Fred Allen Movies

One of Republic's most elaborate productions of the 1950s, The Eternal Sea is the biography of American admiral John M. Hoskins. Sterling Hayden delivers a superbly understated performance as Hoskins, who continued to serve throughout WW2 despite the loss of a leg in the early phases of the conflict. The admiral's farsighted activities as commander of the aircraft carrier Princeton led to the development of the more sophisticated jet-aircraft carriers of the Korean War. The well-chosen supporting cast includes Alexis Smith as Hoskin's wife Sue, Dean Jagger as Admiral Thomas L. Semple, Morris Ankrum as Adm. Arthur Dewey Struble, and John Maxwell as Adm. William "Bull" Halsey (whose life story would serve as the basis for the 1960 film The Gallant Hours). Elmer Bernstein's soaring musical score is the icing on the cake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Atomic Kid strives mightily to wring laughs from the otherwise humorless topic of atomic radiation. Mickey Rooney (who also produced the film) and Robert Strauss play a couple of brainless prospectors who stumble upon a A-bomb testing site. Led to believe that the area is rich with uranium, Strauss goes off to stake a claim, while Rooney relaxes in a "test" house. Before long, a bomb is dropped, a mushroom cloud sprouts in the desert. . .and Rooney emerges from the rubble unharmed. Later on, however, our hero discovers that he's so full of radiation that he glows in the dark, which makes him both dangerous and world-famous. The plot then veers into Cold War territory as Rooney routs a nest of Soviet spies, led by Robert Emmet Keane. The leading lady of the proceedings is Elaine Davis, Mickey Rooney's then-wife (her marital status, transitory though it may have been, was emphasized in the film's opening credits) Believe it or not, this monumentally unfunny comedy was based on a story by Blake Edwards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Auer directed and Steve Fisher wrote this police procedural film in the vein of the popular Detective Story of two years earlier. The film juggles around four characters through a particularly bad night in a Chicago precinct -- Johnny Kelly (Gig Young), a stressed out cop ready to crack; Sally "Angel Face" Connors (Mala Powers), a cheap strumpet lounge singer; Hayes Stewart (William Talman), a former magician and present thug; Penrod Biddel (Edward Arnold), a smooth and corrupt district attorney; and Sgt. Joe (Chill Wills), an Everyman character, known as "The Voice of Chicago." The skimpy plot concerns Kelly, who is having an affair with Angel Face and is ready to quit his job and leave his wife Kathy (Paula Raymond) at the drop of a hat. In order to get quick money to escape Chicago and start life anew with Angel Face, Kelly accepts an assignment and a payment from Biddel to escort low-life Stewart across the state line. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Based on William Fay's short story The Disappearance of Dolan, Champ for a Day stars Alex Nicol as young pugilist George Wilson. Upon arriving in a small town for a scheduled bout, George discovers that his manager, Dolan, has vanished from sight. Also caught up in the mystery is Dolan's girlfriend Miss Gormley (Audrey Totter). Before long, George finds out that his missing manager was tied up with gangsters--and that George is expected to lose his next fight. How he extricates himself from this dilemma, and also solves his manager's disappearance, consumes the final four reels of this 90-minute Republic "special." The film's topnotch cast includes Harry Morgan as a trainer, Charles Winninger and Hope Emerson as the owners of a roadside hotel, and Joseph Wiseman as a wacko villain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ray Middleton and Bill Shirley, Republic Pictures' answer to Hope and Crosby, star in Sweethearts on Parade. Middleton and Shirley play Cam Ellerby and Bill Gamble, the featured singers in a travelling medicine show. While stopping over in a small town, Cam renews his acquaintance with his former wife Sylvia (Eileen Christy), who now has a pretty, grown-up daughter -- Kathleen -- played by Lucille Norman. When Kathleen makes noises about a show-business career, Sylvia won't hear of it -- nor does she approve of her daughter's romance with Bill. One gets the sneaking suspicion that everything will turn out all right in the end for all four protagonists. With 26 songs in the picture, how could things not turn out all right? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Will Ballard (Rod Cameron) is the longtime foreman of the Hatcher ranch, a spread renowned for its size and the wealth it contains. When owner Phil Evarts dies suddenly, the speculation in the territory is that Hatcher will be broken up, especially since it was Evarts' determination coupled with Ballard's skills as a foreman and gunman that held it together -- but Ballard decides that the ranch is worth saving, even though the only help he really has is one top hand (Chill Wills, in a beautifully restrained performance) and a couple of young brothers (Al Caudebec, Roydon Clark) picked up on the trail. He figures it's worth saving for what it is, and also for Evarts' daughter, Celia (Ella Raines), who is engaged to marry neighboring rancher Sam Danfelser (Forrest Tucker). Ballard and Sam were once friends, but as the foreman discovers, there's been bad blood brewing on the other side of the friendship for a long time, mostly out of Sam's jealousy -- not only is Ballard a better rider and a better gun, but he's a better man than he is, and he can't abide the fact that Celia knows this deep in her heart, even though she and Sam are engaged. Then there's Bide Marriner (Brian Donlevy), a local "operator" who'd love to get a range war started and grab up some land and cattle, and immediately uses friends and intermediaries, plus a few hired guns, to start spreading the word, convincing the neighboring ranchers that Hatcher land is free and open. And then there's Lottie Priest, whom Ballard figured to marry soon -- is she more interested in what her greedy father can make from the breakup of Hatcher? Caught in the middle of it all is the county sheriff, Joe Kneen (J. Carrol Naish), who'd like to stay civil with all of those involved but soon finds out that he's going to have to choose sides, and that he's too good a man for that to be the "easy" choice. There's a lot of back-shooting in Ride the Man Down, as well as some brilliantly and cleverly designed action sequences, and a level of duplicity in the characters that makes this picture play at time almost more like a film noir of the period. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The Cinecolor "A" western Slaughter Trail anticipated High Noon by having its story narrated in song by troubadour Terry Gilkyson. The basic plotline is a traditional Indians-vs.-whites affair, with cavalry officer Dempster (Brian Donlevy) trying to undo the damage created by Indian-hating bandit Vaughn (Gig Young). Upon cold-bloodedly murdering two Navajos, Vaughn has fomented a deadly tribal war, with Dempster's cavalry post right in the middle. Other endangered species include a supposed damsel-in-distress (Virginia Grey), who turns out to be Vaughn's accomplice. Filmed in 1950, Slaughter Trail was purchased by RKO head-man Howard R. Hughes in 1951. Hughes withheld release of the film until he was able to reshoot all scenes involving Howard da Silva, who'd originally been cast in the Brian Donlevy role. Da Silva was under a political cloud as an alleged pro-communist at the time, and the xenophobic Hughes wasn't about to release any film with a "Pinko" in the lead. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Humphrey Bogart plays Martin Ferguson, a prosecutor about to put Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloane), the head of a murder-for-hire ring, on trial. But the night before the trial, his key witness, Joe Rico (Ted de Corsia), dies in a fall out of the window of the room in which he's been guarded, part of an abortive escape attempt to keep from testifying. His case in shambles, Ferguson and detective Captain Nelson (Roy Roberts) try to piece the entire four-year investigation back together from square one, trying to find something that might give them another way to prosecute Mendoza. The main body of the movie is told in flashback, starting when a small-time hood named Duke Malloy (Michael Tolan, then billed as Lawrence Tolan) walks into a police station to turn himself in for killing his girlfriend -- and says that someone made him kill her. He babbles to the bewildered detectives about "hits" and "contracts" and men nicknamed Philadelphia, Big Babe, and Smiley. The body isn't found, but they arrest Malloy, who hangs himself in his cell. That dead end leads, almost by accident, to Philadelphia Tom Zaca (Jack Lambert), an asylum inmate who has to be put under sedation at the mention of Malloy's name. They find another suspect's body burning in his building's incinerator, and then Big Babe Lazick (Zero Mostel), a two-bit hood, hiding in a church in mortal fear of his life. He begins weaving a tale of a murder-by-contract ring and its head operator, Joe Rico, of a murder contract that Duke Malloy never filled on a girl who had to change her name, of mistaken identity and the murder of the girl's cab-driver father, and the connection between that and a murder that they both witnessed eight years earlier. In the midst of all of those interlocking stories (spread across ten years), there's something Ferguson missed -- when he had Rico to testify -- that he has to sort out from the reams of testimony and evidence, and he has to figure it out before Mendoza does, or lose the last witness he has. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Also known as Reign of Terror, The Black Book is a bold effort by director Anthony Mann to film a French Revolution epic on a "B" detective picture budget. Robert Cummings stars as Charles D'Aubigny, who has been engaged by a group of political moderates to retrieve a little black book from Revolutionary leader Robespierre (Richard Basehart). The book allegedly contains evidence that Robespierre has been acting in his own interest rather than on behalf of the new government. D'Aubigny is compelled to deal with the tangible threat of Robespierre's chief henchman (Charles McGraw) as well as his uncertainty concerning the loyalties of those working with him. The Black Book is retrieved, but not before Robespierre has self-destructed on his own. The cheapness of The Black Book works in its favor, especially its overuse of shadows; while this photographic device was intended to disguise the seediness of the sets, it accurately conveys a "dark" period in French history that here is literally as well as figuratively dark. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Ghost Goes Wild is a low-cost but high-rolling farce starring James Ellison and Anne Gwynne. It starts off with Ellison, a young artist, being sued for an unauthorized caricature. To escape arrest, Ellison disguises himself as a mystic, only to conjure up a genuine ghost during a seance. Things come to a head during Ellison's trial, where the invisible ghost takes the witness stand on Our Hero's behalf. The Ghost Goes Wild is a rare venture into wacky comedy by western-oriented Republic Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the novel by Agatha Christie and play by Frank Vosper, Love From a Stranger isn't quite as good as the 1937 version of the same property. This time, Sylvia Sidney and John Hodiak play the roles originally filled by Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone. Falling under the romantic spell of charismatic Manuel Cortez (Hodiak), impressionable sweepstakes winner Cecily Harrington (Sidney) marries him after a whirlwind courtship. It doesn't take long for Cecily to figure out that Cortez is a dangerous psychotic, bent on murdering his wife and claiming her fortune. Unable to convince anyone else of Cortez intentions (even though his behavior would, in real life, get him locked away in a minute), Cecily determines to outsmart her husband and catch him in his own trap. Ironically, Frank Vosper never saw either film version of Love From a Stranger, having died under mysterious circumstances in 1937 (too bad Agatha Christie never wrote that story!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this Republic musical, all heck breaks loose when the girlfriend of an aspiring composer becomes a model for the starving artist who lives next door. The story takes place at the turn of the 19th century and is set in Miss Rich's boardinghouse, the temporary home of many young artists and performers hoping to make it big in New York. Songs include "Have I Told You Lately?" and "A Bluebird Is Singing to Me." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 87-minute running time of Plainsman and the Lady was evidence aplenty that this was no mere Republic B western. William Elliot (formerly and latterly "Wild Bill" Elliot) stars as cattleman Sam Cotten, who offers his services-and his six-guns-to the newly formed Pony Express. Erudite villain Peter Marquette (Joseph Schildkraut) is a rival stagecoach owner who'll stop at nothing to keep the mail from going through. Ordering his minions to disguise themselves as Indians, Marquette masterminds a series of bloody raids on the pony express riders. But Cotton, aided and abetted by grizzled sidekick Dringo (Andy Clyde) proves to be more than a match for the bad guy. The lady of the title is high-born Ann Arnesen, played by Queen of Republic Vera Ralston; she's decorative enough, but no match for her talented costar Gail Patrick, cast as Ann's sister and the despicable Marquette's wife. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide