Robert Aldrich Movies
An artistic maverick whose reputation in the United States did not match his prestige in Europe, Robert Aldrich directed some of Hollywood's more intense examinations of violence, morality, and survival during the 1950s and '60s. Striving for autonomy throughout his career, Aldrich's efforts to maintain his own production company and creative independence were in concert with the New Hollywood's late '60s/early '70s freedom, but his career succumbed to changing tastes and practices by the 1980s.Scion of a prominent New England family, Aldrich played football and studied economics at the University of Virginia. Rather than enter the family businesses, however, Aldrich preferred movies. Securing a job at RKO through connections, Aldrich headed to Hollywood in 1941. Benefiting from the shortage of manpower (and an old injury) with the advent of WWII, Aldrich was quickly promoted to assistant director and production manager. At RKO and independent Enterprise Studios, and as a free agent, Aldrich spent the next decade working for a number of esteemed directors, including Lewis Milestone, Joseph Losey, Robert Rossen, Abraham Polonsky, and Charlie Chaplin, learning about moviemaking on such films as Force of Evil (1948), Body and Soul (1947), and Limelight (1952). Despite his association with Communist witchhunt victims Rossen, Losey, Polonsky, and Chaplin, as well as his own left-of-center bent, Aldrich avoided testifying for HUAC and the blacklist.
Branching out into TV directing in the early '50s, including the China Smith series starring Dan Duryea, Aldrich got his chance at feature directing with sports programmer The Big Leaguer (1953), starring Edward G. Robinson. Following this inauspicious debut with more TV work, Aldrich shot the low-budget spy thriller World for Ransom (1954) with much of the China Smith crew and star Duryea during the series' break. Aldrich finally broke out of TV and B-movies when Burt Lancaster's company, Hecht-Lancaster, hired the promising director (and erstwhile employee) to helm the Technicolor A-Western Apache (1954). Featuring Lancaster as pacifist brave Massai, Apache trenchantly yet lyrically questioned Western myths of race and violence, despite a happy ending foisted on Aldrich by nervous United Artists execs. Apache became Aldrich's first hit, and Lancaster and Aldrich re-teamed for the more expansive SuperScope Western Vera Cruz (1954). Starring Lancaster and Gary Cooper as rivals seeking Mexican gold, Vera Cruz was humorously cynical as well as picturesque and violent, with Lancaster's gleeful villain anticipating the '60s and '70s Western antiheroes. Despite American critical disdain, Vera Cruz was an even bigger hit, giving Aldrich carte blanche to make his next film as he wished.
Asked by producer Victor Saville to adapt one of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels, Aldrich, as he put it, "took the title and threw the book away," transforming Kiss Me Deadly (1955) into a film noir masterpiece of moral relativism and anarchic style. Starring Ralph Meeker as an unabashedly thuggish Hammer, Kiss Me Deadly evoked Cold War paranoia in its story about chasing down the Great Whatsit, while Aldrich's extreme lighting, high- and low-angle shots, moving camera, and creative soundtrack enhanced the chaotic, apocalyptic atmosphere. Though not as popular as Vera Cruz, Kiss Me Deadly was successful enough to enable Aldrich to form his own production company, Associates and Aldrich. Turning to headier source material, Aldrich then adapted Clifford Odets' scathing play The Big Knife. Shot in noir-esque black-and-white, The Big Knife (1955) unstintingly portrayed the Hollywood venality that breaks Jack Palance's reluctant movie star. A critical hit, The Big Knife won the Venice Film Festival's Silver Lion, a then-rare accolade for a filmmaker with less than three years' experience of directing films. Apache, Vera Cruz, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Big Knife, however, had all been released in Europe in 1955, inspiring French Cahiers du Cinema critic François Truffaut to declare Aldrich one of the most exciting discoveries of the year.
Regardless of his exalted status, The Big Knife's financial failure compelled Aldrich to sign a contract with Columbia. Moving away from his controversial screen brutality, Aldrich made the "classy soap opera" Autumn Leaves (1956). Centering on Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson's troubled May-December romance, Autumn Leaves garnered Aldrich the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Returning to the troubled realm of masculine violence, Aldrich turned out the taut antiwar war film Attack (1956), featuring Palance and Lee Marvin; Attack collected the critics' award at Venice. Aldrich's deal with Columbia fell apart, however, when he was fired during production of The Garment Jungle (1957).
Aldrich later summed up the period 1958 to 1962 as "four bad films and the dissolution of a marriage." While not blameless for the films' weaknesses, Aldrich was upset when The Angry Hills (1959) and Ten Seconds to Hell (1959) were reedited by the studio; oddball Western The Last Sunset (1961), starring Kirk Douglas as a disturbed gunfighter, proved to be a less felicitous match than Aldrich's work with frequent Douglas co-star Lancaster. Despite the young director's admiration for Aldrich's work, little love was lost between Aldrich and second unit director Sergio Leone on the Italian "sex and sand epic" Sodom and Gomorrah (1963).
Aldrich managed to rejuvenate his career when he secured the rights to adapt What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). A neo-Gothic tragicomedy starring famous diva nemeses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis as sisters, Baby Jane was a campy and chilling indictment of the old Hollywood star system, made all the more creepy by Davis' outrageous performance (and appearance) as the decrepit eponymous star. Aldrich's first major hit since Vera Cruz, Baby Jane earned several Oscar nominations, including Davis for Best Actress. Aldrich paired Davis and Crawford again for the Southern Gothic thriller Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), but the strain overwhelmed Crawford and she was replaced by Olivia de Havilland. Though not as big as Baby Jane, Sweet Charlotte was another success. Flight of the Phoenix (1965) was subsequently a financially disappointing return to Aldrich's concern with how men grapple with apparent doom. The Dirty Dozen (1967), however, was the opposite. With the titular group of WWII misfits led by antihero incarnate Lee Marvin, The Dirty Dozen reveled in kinetic action, male bonding, and anti-authority energy, becoming the model for contemporary action-buddy movies. Embraced by disaffected late-'60s audiences, The Dirty Dozen became 1967's highest-grossing release, making Aldrich rich enough to buy a studio in 1968.
Though his flamboyant anti-Hollywood yarn The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) left viewers nonplussed, Aldrich continued to experiment with the new latitude afforded by changes in the ratings system and audience expectations. A drama about a lesbian actress' downfall, The Killing of Sister George (1968) courted controversy and an X-rating for its sapphic love scene; Too Late the Hero (1970) was Aldrich's most overtly antiwar war film to date. One of several gangster movies that appeared after Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Grissom Gang (1971) was a comical, ultra-violent take on the outlaw family. All three films, however, flopped, forcing Aldrich to put his studio up for sale in 1972 and take a job directing the Burt Lancaster Western Ulzana's Raid (1972).
Depicting a rigorously bloody conflict between the clueless white cavalry and desperate, guerilla-esque Indians, with Lancaster as the scout who respects the West's harshness, Ulzana's Raid was a powerful Vietnam allegory but a box-office dud. Aldrich, however, recovered one more time from professional crisis with The Longest Yard (1974). A prison-football comedy pitting convict hero Burt Reynolds against evil warden Eddie Albert, culminating in a ruthless, split-screen game, The Longest Yard was a crowd pleaser that solidified Reynolds' stardom. Aldrich and Reynolds then partnered to produce the less appealing Hustle (1975). Pairing up with Lancaster one last time, Aldrich and his star threw themselves into Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977), one of the first post-Vietnam films that directly critiqued the war. Twilight's Last Gleaming proved to be an unpopular labor of love. Aldrich became further disillusioned when he was deposed as president of the Directors' Guild of America after he successfully lobbied for more creative rights during his 1975 to 1979 term -- a disappointment compounded by the successive failures of The Choirboys (1977), The Frisco Kid (1979), and ...All the Marbles (1981). Fed up for good, Aldrich retired in 1981 and passed away two years later from kidney failure. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Robert Aldrich's screen adaptation of Clifford Odets' stage play reflects the quandary of the writer's later career; the golden boy of the Group Theater in the '30s, when his plays were the toast of Broadway, his talent seemed to wither after a number of years in the screenwriting trenches, and a revulsion for what he saw as hackwork combined with his capitulation to HUAC to blight his final decade. Jack Palance stars as Charlie Castle, a major film star who has refused to sign a long-term contract for big money with a studio run by the tyrannical Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger). This has led to the return of his wife, Marion (Ida Lupino), who had left him due to his womanizing and a willingness to kowtow to Hoff in doing bad movies only for the money. After his agent, Nat Danziger (Everett Sloane), tries unsuccessfully to get him to reconsider, Hoff himself badgers Charlie, insisting on the absolute necessity of his signing. When the star continues to resist, Hoff threatens to blackmail him with an ugly incident from his past. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, (more)
Apache was based on Paul I. Wellman's novel Broncho Apache, which in turn was inspired by a true story. Burt Lancaster plays Massai, a lieutenant of the great Apache warrior Geronimo (here depicted as an old man, played by Monte Blue). Though his tribe has signed surrender terms with the conquering whites, Massai refuses to do so. He escapes from a prison train and conducts a one-man war against the white intruders-and against some of his own people. Along the way, he claims Nalinle (Jean Peters), whom he previously regarded as a traitor to his cause, as his wife. John McIntire plays famed Indian scout Al Sieber, who-in this film, if not in real life-is sympathetic to the Indians' plight and Massai's single-purposed cause. The real-life counterpart to Massai was killed by Sieber's minions after agreeing to call off the hostilies; United Artists objected to this, forcing producer/star Burt Lancaster to shoot an unconvincingly happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters, (more)
- 1954
World for Ransom is an unofficial extension of the popular 1950s TV series China Smith. Most of the Smith personnel, including star Dan Duryea, director Robert Aldrich and cinematographer Joseph Biroc, are on hand for this inexpensive but well-mounted melodrama. Duryea plays a mercenary adventurer who gets mixed up in a scheme by foreign spies (who wear baggy suits and speak with Slavic accents) to kidnap a nuclear scientist. Actually it isn't the whole world that's held for ransom--only the city of Singapore, which the spies threaten with nuclear annihilation. World for Ransom star Dan Duryea is solidly supported by old pros Gene Lockhart, Patric Knowles, Reginald Denny and Nigel Bruce. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dan Duryea, Gene Lockhart, (more)
Produced by Burt Lancaster's own company, Vera Cruz teams Lancaster with the venerable Gary Cooper. The story, set during the Mexican revolution of 1866, casts Coop and Lancaster as Ben Trane and Joe Erin, two rival soldiers of fortune who team to fight for the highest bidder. The two men come to loggerheads when Trane's sweetheart Nina (Sarita Montiel) begs them to fight on the side of the rebels, while the wealthy Marquis de Labodere (Cesar Romero) implores them to offer their services to Emperor Maximillian. Though they still haven't taken sides, Trane and Erin agree to escort the aristocratic Countess Marie Duvarre (Danielle Darrieux) through hostile territory to Vera Cruz. It soon develops that the Countess is transporting a gold shipment to the Emperor's armies. Hardly the most patriotic of souls, she offers to split the gold with Trane and Erin, but they steal it for themselves instead. It takes a while (and several bloody armed confrontations) before the two protagonists do The Right Thing. While it's fun to watch Burt Lancaster try to upstage the taciturn Gary Cooper, the film's best line goes to supporting player Henry Brandon: impassively watching the loutish Lancaster wolf down his dinner and slop wine all over his blouse, Brandon says calmly "Be careful, senor. Some of it is getting in your mouth." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, (more)
- 1953
Big Leaguer was the inauspicious feature-film debut for director Robert Aldrich. Edward G. Robinson stars as the real-life Hans Lobert, the baseball scout in charge of the New York Giants' Florida training camp. Each year, a new crop of would-be ballplayers are given a two-week tryout under Lobert's supervision. The aspirants this time out include, Adam Polachuk (Jeff Richards), the son of a Polish immigrant who wants Adam to become a lawyer; Julie Davis (William Campbell), a tough guy from the streets of New York; Bobby Bronson (Richard Jaeckel), a cocky Ohio lad; and Chuy Aguilar (Lalo Rios), a Mexican youth whose skill on the ballfield compensates for his tenuous grasp of the English language. Gradually, Adam emerges as the film's central character, as he simultaneously tries to make good for Lobert, romance Lobert's niece Christy (Vera-Ellen), and keep his dad from finding out that he's not attending law school. Though Big Leaguer was held in such low esteem by distributor MGM that it became the first Edward G. Robinson picture not to be given a regular playdate in Manhattan, the film is worth seeing today, if only for the presence of such genuine big leaguers as Al Campanis, Carl Hubbell, Bob Trocolor and Tony Ravish. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Vera-Ellen, (more)
- 1953
A video of two television dramas: "One Way Out" and "Witness." ~ All Movie Guide
- 1952
Though out of favor with many Abbott and Costello buffs, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd is actually a lot of fun, so long as the viewer parks logic and dignity at the door. Captain Kidd is played by no less than Charles Laughton, who reportedly agreed to sign up for this film because he wanted to learn how to perform a comedy double-take. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are cast as Rocky and Puddn'head, waiters at a pirate hangout on the island of Tortuga. Entrusted with a love letter written by the beautiful Lady Jane (Fran Warren) to cabaret singer Bruce Martingale (Bill Shirley), Puddn'head manages to get this missive mixed up with a treasure map coveted by both Captain Kidd and his rival, lady pirate Captain Bonney (Hillary Brooke). The upshot of all this finds Rocky, Pudd'nhead, Lady Jane and Bruce being shanghaied by Kidd, setting the stage for a climactic treasure hunt and chase on a faraway island. Laughton takes to broad slapstick comedy like a fish to water; indeed, at times he's a lot funnier than Bud and Lou! Filmed in Cinecolor, Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd was the second of the team's independent productions for Warner Bros. release; like the first, Jack and the Beanstalk, it was well received by the public, even while critics tore their hair and gnashed their teeth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, (more)
London, 1914. Calvero (Charles Chaplin), a once-great music hall comedian, weaves drunkenly home to his shabby flat. As he arrives home, he is suddenly sobered by a bad smell. It isn't his shoes, as he originally assumes, but the smell of gas, emanating from behind a locked door. Calvero smashes his way in, finding the unconscious Terry (Claire Bloom). Carrying the girl to his attic apartment, Calvero revives Terry, then asks why she is so determined to kill herself. The girl explains that she has always dreamed of becoming a great dancer, but her legs are paralyzed. Calvero vows to raise enough money to help the girl. He goes back on stage, where his old-fashioned act is greeted with a riot of silence. Now it is Terry's turn to encourage Calvero to go on living-and in so doing, she regains the use of her legs. Hired by the Empire theatre corps de ballet, Terry arranges for the management to hire Calvero as a supernumerary. Impresario Postant (Nigel Bruce), not recognizing the famous Calvero in clown makeup, fires him. Only after Terry pleads with Postant to give Calvero another chance does the producer relent, securing a comeback appearance for the ageing comedian and his old partner (Buster Keaton). Calvero's antics bring down the house, just like the old days, but the effort is too much for the old fellow, and he collapses backstage. As Calvero dies, he proudly watches his protegee Terry carry on the "show must go on tradition" by dancing for the crowd. Thanks to the political climate of the time, Limelight was denied a wide distribution; in fact, it didn't play Los Angeles until 1972, twenty years after its completion. At that time, Chaplin's theme music, which had gained popularity on the "hit parade," was honored with an Academy Award. While the film has moments of unmatched hilarity (especially during the fabled Chaplin-Keaton teaming towards the end), the elegiac tone of Limelight was best summed up by critic Andrew Sarris: "To imagine one's own death, one must imagine the death of the world, that world which has always dangled so helplessly from the tips of Chaplin's eloquent fingers." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom, (more)
- 1951
Awkward teenager George LeMain (John Drew Barrymore, credited as John Barrymore Jr.) is given a small birthday party by his widowed father Andy (Preston Foster) at his bar. He is puzzled that his father's longtime girlfriend, Frances, is not there, but neither Andy nor Flanagan (Howland Chamberlain), bartender and George's surrogate mother, will say why. George is embarrassed when he is unable to blow out all the candles on his cake, but that's nothing compared to the humiliation to come when sportswriter Al Judge (Howard St. John) enters the tavern. Judge orders the elder LeMain to remove his shirt ("Show me some skin," he demands) and get down on all fours. Andy meekly offers no resistance when Judge brutally canes him. Enraged at both Judge and his father, George takes a gun from the cash register and goes off into the night to settle the score. His first stop is the fights, where after getting conned out of his money, he meets Lloyd Cooper (Philip Bourneuf), an alcoholic college professor who later introduces him to his girlfriend Julie Rostina (Dorothy Comingore) and her sister Marion (Joan Lorring). Although George and Marion hit it off, she tells him he is too young for her. Resuming his hunt, George finally comes face to face with Judge and learns that Frances, who was Judge's sister, had killed herself because Andy refused to marry her. Confused, George drops his gun and starts to leave. However, when Judge picks it up and turns the tables on him, George struggles for the gun, shoots Judge, and runs back into the night. When he gets home, he confronts his father with Judge's story. He learns not only that it's true, but also that his mother is not dead but had run off with another man. Joseph Losey's The Big Night functions largely as a perverse coming-of-age tale in which the price George pays for growing up is disillusionment with his emasculated father. Armed with this knowledge and a stronger sense of his abilities, George may now be better equipped to navigate the rejections, humiliations, and sadomasochistic relationships of his noirish world. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Drew Barrymore, Preston S. Foster, (more)
- 1951
Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) is a cynical policeman who believes that success comes from lucky breaks. Responding to a prowler complaint at the home of Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes), he is immediately attracted to her and her wealth. He returns to "check up" on Susan, and they begin an affair, conducted while listening to her husband William (Emerson Treacy)'s all-night radio program. Feeling guilty, Susan ends the relationship, but Garwood remains obsessed. He pretends to be a prowler on the Gilvray property so he can respond to another police call. Drawing William outside, he shoots him and makes it appear accidental. When Garwood manipulates Susan's confusion about the shooting, she buys his story, and the lovers marry. However, upon discovering that Susan is pregnant "too soon," they flee to give birth in secret, but eventually Susan learns the devastating truth. Intense performances by Heflin and Keyes bring alive this story of a prowler who preys on a woman's loneliness while also representing the forces of authority who literally screw those they are supposed to serve. ~ Steve Press, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, (more)
John Garfield, in the best performance of his career, portrays Joe Morse, an ambitious attorney who has long since abandoned his scruples in favor of monetary reward. Morse now represents the interests of crime boss Ben Tucker (Roy Roberts), who plans to take over the numbers racket in New York. Morse has devised a way of doing this legally and above-board, with no violence: Tucker's people will bring about the collapse of the illegal numbers racket in the city, using a race track-betting scam that will bankrupt the small-time underworld numbers banks; an investigation will ensue, along with a call for a legal numbers operation in the form of a lottery, which Tucker will control through Morse's machinations. The whole plan hinges on Morse's estranged brother, Leo (Thomas Gomez), a small-time numbers banker who is to be shielded from the collapse, and who will serve as the "legitimate" front for Tucker. Leo is the flaw in the plan, however, because not only can't he stand the sight of Joe, but he is also too honest to participate in the plan -- he doesn't want his employees, all decent people just looking to earn a living, forced into the employ of real gangsters. Joe orchestrates a series of police raids that force Leo into his corner, and Joe's plan seems to be working out, but then the whole enterprise is threatened when a rival mob, run by Tucker's former Prohibition-era partner, Fico (Paul Fix), starts pressuring Leo, trying to get to Joe and Tucker. Fico and his men aren't any different from Tucker's mob, except that they're prepared to start shooting sooner to get what they want. Tucker decides to hang tough and expects everyone, including Leo, to do the same, even when Fico starts sending thugs around to frighten everyone. Soon Joe is beset by problems on three fronts -- he wants his brother out of Tucker's combination and safe; he is trying to romance Leo's bookkeeper (Beatrice Pearson), who is too nice a girl for who he is; and his own well-being is threatened by both Fico and Tucker, and a state investigator who has already tapped the phone of Joe's otherwise respectable partner. All of these threads are pulled together in the final section of the film, which is as violent and disturbing, yet poetic and graceful a resolution as any crime film of the 1940s ever delivered. Force of Evil was star-crossed almost from the start, as many of the people involved, including star John Garfield and director Abraham Polonsky (a writer making his debut behind the camera, with help from assistant director Don Weis in doing the camera set-ups and blocking), were suspect at the time for their leftist political views. Indeed, the company that made Force of Evil, Enterprise Productions, was also in trouble for the leftist leanings of its films in the midst of the Red Scare, and went out of business just as the movie was finished -- dropped by United Artists and picked up by MGM, of all studios, Force of Evil made it into theaters during Christmas week of 1948, not the ideal schedule for something as grim (albeit great) as this film was. As it turned out, it was Polonsky's last chance to direct for more than 20 years, and Garfield's last completely successful film. And a movie that should have been a triumph for all concerned ended up a cult favorite. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, (more)
- 1947
This riveting 1947 drama, regarded by many as the greatest boxing movie of all time, centers on a former pugilist who looks back on his life in and out of the ring and realizes that self-respect is a more important prize than winning. John Garfield is Charlie Davis, a former boxing champion who began fighting in order to save himself and his mother from poverty after his father was killed in a mob-related bombing. William Conrad plays Quinn, a veteran boxer-turned-trainer who discovers that Davis has the potential to be a professional fighter. Eager to take on all contenders, Davis eventually defeats the world champion, but winning has cost him more than he bargained for. He falls in with the mob and takes to a life of easy women and plentiful booze, winning easy bouts with second-rate opponents. In the end, Davis realizes the error of his ways -- but is it too late? With all the odds against him, and knowing that the fight has already been fixed, Davis is forced to make the choice between what's expected of him and what he expects of himself. The fight sequences were filmed on roller skates with a hand-held camera, adding a realism that strengthens the film's verisimilitude. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, (more)
- 1947
Writer/director Albert Lewin, ever on the lookout for esoteric story material that would accommodate his fascination with Egyptian sculpture and feline symbolism, managed to inject both into The Private Affairs of Bel Ami. Though based on a Guy de Maupassant story, Bel Ami seems to have been written by Oscar Wilde, another of Lewin's pets (e.g. The Picture of Dorian Gray). George Sanders plays an epigrammatic Parisian journalist, who rises to the top through the "kindnesses" of the various influential women that he's seduced and abandoned. This 19th-century rake's progress is ultimately halted by a duel, and somehow we're sorry that we don't get to see Sanders pull off at least one more caddish trick to save himself. Echoes from Lewin's previous works include his insertion of a Technicolor sequence (as he'd done in Dorian Gray and The Moon and Sixpence). George Sanders' stepping-stone ladies include Angela Lansbury, Frances Dee, Ann Dvorak, Marie Wilson, Katherine Emery and Susan Douglas. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, (more)
- 1945
A case of mistaken identity leads to hilarity in this comedy. Eddie (Fred MacMurray) and Chuck (William Demarest) are a pair of GIs who've just been sprung from the service and plan to open a mink ranch in Wisconsin. No sooner do they arrive in the Cheese State than one Jim Arnold (Akim Tamiroff) mistakes Eddie for Francis Pemberton, a footloose playboy who owes Jim a very large gambling debt. Hard as he tries, Eddie can't convince Jim that he isn't Pemberton -- and Jim's strong-arm men demand that Eddie pay up. Eddie goes to Pemberton's estate in hopes of clearing up the confusion, but he learns that the gambler has apparently fled to Mexico. Eddie meets Joan (Marguerite Chapman), a poor but pretty relative of the Pembertons who strikes his fancy, but several other members of the family also think that Eddie and Francis are the same person -- and they're none too fond of their absent relation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred MacMurray, Marguerite Chapman, (more)
