Ralph Murphy Movies

This above-average Louis Hayward swashbuckler was sumptuously produced by Columbia's resident western specialist Harry Joe Brown. Adapted from Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood Returns, the film stars Hayward as physician-turned-buccaneer Peter Blood. Now respectably retired in the West Indies, Blood is shaken out of his complacency when he is accused of returning to piracy. Given a chance to clear his name, Blood reassembles his old crew to track down the villain who's pilfered his good name. The excellent cast includes John Sutton, George Givot, Ted de Corsia, and, in larger roles than usual, Charles Irwin and Rex Evans. And what would a Columbia pirate picture be without leading lady Patricia Medina? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Never Trust a Gambler proves the veracity of its title by offering up a particularly unsavory specimen in the form of Steve Garry (Dane Clark). Vowing that he's sworn off gambling, Steve is taken back by his loving ex-spouse Virginia Merrill (Cathy O'Donnell). In fact, Steve is merely using Virginia as a shield, to avoid testifying as a witness in a San Francisco murder trial. It seems that he's the murderer, and as such is obliged to kill again to cover his tracks. Poor, deluded Virginia doesn't catch on to her former husband's perfidy until it's nearly too late. Never Trust a Gambler is well-stocked with reliable supporting players, including Tom Drake, Jeff Corey, Myrna Dell and especially Rhys Williams. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rod Cameron and Wayne Morris star as Civil War officers who become federal agents. The duo is sent west to investigate a series of stage hijackings. The criminals tend to bypass gold and valuables, and are seemingly interested only in the weapons carried on these coaches. It turns out that the hijackers are secret secessionists, hoping to achieve victory for the Southern cause. Stage to Tucson manages to pack a passel of thrills into its 82 minutes, compensating for the film's paucity of plot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Not a remake of the 1917 Mabel Normand vehicle of the same name, Mickey was based on Clementine, a novel by Peggy Goodin. The tomboyish title character is played by redheaded Lois Butler, whom Eagle-Lion Studios was trying to build into a major name. During her awkward transition to womanhood, Mickey Kelly takes time out to find an eligible wife for her widowed father George (Bill Goodwyn). Of the two likeliest candidates, bitchy Lydia Matthews (Rose Hobart) seems to have the inside track, but Mickey vastly prefers down-to-earth Louise Williams (Irene Hervey). The best performance is delivered by Skippy Homeier as Hank Evans, the boy who awakens Mickey's own amorous yearnings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

How Dooo You Do? offers two refugees from radio's Eddie Cantor Show, Bert Gordon and Harry Von Zell, as an erstwhile comedy team. The film's title is a catchphrase of Gordon's, who gained famed in the 1940s as "The Mad Russian". Seeking refuge from their fans, Gordon and Von Zell head to Desert Springs and register at a resort hotel. No sooner have they arrived than a much-despised radio agent is murdered, casting suspicion on our heroes-not to mention fellow guests Cheryl Walker, Ella Mae Morse, Clare Windsor, and Keye Luke. For reasons that aren't explained until the end of the film, practically all the cast members (including bit players Thomas Jackson, James Burke, and Fred Kelsey) appear under their own names. In fact, the Pirandellian ending is the most entertaining aspect of this patchy comedy-mystery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in New York's Lower East Side during the Gay '90s, this lively low-budget musical follows the exploits of a feisty and talented saloon owner's daughter who loves nothing more than to perform in her father's tavern. Her late-night shenanigans appall her wealthy and socially conscious aunt who launches a secret campaign to shut down the bar and force her niece to reside in her palatial home. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Rainbow Island is a lavish Technicolor confection designed to show off the physical attributes of star Dorothy Lamour. This time Lamour is a white girl raised as native on a tropical isle. Barry Sullivan, Eddie Bracken and Gil Lamb play merchant-marine sailors hiding from Japanese troops on Lamour's island. The storyline may have had dramatic inclinations, but these are forgotten amidst several seductive musical numbers and numerous shots of Dorothy swaying in her patented sarong. Perhaps aware that no one could have taken this film seriously, Ms. Lamour plays her role for laughs, and gets them. Rainbow Island was based on a story by silent screen star Seena Owen, the "Dorothy Lamour" of her time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Star-Spangled Rhythm is a typical wartime all-star musical-comedy melange, this time from Paramount Pictures. The slender plot involves the efforts by humble studio doorman Pop Webster (Victor Moore) to pass himself off as a big-shot Paramount executive for the benefit of his sailor son Jimmy (Eddie Bracken). The overall level of humor can be summed up by the scene in which Webster is advised that the best way to pretend to be a studio big-shot is to say "It stinks!" to everything -- whereupon Cecil B. DeMille shows up to ask Webster's opinion about his current production. Betty Hutton, cast as studio switchboard operator and co-conspirator Polly Judson, is at her most rambunctiously appealing here. The huge lineup of guest performers includes Bing Crosby (and his 8-year-old son Gary!), Bob Hope, Veronica Lake, Dorothy Lamour, Dick Powell, Mary Martin, Alan Ladd, Fred MacMurray, William Bendix, Paulette Goddard, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, most (but not all) of them going through their characteristic paces. Highlights include a surrealistic rendition of That Old Black Magic with Johnnie Johnston and Vera Zorina; a frantic staging of the old George S. Kaufman sketch "If Men Played Cards as Women Do" with MacMurray, Ray Milland, Franchot Tone, and Lynn Overman; and The Sweater, the Sarong and the Peekaboo Bang, first performed by Goddard, Lamour and Lake, then lampooned in drag by Arthur Treacher, Sterling Holloway and Walter Catlett! PS: The actor playing Rochester's chauffeur in the Smart as a Tack number is John Ford "regular" Woody Strode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

So far as W.C. Fields fans are concerned, Ann Hegan Rice's sentimental 1901 novel Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was definitively filmed in 1934. After seven reels' worth of a lachrymose plot about the impoverished Mrs. Wiggs (Pauline Lord) holding her large family together while her husband was off on a "mysterious mission," Fields strolled in as the mail-order husband to neighbor lady ZaSu Pitts, and promptly stole the show. The 1942 remake of Mrs. Wiggs substituted the amusing but hardly immortal Hugh Herbert for W.C. Fields, allowing star Fay Bainter to retain the spotlight. The story is substantially the same as before, including the mortgage on the home, the death of the frailest Wiggs child, and the eleventh-hour appearance of Mr. Wiggs, who solves all financial and emotional problems before lying down to take a nap. The 1942 Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was actually the third film version of the Rice novel; the first had been released in 1919, with Mary Carr in the title role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For his first feature-film appearance in two years, comedian Bert Wheeler (of Wheeler & Woolsey fame) teamed up with bandleader Phil Regan. The story gets under way when a quartet of vaudevillians-Bill Stevens (Regan), Stu Grant (Wheeler) and Norma and Mildred Jennings (Constance Moore, Lillian Cornell) show up in Vegas with nary a cent between them. Norma manages to win big at a gambling joint, whereupon the money is put in Stu's care. Alas, Stu makes a beeline to the gaming tables, where he manages to lose all. The winsome foursome is saved from utter ruin by a real estate operator who happens to be the father of one of the protagonists. Even Bert Wheeler admitted that Las Vegas Nights was a bomb, noting on "a picture like that can come back and haunt you." Still, it holds some historical value as the film that introduced Frank Sinatra, here appearing as the uncredited vocalist for the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Former child star Jackie Cooper headlines this sentimental behind-the-scenes comedy drama. He plays an ex-child star who now jerks sodas for a living in Hollywood. He gets back into the movie business when he overhears a conversation between producers discussing their newest prodigy. Cooper butts in and suggests the producers remake Skippy (a real-life 1931 film that made young Cooper a star). The bigwigs like the idea and then hire Cooper to become the boy's acting coach. Once back on the backlot, Cooper finds both trouble and romance while helping the young boy adjust to life as a movie star. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Carter Family finds itself in serious financial difficulty when its patriarch, druggist Doc Carter (Frank Craven), is all but forced out of business by a neighboring chain store. Doc isn't worried so much for himself and his wife Emma (Fay Bainter) as he is for his five children, played by Scotty Beckett, Bennie Bartlett, Donald Brenon, Mary Thomas and Gloria Carter (who real name is the same as her "reel" name). But there may be a way out: wealthy Bill and Gloria Hastings (Edmund Lowe, Genevieve Tobin), longtime friends of the Carters, have offered to adopt the couple's polio-stricken son Dickie (Beckett) for a substantial fee. Doc and Emma refuse this offer, but their somewhat more practical children offer themselves up for adoption rather than separate little Dickie from his parents. The ultimately happy denoument suggests that Paramount Pictures hoped to develop a "Carter Family" series, though no such project developed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide