Kent Smith Movies

Sexual misconduct in white-collar suburbia is the topic of this routine melodrama involving two neighboring couples. Architect Larry Coe (Kirk Douglas), unhappy with his wife Eve's (Barbara Rush) fixation on their bank balance, starts taking an interest in Maggie Gault (Kim Novak), whose husband has been losing interest in her. The two steal several illicit moments together, but this activity has not gone unnoticed. Good ol' neighbor Felix (Walter Matthau) figures that Eve might be feeling a little neglected, so he decides to move into the picture. Richard Quine's direction is an asset to an otherwise clichéd tale. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A nurse (Jane Greer) suspects that something is amiss when her patient, a woman on the verge of recovery, suddenly dies. Nonetheless, the nurse marries the woman's widower, Gilbert Hughes (Jane Greer). Later on, she relates her suspicions to lawyer Paul Brett (Robert Webber), who informs her that no matter what she thinks about her husband, she cannot testify against him in court. Ultimately Hughes commits suicide and the nurse ends up marrying Brett -- then makes a startling confession. This episode was originally telecast under the title "A True Account." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Vicki Gaye (Cyd Charisse) is a dancer at a night club in early 1930's Chicago. A healthy cynic who still possesses some ideals, she entertains no illusions about the "invitation" (or the $100 that goes with it) that she gets to a party hosted by mob kingpin Rico Angelo (Lee J. Cobb) -- but she still won't let Angelo's head torpedo Louis Canetto (John Ireland) get near her. Angelo's attorney Thomas Farrell (Robert Taylor) is another story -- he's a more complicated than the men he defends, and still enough of an idealist so that when he and Vicki cross swords about who is the worse hypocrite, it actually affects him. Farrell, whose right leg has been crippled from birth and getting worse, took the easy way to success by pursuing a criminal practice, including getting Canetto off a murder rap -- but after meeting Vicki he starts to see another path to take, and also embarks on a year of surgical procedures to cure the worst of the pain in his leg. And he comes out a new man, with a new plan in life, including starting over in a practice that doesn't involve criminal law. But Angelo plans on having Farrell fight an old friend, prosecutor Jeffrey Stewart (Kent Smith), who is trying to indict Angelo's associate Cooky La Motte (Corey Allen). Farrell resists, until Angelo threatens to harm Vicki -- and when the case and the trail blow up in both sides' faces, he finds himself caught between the mob and the law, with Vicki urging him to do the right thing. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Peter Van Hook (Alan Ladd), alias The Dutchman, is nearing the end of a stretch in Yuma Territorial Prison for a gold robbery that he didn't commit. Released early with the unwitting -- and unwilling -- help of fellow inmate John McBain (Ernest Borgnine), he sets about getting even with the men and the mining company whose original owner got him into trouble, in a plan of double- and triple-crosses for which he needs the reluctant help of McBain. The latter wants nothing more than to go back to the life of a rancher -- and then he discovers something equally important in life, when he steps in to help a victimized Mexican woman (Katy Jurado). Suddenly, McBain is very interested in the Dutchman's scheme, and with the help of explosives expert Vincente (Nehemiah Persoff), they pull off what looks like an absolutely perfect robbery of a gold mine -- even the evidence that a crime was committed ends up being covered up. But Cyirl Lounsberry (Kent Smith), the financier who's supposed to fence the gold, has other ideas, and a crooked lawman (Adam Williams) to back him up. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Sayonara takes its own sweet time to unfold; in so doing, it permits us to make intimate acquaintance with its characters, so as to better understand their multitextured motivations. The film is set in Japan during the Korean War. While on leave, pugnacious American soldier Red Buttons falls in love with Japanese maiden Miyoshi Umeki. Given the army's official policy against interracial marriage, Buttons is courting a court-martial. His best friend, major Marlon Brando, tries to talk Buttons out of "ruining" his life. Brando himself is about to marry Patricia Owens, the daughter of general Kent Smith. Fighting back his own prejudices, Brando agrees to be Buttons' best man at the latter's wedding to Umeki. Later, Brando himself falls for Miiko Taka, a beautiful Kabuki dancer. This sparks an all-out onslaught of racial bigotry from the Army brass, and an official edict sending American soldiers back to the states without their Japanese wives. Buttons cannot bear being parted with Umeki; as a result, the two commit suicide. The tragedy compels the army to soften its attitudes towards miscegenation. Brando is reunited with Taka, who in a parallel situation has had to ward off the inbred prejudices of her people. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, Sayonara won five, including "Best Supporting Actor" (Red Buttons, whose moribund career was revitalized herein) and "Best Supporting Actress" (Miyoshi Umeki). And yes, that is Ricardo Montalban in Japanese makeup as a Kabuki actor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously presented on Broadway with Tallulah Bankhead and filmed in 1939 with Bette Davis, the classic stage tearjerker Dark Victory was whittled down to an hour's running time for this live presentation on the CBS anthology Front Row Center. Margaret Field (the mother of Oscar winner Sally Field), stars as madcap socialite Judith Traherne, whose footloose lifestyle comes to a sudden and tragic halt when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness. At first outraged with the doctor (Kent Smith) who withheld the bad news because he'd fallen in love with her, Judith slowly undergoes a profound change of personality, metamorphosing from a selfish debutante to a warm and generous woman. The climax, in which Judith faces her oncoming blindness and death with courage and dignity, played as well for the lesser-known Margaret Field as it had for her more famous predecessors. This version of Dark Victory was staged by the prolific Fletcher Markle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A woman's desire to rise above her drab lower middle-class life take her down the road to destruction in this gripping crime melodrama. The story opens as she cowers insider her old home, fearing the inevitable arrival of the murderous gangsters pursuing her. Her tragic tale unfolds via flashback. It all began when she became frustrated by her humble life in a squalid factory town. She was married to a laborer and lived with her parents. Soon after her child accidentally dies, the distraught woman abandons her old life to take a job where she meets an exceptional, but dull as dishwater accountant. He is a bit spineless and so allows the woman to convince him to get involved with a powerful gangster. Though she had promised to marry the accountant, she reneges and becomes the illicit moll of the married gangster. Wanting her to be a bit more elegant so he can pass her off as a Texas heiress to his west-coast rival, the gangster hires an impoverished socialite to teach her social graces. Soon she appears as an elegant, cultured woman. Still, despite her sophisticated exterior, she is conniving and ruthless inside and tries to double-cross both her new lover and his rival. Eventually the two crime lords meet in a bloody confrontation that leaves one mobster dead. Her lover is about to shoot her but the accountant (who still loves her) intervenes and she escapes back to her home town. She waits there through the night and the next morning goes outside and finds her gangster lover waiting to get his revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The hero of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), a fiercely independent architect obviously patterned after Frank Lloyd Wright. Rather than compromise his ideals, Roark takes menial work as a quarryman to finance his projects. He falls in love with heiress Dominique (Patricia Neal), but ends the relationship when he has the opportunity to construct buildings according to his own wishes. Dominique marries a newspaper tycoon (Raymond Massey) who at first conducts a vitriolic campaign against the "radical" Roark, but eventually becomes his strongest supporter. Upon being given a public-housing contract on the proviso that his plans not be changed in any way, Roark is aghast to learn that his designs will be radically altered. Roark sneaks into the unfinished structure at night, makes certain no one else is around, and dynamites the project into oblivion. At his trial, Roark acts as his own defense, delivering an eloquent paean to individuality. He is acquitted, while the newspaper tycoon, upset that he could offer Roark no help during the trial, kills himself. This clears the way for a final clinch between Roark and Dominique on the skeleton of his latest building project. Ayn Rand's celebration of Objectivism didn't translate very well to film, with Gary Cooper coming off more selfish and petulant than anything else. The Fountainhead's saving graces are the solid direction by King Vidor, the rhapsodic musical score by Max Steiner, and the symbolism inherent in Cooper's manipulation of his power drill when he first lays eyes on Patricia Neal! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With Robert Riskin as screenwriter, director William Wellman proved in Magic Town that it was possible to make a Frank Capra-esque picture without Capra himself at the helm. James Stewart plays Rip Smith, a cynical pollster who comes across a small American town named Grandview, which represents a "perfect" balance of ethnic types, professions, political beliefs, and personal opinions (a parody of the then-current "Middletown" study). Smith publicizes this discovery, leading to a barrage of media attention and an onslaught of get-rich-quick entrepreneurs. Not surprisingly, all of this has an adverse effect on the heretofore "average" citizens of Grandview; it also seriously threatens Smith's blossoming romance with local girl Mary Peterman (Jane Wyman), who feels that her friends and neighbors are being used, exploited, and in some cases, corrupted. The satirical thrust of the film bogs down into sentimentality toward the end, but it's fun while it lasts. One of the colorful supporting characters is played by screwball-comedy favorite Donald Meek, who died during production, necessitating a number of hasty and not altogether successful rewrites. Though it pleases audiences today, Magic Town was a financial disappointment in 1947, prompting James Stewart to seek out "tougher" and more challenging roles to restore his box-office appeal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this slick melodrama, a sort of film-noir for women, a nightclub singer has an affair with an unhappily married San Francisco doctor. Though the physician desperately wants to leave his wife, he lacks the courage to ask for a divorce. In retaliation, the singer accepts an offer to move East and start up a new club in New York. Lost without the singer, the doctor is without option until his partner suddenly dies. With a burst of inspiration, he fakes his own death and flees to New York. Later, he is horrified to learn that his death has been officially declared a homicide, and so he goes into hiding in the singer's apartment. To cope with his fear and the increasing success of his lover, the physician begins drinking heavily. This only makes him paranoid and more depressed and he begins to suspect his lover is having an affair. Upon confronting the "lover," a fight ensues, the doctor wins, and thinking he killed his rival, he takes off -- only to end up in a horrible traffic accident that leaves his face unrecognizable. Though plastic surgery gives him a new identity, it is at that time that he is arrested and sent back to California to stand trial for his own murder. Rather than burden his family with the shock that he is still alive, the doctor insists that his lover keep mum, and he stoically goes to trial where he is sentenced to Death Row. Beautifully photographed by James Wong Howe in typically expressionistic style, the film focuses on the desperation and entrapment of the characters and expresses a true bleak, fatalistic film-noir sensibility which makes this film unique in the genre. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Officially a sequel to Val Lewton's psychological-horror classic Cat People (1942), Curse of the Cat People is in fact an engrossing and oftimes charming fantasy, told from a child's point of view. Six-year-old Ann Carter plays Amy Reed, the lonely daughter of eternally preoccupied Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). Amy's vivid imagination and inability to get along with her schoolmates leads Oliver to worry that the girl will start exhibiting the psychopathic tendencies of his long-deceased first wife Irena (Simone Simon), the obsessive "Cat Woman" in the earlier film. Oliver's second wife Alice (Jane Randolph) and Amy's sympathetic schoolteacher (Eve March) try to help, but Amy prefers the company of elderly Julia Farren (Julia Dean), a harmlessly crazy ex-actress who lives in a forbidding mansion with her neurotic daughter Barbara (Elizabeth Russell). Insanely jealous of Amy, Barbara ultimately tries to do the girl harm, but she is thwarted in this effort by the ghost of Irena, Amy's self-appointed guardian angel. Advertised as a horror picture, Curse of the Cat People has only one genuine "shock" scene; otherwise, the most frightening moment in the film is Julia Farren's spirited rendition of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." Saddled with a lurid title, producer Lewton and screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen chose to offer a fascinating glimpse into the wonderfully boundless realm of a child's imagination, and in this respect the film is an unqualified success. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another of a wartime cycle of Hollywood films lauding the praises of America's Soviet allies, Three Russian Girls is a remake of Russia's The Girl From Stalingrad. Set just after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the film stars Anna Sten as Natasha, a Red Cross volunteer who is dispatched to a field hospital located in an old pre-revolution mansion. American test pilot John Hill (Kent Smith), who'd been in Russia on a goodwill mission, is wounded in battle and brought to the hospital. As he slowly recovers from his wounds, Hill falls in love with Natasha. A last-act crisis develops when the hospital personnel are forced to move immediately to Leningrad as the Nazis advance. Most of the "counter attack" scenes that follow were obviously lifted from the original Girl from Stalingrad. For the record, the other two "Russian girls" are played by Mimi Forsaythe and Cathy Frye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old manor house in London, built in 1804 by a British admiral (C. Aubrey Smith) and blitzed in 1940 by one Adolf Hitler. Through the portals of this house pass a vast array of Britons, from high-born to low. The earliest scenes involve gay blade Lt. William Trimble (Ray Milland), wronged country-girl Susan (Anna Neagle), and wicked landowner Ambrose Pomfret (Claude Rains). We move on to a comic interlude involving dotty Mr. Simpson (Reginald Owen), eternally drunken butler Bellamy (Charles Laughton), and cockney plumbers Mr. Dabb (Cedric Hardwicke) and Wilkins (Buster Keaton). Maidservant Jenny (Ida Lupino) takes over the plot during the Boer War era, while the World War I sequence finds the house converted into a way-station for soldiers (including Robert Cummings) and anxious families (including Roland Young and Gladys Cooper). Finally we arrive in 1940, with American Gates Pomfret (Kent Smith) and lady-of-the-house Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick) surveying the bombed-out manor, and exulting over the fact that the portrait of the home's founder, Adm. Eustace Trimble (Smith), has remained intact -- symbolic proof of England's durability in its darkest hours. The huge cast includes Dame May Whitty, Edward Everett Horton, Wendy Barrie, Merle Oberon, Nigel Bruce, Richard Haydn, Donald Crisp, and a host of others -- some appearing in sizeable roles, others (like Arthur Treacher and Patric Knowles) willingly accepting one-scene bits, simply to participate in the undertaking. Seven directors and 21 writers were also swept up in the project. Forever and a Day was supposed to have been withdrawn from circulation after the war and its prints destroyed so that no one could profit from what was supposed to have been an act of industry charity. Happily for future generations, prints have survived and are now safely preserved. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide