Virginia Brissac Movies

In this western, three desperadoes rob the New Jerusalem Bank and flee across the desert where they find a seemingly abandoned covered wagon. They look inside and discover a dying woman and her newborn. The outlaws end up risking everything, including their loot, to get the woman and child to safety. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Nurse Sarah Keate, the middle-aged crime-solver created by mystery novelist Mignon Eberhardt, was reshaped as a much younger and prettier woman in Murder by an Aristocrat. Marguerite Churchill is the white-clad heroine, here rechristened Sarah Keating, while Lyle Talbot is her doctor boyfriend Allen Carick. The murder of the title takes place in a Old Dark House where Sarah is presently employed. The victim is nasty Bayard Thatcher (William B. Davidson), who supplements his income by blackmailing the various members of his family. Naturally, all of the other Thatchers are suspected of the crime, but the list narrows as they themselves are bumped off one by one. With nary a cop in sight, Sarah takes it upon herself to solve the mystery before she ends up on a morgue slab. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Universal contractee Henry Hunter never became a big star, but during his brief stay at the studio he appeared in a quite a few interesting films. Adapted from a novel by Rufus King, Love Letters of a Star casts Hunter as John Aldrich, the husband of the unfortunate Jenny Aldrich (Mary Alice Rice). When Jenny dies under mysterious circumstances, it is revealed that she was being blackmailed with a packet of love letters she'd written to Broadway celebrity Meredith Landers (Ralph Forbes). No sooner has Jenny's death been ruled a suicide than her blackmailer is murdered, immediately casting suspicion about the girl's grieving husband John. For a while, wealthy Artemus Todd (Samuel S. Hinds) is led to believe that he was the killer, but there's many another surprise twists before the final fadeout. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In their third crime-solving adventure, smart-aleck newspaper woman Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell) and slightly dense homicide dick Steve McBride (Barton MacLane) are about to get hitched when Torchy's reporter friends pull a practical joke on them. As a wedding present, the harebrained newsboys hire a stage actor, Harvey Hammond (Leland Hodgson), to simulate a murder victim. But when Torchy and Steve arrive at the scene of the supposed crime, Hammond has been killed for real. Suspects, of course, abound, including Hammond's fellow thespians Hugo Brand (Anderson Lawlor) and Grace Brown (Anne Nagel), whose romance the actor had tried to destroy. Even more suspicious to Torchy are Hammond's long-suffering wife (Virginia Brissac), and his socialite mistress (a surprisingly brunette Natalie Moorhead). With little help from Steve and his even dumber sergeant, Gahagan (Tom Kennedy), Torchy sets a trap for the killer. Produced by Warner Bros.'s busy B-unit, The Adventurous Blonde was acted at breakneck speed by a justly famous stock company, who, as always, nearly managed to make a hackneyed plot seem fresh and new. Torchy herself was ostensibly based on reporter Dorothy Kilgallen and had begun her crime-solving career in Smart Blonde (1937). Eight more Torchy films were made, but Farrell and MacLane were replaced by Lola Lane and Paul Kelly in Torchy in Panama (1938), the seventh entry, and by Jane Wyman and Allen Jenkins in the final, Torchy Plays With Dynamite (1939). By then, then series had more than run its course. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Throwing together elements that had previously worked in Cabin in the Cotton and They Won't Forget, Warner Bros. White Bondage is a swampy melodrama set amongst the sharecroppers of the Deep South. Turning brunette for the occasion, Jean Muir plays Betsy Ann, surrounded by lecherous, inbred poor-trash males -- and by equally libidinous fat-cat landowners. When investigative reporter David Graydon (Gordon Oliver) arrives from the North to write an exposé on the deplorable living conditions of the sharecroppers, he is opposed by the landlords who get rich from the labors of their glorified slaves. An attempt is made to lynch the troublesome Graydon, but he is saved at the last moment by Betsy Ann, who has fallen in love with him. Though there are surprisingly few black faces in White Bondage, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson has a good minor role as a sharecropper named Glory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Drawing heavily on both Madame X and Stella Dallas, this cheap exploitation-melodrama was produced by the ill-named Progressive Pictures at the newly formed Grand National studios. The parents of the title are Edythe Ellis (Marjorie Reynolds) and Charles Wharton (Carlyle Moore Jr.), who are forced to marry in secrecy because of his socially prominent family. A child, Carol, is born, but Charles is forbidden to see Edythe and the little girl is adopted by the kindly Cardwells (Walter Young and Sybil Harris). Years later, Carol (Doris Weston), now a pretty teenager, falls in love with handsome Bruce (Maurice Murphy), much to the chagrin of her adopted cousin, Betty (Terry Walker), Bruce's former girlfriend. In spite, Betty reveals that Carol is adopted and the distraught girl leaves home to take a job as an entertainer in the Cuddle Club, a notorious establishment secretly owned by Charles Wharton (now Morgan Wallace). When Carol refuses to change her mind, Bruce solicits the aid of Edythe (now Helen MacKellar), who has become a famous judge. Keeping her identity a secret, Edythe warns Carol about an upcoming police raid and is eventually able to have Charles arrested. Tearfully but still incognito, Edythe then gives her blessing for Carol and Bruce to be married. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The slick Universal programmer Secrets of a Nurse was based on a Collier's Magazine story by distinguished journalist Quentin Reynolds. This story in turn was based on a true incident, in which a gangster "returned from the dead" to save an innocent young man from the electric chair. The nurse of the title is Katharine McDonald (Helen Mack), in love with prizefighter Lee Burke (Dick Foran). As Burke recovers from a beating inflicted by crooked gamblers, Katharine must fend off the advances of shady criminal attorney John Dodge (Edmund Lowe). Hoping to rid the world of his romantic rival for good and all, Dodge arranges for Burke to be framed for murder. Convicted and sentenced to death, Burke walks the dreaded "last mile", as miles away Katharine struggles to revive a mortally wounded gambler who may be able to save her sweetheart from electrocution. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

According to Hollywood, the parents were generally at fault when good kids went bad. This theory is elucidated in Columbia's Parents on Trial, wherein strict disciplinarian James Westley (Henry Kolker) fails to understand or appreciate the real needs and feelings of his teenaged daughter Susan (Jean Parker). Rebelling against parental tyranny, Susan falls in with a gang of youths from similar unhappy households. Minor misbehavior blossoms into major lawbreaking, with parents and kids alike suffering from the results. Among the "kids" in Parents on Trial are Johnny Downs and Noah Beery Jr., both on the sunny side of thirty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real Frank and Jesse James were murderous thugs, light years away from the Robin Hood image imposed on them by revisionist dime novelists. But in 1939, 20th Century-Fox wasn't about to build an expensive Technicolor feature around the exploits of a couple of low-lives, thus Jesse James upholds the mythos, offering us the standard whitewashed version of the James boys. According to Nunally Johnson's irresistibly entertaining screenplay, Jesse (Tyrone Power) and Frank (Henry Fonda) become train and bank robbers to avenge the death of their mother (Jane Darwell), killed at the behest of greedy railroad interests. Once he feels his work is done, Jesse settles down to a life of marital domesticity--only to be shot in the back by cowardly Bob Ford (John Carradine). Frank James is left alive at film's end, paving the way for the 1941 sequel The Return of Frank James. Director Henry King stages the action sequences in glorious outsized fashion, notably the famous bank-robbery scene in which Jesse rides his horse through a plate glass window. The scenes involving both James brothers are stolen hands-down by Henry Fonda, not so much because he was a better actor than Tyrone Power but because his character had all the best lines. Jesse James was filmed largely on location in Missouri, resulting in crowd-control nightmares for the picture's beleaguered assistant directors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sigrid Gurie, the Swede from Brooklyn who in 1938 was touted as Sam Goldwyn's answer to Garbo, was taking whatever work she could get in 1939. Forgotten Woman casts Gurie as a woman unjustly sent to prison. Four years go by before the DA unearths new evidence that proves her innocence. But first, the guilty party must be rounded up--and that's no walk in the park, since the miscreant is an influential gangster. Forgotten Woman ran its course, made back its cost, then became the Forgotten Movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Lawson's inner-city music school. Unfortunately, the school teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. Fortunately the determined young boy convinces his street buddies to help him plead with Heifetz to help them save the school by doing a benefit concert. The master violinist agrees and saves the day. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Tom Destry (James Stewart), son of a legendary frontier peacekeeper, doesn't believe in gunplay. Thus he becomes the object of widespread ridicule when he rides into the wide-open town of Bottleneck, the personal fiefdom of the crooked Kent (Brian Donlevy). His detractors laugh even louder when Destry signs on as deputy to drunken sheriff Wash Dimsdale (Charles Winninger). But the laughter subsides when Destry casually proves himself a crack shot, despite his abhorrence of firearms. Later, when saloon chanteuse Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich), Kent's gal, takes umbrage at Destry's indifferent reaction to her charms, she vows to make a fool of the new deputy. A huge moneymaker, Destry Rides Again served as a spectacular comeback for Marlene Dietrich, who two years earlier had been written off as "box office poison." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide