Martin Garralaga Movies

A Lady Without Passport stars Hedy Lamarr in the title role. Lamarr plays Marianne Lorress, a concentration-camp refugee who takes up residence in Cuba while waiting permission to enter the U.S. Immigration agent Pete Karczag (John Hodiak) decides to use Marianne as bait to entrap Palinov (George Macready), the brains of an alien-smuggling ring. Pete eventually falls in love with Marianne, but she despises him for using her--at least until fade-out time. Despite the tattoo on her arm, it is difficult to believe that Hedy Lamarr has survived a Nazi concentration camp; she appears instead to have staged a desperate escape from the MGM makeup department. This aside, A Lady without Passport is an acceptable (and commendably short) crime meller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real "message to Garcia" was delivered by an American lieutenant to Cuban rebel General Garcia, asking for the General's help in the Spanish-American war. The fact that the lieutenant made his way to Garcia in absolute safety was ignored in 20th Century-Fox's Message to Garcia--which is just as well, since otherwise the movie would have been eight minutes long. In the film version, lieutenant John Boles is guided through the treacherous Cuban jungle by Barbara Stanwyck, doing her best to convince us that she's an Hispanic senorita. Also along for the trip is renegade marine Wallace Beery, who may not be as friendly as he seems. Fighting off Spaniards and spies at every turn, Boles successfully completes his mission. As history, Message to Garcia is about as reliable as the Hearst newspaper dispatches which triggered the Spanish-American war in the first place. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Its wartime setting notwithstanding, the fast-paced Warner Bros. B-picture Adventures in Iraq is a remake of the 1930 George Arliss vehicle The Green Goddess, with much of the original dialogue intact. Forced to making a landing in the Syrian desert, pilot Doug Everett (Warren Douglas) and his passengers George and Tess Torrence (John Loder, Ruth Ford), find themselves the unwilling guests of Sheik Ahmid Bel Nor (Paul Cavanagh, in the George Arliss role). The civilized but deadly Sheik intends to hold the threesome as hostages to prevent the execution of his three Nazi-spy brothers by the British. After several desperate escape attempts, the trio is prepared for human sacrifice by the ruthless Shiek. The ending is substantially the same as in The Green Goddess. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title of this Errol Flynn vehicle sprang from an "inside" joke at Warner Bros. Whenever the studio depicted a marquee or poster of a fictional film in one of their productions, the film's title was inevitably Another Dawn. When time came to shoot this Flynn epic, the studio, stuck for a title, opted for Another Dawn -- and had to cast about for another phony film title whenever the necessity arose. An unabashed soap opera, the film casts Flynn as Captain Denny Roark, a British army officer stationed in a remote Sahara outpost. Against his better judgement, Roark falls in love with Julia (Kay Francis), the wife of his commanding officer Colonel Wister (Ian Hunter). Wister knows what's going on, but he is too much the gentleman to interfere, just as Roark is too much the gentleman to demand that the Colonel grant Julia a divorce. Wister finally does the honorable thing by volunteering for a suicide mission, allowing Roark and Julia to continue their romance unencumbered. About the only distinguishing aspect in this dreary exercise in restraint is the lush Erich Wolfgang Korngold musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When David O. Selznick produced the film version of the 1000-plus page novel Gone with the Wind, he declared he could not make a film running any less than 222 minutes. When Warner Bros. adapted the even longer Hervey Allen best-seller Anthony Adverse, the studio managed to pack everything--except the most censorable passages, which had made Allen's novel a best-seller in the first place--into 139 minutes. Surprisingly, the film version of Anthony Adverse moves rather smoothly, though it is nowhere near as involving (or as much fun) as Gone with the Wind. Fredric March stars as Anthony Adverse, the illegitimate offspring of Anita Louise, the wife of Spanish nobleman Claude Rains. When Adverse comes of age, he inherits the prosperous business run by his kindly foster father Edmund Gwenn, which he abandons for an aimless trip around the world after his heart is broken by childhood sweetheart Olivia De Havilland. Sinking deeper into the morass of alcohol and degeneracy in the West Indies, Adverse is regenerated when he is reunited with De Havilland, now the mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte. Suddenly enervated, Adverse battles the efforts of Claude Rains and Gwenn's duplicitous former assistant Gale Sondergaard to take over Gwenn's business. Along the way, he learns that Gwenn was actually his grandfather and that De Havilland has born him a son (Scotty Beckett). Instead of dying, as he does in the novel, Anthony Adverse takes his son to America to start life anew. Whew! Though no award winner itself, Anthony Adverse enabled Gale Sondergaard to win the first-ever "best supporting actress" Oscar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gilbert Roland dominates the action in a colorful performance as the bandit hero the Cisco Kid, this time up against a surprisingly vicious plot by a local doctor to steal land from the local peasants and small ranchers by poisoning them to drive them off, and then reselling the property to absentee European landlords. He finds an unexpected ally in Jeanne DuBois (Ramsay Ames), who starts out as part of the plot but is turned around by Roland's charm and charisma after a few fireworks. The direction is uneven, with William Nigh not quite able to make the flatter parts of the script as entertaining or smooth as they ought to be. Evidently, the producers knew they were in trouble with this downbeat script and took steps to rescue the picture. Seeing the sparks fly in the scenes in the first third of the picture, in which Ames is disguised as a man (which evokes echoes -- albeit very distant -- of Shakespeare's As You Like It) and verbally jousts with Roland, more material was written on the spot for the two of them, depicting a competition that becomes much more heated when her gender is revealed. By her own account, Nigh and Ames were friends, and she was a good sport on this shoot whatever they had her doing, and it's a pity they didn't go further with the rivalry between Roland's and Ames' characters, who might've been the Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones of their era. Roland also wrote some of his own dialogue and poetry for this effort, which seems very hackneyed today, but played just fine for audiences in 1946. (Note: In early TV prints of Beauty And The Bandit, all references to the Cisco Kid and O. Henry in the credits were blacked out, and mentions of the Cisco Kid and "Cisco" in the dialogue awkwardly dubbed over as "Chico" -- one suspects this was because the exclusive TV rights to the Cisco Kid had been sold to another producer for the TV series starring Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carrillo). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The presumed son of a Navajo Indian chief goes in search of the men who killed his father in this average serial produced by Columbia Pictures. The young man, Black Arrow, allies himself with pretty Adele Jergens in his search for the killers, a couple of evil carpetbaggers. In the 15th and final chapter, appropriately entitled "Black Arrow Triumphs," the young man not only catches the killers, but also, in the usually Hollywood cop-out, discovers that he is not a Navajo at all but the son of the white Indian agent. Observing a cherished serial tradition of elevating a bit-part player to stardom for economy purposes, producer Rudolph C. Flothow cast the completely unknown Robert Scott as Black Arrow. Scott later changed his name to Mark Roberts and starred as reporter Hildy Johnson in the 1949-1950 syndicated television series The Front Page. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The first entry in a proposed series of six Westerns starring Ken Maynard and produced for Grand National by M.H. Hoffman, Boots of Destiny featured a script written for Hoffman's previous star, Hoot Gibson. Maynard, whose personality was far removed from the lackadaisical Gibson, played Ken Crawford, a cowboy getting himself involved in a range feud between the Mexican Vascos and the Yankee Wilsons. Hired by Alice Wilson (Claudia Dell), Ken and sidekick Acey Ducey (Vince Barnett) discover that the Wilson foreman, Harmon (Edward Cassidy), is the brains behind a series of cattle rustlings. Harmon attempts to get rid of Ken by framing him in a killing, but the cowboy escapes and saves Alice from both the raiding Vascos and Harmon. A rather downbeat Western featuring a tired-looking Claudia Dell, Boots of Destiny came to life only when Maynard and his horse, Tarzan, performed part of their circus act. Maynard broke his foot prior to filming and was forced to wear a special boot enlarged to accommodate his plaster cast. This less than pleasant situation made the often difficult star even more so and after Trailin' Trouble (1937), Hoffman gave up and sold Maynard's contract to the Alexander brothers, Max and Arthur. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Rancher Charles Bickford comes to believe that drifter Alan Ladd is his long-lost son. In truth, Ladd is a crook, in league with Brian Keith to con Bickford out of his fortune. Intending to go through with the scheme, Ladd has second thoughts when Bickford and his "mother" Selena Royle shower him with the familial affection that he has lacked all his life. Making Ladd even more uncomfortable is the presence of his "sister" Mona Freeman, whom he has grown to love in a manner that might be misconstrued were he really related to her. Fed up with his masquerade, Ladd confesses the hoax and sets about to find Bickford's real son-who turns out to be the foster son of bandit Keith! This psychological western plays much better than it reads. For reasons unknown, a clip of Branded showed up in the 1977 Burt Reynolds vehicle Hustle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Considering its cast, it's surprising that Captain Scarface isn't better known. Filmed during the waning days of the 1950s "Red Scare", the story concerns a group of enemy agents (read: Communists), who plan to blow up the Panama Canal. The spies abduct a brilliant atomic scientist and force him to travel by tramp steamer to their South American headquarters. But the villain's haven't reckoned with Barton MacLane, the ship's captain-who may not be the most honest of men, but he's certainly no turncoat. Supporting MacLane are such reliable veterans as Virginia Grey, Peter Coe, Rudolph Anders, Howard Wendell and Leif Erickson. Barely seen upon its initial release, Captain Scarface enjoyed a healthy second life on TV. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the most beloved American films, this captivating wartime adventure of romance and intrigue from director Michael Curtiz defies standard categorization. Simply put, it is the story of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a world-weary ex-freedom fighter who runs a nightclub in Casablanca during the early part of WWII. Despite pressure from the local authorities, notably the crafty Capt. Renault (Claude Rains), Rick's café has become a haven for refugees looking to purchase illicit letters of transit which will allow them to escape to America. One day, to Rick's great surprise, he is approached by the famed rebel Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), Rick's true love who deserted him when the Nazis invaded Paris. She still wants Victor to escape to America, but now that she's renewed her love for Rick, she wants to stay behind in Casablanca. "You must do the thinking for both of us," she says to Rick. He does, and his plan brings the story to its satisfyingly logical, if not entirely happy, conclusion. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Cary Grant's utter credibility in the role of a brilliant, world-famous brain surgeon Dr. Eugene Norland Ferguson is the single element that keeps Crisis afloat. While vacationing in a politically unstable Latin American country, Ferguson and his wife, Helen (Paula Raymond), find themselves the unwilling house guests of dictator Raoul Farrago (José Ferrer). Suffering from a brain tumor, Farrago insists that Ferguson operate at once. The "crisis" of the title arises when revolutionary leader Gonzales (Gilbert Roland) demands that Farrago be killed on the operating table -- and kidnaps Dr. Ferguson's wife to bind the bargain. Unaware of his wife's plight, Ferguson proceeds with the operation, setting into motion a series of events leading to a grimly ironic denouement. Director Richard Brooks adapted the screenplay of Crisis from a story by George Tabori. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide