John T. Neville Movies

Puritan Pictures seldom turned out a film that looked most expensive than it really was. The studio's Million to One appears to have been made on a budget of eight dollars and a box lunch, but that doesn't lessen its entertainment value one bit. Herman Brix (later known as Bruce Bennett) stars as Johnny Kent, a hot-shot Olympic athlete who lets success go to his head. After a dizzying cycle of wine, women and song, Johnny is no good to anyone, least of all himself. He wises up in time to qualify for a decathlon competition with his arch-rival Hale (Reed Howes). Oldtimers Monte Blue and Kenneth Harlan play key supporting roles, while the ingenue is a pretty but antiseptic newcomer named Joan Burfield. By the time Million to One made it to New York (nearly three years after it was made), Ms. Burfield was billing herself as Joan Fontaine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having fallen from grace at Paramount, musical comedy star Nancy Carroll retreated to Columbia Pictures, known in 1935 as "the Port of Missing Stars." Though Carroll does no singing in Columbia's Atlantic Adventure, she is still a charming and delightful screen presence. The actress is cast as Helen, the oft-neglected fiancee of hotshot reporter Dan Miller (Lloyd Nolan). When he tries to keep his appointments with Helen, Dan is fired by his newspaper. Hoping to get back in the good graces of his boss, Dan boards an ocean liner in pursuit of the man responsible for the murder of the District Attorney. It must needs be that Helen is also on board this ship, as is a gang of jewel thieves, leading to more than a few perilous situations for the hero and heroine. Silent film comedian Harry Langdon, who like Nancy Carroll was considered a fading star in 1935, is hilarious as Dan's photographer pal Snapper. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Battle of Greed was one of the best of the Tom Keene western series produced by bargain-basement Crescent Productions. Keene takes a job in a Virginia mining town in the mid-19th century. Here he makes the acquaintance of none other than Mark Twain (James Bush), currently employed as a newspaper editor. Keene joins forces with Twain in battling the town's corrupt element. While it may not be nice to say this, James Bush frankly gives a more convincing performance than nominal star Keene, who has this bad habit of laughing uproariously at the slightest provocation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another good entry in Warner Bros' Dick Foran western series, Blazing Sixes casts Foran as Red, an undercover federal agent. Sent Westward to break up a gang of stage robbers, Red poses as a bandit himself, whereupon he robs the robbers! Impressed by his nerve, outlaw chief Jim Hess (John Merton) invites Red to join the gang, which fits right into our hero's plan to bore from within. Fortunately for the film, he doesn't bore from without. Like most of the Foran vehicles, Blazing Sixes was directed by Noel Smith, a graduate of the Warners editing staff. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A jockey is thrown off the track after it is discovered that gangsters drugged his horse. This drama follows his attempts to redeem himself. First he and his buddy get jobs working on a horse-breeding farm. There he finds himself attracted to the farmer's pretty daughter. The farmer is unhappy with this, but is even more unhappy when he learns that the rider has secretly been training a promising young horse and has entered him in the Big Race without permission. Just before the start of the race, the gangsters try to drug the horse again, but this time the jockey is ready for them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Twixt and tween his Dick Tracy movies, Ralph Byrd plays a Foreign Legionnaire in Drums of the Desert. Byrd and his pal Peter George Lynn alternately fight off the Riffs and fight each other over the affections of lovely Lorna Gray. Gee...we always thought that people joined the Foreign Legion to forget women. Monogram's resident black comedian Mantan Moreland is on hand for his usual impeccably timed (albeit politically incorrect) comedy routines. Drums of the Desert was directed by veteran actionmeister George Waggner, long before he began billing himself as "George WaGGner." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, an innocent wife has no idea that her husband makes his living by hijacking trucks. When she finds out that she has been implicated in the crimes, she takes off with a chauffeur. Later she falls for a handsome artist and by the end of the story, after some tragedy occurs, she ends up clearing her name. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Lloyd Hughes, a silent star on the downslide, heads the cast of the 1932 programmer Heart Punch. Hughes plays a boxer who accidently kills his opponent (George J. Lewis) with a punch to the heart. Hoping to make amends, Hughes approaches the dead man's sister (Marion Schilling), offering to help in any way he can. Understandably, she tells him to get lost, but by film's end she forgives him with open arms. Among the veteran performers assembled for Heart Punch is former serial star Walter Miller and the "ever popular" Mae Busch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fed up with her doctor husband's ceaseless charity work, Mary Harris (June Clyde) leaves her Midwest "tank town" in favor of Big City excitement in this low-budget drama from Hollywood's sole woman producer at the time, Fanchon Royer. Boarding with her sophisticated friend, Milly (Noel Francis), Mary begins an affair with Sidney Fletcher (Ralf Harolde), the owner of the dress shop where both girls model. Meanwhile, back in Mary's hometown, Ted Harris (George J. Lewis) saves the life of a pillar of society, and, as a reward, is made head of the local hospital. Mary, who believes Fletcher will marry her, demands a divorce from Ted. Fletcher reneges on his promises and instead offers Mary a check for 10,000 dollars, the "usual amount," as he calls it. A struggle ensues, during which the bounder is shot. Realizing that Mary will be charged with first-degree murder if Fletcher dies, Ted volunteers to operate on his former rival, whose life is saved in the nick of time. Reunited with the husband who always loved her, Mary happily returns to her old vocation as his nurse. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this newspaper drama, a cub reporter is puzzled when he is consistently scooped out of big crime stories by a rival. His nose for news tells him something is amiss, so he and his gal begin investigating. When he witnesses a bank-robbery that was reported before it happened, he figures out that the rival publisher and his ace reporter are part of a major crime ring. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dorothy Burgess, the fiery Tonia of the Academy award-winning In Old Arizona (1929), plays a woman who will do anything to locate her missing child in Malay Nights, a rather sordid low-budget melodrama from Mayfair Pictures Corp. After reluctantly marrying handsome pearl fisherman Jim Wilson (Johnny Mack Brown) in order to legitimize her young son, Sonny (George Smith), Eve Blake loses sight of both when Jim returns to his Malayan island. Earning passage to Singapore by working in a nightclub, Eve obtains a job in a seedy bar frequented by sailors. Locating her there, Jim believes her to be an unfit mother and refuses to let her see Sonny. When Eve's erstwhile lover, Sheldon (Ralph Ince), suddenly shows up and threatens the island, Eve's unselfish acts of bravery save the day, forcing Jim to realize that she has been victimized by Sheldon all along. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

W.C. Fields heads to Esoteric studios to pitch a story idea to producer Franklin Pangborn. The producer wants to make a conventional romantic musical starring Fields' niece, teen-aged soprano Gloria Jean, but "The Great Man" has other ideas. As Pangborn sits in dumbfounded silence, Fields unravels an incoherent farrago which begins with him travelling to a Russian colony in Mexico--by way of an airliner with an open observation platform. Fields dives from the plane when his precious flask of gin falls overboard; he lands safely at the mountaintop mansion of the formidable Mrs. Hemoglobin (Margaret Dumont). Playing a kissing game with Hemoglobin's beauteous daughter (Susan Miller), who has never seen a man before, Fields decides to make a quick exit when Mama wants to get in on the game too. Reunited with Gloria Jean in the Russian colony, Fields learns that Mrs. Hemoglobin is worth millions, so he climbs back up the mountain, ignoring such obstacles as a displaced African gorilla. Disposing of his rival Leon Errol, Fields is about to wed Mrs. Hemoglobin, but is talked out of it at the last moment by Gloria Jean. At this point in the narrative, producer Pangborn can stand no more. He tells Fields to take his nonsensical screenplay and vacate the premises. After a brief episode at a soda fountain ("This scene was supposed to be in a saloon, but the censors made us cut it out"), Fields drives off to new adventures with his niece--but not before a zany slapstick car-chase finale, prompted by Fields' mistaken belief that he's rushing a corpulent middle-aged lady to the maternity hospital. W. C. Fields' original screenplay for Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (written under the fanciful pseudonym of Otis Criblecoblis) made a lot more sense than what ended up on screen, but Fields' extended absences from the studio, coupled with Universal's desire to reshape the film into a vehicle for their new star Gloria Jean, necessitated a complete restructuring of the plot. While hardly Fields' best or most representative film, Sucker is an excellent example of the sort of nonsensical "nut" humor in vogue in 1941 thanks to Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin'. And, occasionally, the film stands still long enough to allow W. C. Fields to mutter a priceless aside or toss off a perfectly timed double-take. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The fight for the Louisiana Territory provides the basis for this adventure. The struggle begins when the Spaniards controlling the land try to keep American boatmen from entering the Mississippi. A young American fellow is dispatched to represent the US and to parlay with the Spanish. Eventually, he and his girl friend attempt to return to Washington, DC to speak with the president, but the Spanish do all they can to stop them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide