Fabiola (1948-Italian-French) 96m. D: Alessandro Blasetti. Michele Morgan, Michel Simon, Henri Vidal, Massimo Girotti, Louis Salou, Gino Cervi. Confusing but impressive epic of persecution against Christians in 4th-century Rome. Simon is the powerful, forward-thinking Fabius Severus; Morgan is Fabiola, his cavalier offspring; Vidal is Rhual, steadfast Christian gladiator. Originally released in Europe at 150m.; English-dubbed version, adapted by Marc Connelly and Fred Pressburger and featuring an altogether different storyline, opened in the U.S. in 1951.

Fabulous Baron Munchausen, The (1961-Czech) C-84m. ½ D: Karel Zeman. Milos Kopecky, Jana Brejchova, Rudolph Jelinek, Jan Werich. Filmmaker Zeman (FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE) provides another visual delight here, but his episodic fantasy—which takes his hero from the inside of a whale to the surface of the moon—is stilted and uninvolving. Aka THE ORIGINAL FABULOUS ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN.

Fabulous Dorseys, The (1947) 88m. D: Alfred E. Green. Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Janet Blair, Paul Whiteman, William Lundigan. Limp “biography” of bandleading brothers, constantly arguing in between “Marie,” “Green Eyes,” and other hit songs. Musical highlight: a jam session with Art Tatum, Charlie Barnet, Ziggy Elman, and Ray Bauduc.

Fabulous Joe, The (1947) C-60m. D: Bernard Carr, Harve Foster. Marie Wilson, Walter Abel, Margot Grahame, Donald Meek. Abel is typecast in this segment from THE HAL ROACH COMEDY CARNIVAL. He’s harassed husband who gains moral support from talking dog.

Fabulous Suzanne, The (1946) 71m. D: Steve Sekely. Barbara Britton, Rudy Vallee, Bill (William) Henry, Otto Kruger, Richard Denning, Veda Ann Borg. Not-so-fabulous account of Britton, whose lucky pin allows her to pick winning racehorses and profitable stocks.

Fabulous Texan, The (1947) 96m. D: Edward Ludwig. William Elliott, John Carroll, Catherine McLeod, Albert Dekker, Andy Devine, Patricia Knight, Ruth Donnelly, Johnny Sands, Harry Davenport, Robert Barrat, Douglass Dumbrille, Reed Hadley, Jim Davis. Elliott and Carroll return home to Texas after the Civil War and tangle with carpetbaggers who have turned it into a police state; McLeod supplies the requisite love interest. Standard story, though production is more lavish than usual for Republic Pictures.

Fabulous World of Jules Verne, The (1958-Czech) 83m. ½ D: Karel Zeman. Lubor Tokos, Arnost Navratil, Miroslav Holub, Jana Zatloukalova. Zeman’s ingenious visual effects, reproducing the look of 19th-century engravings, outshine leaden enactment of fanciful sci-fi story by Verne. Released here in 1961 with Americanized names in credits and pointless introduction by Hugh Downs.

Face at the Window, The (1939-British) 65m. ½ D: George King. Tod Slaughter, Marjorie Taylor, John Warwick, Robert Adair, Harry Terry. A fiendish killer known as “The Wolf” strikes terror in 1880s Paris. Who can it be? Surely not the Chevalier del Gardo (Slaughter), respected nobleman! And who is the hideous, drooling face at the window? Charming, well-produced blood-and-thunder melodrama, based on the frequently filmed play by F. Brooke Warren. The blessedly hammy Slaughter is in great form here.

Face Behind the Mask, The (1941) 69m. D: Robert Florey. Peter Lorre, Evelyn Keyes, Don Beddoe, George E. Stone, John Tyrrell. Model B film of immigrant Lorre having face disfigured in fire, donning mask, bitterly turning to life of crime. Extremely well done on slim budget.

Face in the Crowd, A (1957) 125m. ½ D: Elia Kazan. Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick, Kay Medford. Perceptive script by Budd Schulberg about homespun hobo (Griffith) discovered by Neal and promoted into successful—and unscrupulous—TV star. Cast gives life to fascinating story. Film debuts of Griffith and Remick. Look for young Rip Torn and Lois Nettleton. Many celebrities also appear as themselves, including Burl Ives, Mike Wallace, Betty Furness, Bennett Cerf, Faye Emerson, and Walter Winchell.

Face in the Night SEE: Menace in the Night

Face in the Rain, A (1963) 91m. ½ D: Irvin Kershner. Rory Calhoun, Marina Berti, Niall MacGinnis, Massimo Giuliani. At times tense melodrama of Calhoun, U.S. spy, being hidden in Italy by partisan whose wife has been associating with Axis.

Face in the Sky (1933) 74m. D: Harry Lachman. Spencer Tracy, Marian Nixon, Stuart Erwin, Sam Hardy, Lila Lee, Sarah Padden, Russell Simpson. Fairy-tale–like yarn about an outdoor sign painter, a self-styled artist who believes “if you live in the clouds, everybody’s got to look up to you.” Sweet, highly original film that goes in unexpected directions, enhanced by unusual, showy camera angles and continuous music track. Tracy is dynamic, cocky, and funny. Photographed by Lee Garmes.

Face of a Fugitive (1959) C-81m. D: Paul Wendkos. Fred MacMurray, Lin McCarthy, Dorothy Green, James Coburn, Alan Baxter, Myrna Fahey. OK Western about MacMurray forced to start over again in a new town when he’s falsely accused of murder; his past still haunts him.

Face of Fire (1959) 83m. D: Albert Band. Cameron Mitchell, James Whitmore, Bettye Ackerman, Royal Dano, Robert Simon, Richard Erdman. Unique adaptation of Stephen Crane short story “The Monster” about man disfigured while saving child from fire. Uneven cast, good direction.

Face of Fu Manchu, The (1965-British) C-96m. D: Don Sharp. Christopher Lee, Nigel Green, James Robertson Justice, Howard Marion-Crawford, Tsai Chin, Walter Rilla. First of new series with Emperor Fu bent on conquering West. Great 1920s atmosphere, good international cast. Followed by THE BRIDES OF FU MANCHU. Techniscope.

Face of Marble, The (1946) 70m. ½ D: William Beaudine. John Carradine, Claudia Drake, Robert Shayne, Maris Wrixon. Another screwy doctor with new technique for bringing dead back to life—including a dog who turns vampire! Ludicrous.

Face of the Frog (1959-German) 92m. D: Harald Reinl. Joachim Fuchsberger, Fritz Rasp, Siegfried Lowitz, Joachen Brochmann. Lowitz is Inspector Elk tracking down the “Frog” in this routine Edgar Wallace actioner; serial-like techniques utilized. Retitled: FELLOWSHIP OF THE FROG.

Face of the Screaming Werewolf (1964-Mexican-U.S.) 60m. BOMB D: Gilberto Martinez Solares, Jerry Warren, Rafael Lopez Portillo. Lon Chaney (Jr.), Yerye Beirute, George Mitchell, Fred Hoffman, Rosa Arenas, Ramón Gay. Two mummies are retrieved from a Yucatan pyramid. One wanders off (carrying a woman) and is hit by a car; the other (Chaney) is stolen by a scientist, subjected to electrical treatments, and turns out to be a werewolf. Oops. Greatly altered from the 1960 Mexican original (LA CASA DEL TERROR, a comedy). A total stinker.

Face That Launched a Thousand Ships, The SEE: Loves of Three Queens

Face to Face (1952) 92m. ½ D: John Brahm, Bretaigne Windust. James Mason, Michael Pate, Robert Preston, Marjorie Steele. Quiet two-part film: Joseph Conrad’s “Secret Sharer” faithfully filmed with Mason as captain, Pate as fugitive; Stephen Crane’s “Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” bland with Preston bringing bride Steele out West.

Facts of Life, The (1960) 103m. D: Melvin Frank. Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Ruth Hussey, Don DeFore. Sophisticated comedy with Bob and Lucy leaving their spouses for an interlude together. The two stars make a good team worth watching.

Fail-Safe (1964) 111m. ½ D: Sidney Lumet. Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Fritz Weaver, Dan O’Herlihy, Sorrell Booke, Larry Hagman, Frank Overton, Dom DeLuise. U.S. bomber is accidentally ordered to nuke Moscow, plunging heads of American and Russian governments into crisis of decision making as time runs out. High-tension drama done with taste and intelligence. Walter Bernstein adapted the Eugene Burdick–Harvey Wheeler best-seller. Remade in 2000 for TV.

Fair Warning (1937) 70m. ½ D: Norman Foster. J. Edward Bromberg, Betty Furness, John (Howard) Payne, Victor Kilian, Billy Burrud, Gavin Muir, Gloria Roy, Andrew Tombes, Ivan Lebedeff, John Eldredge. A mine owner is murdered while staying at a Death Valley dude ranch; the deputy sheriff enlists a precocious kid who’s a chemistry whiz to help solve the crime. Absorbing little Fox whodunit with comic touches plays like a discarded script for the studio’s Charlie Chan series.

Fair Wind to Java (1953) C-92m. ½ D: Joseph Kane. Fred MacMurray, Vera Ralston, Victor McLaglen, Robert Douglas, Philip Ahn. Hard-boiled skipper goes after treasure in the South Seas. Pretty good adventure yarn with Ralston acceptable as native love interest. Great climactic volcano explosion—though accompanying process-screen work is awful.

Faithful in My Fashion (1946) 81m. D: Sidney Salkow. Donna Reed, Tom Drake, Edward Everett Horton, Spring Byington, Sig Ruman, Harry Davenport, William “Bill” Phillips, Margaret Hamilton, Hobart Cavanaugh, Warner Anderson. Tired comedy-romance with soldier-on-leave Drake paying a surprise visit to his girl (Reed), unaware that she’s never loved him . . . and is engaged to someone else. Good cast hampered by stale material.

Faithless (1932) 76m. ½ D: Harry Beaumont. Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Montgomery, Hugh Herbert, Louise Closser Hale, Henry Kolker. Impoverished Bankhead tries to start life fresh after dismal past; polished soaper.

Fake, The (1953-British) 80m. D: Godfrey Grayson. Dennis O’Keefe, Coleen Gray, Hugh Williams, Guy Middleton, John Laurie, Billie Whitelaw. Leonardo da Vinci painting is pilfered while being shipped to London’s Tate Gallery. Investigator O’Keefe quickly recovers it, but his problems are only beginning. Uninspired whodunit, filmed largely on location inside the Tate.

The Falcon Michael Arlen’s debonair trouble-shooter, the Falcon, served as the basis for 16 above-average mysteries in the 1940s, and while the series cannot be called unusual, one of its entries presented a perhaps-unique situation. George Sanders had played the character in three films when, in 1942, he decided to leave the series. In THE FALCON’S BROTHER it was arranged to put him out of the way so his brother could take over for him. Sanders’ real-life brother, Tom Conway, was the replacement; he carried on for nine subsequent films. John Calvert played the character in three final low-budget films which aren’t really part of the main series. Various character actors came in and out of the series playing cronies of the Falcon, such as Allen Jenkins, Ed Brophy, Eddie Dunn, and Ed Gargan. James Gleason played a thick-witted inspector in the first few films, and Cliff Clark took over for the rest. In fact, some of the films had so much comedy relief, one yearned for some mystery relief from the comedy! One interesting gimmick in several films had a beautiful girl enter near the end of the picture to alert the Falcon to danger in a new location; this would lead into the next film in which the Falcon and the girl would embark upon the new mystery. One entry, THE FALCON TAKES OVER, was from a Raymond Chandler novel, FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, which was remade as MURDER, MY SWEET with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe.

THE FALCON

The Gay Falcon (1941)

A Date With the Falcon (1941)

The Falcon Takes Over (1942)

The Falcon’s Brother (1942)

The Falcon Strikes Back (1943)

The Falcon and the Co-eds (1943)

The Falcon in Danger (1943)

The Falcon in Hollywood (1944)

The Falcon in Mexico (1944)

The Falcon Out West (1944)

The Falcon in San Francisco (1945)

The Falcon’s Alibi (1946)

The Falcon’s Adventure (1946)

The Devil’s Cargo (1948)

Appointment With Murder (1948)

Search for Danger (1949)

Falcon and the Co-eds, The (1943) 68m. ½ D: William Clemens. Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Rita Corday, Amelita Ward, Isabel Jewell, George Givot, Cliff Clark, Ed Gargan. There’s a slew of sinister suspects when murder strikes at a girls’ school, with playboy Falcon called in to investigate. Amusing entry features Dorothy Malone(y) in a bit part as a student.

Falcon in Danger, The (1943) 70m. D: William Clemens. Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Elaine Shepard, Amelita Ward, Cliff Clark, Ed Gargan, Clarence Kolb, Richard Martin. Minor entry about disappearance of passengers and $100,000 from a downed airplane.

Falcon in Hollywood, The (1944) 67m. ½ D: Gordon Douglas. Tom Conway, Barbara Hale, Veda Ann Borg, John Abbott, Sheldon Leonard, Konstantin Shayne, Emory Parnell, Frank Jenks, Rita Corday, Jean Brooks. While on vacation in Tinseltown, the Falcon probes the murder of an actor, allowing for an entertaining tour of RKO studio’s back lot. Borg shines as a brassy cab driver.

Falcon in Mexico, The (1944) 70m. ½ D: William Berke. Tom Conway, Mona Maris, Martha MacVicar (Vickers), Nestor Paiva, Mary Currier, Emory Parnell, Pedro de Cordoba. Suspenseful entry takes the Falcon from Manhattan to Mexico City to solve the murder of an art gallery owner over a new painting by a supposedly dead artist. Scenic exteriors of Mexico are rumored to be from Orson Welles’ unfinished film IT’S ALL TRUE.

Falcon in San Francisco, The (1945) 66m. ½ D: Joseph H. Lewis. Tom Conway, Rita Corday, Edward Brophy, Sharyn Moffett, Fay Helm, Robert Armstrong, Myrna Dell. The Falcon, sidekick Brophy, and moppet Moffett take on a gang of silk smugglers in this leisurely but well-directed entry.

Falcon Out West, The (1944) 64m. ½ D: William Clemens. Tom Conway, Barbara Hale, Don Douglas, Carole Gallagher, Joan Barclay, Cliff Clark, Ed Gargan, Minor Watson, Lyle Talbot. The Falcon heads to Texas to catch the killer of a millionaire rancher who died in a N.Y.C. nightclub. Future leading man Lawrence Tierney plays an orchestra leader.

Falcon’s Adventure, The (1946) 61m. D: William Berke. Tom Conway, Madge Meredith, Edward S. Brophy, Robert Warwick, Myrna Dell, Steve Brodie, Carol Forman, Ian Wolfe. Stale rehash of A DATE WITH THE FALCON, about imperiled inventor of synthetic diamonds. Last Falcon entry featuring Conway.

Falcon’s Alibi, The (1946) 62m. D: Ray McCarey. Tom Conway, Rita Corday, Vince Barnett, Jane Greer, Elisha Cook, Jr., Emory Parnell, Al Bridge, Jason Robards, Sr., Jean Brooks, Myrna Dell. Basically a retread of initial entry, THE GAY FALCON, about society matron’s stolen jewels. Tepid, despite a good supporting cast.

Falcon’s Brother, The (1942) 63m. ½ D: Stanley Logan. George Sanders, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph, Don Barclay, Amanda Varela, George Lewis, Cliff Clark, Edward Gargan. Enemy agents plan to assassinate a South American diplomat to sabotage U.S.-Latin American relations and the Falcon calls in his brother Tom (real-life brother Conway) to help out. Sanders’ last film in the series.

Falcon Strikes Back, The (1943) 66m. ½ D: Edward Dmytryk. Tom Conway, Harriet Hilliard (Nelson), Jane Randolph, Edgar Kennedy, Cliff Edwards, Rita Corday, Wynne Gibson, Cliff Clark, Ed Gargan. The Falcon is framed for murdering a banker as part of a war-bond racket and tracks down the real culprits in this breezy entry. A plum role for Kennedy.

Falcon Takes Over, The (1942) 62m. D: Irving Reis. George Sanders, Lynn Bari, James Gleason, Allen Jenkins, Helen Gilbert, Ward Bond, Edward Gargan, Anne Revere, George Cleveland, Hans Conried, Turhan Bey. Substantial, well-meshed mystery based on Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, with Sanders up to his neck in corpses and double-crossing clients, aided by reporter Bari. Bond is a memorable Moose Malloy. Remade just two years later as MURDER, MY SWEET.

Fallen Angel (1945) 97m. ½ D: Otto Preminger. Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford, Anne Revere, Bruce Cabot, John Carradine. Andrews, hard up and bitter, stops in a small California town and falls for sultry waitress Darnell. To get money to marry her, he plans to first wed mousy heiress Faye and fleece her. Slow-paced (if good-looking) film noir was an ill-fated change of pace for musical star Faye, in her last starring movie.

Fallen Idol, The (1948-British) 94m. ½ D: Carol Reed. Ralph Richardson, Michele Morgan, Bobby Henrey, Sonia Dresdel, Jack Hawkins, Bernard Lee. Young boy idolizes a household servant who is suspected of murdering his wife. Exceptional realization of Graham Greene story “The Basement Room,” told in large part from the child’s point of view. Scripted by Greene, Lesley Storm, and William Templeton. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Fallen Sparrow, The (1943) 94m. ½ D: Richard Wallace. John Garfield, Maureen O’Hara, Walter Slezak, Patricia Morison, Martha O’Driscoll, Bruce Edwards, John Miljan, John Banner, Hugh Beaumont. Entertaining if somewhat vague WW2 thriller with Garfield returning to N.Y.C. after fighting in the Spanish Civil War, only to find himself hunted by undercover Nazis. Promising material never really pans out.

Fall Guy (1947) 64m. ½ D: Reginald Le Borg. Clifford (Leo) Penn, Robert Armstrong, Teala Loring, Elisha Cook, Jr., Douglas Fowley, Charles Arnt, Virginia Dale, Iris Adrian. Poor sap wakes up from a blackout with blood on his hands and is questioned by the police about a murder. With only a foggy memory of attending a wild party the night before, he escapes and tries to find out what really happened. Low-budget noir, based on Cornell Woolrich’s story “Cocaine,” with appropriately seedy atmosphere and a few nice touches. Debut for leading man Penn, who became a prolific TV director and the father of Sean Penn.

Fall of the House of Usher SEE: House of Usher

Fall of the Roman Empire, The (1964) C-180m. ½ D: Anthony Mann. Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quayle, John Ireland, Omar Sharif, Mel Ferrer, Eric Porter. Intelligent scripting, good direction, and fine acting place this far above the usual empty-headed spectacle. Mason and Guinness are superb; several action sequences are outstanding. A winner all the way. Screenplay by Philip Yordan, Ben Barzman, and Basilio Franchina. Runs 185m. with overture, intermission/entr’acte, exit music. Ultra Panavision 70.

False Colors (1943) 65m. ½ D: George Archainbaud. William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Jimmy Rogers, Douglass Dumbrille, Tom Seidel, Claudia Drake, Bob (Robert) Mitchum, Glenn Strange, Roy Barcroft. Bar 20 cowpuncher, heir to a ranch with valuable water rights, is murdered so that an impostor can claim ownership on behalf of a crooked banker. Handsome production features Clyde in rare form, and the series debut for Will Rogers’ son Jimmy as Hopalong Cassidy’s newest (and least interesting) young sidekick. It’s fun watching 47-year-old Boyd pulverize 25-year-old Mitchum in a slam-bang fight.

False Paradise (1948) 59m. ½ D: George Archainbaud. William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Rand Brooks, Elaine Riley, Cliff Clark, Kenneth R. MacDonald. Slick banker holding a mortgage cons retired professor and his daughter to obtain silver-rich real estate. Second-to-last Hopalong Cassidy feature builds to nice action finish and is one of the better efforts produced by Boyd, though disappointing when he doesn’t wear dark outfit fans expect. Reissued as THE FIGHTING TEXAN.

Falstaff SEE: Chimes at Midnight

Fame Is the Spur (1946-British) 116m. ½ D: John and Roy Boulting. Michael Redgrave, Rosamund John, Anthony Wager, Brian Weske. Thoughtful if slow-moving chronicle of a noted politician-diplomat who rises from poverty to fame.

Family Affair, A (1937) 69m. D: George B. Seitz. Lionel Barrymore, Mickey Rooney, Spring Byington, Cecilia Parker, Eric Linden, Julie Haydon, Charley Grapewin, Sara Haden. Amiable first entry in the Andy Hardy series centers on Judge Hardy (Barrymore) solving various family problems while trying to be reelected. A good intro to the sentimental charm of life in Louis B. Mayer’s idealized vision of smalltown America. Byington and Barrymore’s roles were taken over by Fay Holden and Lewis Stone for the rest of the series. Based on the play Skidding by Aurania Rouverol.

Family Honeymoon (1948) 90m. ½ D: Claude Binyon. Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Rita Johnson, Gigi Perreau. What could have been fine comedy turns out to be uneven farce as widow takes children on second honeymoon. Very good cast does its best. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Family Jewels, The (1965) C-100m. ½ D: Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis, Donna Butterworth, Sebastian Cabot, Robert Strauss, Milton Frome. Depending on your taste for Lewis, you’ll either be in ecstasy or writhing on the floor in pain because he plays seven parts—all of them as potential guardians of little girl who is inheriting several million dollars.

Family Secret, The (1951) 85m. ½ D: Henry Levin. John Derek, Lee J. Cobb, Jody Lawrance, Erin O’Brien-Moore, Santos Ortega, Henry O’Neill, Carl Benton Reid. Law student Derek, a child of privilege who’s been indulged by his parents, accidentally kills his best friend. What will he do? Quietly effective drama explores issues of guilt, innocence, and responsibility.

Fan, The (1949) 89m. D: Otto Preminger. Jeanne Crain, Madeleine Carroll, George Sanders, Richard Greene. Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners Lady Windermere’s Fan, involving marital indiscretion and social-climbing in Victorian England, loses much of its wit in this version. Madeleine Carroll’s last film. Previously filmed in 1916, 1925, 1935 (in Germany), and 1944 (in Mexico), and remade in 2004 as A GOOD WOMAN.

Fanatics, The (1957-French) 85m. D: Alex Joffé. Pierre Fresnay, Michel Auclair, Gregoire Aslan, Betty Schneider. Occasionally taut tale of two revolutionaries (Fresnay, Auclair) with very different ideas about assassinating a South American dictator.

Fancy Pants (1950) C-92m. D: George Marshall. Mr. Robert Hope (formerly Bob), Lucille Ball, Bruce Cabot, Jack Kirkwood, Lea Penman, Eric Blore. Amusing musical remake of RUGGLES OF RED GAP with English valet Hope accompanying nouveau riche wildcat Lucy to her Western home.

Fanfan La Tulipe (1952-French) 99m. D: Christian-Jaque. Gérard Philipe, Gina Lollobrigida, Noel Roquevert, Olivier Hussenot, Marcel Herrand, Sylvie Pelayo, Genevieve Page. Delightful satire of swashbuckling epics, with Philipe ideal as the sword-wielding, love-hungry 18th-century Frenchman joining Louis XV’s army.

Fanny (1932-French)120m. ½ D: Marc Allegret. Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, Charpin, Orane Demazis, Alida Rouffe. Marius (Fresnay) abandons Fanny (Demazis) with his child; with César (Raimu) playing Cupid, she marries Panisse (Charpin). Second of Marcel Pagnol’s charming trilogy, preceded by MARIUS and followed by CÉSAR. All three were the basis of the play and movie FANNY (1961). Remade in 2013 by Daniel Auteuil.

Fanny (1961) C-133m. D: Joshua Logan. Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Horst Buchholz, Baccaloni, Lionel Jeffries. Gorgeously photographed and beautifully scored dramatic version of Marcel Pagnol’s trilogy involving young girl left with child by adventure-seeking sailor. Chevalier and Boyer give flavorful performances.

Fanny by Gaslight SEE: Man of Evil

Fantasia (1940) C-120m. ½ D: Ben Sharpsteen (production supervisor). Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra; narrated by Deems Taylor. Walt Disney’s eight-part marriage of music and animated images remains an amazing achievement; Taylor’s narration dates it more than the content. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (with Mickey Mouse), “The Dance of the Hours” (with dancing hippos and alligators), “Rite of Spring” (dinosaurs stalking the earth), and “A Night on Bald Mountain” (with Chernobog, the personification of evil) are so stunning that they make up for the less compelling sequences. Also notable for groundbreaking use of multichannel stereophonic sound. DVD (with newly filmed credits) runs 124m. Followed by FANTASIA 2000.

Fantômas (1964-French-Italian) C-105m. ½ D: André Hunebelle. Jean Marais, Louis de Funès, Mylène Demongeot, Jacques Dynam, Robert Dalban, Marie-Hélène Arnaud. French cinema’s arch-criminal and master of disguise (first seen in a 1913 serial) is updated for the James Bond era in the first of three lavish, campy 1960s films. Marais has a dual role as Fantômas and an intrepid reporter on his trail, while de Funès fumes frantically as a bumbling police chief who’s always one step behind. Followed by FANTÔMAS STRIKES BACK. Franscope.

Fantômas Strikes Back (1965-French-Italian) C-100m. ½ D: André Hunebelle. Jean Marais, Louis de Funès, Mylène Demongeot, Jacques Dynam, Christian Toma, Michel Duplaix, Robert Dalban. Fantômas kidnaps scientists working on a mind-control device as part of a nefarious plot to take over the world. Silly but fun romp filled with gadgets galore and some strikingly stylized sets. Followed by FANTÔMAS VS. SCOTLAND YARD. Franscope.

Far Country, The (1955) C-97m. D: Anthony Mann. James Stewart, Ruth Roman, Corinne Calvet, Walter Brennan, Jay C. Flippen, John McIntire, Harry Morgan, Jack Elam, Robert Wilkie, Connie Gilchrist, Kathleen Freeman. Cattleman Stewart, a confirmed loner, brings his herd through Alaska to Canada and finds nothing but trouble. Solid Canadian-made Western set against colorful backdrop of mining camp towns. Story and screenplay by Borden Chase.

Farewell Again (1937-British) 81m. ½ D: Tim Whelan. Leslie Banks, Flora Robson, Sebastian Shaw, Patricia Hilliard. Neatly handled minor film detailing events in the lives of British soldiers on short leave before embarking for the front again. U.S. Title: TROOPSHIP.

Farewell to Arms, A (1932) 78m. D: Frank Borzage. Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Philips, Jack LaRue, Blanche Frederici. Lushly romantic adaptation of Hemingway novel about ill-fated WW1 romance between American soldier and British nurse; dated but well done. Charles Lang’s exquisite cinematography won an Oscar. Remade in 1951 (as FORCE OF ARMS) and in 1957. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Farewell to Arms, A (1957) C-152m. ½ D: Charles Vidor. Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Sordi, Mercedes McCambridge, Elaine Stritch, Oscar Homolka. Overblown, padded remake has unconvincing leads, static treatment of WW1 story so romantically told in Hemingway novel. Hudson is American ambulance driver wounded in WW1 Italy who falls in love with nurse Jones. Last film produced by David O. Selznick. CinemaScope.

Far Frontier (1948) C-67m. D: William Witney. Roy Rogers, Gail Davis, Andy Devine, Francis Ford, Roy Barcroft, Clayton Moore, Robert Strange, Holly Bane, Lane Bradford, Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage. Hard-hitting Rogers Western, with Roy up against vicious gangsters who smuggle deported criminals back into the country. Tough storyline, good direction, one of Roy’s best late-’40s outings. Only b&w prints seem to survive.

Far Horizons, The (1955) C-108m. ½ D: Rudolph Maté. Fred MacMurray, Charlton Heston, Donna Reed, Barbara Hale, William Demarest. Movie fiction about Lewis and Clark expedition, beautifully photographed; sporadic action; implausible love interest. VistaVision.

Farmer’s Daughter, The (1940) 60m. D: James Hogan. Martha Raye, Charlie Ruggles, Richard Denning, Gertrude Michael, William Frawley, Inez Courtney, William Demarest. Not to be confused with later film, this one is about a Broadway huckster who transforms a barn into a theater. Worthwhile only for Raye, playing the title character.

Farmer’s Daughter, The (1947) 97m. ½ D: H. C. Potter. Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Charles Bickford, Rose Hobart, Harry Davenport, Lex Barker, James Aurness (Arness), Keith Andes, Rhys Williams, Art Baker. Young won an Oscar for her irresistible performance as a naïve but straight-thinking farm girl who goes to work for a senator—and winds up running for a congressional seat against his party. Delightful comedy with an excellent cast. Allen Rivkin and Laura Kerr adapted Juhani Tervapää’s play Hulda, Daughter of Parliament. Later a TV series.

Farmer’s Wife, The (1928-British) 97m. ½ D: Alfred Hitchcock. Jameson Thomas, Lillian Hall-Davies, Gordon Harker. A Hitchcock silent comedy. Farmer Thomas, unsuccessful at finding a bride, is secretly loved by devoted housekeeper Davies. Enjoyable rustic comedy; written by the director. Based on a play by Eden Philpotts.

Farmer Takes a Wife, The (1935) 91m. ½ D: Victor Fleming. Janet Gaynor, Henry Fonda, Charles Bickford, Slim Summerville, Jane Withers, Andy Devine, Margaret Hamilton, George “Gabby” Hayes. Leisurely paced tale, set in the mid-19th century, with wannabe farmer Fonda (in his screen debut, re-creating a role he played on Broadway) working on a boat that traverses the Erie Canal in upstate New York, becoming romantically involved with spirited Gaynor. Remade as a musical in 1953.

Farmer Takes a Wife, The (1953) C-81m. D: Henry Levin. Betty Grable, Dale Robertson, Thelma Ritter, John Carroll, Eddie Foy, Jr., Gwen Verdon. Musical remake of 1935 film is slow-paced account of life in 1800s along the Erie Canal.

Fashions of 1934 (1934) 78m. D: William Dieterle. William Powell, Bette Davis, Verree Teasdale, Reginald Owen, Frank McHugh, Phillip Reed, Hugh Herbert. Trivial but enjoyable romp of con man Powell and designer Davis conquering the Paris fashion world. Fine cast glides along with dapper Powell; Busby Berkeley’s “Spin a Little Web of Dreams” number is great fun. Aka FASHIONS.

Fast and Furious (1939) 73m. ½ D: Busby Berkeley. Franchot Tone, Ann Sothern, Ruth Hussey, John Miljan, Allyn Joslyn, Bernard Nedell, Mary Beth Hughes. Tone and Sothern are well matched as Joel and Garda Sloane, rare-book dealers who get involved in a murder at a seaside beauty pageant. Last of three MGM B movies about these characters written by Harry Kurnitz.

Fast and Loose (1930) 75m. ½ D: Fred Newmeyer. Miriam Hopkins, Carol(e) Lombard, Frank Morgan, Ilka Chase, Charles Starrett. Stiff adaptation of a Broadway comedy about a society girl falling in love with an ordinary guy. Preston Sturges is credited with the dialogue. Hopkins’ film debut; Lombard has a smallish role.

Fast and Loose (1939) 80m. ½ D: Edwin L. Marin. Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Reginald Owen, Ralph Morgan, Etienne Girardot, Alan Dinehart, Jo Ann Sayers, Joan Marsh, Sidney Blackmer. Montgomery and Russell are engaging as Joel and Garda Sloane, Nick & Nora–ish rare-book dealers who become involved in solving the murder of a wealthy bibliophile. Goes on a bit too long, but still fun. Second of three MGM films about this duo, written by Harry Kurnitz. Followed by FAST AND FURIOUS.

Fast and Sexy (1958-Italian) C-98m. ½ D: Reginald Denham. Gina Lollobrigida, Dale Robertson, Vittorio De Sica, Carla Macelloni. Lollobrigida is fun-loving widow who returns to her village seeking new husband. Technirama.

Fast and the Furious, The (1954) 73m. D: Edwards Sampson, John Ireland. John Ireland, Dorothy Malone, Iris Adrian, Bruce Carlisle, Jean Howell, Larry Thor. Ireland is fugitive on the lam from murder frameup who jockeys Malone’s sports car, with uninspired romantic interludes and cops-on-the-chase sequences. Produced and written by Roger Corman, this was the first film for American Releasing Corporation—soon to be the fabled AIP (American-International Pictures).

Fast Company (1938) 73m. D: Edward Buzzell. Melvyn Douglas, Florence Rice, Claire Dodd, Louis Calhern, George Zucco, Shepperd Strudwick, Dwight Frye, Nat Pendleton. Lighthearted mystery about snappily married couple who find their rare-book business a springboard for sleuthing—especially when a fellow dealer is murdered and a friend of theirs is the key suspect. Based on a novel by Marco Page (a pseudonym for Harry Kurnitz, who also coscripted the film). Followed by FAST AND LOOSE (1939). TV title: THE RARE-BOOK MURDER.

Fast Company (1953) 67m. D: John Sturges. Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Marjorie Main, Nina Foch, Robert Burton, Carol Nugent, Joaquin Garay, Horace McMahon, Iron Eyes Cody. Silly horse-racing yarn with hot-tempered Bergen inheriting a nag and tangling with (and falling for) horse trainer Keel.

Fastest Gun Alive, The (1956) 92m. D: Russell Rouse. Glenn Ford, Jeanne Crain, Broderick Crawford, Russ Tamblyn. Sincere Western with a moral. Ford is a peace-loving storekeeper trying to live down renown as gunslinger, but there’s always someone waiting to challenge him. Tamblyn has an impressive solo dance feature. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Fast Lady, The (1963-British) C-95m. ½ D: Ken Annakin. James Robertson Justice, Leslie Phillips, Stanley Baxter, Kathleen Harrison, Julie Christie, Eric Barker. Enjoyable, modest farce of naive Baxter, a Scotsman living in England, learning to drive an antique car—and to woo Christie in the process. Julie, in second film role, is thoroughly charming.

Fast Life (1932) 82m. ½ D: Harry Pollard. William Haines, Madge Evans, Conrad Nagel, Arthur Byron, Cliff Edwards, Warburton Gamble. Vintage action farce stars Haines as the smart-aleck designer of a high-speed boat engine who competes with wealthy Nagel and his snobbish friends. Breezy but dated frolic must have seemed pretty snappy at the time. Buffs will note a rare on-screen appearance by short-subject producer/narrator Pete Smith as the announcer during the big race finale.

Fast Workers (1933) 68m. ½ D: Tod Browning. John Gilbert, Robert Armstrong, Mae Clarke, Muriel Kirkland, Vince Barnett, Virginia Cherrill, Sterling Holloway. Abysmal film based on a play called Rivets, about construction workers who are friendly romantic rivals. Starts out snappy, then turns to turgid dramatics. Odd material for horror director Browning, too.

Fatal Desire (1954-Italian) 80m. D: Carmine Gallone. Anthony Quinn, Kerima, May Britt, Ettore Manni, Umberto Spadaro; voice of Tito Gobbi. Nonmusical version of Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria Rusticana, about love, adultery, and revenge in small Sicilian town. Originally filmed in color and 3-D, not released in U.S. until 1963 in b&w.

Fatal Hour, The (1940) 67m. ½ D: William Nigh. Boris Karloff, Marjorie Reynolds, Grant Withers, Charles Trowbridge, John Hamilton, Frank Puglia, Jason Robards, Sr. Slight mystery, fourth in the Mr. Wong series, with the detective becoming involved in the investigation of a cop’s death.

Fatal Witness, The (1945) 59m. ½ D: Lesley Selander. Evelyn Ankers, Richard Fraser, George Leigh, Barbara Everest, Frederick Worlock. Quickie mystery yarn with obvious plot about wealthy matron’s murder, capture of culprit.

Fate Is the Hunter (1964) 106m. ½ D: Ralph Nelson. Glenn Ford, Nancy Kwan, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette, Jane Russell, Wally Cox, Nehemiah Persoff, Mark Stevens, Max Showalter, Mary Wickes. One-note drama of investigation into cause of controversial plane crash. Good cast works with routine script. Dorothy Malone appears unbilled in one key scene. CinemaScope.

Father Brown SEE: Detective, The (1954)

Father Goose (1964) C-115m. D: Ralph Nelson. Cary Grant, Leslie Caron, Trevor Howard, Jack Good, Nicole Felsette. Grant goes native as shiftless bum on a South Seas island during WW2, who’s persuaded to become a lookout for the Australian Navy—and finds himself sheltering Caron and a gaggle of schoolgirls fleeing the Japanese. Lightweight and enjoyable. Oscar-winning script by Peter Stone and Frank Tarloff.

Father Is a Bachelor (1950) 84m. D: Norman Foster, Abby Berlin. William Holden, Coleen Gray, Mary Jane Saunders, Stuart Erwin, Sig Ruman. Vagabond Holden with five “adopted” kids meets Gray who wants to marry him; “cute” comedy.

Father Makes Good (1950) 61m. ½ D: Jean Yarbrough. Raymond Walburn, Walter Catlett, Barbara Brown, Gertrude Astor. Mild little film in Walburn series about smalltown man who purchases a cow to show his contempt for new milk tax.

Father of the Bride (1950) 93m. D: Vincente Minnelli. Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett, Billie Burke, Leo G. Carroll, Don Taylor, Rusty (Russ) Tamblyn. Liz is marrying Don Taylor, but Dad (Tracy) has all the aggravation. Perceptive view of American life, witty script by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (based on Edward Streeter’s book), and peerless Tracy performance. Sequel: FATHER’S LITTLE DIVIDEND. Later a TV series. Remade in 1991. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Father’s Little Dividend (1951) 82m. D: Vincente Minnelli. Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor, Billie Burke, Rusty (Russ) Tamblyn. Delightful sequel to FATHER OF THE BRIDE with same cast. Now Tracy is going to be a grandfather and he doesn’t look forward to it. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Father’s Wild Game (1950) 61m. ½ D: Herbert I. Leeds. Raymond Walburn, Walter Catlett, Jane Darwell, Roscoe Ates, Ann Tyrrell. In this entry, Walburn is protesting inflation at the meat market and decides to hunt wild game himself.

Father Takes a Walk (1935-British) 82m. D: William Beaudine. Paul Graetz, Violet Farebrother, Chili Bouchier, Mickey Brantford, Ralph Truman, Barry Livesey, Kenneth Villiers. Lovely little sleeper about an aging department store entrepreneur (Graetz) who feels he no longer fits in now that his son is running the business. Fascinating “quota quickie” curio is loaded with heart. Based on a Mary Roberts Rinehart story. Aka MR. COHEN TAKES A WALK.

Father Takes a Wife (1941) 79m. ½ D: Jack Hively. Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Swanson, John Howard, Desi Arnaz, Helen Broderick, Florence Rice, Neil Hamilton. Pleasant little comedy about glamorous stage star (Swanson) who “settles down” and marries Menjou, but takes on opera singer Arnaz as her protégé.

Father Takes the Air (1951) 61m. ½ D: Frank McDonald. Raymond Walburn, Walter Catlett, Florence Bates, Gary Gray. Walburn is involved with local flying school and accidentally captures a crook.

Father Was a Fullback (1949) 84m. ½ D: John M. Stahl. Fred MacMurray, Maureen O’Hara, Betty Lynn, Rudy Vallee, Thelma Ritter, Natalie Wood. Wholesome comedy with most engaging cast. MacMurray is football coach with as many household problems as on the gridiron.

Fat Man, The (1951) 77m. ½ D: William Castle. J. Scott Smart, Rock Hudson, Julie London, Clinton Sundberg, Jayne Meadows, Emmett Kelly. The star of radio’s popular series of the same name appeared in this one-shot film adaptation as the corpulent gourmet/detective (created by Dashiell Hammett) whose investigation of a murder leads him to a circus for whodunit showdown. Only dramatic film role for top clown Kelly.

Fat Spy, The (1965) C-75m. ½ D: Joseph Cates. Phyllis Diller, Jack E. Leonard, Brian Donlevy, Jayne Mansfield, Jordan Christopher, The Wild Ones, Johnny Tillotson. Once-in-a-lifetime cast makes this a must for camp followers—and a sure thing to avoid for most others. Fat Jack plays dual roles, in a story of a search for the Fountain of Youth. Shot in Florida.

Faust (1926-German) 116m. D: F. W. Murnau. Emil Jannings, Gosta Ekman, Camilla Horn, Wilhelm (William) Dieterle, Yvette Guilbert, Eric Barcley. Oft-told story of the eternal, earthly conflict between good and evil, in which the title character bargains away his soul to Mephistopheles (Jannings). Not a classic like Murnau’s THE LAST LAUGH or SUNRISE, but still a compelling, inventively directed, visually sumptuous film, highlighted by clever special effects and impressive use of light and shadow. Based on the play by Goethe. Dieterle, then an actor, later directed THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER.

Fazil (1928) 88m. D: Howard Hawks. Charles Farrell, Greta Nissen, Mae Busch, Vadim Uraneff, Tyler Brooke, John Boles. Strange casting of Farrell as desert sheik is just one oddity in this opulent romance. Visually stunning but dramatically far-fetched silent film.

FBI Code 98 (1964) 104m. ½ D: Leslie H. Martinson. Jack Kelly, Ray Danton, Andrew Duggan, Philip Carey, William Reynolds, Peggy McCay, Kathleen Crowley, Merry Anders, Jack Cassidy, Vaughn Taylor, Robert Ridgely. Efficient, no-frills procedural utilizing documentary footage and a stentorian narrator singing the glories of the FBI during a hunt for the culprit who planted a bomb aboard a plane carrying three executives of an electronics company working on the U.S. missile program. Made for TV but released to theaters instead.

F.B.I. Girl (1951) 74m. D: William Berke. Cesar Romero, George Brent, Audrey Totter, Tom Drake, Raymond Burr, Raymond Greenleaf, Margia Dean, Tom Noonan, Pete (Peter) Marshall, Joy (Joi) Lansing. Standard fare involving G-men Romero and Brent’s investigation of the “accidental” death of a Bureau clerk. Burr is a standout as a quietly menacing thug.

FBI Story, The (1959) C-149m. D: Mervyn LeRoy. James Stewart, Vera Miles, Murray Hamilton, Larry Pennell, Nick Adams, Diane Jergens, Joyce Taylor. Well-mounted fabrication of history of FBI as seen through career of agent Stewart, allowing for episodic sidelights into action-packed capers and view of his personal life. The real J. Edgar Hoover appears briefly, seated at his desk, in a narrated scene without dialogue.

Fear (1946) 68m. D: Alfred Zeisler. Peter Cookson, Warren William, Anne Gwynne, Francis Pierlot, Nestor Paiva, Darren McGavin. Impoverished student Cookson murders a pawnbroking college professor in a robbery attempt, then is hounded by police investigator William, in this low-budget modern-dress takeoff on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Fear (1954-German-Italian) 84m. ½ D: Robert Rossellini. Ingrid Bergman, Mathias Wieman, Renate Mannhardt, Kurt Kreuger, Elise Aulinger, Edith Schultze-Westrum. Bergman gives an intense performance as the wife of a German scientist who breaks off an extramarital affair but is blackmailed by her lover’s former mistress. Minor but compelling Rossellini film given an extra dimension by a surprise twist. Rossellini and Bergman’s final film together before their divorce. Based on a novella by Stefan Zweig.

Fear and Desire (1953) 68m. D: Stanley Kubrick. Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Paul Mazursky, Steve Coit, Virginia Leith; narrated by David Allen. Kubrick’s elusive, shoestring-budget feature-film debut is an existential antiwar allegory centering on four GIs (including a very green Mazursky, in his film debut) stranded behind the lines of an unknown enemy and fighting a fictitious war in an unidentified country. Long suppressed by Kubrick himself—who also photographed, edited, and cowrote with poet/playwright Howard Sackler—the movie contains some striking imagery and shows the germs of budding talent, but generally comes off as an arty and pretentious student film.

Fear in the Night (1947) 72m. D: Maxwell Shane. Paul Kelly, DeForest Kelley, Kay Scott, Ann Doran, Robert Emmett Keane. Nifty chiller in which bank teller Kelley dreams he has killed a man in a mirrored room—and wakes up to be confronted by evidence that his fantasy was in fact reality. Based on the story “Nightmare” by William Irish (Cornell Woolrich); remade under that title in 1956.

Fearless Fagan (1952) 79m. D: Stanley Donen. Carleton Carpenter, Janet Leigh, Keenan Wynn, Richard Anderson, Ellen Corby, Barbara Ruick. Title character is circus lion who accompanies his dimwitted master (Carpenter) into the Army, with predictable results. Inconsequential comedy.

Fearmakers, The (1958) 83m. ½ D: Jacques Tourneur. Dana Andrews, Dick Foran, Marilee Earle, Veda Ann Borg, Mel Tormé. Brainwashed ex-POW Andrews comes home from the Korean War to discover that his PR firm has been overrun by subversives. Crisply told, low-budget Cold War thriller. While it’s very much of its time, it anticipates contemporary ideas about the way politicians and political ideas are sold to the public.

Fear Strikes Out (1957) 100m. D: Robert Mulligan. Anthony Perkins, Karl Malden, Norma Moore, Adam Williams, Perry Wilson. Stark account of baseball star Jimmy Piersall and his bout with mental illness; Perkins is properly intense, with Malden superb as his domineering father. VistaVision.

Feathered Serpent, The (1948) 68m. ½ D: William Beaudine. Roland Winters, Keye Luke, Victor Sen Yung, Mantan Moreland, Carol Forman, Robert Livingston, Martin Garralaga, Nils Asther, Jay Silverheels. Even the return of Number One Son Luke can’t revive this moribund Charlie Chan entry about the search for a priceless Mexican statue. Scripter Oliver Drake pilfered this from his own RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING SKULL (1937), which starred Livingston.

Feather in Her Hat, A (1935) 72m. ½ D: Alfred Santell. Pauline Lord, Basil Rathbone, Louis Hayward, Billie Burke, Wendy Barrie, Nydia Westman, Victor Varconi, Thurston Hall, Nana Bryant, David Niven. Poor widow (stage actress Lord, in her second and final screen role after MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH) schemes to brighten the prospects of her son (Hayward), who aspires to be a playwright. Not exactly profound, but worth seeing for its cast.

Feet First (1930) 91m. ½ D: Clyde Bruckman. Harold Lloyd, Barbara Kent, Robert McWade, Lillian Leighton, Henry Hall. Lloyd talkie tries to rekindle spirit of his silent comedies with middling results. Episodic film has some very funny moments, but Harold’s building-ledge routine doesn’t quite come off.

Fellowship of the Frog SEE: Face of the Frog

Female (1933) 60m. D: Michael Curtiz. Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Philip Faversham, Ruth Donnelly, Johnny Mack Brown, Lois Wilson, Gavin Gordon. Chatterton runs a major auto company with an iron hand—and tries to conduct her love life the same way—until independent-minded Brent comes along. (The two stars were then married in real life.) Funny, fascinating role-reversal yarn with incredibly lavish set design—watch for the organist perched in Ruth’s entrance foyer!

Female (1956) SEE: Violent Years, The

Female and the Flesh SEE: Light Across the Street, The

Female Animal, The (1958) 84m. ½ D: Harry Keller. Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell, Jan Sterling, George Nader. Sad waste of Lamarr as mature Hollywood star who grapples with adopted daughter Powell over Nader. CinemaScope.

Female Jungle (1956) 56m. D: Bruno VeSota. Jayne Mansfield, Lawrence Tierney, John Carradine, Kathleen Crowley, Rex Thorsen, Burt Carlisle, Bruno VeSota. Lukewarm melodrama of cop Tierney seeking the killer of an actress. Mansfield costars as a nymphomaniac; also known as THE HANGOVER.

Female on the Beach (1955) 97m. D: Joseph Pevney. Joan Crawford, Jeff Chandler, Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway, Judith Evelyn, Natalie Schafer, Charles Drake. Hot, heavy—and very tacky—melodrama, in which fisherman-stud Chandler attempts to put the make on wealthy widow Crawford. Outrageously trashy script is crammed with sexual double entendres. A must for Crawford fans—but don’t expect anything resembling a good movie.

Feminine Touch, The (1941) 97m. ½ D: W. S. Van Dyke II. Rosalind Russell, Don Ameche, Kay Francis, Van Heflin, Donald Meek, Gordon Jones, Robert Ryan. Brittle comedy of author Ameche writing book on jealousy, finding himself a victim when he brings wife Russell to N.Y.C.; she suspects he’s carrying on with glamorous Francis.

Feminine Touch, The (1956-British) C-91m. D: Pat Jackson. George Baker, Belinda Lee, Delphi Lawrence, Adrienne Corri, Diana Wynyard. Undistinguished look at student nurses’ experiences as they graduate to full-time hospital jobs. Also known as THE GENTLE TOUCH.

Fernandel the Dressmaker (1957-French) 84m. ½ D: Jean Boyer. Fernandel, Suzy Delair, Françoise Fabian, Georges Chamarat. Undemanding plot has Fernandel wanting to be high-fashion designer rather than drab man’s tailor.

Ferry Cross the Mersey (1965-British) 88m. D: Jeremy Summers. Gerry and The Pacemakers, Cilla Black, The Fourmost, Jimmy Saville. Gerry Marsden and The Pacemakers perform eight songs in this musical made to cash in on their popularity; most appropriately, they appear as a Liverpool band attempting to compete in a music contest.

Ferry to Hong Kong (1959-British) C-103m. ½ D: Lewis Gilbert. Orson Welles, Curt Jurgens, Sylvia Syms, Jeremy Spenser. Welles and Jurgens have field day as straight-faced ferry boat skipper and drunken Austrian on trip to Macao. Otherwise just routine. CinemaScope.

Feudin’ Fools (1952) 63m. D: William Beaudine. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bennie Bartlett, David Gorcey, Bernard Gorcey, Dorothy Ford, Lyle Talbot, Benny Baker, Russell Simpson, Bob Easton. Sach inherits a farm in Kentucky and gets caught in the crossfire of a family feud. Formula Bowery Boys slapstick for the sticks.

Feudin’, Fussin’ and a-Fightin’ (1948) 78m. ½ D: George Sherman. Donald O’Connor, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Penny Edwards, Joe Besser. Pleasant musical comedy about a traveling salesman who is “recruited” by a rural town to represent them in an annual footrace. Title derives from a pop hit of the day. O’Connor also performs his famous “Me and My Shadow” number with Louis DaPron.

Fever in the Blood, A (1961) 117m. ½ D: Vincent Sherman. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Angie Dickinson, Herbert Marshall, Don Ameche, Jack Kelly, Carroll O’Connor. Turgid dramatics focusing on murder trial which various candidates for governor use to further political ambitions.

Fever Mounts at El Pao SEE: La Fièvre Monte à El Pao

Fiancés, The (1963-Italian) 77m. ½ D: Ermanno Olmi. Carlo Cabrini, Anna Canzi. Young man accepts a welding job in Sicily that will take him away from his fiancée for a year and a half; neither is sure if their relationship will survive the strain of the time apart. Quietly piercing study of love and loneliness in the modern era, told—often in flashbacks—with graceful ease. Writer-director Olmi uses locations and sounds to create a mood that is as expressive and suggestive as the faces of his two lead actors. Italian title: I FIDANZATI.

Fiendish Ghouls, The SEE: Mania

Fiend Who Walked the West, The (1958) 101m. ½ D: Gordon Douglas. Hugh O’Brian, Robert Evans, Dolores Michaels, Linda Cristal, Stephen McNally. Interesting if not altogether successful transposition of KISS OF DEATH to Western setting, with Evans ludicrous in the Widmark psycho role. CinemaScope.

Fiend Without a Face (1958-British) 74m. ½ D: Arthur Crabtree. Marshall Thompson, Kim Parker, Terence Kilburn, Michael Balfour, Gil Winfield. Scientist materializes thoughts in form of invisible brain-shaped creatures which kill people for food. Horrific climax; good special effects.

Fiercest Heart, The (1961) C-91m. D: George Sherman. Stuart Whitman, Juliet Prowse, Ken Scott, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Fitzgerald. Good cast and action-packed skirmishes with Zulus can’t raise this programmer to any heights. Set in Africa. CinemaScope.

Fiesta (1947) C-104m. D: Richard Thorpe. Esther Williams, Akim Tamiroff, Ricardo Montalban, John Carroll, Mary Astor, Cyd Charisse. Williams trades in her bathing suit for a toreador outfit in this weak musical opus.

15 Maiden Lane (1936) 65m. D: Allan Dwan. Claire Trevor, Cesar Romero, Douglas Fowley, Lloyd Nolan, Lester Matthews. Trevor lures Romero in order to crack his underworld gang in this satisfactory programmer.

5th Ave. Girl (1939) 83m. D: Gregory LaCava. Ginger Rogers, Walter Connolly, Verree Teasdale, James Ellison, Tim Holt, Kathryn Adams, Franklin Pangborn, Louis Calhern, Jack Carson. Tiresome social comedy with Rogers as homeless girl taken in by unhappy millionaire Connolly; even Ginger is lifeless in this film that purports to show that poor is better than rich if you’ve got a head on your shoulders.

55 Days at Peking (1963) C-150m. D: Nicholas Ray. Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, David Niven, Flora Robson, John Ireland, Paul Lukas, Jacques Sernas. Stars provide most of the interest in confusing historical account of Boxer Rebellion in 1900s China. Runs 159m. with overture, intermission/entr’acte, exit music. Super Technirama 70.

50 Million Frenchmen (1931) 68m. D: Lloyd Bacon. William Gaxton, Claudia Dell, Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, John Halliday, Helen Broderick, Lester Crawford. An American (Gaxton) in Paris bets $50,000 that he can woo and win Dell in two weeks without spending any money. Flat early-talkie farce adapted from the Broadway hit musical inexplicably cuts out all the songs by Cole Porter! Olsen & Johnson try to add some life to the proceedings. Look for Bela Lugosi as a sinister magician. Originally released in two-strip Technicolor.

Fifty Roads to Town (1937) 81m. ½ D: Norman Taurog. Don Ameche, Ann Sothern, Slim Summerville, Jane Darwell, John Qualen, Stepin Fetchit, Oscar Apfel. Above-par comedy of Ameche and Sothern, both on the lam for different reasons, snowbound together in small inn.

52nd Street (1937) 80m. D: Harold Young. Ian Hunter, Leo Carrillo, Pat Paterson, Kenny Baker, Ella Logan, ZaSu Pitts. Fictionalized story of how 52nd St. became nightclub row in the 1930s; soggy drama punctuated by appearances of some 52nd St. entertainers like Jerry Colonna, Georgie Tapps, Pat Harrington, Sr.

Fighter, The (1952) 78m. ½ D: Herbert Kline. Richard Conte, Vanessa Brown, Lee J. Cobb, Roberta Haynes. Absorbing tale set in Mexico with Conte a boxer who uses winnings to buy arms to seek revenge for family’s murder.

Fighter Attack (1953) C-80m. D: Lesley Selander. Sterling Hayden, J. Carrol Naish, Joy Page, Paul Fierro. Modest film uses flashback to recount Hayden’s last important mission in WW2 Italy.

Fighter Squadron (1948) C-96m. D: Raoul Walsh. Edmond O’Brien, Robert Stack, John Rodney, Tom D’Andrea, Henry Hull. OK WW2 drama of dedicated flier O’Brien, has abundance of clichés weighing against good action sequences. Rock Hudson’s first film.

Fight For Your Lady (1937) 67m. ½ D: Ben Stoloff. John Boles, Jack Oakie, Ida Lupino, Margot Grahame, Gordon Jones, Erik Rhodes, Billy Gilbert. Wrestling trainer Oakie takes over singer Boles’ love life when he’s jilted by tony Grahame in this fluffy but funny musical comedy. Rhodes is hilarious, as usual, as Spadissimo.

Fighting Caravans (1931) 92m. D: Otto Brower, David Burton. Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, Ernest Torrence, Tully Marshall, Eugene Pallette, Fred Kohler, Charles Winninger. Cooper is a wagon train scout romancing pretty Damita while thwarting an Indian attack stirred up by evil trader Kohler. Good cast is only point of interest in this unexciting, would-be prestige Western based on a Zane Grey tale. TV title: BLAZING ARROWS.

Fighting Chance, The (1955) 70m. D: William Witney. Rod Cameron, Julie London, Ben Cooper, Taylor Holmes, Bob Steele. Standard fare. Horse trainer and jockey friend both fall in love with London and are soon at odds with each other.

Fighting Coast Guard (1951) 86m. ½ D: Joseph Kane. Brian Donlevy, Forrest Tucker, Ella Raines, John Russell, Richard Jaeckel, William Murphy, Martin Milner, Steve Brodie, Hugh O’Brian. Better than usual entry in training-for-war film, mixing romance with WW2 military action.

Fighting Cowboy, The SEE: Hoppy’s Holiday

Fighting Father Dunne (1948) 93m. ½ D: Ted Tetzlaff. Pat O’Brien, Darryl Hickman, Charles Kemper, Una O’Connor, Arthur Shields, Anna Q. Nilsson, Billy Gray. Road company BOYS TOWN with determined priest O’Brien devoting his life to easing the plight of poor, homeless newsboys in St. Louis.

Fighting Fools (1949) 69m. D: Reginald LeBorg. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Frankie Darro, Billy Benedict, David Gorcey, Benny Bartlett, Lyle Talbot, Evelynne Eaton, Bernard Gorcey. Familiar fisticuffs as the Bowery Boys team with boxer Darro to break up a fight fixing racket.

Fighting Guardsman (1945) 84m. D: Henry Levin. Willard Parker, Anita Louise, Janis Carter, John Loder, Edgar Buchanan, George Macready. OK costumer of oppressed Frenchmen rising against tyranny in days before French Revolution.

Fighting Kentuckian, The (1949) 100m. ½ D: George Waggner. John Wayne, Vera Ralston, Philip Dorn, Oliver Hardy, Marie Windsor. Frontierland around 1810 is setting for two-fisted saga of Kentuckian (Wayne) combating land-grabbing criminals and courting Ralston, French general’s daughter. Hardy makes rare solo appearance in character role. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Fighting Lawman, The (1953) 71m. ½ D: Thomas Carr. Wayne Morris, Virginia Grey, Harry Lauter, John Kellogg, Myron Healey, Dick Rich. Lackluster account of a woman determined to grab loot from robbers. Grey tries but is defeated by flimsy script.

Fighting Man From Arizona SEE: Dead Don’t Dream, The

Fighting Man of the Plains (1949) C-94m. ½ D: Edwin L. Marin. Randolph Scott, Bill Williams, Jane Nigh, Victor Jory, Douglas Kennedy, Joan Taylor. Scott seeks to avenge brother’s murder, but kills the wrong man. OK Western, with Dale Robertson in his first prominent role (as Jesse James).

Fighting O’Flynn, The (1949) 94m. ½ D: Arthur Pierson. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Richard Greene, Helena Carter, Patricia Medina. Enjoyable swashbuckler set in 1800s Ireland with Fairbanks and Greene vying in love and intrigue. Cowritten by Fairbanks and Robert Thoeren.

Fighting Pimpernel, The SEE: Elusive Pimpernel, The

Fighting Seabees, The (1944) 100m. D: Edward Ludwig. John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Dennis O’Keefe, William Frawley, Leonid Kinskey, J. M. Kerrigan, Ben Welden, Paul Fix, Grant Withers, Duncan Renaldo. Spirited WW2 saga of construction company boss Wayne and naval officer O’Keefe tangling professionally and personally, with journalist Hayward the love interest. The scenario charts the manner in which the “Seabees” (or battalion of construction worker–soldiers) came to be established. Screenplay by Borden Chase and Aeneas MacKenzie. Action-packed second unit direction by Howard Lydecker.

Fighting 69th, The (1940) 90m. ½ D: William Keighley. James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, George Brent, Jeffrey Lynn, Alan Hale, Frank McHugh, Dennis Morgan, Dick Foran, John Litel, George Reeves, Frank Coghlan, Jr. Overripe (but tough to dislike) WW1 tale mixes roughneck comedy, exciting battle action, sloppy sentiment, incredible characterizations (especially Cagney’s) detailing exploits of famed Irish regiment. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Fighting Sullivans, The SEE: Sullivans, The

Fighting Texan, The SEE: False Paradise

Fighting Trouble (1956) 61m. ½ D: George Blair. Huntz Hall, Stanley Clements, Adele Jergens, Joseph Downing, Queenie Smith, David Gorcey. With Leo Gorcey gone (replaced by Clements, as “Duke”), Hall became top banana in the Bowery Boys series, starting with this underdeveloped crime photographers tale.

Fighting Wildcats, The (1957-British) 74m. D: Arthur Crabtree. Keefe Brasselle, Kay Callard, Karel Stepanek, Ursula Howells. Innocuous intrigue set in London and Middle East involving gangsters. Original title: WEST OF SUEZ.

Fighting Youth (1935) 85m. ½ D: Hamilton MacFadden. Charles Farrell, June Martel, Andy Devine, J. Farrell MacDonald, Ann Sheridan, Edward Nugent. Commies vs. College Football! A genuinely bizarre bit of kitsch with subversive student Sheridan squaring off against antiradical quarterback Farrell. Definitely one for the time capsule.

File on Thelma Jordon, The (1949) 100m. ½ D: Robert Siodmak. Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Joan Tetzel, Stanley Ridges, Richard Rober, Paul Kelly. Assistant D.A. Corey’s secret fling with Stanwyck ends when she’s accused of her wealthy aunt’s murder. He gets himself assigned to prosecute her in order to throw the case . . . but is she the killer, and was the fling just part of her long-range plan? You haven’t seen enough films noir if you’re not one step ahead of this plot. Handsomely photographed by George Barnes. Aka THELMA JORDON.

Final Edition, The (1932) 65m. ½ D: Howard Higgin. Pat O’Brien, Mae Clarke, Mary Doran, Bradley Page, Morgan Wallace, James Donlan, Phil Tead. Big-city reporter Clarke tries to get the goods on racketeers to impress her hot-tempered editor (O’Brien), who also happens to be her on-again, off-again boyfriend. Enjoyable little newspaper yarn is peppered with snappy dialogue and captures the seamy underworld milieu.

Final Lie, The SEE: Matter of Dignity, A

Final Test, The (1953-British) 84m. ½ D: Anthony Asquith. Jack Warner, Robert Morley, George Relph, Adrianne Allen. Droll, minor comedy of father-son rivalry over charming Allen.

Finances of the Grand Duke, The (1924-German) 78m. ½ D: F. W. Murnau. Harry Liedtke, Mady Christians, Alfred Abel, Julius Falkenstein, Walter Rilla, Adolphe Engers, Guido Herzfeld, Ilka Grüning, Max Schreck. Kindhearted dictator of a small island nation is wallowing in debt. What’s a benevolent despot to do? Perhaps marry a Russian princess (Christians) who is rolling in wealth. Trivial but lightly likable dramatic farce; unusual fare for Murnau. Schreck (of NOSFERATU fame) plays one of a quartet of creepy conspirators. Scripted by Thea von Harbou, from a novel by Frank Heller.

Finders Keepers (1951) 74m. ½ D: Frederick de Cordova. Tom Ewell, Julia (Julie) Adams, Evelyn Varden, Dusty Henley. Scatterbrained comedy that chugs down at end. Ewell and Varden enliven proceedings about a little boy who comes home with a cartful of money.

Finger Man (1955) 82m. D: Harold Schuster. Frank Lovejoy, Forrest Tucker, Peggie Castle, Timothy Carey, Glenn Gordon, Evelynne Eaton. Convincing performances uplift account of federal agents capturing liquor gang.

Finger of Guilt (1956-British) 85m. ½ D: Joseph Losey. Richard Basehart, Mary Murphy, Constance Cummings, Roger Livesey, Mervyn Johns, Faith Brook. Film director Basehart is blackmailed by woman claiming to be his mistress, which threatens his career and marriage. Intriguing film with disappointing resolution; good look inside British film studio, however. Directed by blacklistee Losey under pseudonyms Alec Snowden/Joseph Walton. Originally released in England as THE INTIMATE STRANGER at 95m.

Finger on the Trigger (1965) C-87m. BOMB D: Sidney Pink. Rory Calhoun, James Philbrook, Todd Martin, Silvia Solar, Brad Talbot. Reb and Yankee vets join forces to secure buried treasure while holding off hostile Indians. Made in Spain. Techniscope.

Finger Points, The (1931) 88m. ½ D: John Francis Dillon. Richard Barthelmess, Fay Wray, Regis Toomey, Robert Elliott, Clark Gable. Vivid though meandering melodrama about crime reporter Barthelmess on the payroll of the mob. Wray is a newspaperwoman who urges him to go straight; Gable scores as a gang boss. One of the writers was W. R. Burnett.

Fingerprints Don’t Lie (1951) 57m. D: Sam Newfield. Richard Travis, Sheila Ryan, Sid Melton, Tom Neal, Margia Dean, Lyle Talbot. It’s science vs. crime decades before TV’s famed forensic series as police lab man Travis checks into the possibility of faked fingerprints, examines hair samples, etc., to determine if a convicted man was intricately framed. Production values are on a 1950s TV level, there’s an organ score, and comic relief Melton is relentless.

Fingers at the Window (1942) 80m. ½ D: Charles Lederer. Lew Ayres, Laraine Day, Basil Rathbone, Walter Kingsford, Miles Mander, James Flavin. Entertaining mystery of Ayres and Day tracking down maniac killer masterminding repeated axe murders.

Finishing School (1934) 73m. ½ D: Wanda Tuchock, George Nicholls, Jr. Frances Dee, Bruce Cabot, Ginger Rogers, Beulah Bondi, Billie Burke, John Halliday. Interesting look at exclusive girls’ school where hypocrisy reigns; wealthy Dee falls in love with struggling hospital intern Cabot.

Finnegans Wake (1965) 97m. ½ D: Mary Ellen Bute. Page Johnson, Martin J. Kelly, Jane Reilly, Peter Haskell. James Joyce’s classic story of Irish tavern-keeper who dreams of attending his own wake is brought to the screen with great energy and control.

Fire and Ice SEE: Le Combat dans L’ile

Fireball, The (1950) 84m. D: Tay Garnett. Mickey Rooney, Pat O’Brien, Beverly Tyler, Marilyn Monroe, Milburn Stone, Glenn Corbett. Rooney’s energetic performance carries this film. Orphan boy devotes himself to becoming big-time roller-skating champ.

Fire Down Below (1957-British) C-116m. ½ D: Robert Parrish. Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon, Herbert Lom, Bernard Lee, Anthony Newley. Contrived but entertaining melodrama of Mitchum and Lemmon, owners of tramp boat, falling in love with shady Hayworth on voyage between islands. CinemaScope.

Firefly, The (1937) 129m. ½ D: Robert Z. Leonard. Jeanette MacDonald, Allan Jones, Warren William, Billy Gilbert, Henry Daniell, Douglass Dumbrille, George Zucco. MacDonald plays a spy working in France on behalf of Spain during the Napoleonic wars in this rewrite of the Rudolf Friml–Otto Harbach operetta. Goes on much too long, but fans of Jeanette won’t mind, and Jones introduces “The Donkey Serenade.”

Fire Maidens of Outer Space (1956-British) 80m. BOMB D: Cy Roth. Anthony Dexter, Susan Shaw, Paul Carpenter, Harry Fowler, Sydney Tafler. Ultracheap space opera about astronauts who land on Jupiter’s 13th moon and discover a society of young lovelies in need of male companionship. Another in the So Bad It’s Good Sweepstakes; you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the Fire Maidens perform their ritual dance to “Stranger in Paradise.” Original British title: FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE.

Fireman, Save My Child (1932) 67m. ½ D: Lloyd Bacon. Joe E. Brown, Evalyn Knapp, Lillian Bond, Guy Kibbee, Virginia Sale. Amusing Brown romp with Joe dividing his time between fire-fighting and baseball. The first in his baseball trilogy, followed by ELMER THE GREAT and ALIBI IKE.

Fireman Save My Child (1954) 80m. ½ D: Leslie Goodwins. Spike Jones, The City Slickers, Buddy Hackett, Hugh O’Brian, Adele Jergens. Sloppy slapstick with Spike Jones et al. manning fire station in 1900s San Francisco, running amuck when they receive a new fire engine. Originally intended for Abbott and Costello, who are still visible in some long shots.

Fire Over Africa (1954) C-84m. D: Richard Sale. Maureen O’Hara, Macdonald Carey, Binnie Barnes, Guy Middleton. O’Hara makes a pretty law enforcer traveling to Africa to track down dope-smuggling syndicate. Filmed on location.

Fire Over England (1937-British) 89m. D: William K. Howard. Laurence Olivier, Flora Robson, Leslie Banks, Raymond Massey, Vivien Leigh, Tamara Desni, Morton Selten, Robert Newton, Donald Calthrop. Satisfying historical drama of British-Spanish conflict in 1500s with flawless performance by Robson (Queen Elizabeth), fine villainy by Massey, romantic support by Olivier and Leigh. Watch for James Mason in a small (unbilled) role.

Fires on the Plain (1959-Japanese) 105m. ½ D: Kon Ichikawa. Eiji Funakoshi, Mantaro Ushio, Yoshihiro Hamaguchi, Osamu Takizawa. Japanese soldiers struggle to survive at the finale of the Philippine campaign during WW2; focus is on travails of tubercular Funakoshi, separated from his unit. Graphically realistic, disturbing, and depressing vision of damnation on earth, with a sobering antiwar message. Daieiscope.

Fire Within, The (1963-French) 108m. ½ D: Louis Malle. Maurice Ronet, Lena Skerla, Yvonne Clech, Hubert Deschamps, Jeanne Moreau, Alexandra Stewart. Shattering study of alcoholism, as wealthy Ronet, released from a sanitarium after a breakdown, visits his old friends in Paris one last time. Probably Malle’s best early film—photographed, scored (with the music of Erik Satie), and acted to maximum effect—and with a minimum of self-pity.

First Auto, The (1927) 77m. D: Roy Del Ruth. Russell Simpson, Patsy Ruth Miller, Charles Emmett Mack, Frank Campeau, William Demarest, Gibson Gowland. Humor, history, and sentiment are well blended in story (by Darryl F. Zanuck) of the clash between the stubborn old owner of a livery stable and his race-car–loving son at the turn of the 20th century. Legendary racer Barney Oldfield appears as himself in this silent film featuring synchronized sound effects, music, and a few words.

First Comes Courage (1943) 88m. ½ D: Dorothy Arzner. Merle Oberon, Brian Aherne, Carl Esmond, Isobel Elsom, Fritz Leiber, Erik Rolf, Larry Parks. Arzner’s final feature is a fairly good wartime drama, with Norwegian Oberon using her feminine wiles to extract secrets from Nazi officer Esmond. Complications arise when British commando Aherne enters the scene.

First Hundred Years, The (1938) 73m. D: Richard Thorpe. Robert Montgomery, Virginia Bruce, Warren William, Binnie Barnes, Harry Davenport, Alan Dinehart, Nydia Westman. Chic comedy finds married couple Montgomery and Bruce at a crossroads: should she give up her successful career as a theatrical agent in N.Y.C. when he finally gets a big promotion that necessitates moving to New England? Ahead of its time, though the frivolity peters out before the end. Produced and written by Norman Krasna.

First Lady (1937) 82m. D: Stanley Logan. Kay Francis, Anita Louise, Verree Teasdale, Preston Foster, Walter Connolly, Victor Jory, Louise Fazenda. Witty adaptation of the acerbic George S. Kaufman–Katherine Dayton play, with Francis as the ambitious wife of the Secretary of State (Foster), whom she’s pushing into presidential campaign against corrupt judge Connolly. Not very cinematic, but brightly acted by fine ensemble.

First Legion, The (1951) 86m. D: Douglas Sirk. Charles Boyer, William Demarest, Lyle Bettger, Barbara Rush. Engrossing low-key account of Jesuit priest who is dubious about an alleged miracle occurring in his town. Boyer gives one of his best performances.

First Love (1939) 84m. D: Henry Koster. Deanna Durbin, Robert Stack, Helen Parrish, Eugene Pallette, Leatrice Joy, Marcia Mae Jones, Frank Jenks. Charming Cinderella story of orphaned girl (Durbin) going to live with uncle and finding romance with Stack (in his film debut). Durbin sings “Amapola” and other songs; her first screen kiss (courtesy Stack) made headlines around the world.

First Love (1958-Italian) 103m. D: Mario Camerini. Carla Gravina, Raf Mattioli, Lorella DeLuca, Luciano Marin. Ettore Scola coscripted this simple—and all-too-familiar—account of the pangs of adolescent love.

First Man Into Space (1959-British) 77m. D: Robert Day. Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, Robert Ayres, Bill Nagy, Carl Jaffe, Bill Edwards. Daring pilot, brother of hero, disobeys orders and becomes the title character, returning to Earth a dust-encrusted, blood-drinking monster. Better than it sounds.

First Men in the Moon (1964-British) C-103m. D: Nathan Juran. Edward Judd, Martha Hyer, Lionel Jeffries, Erik Chitty. Lavish adaptation of H. G. Wells novel is heavy-handed at times, overloaded with comic relief, but still worthwhile; good Ray Harryhausen special effects. Cameo appearance by Peter Finch. Panavision.

First of the Few, The SEE: Spitfire (1942)

First Spaceship on Venus (1960-German) C-78m. D: Kurt Maetzig. Yoko Tani, Oldrich Lukes, Ignacy Machowski, Julius Ongewe. Expedition goes to Venus following clues left by alien ship that exploded on Earth years before. They discover war-blasted landscape and still operating machines. Well produced but stilted. International coproduction was cut by an hour in the U.S., explaining the incoherent storyline. From novel by Europe’s most significant sci-fi writer, Stanislaw Lem, who repudiated the film. Totalvision.

First Texan, The (1956) 82m. ½ D: Byron Haskin. Joel McCrea, Felicia Farr, Jeff Morrow, Wallace Ford. McCrea is forceful as Sam Houston, leading Texans in fight against Mexico for independence; good action sequences. CinemaScope.

First Time, The (1952) 89m. D: Frank Tashlin. Robert Cummings, Barbara Hale, Jeff Donnell, Mona Barrie, Cora Witherspoon. Predictable comedy pegged on young couple’s many problems with raising a baby.

First Traveling Saleslady, The (1956) C-92m. D: Arthur Lubin. Ginger Rogers, Barry Nelson, Carol Channing, David Brian, James Arness, Clint Eastwood. Rogers and Channing try to elevate this plodding comedy of girdle-sellers in the old West, but barely succeed. Carol and Clint make one of the oddest couples in screen history.

First Yank Into Tokyo (1945) 82m. D: Gordon Douglas. Tom Neal, Barbara Hale, Marc Cramer, Richard Loo, Keye Luke, Leonard Strong, Benson Fong. Low-budget quickie made to be topical isn’t so anymore, and it’s not too good either; Neal undergoes plastic surgery, poses as Japanese soldier to help captured American atomic scientist escape. Of note as the first Hollywood film to acknowledge the existence of nuclear firepower.

First Year, The (1926) 67m. D: Frank Borzage. Matt Moore, Kathryn Perry, John Patrick, Frank Currier, Frank Cooley, Virginia Madison, J. Farrell MacDonald. Sensitive and perceptive comedy-drama about the problems that befall newlyweds Moore and Perry during their first year of marriage. A disastrous dinner party scene is a gem. Sweet silent film is one of its director’s minor works, but charming nonetheless. From a play by Frank Craven. Remade in 1932.

Fistful of Dollars (1964-Italian) C-100m. D: Sergio Leone. Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Mario Brega, Carol Brown. Sagebrush remake of YOJIMBO single-handedly invented the “spaghetti Western,” made an international superstar of Eastwood, and boosted the careers of Leone and composer Ennio Morricone as well. Clint plays the laconic Man With No Name, a tough gunslinger manipulating (and manipulated by!) two rival families warring over small frontier town. Amusing, violent, and very stylish. Released in the U.S. in 1967. Sequel: FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. Techniscope.

Fist in His Pocket (1965-Italian) 105m. D: Marco Bellochio. Lou Castel, Paola Pitagora, Marino Mase, Liliana Gerace, Pier Luigi Troglio. Brilliant one-of-a-kind about a mad family of epileptics whose protagonist kills his mother and drowns his younger brother, while his sis merely settles for repressed incest. One of the great, if largely unheralded, foreign films of the ’60s, with Castel more than up to the demands of the difficult role. Aka FISTS IN HIS POCKET.

Fit for a King (1937) 73m. ½ D: Edward Sedgwick. Joe E. Brown, Helen Mack, Paul Kelly, Harry Davenport, Halliwell Hobbes, John Qualen. Somewhat better than usual vehicle for Brown, as a N.Y. Blade office boy who plays cub reporter and covers a royal assassination plot against a visiting archduke. Among the set pieces are Brown in frilly drag as a maid and a big chase finale. Good supporting cast elevates silly material. Remake of I’LL TELL THE WORLD (1933).

Five (1951) 93m. D: Arch Oboler. William Phipps, Susan Douglas, James Anderson, Charles Lampkin, Earl Lee. Intriguing, offbeat film by famed radio writer-director Oboler about the survivors of an atomic holocaust. Talky (and sometimes given to purple prose) but interesting. Filmed in and around Oboler’s Frank Lloyd Wright house.

5 Against the House (1955) 84m. ½ D: Phil Karlson. Guy Madison, Kim Novak, Brian Keith, Alvy Moore, Kerwin Mathews, William Conrad, Kathryn Grant. On a lark, a bored college rich boy plans a Reno, Nevada, casino heist. He doesn’t realize that one of his pals (Keith), a mentally scarred war veteran, is a loose cannon. Interesting (if sometimes overpraised) film has its moments; noteworthy for sympathetic portrayal of the Keith character. Stirling Silliphant, William Bowers, and John Barnwell adapted Jack Finney’s story.

Five and Ten (1931) 89m. D: Robert Z. Leonard. Marion Davies, Leslie Howard, Richard Bennett, Irene Rich, Kent Douglass (Douglass Montgomery), Mary Duncan. Self-made mogul and his family move to N.Y.C. from Kansas City. He’s too busy running his business empire to note that his wife is straying, his son is frustrated, and his daughter (Davies) is setting her sights on architect Howard, who’s engaged to someone else. Snappy dialogue and nice Davies-Howard chemistry add oomph to this entertaining pre-Code soap opera. Based on a book by Fannie Hurst.

Five Angles on Murder SEE: Woman in Question, The

5 Branded Women (1960) 106m. D: Martin Ritt. Van Heflin, Silvana Mangano, Jeanne Moreau, Vera Miles, Barbara Bel Geddes, Richard Basehart, Harry Guardino, Carla Gravina, Alex Nicol, Steve Forrest. Overambitious production, badly miscast, set in WW2 Middle Europe. Five girls scorned by partisans for consorting with Nazis prove their patriotism.

Five Came Back (1939) 75m. D: John Farrow. Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie, John Carradine, Allen Jenkins, Joseph Calleia, C. Aubrey Smith, Patric Knowles. This sleeper shows its age a bit, but remains interesting for colorful character studies among passengers on plane downed in headhunter-infested Amazon jungle. Remade by Farrow as BACK FROM ETERNITY.

Five Day Lover (1961-French-Italian) 86m. D: Philippe De Broca. Jean Seberg, Micheline Presle, Jean-Pierre Cassel, François Perier. Perceptive, flavorful bedroom comedy featuring Seberg as a bored housewife-mother who has an affair with Cassel, who’s being kept by her friend (Presle).

Five Finger Exercise (1962) 109m. ½ D: Daniel Mann. Rosalind Russell, Jack Hawkins, Maximilian Schell, Richard Beymer, Lana Wood, Annette Gorman. Peter Shaffer’s play suffers from change of locale and alteration of original ideas; now it becomes embarrassing soap opera of possessive mother in love with daughter’s tutor. Stars are miscast but try their best.

5 Fingers (1952) 108m. D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. James Mason, Danielle Darrieux, Michael Rennie, Walter Hampden, Oscar Karlweis, Herbert Berghof, John Wengraf, Michael Pate. Exceptionally intelligent spy thriller with Mason as a cool customer selling high-priced secrets right under the noses of his British government employers during WW2. Based on true-life events! Followed by a short-lived TV series.

Five Gates to Hell (1959) 98m. ½ D: James Clavell. Neville Brand, Benson Fong, Shirley Knight, Ken Scott, John Morley, Dolores Michaels, Nancy Kulp, Irish McCalla. Overly melodramatic plot of American nurses captured by Chinese mercenaries and the various ordeals they undergo. CinemaScope.

Five Golden Hours (1961-British-Italian) 90m. D: Mario Zampi. Ernie Kovacs, Cyd Charisse, George Sanders, Kay Hammond, Dennis Price, Finlay Currie, Ron Moody. Con man Kovacs fleeces wealthy widows, but his luck is sure to change after falling for Charisse, whose husband has just died. Limp comedy wastes the talents of its cast.

Five Graves to Cairo (1943) 96m. ½ D: Billy Wilder. Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff, Erich von Stroheim, Peter Van Eyck, Fortunio Bonanova. WW2 intrigue situated in Sahara oasis hotel run by Tamiroff and Baxter; Tone attempts to obtain secrets from visiting Field Marshal Rommel (von Stroheim). Billy Wilder–Charles Brackett script manages to incorporate wit and humor into genuinely exciting wartime yarn. A remake of HOTEL IMPERIAL.

Five Guns West (1955) C-78m. D: Roger Corman. John Lund, Dorothy Malone, Touch (Mike) Connors, Jack Ingram. Fair Corman Western, which he coscripted, about a group of Rebel soldiers who hold up a Yankee stagecoach. This was Corman’s first film as director.

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1939) 58m. ½ D: Charles Barton. Edith Fellows, Clarence Kolb, Dorothy Peterson, Ronald Sinclair, Charles Peck, Tommy Bond, Jimmy Leake, Dorothy Ann Seese. An impoverished family left with half ownership of a copper mine by their late father become partners with a crusty old financier (Kolb) and his grandson. First in a four-film series based on Margaret Sidney’s book is a genial blend of wholesome humor and homespun sentiment. Followed by FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AT HOME.

Five Little Peppers at Home (1940) 67m. D: Charles Barton. Edith Fellows, Dorothy Ann Seese, Clarence Kolb, Dorothy Peterson, Ronald Sinclair, Charles Peck, Tommy Bond, Bobby Larson. Second of the series centers on family’s efforts to help save “Grandpa” King (Kolb) from bankruptcy by discovering copper, leading to a mine cave-in climax. Syrupy entry emphasizes the comic antics of cute moppet Seese. Followed by OUT WEST WITH THE PEPPERS.

Five Little Peppers in Trouble (1940) 64m. ½ D: Charles Barton. Edith Fellows, Dorothy Ann Seese, Dorothy Peterson, Pierre Watkin, Ronald Sinclair, Charles Peck, Tommy Bond, Bobby Larson, Rex Evans. Treacly finale to the sentimental series finds the Pepper siblings having a hard time fitting in with the snooty students when they enroll in a private boarding school.

Five Miles to Midnight (1962) 110m. ½ D: Anatole Litvak. Tony Perkins, Sophia Loren, Gig Young, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Pascale Roberts. Jumbled murder mystery with Perkins convincing wife Loren to collect insurance money when it’s thought he’s been killed, with ironic results.

Five Pennies, The (1959) C-117m. ½ D: Melville Shavelson. Danny Kaye, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tuesday Weld, Louis Armstrong, Bob Crosby, Harry Guardino, Ray Anthony, Shelley Manne, Bobby Troup. Danny plays jazz trumpeter Red Nichols in this sentimental biography. Only bright spots are musical numbers, especially duets with Kaye and Armstrong. VistaVision.

Five Star Final (1931) 89m. D: Mervyn LeRoy. Edward G. Robinson. H. B. Warner, Marian Marsh, George E. Stone, Ona Munson, Boris Karloff, Aline MacMahon. Powerful drama of sensationalist newspaper sometimes falls apart with bad acting by second leads, but editor Robinson and unscrupulous reporter Karloff make it a must. Remade as TWO AGAINST THE WORLD.

5 Steps To Danger (1957) 81m. D: Henry S. Kesler. Ruth Roman, Sterling Hayden, Werner Klemperer, Richard Gaines, Charles Davis, Jeanne Cooper, Ken Curtis. Vacationer Hayden becomes entangled in a web of intrigue involving mystery woman Roman. Far-fetched mystery/spy melodrama.

5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., The (1953) C-88m. D: Roy Rowland. Peter Lind Hayes, Mary Healy, Tommy Rettig, Hans Conried. A boy who hates to practice the piano has a vivid nightmare about a land where his officious teacher Dr. Terwilliger (Conried) rules over hundreds of boys and a gigantic keyboard. Imaginative fantasy conceived by Dr. Seuss, with clever songs by Seuss and Frederick Hollander. Major weakness: conventional “grown-up” leads played by then-popular performers Healy and Hayes. Look for George Chakiris among the dancers.

Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962) C-101m. ½ D: Irwin Allen. Red Buttons, Barbara Eden, Fabian, Cedric Hardwicke, Peter Lorre, Richard Haydn, Barbara Luna. Innocuous entertainment with formula script from Jules Verne tale of balloon expedition to Africa. Buoyed by fine cast, including veterans Billy Gilbert, Herbert Marshall, Reginald Owen, Henry Daniell. CinemaScope.

Fixed Bayonets! (1951) 92m. ½ D: Samuel Fuller. Richard Basehart, Gene Evans, Michael O’Shea, Richard Hylton, Craig Hill. Taut Korean War drama of platoon cut off from the rest of its outfit; typical tough Fuller production. James Dean is one of the soldiers.

Fixer Dugan (1939) 69m. ½ D: Lew Landers. Lee Tracy, Virginia Weidler, Peggy Shannon, Bradley Page, William Edmunds, Edward Gargan. Predictable but enjoyable fluff centering on fast-talking circus manager Tracy and his involvement with spunky orphan Weidler. Lion-taming scenes are especially well done, and Weidler steals every scene she’s in.

Flame, The (1947) 97m. D: John H. Auer. Vera Ralston, John Carroll, Robert Paige, Broderick Crawford, Henry Travers, Constance Dowling. Routine story of woman falling in love with intended victim of blackmail plot.

Flame and the Arrow, The (1950) C-88m. D: Jacques Tourneur. Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, Robert Douglas, Aline MacMahon, Nick Cravat. Bouncy, colorful action with Lancaster romping through his gymnastics as rebel leader in medieval Italy leading his people on to victory. Mayo is gorgeous heroine.

Flame and the Flesh (1954) C-104m. D: Richard Brooks. Lana Turner, Pier Angeli, Carlos Thompson, Bonar Colleano, Charles Goldner, Peter Illing. Pointless Turner vehicle filmed in Europe involving brunette Lana being romanced by continental Thompson, which causes a lot of misery.

Flame Barrier, The (1958) 70m. ½ D: Paul Landres. Arthur Franz, Kathleen Crowley, Robert Brown, Vincent Padula. A satellite downed in jungle is discovered embedded in an ultra-hot alien organism. Fair cast tries hard in ineffectual story.

Flame of Araby (1951) C-77m. ½ D: Charles Lamont. Maureen O’Hara, Jeff Chandler, Maxwell Reed, Susan Cabot. O’Hara, looking fetching as ever, rides through this costumer of the Far East, involving battle over a prize horse.

Flame of Barbary Coast (1945) 91m. ½ D: Joseph Kane. John Wayne, Ann Dvorak, Joseph Schildkraut, William Frawley, Virginia Grey. Hick rancher Wayne competes with slick Schildkraut for savvy saloon singer Dvorak; undemanding fluff, with Republic Pictures’ version of the San Francisco earthquake. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Flame of Calcutta (1953) C-69m. D: Seymour Friedman. Denise Darcel, Patric Knowles, Paul Cavanagh, George Keymas, Joseph Mell, Ted Thorpe, Leonard Penn. Cut-rate Sam Katzman kitsch chronicling the exploits of sexy Zorro-like freedom fighter Darcel and her quest for revenge against the evil prince who killed her father. Garish Technicolor helps a little.

Flame of New Orleans, The (1941) 78m. D: René Clair. Marlene Dietrich, Bruce Cabot, Roland Young, Laura Hope Crews, Mischa Auer, Andy Devine. Dietrich can have her pick of any man in New Orleans, can’t decide between wealthy Young or hard-working Cabot. Picturesque, entertaining. Clair’s first American film.

Flame of Stamboul (1951) 68m. ½ D: Ray Nazarro. Richard Denning, Lisa Ferraday, Norman Lloyd, Nestor Paiva, George Zucco. U.S. spy Denning tries to nab villain Zucco in this substandard programmer about espionage in the ancient title city.

Flame of the Islands (1955) C-90m. D: Edward Ludwig. Yvonne De Carlo, Howard Duff, Zachary Scott, Kurt Kasznar, Barbara O’Neil. Caribbean scenery and sultry De Carlo provide most of the spice in this tale of a cafe singer and the men who fall in love with her.

Flame Over India (1959-British) C-130m. D: J. Lee Thompson. Lauren Bacall, Kenneth More, Herbert Lom, Wilfrid Hyde-White. Fast-paced actioner set on northern frontier of India as British soldiers and governess Bacall seek to speed an Indian prince to safety aboard a run-down train. Originally titled NORTHWEST FRONTIER. CinemaScope.

Flame Within, The (1935) 71m. D: Edmund Goulding. Ann Harding, Herbert Marshall, Maureen O’Sullivan, Louis Hayward. Tired story of unrequited love. Young woman psychiatrist falls in love with patient, despite fact that she knows that it could never succeed.

Flaming Feather (1951) C-77m. D: Ray Enright. Sterling Hayden, Forrest Tucker, Barbara Rush, Arleen Whelan. Rousing Western as vigilantes rescue white woman from renegade Indians.

Flaming Frontier (1958-Canadian) 70m. ½ D: Sam Newfield. Bruce Bennett, Jim Davis, Paisley Maxwell, Cecil Linder, Peter Humphreys. Indian war is averted by half-breed Army officer; very cheap Western. Regalscope.

Flamingo Road (1949) 94m. D: Michael Curtiz. Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, David Brian, Gertrude Michael, Gladys George. Crawford is excellent as tough carnival dancer ditched in small town where she soon is loving Scott and Brian and matching wits with corrupt politician Greenstreet. Remade as TVM in 1980, which later spun off a TV series.

Flaming Star (1960) C-91m. D: Don Siegel. Elvis Presley, Barbara Eden, Steve Forrest, Dolores Del Rio, John McIntire. Elvis is excellent as a half-breed Indian who must choose sides when his mother’s people go on the warpath. No songs after the first ten minutes but lots of action; arguably Presley’s best film. CinemaScope.

Flanagan Boy, The SEE: Bad Blonde

Flapper, The (1920) 88m. D: Alan Crosland. Olive Thomas, Warren Cook, Theodore Westman, Jr., Katherine Johnston, Arthur Housman, Louise Lindroth, Norma Shearer. Meandering comedy about the misadventures of a teen (Thomas) who becomes innocently infatuated with an older man and mingles with a pair of crooks while away at boarding school. Of interest primarily as a vehicle for the radiant Thomas, who died under mysterious circumstances at age 25, four months after the film’s release.

Flat Top (1952) C-83m. D: Lesley Selander. Sterling Hayden, Richard Carlson, Bill Phipps, Keith Larsen. WW2 combat footage of Navy flyers vs. Japanese Zeros provides the high points in this otherwise rudimentary yarn of an aircraft carrier’s young fighter pilots taking to the skies under the watchful eye of their disciplinarian commander (Hayden).

Flaxy Martin (1949) 86m. ½ D: Richard Bare. Virginia Mayo, Zachary Scott, Dorothy Malone, Tom D’Andrea, Helen Westcott, Elisha Cook, Jr. Smooth melodrama of lawyer framed by client on a murder charge.

Fleet’s In, The (1942) 93m. D: Victor Schertzinger. Dorothy Lamour, William Holden, Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Betty Jane Rhodes, Leif Erickson, Cass Daley, Gil Lamb, Barbara Britton, Rod Cameron, Lorraine and Rognan, Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra with Bob Eberly and Helen O’Connell. Bouncy wartime musical with reputed romeo Holden trying to melt iceberg Lamour. Sensational score (composed by director Schertzinger and Johnny Mercer) includes “Tangerine,” “I Remember You,” and “Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry.” Feature debuts of Hutton (in a hilarious performance that made her an instant star) and Daley. Previously filmed as TRUE TO THE NAVY and LADY BE CAREFUL; remade as SAILOR BEWARE.

Flesh (1932) 95m. D: John Ford. Wallace Beery, Karen Morley, Ricardo Cortez, Jean Hersholt, Herman Bing, John Miljan. Unusual, melancholy drama with Beery as simple-minded German wrestler in love with Morley—who tries to hide her shady relationship with no-good Cortez.

Flesh & Blood (1951-British) 102m. D: Anthony Kimmins. Richard Todd, Glynis Johns, Joan Greenwood, Andre Morell, Freda Jackson, James Hayter, George Cole, Michael Hordern. Turbulent study of generations of family life, focusing on clashes and romances of parents and children. Set in Scotland.

Flesh and Desire (1954-French) 94m. D: Jean Josipovici. Rossano Brazzi, Viviane Romance, Peter Van Eyck, Jean-Paul Roussillon. Turgid melodrama involving jealousy, murder, and other assorted goings-on caused by the presence of virile Brazzi.

Flesh and Fantasy (1943) 93m. D: Julien Duvivier. Charles Boyer, Edward G. Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Benchley, Betty Field, Robert Cummings, Thomas Mitchell, Charles Winninger. Three-part film of supernatural linked by Benchley; Field is ugly girl turned beauty by Cummings’ love; Robinson’s life is changed by fortune-teller Mitchell; Boyer is psychic circus star haunted by Stanwyck. Robinson sequence, based on Oscar Wilde’s “Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime,” is the most interesting. Coproduced by Duvivier and Boyer. Look for Peter Lawford as a Mardi Gras reveler in the first sequence. Fourth episode, dropped before release, subsequently expanded into feature titled DESTINY.

Flesh and Flame SEE: Night of the Quarter Moon

Flesh and Fury (1952) 82m. ½ D: Joseph Pevney. Tony Curtis, Jan Sterling, Mona Freeman, Wallace Ford, Harry Guardino. Curtis gives presentable performance as deaf prizefighter who seeks to regain hearing and love of decent girl.

