Elmer Dyer Movies

This is a routine, low-budget drama by Bernard Ray, his last film in a career that started in 1933. At the center of attention is a husband with an obvious desire to get away from his nagging wife. His other obvious desires -- for sexual action -- are not exactly fulfilled by his marriage either. And so he lapses into an affair with a prostitute in order to make up for the deficiencies in his marriage. As this story evolves in its complexity, it is simultaneously heading for a surprise ending that is certain to give the protagonist food for thought. The storyline notwithstanding, Bernard Ray dedicated this film to his late wife and half of the proceeds to a cancer charity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Temporarily taking leave of the TV series The Lone Ranger because of a salary dispute, Clayton Moore found time to star in Buffalo Bill in Tomahawk Territory. The film is as old-fashioned as its title, though that's not an altogether bad thing. Rewriting history somewhat, the story depicts Buffalo Bill (Moore) as an unstinting friend of the Indians. His mission this time around is to protect his Native American friends from evil, land-grabbing gold speculators. Several veteran Indian actors are spotlighted in Buffalo Bill in Tomahawk Territory, including Rod Redwing, Chief Yowlachie and Chief Thundercloud. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With no stars or production values, Korea Patrol has the rough-edged look of a war documentary. Though billed third, veteran Asian-American actor Benson Fong is the star of the proceedings, playing a South Korean scout guiding a group of UN soldiers through hostile territory. Ordered to destroy a vital enemy bridge, the small troop is made smaller as the film progresses, and soon only three men are left to carry out orders. One of these men is played by Al Eben, who later gained a measure of prominence for his many supporting appearances on TV's Hawaii 5-0. Director Max Nosseck adds a veneer of verisimilitude by inserting newsreel footage of the actual Korean conflict. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The exciting world of racing provides the backdrop for this adventure that is unusual because it is told from a race horse's viewpoint. The story begins as the racer is born on a Kentucky farm. He is then seen being trained, having problems, and getting very attached to his devoted owner. Later, ridden by real-life jockey Johhny Longden, the horse wins at Santa Anita. Special guest horses include: Man O'War, Seabiscuit, Whirlaway, Gallant Fox, Phar Lap, and Equipoise. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

On December 6, 1941, a squadron of nine B-17 bombers takes off for Hickam Field, HI. The crew of the Mary Ann, including two new men, assistant radio man Private Chester (Ray Montgomery) and gunner Sergeant Joe Winocki (John Garfield), assembles for the flight, and in the first 20 minutes, the movie reveals certain things about the crew: the shadowy past of one, the mother of another, and the wife of a third; two of them are good friends with the sister of McMartin (Arthur Kennedy), the bombardier, who lives in Honolulu; the son of the senior member of the crew, Sgt. White (Harry Carey Sr.), is a pilot stationed at Clark Field in the Philippines. Then more characters make entrances: the aircraft commander Quincannon (John Ridgely); Weinberg (George Tobias), a Jewish mechanic from New York; and a man from a farm in the upper Midwest -- they all represent a broad cross-section of America as it saw itself, and the "regular guys" in the Army Air Force as it existed in 1941. The flight proceeds without incident. Winocki, an embittered, washed-out flight school candidate who accidentally killed another pilot, is about to leave the service when the weather report from Hickam Field is interrupted, and the radio man begins picking up transmissions in Japanese. The Mary Ann and the rest of the squadron fly right into the middle of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor unarmed and out of gas, and nearly crack up landing on an emergency field; no sooner do they make repairs than the crew comes under attack, and the plane takes off and makes for Hickam Field, which they find a flaming shambles. They fly on to the Philippines, stopping at Wake Island just long enough to meet a few members of the doomed Marine garrison, taking their company mascot, a dog, with them. At Clark Field, the Mary Ann and her crew finally go into action against the enemy, flying in alone against a Japanese invasion force; Quincannon is mortally wounded in the brief action, which leaves the plane damaged seemingly beyond repair. The remaining crew won't give up the plane, however, even when ordered to abandon and destroy her; they get the bomber off just ahead of the advancing Japanese, and survive to help bring retribution to the invading fleet and the Japanese empire. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Lieutenant Commander Joe Blake (Fred MacMurray), Lt. Tim Griffin (Regis Toomey), and Lt. Swede Larson (Louis Jean Heydt) are longtime US Navy flying buddies, about to be transferred to different posts when Larson suffers a blackout during high-altitude maneuvers and cracks up. Navy doctor Douglas Lee (Errol Flynn) insists on trying to save him with an immediate operation, and the mortally injured pilot dies on the table. This sets the stage for a long, lingering, and bitter hatred between Blake and Lee -- which is only exacerbated when Lee chooses to become a flight surgeon so he can help to find a solution to the problem of high altitude blackout. Lee is assigned to medical research with Lt. Cdr. Lance Rogers (Ralph Bellamy), a flight surgeon whose dedication to high-altitude research has left him unfit for further flying. Their work proceeds through small triumphs and terrible tragedy, and Lee and Blake keep crossing paths, unwillingly -- they not only don't like each other personally, but end up competing for the attentions of the same woman (Alexis Smith) at one point. But they're forced to work together for the good of the service, even after Lee grounds Tim Griffin as medically unfit to keep flying. A fresh tragedy shows Blake that Lee has always been looking out for the best interests of the pilots, and they begin working together in earnest, at last. Blake pushes his piloting skills to their limit and beyond, and he soon finds a purpose and dedication that he's never known before -- and then he learns that he may have to be grounded because of his own deteriorating medical condition. While Lee frets over having to give the news to his friend, the only question for Blake is whether he will be able to see the final test of Lee's high-altitude pressure suit through to the end. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In the sixth of eight Renfrew of the Royal Mounted "Northwesterns," mounties Renfrew (James Newill) and Kelly (Dave O'Brien) come across the body of a murdered prospector, Jim Smithers (Budd Buster). The dead man's cabin has been tossed, it turns out, and when his alcoholic brother (Al St. John) is found dead as well -- a none too convincing suicide -- Renfrew begins to suspect that the deaths may be connected to a counterfeit ring operating from a general store on the Yukon. In addition to Betty Laidlaw and Robert Lively's signature tune "Mounted Men," James Newill performs Vick Knight, Johnny Lange, and Lew Porter's "Ah, Here's Romance" and "Down the Yukon Trail." Murder on the Yukon was based on characters created in 1931 by Laurie York Erskine. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The FBI goes up against a female gang leader in this ultra-low-budget thriller directed by Raymond K. Johnson. Grant Withers stars as Ralph Dickson, an agent assigned to look into the killing of a colleague. Chosen for the task due to an uncanny likeness to the presumed killer, Dickson goes undercover and manages to learn the identity of gang leader Carney (Evelyn Brent), a sexy criminal also known as "the Illustrious One" and the "Daughter of the Tong." A veritable dragon lady, Carney is holed up at the Oriental Hotel while her henchmen are doing the dirty work. Dickson, meanwhile, loses his cover in an attempt at freeing kidnap victim Jerry Morgan (Dave O'Brien) but is saved in the nick of time by the young man's sister, Marion (Dorothy Short), who arrives with Agent Lawson (Hal Taliaferro) and what seems like the entire FBI. The final film to star silent screen femme fatale Evelyn Brent, Daughter of the Tong was also the final production of Lester F. Scott Jr., a purveyor of cheap Westerns in the late silent era. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In their first starring feature away from the Hal Roach studios, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of fish peddlers from Des Moines on a Cook's Tour of Paris. While stopping over at quaint suburban inn, Ollie falls in love with innkeeper's daughter Georgette (Jean Parker). At Stan's prodding, Ollie pops the question to Georgette, who gently refuses because there is Someone Else. Disconsolately, Ollie decides to commit suicide by jumping into the Seine, insisting that Stan join him in his plunge to oblivion. The boys are halted from this drastic action by the timely arrival of Francois (Reginald Gardiner), an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Francois convinces Stan and Ollie that they'll forget all about Ollie's lost love if they join the Legion, and within a few days our heroes are in uniform at an outpost in French Morocco, where they are promptly assigned to laundry detail. Alas, try as he might, Ollie can't forget his beloved Georgette-until Stan suggests that he pretend to forget so that they can get back in their own clothes and head home. This Ollie does, but not before accidentally setting fire to a mountain of laundry. After leaving behind a rather nasty letter of resignation for their scowling commandant (Charles Middleton), Stan and Ollie pack their bags and head for the airport-where Ollie is reunited with Georgette, who turns out to be the wife of their commanding officer Francois! Sentenced to death for desertion, the boys tunnel their way out of their jail cell and hide out in an airplane, which Stan accidentally sends into flight. After a wild and noisy ride, the plane crashes, leading to the flm's hilarious-and somehow touching--"freak" ending. Officially a remake of Les Aviateurs, a French vehicle for Fernandel and Toto, The Flying Deuces also owes a lot to the earlier Laurel & Hardy Foreign Legion farce Beau Hunks. Highlights include Stan and Ollie's impromptu soft-shoe rendition of "Shine on Harvest Moon", and Stan's lunatic excursion into Harpo Marx territory as he plays a bed-spring "harp". Produced by Boris Morros and released by RKO Radio, Flying Deuces is unquestionably the best of Laurel & Hardy's non-Hal Roach vehicles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The poverty-row origins of Special Agent K-7 are made doubly obvious by its all-bit-player cast. Walter McGrail essays perhaps the largest role in his talkie career as police detective Lanny, who resents the ongoing interference of the local FBI branch. Hoping to show up the feds, Lanny tackles a baffling espionage case all by his lonesome. Things heat up when his gal-reporter sweetheart Ollie (Queenie Smith) is framed for murder by the villains. The actual killer is so obvious to the audience that one contemporary suggested that he shone like a beacon on the screen. Leading lady Queenie Smith, best known for her performance of the soubrette Elly in Show Boat (1936), went on to a long career in character roles, and for a while played the landlady in the "Bowery Boys" series of the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Big Mike (Wallace Beery) is a tough Army flyer who longs to see his son Little Mike (Robert Young) take to the air like himself. Little Mike's excessive attraction to Dare (Rosalind Russell) strains his relationship with his father, but eventually he finds the right woman -- Skip (Maureen O'Sullivan), the daughter of Army commandant General Carter (Lewis Stone) -- and an airborne Little Mike does his father proud. Bit-Part Alert: Watch for the brief appearance of then up-and-coming MGM contract player Robert Taylor as Jaskerelli. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Unable to find steady work after WWI, three former flying aces -- Gibson (Richard Dix), Woody (Robert Armstrong) and Red (Joel McCrea) -- hire themselves out as stunt flyers for the movies. They find themselves employed by tyrannical director Von Furst (Erich Von Stroheim, playing what amounts to a self-caricature), who has no qualms about sending men to their deaths for the sake of "realism." Developing an esprit de corps with their fellow stunt pilots, our heroes regularly converge at the local watering hole to honor the latest casualties, wiping their names from a blackboard just as they'd done back in the Great War. When Von Furst, driven to insane jealousy by his much-abused wife Follette (Mary Astor), murders one of the pilots in cold blood, the others take a grim but thoroughly justifiable revenge. Boasting several first-rate aviation sequences, The Lost Squadron was scripted by real-life Hollywood stunt flyer Dick Grace (who also appears in the film); it was also the first RKO Radio production to carry the screen credit "executive producer, David O. Selznick." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

On his way to claim an inheritance, Tom, aka Cuthbert Chauncey Dale (Buck Jones), and his pal "Swede" (John Oscar) witness a stagecoach hold-up. The lone gunman escapes but leaves the loot behind and Chauncey and "Swede" soon find themselves arrested for the crime. They manage to escape, however, and later befriends the gunman, Starrett (Wallace MacDonald), whom Tom invites to work on his inherited ranch. Along with a dilapidated ranch house, the property also contains a strip of land separating the wealthy Preston spread from an especially rich pasture. After quarreling with supercilious Lou Preston (Ethel Kenyon), Tom chases her off his property, but Joe Moore (Albert J. Smith), the Preston foreman who is in love with Lou, mistakes the scene for a lovers' tiff. When Tom mortgages his ranch in order to buy cattle, Moore has his buddy Bill Saunders (Robert Kortman) "sell" him cattle stolen from the Preston herd. Believing the newcomer to be a common rustler, an angry Lou gives Tom 24 hours to leave or else! Just then, Sheriff Mac (Philo McCullough arrives to arrest Tom for the stagecoach robbery. Everything is ironed out, however, when a witness to the robbery identifies Starrett, who is killed in a gunfight with Moore. A recalcitrant Lou apologizes to Tom and they embrace. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide