George Broughton Movies
- 1947
Alan Ladd stars in Calcutta as devil-may-care pilot Neale Gordon. With his equally fearless partners Pedro Blake (William Bendix) and Bill Cunningham (John Whitney), Gordon handles the air-freight route between Calcutta and Chungking. When Cunningham meets his death at the hands of jewel smugglers, Gordon vows to play judge and jury and bring the criminals to justice himself. Among the suspects are the film's two gorgeous leading ladies, sweetie-pie Virginia Moore (Gail Russell) and sultry nightclub singer Merina Tanev (June Duprez). Once Gordon figures out who his real friends are, he relies on his fists to mete out retribution, resulting in one sequence that's guaranteed to raise the hackles of every feminist in the crowd. Even with a short running time of 73 minutes, Calcutta secured top-of-the-bill bookings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Ladd, Gail Russell, (more)
- 1944
A scientist discovers that he can live forever by receiving gland transplants every ten years. Unfortunately, the unwilling donors must be killed for him to survive, something that doesn't bother the scientist until he falls in love. The girl, innocent of his grisly secret, falls for him too. Unfortunately, he is due for a new transplant and the endocrinologist who has been doing the operation gets a guilty conscience and refuses to help him any more. Desperate to remain young, the scientist finds someone else. This time though, Scotland Yard gets wind and begins investigating. The girl finds out, and remains true to the scientist causing him to abandon his mad quest for eternal youth. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nils Asther, Helen Walker, (more)
- 1944
An innocent man is drawn into a web of espionage when he unwittingly comes into possession of a crucial piece of microfilm in this shadowy, ominous film noir. Fritz Lang's adaptation of Graham Greene's novel is filled with unusual touches, beginning with the fact that protagonist Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) has just been released from a mental asylum. To celebrate his return to the real world, he visits a local carnival, only to accidentally receive a "prize" meant for a Nazi agent. When he discovers the error, he turns for help to a detective, whose investigations only make the matter more complicated. Neale soon winds up on the run from both the Nazis and the police, who mistakenly believe him guilty of murder. Lang's famous expressionistic style is somewhat muted here, but Henry Sharp's crisp black-and-white cinematography sets a suitably unsettling mood, and the twists and double-crosses of Greene's story unfold at an appropriately quick pace. While it does not reach the same level of timeless classic as Carol Reed's adaptation of Greene's The Third Man four years later, Ministry of Fear stands as a well-made, thoroughly gripping and intelligent example of film noir. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, (more)
Female dogs tend to shed while in heat; this is why all the collies who've played doggy heroine Lassie in the movies have actually been well-disguised males. A magnificent animal named Pal was the screen's first Lassie in 1943's Lassie Come Home. Set in Yorkshire during the first World War, the film gets under way when the poverty-stricken parents (Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester) of young Joe Carraclough (Roddy McDowall) are forced to sell his beloved Lassie. While her new master, the duke of Rudling (Nigel Bruce), is pleasant enough, Lassie prefers the company of Joe and repeatedly escapes. Even when cared for by the duke's affectionate granddaughter, Priscilla (Elizabeth Taylor), Lassie insists upon heading back to her original home. This time, however, the trip is much longer, and Lassie must depend upon the kindness of strangers, notably farmers Dally (Dame May Whitty) and Dan'l Fadden (Ben Webster) and handyman Rowlie (Edmund Gwenn). Based on the novel by Eric Knight (originally serialized in The Saturday Evening Post), Lassie Come Home was released quite some time after Knight's death. Like all the Lassie sequels turned out by MGM between 1943 and 1951, Lassie Come Home was lensed in Technicolor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, (more)
