Abner Biberman Movies

Edward Dmytryk's Back to Bataan stars John Wayne as Colonel Joe Madden. After General MacArthur decides to follow his order and leave the Philippines, Madden agrees to stay behind and organize an underground resistance movement. Anthony Quinn plays Andres Bonifacio, a captain who falls in love with a local woman (Fely Franquelli) who helps the army keep their rag-tag forces as organized as possible. Bonifacio must also deal with the pressure of being the grandson of a beloved Filipino leader. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Behind the High Wall is a remake of the 1937 Jackie Cooper-Victor McLaglen film The Big Guy. Tom Tully plays prison warden Frank Carmichael, who is kidnapped during a jail break in which a policeman is killed. In an ensuing car crash, all the escapees are killed except young Johnny Hutchins (John Gavin). Though he knows that Hutchins had nothing to do with the cop's murder, Carmichael refuses to intervene when Johnny is condemned to death. It seems that the escaping convicts had been carrying $100,000 in stolen money with them, which Carmichael has hidden away for his own use. By eliminating Hutchins, the warden is also getting rid of the only potential witness to his own perfidy. Sylvia Sidney is pure venom as Carmichael's crippled, greedy wife, while Betty Lynn (who later played Thelma Lou on The Andy Griffith Show) also registers well as Johnny's agonizing fiancee. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With famed journalist Drew Pearson appearing in the film's prologue and epilogue, it was easy in 1945 to confuse Betrayal from the East with Real Life. Lee Tracy is once again cast as a seemingly disreputable type with a heart of gold, in this case an expatriate ex-GI named Eddie. Believing that he'd be willing to sell out his country, a Japanese spy ring approach Eddie and ask him to get his hands on secret American war plans. But Eddie is still a true-blue Son of Uncle Sam; at the behest of Army Intelligence, Eddie agrees to play counterspy, using dictaphones, phony messages and other such devices to pull the wool over the enemy's eyes. The results aren't very pretty for either Eddie or his fellow counterspy Peggy (Nancy Kelly), though the audience can take some comfort in the fact that their sacrifice was for the good of Democracy. Fairly slow going during most of its 82 minutes, Betrayal From the East comes to a startling conclusion as Peggy suffers mightily at the hands of her Japanese captors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, which manages to look back with nostalgia upon prohibition and the depression (no small accomplishment), George Raft plays George, a hoofer looking back on his glory days. His memories are triggered when The Paradise Club, a nightspot where he used to work, is about to be turned into a bowling alley. In the Roaring '20s, George and his partner Billie (Janet Blair) were a star attraction at The Paradise, run by Nick (S.Z. Sakall). George wants his relationship with Billie to be as graceful off-stage as on, but he has several rivals vying for her affections, including gangster Steve (Broderick Crawford) and policeman Dan (Pat O'Brien). Marjorie Rambeau plays Lil, modeled after brassy nightclub owner Texas Guinan. Raft actually worked for Guinan in his early days as a dancer, and he gets a chance to show off his fancy footwork accompanied by a number of classic tunes, including "Alabamy Bound", "Yes Sir, That's My Baby", "Sweet Georgia Brown", and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". Broadway was a loose remake of the 1929 Merna Kennedy vehicle of the same name. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This lavish, 145-minute cinemadaptation of the Pearl Buck best-seller Dragon Seed was intended by MGM as a followup to the studio's successful film version of Buck's The Good Earth. In true Hollywood fashion, the Chinese protagonists are all played by Caucasian actors, with fascinating if not always convincing results. When a peaceful Chinese village is invaded by the Japanese prior to WW2, the men elect to adopt a peaceful, don't-rock-the-boat attitude towards their conquerors-and it is understood that the women will stoically acquiesce as well. But Jade (Katharine Hepburn), a headstrong young woman, intends to stand up to the Japanese whether her husband Lao Er (Turhan Bey) approves or not. She even goes so far as to learn to read and to handle a weapon, so that she may properly equipped for both psychological and physical combat. Jade's attitude spreads to the rest of the village, convincing even the staunchest of male traditional that the Japanese can be defeated only by offering a strong united front-male and female. Alas, there are a few Quislings in their midst, notably avaricious merchant Wu Lien (Akim Tamiroff), who learns all too late the terrible cost of collaboration. While it seems odd to see so many non-Orientals-Walter Huston, Agnes Moorehead, Hurd Hatfield, J. Carroll Naish-in the major roles, Dragon Seed manages to retain its power and entertainment value even 50 years after the fact (Incidentally, there are a few genuine Chinese in the cast-most of them playing Japanese!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Elephant Walk was several weeks into production when the film's original leading lady, Vivien Leigh, was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor (you can still see Leigh in a few long shots). Based on a novel by Robert Standish, the film casts Taylor as Ruth Wiley, the new bride of solemn plantation owner John Wiley (Peter Finch). At first thrilled at the prospect of living in the wilds of Ceylon, Ruth rapidly becomes a beautiful bird in a gilded cage. When American overseer Dick Carver (Dana Andrews) arrives on the scene, Ruth falls in love. Before she can leave her husband, though, the region is devastated by cholera. Making things worse, the local elephants go on a rampage, destroying her husband's mansion, which his father had maliciously built in the middle of the pachyderm's ancient right of way. Fraught with sexual symbolism, Elephant Walk works on a high-gloss soap opera level. The climactic stampede, however, is disappointingly filmed on a studio interior set, robbing what should have been a rousing climax of much of its credibility. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Flood Tide can be described as The Children's Hour gone ballistic. Michel Ray is David Gordon a sweet-faced little boy who dotes on his widowed mother Anne (Cornell Borchers) - but has a nasty, pathological penchant for lying. When a body washes up on the beach and a man is arrested, David tells a few "convenient" lies that get the fellow arrested. The owner of the adjacent beach house, Steve Martin (George Nader) returns from a trip, learns of the situation, and discusses in detail why he thinks the boy is being deceptive; he then spends the rest of the movie romantically pursuing Anne while attempting to earn David's trust and extract a confession from him that will free the unjustly convicted fellow. Flood Tide was directed by Abner Biberman, who as a former movie villain had a good grasp of what makes a sociopath tick--even a ten-year-old one. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the 1929 Fox talkie of the same name, Republic's The Girl From Havana offers blonde-bombshell Claire Carleton (normally relegated to supporting roles) as the title character. The film charts the exploits of two oil-drilling buddies, Woody Davis (Dennis O'Keefe) and Tex Moore (Victor Jory) as they ply their trade in sunny Cuba. Woody and Tex come to blows over the affections of the gorgeous Havana (Claire Carleton), but eventually set aside their differences when the plot takes a melodramatic turn. The climax finds Woody posing as a gun-runner in order to expose a Nazi spy ring operating in the Carribean. Steffi Duna, wife of star Dennis O'Keefe, shows up to warble the "authentic" Cubano number "Querido, Take Me Tonight." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though Rudyard Kipling's poem Gunga Din makes a swell recital piece, it cannot be said to have much of a plot. It's simply a crude cockney soldier's tribute to a native Indian water boy who remains at his job even after being mortally wounded. Hardly the sort of material upon which to build 118 minutes' worth of screen time-at least, it wasn't until RKO producer Pandro S. Berman decided to convert Gunga Din into an A-budgeted feature film. Now it became the tale of three eternally brawling British sergeants stationed in colonial India: Cutter (Cary Grant), McChesney (Victor McLaglen) and Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Ballantine intends to break up the threesome by marrying lovely Emmy Stebbins (Joan Fontaine), while Cutter and McChesney begin hatching diabolical schemes to keep Ballantine in the army (if this plot element sounds a lot like something from the Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur play The Front Page, bear in mind that Hecht and McArthur shared writing credit on Gunga Din with Joel Sayre and Fred Guiol; also contributing to the screenplay, uncredited, was William Faulkner). All three sergeants are kept occupied with a native revolt fomented by the Thuggees, a fanatical religious cult headed by a Napoleonic Guru (Eduardo Ciannelli). Unexpectedly coming to the rescue of our three heroes-not to mention every white man, woman and child in the region-is humble water carrier Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe), who aspires to become the regimental trumpeter. Originally slated to be directed by Howard Hawks, Gunga Din was taken out of Hawks' hands when the director proved to be too slow during the filming of Bringing Up Baby. His replacement was George Stevens, who proved to be slower and more exacting than Hawks had ever been! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Anne Baxter guest stars as Ironside's attorney friend Carolyn White, whom the authorities have tagged as the "most obvious" suspect in the murder of her cheating spouse. Convinced that Carolyn is being framed, Ironside (Raymond Burr) dedicates himself to proving his thesis, while his colleagues accuse him of allowing his heart to rule his head. Meanwhile, the search goes on for the murder victim's missing body--a search that yields startling results. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When a wealthy friend of the San Francisco police commissioner reports that his dog is missing, a disgruntled Ironside (Raymond Burr) passes the responsibility of locating the pooch to his assistants Ed (Don Galloway) and Eve (Barbara Anderson). Meanwhile, Mark (Don Mitchell) finds out that the lost dog is in the hands of some two-bit thieves who've decided to "achieve greatness" by kidnapping the pets of the rich and famous--and they're not above eliminating anyone who gets in their way. Frequent Ironside director Abner Biberman takes on an acting role in this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a small desert town, Ed (Don Galloway) is kidnapped by D.W. Donnelly (Clu Gulager), an escapee from a local prison farm. Ed soon figures out that the real villain of the piece is not Donnelly, but instead corrupt Sheriff Poole (Steve Forrest), who with his vicious deputy Hoag (William Smith) is using the farm to cover up his own criminal exploits. Filmed on location at Temecula, California, this episode is highlighted by the spectacular demise of Ironside's celebrated, state-of-the-art police van! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide