Gloria Saunders Movies

Taking a midnight stroll on a London bridge, starving artist Ralph Terrance (Herbert Patterson) makes the acquaintance of a beautiful but strange young girl named Lilith (Gloria Saunders). Despite the girl's curiously fatalistic view of life, Ralph agrees to meet her again on several successive nights, just as Big Ben strikes 12. Slowly and inexorably, Ben is drawn into a life of crime by the predatory Lilith--who seems determined to live up to the reputation of her Biblical namesake, the legendary "storm demon" who destroyed everything she touched. Though included in the One Step Beyond syndication package, this episode was actually filmed for the earlier TV anthology Stars Over Hollywood, and was first telecast November 8, 1950. (The June 13, 1961 rebroadcast date is in doubt: According to TV Guide, One Step Beyond was pre-empted that particular evening for an ABC news special). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When Gloria Grahame signed her contract at Columbia Pictures, she had no idea the studio would require her to appear in anything available. Rather than go on suspension, she consented to star in the "Arabian nights" fiasco Prisoners of the Casbah, but her discomfort with the assignment is obvious in every scene. Grahame plays a Moroccan Princess, while Turhan Bey is the lowborn thief who loves her. The plot decrees that Grahame must marry Turhan to escape death at the hands of her enemies, and the script has a lot of fun with the custom of a groom being able to wed or cast away his bride simply by saying "I Marry You" or "I Divorce You" three times. Cesar Romero, playing the villain, is the only actor who looks like he's enjoying himself. Prisoners of the Casbah was another tarnished gem from anything-for-a-buck producer Sam Katzman. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Terry And The Pirates was a short-lived television series based on the long-running comic strip created by Milton Caniff. The daily strip, starting in the 1930s, initially depicted a boy's adventures in the Orient in search of a lost gold mine, and advanced as time went on to show the young hero, Terry Lee, growing up and joining the US Army Air Force during the Second World War. The TV series picks up more or less where the comic strip was in 1946-47, in post-World War II China -- though filmed in 1953, the show was clearly set in the period between the end of the war and the takeover of the country by Mao's forces in 1949. John Baer played ex-USAAF Colonel Terry Lee, a veteran with years behind him in China, now flying cargo and passenger runs for Air Cathay, a shoestring airline operation run by the somewhat larcenous Chopstick Joe (Jack Reitzen). Terry's sidekick is his co-pilot, Charles W. Charles (aka Hotshot Charlie) (William Tracy), also ex-USAAF. The two pilots have a knack for finding trouble, whether it concerns the machinations of the nefarious Dragon Lady (Gloria Saunders) or such equally duplicitous recurring characters as Burma (andra Spence), a blonde singer-turned-adventuress with a larcenous streak.

The series did have its interesting wrinkles. Baer's portrayal of Terry Lee retained something of the wide-eyed, bushy-tailed nature of the original comic strip character, whereas Tracy's Hotshot Charlie was more of a knowing cynic, and also much more likely to get into trouble because of some foolhardiness or other, usually in pursuit of a woman. And while Chopstick Joe -- portrayed by Jack Reitzen for all but one episode (in which, according to the credits, Jack Kruschen took over the part) -- was depicted as not far from dishonest and even larcenous, the makers were careful to put him on the side of the angels at the end of the day. He might try to grab his share of a dirty business deal, but drew the line at kidnapping, doping (an amazing lapse in the censors' vigilence where drugs were concerned), and otherwise harming people in any lasting way. Similarly, the Dragon Lady, though cunning and often untrustworthy, was depicted as having some boundaries -- in one key episode, she takes offense at Terry Lee's accusation that she is involved in a blackmail and smuggling racket involving badly needed medical supplies, saying that she has no problem with running lotteries and other criminal enterprises, but would not sell people phony or diluted serum. And beautiful blond Burma, a somewhat fallen woman, was shown as trying with limited success to stay on the side of good, especially when the bad guys turn to crimes such as kidnapping and murder.

The Terry And The Pirates comic strip originated in 1934, and was ultimately one of the longest running adventure strips of the mid-twentieth century. There was a radio show, on which William Tracy (this series' Hotshot Charlie) played Terry Lee, and there had also been a movie serial in 1940 (also starring Tracy) produced by Columbia Pictures. [Though Tracy, who continued to play quasi-juvenile roles in his twenties -- a la William Benedict, Huntz Hall et al -- was right for the part of the younger, pre-World War II Terry in the serial, and had no problems voicing the character on radio, his stocky build wasn't right for what the producers were looking for in a television hero when the series went into production].

The TV series was a production of Dougfair, a company owned by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and produced by Don W. Sharpe, who went on to produce feature films, but Terry And The Pirates never fared as well on television as the comic strip had in newspapers. Partly, this seems to have been a matter of unfulfilled expectations -- the show's title sequence, depicting Terry and Hotshot flying into danger in a DC-3, set to a fierce and rousing musical accompaniment, promised a lot of action; and the show did deliver on some of that with stories depicting robbery, kidnappings, murder, natural disasters, and all manner of other crises. But the emaciated production, characterized by the most threadbare of sets and the one-take nature of the action, without the high-quality stuntwork to back it up, ultimately disappointed audiences. This is especially true when the series is seen in the twenty-first century -- Terry And the Pirates was one of the earlier action/adventure shows to be shot on film, going into production perhaps a year after such programs as the Adventures of Superman -- one of the true pioneers of high-quality filmed television -- and using some of the same stock music, especially in the title sequences; but where the Superman series had mostly impeccable, bracing, exhilerating stunt work (and the services of top action directors Thomas Carr and Lee Sholem), Terry And The Pirates had lesser hands at the helm, and, seemingly, a tighter and hastier shooting schedule to judge from the number of obvious first-takes and badly rehearsed moments that made it through to the public. Counter-balancing those flaws, since the 1970s, is the inherent nostalgia factor of the series -- for some people, the combination of two heroes in a post-war Chinese setting, a DC-3 in flight, and lots of greedy characters with guns, offers plenty of appeal, especially in black-and-white. The accompanying difficulty there is that, because of the series' being neglected for decades, most (if not all) of its 18 episodes are out-of-copyright and available in inexpensive public domain DVD editions; but none of these are of very high quality, as they're made from circulating 16mm prints of poor quality (the Douglas Fairbanks Jr. estate may well hold proper negatives). Another, though more minor problem, may have been the uneven tone of the series -- it offered plots involving violence and intrigue, yet was clearly aimed at younger viewers, which is a difficult line to tread (as the producers of the Superman series found out quickly, eliminating most of the violence and ominous elements from the production); and even in the relatively innocent days of 1953, any adults watching were likely put off, in an odd way, by the manner in which Baer, Tracy, and Reitzen finished each episode by stepping out of character, facing the camera, and inviting the viewer to tune in the following week to Terry And The Pirates. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Historically important as the first CinemaScope feature film, 20th Century-Fox's The Robe is fine dramatic entertainment in its own right. Based on the best-selling novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, the film stars Richard Burton as the wastrelly Roman tribune who is assigned by a weary Pontius Pilate (Richard Boone, who spends the whole of his single scene washing his hands) to supervise the crucifixion of Christ. After the Seven Last Words, the jaded Burton wins Christ's robe in a dice game. Gradually, the mystical influence of the holy garment transforms Burton from a roistering cynic into a True Believer--at the cost of his own life, which he willingly gives up in the service of his Lord. Also starring in The Robe are Jean Simmons as Burton's pious childhood sweetheart, Victor Mature as his Christian-convert slave Demetrius (an excellent performance--in fact, Mature is more believable than Burton!), Michael Rennie as the disciple Peter, and Jay Robinson as the raving Emperor Caligula. Mature, Rennie and Robinson would appear in the 1954 sequel to The Robe, the hurriedly assembled Demetrius and the Gladiators. Watch and listen for the unbilled contributions of Michael Ansara as Judas and Cameron Mitchell as the voice of Jesus. The film won three Academy Awards, and a special Oscar bestowed upon Fox for the development of CinemaScope. For many years, the TV prints of the Robe were struck from the "flat," standard-ratio version shot simultaneously with the widescreen version. Only recently has the CinemaScope The Robe been made available to cable TV (shown in "letterbox" format to allow home viewers the full picture). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Assembled by the same production team responsible for the science fiction mini-classic The Man From Planet X, Captive Women is a mixed-bag post-apocalyptic melodrama. After a windy opening lecture about the dangers of atomic power, the story moves ahead to the year 3000. New York City is now a radioactive, bombed-out shell, populated by three groups: the "Norms," the "Mutes," and the "Uprivers." The Norms are cavedwellers, the Uprivers a barbarous people who demonstrate lawlessness and territorial aggression and live in a tunnel beneath the Hudson River, and the Mutes hideously disfigured yet peaceloving surface dwellers. The groups engage in many violent skirmishes, until the Uprivers are wiped out by a massive flood. Now, the only hope for mankind's future is the romance between Mute-man Riddon (Ron Randell) and Norm-woman Ruth (Margaret Field, the mother of actress Sally Field). Production values are better than one might expect, though the film suffers from rather shoddy special effects. Captive Women was released in England as 3000 AD. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Red Snow utilizes several reels of documentary footage around which to construct a fictional Cold War plotline. Guy Madison stars as a US pilot, sent to the Bering Straits to investigate suspicious activities. Madison teams with Eskimo soldier Ray Mala to discover that the rascally Russians--only 35 miles away from Alaska--are up to no good. It's up to the Good Guys to stop the Reds from developing a top-secret weapon. Much of Red Snow is taken up by pedestrian footage of real Eskimos going about their usual daily activities, while the narrative contrives to impose a hidden meaning on the most innocent of gestures and reactions. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Dick Powell stars in this suspenseful melodrama, directed by Robert Parrish. Rocky Mulloy (Powell) has recently returned from prison, after being pardoned from a life sentence when new evidence clears him from a robbery conviction. Delong (Richard Erdman), a crippled Marine veteran who concocted the new evidence that got Mulloy released, thinks that Mulloy will be so grateful that he will cooperate with him and share some of the $100,000 Mulloy supposedly has hidden somewhere from the robbery. But Mulloy has other ideas -- instead he wants the use his pardon as a chance to bring the real guilty parties involved in the crime to justice and to help out a needy friend who is still in the penitentiary. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

In this musical, a messenger boy does a remarkable imitation of Bing Crosby and finds himself surrounded by luscious little bobby-soxers. One woman is so impressed by his Crosbiesque crooning that she takes him New York and convinces investors to bank on him. Unfortunately, she accidentally sells the shares for 125 percent of the profits. Fortunately, by the end, the situation is rectified. Songs include: "June Comes Around Every Year," "Out Of This World" (Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen), "I'd Rather Be Me" (Eddie Cherkose, Felix Bernard, Sam Coslow), "All I Do Is Beat That Golden Drum" (Coslow, sung by Cass Daley), "It Takes A Little Bit More" (Coslow), "A Sailor With An Eight-Hour Pass" (Ben Raleigh, Bernie Wayne, sung by Daley) and "The Ghost Of Mr. Chopin" (Coslow). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi