Howard St. John Movies

Beauty contest winner Patricia Knight's one bid for screen stardom was Columbia's Shockproof. Knight plays Jenny Wright, a convicted murderess paroled in the care of probation officer Griff Marat (Cornel Wilde). What begins as an aloof professional relationship eventually blossoms into romance. The fly in the ointment is shady Harry Wesson (John Baragrey), the gambler who inveigled Jenny into committing murder. The girl is torn between creature comforts offered her by Wesson and the promise of a clean life offered by Griff. This early Douglas Sirk effort contains a smattering of the stylistic touches which distinguished his later work.The screenplay was written by famed director Samuel Fuller, known for his gritty realism and hard-boiled style. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Mister 880 is the whimsical tale of an elderly gentleman (Edmund Gwenn) who dabbles in counterfeiting. He makes only enough "funny money" to support himself, but the fact that his work is so amateurish (he can't even spell "Washington") arouses the indignation of the treasury department. Burt Lancaster, the hard-nosed treasury agent put on the case, is determined to prosecute the miscreant to the full extent of the law. In tracking down a lead, Lancaster falls in love with Dorothy McGuire, a recipient of one of the phony bills. Lancaster discovers that McGuire lives in the same building as Gwenn, and after piecing together the clues arrests the old fellow. Softened by Gwenn's naivete, Lancaster and Ms. McGuire arrange for a compassionate lawyer to lessen what would otherwise be a stiff prison sentence. Mister 880 was to have starred Walter Huston as the ingenuous counterfeiter, but Huston died just before filming started. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No sooner had Columbia called it quits with the "Blondie" series than the studio launched a new group of "B"-pictures, based on the popular radio series David Harding, Counterspy. Third-billed Howard St. John plays Harding, with actor/director Fred Sears co-starring as Harding's assistant Peters. Most of the film is carried by Willard Parker as Jerry Baldwin, a navy commander assigned to root out saboteurs in a torpedo factory. Falling in love with Betty Iverson (Audrey Long), the widow of his murdered predecessor, Baldwin is aghast to learn that Betty may be an enemy agent. There's action aplenty as the film rushes to its pyrotechnic conclusion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edmond O'Brien plays a telephone repairman whose electronic savvy earns him a job with a bookmaking concern. O'Brien's bookie boss Barry Kelly wants to get instant results from the nation's racetracks, and to this end O'Brien illicitly plugs into several communication centers. The wealthier O'Brien becomes, the more scruples he sheds. Eventually he runs afoul of the Big Boss of an Eastern bookie syndicate (Otto Kruger) and vainly attempts to escape with his life in a slam-bang final at Boulder Dam. 711 Ocean Drive was made to cash in on a then-current national newspaper expose of bookmaking operations. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Garson Kanin's Broadway hit was transferred to the screen with only a few passing nods to the stricter censorship required by films. Judy Holliday won an Oscar for her portrayal of Billie Dawn, a strident, dim-bulbed ex-chorus girl who is the mistress of millionaire junk tycoon Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford). In Washington to put a few senators and congressmen in his pocket (the better to lay the groundwork for an illegal cartel), the rude-and-crude Brock realizes that the unrefined Billie will prove an embarrassment. Thus he hires idealistic but impoverished Paul Verrell (William Holden) to pump some intelligence and "class" into Billie. Paul does his job too well; by awakening Billie's social and political consciousness, he turns the girl into Brock's most formidable foe in his efforts to buy influence in DC. Along the way Paul and Billie fall in love. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Awkward teenager George LeMain (John Drew Barrymore, credited as John Barrymore Jr.) is given a small birthday party by his widowed father Andy (Preston Foster) at his bar. He is puzzled that his father's longtime girlfriend, Frances, is not there, but neither Andy nor Flanagan (Howland Chamberlain), bartender and George's surrogate mother, will say why. George is embarrassed when he is unable to blow out all the candles on his cake, but that's nothing compared to the humiliation to come when sportswriter Al Judge (Howard St. John) enters the tavern. Judge orders the elder LeMain to remove his shirt ("Show me some skin," he demands) and get down on all fours. Andy meekly offers no resistance when Judge brutally canes him. Enraged at both Judge and his father, George takes a gun from the cash register and goes off into the night to settle the score. His first stop is the fights, where after getting conned out of his money, he meets Lloyd Cooper (Philip Bourneuf), an alcoholic college professor who later introduces him to his girlfriend Julie Rostina (Dorothy Comingore) and her sister Marion (Joan Lorring). Although George and Marion hit it off, she tells him he is too young for her. Resuming his hunt, George finally comes face to face with Judge and learns that Frances, who was Judge's sister, had killed herself because Andy refused to marry her. Confused, George drops his gun and starts to leave. However, when Judge picks it up and turns the tables on him, George struggles for the gun, shoots Judge, and runs back into the night. When he gets home, he confronts his father with Judge's story. He learns not only that it's true, but also that his mother is not dead but had run off with another man. Joseph Losey's The Big Night functions largely as a perverse coming-of-age tale in which the price George pays for growing up is disillusionment with his emasculated father. Armed with this knowledge and a stronger sense of his abilities, George may now be better equipped to navigate the rejections, humiliations, and sadomasochistic relationships of his noirish world. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide

Starlift was Warner Bros' attempt to revive the "all-star patriotic musical" format which had worked so well during WW II. The wisp of a plot concerns Mike Nolan (Dick Wesson) and Rick Williams (Ron Hagherty), San Francisco-based airmen who serve as crew members on a shuttle to Korea. To impress a group of movie starlets making a personal appearance, Mike and Rick claim that they're due to be sent into combat. Actress Nell Wayne (Janice Rule) falls in love with Rick, leading to a major publicity blitz and culminating with a special USO presentation for all the Korea-bound servicemen in Frisco, starring virtually everyone on the Warners' contract roster. Among the stars making personal appearances (and sometimes delivering songs, whether they can sing or not!) include Gordon MacRae, James Cagney, Ruth Roman, Doris Day, Gary Cooper, Frank Lovejoy, Phil Harris, Randolph Scott and Jane Wyman. Reportedly, the comedy team of Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall made its movie debut in Starlift, though they don't appear in the currently available prints. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In one of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense classics, tennis pro Guy Haines (Farley Granger) chances to meet wealthy wastrel Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) on a train. Having read all about Guy, Bruno is aware that the tennis player is trapped in an unhappy marriage to to wife Miriam (Laura Elliott) and has been seen in the company of senator's daughter Ann Morton (Ruth Roman). Baiting Guy, Bruno reveals that he feels trapped by his hated father (Jonathan Hale). As Guy listens with detached amusement, Bruno discusses the theory of "exchange murders." Suppose that Bruno were to murder Guy's wife, and Guy in exchange were to kill Bruno's father? With no known link between the two men, the police would be none the wiser, would they? When he reaches his destination, Guy bids goodbye to Bruno, thinking nothing more of the affable but rather curious young man's homicidal theories. And then, Guy's wife turns up strangled to death. Co-adapted by Raymond Chandler from a novel by Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train perfectly exemplifies Hitchcock's favorite theme of the evil that lurks just below the surface of everyday life and ordinary men. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this rare kinescope from the early years of the long-running dramatic anthology Philco Television Playhouse, Ed Begley Sr. stars as Ernie Barger, the bombastic, conservative but withal likeable co-owner of a successful dinner-plate manufacturing firm. Having spent his life imposing his will on those around him, Ernie cannot admit that he is out of step with the times professionally, nor that he might be responsible for the shyness and recurring illnesses of his wife Mariella (Carmen Mathews). But Ernie is certain of one thing in life: That once his beloved son Roy (John Connell) has graduated from college, he and Ernie will be inseparable buddies. Alas, it at Roy's graduation that Ernie is dealt the first in a series of devastating disilllusionments. Most existing prints of Ernie Barger Is 50 include the original Philco commercials, as well as a plug for the following week's episode of Goodyear Television Playhouse (which alternated with the Philco show). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith's Broadway hit The Tender Trap is transformed into a beguiling Frank Sinatra film vehicle. Sinatra plays a Manhattan showbiz agent, Charlie Y. Reader, who enjoys the attentions of several willing young ladies. At an audition, Charlie meets aspiring actress Julie Gillis (Debbie Reynolds), who is so determined to land a husband that she's already set the date. She goes out with Charlie for a short while, then announces that she won't marry him until he gives up all his other girls. Charlie, who hasn't said word one about marriage and who'd been preparing to give Julie the brush-off, is startled by her ultimatum -- so much so that he genuinely falls in love with her, which (we can safely assume) was her intention all along. A complication involving Charlie's former amour Sylvia Crewes (Celeste Holm) and his best friend Joe McCall (David Wayne) paves the way for the film's slightly offbeat denouement. In addition to scoring at the box office, The Tender Trap yielded a hit song (written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen), which would remain a part of Frank Sinatra's repertoire for the rest of his life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Once again Edward G. Robinson takes a script from the trash bin and makes it into a palatable movie. A remake of The Mouthpiece, this is the story of a district attorney with a conscience. When he discovers that a man he's sent to the electric chair was innocent, he takes to the bottle. His assistants encourage him to get off the booze, stop prosecuting and, instead, become a defense attorney. He agrees but his first client is a notorious gangster who has been in business for so long because of leaks from Robinson's own office when he was the district attorney. Push comes to shove and soon, through multiple machinations and mishaps, Robinson becomes the defender of his former assistant on charges of murder. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

1959's Li'l Abner was adapted from the hit 1956 Broadway musical--which, in turn, was inspired by the satirical comic strip by Al Capp. Peter Palmer recreates his Broadway role as Li'l Abner Yokum, the handsome, muscle-bound, muscle-brained leading hillbilly of Dogpatch, USA. The citizens of Dogpatch are in an uproar because their ramshackle community has been designated the "most useless" town in America, and therefore a prime candidate for an atomic bomb testing site. At first, the Dogpatchers consider their least-desirable status a great honor, but then they despair upon realizing that they'll have to vacate the premise before the annual girl-chases-boy Sadie Hawkins Day race. Together with his Mammy (Billie Hayes) and Pappy (Joe E. Marks), Li'l Abner is dispatched to Washington DC, to argue that Dogpatch has some vital significance: after all, only in Dogpatch can one partake of the Yokumberry Tonic, the source of Abner's super strength. Shifty billionaire General Bullmoose (Howard St. John) wants that Yokumberry tonic for his own devices, and to that end dispatches his lady friend Appasionatta von Climax (Stella Stevens) to Dogpatch to catch Li'l Abner during the Sadie Hawkins race and thus secure the mountain boy's cooperation via marriage. Li'l Abner's erstwhile girl friend Daisy Mae Scragg (Leslie Parrish) would likewise like to snare Abner in the race, but Appasionata wins, thanks to the squirrelly Evil Eye Fleegle (Al Nesor), whose "triple whammy" paralyzes Abner just inches before the finish line. If you think all this is unbelievable, wait till you see how the story resolves itself. Featured in the cast is Stubby Kaye as Marryin' Sam, who leads the hillbilly chorus in the musical's best number, "Jubilation T. Corpone". Other Johnny Mercer-Gene de Paul tunes carried over from the Broadway version of Li'l Abner are "A Typical Day," "If I Had My Druthers," "Namely You," "The Country's in the Very Best of Hands," "Past My Prime," "Put 'Em Back (The Way They Wuz)" and "The Matrimonial Stomp."The film is staged in the same broad, caricatured manner as the play, which only adds to the fun. An earlier, unrelated movie adaptation of Li'l Abner, filmed in 1940, is best forgotten, as is a series of lukewarm Abner cartoons produced by Screen Gems in the late forties. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide