James B. Cardwell Movies

A little girl is found wandering in the desert, in a state of complete shock. When she finally revives, she can scream out only one word: "Them!" Any aficionado of 1950s horror films can readily tell you that "Them" are giant ants, a byproduct of the radiation attending the atomic bomb tests of the era. Extremely well organized, these deadly eight-to-twenty-foot mutations converge on the storm drains of Los Angeles in the finale. Forming a united front against the oncoming ant battalions are New Mexico police sergeant James Whitmore, FBI representative James Arness, and father-and-daughter entomologists Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon. Since the details of Them are fairly common knowledge today, the mystery-thriller structure of the film's first half tends to drag a bit. Things liven up considerably during the search-and-destroy final reels, as the audience is barraged with convincing special effects and miniature work-not to mention that eerie ant-induced sound effect, so often imitated by subsequent lesser films. Fess Parker appears in a starmaking cameo as a pilot driven to the booby hatch after witnessing the ants in action, while an uncredited Leonard Nimoy is seen pulling info out of IBM machine. Definitely the high point in the careers of director Gordon Douglas and scenarists Ted Sherdeman and George Worthing Yates, Them is also one of the handful of vintage science-fiction thrillers that holds up as well today as it did when first released. (Sidebar: Though filmed in black-and-white, Them is alleged to have been released with a Technicolor opening title, the word THEM! hurtling towards the audience in a vibrant red). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the less famous Humphrey Bogart films is this 1949 drama about post-war guilt and remembrance. Bogart plays U.S. airman and war hero Joe Barrett. During the war, he believes, his wife Trina (Florence Marly) died in a Japanese concentration camp. But when Barrett returns to Tokyo and the bar named Tokyo Joe that he used to own, he discovers that Trina is not only alive, but she has married Mark Landis (Alexander Knox), an attorney, and they have a seven-year-old daughter Anya (Lora Lee Michel), whom he suspects is really his child. Baron Kimura (Sessue Hayakawa) forces Barrett into running an airborne smuggling operation by threatening to reveal publicly that Trina made wartime radio propaganda broadcasts. The shipment Barrett must fly includes three Japanese war criminals being brought back into the country, and Kimura insures that Barrett will comply by kidnapping Anya and holding her hostage. But the war criminals hijack the plane and are arrested. Barrett then tracks down Kimura and both die in a shoot-out which saves the life of Anya. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Republic singing cowboy Monte Hale headlines San Antone Ambush. It's the usual melange of fast action, black-hearted villains and blazing guns, expertly assembled by veteran western helmsman Philip Ford. Hale plays an Army officer who investigates the robbery charges levelled against rancher Clint Wheeler (James B. Cardwell). The crimes are actually the handiwork of crooked federal commissioner Roberts (who else but Roy Barcroft). Evidently Hale was trying to shed his musical image, since he doesn't sing at all in the film's 60 minutes. Director Ford's father Francis Ford (brother of John) shows up in a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Government agent Richard Hendricks (Michael O'Shea) goes undercover to get goods on a gang responsible for dispensing illegal paroles. Posing as a prisoner, Hendricks links up with the gang's inside man, Barney Rodescu (Turhan Bey). As often happens in real life, several pillars of society are getting rich by manipulating the lives of others. The plot is not always logical, but audience involvement is sustained every step of the way. Parole Inc was one of the "in-between" pictures -- not quite a "B", not expensive enough for "A" -- produced by young-and-hungry Eagle Lion studios in the late 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marking the screen debut of Rex Allen, the last of the Singing Cowboys, The Arizona Cowboy featured a mildly entertaining though hardly innovative story of a rodeo cowboy who learns that his father (John Elliott) is falsely accused of stealing 50,000 dollars from his employer, the Dusty Acres Irrigation Company. Rex goes undercover as Arizona Jones -- with the assistance of I.Q. Barton (comedy relief Gordon Jones) and the irrepressible "Cactus" Kate (Minerva Urecal) -- and soon unmasks the villain who first framed then kidnapped his dad. In-between rescuing his father and romancing leading lady Teala Loring, Allen found time to sing "Arizona Waltz" and "I Was Born in Arizona," both of which he had written himself. A star performer on the famous National Barn Dance radio program from 1945 to 1949, Arizona-born Rex Allen was Republic Pictures' final musical Western star. Allen, in fact, arrived at a time when B-Westerns in general and Singing Cowboys in particular were becoming a losing proposition due to the competition from television. As Allen himself remembered to writer Samuel M. Sherman: "I came in late. They forgot to tell me the whole thing was over when I started." Despite this handicap, Allen managed to stay afloat until 1954. He later starred in the TV series Frontier Doctor and narrated for Walt Disney. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

An honest football player single-handedly takes on a professional gambler and the crooked publisher of a sports magazine to bust up their game-fixing scheme. Unfortunately, his efforts get him killed. This crime drama chronicles the efforts of a different player and an earnest D.A. to bring the killers to justice. Matters are not helped by the fact that the attorney is publisher's stepson. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The history of a family feud is chronicled in this drama that begins with two men who hate each other. After the fathers die, their sons inherit the fight. It all began when one of the fathers becomes captain of a whaling ship. He abducts the other and forces him to work aboard the ship where he physically abuses him for many years until the battered man can escape. Their mutual hatred does not abate over time. They teach their sons to carry on the feud which culminates in one murdering the other. Much of the story was filmed on location in Alaska. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A dude ranch, unemployed cowhands, modern-day bank robbers, and music are the main ingredients in this, Gene Autry's swan song for Republic Pictures, lovingly restored by UCLA and Gene Autry Entertainment in 2001. Swindled out of their savings, Gene and the Cass County Boys mistakenly get mixed up in a bank robbery. The local police chief (James Flavin) let them go, however, hoping the hicks will lead him to the stolen 100,000 dollars. And so they do, right to a dude ranch in the none-too-quiet town of Serenity. With Sterling Holloway supplying the comic relief as a vacationing hypochondriac, Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys perform Autry's own "The Merry-Go-Roundup" and "Good Old-Fashioned Hoedown"; "Goin' Back to Texas" by Carson J. Robison; and "You're the Moment of a Lifetime" by Sergio de Karlo and Kay Charles (in both Spanish and English). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

It Happened On Fifth Avenue was easily the most ambitious movie made by the then-newly-organized Allied Artists for at least a decade after its release -- actually, as a "Roy Del Ruth Production," it was made through rather than by Allied Artists, which may explain why it stands so far apart from the Bowery Boys movies and other productions normally associated with Allied during this period. And amazingly, it works, mostly thanks to a genial cast and a reasonably light touch by director/producer Roy Del Ruth, and in spite of a script that needed at least one more editorial pass. Victor Moore is the star and dominant personality -- if there is one in what is, basically, an ensemble cast -- as Aloyisius T. McKeever, a genial hobo whose annual routine for finding winter quarters is to wait for multi-millionaire Michael O'Connor (Charlie Ruggles) to lock up his Fifth Avenue mansion and head to Virginia, and move in during the man's absence. He chances to meet Jim Bullock, a homeless WWII veteran (displaced, ironically, by one of O'Connor's development projects), and gives him shelter in the mansion. They become a trio when O'Connor's free-spirited daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) shows up, fleeing her finishing school, and the two men -- thinking she's an impoverished runaway from an abusive father -- take her in. She goes along with the masquerade and gradually falls in love with Jim, who also chances to meet two former army buddies (Alan Hale, Jr., Edward Ryan) who -- you guessed it -- are also desperately trying to find homes, in their cases for their wives and growing families. Now there are nine people living in the shelter of O'Connor's Fifth Avenue mansion, and in between setting up housekeeping, Jim and his two buddies manage to come up with an idea about how to build homes for veterans and their families. Trudy, her identity still a secret to the other, gets her father to meet the "squatters" incognito, in hope that he'll take to Jim, but a series of misunderstandings and his own impatience and lack-of-faith leads him to reject everything decent he sees about Trudy's friends. In desperation, to keep them from being evicted and arrested, she calls in reinforcements in the person of her mother (Ann Harding), long estranged from her father. O'Connor is still not convinced of Jim's worth, and definitely doesn't see him as a potential husband for Trudy -- and, in a comic mix-up, he ends up going head-to-head with Jim for the property where he plans to build those houses for veterans, causing them to lock horns once more. Matters do eventually fall into place, as they usually do in Christmas movies of this sort, which more closely resembles The Bells of St. Mary's or One More Spring -- to name another movie about displaced New Yorkers -- than It's A Wonderful Life (with which it is usually compared). It Happened On Fifth Avenue is usually defined as a Christmas movie, in part because of its plot time-line, but more than that, it's a movie that, like George Seaton's Miracle On 34th Street -- made the same year -- sings of the generosity of the human spirit, and the feeling of renewal that was in the air in the immediate post-World War II era, a funny, gentle, warm look at people making their way in a time when, for the first time since the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War, cautious optimism seemed an appropriate approach to life. And not for nothing was this reportedly lead actor Don Defore's personal favorite of all of his movies. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Dana Andrews -- in one of the best performances of his career -- plays Logan Stuart, a bold, ambitious general store and freight company owner based in the mining settlement of Jacksonville, OR, in 1856. He and his best friend, local banker and express company owner George Camrose (Brian Donlevy), share an attraction for young, beautiful Lucy Overmire (Susan Hayward). However, that's all the two men share -- Stuart sees life in the Oregon territory as a challenge, to be worked out and overcome with thought and time, with the opportunity to build something lasting and significant in the process. Camrose only sees the opportunity to get rich fast and live easy, and he's addicted to gambling at the local saloon. What no one knows is that he's been doing his gambling with the gold dust that the miners have left on deposit in his vault -- and he's been losing. He wants to get out of the territory, to someplace like San Francisco, and plans to take Lucy away. Stuart, by contrast, is as much a frontiersman as a businessman, and so much a part of the community and so trusted and liked that he might even be a potential political leader, if he ever had the time and the willingness to settle down and stay put. He finds consolation over his loss of Lucy in an engagement to Caroline Marsh (Patricia Roc), a daughter of an Englishman who came to Oregon only to see her father killed by Indians, who lives with the homesteading family of Ben Dance (Andy Devine) and his wife (Dorothy Peterson) and their children. Out of friendship, and also a little guilt over the fact that he would love to be engaged to Lucy, Stuart gives Camrose the money to get even, but Camrose can't resist one last card game, and not only loses what Stuart gave him, but the gold dust of one miner -- who shows up unexpectedly in town that night, planning on getting his dust the next day. When the man turns up drowned, Camrose is accused of murder; Stuart stands by his friend, but he's found guilty and the miners, led by hot-headed young Johnny Steele (Lloyd Bridges), plan on hanging him, and shooting anyone who tries to get in the way. But before his fate can be settled, an Indian war starts over the killing of a young Native American woman, and the lives of every white settler in and around Jacksonville are suddenly endangered. There's all of that, plus four songs (including "Old Buttermilk Sky") from Hoagy Carmichael (who does a great acting job), all convincingly woven into the drama along with one of the music legend's best acting performances. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Peter Cookson, Monogram's answer to Jimmy Stewart, stars in Fear, also known as Black Tower Cookson plays a medical student who becomes involved in a murder. Anne Gwynne is the girl who doesn't completely trust Cookson, but helps him out anyway. Also appearing as one of those oh-too-helpful types is Warren William, who died in 1948, suggested that perhaps Black Tower was lensed a few years before its official 1950 release date. Some sources list Black Tower as a PRC production; this is possible, though PRC was defunct by 1950. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Just as Edgar C. Ulmer would at PRC around the same time, young Phil Karlson turned Monogram's almost nonexistent production values to his advantage in two Charlie Chan whodunits: The Shanghai Cobra (1945) and Dark Alibi (1946). Karlson added touches of film noir to the usual hoary Chan melodramatics and the result was arguably the best of the Monogram "Chans." In The Shanghai Cobra, Charlie (Sidney Toler) is investigating several murders connected with the manufacture of wartime radium. The employees of a bank connected with the radium experiments have an unfortunate tendency to get themselves killed by the injection of cobra venom. Charlie remembers a similar case back in Shanghai in 1935, but the suspect in those murders escaped. Since his face was damaged in an explosion, the only tell-tale sign to identify him is by a streak of white in an otherwise jet-black mane -- unless of course the murderer has heard of hair dye. As always, Charlie's faithful if bumbling companions, Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) and Tommy, the Number Three Son (Benson Fong), are along for the ride, offering their now patented sidekick humor. Toler, whose fondness for imbibing on the job was legendary, could basically sleepwalk through his role by 1945 and does so here. As for director Karlson's noir-ish touches, they quickly give way to business as usual, but the opening scenes of The Shanghai Cobra remain quite evocative. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this musical, a youthful trombonist is thrilled when he is allowed to play with Benny Goodman's Orchestra. Afterward he becomes insufferably egotistical and tries to start his own swing band. It's his girl friend's idea, and unfortunately he fails. He then returns to his old mill job. Fortunately, he is given another chance to play with Benny and the boys. Musical numbers include: "I'm Making Believe," (Mack Gordon, James V. Monaco), as well as "Chug-Chug-Choo-Choo-Chug," "Hey Bub, Let's Have a Ball," "Ten Days with a Baby" (Gordon, Monaco), "I Found a New Baby" (Jack Palmer, Spencer Williams), "Jersey Bounce" (Robert B. Wright, Bobby Plater, Tiny Bradshaw, Edward Johnson), "Let's Dance" (Fanny Baldridge, Gregory Stone, Joseph Bonine), "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise" (Gene Lockhart, Ernest Seitz), "Mozart's Clarinet Quintet" (performed by Goodman and strings), "No Love, No Nothing" (Leo Robin, Harry Warren), "Rachel's Dream" (Benny Goodman), and "I Yi Yi Yi Yi, I Like You Very Much" (Gordon, Warren) ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide