John Abbott Movies

The oft-filmed story of the WW I espionage agent known as "Fraulein Doktor" was given another go-round in the British Under Secret Orders. Dita Parlo plays Anne-Marie Lesser, a German secret agent who undermines the Allied cause at the expense of her own happiness. Top billing is bestowed upon Erich von Stroheim, as Anne-Marie's superior Colonel Mathiesus, a self-styled master of disguise (though his various makeups don't fool anyone in the audience). Released in the U.S. in 1943, Under Secret Orders was originally distributed in England in 1937 under the title Street of Shadows. A simultaneously-filmed French version, Mademoiselle Docteur, likewise starred Parlo and Von Stroheim. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

More so than most wartime films, Mission to Moscow must be viewed within the context of its times. Requested by President Roosevelt to make a film supportive of America's Russian allies, Warner Bros. turned to the memoirs of Ambassador Joseph H. Davies, who spent several years prior to WWII in the Soviet Union. As played by Walter Huston, Davies is a pillar of incorruptable integrity, reporting the facts "as I saw them" (only in later years was Davies revealed to be something less than a paragon of virtue who was willing to alter opinions for political, personal and financial expedience). Sent to Moscow by FDR as a means of finding out if Russia is a potentially trustworthy ally in case of war, Davies and his family are given the royal treatment by the Commissars, who display the social, technological, agricultural and artistic advances made under the Stalin regime. Invariably, the Russian citizens are shown to be singing, smiling, freedom-loving rugged individuals-in contrast to the Nazis, who are depicted as humorless automatons. In its efforts to present the USSR in the best possible light, the film glosses over the notorious Purge Trials of 1937, presenting the trials as scrupulously fair and the defendants as unabashed traitors to the Soviet cause. At one point, Russia's annexation of Finland in 1939 is "justified" by Davies' explanation that the Soviets merely wanted to protect their tiny neighbor from Nazi domination! It is unfair to label Mission to Moscow as Communistic or even left-wing, since it was merely parroting the official party line vis-a-vis US/Soviet relations in 1943. Even so, screenwriter Howard Koch found it very difficult to get film work after the war because of his contributions to this "Pinko" project (conversely, Jack Warner pulled a Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter by insisting that he was strongarmed into making the film). Seen objectively, Mission to Moscow is top-rank entertainment, superbly and excitingly assembled in the manner typical of Warners and director Michael Curtiz. The huge cast includes Gene Lockhart as Molotov, attorney Dudley Field Malone as Winston Churchill, Maynart Kippen as a benign, pipe-smoking Stalin, Charles Trowbridge as Secretary Cordell Hull, Leigh Whipper as Hailie Selassie, Georges Renavent as Anthony Eden and Alex Chirva as Pierre Laval, along with the more familiar faces of Ann Harding (as Mrs. Davies), George Tobias, Eleanor Parker, Moroni Olsen, Minor Watson, Jerome Cowan, Duncan Renaldo, Mike Mazurki, Frank Faylen, Edward van Sloan, Louis-Jean Heydt, Monte Blue, Robert Shayne and even Sid (sic) Charisse. Original prints of Mission to Moscow include a 6-minute prologue delivered by the real Joseph Davies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eric Knight's wartime novel This Above All was given the Tiffany treatment in the this 20th Century Fox big-budgeter. Tyrone Power plays Clive Briggs, a conscientious objector from humble origins, who deserts the British Army because he doesn't believe in fighting to preserve his country's oppressive class structure. But Briggs is no coward, and he performs admirably in rescuing air-raid victims. Through the love of Prudence Cathaway (Joan Fontaine), a doctor's daughter and member of the women's air corps, Briggs realizes that love of country supersedes all social outrage. This Above All ends with Briggs seriously wounded, though given a good chance to survive. In the original novel, the hero not only dies, but also has a censor-baiting love affair with the Prudence character (who, of course, is as pure as the driven snow in the film). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this espionage drama, a battle-fatigued British commando is diagnosed as clinically insane by doctors who are in reality, Nazi spies. They do this to keep him from divulging the secret info he has gathered about them. To prove their diagnosis, they murder several woman and blame him for the deaths. The RAF pilot comes out of his shell-shock in time to stop the Nazis. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The fourth production from the enterprising King Brothers, Rubber Racketeers drew its inspiration from late-breaking headlines. When wartime rationing kicks in, rubber suddenly is at a premium, resulting in a brisk black market in bootlegged rubber tires. Patriotic defense plant worker Bill Barry (Bill Henry) rounds up his fellow workers to help stem the activities of hot-tire racketeer Gilin (Ricardo Cortez). In his American film debut, John Abbott plays a mute secondary hoodlum named Dumbo, who inability to speak neatly hides his cultured British dialect. Partially designed as a warning to "You, the Public" to avoid shady entrepreneurs like Gilin, Rubber Racketeers also succeeds as a purely as a rip-roaring actioner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bob Hope's first starring vehicle for producer Sam Goldwyn borrows the title of Bob's 1942 autobiography They Got Me Covered and very little else. Co-scripted by Leonard Q. Ross (aka Leo Rosten), Leonard Spigelgass and Harry Kurnitz (among many others!), the film casts Hope as Robert Kittredge, the Moscow correspondent for a major American news service, who is fired when he neglects to file a report about Hitler's invasion of Russia. Hoping to get back in the good graces of his boss Norman Mason (Donald MacBride), Kittredge steals another reporter's story about a Nazi spy ring operating in New York. Though officially a comedy, the film is curiously unfunny at times, with Hope playing an unsympathetic, unappealing character who'll step on anyone -- including his long-suffering sweetheart (Dorothy Lamour) and a hysterical kidnap victim (Phyllis Povah) -- to get ahead. Otto Preminger is funnier (perhaps intentionally) as the head Nazi. A few good gags notwithstanding, They Got Me Covered is nowhere near as satisfying as Hope's second Goldwyn effort, The Princess and the Pirate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Josef von Sternberg made his first return to exotic Shanghai since 1932's Shanghai Express in this baroque conflagration, based on a 1925 play by John Colton that required 30 revisions before it was sufficiently sanitized to pass muster with Hays Office censors. The film takes place in the gambling den of Mother Gin Sling (Ona Munson), who finds her casino threatened with closing by stuffed shirt English financier Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston). Gin Sling knows that the key to keeping her casino open is to dig up some dirt on Sir Guy, and it's quick in coming. She finds that Sir Guy was compelled to leave China in a hurry some time in the past, stealing his wife's money and plotting to kill her. Sir Guy ended up abandoning his wife in China and leaving her with an infant daughter. She also finds out that Sir Guy's grown-up daughter, Poppy (Gene Tierney, is a frequent and deeply indebted guest of Gin Sling's casino. Gin Sling is now ready to blackmail Sir Guy into keeping her casino open. He tracks down his daughter and tries to convince her to leave town. But Poppy refuses to budge, having fallen in love with Doctor Omar (Victor Mature). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In an unusual move for a mere program picture, RKO Radio filmed A Saint in London on location in England, using a largely British cast and crew. George Sanders makes his second appearance as suave soldier of fortune Simon Templer, aka The Saint. This time, Templar gets mixed up with a gang of counterfeiters who've murdered and robbed a European count of 1,000,000 pounds. He is aided reluctantly by Scotland Yard inspector Teal (Gordon McLeod), who's convinced that Templar himself pulled off the heist, and less reluctantly by light-fingered Dugan (David Burns) and dizzy socialite Penny Parker (Sally Gray). The Saint in London was directed by John Paddy Carstairs, who later worked on some of the episodes of the Saint TV series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This interesting early docu-drama offers a complete chronicle of the history of aviation from prehistoric times through the mid 1930s. Though the film was finished by 1935, it was not released until much later. H.G. Wells assisted on the first drafts of the script. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide