Lloyd Corrigan Movies

In this lightweight musical comedy, Judy Foster (Jane Powell) and Carol Pringle (Elizabeth Taylor) are teenagers and best friends who find their loyalties tested when they both fall for the same good-looking older man, Stephen Andrews (Robert Stack). This situation is particularly troublesome for Judy, who already has a boyfriend, "Oogie" Pringle (Scotty Beckett), Carol's brother. Meanwhile, the girls join forces for a little sleuthing when Judy discovers that her father, Melvin Foster (Wallace Beery), has been spending time with Brazilian bombshell Rosita Conchellas (Carmen Miranda). Judy and Carol suspect hanky-panky, but actually Melvin is taking dancing lessons from Rosita as a surprise for his wife. A Date With Judy certainly offers your only opportunity to see Wallace Berry dance the mambo, and it also features a guest appearance by Xavier Cugat and his band. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Unusually lavish for an Eagle-Lion production, The Adventures of Casanova lacks only Technicolor and "star" names. Lensed in Mexico, the film stars Latin American heartthrob Arturo de Cordova in the title role, and MGM expatriate (and future Mexican citizen) Lucille Bremer as the lovely Lady Bianca. Though ample screen time is expended upon Casanova's amorous conquests, most of the film is in the swashbuckler mode, as the hero battles the despotic Austrian rules in 18th century Sicily. The film gets down to basics when Casanova squares off against his bitterest foe, Austrian envoy Count de Brissac John Sutton. Comedy relief is handled by Turhan Bey as Casanova's philosophical sidekick and George Tobias as a spy posing as a monk. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ex-thief Boston Blackie (Chester Morris) brings a variety show up to his old prison alma mater for Christmas Eve. In violation of the visitation rules, he also brings along Eve Sanders (Adele Mara), whose brother Joe (Larry Parks) is doing a 15-year stretch as an accomplice to a robbery-murder. When Joe escapes by disguising himself as one of the performers (with whom he once worked), the police want to hold Blackie as an accomplice. The thief-turned-investigator has to avoid arrest long enough to find Joe before he carries out his vow to kill the men who framed him, protect Eve from the consequences of his escape, and clear his own name -- and the only way to do all of that means solving the original crime for which Joe was convicted, following blind alleys and trails that end with men who have died, disappeared, or assumed new identities. Along the way, amid a considerable number of laughs at the way Blackie outwits the police, we get a truly suspenseful pursuit and two sequential escapes, one from a murder scene with police all over the place and the other from a police station in an amazingly clever, funny, and tense sequence (and one which, despite the humor here, manages to anticipate the bloody escape from maximum security in Silence of the Lambs). The cast includes Morris in top form and Adele Mara looking very pretty and vulnerable, plus an intense young Larry Parks as a man on the run, and character men Cy Kendall, Paul Fix, George McKay, Lloyd Corrigan, and George E. Stone doing what they all did best. But it is director Lew Landers and writer Paul Yawitz who do the best work of all, moving this cracking great mystery thriller at a breakneck pace, the latter all the more striking since the whole plot takes place across a 24-hour time arc on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That fact, coupled with some revived interest in the 1940s Columbia "B" catalog, has helped make Alias Boston Blackie one of the odder pieces of holiday programming to turn up on various vintage movie channels. The story was also good enough to be remade -- with an offbeat gender twist and even more laughs, but also a higher body count -- four years later as Boston Blackie And The Law. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Before he settled down to a long career as a jovial character actor, Lloyd Corrigan functioned as screenwriter and director on a number of Hollywood programmers. Corrigan co-directed Paramount's Along Came Youth with Norman Z. McLeod. The frothy story involves heiress Frances Dee, who balks at the wealthy marriage that her aunt is arranging. Enter Charles "Buddy" Rogers, a near-impoverished gent who takes a job as a sandwich board man. Dee assumes that Rogers is the rich man she's expected to marry, and then the fun begins. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Moran and Mack was a blackface comedy act of the 1920s, popularly known as the Two Black Crows. They specialized in the sort of cross-talk humor that would later become the domain of white-faced comics Abbott and Costello. In their second feature-length comedy, Anybody's War, M&M play a couple of stupid dogcatchers who are drafted into World War 1. Once overseas, the Two Black Crows help make the world safe for racial stereotypes. Normally, the team of Moran and Mack consisted of George Moran and Charlie Mack, but such was not the case in Anybody's War. George Moran had temporarily deserted the team over monetary matters, compelling Charlie Mack to cast his former partner Bert Swor in the "Moran" part. Assuming that no one would know the difference with that heavy blackface makeup, the team was still billed as Moran and Mack, with nary a mention of Swor in the print ads or the main titles. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The "Blondie" series reaches Number 25 with Blondie Hits the Jackpot. Fired for messing up an important contract, Dagwood (Arthur Lake) takes a job as a manual laborer for a construction firm. He is rescued from penury when Blondie (Penny Singleton) wins a radio contest. Of slender interest is the fact that Larry Simms, playing Blondie and Dagwood's son Alexander, is now shaving and going out with girls--a far cry from his "Baby Dumpling" days in the series' earliest entries. Otherwise, Blondie Hits the Jackpot fails to live up to its title. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Poor Ben Cartwright is unable to get any peace and quiet on the Ponderosa, thanks to his uncommonly noisy offspring and their friends. In desperate need of a few hours' sleep, he checks into the Virginia City hotel. Not unexpectedly, comic chaos ensues, much of it caused by a bickering husband and wife (Abigail Shelton, Robert Ridgely) and a man-chasing widow (Jean Willes. Scriptwriters Frank Cleaver and Jeffrey Fleece were responsible for this non-stop laugh riot. "A Good Night's Rest" originally aired on April 11, 1965. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this lively entry in the Boston Blackie mysteries, Blackie gets in trouble when he helps a friend auction off a first-edition Charles Dickens book and discovers that it was counterfeit. As a result of his involvement in the con, Blackie must clear himself after being accused of murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

It may sound like a teenage-romance comedy, but Boy Trouble is actually a sentimental effort about middle-aged parents. Charlie Ruggles stars as a small town shopkeeper whose wife (Mary Boland) adopts a pair of rambunctious orphan boys (Donald O'Connor, Billy Lee). Ruggles is at first hostile towards this invasion of his peace and quiet, but his paternal feelings are aroused when the children become victims of a scarlet fever epidemic. The screenwriters for Boy Trouble were satirist S. J. Perelman and his wife Laura, hardly the most logical candidates for this domestic comedy/drama. The film was meant to launch a B-series titled The Fitch Family, but didn't do well enough at the box office to justify any sequels. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this emotional but fast-paced comedy, a husband/businessman creates an ingenious cure for his mid-life crisis. He suggest to his wife that they take separate vacations and not discuss them with each other afterward. The wife isn't sure, but being a loving and understanding woman, agrees to the terms. The husband, dreaming of all the luscious young girls to be had, is happy as a kid in a candy store. Unfortunately for him, things don't happen as planned and he gets zippo. His wife, on the other hand, ends up falling for a younger man. When he proposes, the wife is sorely tempted, but then realizes she really does love her husband. The would-be wayward husband also reawakens to love and domestic bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Set during the war of 1812, Hal Roach's Captain Caution is an unusual swashbuckler in that the "hero" is actually the heroine. Louise Platt plays Corunna, the daughter of Captain Dorman (Robert Barrat), skipper of the American vessel The Olive Branch. When Dorman is killed in battle, Corunna courageously assumes command of the ship, with the help of muscular first mate Dan Marvin (Victor Mature). While trying to bring a valuable cargo to America, the Olive Branch is captured a number of times by the British, but on each occasion Corunna and Marvin manage to wriggle free and carry on their mission. Making life tougher for Corunna is the presence of the lacivious Slade (Bruce Cabot), who'd like to claim both the girl and the ship as his own personal property. Based on a novel by Kenneth Roberts (Northwest Passage), Captain Caution is currently available on video in a computer-colorized version; the reader is advised to hold out for the black-and-white original. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Paramount's immensely successful Pine-Thomas production unit once more struck box-office gold with The Last Outpost. Ronald Reagan stars as devil-may-care Confederate officer Vance Britton, who leads a band of guerillas on a series of sabotage raids. The Northern Army dispatches Vance's brother, Union officer Jeb Britton (Bruce Bennett), to put an end to Vance's activities. Both brothers are forced to work shoulder to shoulder when a Northern attempt to enlist the aid of the Apache tribe backfires, sparking an all-out Indian war. Rhonda Fleming, who seemed to spend her entire career in Technicolor adventure flicks, appears as the romantic bone of contention between the battling Brittons. Halfway down the cast list as Lieutenant Fenton is TV's future "Ward Cleaver," Hugh Beaumont. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Recreating his stage role, Jose Ferrer stars as Edmond Rostand's Cyrano, a 17th-century French cavalier, poet and swordsman whose prominent proboscis is the subject of many a duel. Cyrano is madly in love with the beautiful Roxanne (Mala Powers), but assumes that she'd never love him back due to his cathedral of a nose. Roxanne is also loved by the handsome Christian (William Prince), who unfortunately can't put two consecutive words together when it comes to pitching woo. Cyrano agrees to help Christian win Roxanne by feeding him the right words for his midnight courtships and love letters; in this way, Cyrano can vicariously express his own ardor for the fair lady. Years later, Cyrano's deception is revealed, and he dies happily in the arms of his beloved Roxanne, who realizes that she has really loved Cyrano all along--by way of Christian. Cyrano de Bergerac wasn't seen by many paying moviegoers upon its original showing, but its relative box-office failure resulted in an early release to television, where it has remained a perennial attraction for the past forty years. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi