William Ludwig Movies

Originally titled Man of the West (the name of the Philip Yordan novel on which it was based), Gun Glory was rechristened to avoid confusion with a like-vintage Gary Cooper vehicle of the same title. Stewart Granger plays gunslinger/gambler Tom Early, who tries a bit too late to make amends for past misdeeds. Hoping to regain the respect of his community in general and his teenaged son Young Tom (Steve Rowland) in particular, Early vows to hang up his guns and live a respectable life. This proves well nigh impossible when the community is threatened by the incursions of evil cattle baron Grimsell (James Gregory). Rhonda Fleming costars as Jo, the only person in town who truly cares whether Early lives or dies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1943 Broadway musical was considered revolutionary for a multitude of reasons, not least of which were the play's intricate integration of song and storyline, and the simplicity and austerity of its production design. The 1955 film version of Oklahoma! retains the songs (except for Lonely Room and It's a Scandal!, which are usually cut from most stage presentations anyway) and the story, but the simplicity is sacrificed to the spectacle of Technicolor, Todd-AO, and Stereophonic Sound. The story can be boiled down to a single sentence: a girl must decide between the two suitors who want to take her to a social. In her movie debut, 19-year-old Shirley Jones plays Laurie, an Oklahoma farm gal who is courted by boisterous cowboy Curley (Gordon MacRae) and by menacing, obsessive farm hand Jud Frye (Rod Steiger). Fearing that Jud will do something terrible to Curley, Laurie accepts Jud's invitation to the box social. But it's Curley who rescues Laurie from Jud's unwanted advances, and in so doing wins her hand. On the eve of their wedding, Laurie and Curley are menaced by the drunken Jud. During a fight with Curley, Jud falls on his own knife and is killed (this sudden-death motif was curiously commonplace in the Rodgers and Hammerstein ouevre). The local deputy insists that Curley be arrested and stand trial, but he is outvoted by Curley's friends, and the newlyweds are permitted to ride off on their honeymoon. Counterpointing the serious elements of the story is a comic subplot involving innocently promiscuous Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame), her erstwhile sweetheart Will Parker (Gene Nelson) and lascivious travelling salesman Ali Hakim (Eddie Albert). None of the Broadway cast of Oklahoma! was engaged for the film version, though Charlotte Greenwood is finally able to essay the role of Auntie Eller that had been written for her but she'd been unable to play back in 1943. The evergreen songs include Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin', Surrey with the Fringe on Top, People Will Say We're In Love, I Cain't Say No, and the rousing title song. Two versions of Oklahoma! currently exist: the Todd-AO version, filmed on 65-millimeter stock, and the simultaneously shot CinemaScope version, shipped out to the theaters not equipped for the wider-screen Todd-AO process. Both versions have been issued in "letterbox" form on laser disc, and the subtle differences in performance style and camera angles in each and every scene are quite fascinating. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hit the Deck is the second film version of the same-named 1927 hit Broadway musical. Though updated for the 1950s, the basic plot remains the same. Sailors Tony Martin, Vic Damone and Russ Tamblyn spend their entire shore leave in pursuit of three beautiful gals. Martin is "that way" about Ann Miller, Damone is stuck on Jane Powell, and Russ Tamblyn only has eyes for Debbie Reynolds. Some fun is extracted from the fact that Tamblyn is the son of by-the-book admiral Walter Pidgeon. Additional comedy relief is provided by Alan King (the same!) and Henry Slate as a pair of dumb-dumb shore patrolmen. The Vincent Youmans-Leo Robin-Clifford Grey-Irving Caesar score includes such standards as "Sometimes I'm Happy", "I Know that You Know", and the showstopping "Hallelujah". The 1930 version of Hit the Deck, starring Jack Oakie, was filmed by RKO; that version was purchased by MGM and hasn't been seen publicly in nearly 70 years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Health faddist Mulvain (Louis Calhern) and his astrology-minded wife Salome (Norma Varden) hold court over their seven musical-prodigy daughters. Each girl is named after a mythical Greek: Athena (Jane Powell), Minerva (Debbie Reynolds), Niobe (Virginia Gibson), Aphrodite (Nancy Kligas), Medea (Jane Fischer), Calliope (Dolores Starr) and Ceres (Cecile Rogers). They also run around dressed in skimpy miniskirts, for those of you not interested in mythology. Athena falls in love with lawyer Adam Shaw (Edmund Purdom) and Minerva is ga-ga over crooner Johnny Nyle (Vic Damone), neither of whom come up to Mulvain's notions of mental and physical perfection. A lesser product from the Joe Pasternak musical mill, Athena is unremarkable save for an early appearance by future Hercules star Steve Reeves and a nicely bitchy performance by the usually resistable Linda Christian. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The film traces Naples-born Caruso's ascension from adolescent choir singer to the uppermost ranks of the opera world. Caruso is brought to America, getting off to a bad start by inadvertently insulting the impresario (Carl Benton Reid) responsible for his Metropolitan debut. This complication has a happy outcome when Caruso marries his benefactor's daughter (Ann Blyth). Refusing to spare himself or to hold back his talents from his fans, Caruso's health fails him, and he dies in 1921 at the age of 47. Featuring no fewer than 27 musical numbers, Great Caruso also stars Mario Lanza as Caruso, as well as such operatic superstars as Dorothy Kirsten and Jarmila Novotna. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston resident becomes angry when the census forgets to record her presence. Another sketch chronicles the achievements of African Americans while still another pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A "new" Lassie (once again, a male collie in drag) starred in A Challenge to Lassie, MGM's fourth entry in their series based on characters created by Eric Knight. This time, Lassie is plunked into the plotline of William Ludwig's novel Greyfriars Bobby (remade by Disney under its original title in 1963). In 19th-century Edinburgh, crusty sheepherder Jock Gray (Donald Crisp) rescues a puppy and raises it into a champion sheep dog. When Gray is murdered by rustlers, his faithful collie keeps a night-and-day watch over his late master's grave, despite local laws banning the presence of unleashed canines. The rest of the film is a battle of wills between kindly innkeeper John Traill (Edmund Gwenn) and by-the-book constable Davie (Reginald Owen) over the dog's well-being. A romantic subplot is capably handled by Geraldine Brooks and Ross Ford, both of whom went on to healthy character-actor careers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's Lassie series was declining in popularity by 1948, so the studio decided to release its latest adventure of the famous collie as Hills of Home, so that non-Lassie fans might be inveigled into entering the theatre. Actually, Hills is one of the best entries in the series, due in no small part to the engaging performance by Edmund Gwenn. Playing a Scottish doctor, Gwenn adopts Lassie, who in this film has an unnatural aversion to water; she'll drink it, but won't swim in it. Gwenn spends most of the film trying to cure Lassie of her fears, but she remains water-shy until Gwenn's life is put in danger and the dog is forced to dive into a raving river. The doctor dies as the result of the ordeal, but not before beneficently passing on Lassie's ownership to romantic leads Janet Leigh and Tom Drake. Lensed in restful Technicolor, Hills of Home was based on Ian McClaren's Doctor of the Old School, which had previously been filmed without Lassie in 1923. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For his first post-WWII starring film, 26-year-old Mickey Rooney returned to familiar territory in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy. In true Art-Imitates-Life fashion, Rooney plays returning GI Andy Hardy, who arrives in his home town of Carvel to the open arms of his family: Father Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone), mother Mrs. Hardy (Fay Holden) and Aunt Milly (Sara Haden). After reels and reels of "Gee, Mom and Dad, it's great to be home", Andy launches into a new romance with college coed Kay Wilson (Bonita Granville). His boundless ebullience is dampened when Kay elects to marry another, setting the stage for a another of those man-to-man talks between Judge Hardy and Son. Fortunately, Andy bounces back to his old self when he meets Latin American exchange student Isobel Gonzales (Lina Romay). Wisely, MGM decided that Mickey Rooney was too old to continue to play Andy Hardy, and the studio dropped the series with this entry (there would be a so-so "reunion" picture, Andy Hardy Comes Home, in 1958). If it seems nowadays as though Love Laughs at Andy Hardy is being telecast at least seven times per week, it may be because the film lapsed into public domain in 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director King Vidor intended An American Romance as the third entry in his "War, Wheat and Steel" trilogy (the War had been covered in The Big Parade, while Wheat was dispensed with in Our Daily Bread). Two years in production, the film cost nearly $3 million-little of which actually shows up on screen due to heavy post-production editing and rearranging of scenes. Brian Donlevy stars as immigrant laborer Steve Dangon, who becomes convinced early on that the only way he'll get anywhere in life is to accumulate huge sums of money. He takes a job in a midwestern steel mill, calculatedly working his way up the ladder from foreman to owner of an auto manufacturing firm. Though he regards himself as a "man of the people", Dangon resists the efforts of his workers to form a union.--even when his son Teddy (Horace McNally) is won over to the workers' point of view. A bitter three-month strike forces Dangon's board of directors to give in to the workers' wishes Disillusioned, Dangon retires from his business, but returns to work determined to switch over to the manufacture of airplanes when WW2 creates a demand for defense products. The "documentary" aspects of the story are far more compelling that the dramatic passages, with Donlevy's performance vacillating from strong to so-so. Minus any real star names (the leading lady is MGM contractee Ann Richards, a graduate of short subjects), An American Romance flopped at the box office, and Vidor in later years tended to dismiss the film as a misfire, severly damaged by studio tampering. The currently available 121-minute version stands up reasonably well, leading one to wonder if the film was not actually improved by MGM's insistence (over Vidor's protests) upon removing 30 minutes from the running time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This wartime weeper could just as well have been titled Stardom for Margaret, inasmuch as it solidified the popularity of that remarkable child actress Margaret O'Brien. While visiting London, American married couple Robert Young and Laraine Day are caught in the middle of the 1940 blitz. Losing her unborn child during the bombing, Day sadly heads back to the U.S., while her journalist husband stays behind to cover late-breaking events. Young makes the acquaintance of O'Brien and Clifford Severn, children orphaned by the blitz. After pulling the shell-shocked O'Brien out of her near-catatonic state, Young decides to adopt both children and take them back to his wife in the States. There are some tense moments as Young tilts at the stepped-up immigration restrictions, but he is finally able to bring his new family home. Journey for Margaret stars Robert Young and Margaret O'Brien would be reunited two decades later on an episode of Young's TV series Marcus Welby MD, in which Ms. O'Brien played a patient suffering from obesity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Through a miscarriage of justice, John Ingram (Edward G. Robinson) is convicted of a crime he did not commit and sentenced to a long stretch on a chain gang in the deep South. In time, Ingram flees to Oklahoma, where he makes a living fighting oil fires under an assumed name. Several years later, he has a successful business, a loving wife (Ruth Hussey), and a child. But he still lives in fear that his secret will be revealed, and one day he's visited by William Ramey (Gene Lockhart). Ramey admits that he committed the crime for which Ingram was convicted; he proposes that they meet with the authorities together, and Ramey will sign a confession that will clear Ingram's name. But Ramey instead double-crosses Ingram, putting him back on the chain gang while Ramey lays claim to his business. Before long, Ingram learns that his wife and child are nearly broke thanks to Ramey's gutting of his once-thriving business, and he decides that he must once again escape if he is to protect the safety of his family. Blackmail marked one of Edward G. Robinson's first "good guy" roles after making his name in a series of gangster epics; a year later, he would be starring in prestigious biopics, such as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet and A Dispatch From Reuters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide