Stanley Blystone Movies

Few Roy Rogers westerns were as gratuitously violent as the 1948 release Eyes of Texas. This time, Rogers' principal antagonist is a woman lawyer named Hattie Waters (Nana Bryant). With a battalion of homicidal henchmen at her beck and call, Hattie attempts to grab up all the valuable ranch property in the territory by scaring off -- or killing off -- her competition. Hero Rogers doesn't buy the official party line that the killings have been perpetrated by wolves, especially after he befriends and tames one of the huge beasts, so he divides his time between singing his usual quota of songs and bringing the baddies to justice. So convincing was Nana Bryant's performance as the despicable Hattie Waters, that the actress' daughter-in-law stubbornly refused to watch Eyes of Texas whenever it popped up on TV in later years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this courtroom drama, two opposing lawyers lead a double life. In the courtroom they are ruthless toward each other, but once the day is over they become passionate lovers. Unfortunately their newest case may well threaten their relationship as the defense attorney is defending a corrupt district attorney who happens to be her ex-husband. The prosecutor knows nothing of their past relationship; all he knows is he wants to nail the crook and his cronies to the wall. Unfortunately, the truth comes out in court and mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this courtroom drama, a French girl stands trial for murder. Flashbacks tell the grim story of how, during the Great War she got involved with a wealthy soldier and married him. He disappeared after the war. She then came to the U.S. There she finds him married to another woman. To cover himself, he tries to get her deported. In the ensuing argument, she accidently kills him. She is found guilty, but when they learn that she is expecting, the widow helps her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Gene Autry goes in search of the man who killed his friend during a blackout in this action-packed western from Columbia. Someone cuts the lights and kills Ed Norton (Stanley Blystone) during a heated poker game and that someone, according to Sheriff Cramer (Chill Wills), may just be young hothead Larry Evans (Russell Arms). Gene, however, thinks otherwise and arranges for Larry to hide out in a cabin belonging to elderly prospector Jim Hedge (Clem Bevans). But the real killer is doing his best to incriminate Larry and Gene must not only fight the sheriff but also the accused man's pretty sister, Mary (Barbara Britton), in order to uncover the truth behind the killing. Despite a preponderance of action, Autry, backed by the Cass County Boys, manages to perform five songs in Loaded Pistols: "Pretty Mary", "Jimmy Crack Corn", "When the Bloom is on the Sage", "A Boy from Texas, A Girl from Tennessee" and the title tune. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Robert Lowery stars as Paul Kimberly, a former newspaperman who takes on a particularly noxious form of corruption. The villains are crooked housing administrators who prey upon returning GIs and their families. Just when it appears that one of the administrators is going to tell all to Kimberly, the man is murdered at the behest of "top man" Vincent Arnold (Charles Evans). It helps Kimberly's objectivity not at all when he himself falls in love with Arnold's innocent daughter Anne (Anabel Shaw). With the advantage of a topical storyline, Killer at Large is one of the better PRC releases from this period. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When scientific mastermind Jack Armstrong is kidnapped by a devious fiend determined to discover the secrets of atom-powered motors, our hero must escape the island fortress of his nefarious captor in this thrilling cliffhanger starring John Hart and Rosemary La Planche. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The Three Stooges returned to the wild and woolly West in this above-average two-reel comedy, the second to feature Shemp Howard as the third member of the team. They are visitors to a lawless frontier town and run afoul of the infamous Doc Barker (Jack Norman aka Norman Willis) and his gang. To their rescue (and that of Christine McIntyre) come not only the handsome young "Arizona Kid" (Jock Mahoney in his first of many appearances with the Stooges) but the entire cavalry. A reworking of Harry Langdon and El Brendel's 1945 Pistol Packing Nitwits, Out West was remade by the Stooges as Pals and Gals in 1954. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Road to Rio was the first of three "Road" pictures jointly produced by stars Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. On the run from the law again, musicians Bob and Bing stow away on an ocean liner. They try to come to the rescue of heiress Dorothy Lamour, who is doomed to an arranged marriage to caddish George Meeker. All gratitude and effusions for their assistance, Dorothy surprises Bob and Bing on their next meeting by slapping them in their faces and declaring "I hate you! I loathe you! I despise you!" The explanation? Dorothy is being hypnotized by her scheming aunt Gale Sondergaard, who has set up the marriage for mysterious mercenary reasons of her own. When Dorothy is "herself" again, Bob and Bing smuggle her off the ship and into their Rio de Janeiro hotel room. The boys plan to save Dorothy from her unwanted marriage by passing her off as a nightclub singer, and themselves as band leaders. Trouble is, they have no band. Enter the Wiere Brothers, three Rio street entertainers. Bob and Bing hire the threesome on the spot, unmindful that they have booked themselves into Nestor Paiva's nightclub on the promise that they're delivering an American band. Since the Wieres speak only Portuguese, Bing teaches each brother an American phrase by rote: "You're in the groove, Jackson", "You're Telling Me," and "This is Murder." Naturally, it isn't long before the boys' ruse is discovered, and this coupled with the newly hypnotized Lamour's threats to have Bob and Bing arrested, leaves our heroes broke and stranded once more. Still, they pose a menace to Sondergaard, thus she contrives a method of disposing of them. Hypnotizing them both, Sondergaard orders Bob and Bing to kill each other. They snap out of the spell just in time, but still there's the problem of rescuing Dorothy. And now there's a new angle: mysterious stranger Frank Puglia informs the boys that the only way to stop the wedding is to retrieve (pause; a furtive glance left; a furtive glance right) "The Papers." Said papers are in the possession of Sondergaard, obliging Bob and Bing to show up at the pre-nuptial festival in disguise (with Bob in drag). Managing to hypnotize Sondergaard's henchmen Frank Faylen and Joseph Vitale, Bob and Bing uncover the precious Papers, and Dorothy is saved. But how can those papers stop a wedding? We won't give away the surprise, nor will we tell you whether Dorothy ends up with Bob or Bing, nor even what the heck Jerry Colonna is doing in the picture leading a cavalry charge. Not the best of the "Road" pictures, Road to Rio is nonetheless one of the most memorable--and quotable (how many of your high school pals used to confound the teacher by declaring "You're in the groove, Jackson"?) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Diminutive western hero Bob Steele stars in Six Gun Man. Steele plays federal marshal Bob Storm, who has been assigned to halt the activities of cattle rustlers. Given his previous movie track record, we'll wager that Bob also wants to avenge the death of his father. Jean Carlin is the ingenue, I. Stanford Jolley the heavy, and Sid Saylor (he of the bobbing adam's apple) is comedy relief. Even at 59 minutes, Six Gun Man could use some judicious editing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Powell plays a cynical con man who graduates from penny-ante operations to a big-time charity racket. The scam involves collecting money on behalf of St. Dismas, bringing Powell in close contact with several men of the cloth. As the racket rolls on, Powell is touched by the sincerity of the religious men and the plights of the charity's rightful recipients. He has a change of heart, confessing his original criminal intentions but seeing to it that the money goes to the right people. Hoodlum Saint was typical of the facile religiosity often found in MGM pictures of the period. The film is best remembered as the first non-aquatic performance of MGM swimming star Esther Williams. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Melodramatic gangster action characterizes this tough and freely fictionalized biography of notorious, murderous Chicago mobster Roger Touhy. Set during Prohibition, it centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Capone (who is referred to, but never named in the story). It is his rival who frames Touhy for kidnapping and arranges for him to serve a life-long term in Stateville prison. Determined to be free again, the desperate Touhy and his cellmate Basil "the Owl" Banghart, begin plotting a violent break out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This clever Three Stooges comedy opens, like many of their films do, with a sign: "Drs. Heart-Burns and Belcher." But that's not referring to the Stooges -- they're merely the night janitors, and not very good ones. They have the usual round of mishaps, the funniest being when Curly gets his head stuck in a fish bowl. Even after Larry and Moe free him from the globe, he's not quite right, so they stick him behind the fluoroscope and discover he has swallowed a fish. They retrieve it by sticking a fishing line -- with bait -- down his throat. Their work is further interrupted by a trio of crooks. While escaping the police, one of them was shot in the shoulder, and they insist that the Stooges -- who they have mistaken for doctors -remove the slug. The wounded crook insists on being anesthetized, which confuses the trio until they're told, "That means he wants to be knocked out!" "Ohhh---" they reply knowingly, and they knock him cold with a hammer. But the wounded crook slides off the gurney, out the window and into a waiting police car. To fool the other two gun men (who apparently aren't much smarter than the Stooges), Moe and Larry stick Curly under the sheet. The police finally show up looking for the crooks and both the gunmen and Stooges go running. While the crooks are nabbed, the Stooges wind up in a strange storage area with a bunch of mannequins, a gigantic, spooky jack-in-the-box, a frightened night watchman and a vat of plaster. Curly falls into the plaster and his ghostly white visage scares everyone he encounters until the short comes to a rather abrupt end. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Produced by silent-film comedian Harold Lloyd, My Favorite Spy is a vehicle for bespectacled bandleader Kay Kyser, who resembles Lloyd more than somewhat. Just before embarking on his honeymoon with new bride Terry (Ellen Drew), Kyser is drafted into the Army. Proving to be a monumentally inefficient soldier, our hero is nonetheless pressed into service by US intelligence officer Major Allen (Moroni Olsen). It seems that Nazi agents have been passing secrets in the nightclub where Kyser's band performs, and Allen wants Kay to act as a counter-espionage agent. To maintain his cover, Kay is discharged from the army in disgrace, and is ordered to noisily make himself a "security risk", so that Nazi chieftan Robinson (Robert Armstrong) will invite Kay to join his spy operation. Trouble is, Kyser must keep his espionage activities secret from everyone-even his wife Terry, who is growing ever more impatient over Kay's unexplained absences from her boudoir. Making matters worse, Kyser is teamed with glamorous blonde secret agent Connie (Jane Wyman), whom Terry understandably suspects of being Kay's clandestine sweetheart. A multitude of slapstick situations follow, culminating in a wild chase through an abandoned theater, with Kay Kyser making like Harold Lloyd to rescue his wife from the Nazis. As directed by Tay Garnett, Kyser's ongoing marital woes seem more pathetic than funny; in addition, his Secret Service cohorts come off as the most sadistic bunch of "good guys" in screen history, bursting with laughter every time Kay's wife throws him out of their apartment. Even so, My Favorite Spy has a few genuine laughs, especially in the final reels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide