“Dishonored Lady” (1947) is a film starring Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O’Keefe, John Loder, William Lundigan, and Natalie Schafer, directed by Robert Stevenson, and released by United Artists. The film is based on the play Dishonored Lady (1930) by Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes.
Madeleine Damien is the fashion editor of a slick Manhattan magazine by day and a lively party girl by night. Unfortunately, the pressures of her job, including kowtowing to a hefty advertiser, and her bad luck with men are driving her to a breakdown. She seeks the help of a psychiatrist, and under his orders, quits her job and moves into a smaller flat under a new identity. She becomes interested in painting and a handsome neighbor. He soon finds out about her past when an ex-suitor implicates her in a murder.
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Directed by Robert Stevenson, produced by Jack Chertok and Hunt Stromberg, written by
Edward Sheldon and Margaret Ayer Barnes (play) and Edmund H. North (screenplay), starring Hedy Lamarr as Madeleine Damien, Dennis O’Keefe as Dr. David Cousins, John Loder as Felix Courtland, William Lundigan as Jack Garet, Morris Carnovsky as Dr. Richard Caleb, Natalie Schafer as Ethel Royce, Paul Cavanagh as Victor Kranish, Douglas Dumbrille as District Attorney, Margaret Hamilton as Mrs. Geiger, landlady and Nicholas Joy as Defense Attorney
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Source: “Dishonored Lady” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 21 June 2012. Web. 6 August 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishonored_Lady.
“The St. Louis Bank Robbery” (also called “The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery”, the film title in the opening credits) is a 1959 heist film shot in black and white. The noir film stars Steve McQueen as a college dropout hired to be the getaway driver in a bank robbery. The film is based on a 1953 bank robbery attempt of Southwest Bank in St. Louis. The film was shot on location in St. Louis and some of the men and woman from the St. Louis Police Department, as well as local residents and bank employees, play the same parts they did in the actual robbery attempt.
George Fowler (Steve McQueen) shows himself as an ex-football hero. He finds himself slowly drawn into the gangster world. With the gang in need of just $50 more, George asks his ex girl, Ann, for that amount in a check, supposedly for her brother Gino. The plan starts to unravel when she sees Gino coming out of a restaurant across the street from the bank. When questioned about it George later reveals he’s involved with robbing the bank. She writes ‘Warning The bank will be Robbed!’ with lipstick on the window, the bank taking it as a joke. As the day of the heist grows nearer the tension within the gang heightens with no one trusting anyone. The robbers burst into George’s and Gino’s apartment that night and demand who talked to the girl about the robbery, seeing the lipstick warning. Gino breaks about his sister’s (George’s Ex girl) talking to George. George goes to her apartment with the gang and talks her into going to Chicago. Gino and George go to a park and wait. While Willie and John are taking her down the fire escape, John gets fidgety and hurls her off the escape down to the street below. They return to George and Gino, saying nothing about the murder. The next day the robbery is attempted as planned. Meanwhile the bank has replaced the switchboard, previously inside the bank, downstairs to what seems to be a better control room, a system which the robbers were betting on disabling to prevent calls to the police. John distrusts George and compels Willie to drive, instead of George, who will now be inside robbing the bank even though it’s his first time on any illegal job. The robbing goes as planned until George can’t find the switchboard they wanted to disable. The switchboard downstairs calls the police and they send a squad car over to the bank. When the police arrive, more arriving every second, the robbery goes astray. John gets killed while trying to take a hostage out and Gino commits suicide down in the vaults. Willie flees with the car, leaving his partners behind. George gets shot in the leg. He tries to take a hostage out, the woman’s husband offering himself instead. As the wife is in his headlock, his arm aiming the gun at her husband, she says, “It’s no use, he’s vicious.” Realizing just how far he went, George relaxes his grip and falls to the ground, muttering how he isn’t ‘vicious’. George is taken away, his last sight looking out the bars of the car.
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Directed by Charles Guggenheim and John Stix, produced by Jane Bridges, Katherine Drescher, Charles Guggenheim, Helen Hagen, Lee Hammond and Richard T. Heffron, written by Richard T. Heffron, starring Steve McQueen as George Fowler, Crahan Denton as John Egan, the boss, David Clarke as Gino, Ann’s brother, James Dukas as Willie (the driver), Mollie McCarthy as George’s ex-girlfriend, Martha Gable as Eddie’s wife and Larry Gerst as Eddie.
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Source: “The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 13 June 2012. Web. 24 August 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_St._Louis_Bank_Robbery
Dick Barton’s (Don Stannard) plans for a relaxing seaside holiday with his friends are thwarted when they stumble upon a sinister Nazi plot to unleash a deadly chemical virus and bring the nation to its knees. Will Dick, Snowey and friends be able to save the day?
Directed by Alfred J. Goulding with cinematography by Stanley Clinton
River policemen go undercover as husband and wife to expose a smuggling ring. Their enquiries lead them to the most notorious part of town and the night-club with a reputation to match. There they gain the confidence of the owner and skilfully match the evidence with the crime but before they can inform their superiors their cover is blown and they are on their own against the most ruthless criminals the underworld has to offer.
“So’s Your Aunt Emma!” is a 1942 American film directed by Jean Yarbrough. The film is also known as “Meet the Mob”.
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Directed by Jean Yarbrough, Produced by Lindsley Parsons (producer) and Barney A. Sarecky (associate producer), written by George Bricker (writer), Edmond Kelso (writer) and Harry Hervey (story “Aunt Emma Paints the Town”), starring Zasu Pitts as Aunt Emma Bates, Roger Pryor as Terry Connors (Globe-Register Reporter), Warren Hymer as Joe Gormley (Hammond Goon), Douglas Fowley as Gus Hammond, Gwen Kenyon as Maris (Terry’s Girl), Elizabeth Russell as Zelda Lafontaine, Tristram Coffin as Flower Henderson (Club Savoy Owner), Malcolm Bud McTaggart as Mickey O’Banion, Stanley Blystone as Det. Lt. Miller, Dick Elliott as Evans (Globe- Register Editor), Eleanor Counts as Gracie and Jack Mulhall as Reporter Burns.
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Source: “So’s Your Aunt Emma” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 21 June 2012. Web. 5 August 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So%27s_Your_Aunt_Emma.
“The Way Ahead” is a British Second World War drama released in 1944. It stars David Niven and Stanley Holloway and follows a group of civilians who are conscripted into the British Army to fight in North Africa. In the U.S., an edited version was released as “The Immortal Battalion”. The film was written by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov and directed by Carol Reed. The three had originally produced the 1943 training film “The New Lot”, which was produced for the Army Kinematograph Service. “The Way Ahead” was an expanded remake of their earlier film, this time intended for a commercial audience. The two films featured some of the same actors, including John Laurie, Raymond Huntley and Peter Ustinov.
In the days after the Dunkirk evacuation in Second World War, Lieutenant Jim Perry (David Niven), a veteran of the British Expeditionary Force, is posted to the Duke of Glendon’s Light Infantry to train replacements to fill its depleted ranks. A patient, mild-mannered officer, he does his strenuous best to turn the bunch of grumbling ex-civilians into soldiers, earning himself their intense dislike. Eventually however, the men come to respect their officer.
After their training is completed, their battalion is shipped out to North Africa to face Rommel’s Afrika Korps. However, their ship is torpedoed en route, and they miss the fighting. They are assigned to guard a small town. Perry appropriates a cafe as his headquarters, much to the disgust of the pacifist owner, Rispoli (Peter Ustinov). When the Germans attack, Perry and his men fiercely defend their positions, aided by Rispoli. The last scene shows them advancing in a counter-attack. Instead of the film ending with the words “The End”, it concludes with the more uplifting “The Beginning”, an attempt to galvanize support for the final push in the war effort. The final scene of the advancing soldiers was also copied for the closing credits of the long-running sitcom Dad’s Army; John Laurie appeared in both and his performance in the sitcom credits mirrors this film.
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Directed by Carol Reed, produced by John Sutro and Norman Walker, written by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov, starring David Niven, Stanley Holloway and William Hartnell.
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Source: “The Way Ahead” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 21 June 2012. Web. 3 August 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Ahead.
“Q Planes” (1939) released in the United States by Columbia Pictures as “Clouds Over Europe”, is a British spy film directed by Tim Whelan and Arthur B. Woods, starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson. The film was produced by Irving Asher with Alexander Korda as executive producer. The name “Q Planes” may have been derived from the British “Q-ships” that were used as spy and armed merchant vessels in the First World War. The film was helmed by American director Tim Whelan (Sidewalks of London (1938) and later, in 1940, co-director of The Thief of Bagdad) who was then in Britain working for Korda at Denham Studios.
“Q Planes” (or in its American guise, “Clouds Over Europe”) mixes the genres of spy thriller and comedy romance, and was intended to be a star vehicle for Olivier, but Richardson dominates much of the screen with a sardonic take on a spy, either working for Scotland Yard or British Military Intelligence. Released just months before the United Kingdom declared war on Germany in 1939, the film is a precursor to the “strongly nationalistic, anti-German films that would reach their zenith in Britain during the war years”.
Advanced British aircraft prototypes carrying experimental and highly secret equipment being developed under government contract, are regularly vanishing with their crews on their test flights. No one can deduce the problem, not even spymaster Major Hammond (Ralph Richardson) or his sister Kay (Valerie Hobson), a newspaper reporter who is working undercover in the works canteen used by the crews at the Barrett & Ward Aircraft Company.
At first, Major Hammond is seen as an outsider at the aircraft factory, even by Mr. Barrett, the owner (George Merritt), but he soon finds a friend in a star pilot, Tony McVane (Laurence Olivier) who helps him try to unravel the case. Hammond becomes convinced that the company secretary at the factory, Jenkins (George Curzon) is a foreign agent and “mole”, but Jenkins is killed by unseen gunmen before he can give up the names of his contacts.
The mystery remains unsolved when McVane returns to the aircraft factory, determined to make the next test flight. His aircraft, like the others, is brought down by a powerful ray beamed from the S.S. Viking, a mysterious salvage ship manned by a foreign crew. Along with his aircraft, McVane and his flight crew are taken hostage on the ship, where he discovers many other missing airmen have suffered the same fate. Gathering up weapons, McVane leads the British survivors in an attempt to take control of the ship. Major Hammond learns the truth and directs a Royal Navy ship (HMS Echo) to come to their rescue. In a short coda, Kay and McVane get together and Hammond learns, to his chagrin, that his longtime lady friend has married.
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Directed by Tim Whelan and Arthur B. Woods, produced by Irving Asher (producer) and Alexander Korda (executive producer), written by Brock Williams, Jack Whittingham and Ian Dalrymple, starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson.
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Source: “Q Planes” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 7 May 2012. Web. 3 August 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Planes.
“Tangled Destinies” is a 1932 American film directed by Frank R. Strayer. The film is also known as “Who Killed Harvey Forbes?” in the United Kingdom.
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Directed by Frank R. Strayer, produced by Ralph M. Like, written by Edward T. Lowe Jr. (story and adaptaion), starring Gene Morgan as Capt. Randall “Randy” Gordon, Doris Hill as Doris, Glenn Tryon as Tommy Preston, the Co-pilot, Vera Reynolds as Ruth (the Airline Stewardess), Ethel Wales as Prudence Daggott, Monaei Lindley as Monica van Buren, Syd Saylor as Buchanan (the Prizefighter), Sidney Bracey as McGinnis (posing as Professor Marmont), Lloyd Whitlock as Floyd Martin, James B. Leong as Ling, William P. Burt as Harvey Forbes, Henry Hall as Dr. Wingate (the Parson) and William Humphrey as Professor Hartley.
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Source: “Tangled Destinies” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 13 January 2012. Web. 3 August 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangled_Destinies.
“Oliver Twist” is a 1933 American film directed by William J. Cowen. It is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’s popular novel with the same name and was the first sound version of the classic. It stars Irving Pichel as Fagin, Dickie Moore as Oliver, Doris Lloyd as Nancy, and William “Stage” Boyd as Bill Sikes. Pichel played Fagin without resorting to any mannerisms which could be construed as offensive.
An orphan boy in 1830’s London is abused in a workhouse, then falls into the clutches of a gang of thieves.
Despite the fact that the Sowerberrys and Noah Claypole appear in the cast list, the entire Sowerberry sequence is omitted from this film, as is Monks, Oliver’s half-brother. Rose Maylie becomes Brownlow’s daughter in this version, and it is Brownlow’s house that Skes attempts to rob. It is possible that early releases of this film did include Noah Claypole and the Sowerberrys.
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Directed by William J. Cowen, produced by I.E. Chadwick, written by Charles Dickens (novel Oliver Twist) and Elizabeth Meehan (writer), starring Irving Pichel, Dickie Moore, Doris Lloyd and William “Stage” Boyd.
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Source: “Oliver Twist (1933 film)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 16 March 2012. Web. 2 August 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Twist_(1933_film).
“Scrooge” is a 1935 British film directed by Henry Edwards featuring Seymour Hicks as Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser who hates Christmas. It was the first sound version of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, not counting a 1928 short subject that now appears to be lost.
Hicks had played the role of Scrooge on the stage many times beginning in 1901, and again in a 1913 British silent film version. The 1935 film differs from all other versions of the story in one significant way – most of the ghosts, including that of Jacob Marley, are not actually shown onscreen, although their voices are heard. Only the Ghost of Christmas Present (Oscar Asche) is actually seen in full figure – the Ghost of Christmas Past is a mere shape with no discernible facial features, Marley’s Ghost is seen only briefly as a face on the door knocker, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is just an outstretched pointing finger.
Why the film was made this way remains unclear; it is obviously not because British filmmakers could not achieve special effects, since we do see Marley’s face superimposed on Scrooge’s door knocker. Another aspect making this film different from other versions of the story is that Seymour Hicks plays both the old and young Scrooge, rather straining the credulity of the audience, since by this time, the sixty-four year old actor was visibly too aged to convincingly play a young man.
Maurice Evans appears briefly as a man harassed by Scrooge to pay his debts. Donald Calthrop portrays a Bob Cratchit who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to John Leech’s illustrations of the character in the original 1843 edition of the novel.
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Directed by Henry Edwards, produced by Julius Hagen, written by H. Fowler Mear
Charles Dickens (novel), starring Sir Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop, Robert Cochran, Mary Glynne, Garry Marsh, Oscar Asche, Marie Ney and C.V. France.
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Source: “Scrooge (1935 film)” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 26 June 2012. Web. 30 July 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_(1935_film).