Billie Seward Movies

Director Robert Stevenson collaborated with novelist Aldous Huxley and theatrical-producer John Houseman on the screenplay for this 1944 adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's gothic romance Jane Eyre. After several harrowing years in an orphanage, where she was placed by a supercilious relative for exhibiting the forbidden trait of "willfulness," Jane Eyre (Joan Fontaine) secures work as a governess. Her little charge, French-accented Adele (Margaret O'Brien), is pleasant enough. But Jane's employer, the brooding, tormented Edward Rochester (Orson Welles), terrifies the prim young governess. Under Jane's gentle influence, Rochester drops his forbidding veneer, going so far as to propose marriage to Jane. But they are forbidden connubial happiness when it is revealed that Rochester is still married to a gibbering lunatic whom he is forced to keep locked in his attic. Rochester reluctantly sends Jane away, but she returns, only to find that the insane wife has burned down the mansion and rendered Rochester sightless. In the tradition of Victorian romances, this purges Rochester of any previous sins, making him a worthy mate for the loving Jane. The presence of Orson Welles in the cast (he receives top billing), coupled with the dark, Germanic style of the direction and photography, has led some impressionable cineasts to conclude that Welles, and not Stevenson, was the director. To be sure, Welles contributed ideas throughout the filming; also, the script was heavily influenced by the Mercury Theater on the Air radio version of Jane Eyre, on which Welles, John Houseman and musical director Bernard Herrmann all collaborated. But Jane Eyre was made at 20th Century-Fox, a studio disinclined to promote the auteur theory; like most Fox productions, this is a work by committee rather than the product of one man. This in no way detracts from the overall excellence of the film; of all adaptations of Jane Eyre (it had previously been filmed in 1913, 1915 and 1921, and has been remade several times since), this 1943 version is one of the best. Keep an eye out for an uncredited Elizabeth Taylor as the consumptive orphanage friend of young Jane Eyre (played as child by Peggy Ann Gardner). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The One Crowded Night of the title takes place at a tourist camp on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert. In true "Grand Hotel" fashion, the film manages to keep several subplots going at once, all of them resolved in one fell swoop by fadeout time. Former gun moll Gladys (Billie Seward) hopes to find happiness with honest truckdriver Joe (William Haade), but her past catches up with her in the form of escaped convict Jim (Paul Guilfoyle). Lunch-counter waitress Annie (Gale Storm) allows gas station attendant Vince (Dick Hogan) to flirt with her. Young mother-to-be Ruth (Adele Pearce), on the verge of giving birth, is unexpectedly reunited with her AWOL sailor husband Mat (Gaylord Pendleton). Quack doctor Joseph (J. M. Kerrigan) tries to peddle his miracle elixir. A pair of gunmen show up to knock off Jim, a couple of MPs arrive to pick up Mat, and so it goes?.. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Movie buffs are nearly unanimous in agreement: Charlie Chan at Treasure Island is the best of the Sidney Toler "Charlie Chan" entries. The film wastes no time getting started, with Chan (Toler) and his son Jimmy (Sen Yung) on hand when Charlie's writer friend Paul Essex (Louis Jean Heydt) dies on the Honolulu Clipper while en route to San Francisco. The police rule Essex' death a suicide, but Chan believes differently. He follows the trail of clues to the mysterious Zodiac, a crooked spiritualist. The oriental detective is aided in his investigation by Rhadini (Cesar Romero), a charming stage magician who hopes to expose Zodiac as a phony and blackmailer. After several plot twists and a couple of additional murders, all the likely suspects are gathered together during one of Rhadini's performances at Treasure Island, the San Francisco branch of the 1939 World's Fair. In a truly eerie climax, mystic Eve (Pauline Moore) who really does have psychic powers, prepares to name the killer. The revelation of the culprit is a genuine surprise, staged with topnotch showmanship by director Norman Foster, whose wife Sally Blane (Loretta Young's sister) appears in a small role as Essex's widow. Many of the magicians' props utilized in Charlie Chan at Treasure Island would do service again in 1942 in the Laurel & Hardy vehicle A-Haunting We Will Go. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In his first of 16 Westerns for independent producer A.W. Hackel, Johnny Mack Brown is Branded a Coward when instead of preventing a saloon hold-up, he is spotted cowering behind the bar. The reason for Johnny Hume's reticence is to be found in his background: 20 years earlier, little Johnny was orphaned when his parents' wagon was attacked by a gang of outlaws headed by the infamous "Cat" (Yakima Canutt). As the grown Johnny explains to stuttering sidekick Oscar (Syd Saylor), he has been "yellow ever since." Johnny's courage is tested once again when the two friends witness a stage hold-up. After chasing the outlaws away, Johnny and Oscar escort the stage into the town of Lawless, AZ, where female passenger Ethel Carson (Billie Seward) extols Johnny's prowess with a gun. To his embarrassment, Johnny is elected deputy marshal. Secrets from the past keep resurfacing and Johnny must constantly fight his own fears. In the end, the former coward proves his real worth in a final face-to-face struggle with the leader of the stage robbers (Robert Kortman), a villain patterning himself after the original Cat. During the fight, an unusual birthmark on the outlaw's arm reveals him to be Johnny's own brother Billy. Long thought killed in the massacre, Billy has instead been raised by the original, now deceased Cat. Unable to prevent his henchmen from attacking, Billy bravely stops a bullet meant for Johnny. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Richard Cromwell stars in Columbia's Men of the Hour as dedicated newsreel cameraman Dave Durkin. When Dave and his shutterbug pal Andy Blane (Wallace Ford) have a falling out over gorgeous Ann Jordan (Billie Seward), Andy retaliates by arranging a frame that will get Dave fired. Disgraced and blacklisted, Dave gets back into the good graces of the newsreel company when he films the assassination of a foreign potentate. The story is for all intents and purposes over at this point, but Columbia decided to "hypo" the last reel by throwing a chase between Dave and the assassins. Appropriately, most of the action highlights in Men of the Hour were culled from stock newsreel footage. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ostensibly based on James Oliver Curwood's Caryl of the Mountain, but bearing little or no resemblance to the 1935 Rin-Tin-Tin Jr. vehicle bearing that title, this Northwest melodrama stars Kermit Maynard as McKenna, a mounted police officer trailing the gang that kidnapped mining engineer Mason (John Elliott). The search leads to Ghost Mountain, where McKenna and his partner, Windy (Fuzzy Knight), encounter the missing man's daughter, Jane (Billie Seward). They also confront the gang of outlaws, who are eventually defeated after a chase through a labyrinth of caves and tunnels leading into mountain itself. Trails of the Wild was filmed at Hollywood's Talisman Studios and Bronson Canyon. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Tim McCoy's final Western for Columbia, his home since 1931, Riding Wild is the old story of a range war between cattle barons and homesteaders. The feud begins when rancher Clay Stevens (Niles Welch) hires a gang of cattle rustlers whose crimes he blames on a group of nesters. Neighboring rancher Tim Malloy (McCoy) sides with the homesteaders and organizes a resistance movement. In retaliation, Stevens hires Tex Ravelle (also McCoy), Tim's lookalike, to kill the upstart rancher and lead the homesteaders into a death trap. Tim, however, outwits Tex and lives to face Stevens in a final gun duel. When Columbia producer Irving Briskin failed to renew McCoy's contract with his usual expediency, McCoy instead signed with independent producers Sigmund Neufeld and Leslie Simmonds, who released their product through Poverty Row company Puritan. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Flamboyant, egomaniacal theatrical impresario Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore) transforms chorus girl Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard) into leading lady Lily Garland, the toast of Broadway. Once she's ascended to stardom, Mildred/Lily cannot abide Jaffe's obsessive control of her life and career. When he hires a private detective (Edgar Kennedy) to keep tabs on her, it's the last straw. Lily whisks herself off to Hollywood, where she quickly becomes a top movie star. Months pass: without his "creation" to star in his productions, Jaffe goes bankrupt. With his faithful stooges O'Malley (Roscoe Karns) and Webb (Walter Connolly) in tow, Jaffe boards the Twentieth Century Limited, one step ahead of his creditors. By an incredible coincidence, Lily is also on the Twentieth Century, accompanied by her stuffy fiance George Smith (Ralph Forbes). With near-maniacal glee, Jaffe undertakes the herculean task of signing Lily to star in his upcoming spectacular staging of "The Passion Play". Now the laughs, which have been erupting at safe intervals for the past 45 minutes, really begin to cascade, with Oscar, Lily, and a wide variety of eccentrics chasing each other around the Twentieth Century as it speeds its way from Chicago to New York. Based on the Broadway play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Twentieth Century is "screwball comedy" at its screwiest. Director Howard Hawks once claimed that he was the first to treat his romantic leads like comedians: whether he was or not, it is true than Barrymore and Lombard deliver two of the funniest performances of the 1930s. Nearly 50 years after the release of Twentieth Century, the property was revived as a Broadway musical, On the 20th Century, starring Kevin Kline and Madeline Kahn. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this thriller, a young woman marries a dashing young man who, unbeknownst to her, is a jewel thief. After his latest job, he takes off and leaves her to take the rap. In court she is found guilty. She is riding a train en route to prison when the train crashes. Her identity is confused with that of a wealthy young man's fiancee. The two soon fall in love. They are later confronted by the real fiancee, her thieving husband, the fiancee's brother and the police. Somehow the girl is extricated from the mess with her name and reputation intact. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this drama, an old woman gets disgusted by her relatives and runs away from home. She then begins working as a cook in the home of a prominent antique dealer who works as a jewel thief on the side. As the chef, she gradually meets all of his gang members and takes a special liking to one young man and his girl friend, whom she encourages to reform. Eventually, the crook decides to heed her advice, but before he can safely leave, he must pull off a final caper. Worried, the cook follows him. When the boy is caught, she gets the jewels from him and tries to take the fall. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi