A too-tough Army major gets himself sent to run an ROTC program at a Santa Barbara military school after he calls unwanted attention to the military by mouthing off to a prominent news magazine. When he arrives to his new post, the major is shocked to find it run by nuns and that his new troops are school children. His assignment is to make "men" ...
Gary Cooper added "producer" alongside "star" on his resume with this light-hearted Western about a mild-mannered cowboy (Cooper) who drifts into a small town with his sidekick (William Demarest). Naturally, he's mistaken for a notorious highway robber (Dan Duryea), although he can barely handle a gun. His impersonation of the menacing gunman ...
Though legendary entertainer Al Jolson was a highly visible presence on the U.S.O. circuit during World War II, he was generally regarded as a relic of an earlier time until his movie comeback in 1945's Rhapsody in Blue. Showing up 30 minutes into this biopic of George Gershwin, Jolson literally stopped the show with his robust rendition of ...
To fully enjoy the rugged outdoors adventure The Mountain, one must accept the notion that 55-year-old Spencer Tracy and 25-year-old Robert Wagner are brothers. Tracy plays veteran mountain guide Zachary Wheeler, who is coaxed out of retirement when a passenger plane crashes on high mountain. He decides it isn't worth risking his life to recover ...
This Technicolor follow-up to Columbia's 1946 blockbuster The Jolson Story again stars Larry Parks as legendary entertainer Al Jolson--and Jolson himself, as Parks' singing voice. The story concentrates on Jolson's tireless activities entertaining the troops during WW II. After VJ day, Jolson finds that his services are no longer required. ...
At the height of his TV fame, flamboyant pianist Liberace starred in the lavish Warner Bros. production Sincerely Yours. A remake of the old George Arliss vehicle The Man Who Played God, the film casts "Mr. Showmanship" as famed concert pianist Anthony Warren, who at the height of his popularity is stricken with deafness. Learning to lip-read in ...
On the verge of receivership in 1926, Warner Bros. studio decides to risk its future by investing in the Vitaphone sound system. Warners' first Vitaphone release, Don Juan, was a silent film accompanied by music and sound effects. The studio took the Vitaphone process one step farther in its 1927 adaptation of the Samson Raphaelson Broadway hit ...
A nail-biting Indian deadlock remains the climax of this otherwise overly verbose Western filmed in M-G-M's then-new Ansco colors (forerunner of Eastmancolor). After ruthlessly dragging an escaped prisoner through the Arizona desert, Union Army Captain Roper (William Holden) suffers rebuke from both the rebel prisoners and his commanding officer ...
As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not explained until the film's punch line), Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are married. "And so they lived happily ever after," exults a title card, "...or did they?" Well, they didn't. After five ...
This second of four film adaptations of Damon Runyon's Little Miss Marker is tailored to the talents of Bob Hope. A shifty Broadway bookie, Sorrowful Jones (Hope) becomes a reluctant foster parent when an anxious gambler leaves behind his little girl Martha Jane (Mary Jane Saunders) as a "marker," or IOU. When the father is killed by mobster Big ...
This modest Preston Sturges comedy stars Dick Powell as an office clerk dreaming of better things and Ellen Drew as his more pragmatic girlfriend. Powell convinces himself that his fortune will be made if he can win a slogan contest sponsored by a coffee company. Powell's contribution: "If you can't sleep at night, it isn't the coffee, it's the ...
The third of four films bearing the title of The Perils of Pauline, this musical biopic purports to tell the life story of famed silent serial queen Pearl White. Right at the beginning, however, an introductory title informs the audience that what follows is merely "suggested" by incidents in White's life and career. Translation: The film is a ...
Viva Las Vegas, one of Elvis Presley's most popular vehicles, adheres as rigidly to formula as a Kabuki dance. Elvis plays a race-car driver competing in the Las Vegas Grand Prix opposite his principal rival, Cesare Danova. To finance his entry, Elvis takes a job as a casino waiter. Naturally, he is occasionally prevailed upon to sing, making one ...
The Untamed West is the reissue title of the Pine-Thomas production The Far Horizons. This romanticized retelling of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803-06 stars Fred MacMurray as Meriwether Lewis and Charlton Heston as Bill Clark. The film doesn't delve much into the real-life animosity between the two, though it's clear that there's little ...
In Preston Sturges' classic comedy of Depression-era America, filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), fed up with directing profitable comedies like "Ants in Your Plants of 1939," is consumed with the desire to make a serious social statement in his upcoming film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Unable to function in the rarefied atmosphere of ...
This fact -based western follows a soft-spoken railroad detective (Alan Ladd) as he brings a murderous ring of robbers to justice and rekindles an old flame. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
One of the oddest comedies of the 1950s, Behave Yourself! stars Farley Granger and Shelley Winters as a pair of none-too-bright newlyweds. Granger and Winters adopt a stray pooch named Archie, who unbeknownst to them has been trained as a go-between for a couple of underworld gangs. To the ever-mounting amazement of our hero and heroine, corpses ...
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon 'em." Firmly in the latter category is Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), a feckless wartime 4-F who must stand by helplessly as his sweetheart Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) entertains every visiting GI in town. One morning after a particularly wild night, Trudy labors ...
Based on Norman Corwin's satirical radio play My Client Curley, Once Upon a Time is an engaging bit of whimsy, completely dominated by the personality of star Cary Grant. It all begins when fly-by-night Broadway producer Jerry Flynn (Grant) learns of a trained caterpillar (!) that dances to the tune of "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." In short order, ...
The moral of Preston Sturges' first directorial effort The Great McGinty seems to be: If you're a crook, stay a crook, because honesty will get ya every time. Brian Donlevy plays Dan McGinty, a Chicago hobo who is hired by local political bosses as a "professional voter", casting ballots under a variety of assumed names in various districts. ...
Since its lapse into public domain in 1978, First Legion has joined Love Affair and Algiers as the most readily available of Charles Boyer's films. Boyer plays Fr. Marc Arnoux, the head of St. Gregory's seminary, who can never quite shake the feeling that he shouldn't have given up his career as an attorney. His fellow Jesuit priests likewise ...
James Cagney signed on to play Captain Flagg in 20th Century Fox's 1952 remake of the 1926 classic What Price Glory after being told that the old property was being converted into a musical. By the time Cagney learned that Fox had no intention of adding songs and dances to the venerable Maxwell Anderson/Laurence Stallings stage piece, it was too ...
The fourth of 20th Century-Fox's "Michael Shayne" mysteries finds private detective Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) anxiously preparing for his long-delayed marriage to showgirl Joanne La Mar (Mary Beth Hughes). Alas, Mike's pre-nuptual tete-a-tete with Joanne is interrupted by the sound of a scream. Rushing into a well-appointed hotel room, Shayne finds ...
(Preston Sturges) wrote and directed this classic romantic comedy starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, who are involved in a scintillating battle of the sexes, as Sturges points up the terrors of sexual passion and the unattainability of the romantic ideal. Henry Fonda plays Charles Pike, the heir to the Pike Ale fortune ("The Ale That Won ...
Though its title suggests yet another rip-off of It Happened One Night, Republic's Romance on the Run is more accurately classifed as a crime caper comedy. Private detective Barry Drake (Donald Woods) gives chase when jewel thieves Lily (Grace Bradley) and Cooper (Craig Reynolds) skip town and high-tail it to the sticks. Along the way, Drake ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide or All Movie Guide. © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide and All Movie Guide are registered Trademarks of All Media Guide, LLC.