Ann Staunton Movies

Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is taken by surprise when a young woman (Mary Mitchell) sweeps into his office, begging him to "identify" her. Claiming to be Dorrie Ambler, the girl explains that she has been hired by private eye Joe Billings (Paul Lambert) to pose as her lookalike, heiress Minerva Minden, allegedly to verify if Minerva was involved in a hit-and-run accident. It turns out, however, that Dorrie really is Minerva, and that Billings is blackmailing her. Before long, Perry is not only defending Minerva on a charge of murdering Billings, but also of bumping off the "real" Dorrie Ambler, who may or may not have perished in the accident. Wesley Lau makes his farewell appearance as Lt. Anderson in this final episode of Perry Mason's eighth season, which is based on a novel by series creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Pete Manders (Wynn Pearce), chief assistant to cartoonist Gabe Philips (Mark Roberts), cannot believe his good fortune when Philips sells him the rights to his popular comic strip "Zingy" at a bargain rate. Philips claims that he wants to retire from the daily grind and set up residence in the tiny artists' colony of Port Harmon, where he intends to become a serious painter under the name of Otto Gervaert. But that's only part of the story: Philips also wants to claim Manders' girlfriend Lesley Lawrence (Pamela Curran) for himself. When Philips--or Gervaert--is murdered, Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) must seek out clues amongst the denizens of Port Harmon in order to keep Manders out of the Death House. The supporting cast offers a wide and varied range of acting styles, from the fluttery mannerisms of veteran comedienne ZaSu Pitts to the pompous pontifications of perennial "heavy" Victor Buono. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Skeptical about paranormal phenomena, Arthur Douglas (Lin McCarthy) hypnotizes a woman named Ellen Larrabee (Jocelyn Brando), who claims to have experienced psychic visions. Awakening from her hypnosis, Ellen warns Douglas that he will soon be involved in a horrendous train wreck. Even so, Arthur has trouble believing Ellen's prognostications. . .until. . . Some sources have incorrectly identified this episode as "The Vision", which was telecast seven weeks later on One Step Beyond. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Small-town doctor Paul Beecher (John Beal) is given some strange pills by a dying elderly researcher. Later, when Paul gets a severe headache, his young daughter accidentally gives him the mystery pills. He's later puzzled by a series of strange deaths in which all the blood was drained from the bodies of the victims and then discovers the old researcher was working on a project involving vampire bats. The horrified Paul gradually begins to suspect that he himself is the killer. ~ Bill Warren, All Movie Guide

Lana Turner stars as Diane in this opulent costume drama. Set in 16th century France, the film finds the gorgeous Diane de Pottiers rising to a position of absolute power through her manipulation of the men in her life. Those men include King Francis I (Pedro Armendariz), Prince Henri (Roger Moore) and Diane's husband, the Count de Breze (Torin Thatcher). Diane's principal foe is the scheming Catherine de Medici (Marisa Pavan), who for the first time in her life has met her match in Our Heroine. Christopher Isherwood's screenplay is literate to a fault, though the film could have used a few more action highlights. The tepid box-office receipts of Diane hastened the end of Lana Turner's long association with MGM. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Muller (Paul Henreid), an intelligent, arrogant criminal who has been a medical student and a phony psychoanalyst, believes that people are only interested in themselves and do not notice what is happening around them. Paroled from prison to a boring job, Muller is more interested in a big score, and along with his old cronies robs a crooked gambling joint owned by Rocky Stansyck (Thomas Brown Henry). Although he gets away with the money, some of his men are caught by Stansyck and identify John as the ringleader. On the run from Stansyck's gang, he is mistaken for Dr. Bartok, a psychiatrist also played by Henreid. Curious, Muller goes to the doctor's office, and meets Bartok's secretary and lover, Evelyn Nash (Joan Bennett). Needing to avoid capture, he assumes Bartok's identity, but first must scar his face like the doctor's. Working from a photograph printed from a reversed negative, he applies the scar to the wrong side. Though fooled at first, when Evelyn discovers the truth, she decides to leave, although she is in love with Muller/Bartok. Steve Sekely's Hollow Triumph (aka The Scar) is a film that requires an exceptionally hefty suspension of disbelief in its reliance on coincidence and the literal acceptance of Muller's cynical view of human blindness. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide

Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) returns home after a few years of knocking around the country following his divorce from good-time girl Anna (Yvonne De Carlo). Getting his old job back driving an armored car, and not even convincing himself that he's making a new start, he also wants his old wife back. When he finds Anna, he quickly learns that she is involved with gangster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). Nonetheless, they carry on a clandestine affair, with Steve foolishly believing that Anna will return to him. Even after she marries Slim, Steve, with her encouragement, masochistically clings to this doomed obsession. So when Slim catches them together, Steve ad libs plans for an armored car robbery that includes Slim. The two rivals form an uneasy and untrusting collaboration, but Steve and Anna plan to double cross Slim. However, the title of Robert Siodmak's film noir gem is, not incidentally, Criss Cross. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide

In this documentary-inspired thriller, P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) is a reporter who is asked by his editor to look into a potential story: their newspaper has been carrying an ad offering a substantial reward for information regarding the murder of a policeman that occurred eleven years ago. It turns out the ad was placed by a cleaning woman named Tillie Wiecek (Kasia Orzazewski); her son Frank (Richard Conte) was convicted of the crime, but she is thoroughly convinced her son had nothing to do with the killing. McNeal doesn't believe for a moment that Frank could be innocent, but he sees a good human interest story in Tillie and writes a piece that receives a great deal of favorable attention. Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), McNeal's editor, thinks there might be more to this story and asks P.J. to look into the original murder case. To McNeal's surprise, Frank passes a lie detector test in which he proclaims his innocence, and the more he digs into records on the case, the more he finds wrong with the original investigation; some evidence is missing, much is inconclusive, and the reporter begins to wonder if Frank might have been railroaded after all, or if the police might be trying to keep something quiet. Call Northside 777 was based on a true story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

At least Heartaches looks more ambitious than it is-no small feat for a PRC production. Ken Farrell plays Vic Morton, a popular movie crooner whose voice is actually supplied anonymously by the gloriously nicknamed Bogey Mann (Chill Wills). Not long after Morton begins receiving mailed death threats, his press agent Mike Connelly (Frank Orth) is murdered, the second such killing in as many days. Reporter Jimmy McDonald (Edward Norris) investigates, uncovering a complex conspiracy and exposing an unsuspected culprit. Incredibly, in addition to Chill Wills, the supporting cast of Heartaches includes a starlet named Chili Williams! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM knew it had a valuable property in Red Skelton, but the studio never really knew how to handle his unique talents -- until he was loaned out to Columbia for the hilarious, money-spinning slapstick comedy The Fuller Brush Man. The star plays Red Jones, a born screw-up who can't seem to hold down a job. With the help of his ever-loving girlfriend Ann Elliot (Janet Blair), Red gets a job as a Fuller Brush salesman, intending to take the business world by storm with his can't-fail sales techniques. Unfortunately, when Red isn't messing up on his own, he's being sabotaged by his supervisor Keenan Wallick (Don McGuire) -- who also happens to be sweet on Ann. While trying to make a sale at the home of Commissioner Trist (Nicholas Joy), poor Red finds himself the Number One Suspect when Trist is murdered. With Ann's help, Red eventually stumbles onto the identity of the actual killer, and the chase is on. And what a chase! Pursued by a battalion of thugs (played by several of Hollywood's top stunt men), Red and Ann hotfoot it through a well-stocked war surplus warehouse, wherein all the props -- rubber rafts, prefabricated houses, camouflage tents, flare guns -- are utilized to their utmost comic potential. A riot from beginning to end, The Fuller Brush Man may well be Skelton's funniest film. It was successful enough in 1948 to spawn a series of imitations -- The Good Humor Man, The Fuller Brush Girl, The Yellow Cab Man, Kill the Umpire - -all of which, like Fuller Brush Man, were co-scripted by the inexhaustibly inventive Frank Tashlin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Summer Storm is a remarkably effective Hollywood filmization of Anton Chekhov's The Shooting Party. Linda Darnell stars as the young and beautiful wife of a middle-aged Russian civil servant (Hugo Haas). Darnell becomes the object of the affections of her husband's employer, a lecherous count (Edward Everett Horton). The girl in turn is enamored of a provincial judge (George Sanders). At first, all flirtations are playful and harmless, but the judge takes Darnell so seriously that he ends up killing her in a jealous rage. Her husband is blamed for the crime, but the Count gets his comeuppance during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution (which didn't figure into the original Chekhov story, inasmuch as the author died in 1904). The big surprise in this is not that it works as well as it does, but that it features comic actor Edward Everett Horton in a straight, almost unsympathetic role, which he underplays beautifully. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide