Victor Milner Movies

In this family drama, a garage owner finds himself teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. He becomes tempted to sell his business to a shady businessman when a kindly rich person in disguise offers to pay the garage guy to compete in an Alpine car race. The determined garage owner manages to thwart the attempt's of the evil buyer to sabotage him and win the race thereby saving his garage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Carrie is based on Sister Carrie, a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser's clumsy, unwieldy prose is streamlined into a neat and precise screenplay by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. Jennifer Jones stars as Carrie, who leaves her go-nowhere small town for the wicked metropolis of Chicago. Here she becomes the mistress of brash traveling salesman Charles Drouet (Eddie Albert), then throws him over in favor of erudite restaurant manager George Hurstwood (Laurence Olivier). Obsessed by Carrie, George steals money from his boss to support her in the manner to which he thinks she is accustomed. Left broke and disgraced by the ensuing scandal, Carrie deserts George to become an actress. Years later, the conscience-stricken Carrie tries to regenerate George, who has fallen into bum-hood. If Laurence Olivier seems a surprising casting choice in Carrie, try to imagine what the film would have been like had Cary Grant, Paramount's first choice, accepted the role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Barbara Stanwyck and Walter Huston give standout performances in this dark, psychological western, which Martin Scorsese has compared to the work of Dostoevsky. T.C. Jeffords (Huston) is a cunning and highly successful ranch owner who has announced his engagement to a wealthy socialite, Flo Burnett (Judith Anderson). This news is not warmly received by his daughter Vance (Stanwyck); she had a romance of her own with gambler Rip Darrow (Wendell Corey) foiled by her father, and Vance does not care for her light-headed stepmother-to-be. Vance is driven into a violent rage by T.C.'s Machiavellian actions, and when he kills a good friend of Vance's (a ranch hand he believes was helping Mexicans squat on his land), she swears revenge on her father and joins forces with Darrow to see that violent justice is done. The Furies proved to be Walter Huston's last film; he died within a few months of its release. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

With location scenes lensed in Italy, September Affair is consistently good to look at, even when the pacing flags and the dialogue becomes too verbose. Joan Fontaine and Joseph Cotten star as married couple Manina and David. Trouble is, they're not married to each other. Through a series of misunderstandings, Manina and David are listed among the victims of a plane crash. Since the world at large considers them dead, the couple decides to start a whole new life together. Eventually, however, the guilt they share regarding their respective spouses overrides their passions. September Affair is remembered today as the film that catapulted a 12-year-old record -- Walter Huston's rendition of "September Song" -- to the top of the 1950 hit parade. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Preston Sturges' Unfaithfully Yours is a typically witty and wild screwball comedy starring Rex Harrison as a symphony conductor named Alfred de Carter who is convinced his wife (Linda Darnell) is having an affair. During one of his concerts, Alfred begins planning three different ways of solving the problem -- including murder -- setting each to a different classical piece. Sturges' script and direction are lively and the actors are perfectly cast, capable of wringing all the humor, both physical and verbal, out of the story. Despite the artistic success of the film, Unfaithfully Yours was unsuccessful at the time of its release, yet it was well-regarded by critics and film buffs. It was remade in 1984, featuring Dudley Moore in the lead role. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

In The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, relationships formed in childhood lead to murder and obsessive love. The wealthy Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) is the prime mover of the small Pennsylvania town of Iverston. Martha lives in a huge mansion with her DA husband, Walter O'Neil (Kirk Douglas), an alcoholic weakling. No one knows just why Martha and Walter tolerate one another....but Sam Masterson (Van Heflin), an Iverstown boy who returns to town, may just have a clue. At least that's what Martha thinks when Sam asks Walter to intervene in the case of Toni Marachek (Lizabeth Scott), who has been unjustly imprisoned. It seems that, as a young boy, Sam was in the vicinity when Martha's rich aunt (Judith Anderson) met with her untimely demise. What does Sam know? And what dark, horrible secret binds Martha and Walter together? Directed by Lewis Milestone, and based on John Patrick's Oscar-nominated original story, Love Lies Bleeding, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers creates in Martha a unique and interesting, driven, obsessed, and spoiled character, but one not without sympathy. Barbara Stanwyck is outstanding as Martha, with her predatory smile and sharp, manicured nails. Kirk Douglas is surprisingly convincing as a lost, sad, weak man, who loves his wife, but is unable to gain her respect. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers eventually lapsed into public domain and became a ubiquitous presence on cable television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The genesis of The Story of Dr. Wassell is said to have been a story told by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to director Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper stars as Corydon M. Wassell, a real-life country doctor from Arkansas who worked as a medical missionary in China in the years prior to WWII. When America enters the war, Dr. Wassell joins the Navy and is shipped to Java. As the Japanese overtake the island, Wassell is placed in charge of the wounded evacuated marines. Ordered to leave the area immediately, the doctor disobeys his commands, staying behind to care for ten seriously wounded men from the USS Marblehead, even as Japanese bombs rain down upon his staff. With the help of other stranded allied troops, Wassell and his wounded make it to Australia, where despite his insubordination he is lauded as a hero. Not as much of a spectacular as earlier DeMille films, The Story of Dr. Wassell concentrates on personalities, with mixed results. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After producing, writing and directing one hit film after another, Preston Sturges finally misfired with the biopic The Great Moment. Sturges was always fascinated with the saga of W.T.G. Morton, the 19th century Boston dentist who, after inventing the first truly effective anesthesia, was forced to give up his proprietary interest in the invention and ended up dying in poverty and obscurity. Joel McCrea stars as Morton, a young oral surgeon determined to find a painless method for exracting teeth-which he does, virtually by accident. Betty Field costars as Morton's faithful spouse Elizabeth, while Sturges regular William Demarest offers a gem of a performance as Morton's best friend-guinea pig Eben Frost (his persistence upon recalling his first meeting with Morton -- "I was in excru-ci-ating pain"-is one of the film's highlights). Completed in 1942, The Great Moment was taken out of Sturges' hands and heavily re-edited and re-arranged by the Paramount executives: as a result, the story is confusing and downright incomprehensible at times (the film's present ending, for example, originally occured in the middle of the film). The result was varying runtimes for the film of 80, 83, 87, and 90 minutes. An enormous box-office flop in 1944, the film proved to be the beginning of the end for Sturges, who was never able to completely recover from its failure. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not explained until the film's punch line), Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are married. "And so they lived happily ever after," exults a title card, "...or did they?" Well, they didn't. After five years of marriage, Tom hasn't raised a dime with his pie-in-the-sky inventions. Using the sort of logic common to Sturges heroines, Gerry decides that the only way to help her husband is to divorce him, marry a wealthy man, and use the second husband's money to finance Tom's schemes. Borrowing money from a generous self-made business mogul known only as the Wienie King (Robert Dudley), Gerry boards a train to Palm Beach, FL, where all the rich folk go. En route, she is "adopted" by the Ale & Quail Club, a group of perpetually drunken millionaires whose idea of a good time is to shoot their rifles at everything that moves (among the club members are such Sturges regulars as William Demarest, Robert Warwick, Jimmy Conlin, Robert Greig, Jack Norton, and Dewey Robinson). Taking refuge from this rowdy crew, Gerry makes the acquaintance of likeable stuffed shirt John D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee), who happens to be one of the wealthiest men in the Western Hemisphere. While Gerry spoons with Hackensacker in Palm Beach, the confused Tom (remember him?) dallies with Hackensacker's man-crazy sister, Princess Centimillia (Mary Astor). How all this straightens itself out is better seen than described, which is pretty much the case whenever one discusses Sturges' singular work, and The Palm Beach Story is vintage Sturges with one side-splitting sequence after another. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

(Preston Sturges) wrote and directed this classic romantic comedy starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, who are involved in a scintillating battle of the sexes, as Sturges points up the terrors of sexual passion and the unattainability of the romantic ideal. Henry Fonda plays Charles Pike, the heir to the Pike Ale fortune ("The Ale That Won for Yale"). An ophiologist (a snake expert), he just spent a year "up the Amazon" looking for rare snakes with his cynical and protective guardian/valet Muggsy (William Demarest). He arrives to board the S.S. Southern Queen bound for New York, and immediately becomes the main order of business for a collection of single women looking to nab the eligible bachelor. Amongst those watching Charles board are a trio of con men and cardsharps -- Colonel Handsome Harry Harrington (Charles Coburn), his partner Gerald (Melville Cooper), and the Colonel's daughter Jean (Barbara Stanwyck). All three see Charles as a pushover and at dinner, while all the women are ogling Charles, Jean wins the day by sticking out her foot and tripping him. Complaining to Charles that he should watch where he is going, she gets him to escort her to her cabin so that she can replace her broken heel. Charles is sexually attracted to Jean, but when Charles is about to make a pass at her, she pulls back, telling him, "You ought to be put in a cage." Back in the dining room, Charles is introduced to the Colonel and the three play cards, Charles winning $500 from the Colonel and $100 from Jean. But Charles is merely being set-up for the next game when the Colonel will come in for the kill. Back at Jean's cabin, Charles and Jean sit close and something happens she hadn't planned -- she becomes attracted to Charles too. The next morning, Muggsy warns Charles that the Colonel and Jean are cardsharks, but Charles won't hear of it. Meanwhile, the Colonel is looking forward to fleecing Charles, but Jean doesn't want any part of it. Jean participates in the card game between Charles and the Colonel, making sure than the Colonel doesn't cheat. But while Jean waits on deck for Charles after the game, the Colonel plays Charles a game of double-or-nothing, with Charles losing $32,000. Jean, angry with her father, makes the Colonel tears up Charles' check. The next morning, Muggsy proves to Charles the three are con artists. Devastated, Charles shows Jean the photograph, claiming he knew she was a criminal the morning after he met her. Jean is determined to get even with Charles ("I hate that mug!"). Docking in New York, the Colonel reveals he merely palmed the $32,000 check. But that's not enough revenge for Jean. Impersonating an aristocratic English woman, Lady Eve Sidwich, Jean has herself introduced to Charles. Planning to make Charles to fall in love with her again, she intends to break his heart like he broke her own. As she explains, "I've got some unfinished business with him -- I need him like the axe needs the turkey." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this humorous adventure, a Puerto Rican explorer shares a drink with his oddball millionaire double. For a lark, they decide to pull a switcheroo and exchange places. Unfortunately, the millionaire is killed in a car accident. His poor grieving wife, doesn't realize that the dead man is the explorer. Meanwhile the real rich man endeavors to prove his true identity. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1916 with Mary Pickford's brother Jack in the lead, Booth Tarkington's irresistable coming-of-age novel Seventeen serves as a tailor-made vehicle for 18-year-old Jackie Cooper. The star is cast as William Slyvanus Baxter, a high school boy who is undergoing the pangs of First Romance. The object of his affections is flirtatious debutante Lola Pratt (Betty Field), an "older woman"-at least a whole year older! Losing his head completely, William spends all of his hard-earned money on the fickle Lola, only to learn a valuable (and very expensive) lesson about loving neither wisely nor too well. Norma Nelson is hilariously hateful as William's tattletale kid sister, while Otto Kruger and Ann Shoemaker are quietly effective as the boy's exasperated but understanding parents. Obviously rushed into production to capitalize on the successful teaming of Jackie Cooper and Betty Field in 1939's What a Life!, Seventeen is an excellent effort in its own right. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cecil B. De Mille directed this lavish all-star spectacular paying tribute to America's neighbors to the North. In 1885, as Louis Riel (Francis J. McDonald) tries to organize Indians and French settlers into a fighting force that will battle against the ruling British, Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers (Gary Cooper) arrives in Canada to arrest Jacques Corbeau (George Bancroft), one of Riel's associates who is wanted for murder in the U.S. Rivers promptly falls for nurse April Logan (Madeleine Carroll), which triggers jealously in the straightlaced Mountie sergeant Jim Brett (Preston S. Foster), who is also in love with April. Meanwhile, April's brother, Ronnie Logan (Robert Preston), also a member of the North West Mounted Police, is in love with Louvette (Paulette Goddard), Corbeau's sister and a fiery "half-breed" who lives among the Indians. When Dusty arrives in Canada, he joins forces with the mounties, who are looking for Corbeau on another murder charge, and soon joins the fight against Riel's rebel factions. De Mille imported 300 pine trees for his "forest" set, believing that a woods created on the controlled environment of a soundstage would look more "real" onscreen than location shooting in Canada. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide