Charles Seel Movies
- 1938
Despite the presence of Busby Berkeley in the director's chair, Comet Over Broadway contains nary a single musical number. Instead, the film concentrates on the lachrymose private life of stage star Eve Appleton (Kay Francis). While appearing in amateur theatricals, Eve indirectly causes the death of a fellow actor at the hands of her husband Bill (John Litel). When Bill is thrown into jail, Eve goes on the road, appearing in one cheap stock company after another to earn enough money for her husband's parole. Seven years pass, during which time Eve becomes the toast of Broadway. Falling in love with playwright Bert Ballin (Ian Hunter), Eve almost forgets the reason that she climbed to stardom in the first place, but by the final reel she elects to give up personal happiness to remain loyal to her incarcerated husband. Way, way down the cast list of Comet Over Broadway is Linda Winters, who as Dorothy Comingore achieved stardom in Orson Welles'Citizen Kane (1941). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, (more)
- 1939
Pat O'Brien is his usual likably obnoxious self in the Warner Bros. newspaper yarn Off the Record. While trying to smash a numbers racket, star reporter Breezy Elliot (O'Brien) takes tough young numbers-runner Mickey Fallon (Bobby Jordan) under his wing. The kid gets a job as a copy boy, earning the enmity of one and all because of his inability to keep his fists to himself. Mickey redeems himself-and, by extension, Breezy-when he engineers the capture of his gangster brother Joe Fallon (Alan Baxter). The romantic angle is handled by Breezy's gal Friday Jane Morgan (Joan Blondell), who eventually agrees to marry the hero only if he adopts the troublesome Mickey as his son (gee, things were so much simpler in the movies!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, (more)
- 1949
First love leads to unexpected responsibilities and difficult decisions in this well-crafted drama. Sally Kelton (Sally Forrest) is a free-spirited young woman who is chafing at the restrictions of living at home with her folks and wants to make something of herself. One evening after work, she stops for a drink with some friends and meets Steve Ryan (Leo Penn), a charming but cynical piano player. Sally falls for Steve in a big way and they embark on a brief romance, but Steve regards Sally as a passing fancy and soon moves on to another town. While Sally follows him, Steve makes it clear things are over between them and he takes a gig in South America. Heartbroken Sally takes a new job at a filling station and general store run by Drew Baxter (Keefe Brasselle), a war veteran with a bad leg and a serious crush on Sally. Sally is still getting over Steve and isn't interested in Drew when she learns that she's carrying Steve's child. The disgraced Sally decides to give her child up for adoption, but finds her maternal instincts are stronger than she expected and her desire to have her baby back leads her on a desperate and dangerous path. While Streets of Sin (aka Not Wanted) is credited to director Elmer Clifton, most of the picture was actually shot under the aegis of co-producer Ida Lupino after Clifton fell ill during production; it was the actress' first film as a director. In the '60s, Streets of Sin was reissued as The Wrong Rut, with the addition of footage of a Caesarian birth "borrowed" from an educational film, and booked into drive-ins and grindhouses on the exploitation circuit. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, (more)
When Otto Preminger was willing to release his drug-addiction drama Man With the Golden Arm without the sanction of a Production Code seal, it proved to be yet another nail in the coffin of that censorial dinosaur. Based on the novel by Nelson Algren, the film stars Frank Sinatra as Frankie Machine, expert card dealer (hence the title). Recently released from prison, Frankie is determined to set his life in order -- and that means divesting himself of his drug habit. He dreams of becoming a jazz drummer, but his greedy wife Eleanor Parker wants him to continue his lucrative gambling activities. Since Parker is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a car accident caused by Frankie, he's in no position to refuse. Only the audience knows that Parker is not crippled, but is faking her invalid status to keep Frankie under her thumb. Gambling boss Robert Strauss wants Frankie to deal at a high-stakes poker game; terrified that he's lost his touch, Frankie asks dope pusher Darren McGavin to supply him with narcotics. When McGavin discovers that Parker is not an invalid, she kills him, and Frankie (who is elsewhere at the time) is accused of the murder. He is willing to go to the cops, but he doesn't want to show up with drugs in his system. So with the help of sympathetic B-girl Kim Novak, Sinatra locks himself up and goes "cold turkey"-a still-harrowing sequence, despite the glut of "doper" films that followed in the wake of this picture. After Parker herself is killed in a suicidal fall, the path is cleared for Frankie to pursue a clean new life with Novak. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, (more)
- 1956
In their search for a diamond thief, Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) visit a bar frequented by the suspect. Their search is temporarily sidelined when bar employee Alice Kolbar is beaten to death by her jealous husband. It turns out that Alice may have been romantically involved with the alleged jewel thief...but the only real evidence the detectives have to go on is a custom-made hat with the initials "T.R." This episode is based on the Dragnet radio broadcast of February 15, 1955. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1957
From the folks who brought you I Was a Teenage Werewolf comes this relentlessly shlocky variation on the Frankenstein legend. Whit Bissell stars as Professor Frankenstein, descendant of you-know-who, who harbors a few radical theories about limb transplantation. Laughed at by students and colleagues alike, the good professor intends to prove the efficacy of his theories in his own lab at home--keeping an alligator as a "pet" to dispose of discarded body parts. When a carful of teenagers crashes near his home, Frankenstein and his assistant Carlton (Robert Burton) gather up the bodies and begin stitching up the fragments, adding a few chunks of flesh recovered from a convenient plane wreck. The result is a teenaged monster (Gary Conway) with a bad attitude. Already a bit off in the coop to begin with, Professor Frankenstein goes completely bonkers, using the monster to dispose of such awkward witnesses as the professor's fiancee Margaret (Phyllis Coates). The film's final burst of violence is filmed in color, for no discernable reason. If for nothing else, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein would be memorable for Professor F's deathless line to his sullen creation: "Answer me! You have a civil tongue in your head! I know, I sewed it in there!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates, (more)
- 1958
This episode is clearly inspired by the famous "Bridey Murphy" affair of the mid-'50s. During a party, Lucy Pryor (Phyllis Thaxter) allows herself to be hypnotized by Professor Miles Farham (Tom Helmore). While in a trance, she regresses to the year 1853 and assumes the personality of a Quaker woman named Dora Evans -- and then, just as Dora Evans had done over 100 years earlier, Lucy promptly murders her husband. During her subsequent trial, Lucy undergoes hypnosis a second time to prove that she had had no control over herself when committing the murder...and the results are astonishing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Based on an actual Civil War mission, Colonel Marlowe (John Wayne) and Major Kendall (William Holden) are ordered by General Grant to take three regiments 300 miles into enemy territory. They must destroy the railroad line between Newton Station and Vicksburg in hopes of choking off supplies to the South. Marlowe encounters a Southern belle loyal to the enemy, and keeps her in sight throughout the journey so she can't warn the Confederates. Kendall, a Northern surgeon, and the crusty Marlowe have their differences along the way. Action, romance and gory battlefield surgery accompany the army as the mission is completed. John Ford directed this film based on a novel by Harold Sinclair. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, William Holden, (more)
- 1959
John Carradine and Michael Landon guest star in this early episode of The Rifleman. The only one in town to own a shotgun, young Billy Mathis (Landon) becomes the obvious suspect when Hallager (Robert Bice) is shot in the back. Especially when Sheriff Torrance (Paul Fix) learns that the victim had refused young Billy to court his daughter Lucy (Sue Randall). But both the sheriff and Lucas McCain (Chuck Connors) remain unconvinced and the latter finally agrees to let traveling mind reader James Barrow McBride (Carradine) add his two cents. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Carradine
- 1959
Tired of churning out dull commission jobs, sketch artist Anthony March (Michael Higgins) yearns for more excitement in his life. One afternoon, Anthony glances out of the window of his Greenwich Village apartment and sees a young woman apparently planning to commit suicide in her hotel room--but when he rushes over to save her, the room turns out to be empty. This disturbing hallucination occurs time and time again before coming to a startling climax when Anthony's model Jeannie (a young Louise Fletcher) finds herself playing a key role in the proceedings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
In this entertaining comedy by Charles Walters, everyone seems to get in on the act, even the dog and especially the four overactive kids in a wildly challenging family. David Niven co-stars with Doris Day as Lawrence and Kate Mackay, distinctive parents struggling with home, life, and family. Lawrence opts for leaving his job teaching at Columbia University in New York for a post as a drama critic for a Gotham newspaper, bringing new problems to the pile the family already owns. First, they are forced to move out -- far out -- to the countryside with their brood and canine. And next, while Kate handles home, hearth, and hellions, Lawrence proceeds to alienate one of his best friends with a shattering review. That unhappy beginning to his new career also brings in one of the actresses damaged by his cutting remarks (Janis Paige), who wreaks her own form of havoc on poor Lawrence. In the meantime, Day gets to sing some songs which add to the light-hearted attitude of it all. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Doris Day, David Niven, (more)
Those familiar only with Johnny Horton's song hit North to Alaska might not be aware that the song came equipped with a movie. John Wayne and Stewart Granger star as a couple of lucky miners in Alaska Territory during the '98 gold rush. Since the Duke is the only man he can trust, Granger sends his pal to Seattle to fetch his fiance. Fabian appears in the cast (playing Granger's brother) primarily to attract teenage filmgoers; he gets to sing, of course, but he's better than usual. The film's centerpiece, an outsized brawl in the muddy streets of Nome, was repeated with several variations in Wayne's subsequent McLintock (1963). North to Alaska was based on a considerably more genteel stage play, Laszlo Fodor's Birthday Gift. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Stewart Granger, (more)
- 1960
In this crime drama, a man serves five years in the state pen for armed robbery. Upon his release, the man is anxious to retrieve the $260,000 in loot he hid before he went to jail. Unfortunately, he is still pursued by both the police and his former gang mates. He ends up severely beaten, robbed, and ultimately cheated by his own lover. Despite these set-backs, the fellow remains content because he now has the love of his former partner's widow. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1960
Robert Preston plays the flip side of his eternally ebullient Professor Harold Hill in Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Preston portrays an early 20th-century harness salesman, fully aware that his product is rapidly becoming obsolete. He tries to compensate for his own lack of self-esteem by cheating on his patient wife Dorothy McGuire; Preston's "other woman" is played by Angela Lansbury. Meanwhile, daughter Shirley Knight falls in love with Jewish boy Lee Kinsolving, who kills himself in the face of relentless bigotry. And McGuire's sister Eve Arden is stuck in a loveless marriage with spineless Frank Overton. Robert Eyer plays the young alter-ego of William Inge, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning play on which this film is based. Eyer's fear of the "dark at the top of the stairs" is meant to be symbolic of the other characters' inner demons, a fact that Inge drives home every three minutes or so. In typical Inge fashion, an unlikely happy ending is reached just before "The End." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire, (more)
The first big budget Western to feature a black hero, this military courtroom drama from director John Ford starred his long-time stock player Woody Strode. When a cavalry commander and his daughter are discovered murdered, racism amidst the 9th Cavalry immediately leads to suspicions that Sergeant Braxton Rutledge (Strode), a black man, is responsible for the crime. Arrested by Lieutenant Tom Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter), Rutledge escapes from captivity during an Indian raid but voluntarily returns to warn his fellow cavalrymen that they are about to face an ambush by hostiles, saving the detachment from certain doom. At first among those who accept Rutledge's probable guilt, Cantrell and his love interest Mary Beecher (Constance Towers) become two of the accused man's scarce defenders as he is put on trial and faces testimony from prejudiced "witnesses." ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeffrey Hunter, Constance Towers, (more)
- 1961
Having quit his job as a newspaperman, Phillip Werris (Lonny Chapman) tries to make a go of a farm in Canada, but before long he and his wife Jan (Jena Engstrom) are flat broke. With no other option, Phillip decides to go back to writing, and begins turning out freelance articles. . .in his sleep. Curiouser still, the articles written by the slumbering journalist are about a pair of dead men whom Phillip has neither seen nor previously heard of--but whom he describes down to the smallest detail. This episode was remade on the sequel series Next Step Beyondin 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
If anything, this star-studded sequel is even sillier than the original, adding to its problems by completely recasting all the roles, combining several of them into existing characters. Carol Lynley is the heroine this time, and she leaves Peyton Place for New York to write a book about the hypocrisy of her hometown. The book causes lots of trouble back home, getting Mike (Robert Sterling) fired as principal, angering Lynley's mother (Eleanor Parker), and stirring such horrible memories in Selena (Tuesday Weld) that she brains her new boyfriend with a fireplace poker, thinking he is her dead rapist stepfather. The film really belongs to Mary Astor, in a hilarious turn as a smotheringly possessive mother. She tries to come between her son and his new bride (Luciana Paluzzi) in some unintentionally hilarious scenes, causing Paluzzi to fling herself down a ski slope in an attempt at a self-induced miscarriage. Overwrought and overblown, the film is still a treat for fans of campy "suburban sin" melodramas. Look for Bob Crane as an unctuous talk show sidekick. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carol Lynley, Jeff Chandler, (more)
- 1962
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Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why, Stoddard relates a film-long flashback. He recalls how, as a greenhorn lawyer, he had run afoul of notorious gunman Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), who worked for a powerful cartel which had the territory in its clutches. Time and again, "pilgrim" Stoddard had his hide saved by the much-feared but essentially decent Doniphon. It wasn't that Doniphon was particularly fond of Stoddard; it was simply that Hallie was in love with Stoddard, and Doniphon was in love with Hallie and would do anything to assure her happiness, even if it meant giving her up to a greenhorn. When Liberty Valance challenged Stoddard to a showdown, everyone in town was certain that the greenhorn didn't stand a chance. Still, when the smoke cleared, Stoddard was still standing, and Liberty Valance lay dead. On the strength of his reputation as the man who shot Valance, Stoddard was railroaded into a political career, in the hope that he'd rid the territory of corruption. Stoddard balked at the notion of winning an election simply because he killed a man-until Doniphon, in strictest confidence, told Stoddard the truth: It was Doniphon, not Stoddard, who shot down Valance. Stoddard was about to reveal this to the world, but Doniphon told him not to. It was far more important in Doniphon's eyes that a decent, honest man like Stoddard become a major political figure; Stoddard represented the "new" civilized west, while Doniphon knew that he and the West he represented were already anachronisms. Thus Stoddard went on to a spectacular political career, bringing extensive reforms to the state, while Doniphon faded into the woodwork. His story finished, the aged Stoddard asks the reporter if he plans to print the truth. The reporter responds by tearing up his notes. "This is the West, sir, " the reporter explains quietly. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Dismissed as just another cowboy opus at the time of its release, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has since taken its proper place as one of the great Western classics. It questions the role of myth in forging the legends of the West, while setting this theme in the elegiac atmosphere of the West itself, set off by the aging Stewart and Wayne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, James Stewart, (more)
- 1962
Originally telecast January 26 1962, this episode was the first of several Twilight Zone scriptwriting assignments for Earl Hamner, Jr., future creator of The Waltons. Arthur Hunnicutt stars as backwoodsman Hyder Simpson, who despite the dire predictions of his superstitious wife Rachel (Jeanette Nolan) embarks upon a hunting expedition with his faithful dog Rip. While chasing down their quarry, Hyder and Rip fall into a river and drown -- then promptly return home in ghostly form, to find Rachel weeping over Hyder's coffin. Not altogether convinced that he is dead, Hyder wanders the countryside in search of answers -- while Rip uses his still-acute sense of smell to save Hyder from making the biggest mistake of his life -- or death! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Arthur Hunnicutt, Jeanette Nolan, (more)
- 1962
Tired of living in the shadow of older brothers Adam and Hoss, Joe Cartwright demands that his father Ben give him more of a say in running the Ponderosa. Impressed, Ben hands Joe the solo responsibly of suppling timber to a mining company's construction project. As he begins this assignment, Joe is certain that he can do the job without anyone else's help-but can he? The supporting cast includes Grant Richards as Will Poavey, James Beck as Dave Donovan, Frank Gerstle as Weber, Dan Riss as Crawford and Charles Seel as Hawkins. Written by John Joseph and Thomas Thompson, "The Quest" originally aired on September 30 1962. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, (more)
- 1963
Betty Rose (Carmen Phillips) is ticked off when her boyfriend, Dandy Arthur (Robert Loggia), returns from military service with a young wife named Mieko (Pilar Seurat) in tow. After "helpfully" warning Mieko that Dandy has a homicidal streak, Betty confronts her ex-beau, resulting in a violent argument which ends with Betty's death. For a while, Mieko refuses to believe that her husband might be responsible for the tragedy -- until she stumbles upon some evidence that may well sign her own death warrant. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Loggia, Pilar Seurat, (more)
- 1963
This time around, Tammy, played by Sandra Dee, becomes a nurse's aid to care for an old rich woman and causes a commotion. Since she is charming and warm, everyone likes her--especially Dr. Mark Cheswick (Peter Fonda)--who is warned by boss Dr. Bentley (MacDonald Carey) of the consequences of his pursuit. Fearing for his job, Doc Cheswick backs off, but everything gets complicated by romantic inclinations between head nurse Rachel Coleman (Margaret Lindsay) and head Doc Bentley. After Tammy saves the elderly woman's life and Bentley and Rachel get together, she and the Doctor soon are left to bask in the glow of new love. Third in the series of four, Tammy and the Doctor spun from the original Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)--starring Debbie Reynolds, and is followed by the last Tammy and the Millionaire (1967). ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sandra Dee, Peter Fonda, (more)
John Ford's last film to deal with World War II, Donovan's Reef is an alternately comical and sentimental look back on the fighting Navy men from that war, and how and where -- in Ford's eyes, and Frank Nugent and James Edward Grant's script -- they should have ended up. Michael "Guns" Donovan (John Wayne), Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley (Lee Marvin), and Dr. William Dedham (Jack Warden), a trio of navy veterans who fought on the Pacific island of Haleakalowa during the war, now live on the island. Donovan and Gilhooley, biding time and enjoying themselves, engage in rough-house hijinks among themselves, and are both part of the doctor's extended family, enjoying the good will of the islanders for whom they fought during the war. While Dedham is away on a call to a neighboring island, his grown daughter, Amelia (Elizabeth Allen), from his first marriage, whom he has never seen, announces that she is arriving from Boston to determine Dedham's fitness of character to inherit the majority shares in the family shipping business. Donovan contrives to present Dedham's three Polynesian children, whom the doctor had with the island's hereditary princess, as his own, and also squires Amelia around the island in her father's absence. In the process, the cold Bostonian woman discovers a whole world -- of passion, joy, heroism, and a life among men and women whose lives have been about something other than making money -- that she's never known. She also understands all of the good that her father has accomplished away from Boston, even though it entailed abandoning her. Sparks and even a few fists fly between Donovan and Amelia (and between Donovan and several other characters), in the usual Ford rough-house manner, before their eventual reconciliation and a romantic clinch at the end, in this sweet, sentimental comedy-drama. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Lee Marvin, (more)
- 1964
Alfred Hitchcock inaugurated the tenth and final season of his popular TV suspense anthology by moving from CBS to NBC -- only three years after switching from NBC to CBS. Season ten's initial offering stars a young Dennis Hopper as farm boy Verge Likens, whose father has been killed in a barroom brawl by corrupt political boss Riley McGrath (Robert Emhardt). After McGrath managed to get off scot-free, Verge completely disappeared from view, but not before vowing to avenge his dad. As time passes, everyone forgets all about Verge, including McGrath, who calmly enters his favorite barbershop one day to get a shave. It just so happens that the barber has hired a new assistant: a young fellow by the name of Verge Likens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Fonda, Robert Emhardt, (more)
