Pamela Blake Movies

Adapted from the Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman play, Stage Door is a comedic portrait of the theatrical community in New York. Katharine Hepburn stars as Terry Randall a young woman who comes from a wealthy, socially connected family. Aspiring for a career on the stage, Terry opts to see if she can make it on her own gumption and moves into a boarding house with several other wannabe Broadway starlets attempting to make a mark for themselves in show business. Terry's sassy roommate Jean (Ginger Rogers) just might get the opportunity to do that when she meets a lecherous producer, but at what cost? Unamused by Terry's attempts to pull herself up by her bootstraps, her father offers her an opportunity for a starring role in a show that's sure to fail. Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, and Ann Miller are among the other residents of the boarding house. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

In this thriller, a man is brutally murdered and an innocent man takes the rap. The real murderer later confesses his crime to his priest. The priest strongly urges the killer to tell the police, but he steadfastly refuses. At the end, the killer attacks and mortally wounds the priest. The murderer feels guilty for his deed and gives the priest a lifesaving blood transfusion. He then admits his crime and saves the innocent man from execution. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Sorority House is based on Mary Coyle Chase's short story Chi House. Anne Shirley plays a middle-class college student who is pledged to a snooty sorority. As Shirley struggles to qualify for membership, she becomes disillusioned by the prospect when she realizes the shallowness of her wealthy future sorority sisters. She finally declines the invitation, but since she's fallen for campus jock James Ellison, her social life won't be too bleak. A loose reworking of RKO's earlier Finishing School (34), Sorority House was scripted by Dalton Trumbo, who'd later get into hot water with the HUAC for another screenplay about a group of ladies living together, Tender Comrade (43). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a department store owner is deeply saddened to learn that none of his grown sons are interested in taking over the business he has worked so hard to build. To coerce them, he even tries giving them shares of company stock. In the end, only the youngest son shows any interest at all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Richard Dix is his usual strong, silent self in RKO Radio's Men Against the Sky. Dix plays a washed-up pilot who designs a revolutionary new plane. Realizing that he is persona non grata in the aviation industry due to his irresponsibility and alcoholism, Dix allows his sister Wendy Barrie to take credit for the "wonder" plane. Preliminary tests of the aircraft prove disastrous, but Dix establishes the viablity of his design by flying the plane himself, a spectacular act of self-sacrifice that has the salutary effect of restoring his tattered reputation. Among the aircraft seen in Men Against the Sky is the plane used by Howard Huges to establish a new transcontinental record when he flew from California to New Jersey in less than 7 1/2 hours. The film was scripted by Nathaniel West, better known for his trenchant Hollywood novel Day of the Locust. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

The dangers of the dread venereal disease syphilis are depicted in this earnest drama from the 1940s. The story centers upon an intrepid health commissioner who is out to get rid of the tawdry hookers responsible for spreading the disease. He is assisted by a reporter. In a different subplot a young philanderer contracts the disease and gives it to his pregnant wife. Later a rotten doctor claims that he is cured, but it is not so and the young man returns, picks a fight, and accidentally kills the doctor. Later the young fellow is persuaded into giving his reasons for the killing; he does, and his name is cleared. At the same time, the reporter and health commissioner have fallen in love, and the town council finally gives the go ahead for the commissioner to clean up the streets. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Though billed fourth in This Gun For Hire, Alan Ladd was catapulted to stardom in the role of Phillip Raven, a ruthless professional killer with a long-suppressed streak of decency. After successfully pulling off his latest murder, Raven reports to his boss, effeminate fifth columnist Willard Gates (Laird Cregar). He collects his $1000 fee, only to discover later that Gates has double-crossed him with marked bills. This was done at the behest of Gates' boss, crooked business executive Alvin Bewster (Tully Marshall), who wants no loose ends left around to connect him with a plot to sell poison gas to the Axis. As Raven ducks and dodges the police, detective Michael Crane (Robert Preston) is hot on the trail of Bewster and Gates. Crane talks his girlfriend, nightclub singer-musician Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake), into taking a job at Gates' nightclub. While on the train to the club, Ellen makes the acquaintance of the escaping Raven. Gates boards the train, spots Ellen innocently sitting next to Raven, and assumes that the two are in cahoots. Later, Gates kidnaps Ellen and spirits her away to his mansion, intending to do away with her the first chance he gets. Instead, Raven, still seeking revenge for being set up, bursts into the mansion in search of Gates. Having previously been impressed by Ellen's kindness, he rescues her, though he intends using her as hostage should the police catch up with him. As they hide out together in the rail yards, Ellen and Raven get to know each other. Learning of Raven's miserable, abusive childhood, Ellen tries to chip away his murderous veneer, hoping to reform him. But when the cops arrive, Raven reverts to his instincts, shooting his way out of his hiding place. As Crane escorts Ellen out of harm's way, Raven rushes towards a bloody showdown with Bewster and Gates. Based on Graham Greene's A Gun For Sale, This Gun For Hire was remade in 1958 as Short Cut to Hell, then again under the original title as a 1990 made-for-TV film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The combination of Ann Sothern and Red Skelton pays off in giggles, chortles and guffaws in Maisie Gets Her Man. Broke and stranded once more, showgirl Maisie Revere briefly works as the wrong end of a knife-throwing act, then dedicates herself to helping would-be comedian Hap Hixby (Skelton) overcome his debilitating stage fright. The plot then goes off on an entirely new tangent, as the hapless Hap gets mixed up with cherubic con artist Denningham (Lloyd Corrigan). Things end happily for both Maisie and Hap, but not quite in the way that either one of them would have predicted. It's a tribute to the comedy genius of Red Skelton that he can raise laughs while playing a character who can't raise laughs! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This airy bit of MGM fluff stars Lana Turner as small-town soda clerk Peggy Evans. After telling off the self-important new drugstore manager Bob Stuart (Robert Young), Peggy, convinced that there's no future for her in her hometown, fakes her suicide and heads for the big city. After a series of dizzying comic complications, she successfully poses as the long-lost daughter of millionaire Cornelius Burden (Walter Brennan). Meanwhile, poor Bob, held responsible for Peggy's "death," comes to town determined to clear his name by exposing Peggy as an impostor. How this all works itself out is as hard to swallow as the rest of the picture, but the stars are attractive and the production values first-rate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In her seventh outing as irrepressible vaudeville entertainer Maisie Revere, Ann Sothern aided the war effort by working the swing shift in an airplane factory. Taking in a seemingly suicidal co-worker, Iris (Jean Rogers), Maisie can only watch as the girl steals her beau, handsome pilot James McLaughlin (James Craig). Promising to be faithful to James, who is going away on a training course, Iris promptly flirts with everyone in pants, much to chaperone Maisie's chagrin. When Maisie catches the selfish Iris in the middle of staging yet another "suicide," the vaudeville trouper turned everyone's favorite riveter threatens to spill the beans to Lieutenant James. In retaliation, Iris accuses Maisie of spying for the Nazis but everything is cleared up before the fadeout. MGM had at first assigned the male lead to newcomer Jim Davis, but he proved too inexperienced and the role eventually went to Craig, the studio's all-purpose Clark Gable lookalike. (As a consolation, Davis played a G.I. instead.) Starlet Jean Rogers, formerly Dale Arden in Flash Gordon (1936), does surprisingly well in her unsympathetic part and, doubled only partially by Jacqueline Wiere, performs a funny acrobatic number with the Wiere Brothers. Sothern leads a rousing chorus of the morale-boosting "There's a Girl Behind the Boy Behind the Gun" and remains her usual delightful self throughout what is one of MGM's better wartime potboilers. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The King Brothers, entrepreneur siblings who parlayed an allegedly ill-gotten fortune into a long movie career, produced Monogram's The Unknown Guest. Victor Jory heads the cast as a young man who (like the producers?) is forced to live down an unsavory past. When his aunt and uncle are murdered, Jory becomes the prime suspect. Fleeing the law, Jory heads to a remote hunting lodge, where he falls in love with servant Pamela Blake. She tries to help him out of his jam, which is not resolved until the last possible moment. The impressive behind-the-scenes credits of The Unknown Guest includes screenwriter Phillip Yordan and musical composer Dmitri Tiomkin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama a young woman leaves her unhappy life at home to become a sophisticated night club singer. Her first job is nearly fatal when she entangles herself with the mobsters who own the joint and learns too much about their operation. Her boss decides to kill her and make it look like suicide. An intrepid reporter disbelieves the report and exposes the truth to the public. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide