Barbara Weeks Movies

Parental neglect is firmly to blame in this low-budget potboiler scripted by the immortal Edward D. Wood Jr. Paula Parkins (Jean Moorhead) is a spoiled rich girl who turns to kicks when her parents become too engrossed in their careers and charity work. She leads a gang of similar-minded young ladies who rob gas stations and attack teenage couples parked in lovers' lanes (even sexually assaulting a hapless young romeo). Paula's father is the editor of the local newspaper and has inside information on the police's plans to catch the mysterious gang, so they stay one step ahead of the law thanks to dad's unknowing complicity. After a necking party with some gangsters, the girls pull a job for a local female crime boss who wants them to break into the high school and wreck a few classrooms. The reason why is never adequately explained (to the girls or to the viewer), but they take to the task with relish until the police arrive and all hell breaks loose. Tragedy ensues in the form of gunshot fatalities, car crashes, and death by childbirth behind bars. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

Viennese-born Luise Rainer plays a young Parisian girl who attends an exclusive drama school, working nights at a factory to pay the tuition. Despite the jealousies of her fellow students, Luise allows nothing to discourage her from her goal to become as great an actress as her idol (Gale Sondergaard). The girl wins the coveted role of Joan of Arc in an upcoming play, but the victory has a bitter taste when she realizes she's beaten out her idol for the part. At the end, Luise manages to have both a happy career and a successful marriage, even though her friends (and enemies) insist that such a combination is impossible. Dramatic School is a film buff's banquet; virtually every bit player in the cast (Ann Rutherford, Lana Turner, Dick Haymes, Hans Conried, etc.) later graduated to show-biz prominence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this western, a cowboy rides into Mesa and finds that he bears remarkable resemblance to a dead man. Actually he is the dead man, but instead of suffering a death, he suffered a blow to the head that caused amnesia five years before. After staying in the town a while, his memories begin to return. He then enlists the aide of some Texas friends to help him bring law to the wild western town. By the story's end, he has fully regained his memory and is able to reclaim his wife and ranch. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Film collectors take note: Hal Roach's Pick a Star is not a Laurel and Hardy picture, though the popular comic duo does make a brace of amusing cameo appearances halfway through the film. A remake of Buster Keaton's Free and Easy, this is the story of how small-town gas-station owner Joe Jenkins (Jack Haley) tries to help his sweetheart Cecilia Moore (Rosina Lawrence) realize her ambition to become a movie star. At the behest of travelling entrepreneur Stone (Russell Hicks), Jenkins organizes a talent contest, the first prize being a trip to Hollywood and a screen test. When Stone turns out to be a crook and skips town with the proceeds of the contest, Cecilia is heartbroken, but Joe promises to go to Hollywood himself and make the right connections to assure her rise to stardom. Alas, the best Joe can manage in Tinseltown is a busboy job at the Colonial Club, a fact he tries to conceal from Cecilia and her wisecracking sister Nellie (Patsy Kelly) when they unexpectedly arrive in California as guests of movie-matinee idol Rinaldo Lopez (Mischa Auer). In desperation, Joe pretends to be a nightclub entertainer, but when this ruse is revealed, Cecilia angrily walks out on him, accompanying Rinaldo first to his movie studio and then to his apartment. Naturally Rinaldo has seduction on his mind, but innocent Cecilia doesn't realize this until Joe storms into the apartment with blood in his eye. Ashamed for his lascivious behavior, Rinaldo arranges for Cecilia to have a screen test for producer Klawheimer (Charles Halton). At the last moment, Cecilia suffers an attack of "camera fright," but Joe gently coaches her through her test, and there's a happy ending for all concerned -- even for sister Nellie, who's been relentlessly cynical about the storyline from first scene to last. Cast as "movie stars," Laurel and Hardy show up briefly in the movie-studio scenes to participate in a reciprocal-destruction sequence with their old screen nemesis Walter Long, and to perform an amusing musical routine with "dueling" harmonicas. Pick a Star has been reissued as Movie Struck, while the Laurel & Hardy scenes were released separately to TV as the ersatz two-reeler A Day at the Studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a story by Zona Gale, When Strangers Meet concentrates on a small, interrelated community separated down the middle by a narrow path. The bungalow-dwelling residents on one side of the path consider their neighbors to be "beneath" them, and vice versa. Tensions come to a boil when a double murder is committed, with accusations flying back and forth. The solution to the crime comes about when a much-abused housewife (Sarah Padden) finally rebels against her tyrannical husband (played by the ever-hissable Charles Middleton). A good cast, headed by Richard Cromwell and Arline Judge, helps lift this independently-produced drama well above the "B"-picture norm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Woman Unafraid stars venerable character actress Lucille Gleason as Officer Winthrop, a no-nonsense but golden-hearted policewoman. Winthrop serves as den mother and confidante for wayward girls on parole, and also keeps a watchful eye on the dance halls in her district. With the help of a former gun moll Peggy (Lona Andre), our heroine gets the goods on Luciano-like gangster boss Big Bill Lewis (Jason Robards Sr.) "B"-picture habitues Skeets Gallagher and Warren Hymer make significant contributions, but it's Gleason's picture all the way. Produced by low-budget Goldsmith Pictures, A Woman Unafraid was helmed by house director William J. Cowan, who'd previously handled Monogram's not-uninteresting 1933 adaption of Oliver Twist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The relative importance of social class differences is examined in this drama that centers on the daughter of a disinherited British nobleman who has moved his family to the United States. Before his daughter can formally claim her rightful title, her father dies. Now her blue-blooded American suitor finds that his father refuses to allow the two to marry as she is not a high-born lady. Only after the woman and her love are able to prove her royal lineage does the father acquiesce and allow them to marry. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Adhering to an old Hollywood tradition, Tim McCoy's dog, Silver King, earned billing above the heroine, 1931 WAMPAS Baby Star Barbara Weeks, in this typically workmanlike Columbia Western. McCoy and Silver King come to the aid of Mollie Martin (Weeks), whose brother, Tom, has been kidnapped by Bart Quillan (Rockliffe Fellowes), a neighboring sheep rancher planning to rule the entire valley with his equally unsavory brothers. Along the way, McCoy is befriended by gunman Poe Powers (Wheeler Oakman), whose fiery girlfriend, Mona Quillan (Dorothy Burgess), does not approve of her family's grand schemes. Searching for Tom Martin, McCoy is captured and tied up by Quillan and his brothers but is rescued by the clever Silver King, who chews through the ropes. Returning with Poe, Tim defeats the Quillans and secures Tom's release. Rusty Rides Alone proved the final film of Rockliffe Fellowes, a silent screen star best remembered as Owen, the reformed gangster in Raoul Walsh's The Regeneration (1915). His brothers were played by Edmund Cobb, Wally Wales, and Jay Wilsey (aka Buffalo Bill Jr.), all former Western stars in their own right. Interestingly, Wheeler Oakman, cast as the Boss Menace in most of the McCoy Westerns, switched sides this time around. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This dark, brooding ancestor to Hang 'Em High features Buck Jones as a happy-go-lucky cowpoke who is duped by a gang of rustlers into "guarding" their camp. When the camp is raided, Jones is caught and savagely branded by a group of heavy-handed lawmen in spite of his protests of innocence. Jones survives the ordeal and seeks revenge. ~ All Movie Guide

In this African action-adventure film, an explorer becomes an avaricious murderer after he learns of an invaluable cache of elephant tusks. Afterward, he convinces his wealthy former fiancee to help him fund an expedition to find the cache. At the same time they are looking, the dead man's partner is also looking for the ivory. Who will get there first? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Calcutta Sweepstakes is the unifying factor of The Devil's Lottery. Among the winners of the sweepstakes are Evelyn (Elissa Landi), the mistress of suave cardsharp Major Hugo Beresford (Paul Cavanaugh), and roughneck ex-boxer Lem Meech (Victor McLaglen), whose mother (Beryl Mercer) insists upon taking charge of McLaglen's winnings lest he squander them. Lord Litchfield (Halliwell Hobbes), the country squire who owns the winning horse, invites the lucky ticket-holders (and their friends, relatives and sweethearts) for a weekend party at his lavish estate. Alas, being in such close proximity to so much wealth and luxury brings out the worst in several of the winners, resulting in heartbreak, betrayal and murder. When the smoke clears, only one of the principal characters is in store for a happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Stepping Sisters was a variation on Fox Studio's favorite plots, "three girls on the make," the difference being that the three ladies depicted herein were well past the "girl" stage. Louise Dresser, Minna Gombell, and Jobyna Howland are cast as Mrs. Ramsey, Rosie La Marr, and Lady Chetworth-Lynde, who try to keep their past lives as burlesque dancers a secret as they hobnob with High Society. But blood will tell, and soon all three ladies have reverted to their old bump-and-grind routines, much to the dismay of their sophisticated companions. Somehow it was inevitable that at least one of the heroines would end up with a pie in her face; in this instance, its is Lady Chetworth-Lynde, the most pretentious of the trio, who is the recipient of the flying custard. A dash of drama is thrown in the stew when it appears that the impending marriage of Mrs. Ramsey's daughter Norma (Barbara Weeks) will be endangered by the revelation of her mom's show-biz past (it isn't, as it turns out). Stepping Sisters certainly sounds fascinating, and one hopes that someday this long-lost film will be found by some enterprising archivist or other. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide