In order to avoid the material copyrighted by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for his 1922 Robin Hood, the scripters of this Flynn version relied on several legendary episodes that had never before been filmed, notably the battle between Robin and Little John (Alan Hale Sr., who played this part three times in his long career) and the "piggy-back" episode ...
The Green Pastures began life as a group of "revisionist" Biblical stories titled Ol' Man Adam and His Chillun, written in exaggerated Negro dialect by white humorist Roark Bradford. These Old Testament stories were purportedly told from the point of view of an elderly black Sunday School teacher, who translated the Biblical prose into words that ...
The George S. Kaufman/Moss Hart Broadway hit The Man Who Came to Dinner was inspired by the authors' mutual friend, waspish critic/author Alexander Woollcott. Generously bearded ex-Yale professor Monty Woolley, no mean curmudgeon himself, plays the Woollcott character, here rechristened Sheridan Whiteside. While on a lecture tour in Ohio, ...
Officially, America had no intention of entering the Second World War in 1940: Why, then, were there so many "preparedness" pictures like The Fighting 69th? This film, based on the experiences of military priest Father Duffy (Pat O'Brien), is set during World War I. The US 69th division was a national guard contingent comprised of Irish Americans, ...
FBI operative Mark Stevens is dispatched by his boss Lloyd Nolan to infiltrate a criminal gang. Stevens ingratiates himself with Richard Widmark, the gang's leader, then helps concoct a robbery that will deliver the criminals into the hands of the authorities. But there's an informant in the police department, who gets word back to Widmark. Aware ...
The Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman Broadway hit George Washington Slept Here has herein been tailored to the unique talents of Jack Benny. In the original play, city dweller Bill Fuller, fired up with the spirit of "back to the soil," purchases a ramshackle Colonial-era farmhouse in upstate New York, dragging his reluctant wife, Connie, along for the ...
In 1882, Mark Twain published a delightful fairy tale "for young people of all ages"; 45 years later, Warner Bros., inspired by the real-life coronation of Edward VII, created a lavish screen version starring radio favorites Billy and Bobby Mauch in the title roles and Errol Flynn as their dashing savior. As Jane Seymour (Helen Valkis), consort of ...
Erskine Caldwell's steamy novel God's Little Acre was given a film adaptation in 1958. A heavily grayed-up Robert Ryan plays Ty Ty Walden, the patriarch of a slovenly backwoods family. As Ty Ty digs around his farm in search of gold (which he has yet to find), his son in law Bill Thompson (Aldo Ray) carries on an adulterous affair with the ...
Two-fisted New York police detective Edward G. Robinson is so volatile that he manages to get himself thrown off the force in disgrace. The local gangsters are delighted, in that Robinson had been breathing down their necks. When Robinson goes to crime boss Barton MacLaine insisting that he's through with law enforcement and wants to switch to the ...
Otis Ferguson has said of Each Dawn I Die that "the story is of the kind you would have to see to disbelieve." And to be sure, the film is nothing more than a sampler of '30s prison-film conventions. But with the brilliant acting by James Cagney and the fast-paced and hard-edged direction of William Keighley, the film clatters past like an express ...
In G Men, Warner Bros. "bad boy" James Cagney plays James "Brick" Davis, a young lawyer whose education has been financed by soft-hearted racketeer McKay (William Harrigan). When Cagney's best pal, detective Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), is killed in a gangland shooting, James decides to become a G-Man. Though scrupulously honest, Davis is looked ...
Torrid Zone star James Cagney once described the film as "The Front Page among the bananas." Indeed, the screenplay diligently follows the Front Page plot device of a tough boss (Pat O'Brien) pulling every underhanded trick in the book to keep his top man (Cagney) from quitting. This time the setting is a Central American plantation owned by O ...
Neither James Cagney nor Bette Davis were particularly pleased with the outdated screwball comedy The Bride Came C.O.D., but both performers behaved with thorough professionalism, doing a lot more for the film than the film did for them. Davis stars as flighty heiress Joan Winfield, whose impending marriage to bandleader Allen Brice (Jack Carson) ...
In this lively comedy, three young hell-raisers enroll in the Virginia Military Institute and have a hard time staying out of trouble. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
One of the earliest girls-in-prison yarns, Ladies They Talk About has everything but Ida Lupino as the warden--and had she been in Hollywood at the time, she would probably be here as well. Gun moll Barbara Stanwyck is thrown into San Quentin (which looks more like a summer resort than a house of detention), thanks to her involvement in a bank ...
Errol Flynn buckled his last swash in The Master of Ballantrae, playing out the final film of his Warner Brothers contract in this high seas adventure, liberally adapted from the Robert Louis Stevenson yarn. Flynn plays Jamie Durrisdeer, a Scottish heir, who fights for freedom against the British. When the rebels are defeated, Jamie must flee to ...
Rocky Mountain was planned as a big budget western, but Warner Bros. pared down both its budget and its length to "programmer" dimensions. Errol Flynn plays a Confederate officer trying to recruit troops in California. Unfortunately the only folks interested in the Southern cause are bandits and drifters, so Flynn has to watch his back. The ...
If you're wondering which Warners musical featured the songs "Old King Cole" and "Have You Got Any Castles?," we refer you to Varsity Show. Dick Powell stars as a musical producer, called back to his alma mater to stage the annual college variety show. Uptight dean Walter Catlett is dead set against Powell's "scandalous" form of entertainment. The ...
Strictly for Al Jolson's most fervent fans, The Singing Kid casts Jolie as neurotic Broadway star Al Jackson. Facing professional ruin when he loses his voice, Al heads to the country to regain his vocal timbre and to get his head back together. While recuperating, he falls in love with farm girl Ruth Haines (Beverly Roberts), the pretty aunt of ...
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