George Morgan Movies

Produced by Dan "Dark Shadows" Curtis, this TV adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic spine-chiller Frankenstein remains fairly faithful to its source. Robert Foxworth stars as Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who comes to grief when he "plays God" by creating a human being from spare body parts. The monster, played by Bo Svenson, is doomed from the start, not only by fate but by his inherited homicidal nature. Susan Strasberg and Heidi Vaughn co-star as the two unfortunate women in Dr. Frankenstein's life. Originally telecast in two parts on ABC's late-night Wide World of Mystery anthology, Frankenstein debuted January 16 and 17, 1973. It was later pared down to a traditional two-hour, single-part TV movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In Greaser's Palace, Alan Arbus plays a zoot-suited character named Jesse, who is not only a Christlike figure, he is Christ. En route to Jerusalem, where he hopes to find work as a "singer-dancer-actor," Jesse finds himself in a dusty western town. At first, he is targeted for extermination by town boss Seaweedhead Greaser (Albert Henderson) but all this changes when he brings Greaser's son Lamy (Michael Sullivan) back from the dead. Jesse's healing powers lead to all sorts of wacked-out complications and, inevitably, a bizarre confrontation with the town looney, exotic dancer Cholera (Luana Anders). A very young Robert Downey Jr. (the son of the director) appears as a Quasimodo-like child. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Introduced in the earlier episode "Meena", the scraggly Calhouns make a return Bonanza appearance in the April 5, 1970 episode "The Horse Traders." Having struck it rich, unkempt miner Luke Calhoun (Dub Taylor) and his feisty daughter Meena (Ann Prentiss) now wear fancy clothes and reek of perfume. Magnanimously, Calhoun has allowed the three lamebrained outlaws who'd tried to steal his gold in the earlier episode-Jesse (Victor French), Owen (Robert Donner) and Virg (George Morgan)--to live on his property; in fact, Virg is now Meena's fiance. Ultimately, the ex-crooks wear out their welcome and are told to vacate the premises unless they find jobs. Before long, the three stupids have opened up a livery stable-just as Hoss and Joe Cartwright come to town, hoping to make some money in a hurry by selling a herd of valuable horses. "The Horse Traders" was written by Jack B. Sowards. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After several years working along the margins of the underground film scene in New York, director Robert Downey broke through to wider recognition with the arthouse hit Putney Swope, a wildly irreverent satire of race and advertising in America. Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) is the token African-American executive at an otherwise all-white advertising agency when the chairman of the board unexpectedly drops dead. Through a fluke in the chain of command, Swope becomes the new head of the firm, and decides its time to do things his way. He fires nearly all the staff (except for his one token white employee), renames the agency Truth and Soul, Inc., and announces they'll no longer accept accounts advertising tobacco, alcohol, or war toys. The ads they do produce -- for acne remedies and breakfast cereal, among other things -- are wildly successful, and the iconoclastic ad agency (which only accepts payment in cash) is targeted by government operatives as a threat to the national security. Antonio Fargas and Allen Garfield lead the supporting cast; Mel Brooks makes a cameo appearance. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This parody takes a poke at Cold War espionage films as it tells the tale of two Red spies who sneak into the U.S. and onto a Western dude ranch with an infectious bunny. It is hoped that the little hopper will cause a deadly epidemic. Once on the ranch, the Soviet agents finds themselves surrounded by similarly disguised agents from all over the world. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In most of his Columbia westerns, Charles Starrett simply was the Durango Kid, a mysterious masked do-gooder who pretends to be a criminal. Desert Horseman attempts to explain why this disguise has been adopted. Starrett plays an army captain, dishonorably discharged for a theft he did not commit. To recover the money and restore his reputation, Starrett assumes the guise of the Durango Kid. He brings the real criminal to justice, which presumably means that there's no further need for his disguise. But two months later, The Durango Kid was back (under a whole new set of circumstances) in The Fighting Frontiersman. Desert Horseman was released in Great Britain as Checkmate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Buster Crabbe plays one of his more offbeat roles in Mayfair's Badge of Honor. Crabbe is cast as Bob Gordon, a spoiled society boy who finds himself in a small town, rife with political corruption. Hoping to bring the crooks to justice, Bob poses as a hotshot reporter, getting away with all sorts of outrages by explaining "Well, a newspaperman can do a little bit of everything." He manages to thwart the villains and win the heroine (Ruth Hall), all in a tight 62 minutes. Long believed lost, Badge of Honor was rediscovered in South America in the 1980s: currently available prints are in English with Spanish subtitles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After being framed in a warehouse robbery, a police officer goes undercover as a drunk in order to get the goods on the real culprit in this low-budget affair from Mayfair Pictures Corp. starring Jack La Rue. Arriving at the resort owned and operated by the suspect in the warehouse case, Louis Cantor (Matthew Betz), Officer Jim Trent (La Rue) pretends to be drunk and disorderly and is arrested during a police raid on the premises. Jim's fiancée, Molly (Ada Ince), and best friend, Turner Bates (Arthur Belasco), do their best to rescue the rowdy former policeman, not realizing that he is working undercover and is in constant communication with the police commissioner (DeWitt Jennings). Believing in Jim's subterfuge, Cantor hires him to get rid of the pesky Turner, but with the help of Molly, who has discovered his real purpose, Jim is able to arrest the gang leader and is reinstated in the police force. Most of the talent involved with this potboiler -- from producer Lester F. Scott Jr. to director Spencer Gordon Bennet to leading lady Ada Ince -- were better known for their contribution to Grade-Z Westerns. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

With customary lack of restraint, Bela Lugosi tore into his role of Professor Strang, a foreign agent masquerading as a wax museum proprietor, in this the first of Mascot Pictures' five serials of 1933. Bela is smuggling jewels into the country as security for a loan. The "jools," however, are stolen by an escaped convict and sought by the omnipresent Whispering Shadow, a mysterious megalomaniac out to gain control of the entire world. A science wizard, the Shadow uses radio waves to kill his enemies, but no one knows who he is. In typical Mascot fashion, suspicion falls at various times on most of the cast members -- Lugosi, needless to say, most of all. As it turns out, despite a plethora of menacing close-ups, Bela is indeed only a red herring, the real culprit, in typical Mascot style, revealed instead to be a heretofore minor comic relief. Considering the fate of the actor in question, we shall break with tradition and name him. A major comic star of the late '20s, Karl Dane could only watch as his career collapsed at the changeover to sound due to an impenetrable Danish accent. All but unemployable, Dane was given this last chance to shine by producer Nat Levine, but audiences felt cheated by the serial's somewhat unfair denouement and The Whispering Shadow proved less a comeback than a debacle. Reduced to selling hot dogs from a stand outside his former studio, MGM, Dane ended his own life on April 14, 1934, one of the best remembered victims of the sound revolution. The Whispering Shadow marked the directorial debut of Colbert Clark, formerly of the script department, who was helped along the way by the veteran Albert Herman. The serial was also released in a truncated feature version. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The second of two projected John Wayne serials produced by genre expert Mascot Pictures, this film used the budget-saving device of having its master criminal wearing variously fiendish rubber masks, offering him the opportunity to resemble every red herring in the large cast. Known only as "The Wrecker" ("That's him, The Wrecker!" people continuously scream throughout the serial), the villain is attempting to sabotage the L. & R. Railroad in order to bolster a competing airline service. Wayne plays a commercial pilot whose father, the railroad's chief engineer (J. Farrell MacDonald), is murdered early on. Shirley Grey, as the daughter of a railroad man falsely accused of sabotage, is the damsel-in-distress (although, despite some poster art, she is never actually tied to the tracks), and Tully Marshall plays the president of the railroad. As Wayne had no drawing power whatsoever in 1932, Marshall, a veteran from the early silent era, was actually given star billing along with Conway Tearle, who portrayed the little seen company lawyer. The Hurricane Express survives in a truncated 70-minute feature version, a screening of which actually feels like watching an entire serial in one sitting. The serial was co-directed by J.P. McGowan, a veteran actor-director who had begun his long love affair with railroad themes directing his then-wife Helen Holmes in The Hazards of Helen (1915). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A couple of holdovers from the silent era, Kenneth Harlan and Edna Murphy, starred in this below-average Universal serial directed by the prolific Ray Taylor. Murphy's father (William Worthington) is falsely accused of murder, but Secret Service agent Harlan believes the real culprit to be the leader of a gang of smugglers. Unfortunately, it takes Harlan ten rather dull serial chapters to prove his point. A brunette flapper star of the 1920s, Edna Murphy was once married to director Mervyn LeRoy. She retired shortly after making the less than inspiring Finger Prints. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Every so often, western star Buck Jones got it in his head that he could play a Mexican, and never mind that his accent wouldn't have convinced a prairie dog. In The Avenger, Jones plays a man determined to track down the three men who lynched his brother. As "The Black Shadow," our hero robs the rich, gives to the poor, and romances heroine Dorothy Revier. By film's end, he has not only accomplished his various goals, but has earned a full pardon. As for Jones's overall performance, "B"-western historian Don Miller summed it up beautifully when he wrote "When Buck had to passionately proclaim Mi Amore, as he did to Dorothy Revier in The Avenger, the jig was up." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Also-ran silent screen cowboy Jack Perrin starred in this minor western from the Universal assembly line. Perrin is cast as a preacher who saves not only Rex the Wonder Horse from the glue factory but also a pretty saloon-belle (Barbara Worth) from her lecherous employer (David Dunbar). Voted a 1924 Wampas Baby Star by the Hollywood publicists, Worth spent almost her entire career in westerns. She later changed her name to Hazel Keener and appeared thus billed in six westerns opposite Fred Thomson, a major genre star who, coincidentally, was a former preacher in real life. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide