Ward Bond Movies

In his feature film debut, Glenn Ford plays a department-store clerk who saves up enough money to buy a small patch of land in Arizona. Unable to afford a car, Ford hitchhikes to his new home, and along the way teams up with a transient (Richard Conte) and an illegal alien (Jean Rogers). The girl is torn between both men, but ultimately opts for the clerk. To save the girl from deportation, the clerk marries her, and together they make a new life for themselves in his tiny Arizona homestead. Adapted from a story by Dalton Trumbo, Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence was directed by former silent film star Ricardo Cortez. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bold for its time (just prior to World War II), Confessions of a Nazi Spy is an expose of a genuine Nazi espionage ring operating in the United States. Dedicated National Socialist Paul Lukas arrives in America to conduct Bund rallies and enlist German-Americans in the service of Hitler. His rabble-rousing speeches inspire a blue collar worker (Francis Lederer) to join a Bund, and then participate in spy activities. FBI agent Edward G. Robinson is assigned to investigate. Extracting a confession from the not-too-bright Lederer, Robinson traces the espionage activities to Lukas. The Nazi official's notoriety and his undesirability as a security risk compels the German secret police to kidnap Lukas and spirit him back to the Fatherland, presumably to face liquidation. The spy ring is rounded up, but Robinson realizes that this is only the beginning. Confessions of a Nazi Spy may seem dated today, but in 1939 it packed a real wallop, especially since most filmmakers of that era chose to ignore the Nazis lest they lose the valuable European market. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gone With the Wind boils down to a story about a spoiled Southern girl's hopeless love for a married man. Producer David O. Selznick managed to expand this concept, and Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel, into nearly four hours' worth of screen time, on a then-astronomical 3.7-million-dollar budget, creating what would become one of the most beloved movies of all time. Gone With the Wind opens in April of 1861, at the palatial Southern estate of Tara, where Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) hears that her casual beau Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) plans to marry "mealy mouthed" Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). Despite warnings from her father (Thomas Mitchell) and her faithful servant Mammy (Hattie McDaniel), Scarlett intends to throw herself at Ashley at an upcoming barbecue at Twelve Oaks. Alone with Ashley, she goes into a fit of histrionics, all of which is witnessed by roguish Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), the black sheep of a wealthy Charleston family, who is instantly fascinated by the feisty, thoroughly self-centered Scarlett: "We're bad lots, both of us." The movie's famous action continues from the burning of Atlanta (actually the destruction of a huge wall left over from King Kong) through the now-classic closing line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Holding its own against stiff competition (many consider 1939 to be the greatest year of the classical Hollywood studios), Gone With the Wind won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to win an Oscar). The film grossed nearly 192 million dollars, assuring that, just as he predicted, Selznick's epitaph would be "The Man Who Made Gone With the Wind." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The most elaborate--and longest--of Universal's Frankenstein series, Son of Frankenstein represents Boris Karloff's last appearance in the role of the Monster. The title character is played by Basil Rathbone, who with wife Josephine Hutchinson and son Donnie Donegan returns to the Old Country to take over his late father's estate. Rathbone receives a cool reception from the local villagers, who remember all too well the havoc wreaked by his father's monstrous creation. Though he assures his neighbors that he has no intention of following in his father's footsteps, Rathbone is hounded by suspicious town constable Lionel Atwill, whose stiff artificial arm is an unfortunate legacy of an earlier confrontation with Karloff. Also hanging around Frankenstein Castle is crazed shepherd Bela Lugosi), whose neck was broken in an unsuccessful hanging attempt. Lugosi wishes to exact revenge on the city fathers who'd tried to execute him, and to that end persuades Rathbone to revive the hideous Karloff. At first resistant, Rathbone becomes as obsessed as his father with the notion of creating artificial life. Now the fun begins, directed with Germanic intensity by Rowland V. Lee. Though Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein has rendered Son of Frankenstein virtually impossible to take seriously, the film remains an excellent marriage of the slick, sanitized production values of the "New Universal" and the Gothic zeitgeist of the earlier Frankenstein epics. Best line: Lugosi, looking over the dormant body of The Monster, explains raspily that "He does...things...for me." Hans J. Salter's intense musical score for Son of Frankenstein would continue to resurface in Universal's Mummy B pictures of the 1940s. Watch for Ward Bond in a bit part as a police officer...and see if you can spot Dwight Frye, whose supporting part was excised from the final release print, among the villagers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, a real estate agent takes everything from a bank and then frames the banker for the crime. The evil agent then becomes the receiver for the institution and begins trying to foreclose on numerous ranchers. His nefarious plans are thwarted by a cowboy hero who brings justice to the crook, reinstates the real banker, and falls in love with his daughter as well. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

John Garfield once more plays a social outcast who's had nothing but lousy breaks. Released from prison for a crime he didn't commit, Garfield is promptly arrested as a vagrant and sent to a work farm. He falls in love with Priscilla Lane, stepdaughter of the farm's no-good foreman. Garfield marries Priscilla, but his happiness is short-lived when the foreman drunkenly goads him into a fight. Arrested again for killing the foreman, Garfield is defended by a compassionate attorney (Moroni Olsen), whose summation to the jury places the blame for Garfield's plight squarely on the shoulders of Society. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

They Made Me a Criminal opens in New York, depicting the latest victory in the ring for Johnny Bradfield (John Garfield), a young boxer who seems headed for a championship. When a reporter finds Bradfield drunk and carousing with women, and learns that the squeaky-clean image that he has cultivated is a complete lie, he threatens to blow the lid off the boxer's real life, and is beaten to death by Bradfield's manager. Bradfield, who was in a drunken stupor during the fight, is framed for the killing by his manager, who rolls him for his wallet, watch, and anything else of value, makes a run for it, and is killed in a fiery car accident. As far as the police are concerned, the case is closed, "Bradfield" having been identified in the wreck by the watch he was wearing. But Johnny Bradfield now has to disappear from New York and anyplace else he's ever been seen, in order to stay "dead." He is sent on his way by his crooked attorney with just a few dollars in his pocket, thumbing rides and walking west. Bradfield collapses one day from exhaustion and near starvation outside of a ranch in Arizona. The ranch is run by May Robson as part of a relief effort to help a group of boys from the New York slums -- Tommy (Billy Halop), Spit (Leo Gorcey), Dippy (Huntz Hall), T.B. (Gabriel Dell), Angel (Bobby Jordan), and Milty (Bernard Punsly) -- keep out of trouble. Identifying himself as "Jack Dorney," he first tries to see what he can get in the way of a free ride from the kids and Tommy's sister, Peggy (Gloria Dickson), who doesn't trust Dorney or his influence over the kids. Meanwhile, back in New York, one police detective, Phelan (Claude Rains), is convinced that the body found in the burned wreck of Johnny Bradfield's car wasn't Bradfield. Phelan is an outcast in his department for having once presented "conclusive" evidence in court against a man who was executed for murder, only to discover later that the man was innocent. He sees this as his chance to redeem himself and his career, and he is such a pariah that his chief gives him permission to follow up leads anywhere he needs to. At the ranch, Dorney takes a genuine liking to the kids, and sees Peggy as a kind of woman he's never known, who has no "angles" in her approach to life. The ranch may have to be sold, however, as there is no more money coming from the church in New York to keep it going. In order to save the ranch and set Peggy and the kids up in a roadside business pumping gas -- an idea of Tommy's -- Dorney decides to enter a prize fight for money against a barnstorming boxer. On the eve of the fight, however, Phelan shows up, drawn by a newspaper photo of Dorney, his face obscured but using the same unusual left-handed boxing stance he used as Johnny Bradfield. Dorney goes into the ring, and finds himself up against a brute who has already flattened two opponents in less than one round each, trying to hide his identity by fighting right-handed. He gets savaged, round after round, until Phelan tells him from ringside that he knows who he is. Free to use his left, Dorney saves himself. Phelan confronts him in the dressing room, and Johnny tells him he'll give him no trouble -- they're about to head back east, with Peggy and the kids trying to thank him, and it dawns on Phelan that possibly this is one case that might better be left "solved" officially the way it is already, even though it means the detective going back to his job as a laughing stock. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

A sequel of sorts to 1938's Meet the Girls, Pardon Our Nerve stars as Lynn Bari and June Gale (replacing June Lang) as intrepid chorus girls Terry Wilson and Judy Davis. Unable to find any showbiz work, our heroines take jobs with a dating service. Before getting fired as usual, Terry and Judy overhear a telephone conversation wherein society matron requests the services of a prizefighter for a novelty party. The girls talk a dimwitted waiter named Samson Smith (Guinn Williams) into posing as a pugilist, leading to a successful career in the boxing ring-at least until the authorities find out that they've been flummoxed by Terry and Judy. Chester Clute has a good comedy part as a hapless bill-collector who invests his life savings in Samson's ill-fated career. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second of three films based on the Wyatt Earp biography by Stuart N. Lake, Frontier Marshal stars Randolph Scott as Marshal Earp of Tombstone. Earp and his brothers enforce the law as much by reputation as by gunplay. Occasionally the marshal's efforts are complicated by his "friendly enemy" Doc Halliday (based on Doc Holliday and played by Cesar Romero), a consumptive gunslinger who runs the gambling activities in town. When a murderous outlaw (Joe Sawyer) invades Tombstone and kills Halliday, Earp is moved to action -- and the result is the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A remake of the 1934 film of the same name, Frontier Marshal was itself remade by John Ford as My Darling Clementine (1946), with Henry Fonda as Earp and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Ford's fine direction distinguishes this highly fictionalized account of the early life of Abraham Lincoln. The film shows Lincoln (Henry Fonda) as he rises from a country boy born in a log cabin to a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois defending two young men unjustly accused of murder. The film, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, received an Academy Award nomination for "Best Original Screenplay" for its screenwriter Lamar Trotti. Henry Fonda perhaps the most American of actors, is at his best playing Lincoln as the quintessential, compassionate American hero. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Despite its title and its potent lineup of cowboy talent, RKO Radio's The Law West of Tombstone is more comedy than western. The characters are all based on famous frontier characters, with names changed to protect the producers. Harry Carey is cast against type as a blowhard Judge Roy Bean clone, whose bravado masks the heart of a coward. With the help of Billy the Kid rip-off Tim Holt, Carey fends off a gang that closely resembles the Clantons. Holt ends up in the arms of Jean Rouverol, a busy ingenue of the 1930s who later became a prolific children's story writer. Law West of Tombstone was directed by onetime movie leading man Glenn Tryon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edward G. Robinson shines in a fine comic role as Dr. Clitterhouse, a brilliant psychiatrist doing research into the criminal mind. The good doctor wants to gain a clearer understanding of how a thief feels when he's in the midst of a robbery, so strictly for academic purposes he tries to crack a safe at a high society party to which he's been invited. While trying to get rid of the jewels he swiped in the course of this experiment, Clitterhouse makes the acquaintance of "Rocks" Valentine (Humphrey Bogart), the tough-as-nails leader of a group of professional thieves. Clitterhouse is fascinated by Valentine and discovers that he enjoys committing robberies, so he joins forces with Valentine's gang and uses his superior intellect to mastermind a series of daring and profitable heists. Clitterhouse is also beguiled by Jo Keller (Claire Trevor), a beautiful dame who fences stolen gems. But Valentine doesn't appreciate how Dr. Clitterhouse has worked his way into the gang, and he is soon looking for an opportunity to get him out of the picture. The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse was co-written by John Huston and features several key members of the Warner Brothers stock company in supporting roles, including Allen Jenkins and Donald Crisp. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Set during World War I, Submarine Patrol stars Preston S. Foster as a naval officer demoted for dereliction of duty. He is forced to commandeer a battered old submarine chaser and its ragtag crew. Anxious to redeem himself, Foster transforms his loser underlings into a crack combat team, chalking up numerous enemy sinkings. Richard Greene costars as Foster's junior officer, a rich wastrel who matures into a worthwhile individual during his tour of duty. Deftly directed by John Ford, Submarine Patrol was enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike in 1938. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide