Joseph Calleia Movies

U.S. Marshal Gid McCool (George Montgomery) leads a wagon train of convicted felons to Huntsville prison in this routine western. The only female among the crooks is the dancehall girl Laura Mannon (Yvonne De Carlo), McCool's former flame. When McCool cannot be swayed from completing his lawful duty, Laura tries to endear herself to shotgun rider Mike Reno (Tab Hunter) in hopes he will set her free. The party is shadowed by some outlaws led by Aaron (John Russell), the brother of one of the condemned murderers, in hopes he can free his doomed sibling. Mike's efforts land him in chains, but McCool releases him to fight when the outlaws attack. The hero McCool comes through with only a slight scratch while his adversaries are all beaten to a bloody pulp. Silent movie star Francis X. Bushman was to have appeared in this film, but died in August 1966. His part was taken over by Donald "Red" Barry. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

John Wayne's directorial debut The Alamo is set in 1836: Wayne plays Col. Davy Crockett, who, together with Colonels Jim Bowie (Richard Widmark) and William Travis (Laurence Harvey) and 184 hardy Americans and Texicans, defends the Alamo mission against the troops of Mexican general Santa Ana. There's a lot of macho byplay before the actual attack, including the famous "letter" scene in which Wayne craftily rouses the patriotic ire of his subordinates. Also appearing are Richard Boone as Sam Houston, and Chill Wills (whose somewhat tasteless Oscar campaign has since become legendary in the annals of shameless self-promotion) as Beekeeper. Wayne's production crew was compelled to reconstruct the Alamo in Bracketville, Texas, about a hundred miles from the actual site. Dimitri Tiomkin's score, including The Green Leaves of Summer, received generous airplay on the Top-40 radio outlets of America. Rumors persist that Wayne's old pal John Ford directed most of The Alamo; cut to 161 minutes for its general release, the film was restored to its original, 192-minute length in 1992. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed for the first season of Have Gun--Will Travel, this episode ultimately served as the opener for Season Two (though some sources list its original air date as September 27, 1958). Hired to capture fugitive Jimmy Dawes (David Whorf) and bring him to trial in Kansas City, Paladin (Richard Boone) is forced to kill the boy in self-defense. Riding into Jimmy's home town of Promise, Paladin finds that everyone thinks he is a murderer, including Sheriff Truett (Joseph Calleia)--and that no one would mind too much if the gunslinger was himself killed by Jimmy's vengeful brothers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This baroque nightmare of a south-of-the-border mystery is considered to be one of the great movies of Orson Welles, who both directed and starred in it. On honeymoon with his new bride, Susan (Janet Leigh), Mexican-born policeman Mike Vargas (Charlton Heston) agrees to investigate a bomb explosion. In so doing, he incurs the wrath of local police chief Hank Quinlan (Welles), a corrupt, bullying behemoth with a perfect arrest record. Vargas suspects that Quinlan has planted evidence to win his past convictions, and he isn't about to let the suspect in the current case be railroaded. Quinlan, whose obsession with his own brand of justice is motivated by the long-ago murder of his wife, is equally determined to get Vargas out of his hair, and he makes a deal with local crime boss Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) to frame Susan on a drug rap, leading to one of the movie's many truly harrowing sequences. Touch of Evil dissects the nature of good and evil in a hallucinatory, nightmarish ambience, helped by the shadow-laden cinematography of Russell Metty and by the cast, which, along with Tamiroff and Welles includes Charlton Heston as a Mexican; Marlene Dietrich, in a brunette wig, as a brittle madam who delivers the movie's unforgettable closing words; Mercedes McCambridge as a junkie; and Dennis Weaver as a tremulous motel clerk. Touch of Evil has been released with four different running times -- 95 minutes for the 1958 original, which was taken away from Welles and brutally cut by the studio; 108 minutes and 114 minutes in later versions; and 111 minutes in the 1998 restoration. Based on a 58-page memo written by Welles after he was barred from the editing room during the film's original post-production, this restoration, among numerous other changes, removed the opening titles and Henry Mancini's music from the opening crane shot, which in either version ranks as one of the most remarkably extended long takes in movie history. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Loosely based on a novel by James M. Cain, this romantic drama centers on the struggles of a humble vineyard worker (real-life opera star Mario Lanza) who rises to become a renowned opera star. In the original book, Damon, the protagonist, has a homosexual relationship with the patron who boosts his career, but in the film, the patron is a wealthy and manipulative young woman named Kendall (Joan Fontaine). As charming as she is selfish, poor Damon cannot help but fall in love with Kendall. Unfortunately, she is a fickle creature and soon grows bored with him, thereby breaking his heart and causing him to choke during his audition for the Met. Afterward, he flees to Mexico. There he comes down with a mysterious, debilitating movie disease. Fortunately, Juana, a beautiful ex-bullfighter's daughter is there to help him recover. Damon falls in love with her, but just as it looks like happiness will finally be his, conniving Kendall reappears. In addition to singing numerous selections from popular operas, Lanza also sings a pair of Sammy Cahn/Nicholas Brodszky pop tunes: "Serenade" and "My Destiny." ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Filmed on location, Treasure of Pancho Villa stars Rory Calhoun as a mercenary at large during Mexico's civil war. Though he'll sell his services to the highest bidder, Calhoun is eventually won over to Pancho Villa's cause by patriot Gilbert Roland and former aristocrat Shelley Winters. Before this happens, however, our hero (who doesn't behave like one) wheels and deals to get his hands on a cache of gold. Without giving away the ending, it can be noted that the film borrows liberally from Treasure of Sierra Madre. While the dialogue passages in Treasure of Pancho Villa can be tiresome, the film is saved by its literally explosive action highlights. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Filmed in Mexico, The Littlest Outlaw was produced for Walt Disney Studios by Larry Lansburgh, who'd previous turned out several of the best Disney live-action short subjects. The hero is ten-year-old Pablito (Andres Velasquez), the stepson of a mean-spirited horse trainer. Unable to abide the cruelties inflicted by his stepfather on a prize jumping horse, Pablito "liberates" the animal and runs away from home. Along the way, the boy and horse make the acquaintance of a kindly priest (Joseph Calleia). Worried that the padre will turn him over to the authorities, Pablito runs off again, and this time is separated from the horse. A band of gypsies capture the animal and sell him to a bullfight arena, where the horse is used to lure the bulls out of the pen. Pablito and the priest manage to rescue the horse and return it to its rightful owner, a powerful Mexican general (Pedro Armendariz). Fortunately, the general is a good-hearted soul, and it is he who paves the way for the film's happy ending. Moderately successful at the box-office, The Littlest Outlaw soon became a mainstay of Disney's many TV anthology series. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

During the Vatican Holy Year of 1950, confidence trickster Joe Brewster (Paul Douglas) disguises himself as a priest and heads to the Holy City. It is Brewster's intention to use his faux clerical garb to evade arrest by the American authorities. But through the influence of American priest Father John (Van Johnson), Brewster experiences an epiphany and changes his ways. Reverent to a fault, When in Rome could have been insufferably saccharine, but the no-nonsense performances of Paul Douglas and Van Johnson carry the day. Enhancing the film is producer-director Clarence Brown's decision -- thankfully approved by the MGM front office -- to lens much of the story on location in Rome and Vatican City. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The innate dignity of leading-man Jeff Chandler lends credibility to the swashbuckling proceedings of Yankee Buccaneer. Set during the early 19th century, the film casts Chandler as David Porter, commander of a U.S. frigate sent to the Caribbean to quell the activities of pirates and privateers. Disguising his vessel as a pirate ship, Porter is able to drift into dangerous waters with little or no resistance. The trick, of course, is to complete his mission and return to safety. Complicating matters is Scott Brady as Porter's reckless, irresponsible second-in-command -- Lieutenant David Farragut. Joseph Calleila co-stars as Count Del Prado, the Spanish governor of the West Indies who is secretly orchestrating the pirate activities. The requisite damsel-in-distress is played by Suzan Ball, a promising Universal contractee who died only three years later at the age of 24. Yankee Buccaneer was hastily filmed on sets originally constructed for Against All Flags (1952) while the star of the latter film, Errol Flynn, was recuperating from an injury. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of the most notorious flops in the history of Columbia Pictures, Valentino is actually fairly entertaining -- but only when regarded as a work of fiction. In dramatizing the life of silent-screen Latin lover Rudolph Valentino, screenwriter George Bruce ignored virtually all of the facts, even those in the public domain; in addition, with the exception of Valentino, all the real-life characters' names have been changed to avoid lawsuits. What's left is an amusing fairy tale about a young Neapolitan dancer named Rudolph Valentino (Anthony Dexter), who joins a U.S.-bound dance troupe headed by his lover Marie Torres (Dona Drake). Onboard ship, Valentino makes the acquaintance of famous movie star Joan Carlisle (Eleanor Parker), sparking a brief transatlantic romance. Once in America, Valentino supports himself as a dishwasher and gigolo before Carlisle introduces him to big-time director William King (Richard Carlson), who arranges for the young immigrant to attain a few extra roles in Hollywood. Valentino becomes an overnight star after being selected to play the lead in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As his fame rises, Valentino reignites his affair with Carlisle, but will not commit himself to marriage. She marries King on the rebound, but the romance starts all over again when Valentino and Carlisle are cast together in The Sheik. At the height of his stardom, Valentino dies of peritonitis. The film ends with the mysterious "Lady in Black" making her annual pilgrimage to Valentino's tomb. It serves no purpose to list the film's many inaccuracies and anachronisms, though it's worth mentioning that his last film was not The Sheik but Son of the Sheik. As a filmed biography, Valentino is worthless. As a movie pure and simple, it's not all that bad. Even the much-maligned Anthony Dexter, an unknown who was cast purely on the basis of physical resemblance, is passable in the title role, though he comes nowhere near the original Valentino's magnetism and charisma. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rancher Charles Bickford comes to believe that drifter Alan Ladd is his long-lost son. In truth, Ladd is a crook, in league with Brian Keith to con Bickford out of his fortune. Intending to go through with the scheme, Ladd has second thoughts when Bickford and his "mother" Selena Royle shower him with the familial affection that he has lacked all his life. Making Ladd even more uncomfortable is the presence of his "sister" Mona Freeman, whom he has grown to love in a manner that might be misconstrued were he really related to her. Fed up with his masquerade, Ladd confesses the hoax and sets about to find Bickford's real son-who turns out to be the foster son of bandit Keith! This psychological western plays much better than it reads. For reasons unknown, a clip of Branded showed up in the 1977 Burt Reynolds vehicle Hustle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

With The Palomino, Columbia Pictures inaugurated its policy of giving "class" to its medium-budget pictures by filming in Technicolor. Columbia stock player Jerome Courtland stars as Steve Norris, scion of a meat-packing family. Steve decides to go into another line of work when he meets Maria Guevara (Beverly Tyler), owner of an on-the-skids horse-breeding farm. Helping Maria put her operation back on its feet, Steve runs afoul of crooked horse-breeder Ben Lane (Roy Roberts), who has stolen the girl's prize palomino stallion for stud purposes. Palomino wisely contains elements that appeal to youngsters and grownups alike: and beside, one couldn't go wrong with a horse picture back in 1950. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

For their first independently-produced vehicle, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello chose to appear in a remake of the 1939 Universal programmer For Love or Money. Bud and Lou are cast as Ted and Tommy, two bumbling window washers hired by gangster Mike Craig (Joseph Calleila) to collect a $50,000 gambling debt. The boys manage to pick up the money, only to deliver it to the wrong person, a pretty private secretary named Carol (Cathy Downs). Ordered to retrieve the money within 24 hours "or else," Ted and Tommy trace the cash to Carol, who has mistakenly distributed it amongst the entries in a mailing list. As our heroes desperately concoct methods of escaping Craig's wrath, eccentric gambler Julius Caesar McBride (Leon Errol), the man who "never loses," comes to the rescue. Despite its seeming complexity, the plot exists merely as a peg on which to hang several of Abbott and Costello's best routines, including "Bet you 10 dollars you're not here," "Hole in the Wall," "Packing and unpacking," "Getting Arrested," and, best of all, "Mudder and Fodder." Beyond the seven credited actors, the huge unbilled supporting cast includes such reliable laugh-getters as Benny Rubin, Murray Leonard, Elvia Allman, Herb Vigran, Fred Kelsey, James Flavin, Lyle Latell, Isabel Randolph and Paul Maxey. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi