend their regular broadcasts to play such Miller standards as "Moonlight Serenade," "Chattanooga Choo Choo," and "Little Brown Jug." Many of Miller's contemporaries, including his first big-time boss, Ben Pollack, appear as themselves. The success of The Glenn Miller Story inspired Universal to give the go-ahead for another musical biopic, 1956's The Benny Goodman Story, with Steve Allen in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With a Song in My Heart is the story of popular 1930s songstress Jane Froman, here portrayed by Susan Hayward. We first see Ms. Froman as a humble staff singer at a Cincinnati radio stations, but it doesn't take her long to rise to the uppermost rungs of network radio fame. Jane gratefully marries her agent (David Wayne), but soon both realize they're not truly in love. While touring with the USO during World War II, Jane is in a plane crash, which severely injures her. She nonetheless valiantly makes a professional comeback, and begins a relationship with the pilot (Rory Calhoun) who rescued her. Jane Froman herself provided the vocals for With a Song in My Heart, with Susan Hayward doing a topnotch miming job. Watch for Robert Wagner in his starmaking cameo as a shell-shocked GI. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title character (Paul Douglas) is a pro football player of the early 1940s at the end of his career. Douglas is offered a coaching job, but he stubbornly turns it down in hopes of making a comeback. Day after day he sits in his den watching movies of his past gridiron triumph, much to the dismay of his wife (Joan Bennett). When she chews him out for living in the past, Douglas walks out and takes up with a younger woman (Linda Darnell). To prove that he's still in top shape, Douglas takes a job as a professional wrestler. His new girl friend, realizing that Douglas is miserable without his wife, conspires with the other woman to get Douglas back on his old team. The wartime need for warm bodies allows Douglas a few more years in football, but eventually he gets wise to himself and takes the coaching job. Ironically, Guy Who Came Back star Paul Douglas was in his youth an football pro who retired from active play to become a sports announcer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Secret Fury works best if one is willing to suspend one's disbelief from the outset. Claudette Colbert stars as Ellen, a famed concert pianist who, on the day of her wedding, is accosted by a stranger who insists that she's already married to someone else. Ellen is willing to laugh this off, until the stranger produces witnesses, records and the justice of the piece. Has Ellen lost her mind, or is she merely the victim of an elaborate scam. With the help of fiancé David (Robert Ryan), Our Heroine begins her own investigation -- and ends up accused of murder and shunted off to a mental institution. And the story isn't over yet! Featured in a pivotal role is future I Love Lucy co-star Vivian Vance, who'd previously worked in an L.A. theatre company with Secret Fury-director Mel Ferrer. For reasons best known to himself, Willard Parker, a fairly well-known film actor in 1950, appears unbilled. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Mister 880 is the whimsical tale of an elderly gentleman (Edmund Gwenn) who dabbles in counterfeiting. He makes only enough "funny money" to support himself, but the fact that his work is so amateurish (he can't even spell "Washington") arouses the indignation of the treasury department. Burt Lancaster, the hard-nosed treasury agent put on the case, is determined to prosecute the miscreant to the full extent of the law. In tracking down a lead, Lancaster falls in love with Dorothy McGuire, a recipient of one of the phony bills. Lancaster discovers that McGuire lives in the same building as Gwenn, and after piecing together the clues arrests the old fellow. Softened by Gwenn's naivete, Lancaster and Ms. McGuire arrange for a compassionate lawyer to lessen what would otherwise be a stiff prison sentence. Mister 880 was to have starred Walter Huston as the ingenuous counterfeiter, but Huston died just before filming started. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1937 screwball comedy of the same name, Easy Living is a film about the world of professional sports. Victor Mature plays Pete Wilson, star halfback of the New York Chiefs. Well past his prime, Wilson would like to retire to a coaching job, but his rival Tim McCarr (Sonny Tufts) beats him to it. Financially, Wilson is really in no position to retire; unfortunately, he has learned that he suffers from a potentially deadly heart condition. To make matters worse, he's on the outs with his wife Liza (Lizabeth Scott), who has become disillusioned with the status of "team wife." A brief dalliance with team secretary Anne (an excellent performance from Lucille Ball) results in Anne's selfless efforts to help Wilson put his marriage -- and his life -- back together. Though he was ignored by contemporary reviewers, future talk-show host Jack Paar has an amusing supporting role. Most of the football players seen in Easy Living were drawn from the ranks of the real-life L.A. Rams. The film was based on a story by novelist Irwin Shaw. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide