Zachary Scott Movies

Zachary Scott made his screen debut in this clever bit of film noir that has gained a cult reputation in recent years. Dutch mystery novelist Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) is travelling through Istanbul when he meets Col. Haki (Kurt Katch), head of the secret police and a big fan of Leyden's work. He offers to tell Leyden about Dimitrios Makropoulos (Zachary Scott), a notorious criminal whose body was just found washed up on the beach. It seems that Makropoulos was involved in nearly every sort of lawless act imaginable, from murder and blackmail to espionage and political assassination. Fascinated, Leyden decides that Makropoulos would be a fine subject for his next book, and he begins researching his life, beginning with Haki's dossier on the criminal. Leyden's research takes him through much of Europe; while en route by rail to Sofia, he meets a large man with an ingratiating chuckle, Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet), who informs Leyden that "There is not enough kindness in the world," and tells him of a good hotel in town. Grateful for the advice, Leyden checks in, only to later find Peters ransacking his room and holding him at gunpoint; it seems that Peters had business with Makropoulos, and he isn't entirely convinced that the master criminal is dead -- especially since his body was found with shabby clothes and no money, and the police in Istanbul had never actually seen a photo of Makropoulos. Based on a novel by Eric Ambler, The Mask of Dimitrios also features Faye Emerson, who was in the news at the time, as she had just wed the son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Southerner was Jean Renoir's favorite of his American films. Shot on location, the film stars Zachary Scott as a sharecropper who yearns for a place of his own. On a tiny, scraggly patch of land, Scott tries to make a go of things, along with his wife Betty Field, his grandmother Beulah Bondi, and his children Jean Vanderwilt (aka Bunny Sunshine) and Jay Gilpin. Though a proud, independent man, Scott is forced by circumstance to seek help from neighboring farmer J. Carroll Naish, whose life experience have left him bitter and vituperative. The two men become enemies, but are reunited by their mutual love of fishing. Scott suffers a setback when a rainstorm destroys his cotton crop. He is about to go wearily back to working for others (specifically, factory owner Charles Kemper, who also narrates the film) when he is convinced by his never-say-die family to persevere on his own. Director Jean Renoir also wrote the script for The Southerner--in fluent English rather than French, as mental exercise. Told at a leisurely, unhurried pace, the film is the one American Renoir effort that comes closest to his "slice of life" dramas of the 1930s. The Southerner was not a box office hit, but did win the effusive praise of critics, not to mention the Venice Film Festival "best picture" award. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an amoral, manipulative womanizer gets his comeuppance. The story begins as the handsome cad is witnessed quickly leaving a hotel room in the East. He has just stolen money, and a wedding band from a dead woman. He is next seen in L.A. living under an alias. There, he begins victimizing two naive sisters and uses them to substantially increase his wealth. Eventually, the two figure out the man's evil game, but there is little they can do to thwart him. Meanwhile, the gigolo is being stalked by the husband of the woman he robbed in the film's beginning. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A visibly uneasy Spencer Tracy plays the title role in this lavish MGM screen version of Sinclair Lewis' 1945 magazine serial. A small-town bachelor judge, Cass Timberlane, takes a personal interest in beautiful stenographer Jinny Marshland (Lana Turner), who appears one day as a witness in his court. They marry after a whirlwind courtship, but Jinny soon finds herself stifled among Cass' country club cronies and their haughty wives. A stillborn baby makes things even worse and the young wife attempts to find solace in amateur theatrics. Thus she is easy prey for suave lawyer Bradd Criley (Zachary Scott), who nevertheless does the decent thing and moves to New York. Jinny convinces her husband to follow, but after halfheartedly attempting to find a practice in the Big City, he discovers that there's no place like home. A terrible car accident that almost costs Jinny her life bring husband and wife together, however, and both discover that they belong in Grand Republic, MN, in general and with each other in particular. MGM apparently had a difficult time finding Spencer Tracy's co-star and at one point attempted to borrow Jennifer Jones from producer David O. Selznick. Vivien Leigh and Virginia Grey were also considered before the role of Jinny finally was awarded to Lana Turner. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Veterinarian Ronald Reagan contracts anthrax from treating diseased cows in this horsey melodrama from Warner Bros. In fact, Reagan's dutiful Dr. Larry Hanrahan is so busy with the cows that he completely ignores a summons from lady horse breeder Rory Teller (Alexis Smith) to treat her prize-winning stallion. Rory is pretty peeved over what she perceives as a slight and briefly, ever so briefly, contemplates accepting a proposal of marriage from smooth-talking author Stephen Purcell (Zachary Scott). Until, that is, the seriousness of Larry's condition finally forces her to take a drastic measure: to treat the dying vet with the same serum he had used on the cattle. According to some reports, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were scheduled to star in Stallion Road as a follow-up to the hugely successful The Big Sleep (1946). Rather than appear in what they rightfully considered a Grade-B production, they chose to go on suspension. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Produced by Milton Sperling's United States Pictures, South of St. Louis was given a widespread release by Warner Bros. The story begins in the last days of the Civil War. Chased off their property by guerillas, ranching partners Kip Davis (Joel McCrea), Charlie Burns (Zachary Scott) and Lee Prince (Douglas Kennedy) head southward to seek out a new life. Davis and Burns go into the gun-running business, while Prince joins the Confederate Army. Kip and Charlie battle over the affections of saloon gal Rouge de Lisle (Alexis Smith), a turn of events that falls into the plans of rival gunrunner Luke Cottrell (Victor Jory). The three former friends soon find themselves enemies, and thereby hangs the plotline. Curiously, Dorothy Malone, cast as the "good" heroine, seems to be more worldly and cunning than hard-boiled temptress Alexis Smith. Originally filmed in Technicolor, South of St. Louis was for many years available only in its black-and-white, TV-print form. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Virginia Mayo is Flaxy Martin in this complicated Warner Bros. melodrama. Flaxy is a bad girl but good company, especially when she's around criminal attorney Walter Colby (Zachary Scott). When Colby begins to have second thoughts about his gangster cohorts, Flaxy arranges a murder frame, forcing the attorney to go on the run. The bulk of the film is a thrill-packed chase teaming Colby with the film's resident Good Girl, Nora Carson (Dorothy Malone). Also figuring into the proceedings is Elisha Cook Jr., playing his usual shifty little creep. Director Richard L. Bare had only recently moved up from the "Joe McDoakes" comedy shorts to features when he guided Flaxy Martin with skill and aplomb. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fourth of Joan Crawford's Warner Bros. vehicles, Flamingo Road doesn't hold up as well as her earlier Mildred Pierce or Humoresque, but there's plenty to please the eye and ear. Sideshow kootch-dancer Lane Bellamy (Crawford), stranded in a backwater town, gets a job as a waitress. Lane begins falling in love with Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott), the political protégé of the town's big-daddy sheriff Titus Semple (Sidney Greenstreet). Semple regards Lane as a gold-digging troublemaker, and does his best to break up the romance, framing her on a trumped-up morals charges and having her shipped off to prison. Once out of the "joint," Lane returns to town, seeking revenge against both Semple and Carlisle. She charms political hack Dan Reynolds (David Brian) into marriage, then transforms Reynolds into a "reform candidate" bent on destroying the corrupt Semple machine. Faced with political ruin, Lane's ex-beau Carlisle commits suicide, a fact that Semple uses as a weapon against Reynolds. A showdown is inevitable--but the story is far from over! Flamingo Road later served as the basis for a weekly TV series; both the film and the series were based on a play by Robert and Sally Wilder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A murder is witnessed by the victim's little daughter (Gigi Perreau), who immediately goes into a state of shock. All the girl has seen is the shadow of her mother's killer, but the audience knows that the murderer is Ann Sothern. At first Sothern is secure that the girl will never be able to identify her, but as the child shows signs of recovering, Sothern panics. Though the murder was unintentional and the killer is quite fond of the little girl, she nonetheless begins scheming to put the potential witness out of the way. Quite tense at times, especially in the last scene, Shadow on the Wall represents one of the few unsympathetic performances by the otherwise likable Ann Sothern. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Zachary Scott plays Max Thursday, an alcoholic ex-police detective working as a bouncer at a sleazy rooming house owned by Smitty (Mary Boland), a likeable, earthy old lady. Thursday's former wife, Georgia (Faye Emerson), shows up one night, while her ex-husband is in an alcoholic stupor, to tell him that their three-year-old son Jeff is missing, taken by her brother, Fred, on some errand from which he did not return. Thursday goes after his ex-brother-in-law's employer, Doc Elder (Jed Prouty), a broken-down physician with a shady past, who manages to get the former cop drunk before knocking him cold. Awakening in a police cell, Thursday is questioned by his former boss, Capt. Mark Tonetti (Sam Levene), about where he was last night, and who might've murdered Doc Elder. Thursday has no choice but to stay sober as he tries to trace the leads he has left. No one admits to knowing anything about the person named Saint Paul, who Elder was meeting, so he tries to find the man Elder was afraid of, Otto Varkas, a notorious smuggler. Varkas (J. Edward Bromberg) isn't much help, though he reveals that he is worried about a hired killer named Stitch Olivera (Elliott Sullivan). While leaving Varkas' office, Thursday spots Angel (Kay Medford), a "business girl" he last saw near Elder's building. He finds out that she's the girl Fred was seeing, and that she's got him on ice, wounded, but he hasn't said anything about a kid; he also won't reveal the whereabouts of the package that he was picking up for Doc Elder (a diamond necklace worth 400,000 dollars) which was to go to Saint Paul. Before they can get to Fred, two of Varkas' men grab him, and Thursday is just drunk enough from his stop with Angel to be unable to stop them. He tries to get to Varkas, but the gang leader and his men are killed and Fred is taken by Olivera. Thursday fights off the hit man in a vicious battle in a Brooklyn subway station that leaves him with a clue that to his astonishment seems to point Thursday back where he started: to the rooming house where he lives. He pieces it together through a fading alcoholic haze, and figures out what's been bothering him about Olivera being a step ahead of him each time he was getting close to Fred: Smitty is Saint Paul, and has been manipulating Thursday since he left with Georgia. The wounded Fred tells the ex-cop what he knows, and Thursday, sober and focused for the first time, takes Olivera in a sudden explosion of gunfire. Ignoring Smitty's offer of a half-share from the sale of the jewels, he calls police headquarters and then his wife, so they can go and get their son together. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Glenn Ford plays a convict who breaks out of a 19th century Nevada prison in the company of several less handsome inmates. When they enter a snowbound California village, they find that all the men have left to prospect for silver; only the women remain. The village is known as Convict Lake because, years earlier, $40,000 of stolen money was hidden somewhere in the area. Town matriarch Ethel Barrymore seems to know where it is, but she ain't talkin'. After recovering the money, the convicts are forced to shoot it out with the returning menfolk. All prisoners are rounded up by the law except for Glenn Ford, who has fortuitously been cleared of false charges, allowing him a fadeout embrace with costar Gene Tierney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Let's Make It Legal begins at the end--the end of the long marriage between beautiful grandmother Miriam (Claudette Colbert) and her chronic-gambler husband Hugh (Macdonald Carey). Barbara (Barbara Bates), the daughter of the couple, hopes to bring her parents back together, which proves to be a difficult proposition when Miriam's old flame Victor (Zachary Scott), now a millionaire, arrives in town. Hugh tries all sorts of comic strategies to win his ex-wife back, but to no avail. Ultimately, Miriam must choose between the financially solvent Victor and the impishly irresponsible Hugh. This being a comedy, it isn't hard to figure who's going to be headed to the altar at fade-out time. Let's Make It Legal was partly designed to showcase two of Fox's up-and-coming contract players: Robert Wagner and Marilyn Monroe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wings of Danger was originally released in England as Dead on Course. This early Hammer Studios effort stars Zachary Scott as an airline pilot named Van. When Van's pal Nick Talbot (Robert Beatty) is strong-armed into aiding a gang of smugglers, it's time to take decisive action. Adventure-film veteran John Gilling adapted the screenplay from a novel by Elleston Trevor. Distributed in Great Britain by Exclusive Films, Ltd., Wings of Danger was released in the U.S. by Lippert Pictures. According to some sources, the U.S. version was trimmed by a couple of minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide