Ferike Boros Movies

Writer/director Ben Hecht brings "art" to the artless environs of Republic Pictures in the one-of-a-kind melodrama Spectre of the Rose. The film is set in the rarefied world of the Ballet, featuring a curious blend of ballet artists and veteran Hollywood character actors. Ivan Kirov plays Andre Sanine, a dancer who goes insane every time he hears the music for "Spectre de la Rose". Ballerina Haidi (Violet Kessen), convinced that she can cure Andre of his mental aberration, marries him, despite rumors that he has murdered his first wife. All goes well until Andre is once more compelled to perform "Spectre de la Rose"?and then??Ivan Kirov and Violet Kessen are far more accomplished as dancers than as actors, though Kirov is slightly better than his costar. More at home in the histrionics deparment are Judith Anderson as a patroness of the arts, Michael Chekhov as an apoplectic dance impresario, and Lionel Stander as a Greenwich village poet--all quite adept at mouthing Ben Hecht's eloquent witticisms, of which there are dozens. Spectre of the Rose clearly wasn't designed to please everyone; lovers of the ballet and Hecht aficionados will probably best appreciate the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Doctor Charles Korvin walks out on his musician wife Merle Oberon when he suspects her of infidelity. Twelve years later their paths cross again; Oberon is now saddled with an abusive husband. Possessed of a protective instinct that he hadn't evinced in the first part of the film, Korvin rescues his ex-wife from her miserable marriage, and the two fall in love all over again. Based on a play by Luigi Pirandello (no, it wasn't called Two Characters in Search of a Movie, This Love is Ours is worth watching only when supporting player Claude Rains is on the scene. The 1956 remake Never Say Goodbye was no improvement, not even with Rock Hudson taking over from the stolid Charles Korvin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A princess finds love with a regular American Joe in this patriotic romantic comedy. A European diplomat (Charles Coburn) is named an ambassador to the U.S., and when he relocates to Washington D.C., he's accompanied by his niece, Princess Maria (Olivia de Havilland). Maria's uncle hopes that she'll meet an eligible American bachelor during her visit, since potential husbands are in short supply at home. Maria tires of her uncle's attempts at matchmaking, and when he suggests that she take a side trip to San Francisco, she leaps at the chance. However, Maria has a fear of flying, and when she's given tranquilizers to settle her nerves, she passes out in mid-flight. Maria is down for the count when bad weather forces the flight to return to Washington, and pilot Eddie O'Rourke (Robert Cummings) volunteers to put her up for the night. When Maria comes to, she's struck by Eddie's decency and charm, and it's love at first sight for them. However, Maria's uncle was hoping for someone higher up the social ladder than a pilot, and the lovebirds have an uphill battle getting him to consent to their wedding. No one seems sure if it's actually President Franklin D. Roosevelt appearing in the film's final scenes or just an impersonator, but apparently FDR's dog Fala did actually play himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The surrealistic opening sequence, featuring a WW2 calendar as written "by A. Hitler", should be indication enough that Once Upon a Honeymoon is no ordinary lighthearted romantic trifle. Ginger Rogers plays Katie, an American chorus girl who seeks to better herself by marrying titled European Baron von Luber (Walter Slezak), despite the warnings of reporter Pat (Cary Grant). Katie thinks Pat is just jealous, but both he and the audience are aware that Von Luber is secretly a high-ranking Nazi, whose "unofficial" visits to Czechoslovakia, Poland and France precipitate the German invasions of those countries. When Katie wises up, she agrees to help counterespionage agent LeBlanc (Albert Dekker) in his efforts to stop Von Luber before he can reach New York-and along the way, she falls in love with the ubiquitous Pat. The bizarre ending, in which one of the main characters is casually murdered, is played for laughs, as if WW2 is merely fodder for a screwball comedy. In the film's most unsettling scene, Katie and Pat, mistaken for Jews, are briefly interred in a Polish concentration camp; their outrage over this treatment seems to be founded not on Germany's crimes against humanity, but over the fact that the Gestapo would have the audacity to incarcerate two non-Jewish Americans! A curious and often tasteless misfire from producer-director Leo McCarey, One Upon a Honeymoon is an undeniably fascinating historical artifact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

George Stevens' Talk of the Town is a quick-witted comedy driven by wonderful performances by Cary Grant, Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur. Michael Lightcap (Colman) is a stuffy law professor in line to a Supreme Court appointment, who is spending the summer at the house of schoolteacher Nora Shelley (Arthur). But Lightcap is not the only guest at the house. Shelley has also let Leopold Dilg (Grant)--a man who had recently escaped from prison, where he was serving a sentence for false accusations of immolating a local factory--stay at the house, telling Lightcap that he is a gardener. In addition to striking up a friendship, Lightcap and Dilg also compete for the affections of Shelley. Eventually, the professor learns of Dilg's true identity, finding out that Leopold was framed by a crooked government, led by the foreman of the factory, who supposedly died in the fire. When Dilg is captured by the police, Lightcap comes to his defense, bringing the still-alive foreman out of hiding and, in the process, clearing Leopold of all the charges. Talk of the Town received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Original Story, Best Score, Best Editing, and Best Interior Decoration, yet it lost in all of the categories. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Jane Darwell is the whole show in the 61-minute 20th Century-Fox programmer Private Nurse. The formidable Ms. Darwell is first scene at a birthday party, thrown in her honor by her favorite charge, little Ann Todd. The daughter of ex-gangster Sheldon Leonard, Todd has been raised to believe that her mother is dead and that her father has always been a paragon of virtue. Upon learning the truth, Todd is told the whole story by nurse Darwell. Essentially an extended flashback, Private Nurse served as an acceptable lower-berth entry at the double-feature houses. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This second entry in 20th Century-Fox's "Michael Shayne" series was a remake of the 1932 Fox romantic drama Sleepers East. In the original, the detective character was peripheral, but this changed once Michael Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) was written in as the leading character. Dogged by persistent girl reporter Kay Bentley (Lynn Bari), private detective Shayne tries his best to secretly escort murder-trial witness Helen Carlson (Mary Beth Hughes) by train from Denver to San Francisco. Helen's testimony will free a man falsely accused of murder, which will also effectively destroy the election chances of a machine politician. Thus, Mike has to protect Helen from any and all likely assassins, including hired torpedo Carl Izzard (Don Costello), who manages to inveigle Kay's wishy-washy fiance Tom Linscott (Don Douglas) into his camp. Meanwhile, the incognito Helen strikes up a clandestine relationship with fellow passenger Everett Jason (Louis-Jean Heydt), who is harboring a few secrets of his own. Based on a story by Frederick Nebel (or "Torchy Blaine" fame), Sleepers West is full of chock-full of fascinating characterizations and startling little surprises, and is considered by many to be the best of Fox's "Michael Shayne" installments. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though its title suggests a war picture of some sort, MGM's Gallant Sons actually concerns the efforts of a group of kids to solve a murder. Young Johnny Davis (Gene Reynolds) is beside himself when his gambler father (Ian Hunter) is arrested for murder. In truth, Davis' pop is shielding several other people, whose reputations might have been ruined during his trial. Sensing that something is amiss, Johnny's pal Byron Newbold (Jackie Cooper) and his ragtag collection of tenement cronies play detective themselves to clear the elder Davis' name and trap the actual killer. Bonita Granville, at the time Jackie Cooper's girl friend, plays the only female member of the crime-solving gang. Coincidentally, Cooper, Granville and costar Gene Reynolds would later go into the production end of the business; in fact, in the early 1970s Reynolds would hire Cooper to direct an Emmy-winning episode of MASH. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This modest Preston Sturges comedy stars Dick Powell as an office clerk dreaming of better things and Ellen Drew as his more pragmatic girlfriend. Powell convinces himself that his fortune will be made if he can win a slogan contest sponsored by a coffee company. Powell's contribution: "If you can't sleep at night, it isn't the coffee, it's the bunk!" Three of Powell's fellow workers decide to have some fun with him; they fake a telegram which announces that he's won the contest. The deception snowballs to the point that even the head of the coffee firm (Raymond Walburn) labors under the misapprehension that Powell has won. When the painful truth is revealed, Powell finds himself broke (because of all the creature comforts he's bought) and jobless, but at least he's retained the love of his wife. A cute deus ex machina to the story appears in the person of William Demarest, the foreman of the "jury" that is judging the slogan contest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a devoted, caring physician leaves his home and moves to Alaska to escape arrest after he performs euthanasia upon his terminally ill father. In the ever-snowy reaches of northernmost Alaska, the doctor begins administering to the poverty-stricken Inuit. While he has willingly exiled himself there and cares about the people, his new nurse is another story. She hates the outpost and holds the people there in contempt. She does not try to understand their lifestyle and therefore, considers them disgusting. Unbeknownst to the good doctor, he is being hunted by a detective determined to return him to the lower 48 to stand trial for the mercy killing of his father. Unfortunately, the gumshoe is caught in a blizzard and is blinded by the snow. The doctor saves his life. The grateful detective, seeing the doctor's good work, decides that he never saw him and returns home empty handed. Meanwhile, the nurse gets a grip on her ethnocentrism and decides to stay to be with the doctor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ginger Rogers slipped off her dancing shoes to play one of her best comic roles as Polly Parish, a salesgirl at a large department store. Single and with no steady beau, Polly leads a quiet life until she discovers a baby left at her doorstep. While puzzled by this development, Polly feels for the child and decides to adopt the baby. However, most of her co-workers raise their eyebrows at Polly's new status as a single mother, believing that she's actually the mother. The owner of the store where Polly works, J.B. Merlin (Charles Coburn), is taken aback, and his son David (David Niven), who has a reputation as a ladies' man, is dispatched to lead Polly back to the straight-and-narrow. Bachelor Mother was remade in 1956 as Bundle of Joy, a vehicle for then-married Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide