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• Director
• Stephen Roberts
• Writers
• Howard J. Green(screenplay)
• Anthony Veiller(screenplay)
• Edward Kaufman(screenplay)
• Stars
• William Powell
• Ginger Rogers
• Paul Kelly

This barely-disguised but effective riff on The Thin Man (1934) stars that film's lead, William Powell, opposite Ginger Rogers instead of Myrna Loy. Clay Dalzell (Powell) is a suave attorney fonder of solving crimes than trying cases. His elegant girlfriend, Donna (Rogers) hopes that Clay will settle down and marry her. A friend, Tim Winthrop (Leslie Fenton), approaches Clay with a mystery that the amateur sleuth can't resist. Tim's girlfriend Alice disappeared a year ago. During the performance of a Broadway play, Tim spots Alice onstage, but she disappears again. Clay takes the case and sets up a meeting with a gossip columnist who seems to have the answers, but the reporter is murdered and Clay is suspected of the crime. As Clay puts together the pieces, he comes up with several suspects, including the play's producer, a couple seeking to prove a friend's innocence in a capital crime, and the gangster Jim Kinland (Paul Kelly).

• Director
• Ray McCarey
• Writers
• Roswell Rogers(story)
• Edward James(story)
• Leonard Praskins(screenplay)
• Stars
• Chester Lauck
• Norris Goff
• Alan Mowbray

So This is Washington is one of the better entries in the "Lum 'N' Abner" film series. Chester Lauck and Norris Goff recreate their popular radio characters of Lum and Abner, folksy general-store proprietors in the village of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. This time, the boys become convinced that they've developed a synthetic-rubber formula, so they head to the nation's capital to offer their invention to the government. Thanks to the wartime housing shortage, Lum & Abner are obliged to set up residence at a park bench. Before long they've transformed into a pair of backwoods Bernard Baruchs, dispensing sage wisdom to pedestrians and pundits alike. Very much a product of its times, So This is Washington seems more quaint than funny when seen today.

• Director
• Noel M. Smith
• Writers
• Raymond L. Schrock(original screen play)
• W.H. Moran(based upon material compiled by: ex-chief of U.S. Secret Service)
• Stars
• Ronald Reagan
• John Litel
• Ila Rhodes

In this, the premiere entry in the "Brass" Bancroft series (starring the man who would-be President, Ronald Reagan), Brass is seen as an ex-Army pilot who works as a commercial airline pilot. One day he quits his well-paying, safe job to become an agent for the Secret Service. His first assignment is to look into a gang of smugglers who are suspected of sneaking illegal aliens into the US via airplanes. This gang is really bad, and whenever they fear that they will be caught, they simply open their hatches and drop the hapless aliens like so many bombs. Bancroft is enraged at their inhumanity, and in the end, he and the ring leader battle it out in a plane spinning out of control.

• Director
• Ernest B. Schoedsack
• Writers
• Tom Kilpatrick(original screen play)
• Malcolm Stuart Boylan(uncredited)
• Stars
• Albert Dekker
• Thomas Coley
• Janice Logan

The first Technicolor horror film since Mystery of the Wax Museum, Dr. Cyclops was directed by Ernest Schoedsack, of King Kong fame. Albert Dekker chews the scenery as mad scientist Dr. Thorkel, who has developed a process that will shrink human beings to doll size. His first victims include mining engineers Bill Stockton (Thomas Coley) and Steve Baker (Victor Kilian) and biologists Mary Mitchell (Janice Logan) and Dr. Bullfinch (Charles Halton). At first willing to play-act the role of benevolent despot with his miniaturized captives, Thorkel reveals the more sinister side of his personality by abruptly murdering Bullfinch in cold blood (easily the film's most frightening sequence). The rest of the picture details the escape efforts of the three pint-sized protagonists as they hack their way through a jungle of gigantic foliage and do battle with oversized wildlife. Though the cheery Technicolor hues tend to dilute the "scare" quotient in Dr. Cyclops, the special effects are superbly convincing throughout.

• Director
• Wallace Fox
• Writers
• Dorothy Yost(screen play)
• Thomas Lennon(screen play)
• Cortland Fitzsimmons(screen play)
• Stars
• Ann Dvorak
• Smith Ballew
• Harry Carey

Professional horsewoman Ann Dvorak is the Racing Lady in this hit-and-miss romantic comedy. The story begins breaking into a trot when millionaire auto tycoon Steven Wendel (Smith Ballew) (later a movie "singing cowboy") purchases a thoroughbred horse and engages the services of Ruth Martin (Dvorak) as a trainer. She begins to fall in love with Steven, but renounces him upon discovering that his "affection" for horses is motivated by his desire for publicity. Harry Carey, no stranger to horseflesh himself, co-stars as Dvorak's crusty father. The Ann Dvorak-Smith Ballew combination in Racing Lady proved unsatisfactory, with Dvorak handily out-acting her stiff-necked co-star throughout the picture.

• Director
• Robert Florey
• Writers
• Ben Hecht(by)
• Tom Reed(screen play)
• Brown Holmes(additional dialogue)
• Stars
• Donald Woods
• Margaret Lindsay
• C. Aubrey Smith

A descendant of the notorious Borgias begins to believe that he has inherited their murderous tendencies in this thriller. The trouble begins after he visits his ancestral castle in Italy. After he finds success as a playwright, he begins to suspect that he, too, is a killer. The delusional writer writes a play and casts a seductive actress as the lead. He begins to suspect that she is the incarnation of Lucrezia Borgia. Later, a murder happens; the prime suspects are the playwright, the actress, and the playwright's psychiatrist.

• Director
• William Beaudine
• Writers
• Edmund L. Hartmann(story)
• Michael Jacoby(screenplay)
• Wilhelm Thiele(story)
• Stars
• John Carradine
• Claudia Drake
• Robert Shayne

Director William "One Take" Beaudine handles Face of Marble with his usual hasty professionalism. John Carradine stars as Professor Randolph, a brilliant brain surgeon. At the moment, Randolph and his assistant David Cochran (Robert Shayne) are experimenting with restoring the dead to life. But there's an unfortunate side-effect: the deceased sailor upon whom Randolph conducts his first human experiment promptly turns to marble when he's revived from the dead. All of this is eventually tied in with the clandestine romance between Cochran and Randolph's faithless wife Elaine (Claudia Drake), and with the sinister incantations of voodoo practitioner Marika (Rosa Rey). John Carradine is quite good, considering the circumstances.

• Director
• George Fitzmaurice
• Writers
• Baroness Emmuska Orczy(book)
• Harold Goldman
• Monckton Hoffe
• Stars
• William Powell
• Luise Rainer
• Robert Young

Baroness Orczy, author of The Scarlet Pimpernel, came up with the story upon which The Emperor's Candlesticks was based. As in Pimpernel, the theme is international intrigue, but this time the setting is pre-World War One Europe and Russia rather than Revolutionary France. William Powell and Luise Rainer are spies working for opposing empires (Russian and Austrian) who travel undetected amidst the Nobility while plotting their plots. As they waltz about various ballrooms dressed to the nines, they fall in love--resulting in wavering loyalties for both. Emperor's Candlesticks is stronger on decor than on plot, with the talented Luise Rainer once more ill-used by Hollywood.

• Director
• Ernst Lubitsch
• Writers
• Ernest Vajda(screenplay by)
• Samson Raphaelson(screenplay by)
• Leopold Jacobson(based upon "The Waltz Dream" by)
• Stars
• Maurice Chevalier
• Claudette Colbert
• Miriam Hopkins

Maurice Chevalier plays a 19th century Viennese lieutenant, conducting an affair with sexy violinist Claudette Colbert. While publicly flirting with Colbert, Chevalier is spotted by a dowdy princess (Miriam Hopkins), who thinks that the lieutenant's wink was meant for her. Forced to marry the Princess, Chevalier despairs at her lack of charm. But good-hearted Colbert takes the princess aside, dolls her up, and instructs her how to bewitch--and keep--her man. Chevalier is enchanted by the "new" princess, while Colbert, who will have no trouble finding someone else to keep her warm and comfortable, cheerfully sashays out of his life. Long thought lost, The Smiling Lieutenant was rediscovered in an East European vault in the 1970s.

• Director
• Alan Crosland
• Writers
• Darryl F. Zanuck(by)
• Anthony Coldeway(screen play)
• Jack Jarmuth(titles by)
• Stars
• Dolores Costello
• Josef Swickard
• Anders Randolf

It's hard to believe that Darryl F. Zanuck, producer of such anti-prejudice films of the 1940s as Gentleman's Agreement and Pinky, wrote the incredibly racist screenplay of Old San Francisco. After a lengthy prologue detailing the establishment and settlement of San Francisco by the Spanish aristocracy, the story proper begins in 1906 at the hacienda of Don Hernandez Vasquez (Josef Swickard) and his lovely daughter Dolores (Dolores Costello). Having fallen upon hard times, Don Hernandez nonetheless refuses the entreaties of wealthy businessman Michael Brandon (Anders Randolf) to purchase his property. Originally hired by Brandon to persuade the Vasquez family to move out, young lawyer Terrence O'Shaughnessy (Charles E. Mack) changes his mind when he falls in love with Dolores. Meanwhile, Chris Buckwell (Warner Oland), in charge of all illegal activities in Chinatown, offers himself as the "champion" of the Vasquez clan, all the while plotting to grab their land for himself and claim Dolores as his bride. Able to indulge in his skullduggery without fear of retribution from his Chinese victims because of his Caucasian status, Buckwell makes the mistake of revealing to Dolores that he actually has Oriental blood. When Dolores threatens to expose Buckwell as a "half-breed," he kidnaps the girl and attempts to sell her into white slavery. Surrounded by lustful Chinese merchants, Dolores prays for salvation -- whereupon the San Francisco Earthquake destroys everything around her, including Buckwell's criminal empire! Miraculously, both Dolores and Terrence escape from the earthquake unscathed, and in the final scene they are shown arm in arm, overlooking the rebuilt and "redeemed" San Francisco. Though beautifully photographed and consummately produced, Old San Francisco is no classic, nor will it ever be mistaken as a monument for racial tolerance.

• Director
• Leo McCarey
• Writers
• Claude Binyon(screenplay)
• Leo McCarey(screenplay)
• Max Shulman(from the novel by)
• Stars
• Paul Newman
• Joanne Woodward
• Joan Collins

Director Leo McCarey was clearly past his prime when he made this screen version of Max Shulman's comic novel Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys; still, the film was a success, no small thanks to the star power of real-life husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. The scene is Putnam's Landing, Connecticut, where commuter Harry Bannerman (Paul Newman) is driven crazy by his wife Grace's (Joanne Woodward) insistence upon joining every civic committee known to man. When the government chooses Putnam's Landing as the location for their new missile base, Grace immediately joins a committee to halt this project-which causes no end of trouble for Air Force reservist Harry, who is expected to be the government's liason man for the new base. Adding to the dilemma is local vamp Angela Hoffa (Joan Collins), whose efforts to get her lunchhooks into Harry lead to a dizzying series of recriminations and misunderstandings. Satirical barbs are aimed at military stupidity (as personified by thick-eared Captain Hoxie, played by Jack Carson), small-town hypocrisy, and the teenaged "beat" craze. Among the supporting players are Dwayne Hickman and Tuesday Weld, cast respectively as Marlon Brando wannabe Grady Metcalf and nubile high-schooler Comfort Goodpasture (!); within a year of this film, Hickman and Weld would be reunited on the TV series Dobie Gillis, likewise based on a Max Shulman novel. Also appearing are reliable comedy foil Gale Gordon and an uncredited Murvyn Vye as Angela Hoffa's neglectful husband. Considered fairly racy in 1958, Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys seems slightly childish and draggy today; one wonders how it would have fared had Leo McCarey been at the height of his powers.

• Jimmy Dolittle
• Francis H. Griswold
• Reed Hadley(uncredited)

Documentary detailing the activities of American fighter escort pilots during bombing raids over Germany.

Stars

• Ron Ely
• Keith Larsen
• Jeremy Slate

Professional salvage divers Larry and Drake (later replaced by Mike) made their livings braving the dangers of the deep recovering sunken wrecks off the Southern California coast. Frequently, these assignments brought them into conflict with more human dangers from people who wanted to reach the wrecks first, or who had a vested interest in seeing that what had been sent to the bottom stayed there. Midway through the program's run, the divers moved their shop to Malibu, and name of the show became "Malibu Run".

• Director
• Lewis Seiler
• Writer
• Raymond L. Schrock(original screen play)
• Stars
• Ronald Reagan
• John Litel
• Lya Lys

In this actioner, heroic G-man Brass Bancroft must assume the identity of a notorious spy who died in a train wreck so he can expose a suspected spy. Brass meets the spy and is told to get aboard a Navy dirigible and get information concerning a top-secret "inertia projector" the Americans are developing. Brass does, and soon discovers that one of the politicos aboard the ship is intending to steal the blueprints for the spy. Fortunately, Brass stops him, but during the flight, they encounter a terrible storm and the spy escapes with the valuable plans forcing Brass to shoot down his plane with the prototype.

• Director
• Stanley Donen
• Writers
• Larry Gelbart
• Sheldon Keller
• Stars
• George C. Scott
• Trish Van Devere
• Red Buttons

This spoof of a "typical" double-feature bill of the 1930s is introduced by George Burns, who explains that we're about to see two classic films produced by the legendary Warren Brothers. The first, "Dynamite Fists," is a black-and-white takeoff of such boxing dramas as Golden Boy. Harry Hamlin plays a John Garfield-like pugilist who is brought along by a tough-but-lovable fight promoter George C. Scott. Nasty gangster Eli Wallach attempts to compromise Hamlin by offering him the delectable Trish VanDevere, but Hamlin proves loyal to Scott. When Scott is killed by Wallach, Hamlin vows to become an attorney and bring the murderer to justice -- which he does in the space of one year. Along the way, Hamlin's gangster brother-in-law secures an eye operation for his nearly blind sister Kathleen Beller (whose bump-in-the-wall myopia is good for several laughs). After "Dynamite Fists," we are treated to a coming-attractions trailer for a Dawn Patrol-style aviation epic, again starring George C. Scott. The last segment, "Blansky's Beauties of 1933," is an all-stops-out Technicolor lampoon of Busby Berkeley musicals. Told by doctor Art Carney that he is dying, Broadway impresario Blansky (George C. Scott again) determines to produce one last spectacular show before the curtain goes down for good. The highlights in "Blansky's Beauties" are too numerous to mention here: memorable bits include composer Barry Bostwick's rooftop number, and the opening dialogue exchange between Carney and Scott (told that he has a month to live, Scott philosophically replies that at least he has 30 days left -- whereupon Carney dolefully reminds his patient that it's February). An additional sequence, parodying the Republic serials of the era, was filmed for Movie, Movie but cut from the final release print. Michael Kidd, who plays "Pop Popchick" in "Dynamite Fists," handled the choreography in "Blansky's Beauties." 

• Director
• Norman Taurog
• Writers
• Jack Moffitt(screenplay)
• Sidney Salkow(screenplay)
• Walter DeLeon(screenplay)
• Stars
• Bing Crosby
• Frances Farmer
• Bob Burns

Bing Crosby's only western (outside of the 1966 version of Stagecoach), Rhythm on the Range stars Crosby as a casual cowpoke on his way back to the Wide Open Spaces after an eastern visit. He meets a young train stowaway (Frances Farmer), whom he regards as a hoydenish vagabond until learning that she's the owner of the ranch where he works. Farmer resists Crosby's charms until he rescues her from a gang of rustlers. Among the supporting cast is Mischa Auer, Bob "Bazooka" Burns, and, in her film debut, 19-year-old Martha Raye. The film also introduces the song hit "I'm an Old Cowhand", which is sung at one point or another by everyone in the cast, including Russian-born Mischa Auer. Rhythm on the Range was remade in 1956 as Pardners, with a few minor alterations--notably the casting of Jerry Lewis in the Frances Farmer role!

• Director
• Frank Borzage
• Writers
• Hans Székely(play "Die Schönen Tage von Aranjuez")
• Robert A. Stemmle(play "Die Schönen Tage von Aranjuez")
• Edwin Justus Mayer(screenplay)
• Stars
• Marlene Dietrich
• Gary Cooper
• John Halliday

In this frothy romantic adventure, Marlene Dietrich plays Madeleine de Beaupre, a devious jewel thief. After sneaking a valuable string of pearls away from jeweler Aristide Duval (Ernest Cossart), Madeleine attempts to flee Paris, leaving a trail that will instead implicate psychiatrist Dr. Pauquet (Alan Mowbray). While headed for the Spanish border, she nearly runs into Tom Bradley (Gary Cooper), an American auto engineer vacationing in Europe. Madeleine spots Tom again as she waits to go through Spanish Customs; worried that the stolen pearls will be found in her handbag, she slips them into Tom's pocket. After they both make their way through inspection unscathed, Madeleine flirts with Tom in an attempt to get the valuables back; he's too shy to respond in kind, so she gets his attention by trying to "repair" the engine of her car with a hammer. Madeleine lures Tom to the San Sebastian estate of her partner in crime, Carlos Margoli (John Halliday). It doesn't take long for Tom to figure out what Madeleine and Carlos are up to; however, he also knows that he's fallen in love with her, and he is willing to play along if it allows him to be near her. Carlos was originally to have been played by John Gilbert; Halliday was a last-minute replacement after the one-time silent screen star died a week before shooting was to begin.

• Director
• Curtis Bernhardt
• Writers
• A.I. Bezzerides(screenplay)
• Theodore Pratt(from a story by)
• Kenneth Gamet(adaptation)
• Stars
• Ann Sheridan
• Ronald Reagan
• Richard Whorf

Director Curtis Bernhardt hadn't wanted to make Juke Girl, but he was under contract to Warner Bros. and had to tow the line lest he find himself drawing Unemployment. One of Bernhardt's gripes against the film is that it starred Ronald Reagan, whom he considered an "unimportant" screen personality. In all fairness, Reagan is pretty good in his role as itinerant fruit-picker Steve Talbot, who gets involved in the middle of a labor dispute between the farmers and the packers. Talbot casts his lot with the farmers, while his longtime pal Danny Frazier (Richard Whorf) goes with the packers. Juke-joint hostess Lola Meers (Anne Sheridan) falls for Steve and supports his cause, only to be fired for her troubles at the behest of powerful packing-plant operator Henry Madden (Gene Lockhart). She and Steve try to escape Madden's influence, but when their farmer friend Nick Garcos (George Tobias) is murdered, the couple is framed for the crime. There follows "orgies of fights" (director Bernhardt's description) and a lynching attempt before Steve's old buddy Danny comes to the rescue. Anne Sheridan is at her most gorgeous in Juke Girl, making it difficult for the viewer to remain concentrated on the story.

• Director
• Jean Yarbrough
• Writers
• Nathaniel Curtis(screenplay)
• Pat Costello(story)
• Stars
• Bud Abbott
• Lou Costello
• Buddy Baer

In 1952, the comedy team of Abbott and Costello entered into a joint agreement with producer Alex Gottlieb and Warner Brothers, whereby two-color musical comedies would be produced: Bud Abbott would serve as producer--owner of one of the films, while Lou Costello would do same for the other. Costello's contribution to this agreement was Jack and the Beanstalk, a kiddie-matinee adaptation of the famed fairy tale. Constructed along the lines of The Wizard of Oz, the film begins in black and white. Jack (Costello) is a professional baby-sitter, while Dink (Abbott) is Jack's "agent." After a run-in with a gargantuan cop (Buddy Baer) and a statuesque waitress (Dorothy Ford), Jack and Dink show up at the home of Eloise Larkin (Shaye Cogan), there to look after Eloise's troublesome nephew Donald (David Stollery) while the girl and her boyfriend Arthur Royal (James Alexander) rehearse at their community theatre. While reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to the bratty Donald, Jack falls asleep, and begins dreaming himself, and his cohorts, into the story as the impoverished boy sent out to sell the family cow. While en route to town with his cow, he encounters a shady butcher (Abbott) who bilks him out of his broken-down bovine for the price of a few 'magic' beans. In keeping with the traditional tale, Jack plants the beans and from them a magnificent vine grows and reaches into the clouds. Along with the butcher, Jack climbs into a fantastic world inhabited by a terrifying giant (Baer) and other magical creatures, including a gold egg-laying hen, a singing harp, and a distressed prince and princess.

• Director
• Lloyd Bacon
• Writers
• Sig Herzig(screenplay)
• Wally Kline(screenplay)
• Howard Hawks(story)
• Stars
• Ann Sheridan
• Pat O'Brien
• John Payne

In this drama, a remake of The Crowd Roars, two auto racing brothers become rivals on the racetrack when the older brother tries to keep his younger one from dropping out of school and becoming a driver too. The stubborn younger brother just gets behind the wheel of someone else's car and the race is on. During the reckless running of the race, the older brother's best friend is killed precipitating the beginning of the end for the older driver. The brother pulls himself out of his personal nose dive when he must take over for his younger brother during the Indy 500.

• Director
• Jonathan Blank
• Writers
• Jonathan Blank
• Philip Craft
• Jonah Loeb(director's cut)
• Stars
• Jonathan Penner
• Jessica Hecht
• Matt Winston

Jonathan Blank (Sex, Drugs, & Democracy) directed this satirical slap at the media, centered around a reverend (Alan Thicke) who objects to public-access station Channel 69, where his daughter (Jessica Hecht) and other young radicals program such shows as Conspiracy of the Week. The reverend's solution is to buy the station and kick everyone out. They retaliate with protests and a fake bomb threat, barricading themselves in the studio to stage telecasts minus clothing. This film features one of the last film appearances of the late Timothy Leary. Shown at the 1998 Cinequest San Jose Film Festival.

• Director
• Claudia Weill
• Writers
• Claudia Weill(story)
• Vicki Polon(story)
• Stars
• Melanie Mayron
• Eli Wallach
• Adam Cohen

One of the first fictional efforts by former documentary maker Claudia Weill, Girlfriends focuses on a pair of roommates, Susan Weinblatt and Anne Munroe, played by Melanie Mayron and Anita Skinner. Anne gets married, leaving the plump, insecure Susan alone for virtually the first time in her life. A mild flirtation with a rabbi leads to a whole new life for Susan when she becomes a portrait photographer for Jewish weddings and bar mitzvahs. Claudia Weill wrote the (presumed) autobiographical screenplay with Vicki Polon. Filmed in New Jersey, Girlfriends was an expansion of a short subject subsidized by the American Film Institute.

• Director
• Felix E. Feist
• Writers
• Hugh Wedlock Jr.(screenplay)
• Howard Snyder(screenplay)
• Peter Levy(screenplay)
• Stars
• Joan Davis
• Jack Haley
• Phillip Terry

Like the same-named 1934 and 1935 films, RKO Radio's 1945 musical George White's Scandals uses the eponymous Broadway revue as a framework for a fabricated plotline. The main story concerns the romance between stage comedienne Joan Mason (Joan Davis) and back-bay Bostonite Jack Williams (Jack Haley), which is staunchly opposed by Jack's spinsterish sister Clarabelle (Margaret Hamilton, who of course had previously costarred with Haley in The Wizard of Oz) A secondary romance involves the hot-and-cold relationship between British socialite Jill Martin (Martha Holliday) and Tony McGrath (Philip Terry), the assistant to Broadway impresario George White (played not by the real White but by Glenn Tryon). Musical specialties are provided by Gene Krupa and his band, organ virtuoso Ethel Smith and pianist Rose Murphy. The film's highlight is "Who Killed Vaudeville?", a tour-de-force for Joan Davis and Jack Haley which was later excerpted in the RKO musical pastiche Make Mine Laughs (prompting a lawsuit from Haley!)

• Director
• Betty Thomas
• Writers
• Jon Vitti
• Jonathan Aibel
• Glenn Berger
• Stars
• Jason Lee
• Zachary Levi
• David Cross

Alvin, Simon, and Theodore meet their musical match after returning to school and entering into a battle of the bands competition in hopes of saving the school's troubled music program. Sent to live with Dave Seville's younger nephew Toby (Zachary Levi), the three lovable marmots decide that getting an education is more important than belting out pop tunes. But the school's music program is about to go belly up, and the only way to save it is to win the 25,000-dollar prize in the upcoming battle of the bands. Though the Chipmunks are confident they have the songwriting skills to steamroll the competition, a newly formed singing trio dubbed the Chippettes promises to give them some stiff competition on-stage. Brittany, Eleanor, and Jeanette are indeed the real deal, and the closer the competition gets, the more Alvin, Simon, and Theodore realize that in order to win, they'll have to give it everything they've got.

• Director
• Carol Reed
• Writer
• Clair Huffaker(screenplay by)
• Stars
• Anthony Quinn
• Claude Akins
• Tony Bill

Flap is marginally significant as the only Western ever directed by Britain's Sir Carol Reed. Anthony Quinn is top-billed as Flapping Eagle, a modern-day Native American stuck on a squalid reservation. Though liquored up most of the time, Flapping Eagle undergoes an eleventh-hour social awakening. Making certain that the media is notified, he hijacks a train and heads for Phoenix, demanding full restoration of rights for his people. Played uneasily for laughs, Flap tries to make up for its shortcomings with a 1970s-style tragic ending, but by that time most of the audience has given up. The working title for Flap was Nobody Loves Flapping Eagle, which was closer to the name of source material, Clair Huffaker's novel Nobody Loves a Drunken Indian.

• Director
• Archie Mayo
• Writers
• Bertram Millhauser(screenplay)
• Beulah Marie Dix(story)
• Stars
• Barbara Stanwyck
• Otto Kruger
• Ralph Bellamy

An espionage drama set in the early 20th century, Ever in My Heart stars Barbara Stanwyck as a New England naif who marries a German citizen (Otto Kruger). In 1915, Stanwyck and her husband suffer a brace of blows: The death of their son, and the sinking of the Lusitania, the latter incident sparking a wave of anti-German sentiment. Hounded out of their small town by the angered citizens, Stanwyck and Kruger move to Europe, where the husband voluntarily leaves his wife to join the Kaiser's army. In 1917, Stanwyck, working as a canteen volunteer in France, discovers that her once pro-American husband is now a German spy. To save him from a firing squad, she poisons his wine, then kills herself.

• Director
• Noel M. Smith
• Writers
• Lee Katz(original screen play)
• Dean Riesner(original screen play)
• W.H. Moran(based upon material compiled by: ex-chief of the U.S. Secret Service)
• Stars
• Ronald Reagan
• Rosella Towne
• Eddie Foy Jr.

Code of the Secret Service was the second of Warner Bros. "Brass Bancroft" series, starring Ronald Reagan as troubleshooting federal operative Bancroft. This time, Brass and his wisecracking partner Gabby (Eddie Foy Jr., brother of producer Bryan Foy) take on a particularly vicious gang of counterfeiters. Our heroes end up in Mexico, where they undergo a series of wild and wooly adventures the like of which were seldom seen outside of the Republic serials. According to Reagan, he was obliged to do his own stunts in the film because the budget couldn't afford a double; it certainly looks that way. Entertaining in its own dizzy fashion. Code of the Secret Service is proof positive that Reagan could carry a film with the right material.

• Director
• Compton Bennett
• Writers
• Compton Bennett(screenplay)
• John Dickson Carr(novel "The Emperor's Snuffbox")
• Stars
• Phyllis Kirk
• Dan O'Herlihy
• Wilfrid Hyde-White

The British That Woman Opposite is better known by its American title City After Midnight. Dan O'Herlihy stars as detective Kinross, presently investigating the murder of antique dealer Sir Maurice (Wilfred Hyde-White). The principal suspects are the dead man's son Toby (Jack Watling) and Toby's American fiancee Eve (Phyllis Kirk). Digging a bit deeper, Kinross discovers that Eve's ex-husband Ned (William Franklyn) had a vested interest in a rare snuff box owned by the murder victim--and it's just possible that Eve would have been his accomplice if he he'd wanted to commit the murder. Based on a novel by John Dickson Carr, That Woman Opposite bears some resemblance to the 1962 Kim Novak-Jack Lemmon starrer The Notorious Landlady.

• Director
• Alan Crosland
• Writers
• Pierre Couderc(based on a story by)
• Hal Davitt(based on a story by)
• Gordon Rigby(screen play)
• Stars
• Fay Wray
• Victor Varconi
• Charles Judels

Warner Bros.' Captain Thunder contains some of the darndest Mexican accents you've ever heard in your life. The star is Hungarian-born Victor Varconi, portraying a legendary south of the border outlaw who tries to force Canadian senorita Fay Wray to marry a rival rustler whom she despises. She pleads with the bandito so pathetically that he is moved to grant her a single wish. Without hesitation she chooses her poor but true love. The bandit king, being a somewhat honorable fellow grants the wish and without a twitch, guns down the wicked cattle thief. Fortunately, the film was played for comedy, a wise decision since it probably would have garnered laughs as a straight drama anyway. No fewer than four writers worked on Captain Thunder, and that, folks, is never a good sign. The true "bandit" in this film was Jack Warner, who picked the pockets of those filmgoers who thought they were going to see a thrilling melodrama (or at least a film with a semblance of coherent plot).

• Director
• John S. Robertson
• Writers
• Sara Ware Bassett(novel "The Taming of Zenas Henry")
• Josephine Lovett(screenplay)
• Stars
• James Barton
• Helen Westley
• Helen Mack

James Barton plays a salty old sea captain on the verge of retirement, forced to return to the sea when his funds run out. Planning to stay with his ship only long enough to pay his mortgage, Barton finds himself on the bounding main a lot longer than expected due to bad weather and unexpected delays. When his ship catches fire, Barton rescues his crew and guides them to shore. He returns to his Cape Cod home a hero, and the mortgage is forgotten. Likewise forgotten is Captain Hurricane, which disappeared shortly after its 1935 release and is seldom resurrected for TV--except in the wee small hours on cable's American Movie Classics.

• Director
• Hobart Henley
• Writers
• Maude Fulton(screenplay & dialogue)
• Walter C. Hackett(play)
• Stars
• Mary Brian
• John Halliday
• Kay Strozzi

This British remake of 1923's Captain Applejack follows the courageous exploits of a mild-mannered citizen who fights back when robbers break into his house in search of treasure.

• Director
• Herbert I. Leeds
• Writers
• Reginald Taviner(novel "Fortuneer")
• George Callahan(screenplay)
• Stars
• Robert Sterling
• Joan Dixon
• Ricardo Cortez

RKO's Bunco Squad stars Robert Sterling as Sgt. Steve Johnson, a big-city detective dedicated to tracking down con artists. His current target is a gang of slicksters who are running a successful seance racket. Wealthy Jessica Royce (Elizabeth Risdon) is on the verge of bequeathing her fortune to the crooks, in exchange for communications from her deceased son. Posing as a couple of "marks," Johnson and girlfriend Grace Bradshaw (Joan Dixon) turn the tables on con-man Anthony Wells (Ricardo Cortez) and his confreres. On hand to reveal some of the techniques used by bunco artists is Dante the Magician, aka Harry A. Janssen, making the second of his two screen appearances (the first was in Laurel & Hardy's A-Haunting We Will Go).

• Director
• Fritz Lang
• Writer
• Douglas Morrow(story and screenplay)
• Stars
• Dana Andrews
• Joan Fontaine
• Sidney Blackmer

Crusading publisher Austin Spenser (Sidney Blackmer) wants to prove a point about the insufficiency of circumstantial evidence. Spencer talks his prospective son-in-law Tom Garrett (Dana Andrews) into participating in a hoax, the better to expose the alleged ineptitude of conviction-happy DA (Philip Bourneuf). Tom will plant clues indicating that he is the murderer of a nightclub dancer, then stand trial for murder; just as the jury reaches its inevitable guilty verdict, Spencer will step forth to reveal the set-up and humiliate the DA. Somewhat surprisingly, Tom eagerly agrees to this subterfuge. Unfortunately, an unforeseen event renders their perfectly formed scheme useless. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt was the last American film of director Fritz Lang.

Director:

 Garson Kanin

Writers:

 Norman Krasna (screen play), Felix Jackson(story)

Stars:

 Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn 

Ginger Rogers slipped off her dancing shoes to play one of her best comic roles as Polly Parish, a salesgirl at a large department store. Single and with no steady beau, Polly leads a quiet life until she discovers a baby left at her doorstep. While puzzled by this development, Polly feels for the child and decides to adopt the baby. However, most of her co-workers raise their eyebrows at Polly's new status as a single mother, believing that she's actually the mother. The owner of the store where Polly works, J.B. Merlin (Charles Coburn), is taken aback, and his son David (David Niven), who has a reputation as a ladies' man, is dispatched to lead Polly back to the straight-and-narrow. Bachelor Mother was remade in 1956 as Bundle of Joy, a vehicle for then-married Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. 

• Director
• James V. Kern
• Writers
• Joe Laurie Jr.(story)
• Peter Milne
• Stars
• Jack Carson
• Ann Sothern
• Robert Alda

April Showers stars Jack Carson and Ann Sothern as a pair of small-time vaudevillians whose act gets nowhere until their young son (Robert Ellis) joins them. The threesome form a knockabout acrobatic turn which propels them into the big time. Jealous of his son's success, Carson takes to the bottle, and the act breaks up in a spirit of mutual recrimination. This being a Warner Bros. musical, the three family members are reunited for a sentimental climax. April Showers was based in great part on the vaudeville career of Buster Keaton, who chose after much consideration not to pursue the matter in court.

• Director
• Richard Fleischer
• Writers
• Earl Felton(screenplay)
• Gerald Drayson Adams(screenplay)
• Robert Angus(suggested by a story by)
• Stars
• Charles McGraw
• Adele Jergens
• William Talman

Some auteur critics feel that director Richard O. Fleischer did his best work while laboring in the "B" mills of RKO Radio. Fleischer's minimalist noir exercise Armored Car Robbery stars William Talman as the chief crook and Charles McGraw as the detective dogging his trail. A shade smarter than his gang underlings, Talman manages to elude capture, and even travels freely about in the company of his flashy lady friend Adele Jergens. But McGraw's persistence eventually pays off. Don McGuire, later a prolific TV producer/director, provides a welcome touch of comic relief as McGraw's rookie-cop assistant. A powerful (and slightly gruesome) climax caps this low-budget gem.

• Directors
• Mervyn LeRoy
• Michael Curtiz(uncredited)
• Writers
• Hervey Allen(by)
• Sheridan Gibney(screen play)
• Milton Krims(dialogue)
• Stars
• Fredric March
• Olivia de Havilland
• Donald Woods

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.

• Director
• Arthur Lubin
• Writers
• Devery Freeman
• Stephen Longstreet
• Stars
• Ginger Rogers
• Barry Nelson
• Carol Channing

Ginger Rogers ended her 23-year association with RKO Radio with the indifferent musical comedy western The First Travelling Saleslady. Ginger and Broadway favorite Carol Channing (whose only starring film this was) play a pair of corset salespersons who head westward in 1897 to hawk their wares. Finding a limited market for corsets, the ladies switch to selling barbed wire, which rests not at all well with cattle baron James Arness. Rescuing Ginger and Carol from Arness' hired guns are horseless-carriage inventor Barry Nelson and callow young cowpoke Clint Eastwood. Whenever asked about First Travelling Saleslady in later years, Carol Channing would blithely refer to it as "the picture that killed RKO"; she wasn't too far wrong in this assessment.

• Director
• Lloyd Bacon
• Writers
• Bella Spewack(from the stage play by)
• Sam Spewack(from the stage play by)
• Stars
• James Cagney
• Pat O'Brien
• Marie Wilson

Once a staple of summer stock and community theatres, Bella and Samuel Spewack's Broadway farce Boy Meets Girl dates rather badly when seen today. The 1938 movie version is also a bit mildewed, though it is saved by the dynamo-like energy of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. The stars are cast as Robert Law and J.C. Benson, a pair of iconoclastic Hollywood screenwriters based upon Ben Hecht and Charlie McArthur. Cynically declaring that every film can be boiled down to "Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl", Law and Benson drive their studio-executive bosses crazy with their zany irreverence. Their pet target is bigwig C. Elliot Friday (Ralph Bellamy), a delicious take-off of 20th Century-Fox prexy Darryl F. Zanuck. Friday orders the boys to concoct a screenplay for cowboy star Larry Toms (Dick Foran), whose popularity is on the wane. Upon making the acquaintance of pregnant, unmaried waitress Susie (Marie Wilson), Law and Benson hit upon a brilliant scheme: they'll transform Susie's baby into a child star and team the kid with Toms in his latest epic ("based on an original story by William Shakespeare"). Complication piles upon complication, reaching a high point of hilarity when the baby gives Larry Toms the measles. Ronald Reagan appears briefly as a radio announcer covering the Hollywood premiere of Law and Bensen's newest masterpiece. Boy Meets Girl was originally conceived as a Marion Davies vehicle, with the comedy team of Olsen & Johnson playing the screenwriters, but things changed radically (and for the better) when Davies' sponsor William Randolph Hearst huffily pulled his Cosmopolitan Pictures unit off the Warner Bros. lot.

• Director
• Gordon Douglas
• Writer
• James R. Webb
• Stars
• Guy Madison
• Vera Miles
• Frank Lovejoy

With all those flaming arrows being aimed directly at the audience, it is fairly obvious that Charge of Feather River was originally released in 3D. Fresh from his TV success as Wild Bill Hickok, Guy Madison stars as frontiersman Miles Archer (his character name will be amusing to fans of The Maltese Falcon). In the company of cavalry sergeant Baker (Frank Lovejoy) and a column of troops, Archer heads into Indian country to rescue a pair of white female captives. One of the two girls, Ann McKeever (Helen Westcott), is reluctant to return because she's been despoiled by her Indian captors; the other girl, Ann's sister Jennie (Vera Miles), is in love with the tribal chief and intends to betray her rescuers at the first opportunity. The rescue has been staged to divert the Indians' attention away from the railroad that is being constructed across their territory. The trick now is for Archer, the soldiers and the women to return to Cavalry headquarters in one piece. The film ends with the eponymous charge, excitingly staged by director Gordon Douglas.

• Director
• Lewis Allen
• Writers
• Walter Ferris(screenplay)
• Joseph Hoffman(screenplay)
• Aubrey Wisberg(story)
• Stars
• Cornel Wilde
• Maureen O'Hara
• Robert Douglas

At Sword's Point is about the sons of Dumas' Three Musketeers--one of those "sons" being of the female persuasion, played by Maureen O'Hara. As the swash-buckling daughter of Athos, O'Hara joins the offspring of Aramis and Porthos, portrayed respectively by Dan O'Herlihy and Alan Hale Jr., as well as the bouncing boy of D'Artagnan, played by Cornel Wilde. These second-generation Musketeers are reunited by the ageing Queen Anne (Gladys Cooper), who wants to stem the villainy of her treacherous nephew, the Duc de Lavalle (Robert Douglas). Lunging and parrying throughout the French countryside, the new Musketeers save the day by preventing a marriage of state between the princess (Nancy Gates) and Lavalle, restoring the girl to her true love, prince Peter Miles. Technicolor is the only decided plus in the favor of the lazy and derivative At Sword's Point, which was completed in 1949 but remained unseen in RKO's vaults for three years.

• Director
• Silvio Amadio
• Writers
• Silvio Amadio(screenplay)
• Giovanni Simonelli(screenplay)
• Stars
• Cyd Charisse
• Hugh O'Brian
• Mario Feliciani

Danger and romance are in plentiful supply in one of Europe's most beautiful cities in this sophisticated thriller. Shelley North (Cyd Charisse) is an American tourist who has come to Rome on a vacation with her husband. When he disappears without warning, Shelley visits the American embassy in search of help; word of Shelley's dilemma makes its way to Dick Sherman (Hugh O'Brian), an American expatriate who edits an English-language newspaper in Rome and once had a fling with Shelley when they were single and living in the States. Dick offers to help Shelley find her husband, and recruits a friend to help -- one of the top homicide detectives in Italy. When the missing American's name pops up in the address book of a criminal who has turned up dead, Shelley and Dick are drawn into a web of drug smuggling, organized crime, and international espionage, with allies and enemies shifting sides over the course of the investigation. Assassination in Rome (aka Assassinio Made in Italy and Il Segreto del Vestito Rosso) was shot in Italy using a local cast and crew, with Charisse and O'Brian added to give the project greater international box-office clout.