John Calvert Movies

A peaceful Nebraska town on a sweltering summer day becomes the setting for an unprecedented disaster when it is struck by a deadly series of strong tornados. The story is told from the viewpoint of a 12-year-old boy who is forced to overcome his own terror to save the lives of friends and family in the horrifying aftermath. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

It is sometimes customary for the star of a film to write and/or direct the picture under a pseudonym. John Calvert reversed the tradition in Dark Venture. He billed himself as John Calvert on the production credits, but was listed as John Trevlac (spell it backwards) in the cast list. Trevlac/Calvert plays an explorer in search of the elephant's graveyard (a mythical locale seemingly so sacred that, to paraphrase satirist Jules Feiffer, one can envision the elephants taking Final Instructions from the church). Upon reaching his goal, Trevlac must contend with half-mad claim jumper John Enidarrac...er, John Carradine. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Search for Danger was the last entry in the "Falcon" film series, which began at RKO in 1941 and was sequestered at low-budget Film Classics by the end of the 1940s. Professional magician John Calvert stars as the debonair amateur sleuth known to friend and foe alike as The Falcon. This time our hero must contend with not one, but two baffling murders. It all begins when the Falcon goes on the prowl for the missing partner of gamblers Kirk (Albert Dekker) and Gregory (Ben Welden), who has skipped town with $100,000. The leading-lady responsibilities are handled by Myrna Dell, decked out in several enticing low-cut gowns. The mystery angle is well-handled, with a reasonably surprising solution. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dropped by RKO Radio in 1946, the "Falcon" mystery series was briefly revived by low-budget Film Classics productions in 1948. In Devil's Cargo, professional magician-turned-actor John Calvert takes over from Tom Conway in the role of amateur sleuth Michael Waring, aka The Falcon. The story gets under way when Raymond Delgado (Paul Marion), accused of murder, comes to Waring for help. Soon afterward, Delgado is poisoned to death in his jail cell. Among the suspects are Delgado's girlfriend Margo (Rochelle Hudson) and shady criminal lawyer Tom Mallon (Theodore von Eltz), while Lt. Hardy (Roscoe Karns) represents the Law. A pedestrian affair, The Devil's Cargo comes to life whenever John Calvert is given a chance to show off his magician's skills. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this drama, a hard-boiled juvenile court judge orders that a popular road house be raided because she knows it is a popular hangout for young punks. She is appalled when the cops bring her own daughter in with the rest of the rabble. The judge's daughter and her creepy boy friend manage to escape. Fortunately, the other youths are only too happy to snitch upon them. The whole situation forces the judge to consider the wisdom of putting her career before her home life. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this comedy, two young women make their money scamming dance hall patrons. The two conniving gals attempt to victimize two handsome GIs, but change their minds when they fall in love with them. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The general perception of the Technicolor costume adventure movies that Maria Montez and Jon Hall made for Universal in the early 1940's is that they were pure escapist entertainment, intended to make people forget for an hour or so about the Second World War and the general world situation. And generally that is true about them -- they were mostly no "about" much more than having fun for 90 minutes or so amid pretty sets with lots of action and some pretty women in exotic outfits. But watching Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, one has to wonder if even here the screenwriter, Edmund L. Hartmann, was able to totally get away from the day-to-day reality around him. The opening Mongol invasion of Bagdad and the murder of the old Caliph (Moroni Olsen) while trying to set up a government-in-exile without thinking of the German and Japanese conquests and occupations of various nations that would have been going on at the time; additionally, the fact that the old Caliph is murdered with the help of a traitor in his own noble ranks -- a "quisling" in the term coined during World War II -- wouldn't have been missed by audiences at the time. Further, the screenplay very specifically paints the forty thieves as heroes who have gone from being criminals to an active resistance force against the occupying Mongols -- indeed, at the denouement, their invasion of the palace is greeted as a day of liberation by the people of Bagdad. The movie walks a strange tightrope, casting about veiled topical references of that sort, even as is otherwise sufficiently tongue-in-cheek to cast Andy Devine as a desert bandit. Obviously, Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves was sold as -- and mostly intended as -- light entertainment, but just below that glitzy Technicolor surface were some fascinating allusions to the real world. None of this stops Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves from being immense fun -- it is, even if the "fun" isn't totally escapist in nature -- and it's great to look at as well, even 60 years on; Universal has apparently kept preservation-quality source materials on this and Hall and Montez's other Technicolor costume romps. And this particular entry in that group of movies also contains one very instructive clue to the morays and censorship of the time in one scene, in which the hero meets the heroine bathing at an oasis -- the makers seem to have been forced to insert a particular shot that is there for no other reason then to make it clear that she is not totally naked when he sees her. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi