Lawrence Wheat Movies

With Robert Riskin as screenwriter, director William Wellman proved in Magic Town that it was possible to make a Frank Capra-esque picture without Capra himself at the helm. James Stewart plays Rip Smith, a cynical pollster who comes across a small American town named Grandview, which represents a "perfect" balance of ethnic types, professions, political beliefs, and personal opinions (a parody of the then-current "Middletown" study). Smith publicizes this discovery, leading to a barrage of media attention and an onslaught of get-rich-quick entrepreneurs. Not surprisingly, all of this has an adverse effect on the heretofore "average" citizens of Grandview; it also seriously threatens Smith's blossoming romance with local girl Mary Peterman (Jane Wyman), who feels that her friends and neighbors are being used, exploited, and in some cases, corrupted. The satirical thrust of the film bogs down into sentimentality toward the end, but it's fun while it lasts. One of the colorful supporting characters is played by screwball-comedy favorite Donald Meek, who died during production, necessitating a number of hasty and not altogether successful rewrites. Though it pleases audiences today, Magic Town was a financial disappointment in 1947, prompting James Stewart to seek out "tougher" and more challenging roles to restore his box-office appeal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Deadline at Dawn represented not only the sole film directorial effort of Broadway's Harold Clurman, but also the only cinematic collaboration between Clurman and his former Group Theatre associate, screenwriter Clifford Odets. While on shore leave in New York, sailor Alex (Bill Williams) is slipped a doped-up drink by B-girl Edna (Lola Lane). When he awakens, Alex discovers that she has been murdered. Though he believes that he's the killer, our hero is talked into locating the actual miscreant by philosophical cab driver gus (Paul Lukas) and nightclub dancer June (Susan Hayward). Adapted from a novel by Cornell Woolrich, Deadline at Dawn leans towards pretentiousness at times, but is redeemed by the no-nonsense performance by Susan Hayward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like the same-named 1934 and 1935 films, RKO Radio's 1945 musical George White's Scandals uses the eponymous Broadway revue as a framework for a fabricated plotline. The main story concerns the romance between stage comedienne Joan Mason (Joan Davis) and back-bay Bostonite Jack Williams (Jack Haley), which is staunchly opposed by Jack's spinsterish sister Clarabelle (Margaret Hamilton, who of course had previously costarred with Haley in The Wizard of Oz) A secondary romance involves the hot-and-cold relationship between British socialite Jill Martin (Martha Holliday) and Tony McGrath (Philip Terry), the assistant to Broadway impresario George White (played not by the real White but by Glenn Tryon). Musical specialties are provided by Gene Krupa and his band, organ virtuoso Ethel Smith and pianist Rose Murphy. The film's highlight is "Who Killed Vaudeville?", a tour-de-force for Joan Davis and Jack Haley which was later excerpted in the RKO musical pastiche Make Mine Laughs (prompting a lawsuit from Haley!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

What a Blonde gets under way when wealthy lingerie manufacturer Fowler (Leon Errol) runs out of valuable gas-ration coupons. Knowing that he can secure additional coupons if he forms a car pool, Fowler orders his butler Pomeroy (Richard Lane) to seek out a few "riders." Pomeroy returns with a group of brassy showgirls, headed by boisterous blonde Pat (Veda Ann Borg). In the fine tradition of RKO Radio's Leon Errol 2-reelers, Fowler is saddled with a jealous wife (Lydia Bilbrook) who looks askance when her husband piles into his car with a bevy of gorgeous girls. Hardly the "mirthquake" advertised by the studio, What a Blonde is still an enjoyable time-killer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi were given top billing in the Val Lewton-produced The Body Snatcher, but the film's protagonist is played by Henry Daniell. A brilliant 18th century London surgeon, Daniell can only make his humanitarian medical advances by experimenting on cadavers, which is strictly illegal. Karloff plays a Uriah Heep-type cabman who is secretly a grave robber, providing corpses for Daniell's research. The low-born Karloff enjoys blackmailing the aristocratic Daniell into silence; the two actors' cat-and-mouse scenes are among the film's highlights. Eventually, Karloff turns to murder to supply fresh bodies to Daniell. The doctor can stand no more of this, and kills Karloff. But though Daniell may be able to escape the law, he cannot escape his conscience, which manifests itself in the voice of the dead Karloff, whose repeated mantra "NEVER get rid of me! NEVER get rid of me!" drives Daniell to his death. Though billed second, Lugosi has an embarrassingly small part, though the scene he shares with Karloff is one of his best-ever screen moments. The Body Snatcher was based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson, which in turn was inspired by the homicidal career of notorious grave-robbers Burke and Hare. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Heavenly Days was the last of three RKO Radio film vehicles for the popular radio duo of Fibber McGee and Molly (aka Jim and Marion Jordan). Unlike their first two films, which were cacophonous, plotless musical farces, this one actually has a coherent storyline and not a little "heart appeal." Self-styled expert on everything Fibber McGee takes it upon himself to leave the safe environs of Wistful Vista to go to Washington DC, intending to present himself as the "common man" before the US Congress. Naturally, Fibber's wife Molly goes along for the ride, if only to keep her husband from making a fool of himself. Fibber's actions are given credibility when pollster George Gallup (played by Don Douglas) selects the McGees as Mr. and Mrs. Average Man (or Person). While at large in DC, the McGees also become involved with a group of wide-eyed war orphans. The film's highlight is an impromptu musical interlude with Fibber, Molly, and a group of GIs, played by the King's Men Quartet (regulars on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show). Perhaps because it took itself a bit too seriously, Heavenly Days failed to match the box-office success of RKO's earlier Fibber-and-Molly efforts, posting a loss of $205,000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jim Lacy (Robert Mitchum), Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin), and Dusty (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) are three cowpokes working what was then known -- in the 1850's -- as the western Utah Territory. They know cattle, not mining, and they can't help but feel like they're missing out on something amid the influx of prospectors trying to work the Comstock Lode. But then they see most of these claims come to nothing, as the surface gold always seems to run out and leave owners with nothing but useless blue waste -- and the three are prone to count their blessings. But the machinations of a crooked mining company head Cash Burridge (Craig Reynolds) and a shoot-out at a crooked casino leave the trio on the run, and Lacy -- taking the alias "Nevada" -- headed into mining country with both the law and outlaws on his trail. And that's how he crosses paths with the Ides, a prospecting family, and their pretty daughter Hattie (ancy Gates), and also with saloon singer Julie Dexter (Anne Jeffreys), who's close to Burridge but starts to like Nevada's honesty and sincerity. Burridge knows the truth about that "useless" blue slag -- it's some of the richest silver ore ever assayed in the United States -- and plans to swindle his neighbors to get control of the Comstock Lode; and Julie cares enough about Burridge that she's ready to go along, up to the point where it involves murder, especially when Burridge's cover-up of his crime may end up with Nevada at the end of a rope. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In order to be permitted to appear in "prestige" items like Grapes of Wrath and The Ox-Bow Incident, Henry Fonda had to agree to appear in such inconsequential fluff as The Magnificent Dope. On its own terms, however, this gentle satire of the "Dale Carnegie" school of self-help is pretty funny. Don Ameche plays Dwight Dawson, the owner of a success school which isn't all that successful. Dawson's secretary-sweetheart Claire Harris (Lynn Bari) suggests a publicity stunt which might improve business: If Dawson can make a success out of the laziest man in America, the world will beat a path to his door. After an extensive search, the perfect candidate for Dawson's academy is found: Cheerful, laid-back country boy Tad Page, who prefers happiness and serenity to hard work and wealth. In true "reverse procedure" tradition, it is Tad's take-it-easy philosophy, rather than Dawson's "get up and go" dictum, that eventually wins the hearts of the American public. Fourth-billed Edward Everett Horton has little to do other than his inimitable double takes, one of which amusingly closes the picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's The Trial of Mary Dugan was based on the popular stage play by Bayard Vellier, previously filmed as a Norma Shearer vehicle in 1929. This time, Laraine Day is cast as Mary Dugan, a young stenographer who is falsely accused of murdering her philandering employer Edgar Wayne (Tom Conway). In the course of her trial, Mary falls in love with her attorney Jimmy Blake (Robert Young). The original Trial of Mary Dugan was highlighted by the heartfelt testimony of the tarnished heroine, who recounted a life of shame and degradation endured on behalf of her impoverished law-student brother. Thanks to the tightened censorial restrictions of 1941, Mary Dugan's checkered past is eliminated, leaving the viewer with just another courtroom melodrama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).

Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The stringent censorship imposed upon Hollywood of the mid-1930s dictated that gangsters could no longer be the "heroes" in any crime film. Public Hero No. 1 reflects this restriction. G-Man Chester Morris poses as a crook to infiltrate the notorious Purple Gang, a band of hoodlums which preys upon other hoodlums. Orchestrating the jailbreak of the Gang's leader (Joseph Calleia), Morris joins him in a Dillinger-like flight across the country. The bloody denouement, which occurs in a vaudeville theatre, is likewise drawn from the Dillinger saga (that particular gentleman was of course killed in front of a movie house). Also featured in Public Hero No. 1 is Jean Arthur as the heroine (a comic role) and Lionel Barrymore as a drunken gang doctor. The film was remade as The Getaway in 1942. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Taking refuge from a rainstorm in a deserted farmhouse, young married couple Joe and Loretta Martin (Edward Norris and Rochelle Hudson) soon discover to their horror that the house is being used as a hideout for a gang of kidnappers. Gang leader Tobey (Cesar Romero), a comparatively reasonable sort, elects not to kill the couple because they have an ailing baby with them. But Tobey's psychotic henchman Pitch (Bruce Cabot) is not quite so sentimental, and awaits the opportunity to knock off all three "intruders." When the G-Men, tipped off by the serial numbers on some ransom money, manage to track down the crooks, Tobey is killed, leaving Loretta and her baby at the mercy of Pitch -- at least until she picks up a machine gun and mows him down! As brutal as it was possible to get under the newly strengthened Production Code, Show Them No Mercy (inspired by the real-life Weyerhauser kidnapping case) is an excellent entry in the "FBI cycle" of the mid-1930s. The film was remade in a western setting as Rawhide (1951). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Student Tour looks like an MGM musical two-reeler that was expanded to feature length as it went along. Charles Butterworth and Jimmy Durante are teamed respectively as fey philosophy professor Lippincott and brash athletic coach Hank. The two comics shepherd a co-ed college rowing team on a world tour, with orders to keep the team's rowdy captain Bobby (Phil Regan) out of trouble. Lackluster leading lady Maxine Doyle co-stars as Ann, a plain-jane who takes off her glasses at a Monte Carlo masquerade ball and wins BMOC Bobby for her very own. Ann also brings the story to a rousing conclusion by substituting for the cockswain in the climatic rowing race, urging the team to victory with a peppy song-and-dance. Nelson Eddy also shows up to sing "The Carlo," a pulsating number obviously inspired by "Bolero." The film's giddy highlight is "Taj Mahal," in which a group of pretty students (including a young Betty Grable) go swimming in the pool of the famous Indian shrine! According to studio publicity, a crop of genuine college coeds were hired to play the students in Student Tour, but to the trained eye they sure look like standard Hollywood extras and bit players. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide