Hugo Haas Movies

This morbidly titled Czechoslovakian film was based on The White Diamond, a play by Karel Capek. Set in a mythical country, the story concerns a dedicated doctor (Hugo Haas) who discovers a cure for a dread disease that has decimated a goodly portion of the populace. The doctor refuses to reveal the secret of his miracle serum unless the country's despotic dictator promises to cease his warlike behavior and press for peace. Alas, the dictator refuses to listen, the country goes to war, and the doctor and his cure are lost to the Ages. Obviously designed as an allegorical statement against Fascism, Skeleton on Horseback was filmed in 1937, just before the German takeover of Czechoslovakia. Realizing that the film was tantamount to his own death warrant, star/director Hugo Haas fled to the United States, where his career continued unabated (albeit on a less lofty level). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this mystery, the artist behind a detective cartoon strip solves real police cases on the side. The police are rather irritated by him because he is better at it than they are. He does it again when the chairman of a fund-raiser suddenly dies during a benefit. The police report claims the man died of heart failure, but the cartoonist proves that he was poisoned. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Summer Storm is a remarkably effective Hollywood filmization of Anton Chekhov's The Shooting Party. Linda Darnell stars as the young and beautiful wife of a middle-aged Russian civil servant (Hugo Haas). Darnell becomes the object of the affections of her husband's employer, a lecherous count (Edward Everett Horton). The girl in turn is enamored of a provincial judge (George Sanders). At first, all flirtations are playful and harmless, but the judge takes Darnell so seriously that he ends up killing her in a jealous rage. Her husband is blamed for the crime, but the Count gets his comeuppance during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution (which didn't figure into the original Chekhov story, inasmuch as the author died in 1904). The big surprise in this is not that it works as well as it does, but that it features comic actor Edward Everett Horton in a straight, almost unsympathetic role, which he underplays beautifully. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

According to Hollywood lore, both John Wayne and director Frank Borzage refused to work with Vera Hruba Ralston, the Czech-born inamorata (and future wife) of Republic Pictures owner Herbert I. Yates. Yates somehow managed to convince Wayne to change his mind, but Borzage was replaced by contract director Joseph Kane. The result was Dakota, the company's major release of 1945, a potentially sprawling empire-building Western. Wayne and Ralston play newlyweds heading for Fargo, North Dakota, where they plan to buy land in anticipation of the coming of the railroad. They are opposed by saloon owner Jim Bender (Ward Bond), who also knows about the expansion and is coercing the homesteaders into selling their land to him and his chief lieutenant, Collins (Mike Mazurki). The latter has been elected president of the Wheat Growers Association, and soon the farmers find themselves indebted to Bender. But Wayne, with his wife's help, beats Bender and his henchman at their own game, making certain that the farmers are well compensated for selling their land to the railroad company owned by Ralston's father (Hugo Haas). Contrary to popular belief, Vera Hruba Ralston was not Dakota's chief liability. For some reason, Republic Pictures, normally a leader in action-oriented melodrama, chose to employ an inordinate amount of rear projection footage this time around, making for rather dull viewing. The Western only leaves the confines of the studio back lot for the climactic prairie fire scenes, filmed by a second unit under the direction of stunt expert Yakima Canutt. Apparently a better figure skater than an actress, Ralston actually shows a bit of spirit in some of her scenes but is rather obviously upstaged by the veteran Ona Munson as a kind-hearted saloon entertainer. Munson was borrowed from Warner Bros. and her singing of "Coax Me" by Andrew B. Sterling and Harry Von Tilzer remains one of Dakota's main pleasures despite editor Fred Allen's endless cross-cutting to Ralston's reactions. The latter was reportedly a very pleasant person devoid of a prima donna ego and would be cast opposite John Wayne again in The Fighting Kentuckian (1949). Republic serial heroines Linda Stirling and Adrian Booth can be spotted among Munson's dancing girls. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Director Henry King's adaptation of John Hersey's novel is a faithful telling of the story of Major Joppolo (John Hodiak), who is assigned to administrate the Sicilian town of Adano after World War II and attempts to return it to its pre-war tranquility. His initial actions include feeding and clothing the villagers, who have been left starved and destitute by the ravages of the war, and preventing the hanging of its former mayor, a Mussolini supporter, although he makes clear that any hints of Fascism will not be tolerated. Suspicious at first, the villagers finally come to trust Joppolo when he works to reclaim the town bell, stolen from the city hall and a symbol of its identity. Gene Tierney plays the fisherman's daughter that Joppolo falls for, while William Bendix is his compassionate orderly and assistant. A Bell For Adano is a low-key look at the effects of war that builds to a quietly powerful conclusion. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

One of two con-artists ends up arrested and given five days of freedom before he must go to jail. This comedy chronicles those five days. The man loves to eat; knowing that prison food is lousy, he decides to spend his days stuffing himself with the finest foods available. He is accompanied to numerous 4-star restaurants by his partner and the arresting officer. Each of these two are interested in learning where he stashed a half-million dollars in loot. Eventually the man begins looking at his lovely partner and thinking of things other than his stomach. This leads to marriage. After serving his time, he and his bride go on to lead honest lives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Frank Yerby's Foxes of Harrow was one of those long historical novels so popular in the 1940s. 20th Century-Fox boiled the novel down into 118 minutes' worth of essentials for this film version. In antebellum New Orleans, roguish Irish gambler Rex Harrison buys his way into society--something he couldn't do in his homeland because he is illegitimate. Sequestering himself in a mansion won in a card game, Harrison courts Southern belle Maureen O'Hara, but their subsequent marriage is befouled by Rex's incessant womanizing. Though tempted to walk out for good, O'Hara stays by her husband's side after he loses his fortune, hoping that the impoverished Harrison will now behave more responsibly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The George S. Kaufman-Marc Connelly play Merton of the Movies was previously filmed in 1923 with Glenn Hunter, and in 1932 (as Make Me a Star) with Stu Erwin. This time around, Red Skelton plays Merton, the small-town rube who aspires to become a dramatic actor in silent pictures. Bumbling his way into Hollywood, he lays waste to several movie sets before he finally lands a screen test. When his histrionic efforts are greeted with derisive laughter, Merton slinks away disappointed and disillusioned-only to re-emerge triumphant as moviedom's newest comedy sensation! In one of her few non-musical appearances, deadpan comedienne Virginia O'Brien plays Phyllis "Flips" Montague, the warmhearted Hollywood stunt girl who befriends and eventually falls in love with the hapless Merton. Reportedly, Buster Keaton supplied a few of the film's sight gags, but apparently not enough to permit Merton of the Movies to rise above mediocrity and predictability. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Esther Williams moves from the swimming pool to the bull ring in this musical drama. Antonio Morales (Fortunio Bonanova) was once a champion bullfighter; now in retirement, Antonio and his wife (Mary Astor) have high hopes that their son Mario (Ricardo Montalban) will follow in his father's footsteps as a matador. However, Mario's great passion is music, and he longs to pursue a career as a composer. But there is a budding toreador in the family: Mario's sister Maria (Esther Williams), who has learned the basics of bullfighting from her sibling. Not wanting to be thought a coward, but with no desire to enter the ring, Mario allows Maria to disguise herself as him and take his place in the bullring, allowing her to compete in a traditionally male sport while Mario devotes his time to his music. Fiesta gave Ricardo Montalban his first English-speaking role, with Cyd Charisse appearing as Conchita, his love interest and dancing partner. Classical music buffs might notice that Mario's composition "Fantasia Mexican" is actually Aaron Copland's "El Salon Mexico." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Deanna Durbin's career was clearly on the downswing when she starred in For the Love of Mary. Durbin plays a switchboard operator at the White House, whose hiccuping spells throw several incoming special-interest callers into a tizzy. The President himself cures Durbin of her hiccups, thereby becoming entangled with the girl's various romances. She, in turn, finds herself neck-deep in numerous political intrigues. A forgettable comedy with disposable songs, For the Love of Mary turned out to be Deanna Durbin's last picture. The onetime mortgage-lifter of Universal Pictures was tired of the Hollywood grind and of fighting a losing battle with her fluctuating weight; thus she retired to France with her director-husband Charles David. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set shortly after the Battle of New Orleans, the film casts John Wayne as John Breen, a Kentucky trooper making the long journey homeward with his confreres. Breen becomes involved with a plan by robber baron Blake Randolph (John Howard) to deprive hundreds of French army refugees of land granted to them by an Act of Congress. Championing the cause of the refugees, Breen does his best to defeat Randolph and his minions--and to prevent the villain's marriage to Fleurette De Marchand (Vera Ralston), the daughter of a former French general (Hugo Haas). Oliver Hardy makes a rare appearance sans Stan Laurel as Wayne's pugnacious, philosophical sidekick Willie Payne. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's expensive remake of the 1937 British adventure film King Solomon's Mines stars Stewart Granger as fearless-explorer Alan Quartermaine, and Deborah Kerr as the spunky Irish lass who hires him on to locate her husband. Kerr's spouse has disappeared somewhere in Africa while attempting to unearth the long-lost diamond mines of King Solomon. Quartermaine wants no part of so risky an undertaking until Kerr waves 5000 pounds of sterling under his nose. Coming upon a Watusi tribe, the explorers discover that their taciturn native bearer (Siriaque) is actually a deposed Watusi king, who intends to wrest the throne back from his usurpers. Quartermaine uses his wits to quell the natives and keep his party from being killed on the spot. The group finally reaches King Solomon's Mines, where rests the bones of Kerr's late husband. The ending of this version of King Solomon's Mines doesn't pack the same ironic punch as the climax of the 1937 version, but this MGMization is more concerned with the blossoming romance between the leading man and leading lady than with full fidelity to the H. Rider Haggard novel on which it is based. King Solomon's Mines was filmed on location in Africa, which proved an excellent decision in the long run: for several years afterward, MGM adventure films like Watusi (1959) and Trader Horn (1973) were able to economically lift huge chunks of Technicolor stock footage from King Solomon's Mines. The property would be remade once more in 1985, this time as an Indiana Jones rip-off starring Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Pickup was the first self-financed directorial effort by the redoubtable Hugo Haas. The film falls neatly into the pattern followed by virtually all future Haas extravaganzas: A romantic triangle involving a susceptible middle-aged man, a scheming blonde wench, and a handsome hunk. Haas himself plays railroad dispatcher Jan Horak, who succumbs to the charms of zaftig doxy Betty (Beverly Michaels). Upon hearing that Horak has a few thousand dollars salted away, Betty inveigles him into marriage. Soon bored by her new husband, Betty inaugurates an affair with Horak's studdish assistant Steve (Allan Nixon). Because Horak is going deaf, Betty and Steve freely discusses their plans to bump off the old man and abscond with his dough. But Horak isn't quite as hearing-impaired as they think he is. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide