Howard St. John Movies

Paramount's Ray Milland and 20th Century-Fox's Gene Tierney star in Warner Bros.' Close to My Heart. The stars play, respectively, journalist Brad Sheridan and his wife Midge. Unable to have children of her own, Midge opts for adoption, thereby subjecting her husband and herself to the very exacting requirements of adoption agencies. Upon learning of an abandoned child left at a police station, Midge determines to claim the baby for her own, but Brad refuses to go along with his wife's plans until he can find out something more about the child's parents. Brad's feverish above-and-beyond search for the facts make him a highly unreliable adoption risk--but there's still hope for a happy ending. Ironically, star Gene Tierney was still trying to cope with the personal tragedy of giving birth to a severely retarded daughter while filming Close to My Heart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Eythe is the Customs Agent in this brisk Columbia programmer. The plot finds Bert Stewart (Eythe) stationed in China, where he goes undercover to join a gang of dope smugglers. His plan is to stop the wholesale stealing of valuable streptomycin, which the crooks are peddling to drug addicts. Marjorie Reynolds will surprise fans of her work in TV's The Life of Riley with her portrayal of the gang-leader's moll. Another TV favorite, Jim Backus, co-stars as one of the good guys. Customs Agent makes no demands upon the intellect but does succeed as slam-bang entertainment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fred Zinnemann's sensitive film on the plight of paraplegic WWII veterans features Marlon Brando in his superbly moving screen debut. He plays Lt. Bud Wilozek, one of a group of veterans recovering in the paraplegic ward of a hospital in his hometown. His former fiancée, Ellen (Theresa Wright), explains to his physician, Dr. Brock (Everett Sloane), her concern about his isolation and apparent depression since he has broken their engagment and refuses to see her. He counsels her to be patient, but when he decides to broach the issue with Bud, the embittered patient reacts angrily to the doctor's intrusiveness, and continues to refuse to see Ellen. The doctor cajoles the withdrawn paraplegic into the life of the ward, where fellow patients Richard Erdman, Jack Webb, and Arthur Jurado begin to pull Bud out of his spiritual miasma. At length, his sense of hope starts to return, and after seeing Ellen for the first time in months, he begins to contemplate the possibility of marriage. Zinnemann and screenwriter Carl Foreman spent a month in a veteran's hospital researching the film, and Brando lived in the paraplegic unit for a time as part of his preparation. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard was the second entry in Columbia's "David Harding, Counterspy" series. Howard St. John stars as Harding, who, per the film's title, travels to England in this one. Joining forces with Scotland Yard operative Simon Langton (Ron Randell), Harding attempts to break up a spy ring that uses hypnosis as one of its "weapons." Future Gunsmoke heroine Amanda Blake co-stars as an alluring femme fatale. The Counterspy series was based on the radio series created by Philips H. Lord, which ran from 1942 to 1957. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Sun Sets at Dawn is a crime melodrama with strong religious overtones. The Boy (Philip Shawn) is about to be executed in the State's brand-new electric chair. On this momentous occasion, dozens of reporters gather around as The Boy tells his sad life story. While this is going on, the person who should be electrocuted is exposed, and it is suggested that a Divine force has brought about this last-minute miracle. Sally Parr co-stars as The Girl, who believes in The Boy's innocence (the characters have no names; this, evidently, is meant to be symbolic). Walter Reed also appears as The Chaplain, who has ever so much to say. The Sun Sets at Dawn represents the return after a lengthy retirement of director Paul H. Sloane, who also wrote and produced. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eliot Ness may have gotten lots of publicity (especially long after the fact) for breaking the Capone mob, but as Joseph H. Lewis' The Undercover Man reminds us, it was the accountants and the numbers-crunchers that brought down Capone and his mob. Frank Warren (Glenn Ford) started out as an accountant, but now serves as an investigator for the Treasury Department. His job has frequently required him to go undercover, masquerading as a criminal to get the goods on the top-level tax-law violators that his unit targets. But now his assignment is to gather evidence on the operations of the nation's number-one crime boss and get proof of the income that he and his lieutenants are not declaring, and this proves not only frustrating but dangerous. Potential stoolies are murdered and witnesses intimidated, and when one otherwise "respectable" lawyer (Barry Kelley) starts mentioning Warren's wife (Nina Foch) in casual conversation, he takes the hint. He's ready to quit until the mother (Esther Minciotti) of a witness-turned-victim tells him about what life was like in Italy under the Black Hand, and why she came to America to raise her sons. Warren and his men (James Whitmore, David Wolfe) make one last attempt to get the proof they need, tracing signatures and handwriting to get evidence implicating a small man in the operation, using it to turn him and going for bigger fish. Finally, even the shyster lawyer who has been dogging Warren every step of the way ends up in the sights of the feds, and the mob turns its attention to getting rid of this new "liability" and taking care of Warren as well. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide