Frank Craven Movies

Based on a novel by Barry Fleming, Colonel Effingham's Raid stars Charles Coburn in the title role. Upon retiring from the army, Effingham returns to his home town of Fredericksville, Georgia. Dismayed by the town's paucity of civic pride, the Colonel begins writing a newspaper column honoring Fredericksville's old traditions and chastizing those who would tear those traditions down. His pet peeve is the city administration's plan to rename Confederate Square after the pompous, mildly corrupt town mayor (Thurston Hall). When it seems that his protests are falling upon deaf ears, Colonel Effingham literally stage a "military assault" against City Hall, which in real life would get him thrown in the looney bin but which in a whimsical comedy of this nature results in a smashing success for the "good guys". If Colonel Effingham's Raid seems to be popping up on TV at a rate of once a day, it is because the film lapsed into public domain in 1973. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a young couple ignores the advice of their elders and get married. Soon afterward, the young groom is inducted into the war. Overseas, he suffers from shell shock and must return home. Much of the drama centers upon his reminiscences as he rides the train homeward. Later the people he thought about on his journey home help him to recover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When director Julien Duvivier's episodic, all-star drama Flesh and Fantasy proved a bit too long in previews, Universal decided to remove the film's opening segment, which dealt with the foredoomed romance between an escaped criminal and a blind girl. Because this segment was too good to waste, the studio hired screenwriter Roy Chanslor to come up with additional material and Reginald LeBorg to direct a few new scenes, so that the episode could be released as a separate feature film. The result was the 65-minute Destiny, a curious melange of the sublime and the banal. The Duvivier-directed footage stars Alan Curtis as fugitive-from-justice Cliff Banks, who hides from the authorities in the farmhouse owned by kindly Clem Broderick (Frank Craven). Clem's daughter Jane (Gloria Jean), blind from birth, "sees" only the good in the outwardly unsavory Cliff, so it isn't surprising that the two fall in love. This tender little episode was supposed to have ended tragically, but Universal insisted upon a few "framing" scenes, directed by LeBorg, wherein Cliff is shown to be innocent of the crimes for which he has been imprisoned, and which allowed Cliff and Jane a happy denouement The stylistic schism between the "old" and "new" scenes is glaringly obvious; still, what's left of the original Duvivier footage is terrific, with Alan Curtis and Gloria Jean offering the finest performances of their screen careers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Son of Dracula represents a felicitious creative collaboration between director Robert Siodmak and his screenwriter-brother Curt. The story is set in the American south, where the mysterious Count Alucard (Lon Chaney Jr.) has recently taken up residence. Katherine Caldwell (Louise Allbritton), a student of the occult, is fascinated by Alucard, so much so that she agrees to become his wife. But when Katherine begins to look and act strangely, her former suitor Frank Stanley (Robert Paige) suspects that something's amiss. Assisted by town doctor Brewster (Frank Craven) and psychologist Laszlo (J. Edward Bromberg), Frank comes to the inescapable conclusion that Count Alucard is actually the dreaded vampire Count Dracula's offspring (this much he might have figured out simply by spelling the man's name backward!) To prevent Dracula from spreading his influence throughout America, Frank and his confreres race against time to destroy the count and, hopefully, rescue poor Katherine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This ambitious filmed biography of writer-adventurer Jack London is somewhat compromised by its too-tight budget. Michael O'Shea is well cast as London, whose rugged adventures range from the high seas to the Klondike. London's insatiable wanderlust causes friction in his marriage to the lovely Charmian (Susan Hayward), but she stands nobly by his side in good times and bad (it should be noted that the script is based on Mrs. London's memoirs). In the interests of topicality, the film contrives to have London endeavor to warn America of Japanese military expansion some four decades before Pearl Harbor. It is this story element that makes Jack London a bit difficult to watch today, despite the strong performances of O'Shea, Hayward and a superb supporting cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Thru Different Eyes is a remake of the 1929 film of the same name. The original was hailed for its creative use of sound and subjective photography; the remake is a standard crime melodrama, elevated slightly by an engaging narrative gimick. In trying to explain how the American judicial system works, district attorney Steve Pettijohn (Frank Craven) harks back to a murder conviction predicated upon circumstantial evidence. Going over the testimony of the witnesses, it was discovered that each account was incorrect in one respect or another. By piecing together all the accounts, it was possible to exonerate the suspect and reveal the guilty party. The story's "prismatic" approach was similar to that adopted by Citizen Kane, which would continue to influence American filmmaking for the rest of the 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, set in WW II, a Venezuelan rubber planter's son must travel to New York to try and secure a loan for the expansion of the family business. There he encounters an impoverished American girl whose fortune lies frozen in England until the war ends. To make ends meet, she rents her apartment to the Venezuelan and becomes his personal maid. Mayhem ensues as the two get involved in merry mix-ups, fall in love, fall out of love, and fall in love again. Eventually, she helps him get the loan he needs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this western, a schoolteacher battles for women's rights in mid 19th century Wyoming. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dreaming Out Loud represented the film debut of radio favorites Lum 'N' Abner, aka Chester Lauck and Norris Goff. Proprietors of the Jot-Em-Down Store in Pine Ridge, AR, our heroes are currently preoccupied by their efforts to construct a mobile hospital unit in their community. In time-honored movie-comedy tradition, Lum 'N' Abner also set aside a moment or two to help out young lovers Dr. Kenneth Barnes (Robert Wilcox) and Alice (Frances Langford). More serious in nature than subsequent Lum 'N' Abner movie vehicles, the storyline is partially devoted to the search for the hit-and-run driver who struck down and killed lovable little Emmy Lou (Bobs Watson). Bandleader Phil Harris is allotted a surprisingly tiny amount of screen time, and isn't even afforded the chance to sing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There are three key characters in Anatole Litvak's filmization of Aben Kandel's novel City for Conquest, as opposed to the six or more in the book -- but the real star, to a large extent, is New York City and its entire population. For purposes of the movie, however, the dramatic arc is linked to James Cagney, as honest, unpretentious truck driver Danny Kenny, whose life is involved with two other people -- his kid brother, Ed (Arthur Kennedy), a gifted musician trying to survive in the rough-and-tumble world of New York's Lower East Side, and Peggy Nash (Ann Sheridan), the neighborhood girl from the Lower East Side whom he's loved, one way or another, since he was a kid. Danny is happy doing what he does, driving a truck, but when Ed's scholarship is cut in half, he reluctantly takes an offer of a boxing match to raise the cash he needs, going into the ring under the fighting name "Young Samson." At about the same time, Peggy -- who loves to dance -- has her head turned by Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn), an ambitious but sleazy aspiring professional dancer. Eventually Peggy goes into partnership with Murray and is ultimately driven by her own ambition to leave Danny after she accepts his marriage proposal. By now, he's getting up in the boxing world, and in his bitterness over losing Peggy he accepts a bout for the world's welterweight championship. He's not overmatched as a boxer, but the money involved in this fight is just too big for it to be honest, and Danny is left all but blinded when his opponent's handlers slip resin dust onto his gloves. Danny is left seemingly a shell of a man, though he's content with his lot in life as far as it goes. He doesn't want any special attention or favors from anyone; the only thing he would like, though he's too proud to admit it, would be for Peggy to come back. But by now her dancing career with Murray has fallen apart, and she's too tortured by guilt, over the sequence of events she helped start, to come near Danny. It falls to Ed, who has never given up composing, to express the inexpressibles that each of these characters feels through his music. His first major classical work is a symphony ostensibly about New York City, which he conducts in its premiere at Carnegie Hall; but it's also about Danny and his life, and his dreams. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Merlini the Magician, Clayton Rawson's crime-solving illusionist, has been singularly ill-used by Hollywood, having appeared in a mere two films, "starring" in only one. Miracles for Sale compounds the oversight by rechristening Merlini as "Michael Morgan", in the person of Robert Young. The picture starts well, with a grisly political execution revealed to be an elaborate bit of stage magic perpetrated by the personable Morgan. The story then goes into a fraud and murder scheme perpetrated by Dave Duvallo (Henry Hull), whose consummate skill with makeup and Houdinilike escape devices comes in handy for phony spiritualist Madame Rapport (Gloria Holden). The film's highlight finds Morgan exposing several tricks utilized by magicians and fortune-tellers to gull the public, a sequence which incurred the wrath of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians, who took a dim view at having the secrets of their trade revealed for the cost of a movie ticket. Of historical interest is the fact that Miracles for Sale was the final directorial effort of Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks etc.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Once they had twin child actors Billy and Bobby Mauch on their payroll after The Prince and the Pauper, Warner Bros. had to work overtime to come up with suitable vehicles. One of the Mauch twins' best efforts was Penrod and His Twin Brother, based loosely on the "Penrod" stories by Booth Tarkington. Actually, 14-year-old "All American boy" Penrod (Billy Mauch) isn't really the brother of tough kid Danny (Bobby Mauch), but they do look exactly alike, leading to trouble for Penrod when he gets blamed for Danny's misdeeds. Eventually, Pen and Danny team up to vanquish a common enemy: a gang of mobsters who've squirreled themselves away in a desolate hideout. Among the supporting players are two recent "Our Gang" graduates, Jerry Tucker and Philip Hurlic. Penrod and His Twin Brother did well enough to warrant a follow-up, Penrod's Double Trouble. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Penrod and Sam was the third (and least faithful) screen version of the same-named Booth Tarkington novel. Billy Mauch, the more talented of the Mauch twins, stars as troublesome pre-teen Penrod, up to his usual mischief with his usual gang (including former "Our Gang" members George Billings and Jerry Tucker). Most of the original story is thrown out the window in favor of an up-to-date "gangster" angle, with Penrod vowing to round up a gang of bank robbers after his young pal Verman (Phillip Hurlic) is orphaned during a shoot-out. Having gleaned their expertise from "G-Man" movies and detective novels, Penrod's gang manages to capture the crooks, who have conveniently taken refuge in the kids' clubhouse. Penrod and Sam did well enough to engender two sequels, Penrod and His Twin Brother and Penrod's Double Trouble, both of which teamed Billy Mauch with his look-alike sibling Bobby. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide