Ruth Warrick Movies
A 1941 RKO radio press book claimed that actress Ruth Warrick first came to New York as the winner of something called the "Miss Jubelesta" contest, carrying a live turkey into Mayor LaGuardia's office. It's a safe bet Warrick, a former radio singer and model, would rather be remembered for her first Hollywood accomplishment, which was certainly no turkey: the role of Emily Monroe Norton, Mrs. Kane number one, in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Much too reserved and aristocratic for standard leading lady roles, Warrick was seen to better advantage in character parts. Since 1970, Ruth Warrick has starred as a snooty, status-conscious doctor's wife on the ABC daytime drama All My Children; Warrick alluded to this long-running character in the title of her 1980 autobiography, The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A Guest in the House is an involving psychological melodrama, well directed and acted, concerning a young woman's obsessive love. Evelyn (Anne Baxter), an emotionally vulnerable and unstable woman, stays at the home of her doctor Dan Proctor (Scott McKay). There she meets and falls in love with his brother, Douglas (Ralph Bellamy), who is happily married to Ann (Ruth Warrick). Evelyn then sets forth to break up the happy marriage and win the love of Douglas -- with tragic results. A Guest in the House directed by John Brahm, aided by Andre De Toth and Lewis Milestone, who are uncredited, is a sensitive, well-acted melodrama. Baxter gives a fine performance as the unstable young woman, who cannot overcome her obsessions. The fine musical score, composed by Werner Janssen, was nominated for an Academy Award. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, (more)
- 1944
Secret Command features Pat O'Brien as a onetime foreign correspondent in the wartime employ of the FBI. Under an assumed name, O'Brien goes to work at a shipyard, intending to keep both eyes open for potential saboteurs. To maintain the cover, O'Brien is given a "wife" (Carole Landis) and two children. When O'Brien's brother Chester Morris shows up, he can't comprehend the charade and nearly spills the beans to the Nazi spies O'Brien hopes to trap. Based on the short story The Saboteurs by John and Ward Hawkins, Secret Command offers a graying but still feisty Pat O'Brien doing what he does best. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pat O'Brien, Carole Landis, (more)
- 1944
The year is 1942: Mr. Winkle (Edward G. Robinson), a mild-mannered bank clerk, decides to quit his job and open a fix-it shop in his garage. Winkle's wife Amy (Ruth Warrick) disapproves of this, and orders her husband to move into his little shop. Tired of being browbeaten, Winkle is delighted when his draft notice shows up. Fitted for a uniform, Winkle has the wind taken out of his sails in basic training, but soon finds that army life agrees with him; when given a chance to go home when the draft age is lowered to 38, he refuses to do so. Transferred to the South Pacific, Winkle instinctively performs a conspicuous act of bravery. He returns home a much-decorated hero, but he's too shy to partake in the ceremonies in his honor, opting instead to return to his shop, and to his now-loving wife Amy. A tailor-made Edward G. Robinson vehicle, Mr. Winkle Goes to War was adapted by Waldo Salt, George Corey and Louis Solomon from a novel by Theodore Pratt. Watch for Robert Mitchum, Hugh Beaumont and Miss Jeff Donnell in unbilled bits. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Warrick, (more)
- 1944
Pearl S. Buck's novel China Sky is boiled down to a wartime romantic triangle, courtesy of commercial-minded RKO. Randolph Scott and Ruth Warrick play American doctors in a remote Chinese village. The relationship is platonic, but Scott's spiteful wife Ellen Drew suspects hanky-panky. Despite these turgid soap-opera events, World War II has to be fought, and fought it is thanks to guerilla leader Anthony Quinn and insidious Japanese POW Richard Loo, who tries to win half-Japanese doctor Philip Ahn over to the Rising Sun. Halfway down the cast as "the goat" is Chinese juvenile actor Ducky Louie, who enjoyed a brief 1940s stardom in such films as China's Little Devils (1945) and Black Gold (1947), reteaming with Anthony Quinn in the latter film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Randolph Scott, Ruth Warrick, (more)
- 1943
Best described as "cute," Petticoat Larceny was intended as a showcase for RKO Radio's latest juvenile discovery, 11-year-old Joan Carroll. The story concerns a bratty radio star (Carroll) who wants to inject some blood-and-thunder plotlines and gangster lingo into her broadcasts. To this end, she arranges to be "kidnapped" by a trio of dimwitted burglars, played by Tom Kennedy, Jimmy Conlin and Vince Barnett. When a genuine kidnapper spoils the plan, it's up to the handsome fiancé (Walter Reed) of the girl's aunt (Ruth Warrick) to come to the rescue. This is the sort of film that Late Late Show aficionados never seem to see in its entirety: they usually doze off in the first reel and wake up at fadeout time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Warrick, Joan Carroll, (more)
- 1943
The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Merle Oberon, Brian Aherne, (more)
- 1943
The Iron Major is the saga of WW1 hero-cum-football coach Frank Cavanaugh, played with his usual no-nonsense professionalism by Pat O'Brien. Leaving home and hearth behind to serve his country in the Great War, Cavanaugh goes on to lead the Dartmouth, Boston College and Fordham football teams to victory. His credo throughout is "Love of God?Love of Country?Love of Family"-inspiriational words indeed in war-torn 1943. Based on the memoirs of Cavanaugh's wife Florence (played in the film by Ruth Warrick), The Iron Major suffers from repetition and overkill. But, as Humphrey Bogart once said in an unrelated interview, "Pat O'Brien was good? Pat was always good." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pat O'Brien, Ruth Warrick, (more)
- 1942
- NR
Orson Welles had planned to produce, direct and star in RKO's Journey Into Fear, but prior commitments compelled him to vacate the director's chair in favor of Norman Foster. Joseph Cotten, who starred as an American gunnery engineer up to his armpits in international intrigue, adapted the screenplay from the novel by Eric Ambler. Targeted for extermination by the Gestapo, Cotten secretly books passage on a steamer bound from Turkey to Batumi. His fellow passengers include dancer Dolores Del Rio and her gigolo partner Jack Durant; talkative Frenchwoman Agnes Moorehead and her browbeaten husband Frank Readick; German archaeologist Eustace Wyatt; and a secretive, obese, thick-spectacled gent, played by Orson Welles' business partner Jack Moss. From the outset, it is no secret that Moss is a Nazi assassin. The question: who are his contacts, and how long will it be before Cotten is forced into a showdown? The very complex storyline was made even more so by RKO's decision to pare the film down to 69 minutes; several resultant plot gaps had to be bridged by an ongoing offscreen narration, presented in the form of a letter written by Cotten to his worried wife Ruth Warrick. As one can see, virtually the entire roster of Welles' Mercury Theatre troupe is involved in Journey into Fear. Welles himself plays colorful Turkish police officer Colonel Haki, while Everett Sloane, Hans Conried and Edgar Barrier essay significant smaller roles. Director Norman Foster so slavishly imitates the patented Wellesian visual style (following Welles' pre-production "storyboards" dictating choice of camera angle, lighting etc.) that many historians have assumed that Welles himself directed the picture. Remade for Canadian TV in 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joseph Cotten, Dolores Del Rio, (more)
Orson Welles first feature film -- which he directed, produced, and co-wrote, as well as playing the title role -- proved to be his most important and influential work, a ground-breaking drama loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst which is frequently cited as the finest American film ever made. Aging newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) dies in his sprawling Florida estate after uttering a single, enigmatic final word -- "Rosebud" -- and newsreel producer Rawlston (Phil Van Zandt) sends reporter Jerry Thompson (William Alland) out with the assignment of uncovering the meaning behind the great man's dying thought. As Thompson interviews Kane's friends, family, and associates, we learn the facts of Kane's eventful and ultimately tragic life: his abandonment by his parents (Agnes Moorehead and Harry Shannon) after he becomes the heir to a silver mine; his angry conflicts with his guardian, master financier Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris); his impulsive decision that "it would be fun to run a newspaper" with the help of school chum Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and loyal assistant Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloane); his rise from scandal sheet publisher to the owner of America's largest and most influential newspaper chain; his marriage to socially prominent Emily Norton (Ruth Warrick), whose uncle is the President of the United States; Kane's ambitious bid for public office, which is dashed along with his marriage when his opponent, corrupt political boss Jim Gettys (Ray Collins), reveals that Kane is having an affair with aspiring vocalist Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore); Kane's vain attempts to promote second wife Alexander as an opera star; and his final, self-imposed exile to a massive and never-completed pleasure palace called Xanadu. While Citizen Kane was a film full of distinguished debuts -- along with Welles, it was the first feature for Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, and Ruth Warrick -- the only Academy Award it received was for Best Original Screenplay, for which Welles shared credit with veteran screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, (more)
- 1941
- NR
The Corsican Brothers is based on theDumas novel about "psychic" twins--one feels the pain and experiences the thoughts of the other. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays both Mario and Lucien, siblings separated at birth because of a long-standing feud between various factions of their family. One twin is raised to be evil, the other to be good. In adulthood, the brothers become bitter enemies, not only because of family and political pressures but also because they both fall in love with the beautiful Isabelle (Ruth Warrick). Eventually, however, one twin gives up his life for the sake of the other during a climactic battle with tyrannical Corsican ruler Colonna (Akim Tamiroff). Produced on a virtual shoestring by Edward Small, The Corsican Brothers cannot rely on clever optical effects to convey the idea that Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is two people (some of the process work is embarrassing); instead, Fairbanks carries the story on the strength of his acting, subtly differentiating the two characters so that the audience is seldom confused as to which is which. Incidentally, the actor doubling for Fairbanks in the two-shots, his face averted from the camera, is Peter Cushing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Ruth Warrick, (more)
- 1941
The studio concocted the film as a showcase for its 9-year-old discovery Joan Carroll, here cast as precocious Bridget Potter. Little Bridget has been willingly "kidnapped" by secretary Linda Norton (Ruth Warrick), who hopes that the girl's disappearance will precipitate a reunion between Bridget's divorcing parents (John Miljan, Marjorie Gateson). Instead, Linda's well-intentioned crime results in a film-length slapstick chase, largely involving two rival newspaper reporters (Eve Arden and Edmond O'Brien). Obliging Young Lady was directed by Richard Wallace, who as a former employee of Hal Roach Studios was well-grounded in this sort of frenetic farce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joan Carroll, Edmond O'Brien, (more)
