Josef Swickard Movies

Gene Autry goes up against a crooked oil company in this delightful music Western restored in 2001 by Gene Autry Entertainment. Carruthers (William Royle) of the so-called Alta Vista Oil Company is selling worthless stock from a non-existent well located on a Spanish land grant occupied by Padre Dominic (William Farnum) and his orphanage. At first, the padre's niece, Anita Loredo (Luana Walters), accuses radio entertainer Gene Autry of being in cahoots with Carruthers, but the crooner instead unmasks the oil company for the phony outfit it is. A defecting engineer, Blythe (LeRoy Mason), suspects that there really is oil in them thar hills and with the help of Mexican outlaw turned Robin Hood Valdez (Noah Beery), Gene tricks Carruthers and his equally crooked salesman McElroy (Roy Barcroft) into abandoning the well. A heroic Valdez is killed during the rescue of a couple of wayward orphans (Wally Albright and Kathy Frye) but the discovery of oil saves the orphanage from bankruptcy. In addition to the hit title song, Gene Autry performs "You're the Only Star in My Blue Heaven," "El Rancho Grande," and "Robin Hood" while comic sidekick Smiley Burnette takes care of "My Orchestra's Driving Me Crazy." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This film should have been a press agent's dream: Hollywood's two greatest "big mouths," Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye, together in the same picture. Brown and Raye play a show business couple who inherit a near-bankrupt college. They decide to build up the school's scraggly football team in hopes of improving alumni funding; somewhere along the line it is agreed to grant one thousand dollars for every touchdown scored, hence the title. Slapstick opportunities abound, and with the two stars at the helm, the film should have been far funnier than it is. But thanks to uninspired direction and a threadbare budget, $1000 a Touchdown was a disappointment for fans of both Martha Raye and Joe E. Brown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).

Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The rollicking music of Gilbert and Sullivan is featured in this musical. It tells the story of a dance hall girl with a love of money. She will spend it every chance she gets as long as it is not hers. Trouble ensues when she sponges off a bookie during a date. To get revenge, he becomes her manager and forces her to join a Gilbert and Sullivan troupe. Any money she makes is to be his. Songs include: "The Mikado," "Patience," "Pirates of Penzance," and "Ruddigore." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Western star Buck Jones essays a dual role in Boss Rider of Gun Creek. In time-honored sagebrush tradition, one of the Bucks is a good guy, the other a villain. The bad Buck commits a murder, but it's the good Buck who ends up facing a hangman's noose. Thus, good Buck impersonates bad Buck in order to bring the actual killer to justice. Leslie Selander's clever direction smooths out all the lumpy plot points. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced by poverty row organization Stage and Screen, this less-than-faithful serialized version of the historical battle seems to have rounded up every B-Western player not otherwise engaged at the time. That fact added to a couple of impressive sets drew favorable reviews for the serial's initial chapters, but the overall verdict proved negative. A secret arrow and the secret key to a hidden stash of gold is lost during one of several skirmishes brought about by Young Wolf (Chief Thundercloud). The arrow is recovered by Major Trent (Josef Swickard) and his daughter Barbara (Nancy Caswell) who, unaware of its secret purpose, become the target of various nefarious villains, including Blade (Reed Howes), a renegade Indian. Scout Kid Cardigan (Rex Lease) and General George Armstrong Custer (Frank McGlynn, Jr.) attempt to prevent an all-out war over the arrow, but their endeavors only lead to the infamous Last Stand. A tragic event in American history is thus once again reduced to a mere fight for mammon. A great many well-known B-Western players parade in and out of the serial briefly portraying various historical figures, including Helen Gibson as Calamity Jane, Ruth Mix (Tom's daughter) as Elizabeth Custer, Ted Adams as Buffalo Bill Cody, Howling Wolf as Sitting Bull, Allen Greer as Wild Bill Hickock and High Eagle as Chief Crazy Horse. Stage and Screen and associate producer George M. Merrick announced ambitious plans to film four additional serials, but the company was dissolved in late 1936, yet another victim of the Great Depression and an inability to secure distribution. Custer's Last Stand was also released in a 90-minute feature version. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Otto Preminger was able to make his directorial debut on Under Your Spell solely because Darryl Zanuck couldn't care less about the film's quality; it was a contractual obligation film for Lawrence Tibbett, who was proving a washout as a film star. In Spell, Tibbett plays Anthony Allen, a world famous singer who has grown tired of the trials that come with celebrity. Seeking to avoid the spotlight, ceaseless publicity and determined fans, Allen enlists the aid of his butler in secretly escaping to a ranch in Mexico. Allen's manager (Gregory Ratoff) is understandably upset with his client's behavior and so sets in motion a scheme of his own. He contacts celebrity-hunting heiress Cynthia Drexel (Wendy Barrie) and lets her know where to find the reluctant star. Drexel quickly hunts down her prey and sticks to him like glue. Although Allen initially is exasperated with her, he soon finds himself attracted to her. In addition to arias from The Marriage of Figaro and Faust, Tibbert performs Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz's "Amigo," "My Little Mule Wagon" and the title song. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Dog of Flanders, the durable novel written in 1872 by the author who signed herself Ouida, was filmed three times, first in 1924 with Jackie Coogan. The second filmization, produced in 1935, stars child actors Frankie Thomas, Helen Parrish and Richard Quine as three poor Flemish youths whose lives are interconnected by a handsome German shepherd (played by "Lightning"). The threesome nurse the abandoned dog back to health; soon afterward, the dog rekindles the creative spark of a reclusive artist, whose painting of the noble hound wins a hefty cash prize. Richard Quine, the third juvenile lead of Dog of Flanders, grew up to become an important Hollywood writer/director of the 1950s. Quine did not, however, work on the 1959 remake of Dog of Flanders--which starred another future filmmaker, David Ladd. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This truly offbeat filmization of Jean Bart's stage drama The Man Who Reclaimed His Head has been misleadingly released to TV as part of the "Shock Theater" package, even though the film is more melancholy than horrific. At the height of WW I, the trembling, near-lunatic Paul Verin (Claude Rains) arrives at police headquarters, carrying an ominously heavy handbag. Before revealing the bag's gruesome contents, he relates his tragic story in flashback. At one time a promising writer, Verin was married to the beautiful and ambitious Adele (Joan Bennett), who pushed and prodded him to advance himself. Accordingly, he sold his "head" -- that is, his integrity -- to powerful publisher Henri Dumont (Lionel Atwill), ghostwriting Dumont's anti-war editorials. By the time he realized that the hypocritical Dumont had himself sold out to the pro-war business interests, Verin had lost his wife and child to the scheming publisher. Driven mad on the battlefield, he made his way back to Dumont's mansion, exacting a horrible but appropriate revenge (hence the film's title). The Man Who Reclaimed His Head was remade in 1945 as Strange Confession -- with the pacifist angle completely removed! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Apparently inspired by Noel Coward's Bitter Sweet, Beloved is a lush, lachrymose musical romance set in Vienna, South Carolina and New York City. John Boles stars as Austrian composer Carl Hausmann, whose musical career is very nearly cut short during the 1848 revolution. Carl is whisked off by his mother (Dorothy Peterson) to the American South, where he establishes a respectable reputation in the years just prior to the Civil War. Forced to relocate to New York with his new bride Lucy (Gloria Stuart), Carl languishes professionally for several years, then gives up composing to support his wife and child as a music teacher. Tragedy strikes once more during the Spanish American War, when the Hausmann's son is killed. Carl and Lucy invest all their love in their grandson Eric (Morgan Farley), a Gershwin type who grows up to become a jazz musician in the post-WWI era. As Eric grows richer and more successful, the Hausmanns continue to live in genteel poverty, with Carl all the while struggling to finish the symphony he began so many years before. After an unpleasant episode in which Eric accuses Carl of "stealing my stuff," our nonagenarian protagonist finally hears his symphony in a radio broadcast arranged by his chastened grandson. Contented at last, Carl peacefully passes on. Ironically, leading lady Gloria Stuart was far more attractive when she really reached her 80s than when she was heavily made up as an old woman in Beloved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Invincible Studios' Cross Streets is something of a watershed film, providing leading roles for fading silent stars Claire Windsor and Kenneth Thomson and relative newcomers Johnny Mack Brown and Anita Louise. The story is the old saw about the brilliant surgeon who disappears from view after a fatal misdiagnosis. Twelve years later, the surgeon, now a shabby hobo, returns home, where he redeems himself by performing a life-saving operation. But there's no happy ending for our hero, who through a convoluted plot twist is shot by the jealous husband of the Doc's prospective mother-in-law! Cross Streets might easily have been titled Crossed Wires, what with its tangled web of complex plotlines. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having basically bankrolled the struggling Warner Bros., the era's most popular canine, Rin Tin Tin, signed a 5,000-dollars-a-picture contract with Poverty Row operator Nat Levine. The result, a 15-chapter serial (Levine demanded hard labor for his shekels), featured Rinty opposite veteran genre star Walter Miller. When Rinty's owner is murdered for his secret gold mine, the dog joins forces with Department of Justice agent Ramon (Miller) to catch the killer. Rinty, inevitably, is soon suspected of having killed a valuable colt and sentenced to death (shades of a previous Rin Tin Tin vehicle, The Night Cry, 1926). He is saved in the nick of time by Ramon and his juvenile sidekick, Buzz (former Western star Buzz Barton). The villain (Robert Kortman) then kidnaps the dog and forces him to reveal the location of the gold mine. Ramon, Buzz, and the dead prospector's lovely daughter, Dolores (June Marlowe of Our Gang fame) manage not only to save the dog once again but also bring the killer to justice. Sold on the states rights market as a "talkie" (or should it be a "barkie"?), The Silent Defender had long, drawn-out silent sequences interspersed with stilted dialogue. But it was packaged solely for children -- who didn't care about sound one way or another -- and made a mint for Levine's burgeoning Mascot Pictures. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

One of the most ambitious productions ever to emerge from parsimonious Tiffany Studios, Mamba is also one of the few 1930s horror films to be lensed in Technicolor. The story takes place in East Africa, where bestial August Bolte (Jean Hersholt), also known as Mamba, holds the local Zulu population in a grip of terror. Bolte's villainy apparently knows no bounds, extending all the way to his native Germany, where for $40,000 he "purchases" virginal Helen von Linden (Eleanor Boardman) from her greedy mother. En route to Africa, Helen falls in love with ship's captain Karl von Reiden (Ralph Forbes), who vows to rescue the girl from Bolte's slimy clutches. But Bolte proves a near-invulnerable enemy -- at least until the Zulus rise up against him and mete out their own gruesome justice. Only a few existing prints of Mamba are in color; most available copies are black-and-white dupes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide