Ruth Allen Movies
- 1947
Having struck gold with the previous season's Dillinger, the King Brothers returned to Monogram as producers of The Gangster. Adapted by Daniel Fuchs from his own novel Low Company, the film stars Barry Sullivan as flint-faced racketeer Shubunka. Shown to be a product of the slums, Shubunka spends his adulthood in pursuit of power and riches, with no time for friendship or romance. Wounded in a gangland shootout, Shubunka ruminates on his past, present and (unlikely) future, wondering if it's all been worth it. Promoted as a "psychological" drama, The Gangster has plenty of gunplay and bloodshed to satiate action fans, and a surfeit of sex appeal in the form of gangster's moll Nancy (played by Monogram's resident skating star Belita). Prominent in the supporting cast is the ineluctable Sheldon Leonard as Shubunka's chief rival, delivering a subtler variation on his patented tough-guy screen persona. The Gangster was directed by Oscar-winning art director Gordon Wiles, later a mainstay of such TV series as Land of the Lost and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barry Sullivan, Belita, (more)
- 1946
This musical is a remake of a 1933 film. Like the first, it is set on campus and chronicles the romantic travails of the school rowing champion who has recently come back from a military stint abroad. A young coed is mighty pleased to see him, but he keeps avoiding her. A subplot concerns a group of crooks who are trying to fix a boat race. Songs include: "Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" (F. Dudleigh Vernon, Byron D. Stokes), "Penthouse Serenade" (Will Jason, Val Burton, sung by Phil Regan), "It's Not I'm Such a Wolf, It's Just You're Such a Lamb" (Merle Maddern, Lanier Darwin, sung by Phil Brito), "And Then It's Heaven" (Edward Seiler, Sol Marcus, Al Kaufman, sung by Brito), "Cement Mixer" (Slim Gaillard, Lee Ricks, sung by Gaillard), "Yeproc-Heresi" (Gaillard, sung by Gaillard), "Bach Meets Carle" (a Bach pastiche by Frankie Carle), and "Five Minutes More" (Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn, sung by Brito). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Allen, Robert Arthur, (more)
- 1917
Douglas Fairbanks recalls James M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton in the 1917 silent Down to Earth. Billy Gaynor (Fairbanks) takes over an asylum where his girl, Ethel (Eileen Percy), is resting after a supposed nervous breakdown. "Doctor" Gaynor realizes that Ethel is perfectly healthy; all that's wrong with her is that she has become soft and spoiled thanks to modern living and too-rigid adherence to passing fads and foibles. He arranges for Ethel and the rest of the hypochondriac patients to take an ocean voyage, then stages a shipwreck, forcing these pampered creatures to fend for themselves on a "desert island" (actually a wooded glade just off a main California highway). Sunshine and hard work does more good for the patients than all the psychiatrists and so-called experts in the world. Having proven his point, Billy claims his girl and bids the other patients a jaunty farewell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Jeff Hillington (Douglas Fairbanks) is the extremely naive son of a wealthy Eastern family -- he loves the Old West so much that he virtually lives it in his room. The knocker on his door is a pistol and he has a dummy horse which he leaps on now and again (actually Fairbanks was a little old for such shenanigans even in 1917, but this is easily overlooked). When his father (Walter Bytell) sends him to Arizona on business, Jeff expects it to be the place he read about in dime-store novels, and to appease him, the townsfolk put on a Wild West show. But instead of presenting a mock hold up, Steve (Sam deGrasse) and Pedro (Charles Stevens) make it real -- and they also kidnap a girl, Nell (Eileen Percy). No one knows what to do except Jeff, who uses every western cliché in the book (quite hilariously) to capture the bandits and save the girl. This tasty Fairbanks confection was one of many that was the product of screenwriter Anita Loos and director John Emerson. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
