Louis Stevens Movies

Canadian ranchers and farmers battle it out over land use until the courageous canine Prince successfully mediates and restores the peace in this adventure. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Bouncing back and forth between American and European productions in the 1950s, director Steve Sekely settled in Italy long enough to dash off Cartouche. The swashbuckling title character, played by Richard Basehart, is an 18th-century gentleman accused of murdering a prince. In the tradition of Scaramouche, Cartouche takes refuge with a troupe of wandering actors. Villains Akim Tamiroff and Massimo Serato do their best to knock off Cartouche, but he gets the better of them in reel eight. English leading-lady Patricia Roc displays mucho cleavage as Cartouche's sweetheart. Cartouche was fitfully distributed in the USA by RKO Radio Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Border River stars Joel McCrea as idealistic Confederate major Clete Mattson and Yvonne DeCarlo as saloon owner Carmelita Carlas. With the South facing defeat, Mattson desperately tries to save his army by stealing $2,000,000 in Union gold. He then heads to a raucous border town on the Rio Grande, hoping to make a munitions deal with Mexican general Calleja (Pedro Armendariz). But first, Mattson must contend with Calleja's double-crossing German military advisor Baron Von Holden (Ivan Triesault), not to mention Calleja's tempestuous sweetheart Carmelita, who is likewise not to be trusted. Alfonso Bedoya engagingly goes through one of his "We don't got to show you any stinkin' badges" characterizations as Calleja's aide-de-camp. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The creative team of producer Harry Joe Brown and star Randolph Scott turned out some of the best westerns of the 1950s, and Santa Fe is no exception. Set in the years following the Civil War, the film casts Scott as Britt Canfield, one of four ex-Confederate brothers who head West to carve out a new life. While his three siblings (Jerome Courtland, Peter Thompson and John Archer) cast their lot on the wrong side of the law, Britt accepts a job with the Santa Fe Railroad. Inevitably, Britt is obliged to bring his wayward brothers to justice, though he knows full well that the person responsible for their downfall is "untouchable" gambling boss Cole Sanders (Roy Roberts). In a well-staged climax, Britt squares accounts with the evil Sanders and his hulking henchman Crake (Jock O'Mahoney). Curiously, many TV prints of Santa Fe were processed with the soundtrack slightly out of sync with the action. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Streets of Laredo is a streamlined and Technicolorful remake of Paramount's 1936 box-office champ The Texas Rangers. William Holden, William Bendix and MacDonald Carey star as roguish outlaws Jim Dawkins, Wahoo Jones and Lorn Remming. After rescuing a little girl named Rannie Carter from a wicked tax collector, Dawkins and Jones decide to switch to the right side of the law; Remming, however, has other ideas. Years later, Rennie has grown up quite prettily into Mona Freeman, while Jim and Wahoo have become scrupulous members of the newly-formed Texas Rangers. Jim is in love with Rennie, but she has eyes for the still-crooked Lorn -- at least until Lorn proves to be the louse that the audience knew he was from the first reel. Streets of Laredo meticulously recreates the most famous scene from Texas Rangers, wherein one of the film's more sympathetic characters is abruptly shot to death from under a table; the scene still works, though it packed a bigger wallop in the original. Alfonso Bedoya, the "I don't have to show you any stinking badges" bandit from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, is appropriately menacing as the tax collector. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Brothers end up on opposite sides of the law in this Western set during the Civil War. Posing as a Union officer, Don Mason, aka Don Burke (Milburn Stone), attempts to divert the Union troops from the struggle with the Confederacy by arming the Colorado Indian tribes. Unbeknownst to Don, however, his younger brother Jerry (Roy Rogers) is assigned by President Lincoln to investigate the uprisings in the territory and the youngster arrives just as Don is preparing to marry Lylah Sanford (Pauline Moore). With the aid of grizzled sidekick Gabby (George "Gabby" Hayes), Roy manages to disarm the crooked Indian commissioner (Arthur Loft) but Don slips away with Lylah as his hostage. Roy is wounded in the ensuing shootout and is nursed back to health by Lylah, with whom he has fallen in love. There is the inevitable showdown between the brothers but rather than face the hangman, Don makes a daring escape and is shot and killed by Sheriff Harkins (Fred Burns). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

At one time Universal's "prestige" director, James Whale had slipped off the A-list by the end of the 1930s; even so, his films remained both intriguing and entertaining. In Whale's Sinners in Paradise, an airplane cracks up during a storm and crash-lands on an uncharted South Sea island. All nine passengers survive unscathed, including runaway bride Anne Wesson (Madge Evans), fugitive criminal Robert Malone (Bruce Cabot), blonde strumpet Iris Compton (Marion Martin), crooked senator Corey (Gene Lockhart), "radical" heiress Thelma Chase (Charlotte Wynters), munitions salesmen Jessup (Don Barry) and Brand (Morgan Conway), and cheerful Chinese cook Ping (Willie Fung). Forced to fend for themselves, the marooned passengers are helped along by resident beachcomber Jim Taylor (John Boles), a convicted murderer who has escaped to the island to "find himself". What he finds, of course, is romance in the form of Anne Wesson. A remake of a silent film of the same name, Sinners in Paradise was extensively re-edited before its general release, just as Whale's previous The Road Back had been. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set during the terrible Spanish Civil War, this film avoids political commentary in favor of objectively centering on the plight and personal lives of refugees preparing to board a train that will take them far away from the bloody horrors of war-besieged Loyalist-controlled Madrid. Once safely on the train, the film presents snippets from their lives in the same manner as was done on Grand Hotel (1932). Among the refugees are a political fugitive, his flirtatious ex-girl friend, a hooker, a baroness, a world-weary newspaper reporter and the orphan who follows him. In charge of making sure the train safely reaches its destination is a single guard. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Made with the full cooperation of the real-life Texas Rangers (who never met a publicity gimmick they didn't like), this sprawling historical western stars Fred MacMurray as Jim Hawkins, one of three outlaws working the Lone Star State in the years following the Civil War. Both Hawkins and his partner in crime Wahoo Jones (Jack Oakie) decide to go straight, but their bandit pal Sam McGee (Lloyd Nolan) has not quite seen the light. Eventually, Jim and Wahoo join the fledgling Texas Rangers, an organization dedicated to bringing law, order and honest government to their state, while McGee cuts a swath of terror with his new gang. When the two reformed outlaws are assigned to bring in their old friend Sam, Jim balks but Wahoo accepts. In the film's most talked-about scene, McGee smilingly puts a hole through Wahoo's stomach with a gun he has hidden under a table. Now motivated by revenge (although he couldn't say as much in a post-Production Code film), Jim vows to bring McGee to justice, dead or alive, but preferably the former. Released to coincide with the Texas Centennial, The Texas Rangers was remade in 1949 as Street of Laredo; there was also a 1940 sequel, The Texas Rangers Ride Again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The multitalented James Gleason was both star and co-director of the RKO Radio programmer Hot Tip. Gleason is cast as restaurant owner Jimmy McGill, an inveterate horse player who's a sucker for every race-track tout within a hundred-mile radius. But his wife Jane (ZaSu Pitts) detests gambling, so Jimmy promises to stop playing the ponies. This promise lasts only until our hero needs 200 bucks in a hurry to help out his future son-in-law Ben (played by Gleason's real-life son Russell Gleason). James Gleason and ZaSu Pitts worked so well together that RKO later reteamed them in two "Hildegarde Withers" entries, The Plot Thickens and 40 Naughty Girls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Men of Chance refers to those well-dressed gentlemen who stake their fortunes upon the outcome of horse races. Ricardo Cortez plays Diamond Johnny Silk, a big-time gambler whose rough exterior hides the fact that he's scrupulously honest. Johnny's enemies, led by smooth but disreputable Dorval (John Halliday), dispatch seductress Marthe (Mary Astor) to convince our hero to poison his own horse before the upcoming Big Race. Instead, Astor falls in love with Johnny and marries him, resulting in disaster for Dorval and his stooges. Men of Chance was based on a story by Louis Weitzenkorn, of Five Star Final fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this actioner, a Coast Guard ensign must investigate a yacht suspected of smuggling alcohol. While aboard, he falls for a lovely young woman. The woman disobeys her mother and begins seeing the ensign who soon discovers that the brains behind the operation is the man the woman's mother wanted her to marry. Songs include: "My Man Is On The Make," "A Ship Without A Sail," and "If I Knew You Better." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide