Keefe Brasselle Movies

If Officers Jim Reed (Kent McCord) and Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) thought that they'd pulled light duty when they were assigned to a relatively peaceful part of town, they were sorely mistaken. In the course of a single evening, the two cops are confronted with a plethora of motel robberies, a gang of car strippers, a deadly shootout--and an obnoxiously persistent used car salesman. Featured in the supporting cast is musical performer Keefe Brasselle, best known for his tumultuous mini-career as a producer at CBS (which yielded an infamously bitter "roman a clef" which author Brasselle clevely titled The CanniBalS). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood hasbeen Keefe Brasselle stars in the British Death Over My Shoulder. The resistable Mr. Brasselle plays a detective who is unable to meet the medical payments for his ailing son. Professional killer Bonar Colleano is hired to bump off Brasselle so that the boy will collect the insurance. Not unexpectedly, Brasselle has a change of heart-but Colleano doesn't. This plot chestnut was old when Douglas Fairbanks used it in 1915's Flirting With Fate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced by low-budget maven Bryan Foy, Battle Stations is a standard wartime melodrama with the usual assortment of cliches. John Lund plays Father Joe McIntyre, who is assigned as chaplain of an Essex-class aircraft carrier. Father Joe finds himself in conflict with the carrier's Captain (Richard Boone), a strict disciplinarian with little room for compassion. Among the chaplain's allies on board are tough-but-tender chief bos'un Buck Fitzpatrick (William Bendix), hotheaded sailor Chris Jordan (Keefe Brasselle), and young pilot Pete Kelly (William Leslie), whose doom is assured the moment he learns that he's about to become a father. The economies in Battle Stations extend to its opening-credit music, which has been lifted bodily from Max Steiner's score for The Caine Mutiny. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Blake Edwards made his directorial debut in the bubbly musical comedy Bring Your Smile Along. The story, written by Edwards and his longtime associate-mentor Richard Quine, gets under way when New England schoolmarm Nancy Willows (Constance Towers) heads to New York, there to try her luck as a lyricist. Teaming with aspiring composer Martin Adams (Keefe Brasselle), Nancy pens several hit tunes for crooner Jerry Dennis (Frankie Laine). Martin would like to make his collaboration with Nancy a little more intimate, but she happens to have a fella back home, David Parker (William Leslie). Since David is as likeable as Martin, Nancy really has a problem. Lucy Marlow, who the previous year had shown up briefly in A Star is Born, is "introduced" as comedy-relief character Marge Stevenson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Eddie Cantor, beloved "banjo eyed" entertainer who conquered stage, films, radio and television, is given the Hollywood biopic treatment in this largely uninvolving film. Cantor is portrayed by Keefe Brasselle, a minor nightclub performer of the 1950s who couldn't hope to come within shouting distance of Cantor's appeal. The storyline charts Cantor's professional progress, from the lower East Side boyhood to his ascendancy as star of The Ziegfeld Follies. It also chronicles his enduring marriage to wife Ida (Marilyn Erskine). Surprisingly shortchanged in the film was Cantor's humanitarian work (primarily on behalf of the March of Dimes and various Jewish causes); instead, screen time is wasted on Aline MacMahon, as lachrymose as possible in the role of Eddie's grandmother, and Jackie Barnett, giving a gosh-awful performance as Jimmy Durante. At the beginning and end of the film, the real Eddie and Ida Cantor appear, ostensibly to watch the unspooling of The Eddie Cantor Story in a Warner Bros. screening room. At the fade-out, Eddie turns to Ida and says "I've never been so happy in my life." Now that was great acting! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Highly respected defense attorney Dwight Bradley Mason (Walter Pidgeon) is able to clear young Rudi Wallchek (Keefe Brasselle) of a murder rap. When it's all over, however, Rudi lets slip a careless comment which leads Mason to believe that his client was guilty after all. Using the evidence at hand, the attorney retraces his steps, only to discover that one of the town's leading citizens is a criminal mastermind. The solution to this ethical dilemma is straight out of the "postman always rings twice" school of crime fiction. Even after justice has been served, however, Mason's conscience dictates that everyone responsible for all previous legal miscarriages be punished -- including himself! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1931 under its original title, Theodore Dreiser's bulky but brilliant novel An American Tragedy was remade in 1951 by George Stevens as A Place in the Sun. Montgomery Clift stars as George Eastman, a handsome and charming but basically aimless young man who goes to work in a factory run by a distant, wealthy relative. Feeling lonely one evening, he has a brief rendezvous with assembly-line worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), but he forgets all about her when he falls for dazzling socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). Alice can't forget about him, though: she is pregnant with his child. Just when George's personal and professional futures seem assured, Alice demands that he marry her or she'll expose him to his society friends. This predicament sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately include George's arrest and numerous other tragedies, including a vicious cross-examination by a D.A. played by future Perry Mason Raymond Burr. A huge improvement over the 1931 An American Tragedy, directed by Josef von Sternberg, A Place in the Sun softens some of the rough edges of Dreiser's naturalism, most notably in the passages pertaining to George's and Angela's romance. Even those 1951 bobbysoxers who wouldn't have been caught dead poring through the Dreiser original were mesmerized by the loving, near-erotic full facial closeups of Clift and Taylor as they pledge eternal devotion. A Place in the Sun won six Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography, although it lost Best Picture to An American in Paris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Young Lovers is the more familiar title of a 1950 drama originally released as Never Fear. Sally Forrest plays a beautiful young dancer who is crippled with polio. Forrest's dance partner Keefe Brasselle wants to see her through her illness, but the embittered Forrest prefers to be alone. Only by allowing others to share her grief is Forrest able to pull herself together and go on with her life. Though The Young Lovers is listed as Ida Lupino's directorial debut, she'd previously helmed Not Wanted (49) (also starring Forrest and Brasselle) when official director Elmer Clifton fell ill. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston resident becomes angry when the census forgets to record her presence. Another sketch chronicles the achievements of African Americans while still another pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

First love leads to unexpected responsibilities and difficult decisions in this well-crafted drama. Sally Kelton (Sally Forrest) is a free-spirited young woman who is chafing at the restrictions of living at home with her folks and wants to make something of herself. One evening after work, she stops for a drink with some friends and meets Steve Ryan (Leo Penn), a charming but cynical piano player. Sally falls for Steve in a big way and they embark on a brief romance, but Steve regards Sally as a passing fancy and soon moves on to another town. While Sally follows him, Steve makes it clear things are over between them and he takes a gig in South America. Heartbroken Sally takes a new job at a filling station and general store run by Drew Baxter (Keefe Brasselle), a war veteran with a bad leg and a serious crush on Sally. Sally is still getting over Steve and isn't interested in Drew when she learns that she's carrying Steve's child. The disgraced Sally decides to give her child up for adoption, but finds her maternal instincts are stronger than she expected and her desire to have her baby back leads her on a desperate and dangerous path. While Streets of Sin (aka Not Wanted) is credited to director Elmer Clifton, most of the picture was actually shot under the aegis of co-producer Ida Lupino after Clifton fell ill during production; it was the actress' first film as a director. In the '60s, Streets of Sin was reissued as The Wrong Rut, with the addition of footage of a Caesarian birth "borrowed" from an educational film, and booked into drive-ins and grindhouses on the exploitation circuit. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The moodily evocative docudrama T-Men stars Dennis O'Keefe as Dennis O'Brien, a treasury agent determined to bring a counterfeiting ring to justice. O'Brien and his partner Tony Genaro (Alfred Ryder) go undercover to gain the confidence of the ruthless Detroit mob responsible for the phony money. The plot, compelling though it is, takes second place to the film's stylish set pieces, superbly directed by Anthony Mann and brilliantly photographed by John Alton. Among the film's most famous moments is the scene in which two-bit hood Wallace Ford is bumped off in a steam bath by sadistic hood Charles McGraw, not to mention the harrowing vignette wherein O'Keefe, posing as a crook, must stand by silently as his partner Ryder is murdered. One of the finest examples of the film noir form, T-Men proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a film didn't need to have a lush budget, brilliant Technicolor and Clark Gable to score a hit with postwar moviegoers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The DE 733, a destroyer escort vessel, pulls into port with a gaping hole in her hull from a torpedo attack. At first, her men are curiously silent as to the cause of the disaster that those remaining are so lucky to have escaped. As a Navy commandant (Will Wright) has a casual sit down with the ship's Executive Officer (Myron McCormick), the details emerge; after a long tour, the men are anxiously awaiting a period of leave and are excitedly discussing the prospect of linking up with women in the port city. The ship's doctor (Archie Twitchell) is genuinely concerned by reports linking the ship's destination with rampant strains of venereal disease and by the naïveté of the crew - one sailor, Windy (unidentified actor), is passing out mysterious pills said to cure VD. Doc does everything in his power to try to inform the men, and even motivates the Executive Officer to give a lengthy speech on the perils of VD, the use of condoms and to encourage abstinence, which is heeded by few.

During leave, several of the men go out in search of loose women; one of them, Chicken (Keefe Brasselle), gets cold feet but manages to find a "nice girl" instead, Margaret (unidentified actress). Back out on the open ocean, the piper is paid, as various men begin to turn up with cases of VD, the ravages of which are unflinchingly shown before the camera. Chicken is the one sailor courageous enough to name the source of his ailment, and back in the port city Margaret is informed, saving her life. On the ocean, however, the men of the DE 733 are forced to contend with their dangerous mission and to rise with whatever resources they have to fulfill their duty; with illness affecting so many crew members, it proves a daunting task indeed.
~ David Lewis, All Movie Guide