Harry Strang Movies

Coney island vendors Baltimore Clark (Bill Boyd), Dutch Herman (Robert Armstrong) and Skeets O'Reilly (James Gleason) spend their off-hours (and some of their on-hours) carrying on a friendly rivalry for the affections of pert drugstore counter girl Sally (Ginger Rogers). But when America enters WW1, our three heroes leave Sally behind and join the Navy. Before long, Baltimore, Dutch and Skeets find themselves smack in the middle of an ongoing conflict between the German U-boat fleet and a shadowy "mystery" ship. Naturally, the boys are crewmen on the aforementioned mystery vessel, which is used as a decoy to bring the enemy out into the open. Despite this tense situation, the film spends a goodly amount of time showing the three protagonists cheerfully cheating on Sally with fetching foreign damsels in other ports of call. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alias Mary Smith might have been completely forgotten were it not for the diligent efforts of "B"-picture aficionado John Cocchi, who in such books as Second Feature has elevated this unintentionally hilarious cheapie to near-classic status. John Darrow plays a bibulous playboy who rescues put-upon heroine Blanche Mehaffey from a purse-snatcher. Their subsequent romance is complicated by Mehaffey's efforts to prove gangster boss Matthew Betz guilty of murder, a trick she pulls off with the help of a squeezed lemon (no kidding!) The tightness of the film's budget is never more obvious than in the obligatory newspaper-headline close-ups; all of these headlines have been obviously plastered over a single copy of the trade paper Variety (sharp-eyed viewers will note that each news story begins with a report from the Culver City kennel club). The film reaches a giddy high point when the heroine, threatened with a jail sentence by DA Henry B. Walthall, asks plaintively, "Is it a nice jail?" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

We first lay eyes on Jimmy Cagney in Lady Killer while he's working as a movie theater usher. This job lasts just long enough for Jimmy to be swindled in a "badger game" orchestrated by hard-boiled Mae Clarke and a gang of crooks headed by Douglass Dumbrille. Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Cagney joins the mob, and soon is calling the shots. But though he's got larceny in his soul, Cagney draws the line at murder, and when gang member Raymond Hatton is bumped off, Cagney and Clarke board the Super Chief and head to California. With the cops laying for Cagney in LA, he's suspicious of everyone. A shifty-looking mug (William B. Davidson) takes after Cagney on the street; catching up to the winded Cagney, the mug explains that he's a movie director, and that Cagney is a perfect "type" for an upcoming prison picture. After several months as a bit player, Cagney befriends good-natured movie-star Margaret Lindsay, who encourages Cagney to seek out bigger parts. The enterprising Cagney engineers a phony fan-mail campaign encouraging the studio to give him starring roles. Though now a slick, pomaded romantic lead in pictures, Cagney is still Cagney; when a snooty critic pans Lindsay's most recent performance, Cagney forces the reviewer to literally eat his words! It must needs be that Cagney's old gang shows up in Hollywood, planning to use Cagney's influence to gain entree into movie stars' mansions, then steal their valuables. Cagney says ixnay to this, so the mob schemes to take him for a ride. Tipped off by Clarke, Cagney is able to rout the crooks, save the day, and claim Lindsay for his bride. Lady Killer is vintage Cagney, throwing virtually every one of his star-making attributes (including one cute reference to his legendary "grapefruit scene" in 1931's Public Enemy) into one entertaining 76-minute stew. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the tradition of the classic scare piece Banquo's Chair, The Ghost Walks features one phony spectre and one supposedly real wraith. An actor is hired for a high-society gathering to pose as a ghost. It's all part of a plan by a struggling playwright to stir up interest in his latest production. But just as the "faux" phantom is putting on his sheet, he's scared off by a genuine spook. A murder plot is at the bottom of these weird occurrences, as we discover in reel seven. The Ghost Walks was another one-set wonder from pinchpenny Chesterfield Studios. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Carnival barker Spencer Tracy befriends elderly concessionaire Henry B. Walthall, who owns a picturesque but stodgy display depicting Dante's Inferno. Walthall is more interested in the spiritual aspects of Man's fascination with Hell, but Tracy uses hoopla and exaggeration to get the suckers into the Inferno. His interest isn't altruistic; Tracy is enamored of Walthall's niece, Claire Trevor. Through his publicity savvy, Tracy builds the Inferno into a major attraction, complete with full orchestra and scantily clad "devil girls". He also buys up the rest of the carnival, using cold-blooded tactics that result in the suicide of a fellow concessionaire. Within five years, Tracy is a millionaire tycoon of the Entertainment industry. While loved by his wife (Trevor) and son (Scotty Beckett), Tracy conducts his business ruthlessly, bribing a city official to look the other way regarding structural defects in his Inferno display. When this duplicity results in a disastrous accident at the exhibit, the bribed official kills himself. Tracy is exonerated thanks to legal chicanery, but his wife is fed up; she walks out on him, taking their son along. Injured in the accident, Inferno creator H. B. Walthall warns Tracy of the pitfalls of success, using an illustrated edition of Dante to make his point. For nearly ten minutes, the movie audience is treated to a lavish depiction of Hell, magnificently photographed by Rudolph Mate. When the plot resumes, Tracy is on hand for his latest venture, a sumptuous gambling ship. Thanks to the drunken negligence of the crew, the ship catches fire, and it is only upon learning that his son has sneaked aboard that Tracy realizes the consequences of his greed. Tracy labors heroically to rescue the passengers--and, incidentally, to atone for his past sins. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his first starring role (after being second-billed to Claudette Colbert in The Gilded Lily), Fred MacMurray plays officer Ross Martin of the Michigan State Police. After completing his training, Martin is pitted against dignified Professor Anthony (Sir Guy Standing), who uses his academic status as a cover for his bank-robbery activities. Keeping himself abreast of police maneuvers by listening to car radios and unobtrusively hanging around headquarters, Anthony ultimately uses his technological know-how to paralyze the police communications systems. But with the cooperation of the Massachusetts police department, whose radios are in full working order, rookie Martin and rustic sheriff Pete Arnot (Frank Craven) combine forces for a final assault upon Anthony's hideout. Its sometimes illogical plot twists notwithstanding, the screenplay is based on a series of factual articles, first published in Saturday Evening Post. Also given a career boost in Car 99 is another new Paramount contractee, Ann Sheridan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Warner Baxter plays Dr. Samuel Mudd, American history's most famous victim of circumstance. In 1865, Dr. Mudd, a known Confederate sympathizer, sets the broken leg of a mud-caked stranger who stumbles into his home. The injured man turns out to be John Wilkes Booth, and Mudd is accused of conspiring to murder President Lincoln. Sentenced to hang with the genuine conspirators, Mudd finds his sentence commuted to life imprisonment at the very last moment. He is shipped to Shark Island, a brutal penal colony. Subject to the cruelties of a guard (John Carradine) who hates Mudd because of his "complicity" in Lincoln's death, the doctor suffers the torments of the damned, while outside Shark Island his wife (Gloria Stuart) campaigns desperately to get her husband pardoned. During a Yellow Fever breakout on Shark Island, Dr. Mudd performs heroically to save the survivors. For his humanitarian efforts, Mudd is finally released and reunited with his wife. While the script glosses over the fact that Dr. Mudd had never been officially pardoned by the US government (the pardon wouldn't be granted until years after this film was made), Prisoner of Shark Island strives long and hard to exonerate the man for whom the phrase "your name is mud!" was coined. Dr. Samuel Mudd's story was retold in the 1952 feature Hellgate, with Sterling Hayden as a (fictional) doctor, and in the 1980 TV movie The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd, starring Dennis Weaver in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The MGM historical "spectacular" San Francisco was allegedly based on a three-sentence synopsis, submitted verbally to producer B.F. Zeidman by studio troubleshooter Bob Hopkins. The story begins on the Barbary Coast on New Year's Eve, 1906, as rakish but likeable political boss Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) hires demure young singer Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) to perform at his rowdy Paradise gambling house. Local priest Father Mullin (Spencer Tracy), Blackie's best friend, disapproves of the exploitation of the lovely Mary, feeling that she's suited for classier surroundings. Jack Hurley (Jack Holt), Nob Hill socialite and Blackie's political rival, agrees with Father Mullin and offers the girl the opportunity to sing with the San Francisco Opera. Blackie, who's fallen in love with Mary but won't admit it to himself, jealously holds on to her contract, forcing Mary to walk out on him. For the rest of the film, Mary is torn between the "respectable" lifestyle offered her by Hurley and the baser creature comforts provided by Blackie. It looks for a while that Hurley has won out, but fate takes a hand in the form of the devastating San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906 (a special effects tour de force for art directors Arnold Gillespie and his uncredited associate James Basevi). Hurley is killed in the holocaust, while Blackie, desperately searching for Mary in the rubble, at long last finds religion and prays to God for his sweetheart's salvation. At the end, an unidentified bit player shouts defiantly "We'll build a new San Francisco!" -- and by golly, they do! The Hollywood censors were not so much bothered by the sexual subtext of San Francisco or its harrowing earthquake finale as they were by a scene in which Father Mullin is knocked down by an unrepentant Blackie. To "purify" this potentially blasphemous sequence, screenwriter Anita Loos quickly added an earlier scene in which Mullin and Blackie, both dressed in turtleneck sweaters, genially duke it out at an exercise gym, whereupon the priest cold-cocks Blackie with the greatest of ease. By establishing that Mullin could have punched out Blackie, but chooses not to in the controversial later scene, not only allows that scene to pass, but also strengthened the priest's character. San Francisco proved to be one of MGM's biggest hits, remaining in almost constant reissue for the next three decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A naval officer gets more than he bargained for when he adopts a recently orphaned young boy, the son of his late best friends. Despite the resistance of the lad's surviving relatives, who worry that growing in the Navy will be hard on the boy, the officer loves and takes good care of the boy. At least he does until the child is abducted by a gangster who has mistaken him for his long-lost boy. Fortunately for the young fellow, the officer rallies the entire Navy and comes to the rescue. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Marked Woman was the most famous of the late-1930s films based on New York DA Thomas Dewey's attack on vice lord Lucky Luciano; Paid to Dance was among the least famous. All-purpose Columbia leading lady Jacqueline Wells plays Joan Bradley, a long-suffering hoofer in the seedy dime-a-dance joint controlled by racketeer Jack Miranda (Arthur Loft). Like her fellow "hostesses," Joan is expected to clip the customers for their bankrolls -- and, it is implied, offer their bodies as well as their terpsichorean skills (though we're assured that Joan is still pure of heart and every other portion of her anatomy). Crusading detective William Dennis (Don Terry) vows to save Joan and her ilk from Miranda's clutches, but it takes plenty of brains and muscle to topple the villain's criminal empire. Billed last, Ralph "Dick Tracy" Byrd has a marvelous moment when he takes on two hoodlums at once -- and wins! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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