Leander de Cordova Movies

Byington, a retired teacher, sells her apartment complex to ex-gangsters who begin kicking out the tenants. Byington tries to help the reformed mobsters, headed by Caruso, to undergo a change of heart. But one of the group, Karnes, still is out to cheat the system. ~ All Movie Guide

William "One Take" Beaudine warms the director's chair for Lippert Pictures' Tough Assignment. The film is essentially a combination western and contemporary crime yarn, with Don Barry cast as Dan Reilly, a frontier journalist. With the help of his wife Margie (Marjorie Steele), Dan tries to get the goods on a gang of clever cattle rustlers. The main villain is played by Steve Brodie, while his henchmen are played by Marc Lawrence and Ben Welden -- an intimidating lineup indeed. Comedy relief is supplied by Sid Melton, soon to become a "regular" in Lippert's low-budgeters of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of several low-budget mellers directed by scriptwriter Maxwell Shane, Fear in the Night was based on the short story Nightmare by William Irish (pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich). In his first starring role, DeForest Kelley plays Vince Grayson, a young man who has a terrible nightmare wherein he sees himself killing someone. When he awakens, Vince finds a couple of pieces of evidence indicating that his dream was no dream. Detective Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly) doesn't believe that Vince has killed anyone, but agrees to investigate. While taking shelter from a storm in a remote mansion, the detective and the young man stumble upon a mirrored room -- just like the one in Vince's dream. The frenzied Vince is nearly driven to suicide, but Detective Herlihy deduces that his friend's nightmare was the handiwork of Lewis Belnap (Robert Emmett Keane), the mansion's owner, who is a dabbler in hypnosis. Fear in the Night was remade in 1956 as Nightmare, with Kevin McCarthy and Edward G. Robinson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a young building contractor falls for a pretty Mexican woman who convinces him not to evict the inhabitants of a California barrio so he can replace it with developments. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In 1824, Benito Juarez (Carlton Young), the president of the new Mexican Republic, worries that vitally important gold shipments from the San Mendolito Mines shall never reach Mexico City. The president's understandable fears are quelled, however, by local nobleman Don Francisco (Guy D'Ennery), who is organizing a "fighting legion" to protect the shipments and thus the safety of the six months old republic. Secretly opposing Juarez' endeavors are a group of influential capitalists, one of whom masquerades as Don del Oro, an ancient god of the local Yaqui Indian tribe. But when Don Francisco is killed by persons unknown, a visiting relative from California, handsome and affable Don Diego (Reed Hadley), assumes the disguise of Zorro to lead the legion in search of the identity behind the homicidal Don del Oro. To keep his own identity a secret, Don Diego acts the foppish dude, much to the dismay of his pretty cousin Volita (Sheila Darcy), who denounces him as a coward that could learn a thing or two from Zorro. Meanwhile, the Yaquis, acting on a command from Don del Oro, do indeed attack the gold shipment but are foiled by Zorro and the Legion. Just then an explosion set off by white henchmen Moreno (James Pierce) and Valdez (Charles King) causes an avalanche right in Zorro's path, making his sad demise almost a certainty. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Paramount's screwball comedy Midnight is the first collaboration between director Mitchell Leisen and screenwriting duo Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. The film merges Brackett and Wilder's early emphasis on repartee and masquerade with ex-costume designer Leisen's flair for high style and sophistication. American Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert), a wily ex-showgirl, must impersonate Hungarian royalty in order to infiltrate the Parisian jet set. Midnight begins during a midnight rainstorm as Eve arrives penniless at Paris' Gare de L'Est, owning only the gold lamé gown on her back. She attracts the attention of Hungarian cab driver, Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), but walks out on their budding romance; Eve will no longer make the mistake of dating for love rather than money. Instead, she finds shelter from the downpour by crashing a socialite's late-night soirée using a pawnticket and a pseudonym, the Baroness Czerny (the cab driver's surname). There, Eve meets aristocrat Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore), who entices her with a place in society if she agrees to remain disguised as the Baroness and seduce his wife's playboy lover. Meanwhile, Tibor Czerny has not given up his search for Eve. When he locates her whereabouts and discovers the fact that she is using his name, Tibor also travels to the Flammarion estate -- to win back Eve, and to pose as her husband, the Baron. What ensues is quintessential screwball comedy, full of deception, love, quadruple entendre, and outright farce. Midnight remains Leisen's most heralded directorial effort, as well as one of Brackett and Wilder's earliest successes. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide

The first of five very low-budget westerns featuring former silent-screen cowboy Buffalo Bill Jr. and based on stories by stunt man Yakima Canutt, Trails of the Golden West also marked the talkie debut of former leading lady Wanda Hawley. Along with her father (Horace B. Carpenter) and black servant (George Reed), Hawley is a member of a "forty-niners" wagon train headed for the California gold fields. When a member of the crew (Tom London) spots the girl hiding the family jewels in her wagon, he "arranges" a fake small pox scare that threatens to leave the wagon quarantined. When that ploy fails, he has a gang of Indians swoop down on the train, but the attack is foiled by wagon train leader Buffalo Bill Jr.. Produced in 1930 by small-scale West Coast Studios, Trails of the Golden West was directed by Leander de Cordova, a distinguished-looking supporting actor from Jamaica, who later played one of the hero's chief foes in the popular Republic serial Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Mary Philbin, best remembered as the heroine of the 1925 Lon Chaney version of Phantom of the Opera, stars in this murky low-budget melodrama. Philbin plays the daughter of truculent lighthouse keeper Russell Simpson. She goes ga-ga over society rake Edmund Burns, which greatly displeases her father. So put out is dead old dad that he goes after Burns with an axe, whereupon Philbin arms herself with a gun. Since most of After the Fog is set in a lighthouse, it is altogether appropriate that it was put together by Beacon Productions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

William Williams (Henry Harmon) named his daughter (Wild Bennet) Conscience for a reason -- he's a Puritanical New Englander whose beliefs veer towards the rigid and dogmatic. So when Conscience falls for Stuart Emmett (Kenneth Harlan), an author who has written a book on free thought, Williams blows his stack. He insists that she marry Eben Tollman (George Cowl), an older man who has money. Tollman helps his suit along by stealing a letter the girl has written to Emmett, who leaves town. So Conscience marries Tollman, but when she finds out about the purloined missive, she sends for Emmett. He returns and gets into a fight with Tollman which results in the older man being tossed into the lake. While the film ends with the couple in a clinch, it never does explain what happened to the waterlogged husband. It was based on a best-selling novel, The Tyranny of Weakness, by Charles Neville Buck. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide