Gale Storm Movies

Jessica's nephew Grady Fletcher (Michael Horton) and his fiancée Donna Mayberry (Debbie Zipp) have decided to get married in the home of Donna's parents (Eugene Roche, Gale Storm). With Jessica (Angela Lansbury) on the guest list, can murder be far behind? Not likely: This time the victim is Mr. and Mrs. Mayberry's fanatically fastidious housekeeper, who is "done in" with her own meat thermometer! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real Al Jennings was a wizened little man who, after a largely unsuccessful career as a western outlaw, reformed to the extent of hitting the lecture circuit and even producing his own films. Jennings was still alive when Columbia's Al Jennings of Oklahoma was produced in 1951, so one can assume that he approved of the radical changes made in his life story and the casting of the better-looking Dan Duryea in the lead. The story begins with Al and his brother Frank (Dick Foran) trying to go straight, even though there's a $25,000 reward on their heads. Al's hopes for connubial bliss with Margo St. Clare (Gale Storm), who loves him despite his reputation, is shattered by the vengeful machinations of a railroad detective. Forced back into a life of crime, Jennings is captured and sentenced to life imprisonment--a sentence that, of course, was eventually modified. Al Jennings of Oklahoma is not one of the classic westerns, but it manages to hold one's attention throughout a plenitude of plot twists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Curtain Call at Cactus Creek is an agreeable combination of the western, comedy and musical genres. Donald O'Connor plays Edward Timmons, a mild-mannered stagehand for a travelling repertory troupe. Edward is in love with ingenue Julie Martin (Gale Storm), but there's no love lost between Edward and the troupe's hammy leading man Tracy Holland (Vincent Price). Things begin percolating when Edward gets mixed up in the activities of infamous outlaw Rimrock (Walter Brennan). Even allowing for the considerable singing and dancing skills of Donald O'Connor and Gale Storm, the film's best musical number is rendered by Eve Arden, cast as an over-the-hill soubrette who happens to be the heroine's mother (and never mind that she was only ten years older than Gale Storm!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This collection of how to video's look at how to travel across the country 1950's style and how to buy a new car. ~ All Movie Guide

Written by murder-mystery specialist Craig Rice, The Underworld Story concerns a corrupt newspaperman (Dan Duryea), who is in the pocket of a gangster (Howard da Silva). When he's fired by a big-city paper, the newsman buys an interest in a small-town weekly. It is while thus occupying that man reforms, devoting himself to clearing a black woman falsely accused of murder. Gale Storm co-stars as Duryea's assistant, who helps him expose an intricate and insidious conspiracy of silence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stampede is a choice example of the Lesley Selander B-plus westerns of the late 1940s/early 1950s. Rod Cameron and Don Castle star as feuding brothers who own separate cattle ranches. The siblings find themselves on opposite sides of a water-rights battle, in which settlers are being deprived water by a gang of clever criminals. The war turns ugly before the film is over, resulting in the destructive stampede promised by the title. Despite poor reviews from big-city critics, this stacks up favorably against the more costly big-studio westerns of the era. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It Happened On Fifth Avenue was easily the most ambitious movie made by the then-newly-organized Allied Artists for at least a decade after its release -- actually, as a "Roy Del Ruth Production," it was made through rather than by Allied Artists, which may explain why it stands so far apart from the Bowery Boys movies and other productions normally associated with Allied during this period. And amazingly, it works, mostly thanks to a genial cast and a reasonably light touch by director/producer Roy Del Ruth, and in spite of a script that needed at least one more editorial pass. Victor Moore is the star and dominant personality -- if there is one in what is, basically, an ensemble cast -- as Aloyisius T. McKeever, a genial hobo whose annual routine for finding winter quarters is to wait for multi-millionaire Michael O'Connor (Charlie Ruggles) to lock up his Fifth Avenue mansion and head to Virginia, and move in during the man's absence. He chances to meet Jim Bullock, a homeless WWII veteran (displaced, ironically, by one of O'Connor's development projects), and gives him shelter in the mansion. They become a trio when O'Connor's free-spirited daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) shows up, fleeing her finishing school, and the two men -- thinking she's an impoverished runaway from an abusive father -- take her in. She goes along with the masquerade and gradually falls in love with Jim, who also chances to meet two former army buddies (Alan Hale, Jr., Edward Ryan) who -- you guessed it -- are also desperately trying to find homes, in their cases for their wives and growing families. Now there are nine people living in the shelter of O'Connor's Fifth Avenue mansion, and in between setting up housekeeping, Jim and his two buddies manage to come up with an idea about how to build homes for veterans and their families. Trudy, her identity still a secret to the other, gets her father to meet the "squatters" incognito, in hope that he'll take to Jim, but a series of misunderstandings and his own impatience and lack-of-faith leads him to reject everything decent he sees about Trudy's friends. In desperation, to keep them from being evicted and arrested, she calls in reinforcements in the person of her mother (Ann Harding), long estranged from her father. O'Connor is still not convinced of Jim's worth, and definitely doesn't see him as a potential husband for Trudy -- and, in a comic mix-up, he ends up going head-to-head with Jim for the property where he plans to build those houses for veterans, causing them to lock horns once more. Matters do eventually fall into place, as they usually do in Christmas movies of this sort, which more closely resembles The Bells of St. Mary's or One More Spring -- to name another movie about displaced New Yorkers -- than It's A Wonderful Life (with which it is usually compared). It Happened On Fifth Avenue is usually defined as a Christmas movie, in part because of its plot time-line, but more than that, it's a movie that, like George Seaton's Miracle On 34th Street -- made the same year -- sings of the generosity of the human spirit, and the feeling of renewal that was in the air in the immediate post-World War II era, a funny, gentle, warm look at people making their way in a time when, for the first time since the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War, cautious optimism seemed an appropriate approach to life. And not for nothing was this reportedly lead actor Don Defore's personal favorite of all of his movies. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Set in New York's Lower East Side during the Gay '90s, this lively low-budget musical follows the exploits of a feisty and talented saloon owner's daughter who loves nothing more than to perform in her father's tavern. Her late-night shenanigans appall her wealthy and socially conscious aunt who launches a secret campaign to shut down the bar and force her niece to reside in her palatial home. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Originally titled They Shall Have Faith, Forever Yours was designed as Monogram's "prestige" release for 1945. Musical favorite Gale Storm goes dramatic as Joan Randall, a young debutante who is confined to a wheelchair after contracting infantile paralysis. Neither her doctor father (Conrad Nagel) nor her physician grandfather (C. Aubrey Smith) can offer much help to the courageous but disconsolate Joan. But Army medico Tex (Johnny Mack Brown, in a break from his western roles) may have developed a revolutionary new means of curing the girl. Over the protests of her family, Tex applies his theories to the heroine, falling in love with her along the way. The old-fashioned plotting and archaic dialogue of Forever Yours is redeemed somewhat by an early song-and-dance number featuring Gale Storm and Johnny Downs-the sort of escapist fare that Monogram did far better than lachrymose melodramas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It may be ungentlemanly to say it, but pert leading lady Gale Storm was nearly 21 when she starred in Monogram's Nearly Eighteen. Storm plays teenaged songstress Jane, who is too young to land a nightclub job but too old to enroll in a prestigious academy of music. She poses as a 14-year-old so that she can be tutored by handsome and talented music-professor Leonard (Bill Henry). By and by, Jane falls in love with Leonard, but dares not admit it lest her subterfuge be revealed. The fun really begins when Jane, lying about her age (again!) to secure a nightclub gig, is ardently pursued by handsome bookie Tony (Rick Vallin). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of Monogram's "zombie" thrillers, Revenge of the Zombies is better than the first, if only because of its powerhouse cast. John Carradine does his usual as Von Alltermann, a mad scientist in the employ of the Nazis. Commissioned to create a race of "living dead" warriors for the Third Reich, Von Alltermann takes time out to attempt to revitalize his deceased wife Lila (Veda Ann Borg). Stumbling into the doc's laboratory is heroine Jen (Gale Storm), who is rescued in The Nick by undercover FBI agent Larry (Robert Lowery). As in King of the Zombies, Mantan Moreland provides his patented bug-eyed comedy relief; good taste aside, he's the best thing in the picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide