Harry Tyler Movies

This gripping, gritty film noir begins as a mortally wounded physician staggers into the apartment of a vicious vixen, the leader of a notorious gang of thieves. Shots ring out, and the police rush to the scene. Sergeant Leonard gets there to find the doctor dead, and the woman failing fast. As she lay gasping she decides to tell the sergeant the whole terrible story that began when she got involved with a cop-killing robber who was captured and sentenced to death. Before his fateful date with the gas chamber, he lets the rest of the gang know where he hid the $40,0000 they netted from the caper; he, with her help, also arranges to ingest the doctor's newly developed drug, an antidote to cyanide, to escape his "execution." The plot works, and eventually, the gangster is back in business. He gives his girl half of the map, but unfortunately gets shot by a rival before he can give her the other half. The ruthless woman and another gang member then force the doctor to assist them with their search. They are heading off to the location, when the double-crossing she-devil kills the other gangster in a horrible manner and continues on with the doctor. They find the chest containing the loot and they get an awful surprise. The woman begins laughing hysterically as if on the verge of a full-blown break down. She shoots the doctor and then flees, thereby bringing the story up to the present. Just before she dies, the ruthless woman reveals the astonishing contents of the chest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Inspired by the radio program of the same name, Night Editor features Charles D. Brown as the editor of the New York Star. In flashback, the editor tells the tale of police lieutenant William Gargan, who forsakes his happy home life for the love of no-good society dame Janis Carter. Both Gargan and Carter begin cheating on their respective spouses, and while on a romantic rendezvous the couple witnesses a murder. They can't report the crime without revealing their own infidelities, a dilemma which leads to blackmail, double-crossing and a second murder attempt. A twist ending caps this snappy little 65-minute morality play. The script of Night Editor was based on the story "Inside Story" by Scott Littleton, previously dramatized on the Night Editor radio series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Barbara Britton is as cute as can be as the title character in Republic's The Fabulous Suzanne. The plot, which bears a faint resemblance to MGM's She Went to the Races, concerns a young hashhouse waitress who picks winning horses by randomly jabbing a pin into her racing form. Accumulating a tidy nest egg, Suzanne offers to buy a fancy new restaurant for her handsome boss Rex (Richard Denning). He refuses this largess, whereupon she huffily heads to New York, intending to use her winning pin-in-the-paper formula on the Stock Market. Along the way, she attracts the attentions of a trio of bachelor stockbrokers, chief among them stuffy Hendrick Courtney Jr. (Rudy Vallee). The film's best moment, and one worthy of inclusion in any anthology on 1940s musicals, finds costar Rudy Vallee reacting with disgust at the adenoidal voice of a nightclub crooner-also played by Rudy Vallee! ("But sir, his singing is very distinctive." "It certainly does!") ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This neat, fast-paced perfectly cast film noir reflects the hard-boiled, grim wit of the author of its screenplay, Raymond Chandler. Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) returns from the war to find his wife Helen (Doris Dowling) having a party and in the arms of another man. Johnny and Helen have a terrible fight, and later Helen is found dead. Johnny must prove his innocence and he enlists the aid of Joyce Haywood (Veronica Lake), the ex-wife of Helen's lover. Pursued by the cops, and never sure if he is being set-up for the murder, Johnny finally solves the murder and clears his name. Alan Ladd is at his hard-boiled, no-nonsense best as Johnny and Veronica Lake is, as always, the perfect noir femme-fatale, mysterious and alluring. Nicely directed by George Marshall, the film moves with great pace to an exciting, satisfying conclusion. The screenplay, the only one written by Chandler directly for the screen, was nominated for an Academy Award. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

A middle-aged Clark Gable returned from active duty in World War II to star in this MGM release that was heavily advertised as his big comeback. Gable is Harry Patterson, the bosun mate on a merchant marine vessel, a tough sailor and fighter with the proverbial girl in every port. But while in a San Francisco library, looking up a book on the human soul for his sidekick Mudgin (Thomas Mitchell), who thinks his soul has departed his body, Harry meets librarian Emily Sears (Greer Garson), whom he woos, marries, and leaves to sail off on another freighter. When he returns, Emily has retreated to an old farm to await the birth of their child. Harry continues to resent staying in one place, but he ultimately changes his tune when his baby's life hangs in the balance. Garson and Joan Blondell, playing her outspoken best friend, are both terrific, and Gable gives a less heroic performance that's a thoughtful change for him, although critics at the time were less than charitable. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Predating 20th Century-Fox's Somewhere in the Night by at least a year, Identity Unknown is one of the first (if not the first) 1940s melodramas centering around an amenisiac ex-GI. Richard Arlen plays Johnny March, who returns from WW2 with nary a clue as to his true identity or the details of his past. March begins a long and arduous trek across America, visiting a wide variety of people who've lost loved ones in the war, in hopes of piecing together his own previous existence. In the manner of The Fugitive, March profoundly affects the lives of everyone he meets, helping them understand what the sacrifices of the war were all about and enabling them to face the future with optimism and pride. Though it may have been merely coincidental, Identity Unknown was released around the same time that the United Nations' first San Francisco Conference was about to convene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Several of Paramount Pictures brightest stars make cameo appearances in this comedy set in "Duffy's Tavern," a favorite watering hole from old time radio shows. The trouble begins when the neighborhood bar is in danger of closing. The trouble begins when the proprietor, Archie, discovers that one of his regulars, Michael O'Malley, owner of a record company is going broke. This means that many veterans will soon be unemployed and therefore, unable to pay their tab at the tavern. Archie immediately begins recruiting famous stars to donate their services and help. They do, the record company is saved and so is the tavern. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Definitely no relation to the 1980 Louis Malle film of the same name, 1944's Atlantic City is a tuneful Republic musical, not quite an "A" picture but certainly not a "B". Brad Taylor (who formerly acted at Columbia under the name of Stanley Brown) stars as Brad, an early-20th-century entrepreneur who decides to transform the sleepy oceanside community of Atlantic City, New Jersey into a mecca for vacationers and thrill-seekers. One of Taylor's visionary notions is the creation of a bathing-beauty contest, and that's where prim-and-proper heroine Marilyn Whitaker (Constance Moore) comes in. The plot is essentially an excuse to trot out several venerable entertainers doing their tried-and-true specialties. Guest stars include Belle Baker, Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, Buck & Bubbles, and Joe Frisco, not to mention Al Shean (of Gallegher and Shean) and Gus Van (of Van and Schenck). Also adding to the general frivolity are Jerry "Ahhh, Yes!" Colonna and up-and-coming Dorothy Dandridge. Atlantic City demonstrated that Republic could make a 20th Century-Fox style musical even without Betty Grable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Newspaper reporter Marion Hargrove's best-selling novel was adapted to the screen by MGM as a vehicle for Robert Walker. The story is basically a series of humorous anecdotes about Hargrove's tenure at boot camp in the early days of World War II. Keenan Wynn is terrific as Hargrove's topkick, and Robert Benchley is no less superb as the father of Hargrove's girl friend (Donna Reed). See Here, Private Hargrove not only secured the stardom of Robert Walker, but launched Marion Hargrove on a lengthy career as a Hollywood screenwriter (his son, Dean Hargrove, has carried on the tradition into TV). The film was followed by a lesser 1946 sequel, What Next, Corporal Hargrove?, which followed the leading character to France. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dismissed by critics as corny and obvious in 1944, this overlong but sincere biopic looks pretty good when seen today, cliches notwithstanding. Fredric March, 47 at the time, convincingly plays American author Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from his early 20s to his death at 75. In typical movie-biography fashion, every single incident that happens in Twain's life is an INSPIRATION: he hears the depth-indication call "Mark Twain" while working on a riverboat and his face lights up; he engages in a jumping-frog contest against Bret Harte (John Carradine) and comes up with his first popular published story; and so on. Alexis Smith is better than usual in the role of Twain's wife Olivia Langdon, even keeping a straight face while Twain courts her in Fluent Quotation ("Everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it", he says during a Hollywood-romance cloudburst). Though the script barely touches upon the dark side of Twain's nature, we are not spared his financial reverses (brought about by bad investments and his struggle to publish Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs. The closing sequence, with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn beckoning the spirit of Mark Twain to heaven as Halley's Comet fills the skies, may seem laughable on paper, but works quite well on film; even director Irving Rapper expressed amazement at the effectiveness of this scene! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This lesser Laurel and Hardy vehicle casts Stan and Ollie as the proprietors of the "Arthur Hurry" dance studio. Despite a rather sizeable student body (consisting mainly of 20th Century-Fox contract starlets), the boys would starve to death were it not for their only paying customer, socialite Trudy Harlan (Trudy Marshall). Trudy is in love with Grant Lawrence (Robert Bailey), an aspiring inventor who needs financial backing for his revolutionary new flame thrower. Laurel and Hardy undertake several moneymaking schemes to help Grant, most of these coming a-cropper. Finally, Ollie remembers an accident-insurance policy taken out on Stan. He tries to arrange an accident so that the boys can collect a huge fee, but this scheme culminates in a wild bus ride, resulting in Ollie breaking his own leg. The plot of Dancing Masters is a hodgepodge of underdeveloped situations and old gags lifted from such earlier Laurel & Hardy comedies as The Battle of the Century and Thicker Than Water; only occasionally does the comic genius of Stan and Ollie shine through. If the film is memorable at all, it is because of the presence of Robert Mitchum, in an unbilled but sizeable role as an insurance racketeer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ann Miller goes through her usual twinkle-toed paces in the quickie Columbia musical What's Buzzin', Cousin? The pencil-thin plotline involves attorney Jimmie Ross (John Hubbard), who moonlights as a singer with the Freddie Martin Orchestra. Using his legal and showbiz know-how, Jimmie revitalizes a broken-down hotel owned by Ann Crawford (Ann Miller) and her family. Musical highlights include Freddie Martin's swing rendition of Liszt's second Hungarian Rhapsody, and Ann Miller's terpsichorial interpretation of the bond-rally standard "18.75." Were it not for the presence of Miller and Martin, What's Buzzin' Cousin? would be utterly forgettable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide