Joyce Bryant Movies
Robert DeNiro continues to lampoon his tough-guy persona with this spoof of buddy cop movies that teams him with comic co-star Eddie Murphy. DeNiro is L.A.P.D. detective Mitch Preston, a gruff, no-nonsense 28-year veteran whose bust of a drug gang is botched one night by Trey Sellars (Murphy), a bumbling patrolman who's really a frustrated actor at heart. When Mitch's aggravation is captured by a television news crew, he fires his gun in their direction and becomes an instant media celebrity, while earning himself a temporary suspension at work. After his fame draws the attention of network TV producer Chase Renzi (Rene Russo), Mitch is soon informed that the only way he can get back to work is to allow a production crew to trail him on the job for a new cop reality series called "Showtime". In order to make the taciturn lawman more palatable to the viewing public, he's paired with the camera-friendly, fast-talking Trey. The new partners drive each other crazy, but their mismatched sensibilities make for great TV, while their newfound fame has its advantages in getting them back on the trail of those escaped drug dealers, who possess a powerful new weapon. Showtime co-stars Frankie Faison and William Shatner, who sends up his own TV cop role in T.J. Hooker. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert De Niro, Eddie Murphy, (more)
His movie career on a roll since the surprise success of 1946's Johnny Angel, George Raft was starred in the Benedict Bogeaus production Mister Ace. Raft plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Wyndham Chase (Sylvia Sidney). He uses every dirty trick in the book to destroy Margaret, but she perserveres on the strength of sheer honesty and integrity. Through her example, Ace mends his own ways, earning Margaret's love as a bonus. Though consummately produced, Mr. Ace failed to match the box-office performance of Raft's earlier films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Raft, Sylvia Sidney, (more)
- 1942
Pacific Rendezvous is a B-picture remake of the 1935 MGM A-picture Rendezvous, updated to accommodate WW2. Lee Bowman plays the old William Powell role as a American naval intelligence operative (this time named Lt. Bill Gordon) assigned to decipher enemy code. His mission is compromised by his romance with dizzy debutante Elaine Carter (Jean Rogers, in the role originated by Rosalind Russell). Despite Elaine's well-meaning ineptitude, our hero is able to foil the plans of a group of Nazi agents. Easy to take, Pacific Rendezvous may not be any classic-but then, neither was the original film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Bowman, Jean Rogers, (more)
- 1941
One of silent serial queen Pearl White's best efforts, The Iron Claw was remade by Columbia Pictures starring brunette Joyce Bryant as the imperiled heroine. Bryant, alas, was no Pearl White, and needed a strong male lead in order to defeat that master criminal, the Iron Claw. She found him in handsome Charles Quigley, an Academy of Dramatic Art alumni whom the studio was grooming as an action lead. The story line is a bit less confusing this time around; Bryant is the heir to a fortune, which the Iron Claw also desires. Quigley plays Bob Lane, an enterprising reporter who saves the damsel-in-distress over and over again through the serial's 15 chapters. Among the many and various villains skulking about, Forrest Taylor, as Anton, was at his menacing best in The Iron Claw. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1941
Manpower was Warner Bros' latest reworking of 1932's Tiger Shark, with power-company linemen substituting for tuna fisherman. While repair some downed lines in a heavy thunderstorm, Hank McHenry (Edward G. Robinson) saves the life of his best pal Johnny Marshall (George Raft). While Johnny emerges from the experience unscathed, Hank is permanently crippled. He takes this misfortune in stride, but Johnny vows to look after Hank's best interests for the rest of their lives. When Hank marries blowzy nightclub hostess Fay Duval (Marlene Dietrich), Johnny is disdainful, convinced that Fay is playing Hank for a sucker. While recuperating in Hank's home after a slight injury, Johnny confesses to Fay that he's in love with her, a feeling that turns out to be mutual. Out of loyalty to Hank, Johnny refuses to have anything to do with Fay, who finally decides to leave town rather than break up the men's friendship. But Fay cannot stay away from Johnny, forcing him to confront the ever-trusting Hank with the truth, leading inexorably to the film's violent conclusion on a precariously high utility pole. A few comic interludes aside, Manpower is virile, gutsy entertainment; the fact that Edward G. Robinson and George Raft did not get along at all during shooting-resulting in a well-publicized on-set fistfight-only adds to the film's crackling tension. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, (more)
- 1941
Robert Taylor toughened up his image considerably with this gangster movie, which was unusual both in its plot and origins, having come from MGM, which was generally not known for its crime movies. Taylor plays a parolee who is pretending to follow the straight-and-narrow as a hardworking cabbie, but is really the mastermind behind a dog-racing track being built with mob money. Eager works every angle, has a gang that's generally in line, and also has a loyal right-hand man in Jeff Hartnett (Van Heflin, who won an Oscar), his educated assistant, who drinks too much and waxes poetic when he isn't looking after Johnny's interests (and sometimes when he is, too). Eager has only one problem, special prosecutor John Benson Farrell (Edward Arnold) -- who was also the attorney instrumental in sending Eager up -- who has gotten an injunction against the track's opening. But the hood sees an opening when he accidentally crosses paths with a young sociology student, Lisbeth Bard (Lana Turner), who is drawn to him romantically, and then finds out that she's Farrell's step-daughter. After romancing her for a few months, he sets her up in a scam, making her believe that she killed one of Eager's men (Paul Stewart). He "generously" gets her away from the scene and then informs Farrell of what has happened, pointing out that he holds the evidence against Lisbeth. Farrell has no choice but to withdraw the injunction, and the track opens, but problems ensue when rival mobsters decide to try and cut in on Eager and his racket, and he finds out that Lisbeth is so guilt-ridden over her "crime," that she's destroying herself mentally. Eager can't figure out why she feels the way she does or what to do about it, or even if he should do anything to help her, but with Jeff's help, he discovers a nobler side to his nature. Realizing that she really does love him, and knowing it's not possible for the two of them to be together, he goes out in a blaze of glory -- laced with a special irony built into the plot -- solving Lisbeth's problem and also curing her of her love for him, and settling a score or two in the process. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, (more)
- 1940
The Sagebrush Family Trails West was the first attempt by Producer's Distributing Corporation (later known as PRC Pictures) to create a western series of its own. Heading the cast is Bobby Clark-not the celebrated Broadway comedian, but a trick roper and rider billed as "The 13-Year-Old World's Champion Junior Cowboy". The story concentrates on a travelling medicine show maintained by Clark and his relatives Minerva Urecal, Earle Hodgins and Joyce Bryant. Their progress is impeded when Hodgins is framed on a robbery charge, but Clark uses his fancy lariat to hog-tie the genuine crooks. No series resulted from The Sagebrush Family Trails West, but by the end of the year PRC had established its western manifest with its Tim McCoy and "Billy the Kid" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobby Clark, Earl Hodgins, (more)
Despite the ridicule of the rest of the East Side Kids, Mugs Maloney (Leo Gorcey) aspires to be a jockey. He gets his chance with the help of elderly stablehand Ben (Clarence Muse), the owner of a thoroughbred race horse. Ben agrees to train Mugs on the condition that the rest of the gang raise enough money to enter his horse in a Big Race. Alas, Mugs turns out to be a terrible jockey, but this doesn't dissuade a wealthy horseman from offering to race the thoroughbred with a different boy in the saddle. Resentful of being passed over, Mugs does everything he can to sabotage the rival jockey, but in the end he relents and allows the other boy to ride the horse to victory. Beautifully directed by Joseph H. Lewis (especially in the racing scenes), That Gang of Mine is a superior "East Side Kids" romp, marred only by the unecessary racist badinage between black actors Clarence Muse and Sunshine Sammy Morrison. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, (more)
Police detective Pat O'Day (Leon Ames) involves himself with a gang of slum kids led by Dutch Kuhn (Hally Chester) and Danny Dolan (Harris Berger). He tries to keep them from getting into trouble and to help out Danny, whose brother, Knuckles Dolan (Dave "Tex" O'Brien), is about to be executed for a murder allegedly committed as part of his involvement in a counterfeiting ring. O'Day knows Knuckles, having tried to keep him on the right side of the law, and knows that he couldn't have done the shooting, regardless of the circumstantial evidence, because Knuckles resolutely refused to carry a gun -- the real killer is the gang leader, Mileaway (Dennis Moore), a smooth-talker who earned his nickname through his knack for always being "a mile away" whenever a crime is committed by his gang. O'Day not only wants to catch Mileaway, but tries to keep the teenagers from falling in with the hood. When the detective starts to get too close, Mileaway sets him up for a brutality charge using crooked shop owner Schmidt, and gets O'Day busted back to uniformed patrolman. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leon Ames, Dennis Moore, (more)
Best remembered today as the upwardly mobile errand boy in Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940), busy juvenile actor William Tracy starred in the title-role of this popular action serial that very same year. Released in fifteen chapters by Columbia Pictures, Terry of the Pirates told of how young Terry Lee goes in search of his father (J. Paul Jones, who has vanished in the Asian jungles. Dr. Lee, it turns out, was kidnapped by the jungle pirates of Fang (Dick Curtis), a local warlord attempting to solve the secret of the Temple of Mara. Attacked by Fang, his henchman Stanton (Jack Ingram) and an army of Tiger Men, Terry and his friends, Pat Ryan (Granville Owens, Normandie Drake (Joyce Bryant and the beautiful Dragon Lady (Sheila Darcy), manage not only to locate the missing Dr. Lee but also the hidden treasure of Mara. Based on the 1934 comic strip by Milton Caniff, Terry and the Pirates was turned into a television series in 1952, this time with John Baer as Terry and William Tracy as comic relief character Hot Shot Charlie. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1939
As in his previous two Westerns, Mexicali Kid and Wild Horse Canyon (both 1938), Jack Randall goes in search of his brother's killer in this low-budget series entry from Monogram. All three films were penned by line producer Robert Emmett Tansey, but the economy in both thought and deed was alarming even for a threadbare outfit such as Monogram. Randall played the title role in Trigger Smith, a former lawman whose brother, the Marshal of Piru, is killed during a bank heist. Trigger and his sidekick, Lopez (rotund Frank Yaconelli), obtain jobs as hands at a ranch belonging to Jean (Joyce Bryant) and her brothers, Buck (juvenile trick roper Bobby Clark) and Bud (Dennis Moore). The latter proves to be in cahoots with the bank robbers, but is killed in the climactic melee. Moore must have been able to portray this character in his sleep; it was identical to the one he had played in the previous Randall entry, Wild Horse Canyon, even down to heroically taking a bullet meant for Jack. The last scene of the film was lifted almost intact from Randall's debut Western, Riders of the Dawn (1937). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Yaconelli, Joyce Bryant, (more)
- 1939
Tim McCoy is back as hard-ridin' Lighting Bill Carson in Victory Pictures' Trigger Fingers. When rustlers invade a peaceful frontier community, troubleshooter Carson is summoned to throw the rascals out. Once more indulging his penchant for disguise, our hero dresses up as a gypsy fortune-teller, complete with earring and gloriously awful mittel-European accent. Also cloaked in gypsy garb is Carson's comic assistant Magpie (Ben Corbett), whose makeup wouldn't convince a nearsighted cow. No matter: all lapses in logic are forgotten during the action-filled climax. Trigger Fingers represents one of the first film appearances by perennial B-flick heroine Joyce Bryant, who managed to survive ten years' worth of this sort of thing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim McCoy, Ben Corbett, (more)
- 1939
Having explored the old wheeze about the young man searching for his brother's killer and the one about the cowboy impersonating an outlaw, Robert Emmett Tansey, the producer/writer of Monogram's Jack Randall Westerns, turned to the ever popular "brothers separated during an attack of their wagon train" story. Fortunately, this time around director Spencer Gordon Bennet and his cast traveled to picturesque Lone Pine, CA, and Across the Plains emerged as one of Randall's better vehicles. After a gang of outlaws attack their wagon train, Little Jack (Buddy Cox) is adopted by a roving band of Indians while Little Jimmy (Texi-Ray Cox) is abducted by the outlaws. Years later, the adult Jack (now Jack Randall) and Jimmy (Dennis Moore) meet again but on opposing sides of the law regarding a shipment of gold. Ignorant of the fact that they are brothers, Jack and Jimmy are about to square off when Buckskin (Hal Price), the old wagon master, brings their true relationship to light. Jimmy, now an outlaw known as the Kansas Kid, discovers that a member of his gang, Buff (Robert Card), is the villain who murdered their parents. Mortally wounded in the ensuing battle, Jimmy, alias the Kid, meets his maker with the knowledge that the death of his parents has been avenged at last. Jack, meanwhile, proposes to Mary Masters (Joyce Bryant), the daughter of the stage line owner. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Randall, Frank Yaconelli, (more)
- 1939
In this complicated western, a group of explorers head to Mexico to hunt for an Indian burial ground. The hero, who has been unjustly accused of murdering the leader of the first expedition, begins impersonating the notorious bandito El Puma. He intercepts the latest expedition just as the leader is stabbed. The real murderer then blames it on El Puma. Now the hero stands accused of two murders. The hero begins looking for the treasure buried within the grounds and for the real killer. He finds both. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tim McCoy, Joyce Bryant, (more)