Flesh and the Devil (1927) 112m. D: Clarence Brown. John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Lars Hanson, Barbara Kent, William Orlamond, George Fawcett, Eugenie Besserer. Garbo at her most seductive as temptress who comes between old friends Gilbert and Hanson. Pulsatingly romantic, beautifully filmed, probably the best Garbo-Gilbert love match. But talk about surprise endings!

Flesh and the Fiends, The SEE: Mania

Flesh and the Woman (1953-French-Italian) C-102m. D: Robert Siodmak. Gina Lollobrigida, Jean-Claude Pascal, Arletty, Raymond Pellegrin, Peter Van Eyck. Whole film is Lollobrigida, who plays dual roles: a Parisienne whose corrupt ways cause her husband to join the Foreign Legion and a lookalike prostitute in Algiers. Remake of Jacques Feyder’s 1934 French film LE GRAND JEU.

Flesh Eaters, The (1964) 87m. ½ D: Jack Curtis. Martin Kosleck, Rita Morley, Byron Sanders, Barbara Wilkin. Group trapped on island with deranged scientist is menaced by tiny but plentiful sea creatures that eventually mass to make one giant monster. Occasionally tense, but gruesome and generally boring. Longer version on video.

Flight (1929) 116m. ½ D: Frank Capra. Jack Holt, Ralph Graves, Lila Lee, Alan Roscoe, Harold Goodwin, Jimmy de la Cruze. Dated story of battling buddies in the Marine flying corps, with some still-impressive aerial sequences. Costar Graves wrote the original story.

Flight Command (1940) 116m. D: Frank Borzage. Robert Taylor, Ruth Hussey, Walter Pidgeon, Paul Kelly, Nat Pendleton, Shepperd Strudwick, Red Skelton, Dick Purcell. Hackneyed story with good cast as upstart Taylor tries to make the grade in naval flight squadron. Look fast for John Raitt as a cadet.

Flight for Freedom (1943) 99m. D: Lothar Mendes. Rosalind Russell, Fred MacMurray, Herbert Marshall, Eduardo Ciannelli, Walter Kingsford. Stilted tale of dedicated aviatrix Russell (loosely based on Amelia Earhart), who gains worldwide fame, and is romanced by self-centered flier MacMurray.

Flight From Ashiya (1964) C-100m. D: Michael Anderson. Yul Brynner, Richard Widmark, George Chakiris, Suzy Parker, Shirley Knight. Slow movie dealing with three aviators in rescue attempt over Pacific. Big name cast will attract; stiff script. Panavision.

Flight From Destiny (1941) 73m. D: Vincent Sherman. Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell, Jeffrey Lynn, James Stephenson, Mona Maris, Jonathan Hale. Well-acted tale of Mitchell, with short time to live, helping young couple (Fitzgerald and Lynn) by murdering the woman who is blackmailing Lynn.

Flight From Glory (1937) 67m. ½ D: Lew Landers. Chester Morris, Whitney Bourne, Onslow Stevens, Van Heflin, Richard Lane, Paul Guilfoyle. Above-average programmer involving pilots who fly dangerous missions over the Andes. Trouble comes when suspended aviator Heflin arrives on the scene with wife Bourne.

Flight Lieutenant (1942) 80m. ½ D: Sidney Salkow. Pat O’Brien, Glenn Ford, Evelyn Keyes, Minor Watson, Larry Parks, Lloyd Bridges, Hugh Beaumont. Commander Watson has sore memories of Ford’s father (O’Brien), making life difficult; tired programmer.

Flight Nurse (1953) 90m. D: Allan Dwan. Joan Leslie, Forrest Tucker, Arthur Franz, Jeff Donnell, Ben Cooper. Leslie’s sincere performance as Air Force nurse involved with pilots Franz and Tucker during the Korean War lifts this serviceable service yarn that’s heavy on sentiment and anti-Red propaganda.

Flight of the Phoenix, The (1965) C-147m. ½ D: Robert Aldrich. James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Kruger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea, George Kennedy. A plane crash leaves a group of men stranded in the Sahara desert; film avoids clichés as tension mounts among the men. Stewart as the captain, Attenborough as the navigator stand out in uniformly fine cast. Remade in 2004.

Flight to Hong Kong (1956) 88m. D: Joseph M. Newman. Rory Calhoun, Barbara Rush, Dolores Donlon, Soo Yong. Standard fare of gangster in Far East preferring Rush to his smuggler friends; it almost costs him his life.

Flight to Mars (1951) C-72m. D: Lesley Selander. Marguerite Chapman, Cameron Mitchell, Virginia Huston, Arthur Franz. Adequate sci-fi about scientists and newspapermen who land on Mars and discover an advanced civilization. Effects hampered by modest budget.

Flight to Nowhere (1946) 75m. BOMB D: William Rowland. Evelyn Ankers, Alan Curtis, Jack Holt, Jerome Cowan, Micheline Cheirel, John Craven, Inez Cooper, Hoot Gibson. Ultracheap, ultraboring account of former federal agent Curtis, who against his will becomes involved in an effort to recover a map of uranium deposits.

Flight to Tangier (1953) C-90m. ½ D: Charles Marquis Warren. Joan Fontaine, Jack Palance, Corinne Calvet, Robert Douglas. Fast-paced drama involving a cache of money aboard plane that has crashed, and the assorted people chasing after the loot. Originally in 3-D.

Flipper (1963) C-90m. ½ D: James Clark. Chuck Connors, Luke Halpin, Kathleen Maguire, Connie Scott. Typical wholesome family fare about a boy who befriends a dolphin. Spun off into a TV series in 1964 (with Halpin) and another in 1995. Remade in 1996.

Flipper’s New Adventure (1964) C-103m. D: Leon Benson. Luke Halpin, Pamela Franklin, Helen Cherry, Tom Helmore, Brian Kelly. Further exploits of everybody’s favorite dolphin: Flipper and Halpin thwart escaped convicts’ efforts to blackmail millionaire Helmore. Pleasant, inoffensive fare for kids, filmed in the Bahamas and Key Biscayne.

Flirtation Walk (1934) 97m. ½ D: Frank Borzage. Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Pat O’Brien, Ross Alexander, Guinn Williams, Henry O’Neill, Tyrone Power. West Point plot is clichéd and trivial as cadet Powell falls in love with officer’s daughter Keeler; some fairly good numbers highlighted by “Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name.”

Flirting Widow, The (1930) 71m. ½ D: William A. Seiter. Dorothy Mackaill, Basil Rathbone, Leila Hyams, William Austin, Claude Gillingwater, Anthony Bushell. Gillingwater won’t let his young daughter get married before her older sister (Mackaill) does, so Mackaill invents a fictitious fiancé, only to have him actually show up in the suave personage of Rathbone. Stilted drawing-room antique must have seemed dated even in 1930.

Flirting With Fate (1916) 50m. D: Christy Cabanne. Douglas Fairbanks, W. E. Lawrence, Jewel Carmen, Dorothy Haydel, George Beranger, Lillian Langdon. Cute comedy with Fairbanks well cast as a hard-luck starving artist who thinks he’s been rebuffed by the pretty society girl (Carmen) with whom he’s smitten. He offers professional assassin Automatic Joe (nicely played by Beranger) his last $50 to bump him off, but then his luck changes and he no longer wants to die.

Flirting With Fate (1938) 69m. D: Frank McDonald. Joe E. Brown, Leo Carrillo, Beverly Roberts, Wynne Gibson, Steffi Duna, Stanley Fields, Charles Judels. Juvenile slapstick with Joe heading a vaudeville troupe stranded in South America. Carrillo fun as influential bandit, Duna’s off-key singing good for a few laughs, but basically a weak comedy.

Floating Weeds (1959-Japanese) C-119m. ½ D: Yasujiro Ozu. Ganjiro Nakamura, Machiko Kyo, Haruko Sugimura, Ayako Wakao. Struggling acting troupe visits remote island, where its leader (Nakamura) visits his illegitimate son and the boy’s mother, with whom he had an affair years before. Powerful drama is meticulously directed, solidly acted. Ozu previously made this as A STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS (1934). Aka DRIFTING WEEDS.

Floods of Fear (1959-British) 82m. D: Charles Crichton. Howard Keel, Anne Heywood, Cyril Cusack, Harry H. Corbett, John Crawford. Adequate drama about prisoner Keel on the lam, performing heroic deeds during flood, later proving innocence and winning girl’s love.

Flood Tide (1958) 82m. ½ D: Abner Biberman. George Nader, Cornell Borchers, Michel Ray, Judson Pratt. Nicely done drama in which an innocent man is convicted of murder on the say-so of a crippled, emotionally scarred 10-year-old boy. Nice-guy Nader falls for the boy’s widowed mother, and attempts to elicit the truth. CinemaScope.

Florentine Dagger, The (1935) 69m. D: Robert Florey. Donald Woods, Margaret Lindsay, C. Aubrey Smith, Henry O’Neill, Robert Barrat, Florence Fair, Frank Reicher, Charles Judels, Rafaela Ottiano, Paul Porcasi. Neat little “Clue Club” whodunit, from a Ben Hecht novel, with Woods, who is obsessed by the Borgias, becoming involved in solving a murder. Barrat is a delight as a cunning police inspector.

Florian (1940) 91m. D: Edwin L. Marin. Robert Young, Helen Gilbert, Charles Coburn, Lee Bowman, Reginald Owen, Lucile Watson. Young and Gilbert, poor man and rich woman, marry, united by their love of horses.

Florida Special (1936) 70m. D: Ralph Murphy. Jack Oakie, Sally Eilers, Kent Taylor, Frances Drake, J. Farrell MacDonald, Sam (Schlepperman) Hearn, Claude Gillingwater, Sidney Blackmer. Romance, mystery, and murder aboard southbound train. Song: “It’s You I’m Talking About.”

Florodora Girl, The (1930) 80m. D: Harry Beaumont. Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, Walter Catlett, Louis John Bartels, Ilka Chase, Vivien Oakland, Jed Prouty, Sam Hardy. Charming piece of nostalgia with Marion only one of famed Florodora Sextette of Gay ’90s to spurn wealthy admirers and seek true love. Some scenes originally in color.

Flower Drum Song (1961) C-133m. D: Henry Koster. Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Miyoshi Umeki, Benson Fong, Jack Soo, Juanita Hall, Reiko Sato, Patrick Adiarte, Victor Sen Yung. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway musical becomes a bright Technicolor confection about life and love in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where Old World traditions clash with modern American sensibilities. Songs include “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” All-Asian cast was a rarity in Hollywood at that time. Opera singer Marilyn Horne dubs Sato’s voice on “Love, Look Away.”

Flowers of St. Francis, The SEE: Francesco—Giullare di Dio

Flowing Gold (1940) 82m. ½ D: Alfred E. Green. John Garfield, Frances Farmer, Pat O’Brien, Raymond Walburn, Cliff Edwards, Tom Kennedy. Dynamic Garfield in story that doesn’t flow; standard fare in which he and O’Brien drill for oil and fight over Farmer.

Fluffy (1965) C-92m. D: Earl Bellamy. Tony Randall, Shirley Jones, Edward Andrews, Ernest Truex, Howard Morris, Dick Sargent. Silly film dealing with professor Randall experimenting with a lion; he can’t shake the beast, causing all sorts of repercussions, even winning Jones’ affection.

Fly, The (1958) C-94m. D: Kurt Neumann. Al (David) Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall, Kathleen Freeman. Improbable but diverting sci-fi (screenplay by James Clavell!) about scientist who experiments with teleportation machine and has his atomic pattern mingled with that of a fly. “Help me! Help me!” Two sequels—RETURN OF THE FLY and CURSE OF THE FLY. Remade in 1986. CinemaScope.

Fly-Away Baby (1937) 60m. D: Frank McDonald. Glenda Farrell, Barton MacLane, Gordon Oliver, Hugh O’Connell, Marcia Ralston, Tom Kennedy, Harry Davenport. Episode two in the Torchy Blane reporter series, serving mainly as a showcase for the wisecracking charms of Farrell as she takes to the air in pursuit of killers.

Fly by Night (1942) 74m. ½ D: Robert Siodmak. Richard Carlson, Nancy Kelly, Albert Basserman, Walter Kingsford, Martin Kosleck, Miles Mander. Carlson is young doctor accused of murdering scientist who tracks down a Nazi spy ring in effort to clear himself. Fairly entertaining WW2 B propaganda, which aims for the Hitchcock style.

Flying Aces SEE: Flying Deuces, The

Flying Deuces, The (1939) 65m. D: A. Edward Sutherland. Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jean Parker, Reginald Gardiner, Charles Middleton, James Finlayson. Stan and Ollie join the Foreign Legion so Ollie can forget Parker; usual complications result. Good fun, faster paced than most L&H films, includes charming song and dance to “Shine On, Harvest Moon.”

Flying Down to Rio (1933) 89m. D: Thornton Freeland. Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Raul Roulien, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire, Blanche Frederici, Eric Blore, Franklin Pangborn. Slim Del Rio vehicle memorable for its scene of dancing girls cavorting on plane wings, plus Astaire and Rogers doing “The Carioca” in their first screen teaming. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Flying Fontaines, The (1959) C-84m. ½ D: George Sherman. Michael Callan, Evy Norlund, Joan Evans, Joe De Santis, Roger Perry, Rian Garrick. Circus yarn involving egocentric high-wire artist Callan who covets one of the showgirls, and the repercussions involved.

Flying High (1931) 80m. ½ D: Charles F. Riesner. Bert Lahr, Charlotte Greenwood, Pat O’Brien, Kathryn Crawford, Charles Winninger, Hedda Hopper, Guy Kibbee. Dated, oddball comedy about harebrained inventor Lahr concocting an “aerocopter” machine; Lahr (in Hollywood debut) and Greenwood are fun together. Some DeSylva-Brown-Henderson songs carried over from Broadway production.

Flying Irishman, The (1939) 72m. D: Leigh Jason. Douglas Corrigan, Paul Kelly, Robert Armstrong, Gene Reynolds. Routine biog, largely fictional, dealing with life of Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan.

Flying Leathernecks (1951) C-102m. D: Nicholas Ray. John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Jay C. Flippen, Janis Carter, Don Taylor, William Harrigan. Major Wayne is exceedingly tough on his Marines; executive officer Ryan thinks he should be a little nicer. Guess who wins this argument. Solid, if not especially original, WW2 actioner, with good aerial scenes and nice turn by Flippen as crafty sergeant.

Flying Missile, The (1950) 93m. D: Henry Levin. Glenn Ford, Viveca Lindfors, Henry O’Neill, Jerry Paris, Richard Quine. Clichéd WW2 story of commander Ford’s attempt to modernize his fighting ship, with predictable results.

Flying Saucer, The (1950) 69m. ½ D: Mikel Conrad. Mikel Conrad, Pat Garrison, Russell Hicks, Denver Pyle. Pedestrian espionage tale set in Alaska; the lone flying saucer, disappointingly, is from Earth.

Flying Scot, The SEE: Mailbag Robbery

Flying Serpent, The (1946) 59m. D: Sherman Scott (Sam Newfield). George Zucco, Ralph Lewis, Hope Kramer, Eddie Acuff, Milton Kibbee. Zucco sole interest in serial-like B movie. Doctor protects Aztec treasure with prehistoric bird. Basically a reworking of THE DEVIL BAT.

Flying Tigers (1942) 102m. ½ D: David Miller. John Wayne, John Carroll, Anna Lee, Paul Kelly, Mae Clarke, Gordon Jones, James “Jimmie” Dodd. Good war film in which Wayne commands the volunteer Flying Tigers in China prior to Pearl Harbor while contending with egotistical ace pilot Carroll. Exciting dog-fight scenes. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Flying Wild (1941) 62m. D: William West. Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Donald Haines, Joan Barclay, Dave O’Brien, David Gorcey, Bobby Stone, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, Dennis Moore. The East Side Kids tackle airborne spies in this lightweight entry. Love the flipping-car blooper in the opening reel.

Flying With Music (1942) 46m. D: George Archainbaud. Marjorie Woodworth, George Givot, William Marshall, Edward Gargan, Jerry Bergen, Norma Varden, Marie Windsor. A man (Givot) on the run from making alimony payments impersonates a tour guide for a group of socialites in South America. Innocuous Hal Roach mini-musical crams in five songs in less than an hour, including the Oscar-nominated “Pennies for Peppino.”

Fog Island (1945) 72m ½ D: Terry Morse. George Zucco, Lionel Atwill, Veda Ann Borg, Jerome Cowan, Sharon Douglas. Grade-B chiller situated at eerie mansion with usual gathering of people suspecting one another of murder and intrigue; Zucco and Atwill are potentially terrific team.

Fog Over Frisco (1934) 68m. ½ D: William Dieterle. Bette Davis, Lyle Talbot, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Woods, Henry O’Neill, Arthur Byron, Hugh Herbert, Alan Hale, William Demarest. Snappy melodrama of deceitful, thrill-a-minute party-girl Davis involved in stolen-securities scheme; stepsister Lindsay tries to help.

Folies Bergère de Paris (1935) 84m. D: Roy Del Ruth. Maurice Chevalier, Ann Sothern, Merle Oberon, Eric Blore, Ferdinand Munier. Entertainer Chevalier is asked to pose as aristocratic businessman, forcing him to temporarily desert fiery Sothern for elegant Oberon. Delightful musical is highlighted by Busby Berkeleyish “Straw Hat” finale which won Dave Gould an Oscar for dance direction. Remade as THAT NIGHT IN RIO and ON THE RIVIERA.

Folies Bergère (1956-French) C-90m D: Henri Decoin. Jeanmaire, Eddie Constantine, Nadia Gray, Yves Robert. Slim plot boasts expansive cafe production numbers in tale of American crooner in Paris who almost loses wife when she becomes more successful in show biz than he.

Follow a Star (1959-British) 93m. ½ D: Robert Asher. Norman Wisdom, June Laverick, Jerry Desmonde, Hattie Jacques, John Le Mesurier, Richard Wattis, Ron Moody. Flabby slapstick musical involving zany Wisdom as a cleaning store worker who is stagestruck.

Follow Me Quietly (1949) 59m. D: Richard O. Fleischer. William Lundigan, Dorothy Patrick, Jeff Corey, Nestor Paiva, Charles D. Brown, Paul Guilfoyle. Solid little film noir about police manhunt for self-righteous psychopathic killer called The Judge. Packs style and substance into just 59 minutes.

Follow That Dream (1962) C-110m. ½ D: Gordon Douglas. Elvis Presley, Arthur O’Connell, Anne Helm, Joanna Moore, Jack Kruschen, Simon Oakland. Presley and family move to southern Florida where they intend to homestead, despite all opposition. Easygoing comedy from Richard Powell’s book Pioneer Go Home. Elvis sings “Home Is Where the Heart Is” and “On Top of Old Smokey”! Panavision.

Follow That Woman (1945) 69m. D: Lew Landers. Nancy Kelly, William Gargan, Regis Toomey, Ed Gargan, Byron Barr, Pierre Watkin. Predictable crime yarn, notable only for Kelly’s sincere performance as a woman innocently implicated in a murder.

Follow the Boys (1944) 110m. D: A. Edward Sutherland. Marlene Dietrich, George Raft, Orson Welles, Vera Zorina, Dinah Shore, W. C. Fields, Jeanette MacDonald, Maria Montez, Andrews Sisters, Sophie Tucker, Nigel Bruce, Gale Sondergaard. Universal Pictures’ entry in all-star WW2 series has Raft organizing USO shows, Welles sawing Dietrich in half, MacDonald singing “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” Fields doing classic pool-table routine, etc. Lots of fun.

Follow the Boys (1963) C-95m. D: Richard Thorpe. Connie Francis, Paula Prentiss, Ron Randell, Janis Paige, Russ Tamblyn, Dany Robin. Dumb comedy unspiked by Francis’ singing or antics as quartet of girls chase around the French Riviera seeking husbands. Panavision.

Follow the Fleet (1936) 110m. D: Mark Sandrich. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard (Nelson), Astrid Allwyn, Betty Grable. Delightful musical with sailors Astaire and Scott romancing sisters Rogers and Hilliard. Irving Berlin songs include “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” “Let Yourself Go,” “We Saw the Sea.” A reworking of SHORE LEAVE, a 1925 Richard Barthelmess silent, and the 1930 musical HIT THE DECK. That’s Lucille Ball as Kitty.

Follow the Leader (1930) 76m. ½ D: Norman Taurog. Ed Wynn, Ginger Rogers, Stanley Smith, Lou Holtz, Lida Kane, Ethel Merman, Bobby Watson, Preston Foster, Jack La Rue. Waiter tries to help his boss’ daughter launch a stage career. First attempt to fashion a decent talkie vehicle for stage and radio star Wynn, “The Perfect Fool.” His wacky inventions provide the comedy highlights. Monologist Holtz has as much screen time as Wynn! Based on the Broadway musical Manhattan Mary, minus most of its songs.

Follow the Leader (1944) 64m. D: William Beaudine. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Dave Durand, Bud Gorman, Bobby Stone, Gabriel Dell, Jimmy Strand, Jack LaRue, Billy Benedict, Bernard Gorcey, Joan Marsh. WW2 vets Muggs (Gorcey) and Glimpy (Hall) try to weed out a rotten apple from their ranks to clear a pal in this repetitive East Side Kids entry.

Follow the Sun (1951) 93m. ½ D: Sidney Lanfield. Glenn Ford, Anne Baxter, Dennis O’Keefe, June Havoc. Fictionalized biopic of golfer Ben Hogan with hokey dramatics to fill in lean spots.

Follow Thru (1930) C-92m. ½ D: Lloyd Corrigan, Lawrence Schwab. Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Nancy Carroll, Zelma O’Neal, Jack Haley, Eugene Pallette, Thelma Todd. Love and rivalry on the golf links, with all the archaic conventions of a 1920s Broadway musical. Carroll was born to appear in two-color Technicolor, but O’Neal gets the best songs (by DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson), “Button Up Your Overcoat” and the irresistible “I Want to Be Bad,” which cues the film’s only big production number. Look fast for young Frances Dee and Virginia Bruce.

Folly to Be Wise (1952-British) 91m. D: Frank Launder. Alastair Sim, Elizabeth Allan, Roland Culver, Martita Hunt. Generally amusing nonsense with Sim an Army chaplain trying to enliven service life with various unique entertainment programs.

Foolish Wives (1922) 107m. D: Erich von Stroheim. Erich von Stroheim, Maud George, Mae Busch, Cesare Gravina, Malvine Polo. Von Stroheim’s third film as director is a typically sophisticated, fascinating tale of seduction, fake counts, blackmail, suicide, lechery, and murder. Great photography by William Daniels and Ben Reynolds, and an incredible set depicting the Monte Carlo casino designed by von Stroheim and Richard Day.

Fool Killer, The (1965) 100m. D: Servando Gonzalez. Anthony Perkins, Edward Albert, Dana Elcar, Henry Hull, Salome Jens, Arnold Moss. Set in post-Civil War South, film relates unusual adventures of runaway orphan (Albert) and his meeting with strange young man (Perkins). Interesting and offbeat.

Fools for Scandal (1938) 81m. ½ D: Mervyn LeRoy. Carole Lombard, Fernand Gravet, Ralph Bellamy, Allen Jenkins, Isabel Jeans, Marie Wilson. Generally a misfire, despite lovely Lombard as movie star who meets impoverished Paris nobleman Gravet; Bellamy plays the sap again.

Fool’s Gold (1947) 63m. D: George Archainbaud. William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Rand Brooks, Robert Emmett Keane, Jane Randolph, Earle Hodgins. When young man flees court-martial to join outlaws, Hopalong Cassidy pretends to be a cattle rancher and invades dangerous territory, where he finds mad scientist with collection of deadly spiders and designs on Army gold shipment. Second entry in the revived series produced by Boyd is short on action; slightly substandard Hoppy fare. Reissued as THE MAN FROM BUTTE.

Fool There Was, A (1915) 67m. ½ D: Frank Powell. Theda Bara, Edward José, Mabel Fremyear, May Allison, Runa Hodges, Clifford Bruce, Frank Powell. Will wealthy lawyer-statesman—and happy family man—José be driven to the depths of ruin by sultry, devilish “vampire” Bara? Watch this and you’ll see why Bara was considered the screen’s premier sex symbol of her day. Inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem. Remade in 1922.

Footlight Glamour (1943) 75m. ½ D: Frank Strayer. Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms, Ann Savage, Jonathan Hale, Danny Mummert, Thurston Hall, Marjorie Ann Mutchie. Amusing Blondie entry finds the Bumsteads mixed up with the stage-struck daughter of one of Dagwood’s clients.

Footlight Parade (1933) 104m. ½ D: Lloyd Bacon. James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, Frank McHugh. Cagney plays a stage director who tries to outdo himself with spectacular musical numbers. Fast-paced Warner Bros. opus winds up with three incredible Busby Berkeley numbers back-to-back: “Honeymoon Hotel,” “By a Waterfall,” and “Shanghai Lil.”

Footlight Serenade (1942) 80m. D: Gregory Ratoff. Betty Grable, Victor Mature, John Payne, Jane Wyman, Phil Silvers, James Gleason, Mantan Moreland, Cobina Wright, Jr. Cute backstage musical with cocky boxer Mature turning to Broadway and trying to woo Grable, who’s secretly engaged to Payne. Good fun.

Footlight Varieties (1951) 61m. ½ D: Hal Yates. Leon Errol, The Sportsmen, Liberace, Jerry Murad’s Harmonicats, Frankie Carle Orchestra, Red Buttons, Inesita, Grace Romanos. Jack Paar is master of ceremonies for a vaudeville-style revue of musical numbers, comedy skits, and specialty acts combined with clips culled from old RKO shorts. Highlights include Errol in the short HE FORGOT TO REMEMBER. Paar also dances a little.

Footloose Heiress, The (1937) 59m. ½ D: William Clemens. Ann Sheridan, Craig Reynolds, William Hopper, Anne Nagel, Hugh O’Connell, Teddy Hart. Sheridan is perky and sexy as a tycoon’s madcap daughter who elopes on her 18th birthday in order to win a $5,000 bet. Hobo Reynolds complicates matters by befriending her outraged father and throwing a monkey wrench into her plans. Pretty funny screwball comedy bubbles along at a dizzy pace.

Footsteps in the Dark (1941) 96m. ½ D: Lloyd Bacon. Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Ralph Bellamy, Alan Hale, Lee Patrick, Allen Jenkins. Flynn leads double life as happily married businessman and mystery writer. Silly but genial.

Footsteps in the Fog (1955-British) C-90m. D: Arthur Lubin. Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, Finlay Currie, Bill Travers, Ronald Squire. Cat-and-mouse battle involving servant girl who blackmails her employer for having murdered his wife. Fine acting, rich Victorian atmosphere.

Footsteps in the Night (1957) 62m. ½ D: Jean Yarbrough. Bill Elliott, Don Haggerty, Eleanore Tanin, Zena Marshall. Programmer with homicide detective Elliott attempting to solve the motel murder of a friend. Former Western star Elliott played the same character in four other movies.

For a Few Dollars More (1965-Italian) C-132m. D: Sergio Leone. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Josef Egger, Mara Krup, Rosemarie Dexter, Klaus Kinski, Mario Brega. Sequel to FISTFUL OF DOLLARS finds two gunslingers forming an uneasy alliance in their quest for outlaw Indio (Volonté)—although their reasons for chasing him are markedly different. Slightly draggy but still fun; don’t miss the scene where Van Cleef strikes a match on the back of Kinski’s neck! Trademark atmospheric score by Ennio Morricone. Released in the U.S. in 1967. Followed by THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. Techniscope. [R—originally rated M]

For Better, For Worse (1954-British) C-83m. ½ D: J. Lee Thompson. Dirk Bogarde, Susan Stephen, Cecil Parker, Dennis Price, Eileen Herlie, Athene Seyler, Thora Hird, Sidney James. Intelligently handled account of young married couple harassed by bills, in-laws, and marital adjustment. U.S. title: COCKTAILS IN THE KITCHEN.

Forbidden (1932) 81m. D: Frank Capra. Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, Ralph Bellamy, Dorothy Peterson, Henry Armetta. A spinster librarian takes a cruise and falls in love with a man who can never marry her. Fine performances and stunning Joseph Walker photography buoy this BACK STREET soap opera until its ridiculous conclusion.

Forbidden (1953) 85m. ½ D: Rudolph Maté. Tony Curtis, Joanne Dru, Lyle Bettger, Marvin Miller, Victor Sen Yung. OK suspenser in which two-fisted Curtis arrives in Macao, hired by a gangland chief to uncover the whereabouts of Dru (who just so happens to be Curtis’ ex-girlfriend).

Forbidden Adventure SEE: Newly Rich

Forbidden Alliance SEE: Barretts of Wimpole Street, The (1934)

Forbidden Cargo (1954-British) 83m. ½ D: Harold French. Nigel Patrick, Elizabeth Sellars, Terence Morgan, Jack Warner, Greta Gynt, Joyce Grenfell, Theodore Bikel. Modest drama about customs agent Patrick clashing with dope-smuggling syndicate, enlivened by a solid cast.

Forbidden Fruit (1959-French) 97m. ½ D: Henri Verneuil. Fernandel, Francoise Arnoul, Claude Nollier, Sylvie, Jacques Castelot. Unpretentious little film of Fernandel’s touching love affair with a young maiden.

Forbidden Games (1952-French) 87m. ½ D: René Clement. Brigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly, Louis Herbert. During WW2, young Parisian girl is orphaned and taken in by simple peasant family; she develops friendship with their youngest son, and shares with him a private world which the grown-ups cannot understand. Sad, intensely moving drama earned a Best Foreign Film Oscar.

Forbidden Island (1959) C-66m. ½ D: Charles B. Griffith. Jon Hall, Nan Adams, John Farrow, Jonathan Haze, Greigh Phillips. Sleazy film with Hall a skindiver seeking to find sunken treasure before a gang of crooks uncovers the loot.

Forbidden Planet (1956) C-98m. ½ D: Fred McLeod Wilcox. Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Richard Anderson, Earl Holliman, George Wallace, James Drury. Sci-fi version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest remains one of the most ambitious and intelligent films of its genre; only slow, deliberate pacing works against it, as Nielsen and fellow space travelers visit planet where expatriate Pidgeon has built a one-man empire with daughter Francis and obedient Robby the Robot. Great effects, eerie electronic score. Beware 95m. reissue prints. CinemaScope.

Forbidden Street, The (1949-British) 91m. D: Jean Negulesco. Dana Andrews, Maureen O’Hara, Sybil Thorndike, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Fay Compton. Fanciful Victorian melodrama of wealthy O’Hara defying her family by marrying beneath her class; Andrews has a dual role, as a down-and-out artist (with his voice dubbed) and an ex-barrister. Scripted by Ring Lardner, Jr. Originally titled BRITANNIA MEWS.

Force of Arms (1951) 100m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. William Holden, Nancy Olson, Frank Lovejoy, Gene Evans, Dick Wesson. Updating of Hemingway’s A FAREWELL TO ARMS to WW2 Italy, with unmemorable results. Reissued as A GIRL FOR JOE.

Force of Evil (1948) 78m. D: Abraham Polonsky. John Garfield, Beatrice Pearson, Thomas Gomez, Roy Roberts, Marie Windsor, Howland Chamberlin, Beau Bridges. Rock-solid film noir about a racketeer’s lawyer (Garfield, in a stunning performance), whose ideals have been obscured by his greed. Beautifully photographed (by George Barnes) and lit; this has become something of a cult item. Polonsky, who coscripted with Ira Wolfert, was blacklisted and didn’t make another film until 1969’s TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE.

Foreign Affair, A (1948) 116m. ½ D: Billy Wilder. Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell, Peter Von Zerneck, Stanley Prager. Staid Arthur is sent to Berlin to investigate post-WW2 conditions, finds romance instead, with hot competition from Dietrich. Marlene sings “Black Market,” “Ruins of Berlin,” but Jean Arthur’s Iowa State Song equally memorable in great Wilder comedy. Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Richard Breen.

Foreign Agent (1942) 64m. D: William Beaudine. John Shelton, Gale Storm, Ivan Lebedeff, George Travell, Patsy Moran, Lyle Latell. Passable bargain-basement B film involving movie actors battling German and Japanese spies who are plotting to bomb L.A. Highlight: Gale singing the less-than-memorable “Taps for the Japs.”

Foreign Correspondent (1940) 119m. D: Alfred Hitchcock. Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Basserman, Robert Benchley, Edmund Gwenn, Eduardo Ciannelli, Harry Davenport, Martin Kosleck. McCrea in title role caught in middle of spy ring with reporters Sanders and Benchley, innocent Day, suspicious father Marshall. Tremendously entertaining film with several vintage Hitchcock showpieces. Scripted by Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison; dialogue by James Hilton and Benchley.

Foreign Intrigue (1956) C-100m. D: Sheldon Reynolds. Robert Mitchum, Genevieve Page, Ingrid Thulin, Frederick O’Brady. Colorful location filming throughout Europe enlivens this otherwise plodding suspenser, with stolid press agent Mitchum investigating the death of his wealthy, mysterious employer. Based on a syndicated TV series of the same name.

Foreman Went to France, The (1941-British) 88m. ½ D: Charles Frend. Tommy Trinder, Clifford Evans, Constance Cummings, Robert Morley, Mervyn Johns, Gordon Jackson, Ernest Milton. Documentary-style tale of industrial engineer who journeys to France during WW2 to help save secret machinery from being confiscated by the Axis. Adapted from a J.B. Priestley story based on a true incident.

Forest Rangers, The (1942) C-87m. ½ D: George Marshall. Fred MacMurray, Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward, Albert Dekker, Rod Cameron, Lynne Overman, Eugene Pallette. Hayward tries to show ranger MacMurray that he’s made a mistake marrying wealthy Goddard in this OK romance with good action scenes. Introduced the hit song “I’ve Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle.”

Forever Amber (1947) C-140m. D: Otto Preminger. Linda Darnell, Cornel Wilde, Richard Greene, George Sanders, Jessica Tandy, Anne Revere, Leo G. Carroll. “Musical beds” costumer, taken from Kathleen Winsor’s once-scandalous novel, about blonde Darnell’s ascension to the court of Charles II. Lengthy but colorful and entertaining, with David Raksin’s outstanding score.

Forever and a Day (1943) 104m. D: René Clair, Edmund Goulding, Cedric Hardwicke, Frank Lloyd, Victor Saville, Robert Stevenson, Herbert Wilcox. Brian Aherne, Robert Cummings, Ida Lupino, Charles Laughton, Herbert Marshall, Ray Milland, Anna Neagle, Merle Oberon, Claude Rains, Victor McLaglen, Buster Keaton, Jessie Matthews, Roland Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Edward Everett Horton, Elsa Lanchester, Edmund Gwenn. Eighty-odd British (and American) stars contributed their services to this episodic film, about a house and its inhabitants over the years, to raise funds for British War Relief. Uneven result, but has many fine moments and star-gazing galore; once-in-a-lifetime cast.

Forever, Darling (1956) C-91m. ½ D: Alexander Hall. Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, James Mason, Louis Calhern. Ball’s madcap antics nearly drive husband Arnaz to divorce, but guardian angel Mason saves the day. Contrived but enjoyable.

Forever Female (1953) 93m. D: Irving Rapper. Ginger Rogers, William Holden, Paul Douglas, Pat Crowley, James Gleason, Jesse White, Marjorie Rambeau, George Reeves, King Donovan, Marion Ross. Slick but hollow tale of Broadway show people: cynical producer Douglas (who has all the best lines), his glamorous leading lady and ex-wife Rogers, newly minted playwright Holden, and frightfully ambitious young actress Crowley (featured here in a bid for movie stardom). Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein based their screenplay on James M. Barrie’s play Rosalind. Best thing about the film is the elaborate set re-creating Sardi’s Restaurant.

Forever My Love (1962-German) C-147m. ½ D: Ernest Marischka. Romy Schneider, Karl Boehm, Magda Schneider, Vilma Degischer. Typical German confection dealing with 19th-century Austrian Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elizabeth.

Forgiven Sinner, The SEE: Leon Morin, Priest

Forgotten Woman (1939) 63m. ½ D: Harold Young. Sigrid Gurie, William Lundigan, Eve Arden, Elizabeth Risdon, Virginia Brissac. Overnight star (and overnight fade-out) Gurie is helpless woman, framed by influential gangsters, suffering on trial.

For Heaven’s Sake (1926) 86m. D: Sam Taylor. Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Noah Young, James Mason, Paul Weigel. Screamingly funny silent comedy has Lloyd a blase young millionaire whose crush on Ralston inspires him to help attract “customers” for her father’s Bowery Mission. Even THE FRENCH CONNECTION hasn’t dimmed the luster of Lloyd’s chase climax on L.A. streets.

For Heaven’s Sake (1950) 92m. ½ D: George Seaton. Clifton Webb, Joan Bennett, Robert Cummings, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Blondell. Droll fantasy with Webb and Gwenn two angels sent to earth to speed along the arrival of Bennett and Cummings’ heavenly baby.

For Love or Money (1933) SEE: Cash

For Love or Money (1963) C-108m. ½ D: Michael Gordon. Kirk Douglas, Mitzi Gaynor, Gig Young, Thelma Ritter, William Bendix, Julie Newmar. Comedy strains to be funnier than it is. Widow Ritter hires lawyer Douglas to find spouses for her three daughters.

For Me and My Gal (1942) 104m. ½ D: Busby Berkeley. Judy Garland, George Murphy, Gene Kelly, Marta Eggerth, Ben Blue, Horace (Stephen) McNally, Keenan Wynn, Richard Quine. Music sustains old-hat plot of vaudeville couple determined to play Palace, circa WW1. In his film debut, Kelly sings title tune with Garland. Also shown in computer-colored version.

For Men Only (1952) 93m. D: Paul Henreid. Paul Henreid, Kathleen Hughes, Russell Johnson, James Dobson, Margaret Field, Vera Miles, Douglas Kennedy, O. Z. Whitehead. Sincere if obvious study of fraternity hazing that gets out of hand on a college campus. Retitled: THE TALL LIE.

Forsaking All Others (1934) 84m. ½ D: W. S. Van Dyke II. Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Charles Butterworth, Billie Burke, Frances Drake, Rosalind Russell, Arthur Treacher. Gable, just back from Spain, is about to propose to Crawford but learns she’s set to wed flaky Montgomery. Star trio sparkles in this so-so romantic comedy, scripted by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Butterworth is a treat, as always.

Fort Algiers (1953) 78m. D: Lesley Selander. Yvonne De Carlo, Carlos Thompson, Raymond Burr, Leif Erickson. De Carlo romps through this adventure set in Algiers, dealing with villainous Arab leader inciting the natives to rebel.

Fort Apache (1948) 127m. D: John Ford. John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, Pedro Armendariz, John Agar, Ward Bond, George O’Brien, Victor McLaglen, Anna Lee, Irene Rich, Dick Foran, Guy Kibbee, Mae Marsh, Hank Worden. Fonda is effectively cast against type as stubborn martinet who rubs his own men—as well as neighboring Indians—the wrong way. First of Ford’s cavalry trilogy tells its story slowly, deliberately, with time for comedy and telling characterizations. Followed by SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Fort Defiance (1951) C-81m. ½ D: John Rawlins. Dane Clark, Ben Johnson, Peter Graves, Tracey Roberts, George Cleveland, Iron Eyes Cody, Dennis Moore. In the wake of the Civil War, Johnson seeks out the man he blames for his brother’s death. Instead he finds the man’s brother, who is blind and waiting for his sibling to return to run their ranch in Arizona. Interesting Western yarn.

Fort Dobbs (1958) 90m. ½ D: Gordon Douglas. Clint Walker, Virginia Mayo, Brian Keith, Richard Eyer, Russ Conway, Michael Dante. Walker rescues Mayo and her son after an Indian attack and escorts them to the safety of a fort, but their troubles are far from over in this pretty good Western. Keith has the most colorful role as a gun supplier. Written by Burt Kennedy and George W. George. Stock footage was lifted from CHARGE AT FEATHER RIVER.

For the Defense (1930) 63m. D: John Cromwell. William Powell, Kay Francis, Scott Kolk, William B. Davidson, Thomas E. Jackson, Harry Walker, James Finlayson. Well-made vintage courtroom drama with Powell excellent as a slick criminal lawyer (supposedly inspired by William Fallon) who discovers that his actress girlfriend (Francis) is involved in a manslaughter case he’s taken on.

For the First Time (1959) C-97m. ½ D: Rudolph Maté. Mario Lanza, Johanna Von Koszian, Kurt Kasznar, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hans Sohnker. Lanza is typecast as fiery opera singer who falls in love with beautiful deaf girl in Capri. Not bad, with plenty of music to satisfy Lanza fans; this was his last film. Technirama.

For the Love of Mary (1948) 90m. ½ D: Frederick de Cordova. Deanna Durbin, Edmond O’Brien, Don Taylor, Jeffrey Lynn. Airy fluff with Durbin a White House switchboard operator getting political figures and her own romance tangled up. Deanna’s final film.

For the Love of Mike (1960) C-84m. ½ D: George Sherman. Richard Basehart, Stuart Erwin, Arthur Shields, Armando Silvestre. Mild happenings as Indian boy trains a horse, hoping to use prize money for a village shrine. Another intelligent Robert B. Radnitz production. CinemaScope.

For Those Who Think Young (1964) C-96m. D: Leslie H. Martinson. James Darren, Pamela Tiffin, Paul Lynde, Tina Louise, Bob Denver, Robert Middleton, Nancy Sinatra, Claudia Martin, Ellen McRae (Burstyn), Woody Woodbury, Louis Quinn, Sammee Tong, Addison Richards, Mousie Garner, Benny Baker, Anna Lee, Jack La Rue, Allen Jenkins, Robert Armstrong, Lada Edmund, Jr. Great time-capsule cast in a silly time-waster about college high jinks. Notable for taking its title from a Pepsi slogan at the time—making this a milestone in the history of product placement! George Raft and Roger Smith appear unbilled. Techniscope.

Fort Massacre (1958) C-80m. D: Joseph M. Newman. Joel McCrea, Forrest Tucker, Susan Cabot, John Russell. McCrea is leader of troop which constantly is entangled with Indian skirmishes. CinemaScope.

Fort Osage (1952) C-72m. BOMB D: Lesley Selander. Rod Cameron, Jane Nigh, Douglas Kennedy, Iron Eyes Cody, Morris Ankrum, John Ridgely, William Phipps, Myron Healey. Inept Grade-D Western involving perennial Indian uprisings.

Fort Ti (1953) C-73m. D: William Castle. George Montgomery, Joan Vohs, Irving Bacon, James Seay. Best facet of this oater set during French-Indian war of 1760s is its 3-D gimmickry; otherwise, standard stuff.

Fortune in Diamonds SEE: Adventurers, The

Fortune Is a Woman SEE: She Played with Fire

Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950) 91m. D: Gordon Douglas. Louis Hayward, Patricia Medina, George Macready, Terry Kilburn. This filming of Sabatini novel lacks flair and scope of the Flynn version. Costumer recounts tale of Irish doctor (Hayward) who becomes notorious pirate to revenge wrongdoings.

Fort Vengeance (1953) C-75m. D: Lesley Selander. James Craig, Rita Moreno, Keith Larsen, Reginald Denny, Morris Ankrum, Michael Granger. Two brothers—one good, one incorrigible—join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and wind up fighting Chief Sitting Bull. Routine Western with a change of scenery.

Fort Worth (1951) C-80m. D: Edwin L. Marin. Randolph Scott, David Brian, Phyllis Thaxter, Helena Carter. Scott learns that pen is not mightier than the sword; he’s a gunslinger who becomes newspaper editor but can only rid town of outlaws via six-shooter.

Forty Guns (1957) 80m. ½ D: Samuel Fuller. Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson, Gene Barry, Robert Dix, Jidge Carroll, Ziva Rodann, Hank Worden, Eve Brent. Strong direction and clever double entendres highlight this florid, wildly dramatic Western with Stanwyck as the self-appointed land baroness of Tombstone Territory—until gunslinger-turned-lawman Sullivan shows up. Fuller also scripted. CinemaScope.

Forty Little Mothers (1940) 90m. ½ D: Busby Berkeley. Eddie Cantor, Judith Anderson, Ralph Morgan, Rita Johnson, Martha O’Driscoll, Bonita Granville, Diana Lewis. Second-rate Cantor vehicle with Eddie as unemployed college professor who becomes reluctant protector of an abandoned baby, as well as a teacher in a girls’ school. Veronica Lake (then known as Constance Keane) is one of his charges.

Forty Naughty Girls (1937) 63m. BOMB D: Edward Cline. James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Marjorie Lord, George Shelley, Joan Woodbury, Frank M. Thomas, Tom Kennedy. Final Hildegarde Withers mystery-comedy is just plain awful, with Pitts and Gleason getting involved in a backstage murder.

49th Man, The (1953) 73m. D: Fred F. Sears. John Ireland, Richard Denning, Suzanne Dalbert, Robert Foulk, Touch Conners (Mike Connors), Richard Avonde, Peter Marshall. Cold War espionage thriller with Ireland and Denning trying to track down smugglers who are bringing A-bomb parts into the U.S. Decent but unexceptional, this Sam Katzman production makes the most of its low budget.

49th Parallel (1941-British) 123m. ½ D: Michael Powell. Anton Walbrook, Eric Portman, Leslie Howard, Raymond Massey, Laurence Olivier, Glynis Johns, Niall MacGinnis, Finlay Currie. Taut, exciting WW2 yarn of Nazi servicemen whose U-boat is sunk off the Canadian coast. Top-notch cast, rich suspense and characterizations. Oscar winner for Best Story (Emeric Pressburger); screenplay by Pressburger and Rodney Ackland. U.S. title: THE INVADERS.

40 Pounds of Trouble (1963) C-106m. ½ D: Norman Jewison. Tony Curtis, Phil Silvers, Suzanne Pleshette, Larry Storch, Howard Morris, Stubby Kaye, Claire Wilcox, Jack La Rue. “Cute” Curtis comedy of casino manager who “adopts” little girl with endless complications occurring. Disneyland locations and fine character actors pep it up. Carbon copy of LITTLE MISS MARKER. Panavision.

42nd Street (1933) 89m. D: Lloyd Bacon. Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, George Brent, Bebe Daniels, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Ginger Rogers, Ned Sparks, George E. Stone. The definitive backstage musical still has plenty of sass—along with its clichés. Ailing director Baxter puts everything into what may be his final show, then leading lady Daniels twists her ankle! Good thing Ruby Keeler’s on hand. Harry Warren–Al Dubin songs include title tune, “Young and Healthy,” “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me,” “Shuffle Off to Buffalo.” Busby Berkeley’s ground-breaking production numbers are sensational. Scripted by Rian James and James Seymour, from Bradford Ropes’ story. Adapted for the Broadway stage 50 years later. Also shown in computer-colored version.

47 Ronin, Part I, The (1941-Japanese) 112m. ½ D: Kenji Mizoguchi. Chojuro Kawarazaki, Yoshizaburo Arashi, Utaemon Ichikawa, Mieko Takamine. Legendary samurai warriors scheme to gain revenge for the death of their leader, who was tricked and forced to commit suicide. Based on a famous Japanese story, and fascinating as both cinema and as propaganda (remember, this was made during WW2). First of Mizoguchi’s two-part epic, also known as THE LOYAL 47 RONIN. Several dozen versions of this same story have been filmed in Japan. Remade in 2013.

47 Ronin, Part II, The (1942-Japanese) 113m. ½ D: Kenji Mizoguchi. Chojuro Kawarazaki, Yoshizaburo Arashi, Utaemon Ichikawa, Mieko Takamine. The 47 Ronin gain vengeance for their master’s death. Together with its predecessor, this was the most impressive Japanese film produced during WW2; the finale is especially stirring and revealing.

Forty Thieves (1944) 61m. ½ D: Lesley Selander. William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Jimmy Rogers, Douglass Dumbrille, Louise Currie, Kirk Alyn. Boyd loses reelection as sheriff when malefactors pad the polls. Satisfactory Hopalong Cassidy effort, with Alyn (later the first screen incarnation of Superman) here a saloonkeeper with no backbone. The last Hoppy film produced by Harry Sherman; Boyd himself assumed production reins when series resumed two and a half years later.

Fort Yuma (1955) C-78m. D: Lesley Selander. Peter Graves, Joan Taylor, Addison Richards, Joan Vohs. Indians go on warpath when their chief is killed. Occasionally good combat sequences.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) C-130m. ½ D: Sam Wood. Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Córdova, Joseph Calleia, Katina Paxinou, Vladimir Sokoloff, Mikhail Rasumny, Fortunio Bonanova. Hemingway story of U.S. mercenary Cooper fighting for Spain with motley crew of peasants, including Bergman; tense action, beautiful color, great love scenes, marvelous Victor Young score. Paxinou won Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Originally released at 170m.; archivally restored version runs 156m. Restored DVD version is 165m., with an overture, intermission/entr’acte.

Fountain, The (1934) 83m. ½ D: John Cromwell. Ann Harding, Brian Aherne, Paul Lukas, Jean Hersholt, Ian Wolfe. WW1 romance with Harding torn between former sweetheart Aherne and husband Lukas. Handsome but tedious.

Fountainhead, The (1949) 114m. ½ D: King Vidor. Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Kent Smith, Robert Douglas, Henry Hull, Ray Collins, Jerome Cowan. Ambitious but confused version of Ayn Rand philosophic novel, spotlighting an idealistic architect’s clash with compromises of society; cast does what it can with the script.

Four Against Fate SEE: Derby Day

Four Around the Woman (1921-German) 84m. ½ D: Fritz Lang. Hermann Böttcher, Carola Tolle, Lilli Lohrer, Ludwig Hartau, Anton Edthofer, Robert Forster-Larrinaga, Rudolph Klein-Rogge. Complications arise when wealthy Hartau suspects that, once upon a time, his wife (Tolle) was romantically involved with Edthofer (who also plays the man’s look-alike brother, a jewel thief). Little-seen early Lang melodrama is generally entertaining but cannot compare to his later work. Original title: VIER UM DIE FRAU.

Four Bags Full SEE: La Traversée de Paris

Four Dark Hours SEE: Green Cockatoo, The

Four Daughters (1938) 90m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Claude Rains, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Priscilla Lane, Gale Page, John Garfield, Jeffrey Lynn, Frank McHugh, May Robson, Dick Foran. Believable, beautifully acted soaper of small-town life; four young women with musical father Rains have lives altered by four young men. Garfield is superb in first film, matched by fine cast. Followed immediately by DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS and sequels FOUR WIVES and FOUR MOTHERS. Remade as YOUNG AT HEART.

Four Days Leave (1950) 98m. D: Leopold Lindtberg. Cornel Wilde, Josette Day, Simone Signoret, Alan Hale, Jr. Rather tame account of GI Wilde finding romance while on leave in Switzerland.

Four Desperate Men (1960-Australian) 104m. ½ D: Harry Watt. Aldo Ray, Heather Sears. Stark study of human nature as quartet of hardened thugs decide whether or not to set off huge bomb that would destroy Sydney harbor. Original title: THE SIEGE OF PINCHGUT.

4D Man (1959) C-85m. ½ D: Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss, Patty Duke, Guy Raymond. Well-handled sci-fi of scientist who learns art of transposing matter, thus giving him power to pass through any barrier—but each time ages him horribly.

Four Faces West (1948) 90m. ½ D: Alfred E. Green. Joel McCrea, Frances Dee, Charles Bickford, Joseph Calleia, William Conrad. Quiet, fact-based Western with McCrea a reluctant bank robber who becomes involved with nurse Dee while being pursued by sheriff Pat Garrett (Bickford).

Four Fast Guns (1959) 72m. ½ D: William J. Hole, Jr. James Craig, Martha Vickers, Edgar Buchanan, Brett Halsey, Paul Richards. Undistinguished oater with Craig playing a man on the run who becomes unofficial marshal in the lawless town of Purgatory, Arizona, in the 1870s. CinemaScope.

Four Feathers, The (1929) 81m. D: Lothar Mendes, Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack. Richard Arlen, Fay Wray, Clive Brook, William Powell, Theodore von Eltz, Noah Beery, Noble Johnson. David O. Selznick produced this exciting silent version (with synchronized music and sound effects) of the classic A. E. W. Mason adventure story. Well shot, partially on location in Africa with an excellent cast, it still impresses with several rip-roaring action scenes, including a rousing hippo stampede. Codirectors Cooper and Schoedsack later teamed up with Selznick for KING KONG. Previously filmed in 1921; remade in 1939, as STORM OVER THE NILE, as a TVM in 1978 with Beau Bridges, and in 2002.

Four Feathers, The (1939-British) C-115m. D: Zoltan Korda. John Clements, Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, June Duprez, Allan Jeayes, Jack Allen, Donald Gray, Clive Baxter. Grand adventure from A. E. W. Mason story of tradition-bound Britisher who must prove he’s not a coward by helping Army comrades quell Sudan uprising. Smith is just wonderful as tale-spinning Army veteran. Screenplay by R. C. Sherriff, Lajos Biro, and Arthur Wimperis. Score by Miklos Rozsa. Original release ran 130m.

4 for Texas (1963) C-114m. D: Robert Aldrich. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Anita Ekberg, Ursula Andress, Charles Bronson, Victor Buono, Richard Jaeckel, Mike Mazurki, Jack Elam, The Three Stooges, Yaphet Kotto. Nonsensical Sinatra-Martin romp set in the old West, with their antics only outdone by Buono as villainous banker. Ekberg and Andress both outstanding scenery attractions.

Four Frightened People (1934) 78m. ½ D: Cecil B. DeMille. Claudette Colbert, Herbert Marshall, William Gargan, Mary Boland, Leo Carrillo. Four shipwrecked souls try to survive in the jungle, while the two men become increasingly interested in the plain-Jane schoolteacher who’s the most frightened of the lot. DeMille’s quietest movie (and a somewhat notorious flop in its day) is entertaining malarkey, with Colbert getting more glamorous in each successive scene. Filmed on the island of Hawaii.

Four Girls in Town (1956) C-85m. D: Jack Sher. George Nader, Julie Adams, Gia Scala, Marianne Cook (Koch), Elsa Martinelli, Sydney Chaplin, Grant Williams, John Gavin. Clichéd but absorbing account of four contrasting would-be stars coming to Hollywood seeking fame and romance; excellent musical score by Alex North. CinemaScope.

Four Guns to the Border (1954) C-82m. ½ D: Richard Carlson. Rory Calhoun, Colleen Miller, George Nader, Walter Brennan, Nina Foch. Better than usual handling of outlaws vs. Indians, with slight morality lesson for finale. From a Louis L’Amour novel.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The (1921) 131m. D: Rex Ingram. Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, Alan Hale, Jean Hersholt, Nigel de Brulier, Wallace Beery. Famous silent spectacle cemented Valentino’s popularity via legendary tango scene, but aside from that it’s a relentlessly grim antiwar story of cousins who end up fighting on opposite sides during WW1. Extremely well made, with imagery that still staggers and message that cannot be overlooked. Based on the Blasco Ibanez novel. Remade in 1962.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The (1962) C-153m. ½ D: Vincente Minnelli. Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin, Charles Boyer, Lee J. Cobb, Paul Henreid, Paul Lukas, Yvette Mimieux, Karl Boehm. Glossy, padded trash, losing all sense of reality in its telling of a family whose members fight on opposite sides during WW2. Loose remake of the 1921 silent film based on a novel by Vincent Blasco Ibanez. Angela Lansbury dubbed in Thulin’s lines. Great André Previn score. CinemaScope.

Four Hours to Kill! (1935) 71m. D: Mitchell Leisen. Richard Barthelmess, Joe Morrison, Helen Mack, Gertrude Michael, Dorothy Tree, Ray Milland, Roscoe Karns, John Howard, Noel Madison, Charles Wilson. Ingenious structure has film taking place entirely in a vaudeville theater (and lobby) where a killer (Barthelmess) escapes from the detective escorting him to execution, hoping to kill the stoolie who ratted on him. Norman Krasna’s snappy script juggles numerous subplots à la GRAND HOTEL. Watch for director Leisen in a cameo as the orchestra leader.

Four Hundred Blows, The (1959-French) 99m. D: François Truffaut. Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick Auffay, Claire Maurier, Albert Remy, Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jacques Demy, François Truffaut. Captivating study of Parisian youth who turns to life of small-time crime as a reaction to derelict parents. First of Truffaut’s autobiographical Antoine Doinel series; followed by the “Antoine et Colette” episode in LOVE AT TWENTY. Dyaliscope.

Four in a Jeep (1951-Swiss) 97m. ½ D: Leopold Lindtberg. Viveca Lindfors, Ralph Meeker, Joseph Yadin, Michael Medwin, Dinan, Paulette Dubost. Revealing drama, set in a postwar Vienna occupied by American, Russian, French, and British forces. American M.P. Meeker takes an interest in troubled Lindfors, whose husband has just escaped from a Russian prison camp. On-location filming helps.

Four in the Morning (1965-British) 94m. ½ D: Anthony Simmons. Ann Lynn, Judi Dench, Norman Rodway, Brian Phelan, Joe Melia. Grim kitchen sink drama, centering on two unhappy women going nowhere in working-class London. Worth a look for Dench’s vivid performance as an impatient young mother with marital woes.

Four Jacks and a Jill (1942) 68m. D: Jack Hively. Ray Bolger, Desi Arnaz, Anne Shirley, June Havoc, Eddie Foy, Jr., Jack Durant, Henry Daniell, Fritz Feld. Struggling hoofer/pianist Bolger and his musician pals take in singing waif Shirley in this lackluster musical. Bolger’s dancing is always a pleasure to watch, but Arnaz is wasted as an exiled king turned taxi driver. Remake of STREET GIRL and THAT GIRL FROM PARIS.

Four Jills in a Jeep (1944) 89m. ½ D: William A. Seiter. Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, Mitzi Mayfair, Phil Silvers, Dick Haymes, Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra; guest stars Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, George Jessel. Contrived wartime entertainment with four leading ladies reenacting their actual experiences entertaining soldiers overseas (which Landis turned into a popular book of the same name). Some good musical moments but nothing to shout about.

Four Men and a Prayer (1938) 85m. D: John Ford. Loretta Young, Richard Greene, George Sanders, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith, William Henry, J. Edward Bromberg, Alan Hale, Reginald Denny, John Carradine. Compelling story of four brothers determined to unravel mystery behind their father’s murder; handsome, well-paced production. Remade as FURY AT FURNACE CREEK.

Four Mothers (1941) 86m. ½ D: William Keighley. Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Gale Page, Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, Eddie Albert, May Robson, Frank McHugh, Dick Foran. Warmhearted but formulaic second sequel to FOUR DAUGHTERS. This time around, an unexpected family crisis affects the lives of the title quartet and their loved ones.

Four Poster, The (1952) 103m. ½ D: Irving Reis. Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer. Jan de Hartog play is tour de force for stars who enact various phases of married couple’s life; warm, witty script; superb performances enhanced by ingenious animated interludes by UPA studio. Later became the stage musicial I Do! I Do!

Four’s a Crowd (1938) 91m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Rosalind Russell, Patric Knowles, Hugh Herbert, Lana Turner. Lightheaded romance in which everyone loves another; straight comedy’s a switch for Flynn. Pleasant.

Four Sided Triangle (1953-British) 81m. BOMB D: Terence Fisher. James Hayter, Barbara Payton, Stephen Murray, John Van Eyssen, Percy Marmont. Scientist invents a duplicating machine; hoping to solve romantic triangle, he duplicates the woman he and his best friend both love. Silly programmer.

Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake, The (1959) 70m. D: Edward L. Cahn. Eduard Franz, Valerie French, Henry Daniell, Grant Richards, Paul Cavanagh, Howard Wendell. Acceptable horror fare involving centuries-old voodoo curse upon family and contemporary scientist who puts an end to the weird goings-on.

Four Sons (1928) 100m. D: John Ford. James Hall, Margaret Mann, Earle Foxe, Charles Morton, Francis X. Bushman, Jr., George Meeker. Famous silent tearjerker about a Bavarian widow whose four beloved sons fight in WW1—one of them on the American side. Simple and obvious but still effective. Remade in 1940.

Four Sons (1940) 89m. ½ D: Archie Mayo. Don Ameche, Eugenie Leontovich, Mary Beth Hughes, Alan Curtis, George Ernest, Robert Lowery. Czech family affected by Nazi rise to power, with sons choosing different allegiances. Remake of 1928 silent.

Four Steps in the Clouds (1942-Italian) 91m. D: Alessandro Blasetti. Gino Cervi, Adriana Benetti, Giuditta Rissone, Carlo Romano, Guido Celano, Margherita Seglin. Unwed mother-to-be Benetti convinces unhappily married traveling salesman Cervi to pose as her husband when she goes home to see her parents. Warm, sensitive, and charming tale presents a surprisingly nonideological depiction of life in WW2 Italy. Original title: QUATTRO PASSI FRA LE NUVOLE. Remade in France as THE VIRTUOUS BIGAMIST starring Fernandel, and as A WALK IN THE CLOUDS with Keanu Reeves.

Fourteen Hours (1951) 92m. D: Henry Hathaway. Paul Douglas, Richard Basehart, Barbara Bel Geddes, Debra Paget, Agnes Moorehead, Robert Keith, Howard da Silva, Jeffrey Hunter, Martin Gabel, Grace Kelly, Jeff Corey. Well-made suspense drama about a man threatening to jump off the ledge of a building, told in semidocumentary fashion. Look for Harvey Lembeck and Ossie Davis as cabbies, Joyce Van Patten as Paget’s girlfriend. Grace Kelly’s film debut.

Four Ways Out (1951-Italian) 77m. ½ D: Pietro Germi. Gina Lollobrigida, Renato Baldini, Cosetta Greco, Paul Muller, Enzo Maggio. Engrossing if unoriginal drama of a robbery at a soccer stadium, and the motives and fates of the various thieves. Federico Fellini worked on the original story; he and Germi were among the scriptwriters. Released in the U.S. in 1955.

Four Wives (1939) 110m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Claude Rains, Eddie Albert, Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Gale Page, John Garfield, May Robson, Frank McHugh, Jeffrey Lynn. Sentimental but well-acted sequel to FOUR DAUGHTERS, further chronicling the lives and loves of the title quartet. Garfield appears briefly in flashback. Max Steiner’s score includes his Symphonie Moderne. Followed by FOUR MOTHERS.

Foxes of Harrow, The (1947) 117m. ½ D: John M. Stahl. Rex Harrison, Maureen O’Hara, Richard Haydn, Victor McLaglen, Vanessa Brown, Patricia Medina, Gene Lockhart. Lavish but lumbering tale of philanderer breaking up his marriage to seek affluence and fame in New Orleans in 1820. Pretty stale despite the trimmings.

Foxfire (1955) C-92m. ½ D: Joseph Pevney. Jane Russell, Jeff Chandler, Dan Duryea, Mara Corday, Barton MacLane. Russell battles cultural barriers when she impulsively marries Indian mining engineer Chandler while vacationing in Arizona. Not bad; the stars are well matched. Incidentally, that’s Chandler singing the title song; he also wrote the lyrics.

Foxhole in Cairo (1960-British) 79m. ½ D: John Moxey. James Robertson Justice, Adrian Hoven, Peter Van Eyck, Neil McCallum, Michael Caine. Sensibly told account of counterintelligence at work in Egypt during WW2.

Foxiest Girl in Paris (1956-French) 100m. ½ D: Roger De Broin. Martine Carol, Michel Piccoli, Mischa Auer. Sultry Carol, a fashion model, becomes amateur sleuth to solve a robbery and a murder.

Fra Diavolo SEE: Devil’s Brother, The

Framed (1947) 82m. D: Richard Wallace. Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan, Edgar Buchanan, Karen Morley. Rootless patsy Ford falls for scheming Carter but is kept in the dark as she hatches a robbery plan with banker Sullivan. Not especially stylish but efficient noir-ish melodrama.

Francesco—Giullare di Dio (1950-Italian) 75m. D: Roberto Rossellini. Aldo Fabrizi, Brother Nazario Gerardi, Arabella Lemaitre. Assisi’s favorite 13th-century saint is venerated in this austere biopic about a man of peace who has forsaken his family’s wealth to lead a circle of believers into poverty, and into grace. Sincere, humble approach; acted by nonprofessionals and cowritten by Rossellini, Federico Fellini, and two Italian priests. Aka THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS and FRANCIS, JESTER OF GOD.

Francis (The Talking Mule) Never hailed as an artistic triumph, the Francis series made up for that in box-office receipts from 1949 to 1956. Based on a book by David Stern, each of the seven films dealt with a sincere but stupid young man (at West Point he is 687th in a class of 687) led into and out of trouble by a canny talking mule. The off-screen voice was Chill Wills, the on-screen bumbler was Donald O’Connor in all but the last film, which starred Mickey Rooney. O’Connor once explained, “When you’ve made six pictures and the mule still gets more fan mail than you do . . .” Universal worked their contract starlets (Piper Laurie, Martha Hyer, Julie Adams, etc.) into the series as love interests, but the center of attraction was always the mule. The films, except the last one, were all about on a par: silly but amusing. The first six films were directed by Arthur Lubin, who went on to create a similar TV series called Mr. Ed, about a talking horse.

FRANCIS (THE TALKING MULE)

Francis (1949)

Francis Goes to the Races (1951)

Francis Goes to West Point (1952)

Francis Covers the Big Town (1953)

Francis Joins the Wacs (1954)

Francis in the Navy (1955)

Francis in the Haunted House (1956)

Francis (1949) 91m. ½ D: Arthur Lubin. Donald O’Connor, Patricia Medina, ZaSu Pitts, Ray Collins, John McIntire, Eduard Franz, Anthony (Tony) Curtis. G.I. O’Connor becomes a war hero with the help of his talking mule, but is thought to be crazy when he tries to convince his superiors of the animal’s ability. Initial entry sets the tone for the rest. Video title: FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE.

Francis Covers the Big Town (1953) 86m. ½ D: Arthur Lubin. Donald O’Connor, Nancy Guild, Yvette Dugay, Gene Lockhart, William Harrigan, Gale Gordon. O’Connor and his talking mule join a big city newspaper and get mixed up in a murder trial.

Francis Goes to the Races (1951) 88m. ½ D: Arthur Lubin. Donald O’Connor, Piper Laurie, Cecil Kellaway, Jesse White, Barry Kelley, Hayden Rorke, Larry Keating. O’Connor falls for horsebreeder Kellaway’s niece (Laurie) and foils some crooks when Francis coaches a sorry nag to win the big race.

Francis Goes to West Point (1952) 81m. ½ D: Arthur Lubin. Donald O’Connor, Lori Nelson, Alice Kelley, William Reynolds, Palmer Lee (Gregg Palmer), James Best, Les Tremayne, David Janssen. Francis helps O’Connor get in and out of trouble during basic training at the military school. Look for Leonard Nimoy and Paul Burke as cadets.

Francis in the Haunted House (1956) 80m. D: Charles Lamont. Mickey Rooney, Virginia Welles, James Flavin, Paul Cavanagh, Mary Ellen Kaye, David Janssen, Richard Deacon, Timothy Carey. Rooney took over the reins from O’Connor for this final entry, a simplistic “spooky” comedy. Paul Frees also replaced Chill Wills as the voice of Francis.

Francis in the Navy (1955) 80m. ½ D: Arthur Lubin. Donald O’Connor, Martha Hyer, Richard Erdman, Jim Backus, David Janssen, Clint Eastwood, Martin Milner, Paul Burke. For his last outing in the series, O’Connor plays a dual role. Typical service farce, notable for appearance of Eastwood, in his second film. Director Lubin also quit after this one and went on to produce TV’s Mr. Ed.

Francis, Jester of God SEE: Francesco—Giullare di Dio

Francis Joins the Wacs (1954) 94m. ½ D: Arthur Lubin. Donald O’Connor, Julia (Julie) Adams, Mamie Van Doren, Chill Wills, Lynn Bari, ZaSu Pitts, Mara Corday, Allison Hayes, Joan Shawlee. An Army snafu sends Francis and O’Connor to a WAC base, causing all sorts of problems. More amiable nonsense, but then, you know you’re not dealing with reality when Van Doren is cast as “Corporal Bunky Hilstrom.” Wills, the voice of Francis, also appears on screen.

Francis of Assisi (1961) C-111m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Bradford Dillman, Dolores Hart, Stuart Whitman, Cecil Kellaway, Finlay Currie, Pedro Armendariz. Lavish religious epic dealing with story of founder of school of monks with sympathetic performance by Dillman. Good cast and atmosphere. Script tends to sag at wrong moments. CinemaScope.

Frankenstein (1931) 70m. ½ D: James Whale. Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles, Edward Van Sloan, Dwight Frye, Frederick Kerr, Lionel Belmore. Definitive monster movie, with Clive as the ultimate mad scientist, creating a man-made being (Karloff) but inadvertently giving him a criminal brain. It’s creaky at times, and cries for a music score, but it’s still impressive . . . as is Karloff’s performance in the role that made him a star. Long-censored footage, restored in 1987, enhances the impact of several key scenes, including the drowning of a little girl. Based on Mary Shelley’s novel. Followed by BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965-Japanese) C-87m. D: Ishiro Honda. Nick Adams, Tadao Takashima, Kumi Mizuno. Grade-C horror film, with Adams a scientist in Tokyo trying to combat giant, newly grown Frankenstein monster terrorizing the countryside; poor special effects. Tohoscope.

Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster (1965) 78m. BOMB D: Robert Gaffney. Marilyn Hanold, Jim Karen, Lou Cutell, Nancy Marshall, David Kerman. Low-grade horror entry dealing with interplanetary robot that goes berserk. Bizarre, Flash Gordon–esque aliens also involved. Has gained a peculiar cult reputation. Aka MARS INVADES PUERTO RICO.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) 72m. D: Roy William Neill. Lon Chaney, Jr., Patric Knowles, Ilona Massey, Bela Lugosi, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lionel Atwill, Dennis Hoey, Rex Evans, Dwight Frye. Sequel to both THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE WOLF MAN finds werewolf Chaney seeking Dr. Frankenstein, hoping to be put out of his misery. He finds the scientist is dead—but the Monster isn’t. Slick, atmospheric, fast-paced fun; Lugosi’s only stint as the Monster. Followed by HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

Frankenstein 1970 (1958) 83m. BOMB D: Howard W. Koch. Boris Karloff, Tom Duggan, Jana Lund, Donald Barry. As last of the Frankenstein scientists, Karloff uses money from TV production shooting in his castle to revive original monster with atomic energy. Film is slow, monster unexciting, and Karloff hammy. CinemaScope.

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1959) 85m. BOMB D: Richard Cunha. John Ashley, Sandra Knight, Donald Murphy, Sally Todd, Harold Lloyd, Jr. Low-grade descendant of famed monster series with a new female horror-robot being created with typical results; tinsel sets.

Frankie and Johnny (1936) 66m. BOMB D: Chester Erskine. Helen Morgan, Chester Morris, Lilyan Tashman, Florence Reed, Walter Kingsford. Dismally bad, cheaply made costume musical drama based on the old love-triangle song; even the great Morgan is undone. Made in 1934.

Frantic SEE: Elevator to the Gallows

Fraulein (1958) C-98m. D: Henry Koster. Dana Wynter, Mel Ferrer, Dolores Michaels, Maggie Hayes. Bizarre post-WW2 Berlin tale of German girl helping U.S. soldier, then being held by the Communists. Wynter miscast. CinemaScope.

Freaks (1932) 64m. ½ D: Tod Browning. Wallace Ford, Olga Baclanova, Leila Hyams, Harry Earles, Roscoe Ates, Johnny Eck, Daisy and Violet Hilton, Prince Randian, Zip and Pip, Schlitze. A unique movie about a traveling sideshow and the camaraderie of its unusual performers, goaded to vengeance by cruel trapeze star Baclanova. Horror-film master Tod Browning gathered an incredible cast of real-life sideshow freaks for this bizarre and fascinating film. Severely cut in U.S. during release and banned in the U.K. for 30 years, some reissue prints are missing brief epilogue; aka NATURE’S MISTAKES.

Free and Easy (1930) 92m. ½ D: Edward Sedgwick. Buster Keaton, Anita Page, Robert Montgomery, Edgar Dearing, Lionel Barrymore, Dorothy Sebastian, Trixie Friganza. Interesting early-talkie musicomedy about Keaton becoming movie star; many guest appearances by Cecil B. DeMille, William Haines, et al. to boost uneven film. Keaton also filmed a Spanish-language version, ESTRELLADOS. Retitled: EASY GO.

Free and Easy (1941) 56m. D: George Sidney. Robert Cummings, Ruth Hussey, Judith Anderson, C. Aubrey Smith, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Owen, Tom Conway. Short, sweet bauble about a high-class but penniless father-son duo (Cummings, Bruce) and what happens when the younger man is offered a choice between love and money. Spins out of control at the finale (literally), but otherwise a solid effort with a good cast. Based on a play by Ivor Novello; previously filmed as BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK.

Free, Blonde and 21 (1940) 67m. ½ D: Ricardo Cortez. Lynn Bari, Mary Beth Hughes, Joan Davis, Henry Wilcoxon. Low-grade hokum about gold-digging gals on the make for wealthy men.

Free for All (1949) 83m. D: Charles Barton. Robert Cummings, Ann Blyth, Percy Kilbride, Ray Collins. Mild froth about Cummings inventing instant gasoline.

Free Soul, A (1931) 91m. ½ D: Clarence Brown. Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, James Gleason. A hard-drinking, free-swinging attorney successfully defends gangster Gable on a murder rap—then finds to his dismay that his equally free-spirited daughter has fallen in love with him. Dated morality play–melodrama retains interest because of its cast and Barrymore’s famous courtroom finale, which clinched him an Oscar. Based on Adela Rogers St. Johns’ book about her father. Remade as THE GIRL WHO HAD EVERYTHING.

Free to Love (1925) 60m. ½ D: Frank O’Connor. Clara Bow, Donald Keith, Raymond McKee,Winter Hall, Hallam Cooley, Charles (Hill) Mailes. Tailor-made vehicle has Clara an embittered young woman who is unable to carry out her plan to murder the judge who unjustly sent her to a reformatory. She becomes his ward, but her past comes to haunt her.

French Cancan (1955-French) C-93m. D: Jean Renoir. Jean Gabin, Francoise Arnoul, Maria Felix, Edith Piaf. Not top-drawer Renoir, but still an impressive, enjoyable fiction about beginnings of the Moulin Rouge and impresario Gabin’s revival of the cancan. Originally released in the U.S. in 1956; a brilliantly beautiful restored version, with approximately 10m. of additional footage, opened theatrically in 1985. Originally released in France as ONLY THE FRENCH CAN at 102m.

Frenchie (1950) C-81m. ½ D: Louis King. Joel McCrea, Shelley Winters, John Russell, John Emery, George Cleveland, Elsa Lanchester, Marie Windsor. A Western town’s new saloon queen (Winters) has actually arrived to avenge the death of her father, murdered when she was a small girl; the quiet, no-guns sheriff (McCrea) wants her to mend her ways. OK Western vaguely based on DESTRY RIDES AGAIN. Winters-Windsor catfight is a highlight.

French Key, The (1946) 64m. ½ D: Walter Colmes. Albert Dekker, Mike Mazurki, Evelyn Ankers, John Eldredge, Frank Fenton, Richard Arlen, Byron Foulger. Dekker and pal Mazurki accidentally discover a corpse; Dekker gives this OK mystery drama some class.

French Line, The (1954) C-102m. D: Lloyd Bacon. Jane Russell, Gilbert Roland, Arthur Hunnicutt, Mary McCarty, Craig Stevens, Steven Geray, Joyce McKenzie, Paula Corday, Scott Elliot. Russell’s bust in 3-D was the gimmick to sell this dull musical. All that’s left is flat tale of wealthy Texas girl in Paris being romanced by Parisian. McCarty’s wisecracking is a blessing. If you blink, you’ll miss Kim Novak modeling a gown.

Frenchman’s Creek (1944) C-113m. D: Mitchell Leisen. Joan Fontaine, Arturo de Córdova, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Cecil Kellaway, Ralph Forbes, George Kirby. Colorful female fantasy escapism of Fontaine romanced by dashing pirate de Córdova; good supporting cast. Based on a Daphne du Maurier novel.

French, They Are a Funny Race, The (1956-French) 83m. D: Preston Sturges. Jack Buchanan, Noel-Noel, Martine Carol, Genevieve Brunet. Director-writer Sturges’ last film is a misfire, with Buchanan as veddy-British major whose marriage to Frenchwoman sparks continuing nationalistic arguments. Original title: LES CARNETS DU MAJOR THOMPSON at 105m.

Frenzy SEE: Torment

Fresh From Paris (1955) C-70m. ½ D: Leslie Goodwins. Forrest Tucker, Margaret Whiting, Martha Hyer. Grade-C musical filmed at Moulin Rouge cafe in Hollywood, with tiresome musical interludes. Original title: PARIS FOLLIES OF 1956.

Freshman, The (1925) 70m. D: Sam Taylor, Fred Newmeyer. Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Brooks Benedict, James Anderson, Hazel Keener. One of Lloyd’s best-remembered films casts him as collegiate patsy who’ll do anything to be popular on campus, unaware that everyone is making fun of him. Football game finale is one of several comic highlights. A real audience-rouser.

Freud (1962) 120m. ½ D: John Huston. Montgomery Clift, Susannah York, Larry Parks, David McCallum, Susan Kohner, Eileen Herlie. Intelligent, unglamorous account of Sigmund Freud as young doctor, focusing on his early psychiatric theories and treatments and his struggle for their acceptance among Viennese medical colleagues. Fascinating dream sequence. Originally released at 139m. Also known as FREUD: THE SECRET PASSION.

Frieda (1947-British) 97m. D: Basil Dearden. David Farrar, Glynis Johns, Mai Zetterling, Flora Robson, Albert Lieven. Interesting study of Farrar bringing German wife Zetterling back home to England, and bigotry they encounter.

Friendly Enemies (1942) 95m. ½ D: Allan Dwan. Charles Winninger, Charlie Ruggles, James Craig, Nancy Kelly. Hoary WW1 play about a conflict between German immigrant friends, one of whom has assimilated and one who has not. Simplistic in the extreme, and torpedoed by its stars’ burlesque accents.

Friendly Persuasion (1956) C-140m. D: William Wyler. Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Marjorie Main, Anthony Perkins, Richard Eyer, Robert Middleton, (Peter) Mark Richman, Walter Catlett, William Schallert. Charming account (from Jessamyn West novel) of Quaker family struggling to maintain its identity amid confusion and heartbreak of Civil War. Warm, winning performances in this beautifully made film. Music by Dimitri Tiomkin. Though no screenplay credit appears, film was written by blacklisted Michael Wilson; he received posthumous credit in 1996. Remade for TV in 1975 with Richard Kiley and Shirley Knight.

Friends and Lovers (1931) 68m. ½ D: Victor Schertzinger. Adolphe Menjou, Laurence Olivier, Lili Damita, Erich von Stroheim, Hugh Herbert. Unexceptional film interesting only for its cast. Menjou and Olivier are British officers stationed in India, both in love with Damita. Von Stroheim is fun to watch as Damita’s sly, conniving husband.

Friends of Mr. Sweeney (1934) 68m. D: Edward Ludwig. Charlie Ruggles, Ann Dvorak, Eugene Pallette, Robert Barrat, Berton Churchill, Dorothy Burgess. Ruggles is a delight in a hand-tailored role as a meek, browbeaten writer for a conservative paper who reluctantly gives in to his editor’s orders to write a favorable piece about a corrupt politician. A visit from a college chum and a wild, drunken night on the town completely transform his personality. Hilarious support by Pallette as the old friend and Barrat as a Communist agitator. Humor, sentiment, and warmth are perfectly blended in this small but satisfying film.

Frightened Bride, The (1952-British) 75m. D: Terence Young. Andre Morell, Flora Robson, Mai Zetterling, Michael Denison, Mervyn Johns. Murder haunts a family when the youngest son becomes involved in homicide. Original British title: TALL HEADLINES.

Frightened City, The (1961-British) 97m. ½ D: John Lemont. Herbert Lom, John Gregson, Sean Connery, Alfred Marks, Yvonne Romain. Interesting inside look at a London racketeer amalgamating various city gangs for master plan syndicate.

Frightened Man, The (1952-British) 69m. ½ D: John Gilling. Dermot Walsh, Barbara Murray, Charles Victor, John Blythe, Michael Ward, Thora Hird, Martin Benson. Arrogant young man, just booted out of Oxford, will do anything for a quick buck, including exploiting his loved ones. Gilling also scripted this entertaining no-frills melodrama.

Frisco Jenny (1933) 70m. ½ D: William Wellman. Ruth Chatterton, Louis Calhern, Helen Jerome Eddy, Donald Cook, James Murray, Hallam Cooley, Pat O’Malley, Harold Huber, J. Carrol Naish. Pregnant Chatterton’s lover is killed in the San Francisco earthquake, but her problems have only begun. Loose retelling of MADAME X is a tailor-made Chatterton vehicle. Good atmosphere and smart dialogue overcome film’s tendency to meander.

Frisco Kid (1935) 77m. D: Lloyd Bacon. James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez, Lili Damita, Fred Kohler, George E. Stone, Donald Woods. Routine drama of Barbary Coast with Cagney fighting his way to the top, almost dethroned by local gangs but saved by blueblood Lindsay.

Frisco Sal (1945) 94m. D: George Waggner. Susanna Foster, Turhan Bey, Alan Curtis, Andy Devine, Thomas Gomez, Samuel S. Hinds. Tepid costume drama of New England choir singer Foster journeying to San Francisco’s Barbary Coast in the Gay ’90s on the trail of her long-missing brother.

Frisky (1954-Italian) 98m. ½ D: Luigi Comencini. Gina Lollobrigida, Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Risso, Marisa Merlini. Lollobrigida provides sufficient sex appeal to carry simple tale of flirtatious village girl who beats out competition in winning heart of police official De Sica.

Frogmen, The (1951) 96m. D: Lloyd Bacon. Richard Widmark, Dana Andrews, Gary Merrill, Jeffrey Hunter, Robert Wagner, Jack Warden. Intriguing look at underwater demolition squads in action in the Pacific during WW2.

From Hell It Came (1957) 71m. ½ D: Dan Milner. Tod Andrews, Tina Carver, Linda Watkins, John McNamara, Gregg Palmer, Robert Swan. Monstrous tree rises from grave of native chief’s son, causing terror in South Seas village. As walking-tree movies go, this is at the top of the list.

From Hell to Borneo (1964) C-96m. D: George Montgomery. George Montgomery, Julie Gregg, Torin Thatcher, Lisa Moreno. Filmed in the Philippines, tale recounts Montgomery’s efforts to maintain sanctity of his private island against aggressive crooks and smugglers.

From Hell to Heaven (1933) 67m. ½ D: Erle C. Kenton. Carole Lombard, Jack Oakie, Adrienne Ames, David Manners, Sidney Blackmer, Verna Hillie, James Eagles, Shirley Grey. Another GRAND HOTEL clone, this time tracing the fortunes of guests at a racetrack hotel, all of whom have varying reasons for betting on an upcoming race. Lombard and Oakie are always fun to watch, and there’s some interesting camerawork by Henry Sharp utilizing zoom lenses, which were rarely used in the ’30s.

From Hell to Texas (1958) C-100m. ½ D: Henry Hathaway. Don Murray, Diane Varsi, Chill Wills, Dennis Hopper. Sincere Western with Murray on the run with posse on his trail for accidentally killing a man. CinemaScope.

From Here to Eternity (1953) 118m. D: Fred Zinnemann. Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, Philip Ober, Ernest Borgnine, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jack Warden, Claude Akins, George Reeves. Toned-down but still powerful adaptation of James Jones’ novel of Army life in Hawaii just before Pearl Harbor. Depiction of Japanese sneak attack combines unforgettable action scenes with actual combat footage. Brilliantly acted by entire cast, including Sinatra in his “comeback” role as the ill-fated soldier Maggio. Eight Oscars include Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (Daniel Taradash), Cinematography (Burnett Guffey), and Supporting Actors Sinatra and Reed. Remade in 1979 as a TV miniseries, which in turn spun off a brief series.

From Russia With Love (1963-British) C-118m. ½ D: Terence Young. Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Lotte Lenya, Pedro Armendariz, Robert Shaw, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell. Second James Bond film is one of the best; plenty of suspense and action, and one of the longest, most exciting fight scenes ever staged. Lenya makes a very sinister spy.

From the Earth to the Moon (1958) C-100m. ½ D: Byron Haskin. Joseph Cotten, George Sanders, Debra Paget, Don Dubbins, Patric Knowles, Melville Cooper, Carl Esmond, Henry Daniell. Jules Verne’s fiction doesn’t float well in contrived sci-fi of early rocket flight to the moon. Veteran cast looks most uncomfortable.

From the Manger to the Cross (1912) 71m. ½ D: Sidney Olcott. Robert Henderson-Bland, Percy Dyer, Gene Gauntier, Alice Hollister, Sidney Olcott, Robert G. Vignola. Years before DeMille’s THE KING OF KINGS—and decades before Mel Gibson—came this well-intentioned but pedestrian reenactment of the life of Christ. Extremely dated but still of interest as the first biblical epic filmed “on the original locations” in the Middle East.

From the Terrace (1960) C-144m. D: Mark Robson. Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Myrna Loy, Ina Balin, Leon Ames, Elizabeth Allen, Barbara Eden, George Grizzard, Patrick O’Neal, Felix Aylmer, Mae Marsh. John O’Hara novel of WW2 vet Newman’s rise to financial and social success makes for an engrossing soaper. Woodward is chic as his wife, with Loy superb as his alcoholic mother and Ames fine as his bitter dad. CinemaScope.

From This Day Forward (1946) 95m. D: John Berry. Joan Fontaine, Mark Stevens, Rosemary DeCamp, Henry (Harry) Morgan, Arline Judge, Bobby Driscoll, Mary Treen. Agreeable soaper of Fontaine and Stevens readjusting their lives when he returns from war, and their struggle to get on in the world.

Frontier Gal (1945) C-84m. ½ D: Charles Lamont. Yvonne De Carlo, Rod Cameron, Andy Devine, Fuzzy Knight, Andrew Tombes, Sheldon Leonard, Clara Blandick. Sex in the West as saloon queen De Carlo falls in love with outlaw Cameron; no sympathy from villain Leonard in OK Western-comedy.

Frontier Gun (1958) 70m. D: Paul Landres. John Agar, Robert Strauss, Barton MacLane, Morris Ankrum. Agar is honest sheriff who discovers that gunplay is only solution to town’s crooks. Regalscope.

Frontier Horizon SEE: New Frontier

Frontier Marshal (1939) 71m. D: Allan Dwan. Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly, Cesar Romero, Binnie Barnes, John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr., Chris-Pin Martin, Eddie Foy, Jr. Colorful retelling of events leading to legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Scott is fine as Tombstone’s new marshal, Wyatt Earp; Romero is more moody than cold-blooded as Doc Halliday, and Kelly is the girl from his past who reminds Doc of his earlier, saner days as—an obstetrician! Many scenes and bits of dialogue were used in the 1946 remake, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE. Ward Bond, who plays Earp’s brother in the later film, appears briefly as a cowardly town marshal.

Frontier Pony Express (1939) 58m. D: Joseph Kane. Roy Rogers, Mary Hart (Lynne Roberts), Raymond Hatton, Edward Keane, Noble Johnson, Monte Blue, Donald Dillaway, William Royle. Pony Express rider Roy falls in love with Hart, whose brother is a Confederate spy posing as a reporter. A perfect example of the formula that made Rogers’ early films so popular, with a fast-moving story of the Civil War, Pony Express, spies, and outlaw raids, with time out for romance, a pair of songs, and even a moment for Trigger to shine on his own. Look for young George Montgomery as a Union cavalry soldier.

Frontiersmen, The (1938) 72m. ½ D: Lesley Selander. William Boyd, George Hayes, Russell Hayden, Evelyn Venable, Charles A. Hughes, William Duncan, Dickie Jones. Prairie schoolmarm is snubbed by Bar 20 owner’s unruly son; while Hopalong Cassidy is busy acting as truant officer, she falls for crooked mayor, who secretly operates cattle-rustling ring. Venable’s charming performance as the teacher is a big plus, along with robust action windup. Adapted from 1906 novel Bar-20 by series creator Clarence E. Mulford. Without a single mention of it, classroom is integrated.

Front Page, The (1931) 103m. ½ D: Lewis Milestone. Adolphe Menjou, Pat O’Brien, Mary Brian, Edward Everett Horton, Walter Catlett, Mae Clarke, George E. Stone. First filming of Hecht-MacArthur play is forceful, funny, and flamboyantly directed, with Menjou and O’Brien a good pair as battling editor and reporter in Chicago. Stands up quite well alongside remake HIS GIRL FRIDAY. Remade again in 1974 and as SWITCHING CHANNELS (1988).

Front Page Story (1954-British) 99m. ½ D: Gordon Parry. Jack Hawkins, Elizabeth Allan, Eva Bartok, Martin Miller, Derek Farr. Solid performances enhance story of many problems confronting newspaper editor: pending divorce, murder, lost children, and a rebellious staff.

Front Page Woman (1935) 82m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Bette Davis, George Brent, Winifred Shaw, Roscoe Karns, Joseph Crehan. Breezy yarn of rival reporters Davis and Brent trying to outdo each other covering unusual murder and trial. Prime ingenue Davis fare.

Frozen Ghost, The (1945) 61m. ½ D: Harold Young. Lon Chaney (Jr.), Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone, Douglass Dumbrille, Martin Kosleck, Elena Verdugo, Tala Birell. Entertaining Inner Sanctum yarn with Chaney as a stage mentalist who blames himself for a man’s death, and seeks refuge (!) in a creepy wax museum run by Birell.

Fugitive, The (1947) 104m. ½ D: John Ford. Henry Fonda, Dolores Del Rio, Pedro Armendariz, J. Carrol Naish, Leo Carrillo, Ward Bond. Brooding drama set in Mexico with revolutionist priest turned in by man who once sheltered him. Based on Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory. Superbly shot by Gabriel Figueroa. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Fugitive Kind, The (1959) 121m. ½ D: Sidney Lumet. Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, Maureen Stapleton, Victor Jory, R. G. Armstrong. Uneven filming of Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending, with strange casting. Wandering bum (Brando) arrives in Southern town, sparking romances with middle-aged married woman (Magnani) and spunky Woodward. Movie goes nowhere. Remade for cable TV in 1990 as ORPHEUS DESCENDING.

Fugitive Lovers (1934) 84m. D: Richard Boleslawski. Robert Montgomery, Madge Evans, Nat Pendleton, Ted Healy, C. Henry Gordon, The Three Stooges. Genially preposterous tale of runaway chorus girl and prison escapee who are drawn together during cross-country bus trip (all of it shot with “arty” camera angles). Moves like lightning to even more preposterous climax in snowbound Colorado.

Full Confession (1939) 73m. D: John Farrow. Victor McLaglen, Sally Eilers, Joseph Calleia, Barry Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Risdon. Well-meaning but unbearably preachy melodrama in which Fitzgerald is falsely accused of murder. McLaglen confesses the crime to priest Calleia, but what can the father do?

Fuller Brush Girl, The (1950) 85m. D: Lloyd Bacon. Lucille Ball, Eddie Albert, Jeff Donnell, Jerome Cowan, Lee Patrick. Low-grade slapstick with energetic Lucy as door-to-door salesgirl, mixed up with thieves.

Fuller Brush Man, The (1948) 93m. ½ D: S. Sylvan Simon. Red Skelton, Janet Blair, Don McGuire, Adele Jergens, Ross Ford, Hillary Brooke. Usual Skelton slapstick, with Red involved in murder while valiantly trying to succeed as a door-to-door salesman.

Full of Life (1956) 91m. D: Richard Quine. Judy Holliday, Richard Conte, Salvatore Baccaloni, Esther Minciotti. Holliday’s pregnant wife antics almost matched by Baccaloni’s as excitable father-in-law with his own way of running things.

Full Treatment, The SEE: Stop Me Before I Kill!

Fun & Fancy Free (1947) C-73m. ½ D: William Morgan, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Hamilton Luske. Edgar Bergen, Luana Patten; voices of Dinah Shore, Anita Gordon, Cliff Edwards, Billy Gilbert, Clarence Nash, The Kings Men, The Dinning Sisters. Disney feature comprised of two cartoon segments, Sinclair Lewis’ so-so story “Bongo,” about a circus bear, and the lively Mickey/Donald/Goofy “Mickey and the Beanstalk.” Bergen’s live-action interludes with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd are also amusing. Second feature appearance of Jiminy Cricket has him singing a song intended for use in PINOCCHIO, “I’m a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow.”

Fun in Acapulco (1963) C-97m. ½ D: Richard Thorpe. Elvis Presley, Ursula Andress, Paul Lukas, Alejandro Rey. Scenery outshines story of Presley working as life-guard and entertainer in Mexican resort city and performing the likes of “No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car” and “You Can’t Say No in Acapulco.” Lukas is amusing as temperamental chef.

Funny Face (1957) C-103m. ½ D: Stanley Donen. Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson, Michel Auclair, Suzy Parker, Ruta Lee. Stylish and highly stylized musical with Astaire as fashion photographer who turns Hepburn into chic Paris model. Top Gershwin score (“How Long Has This Been Going On,” “He Loves and She Loves,” “S’Wonderful,” title tune), striking use of color, entertaining performance by Thompson as magazine editor. Cinematography by Ray June and John P. Fulton. Leonard Gershe based his screenplay on an unproduced stage musical—and Astaire’s role was based on Richard Avedon, who’s credited as visual consultant. VistaVision.

Fun on a Weekend (1947) 93m. D: Andrew L. Stone. Eddie Bracken, Priscilla Lane, Tom Conway, Allen Jenkins, Arthur Treacher, Alma Kruger. Scatterbrain fluff as Bracken and Lane maneuver their way from penniless fortune to love and riches, all in the course of a day.

Furies, The (1950) 109m. ½ D: Anthony Mann. Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston, Wendell Corey, Gilbert Roland, Judith Anderson, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Gomez, Albert Dekker, Blanche Yurka, Wallace Ford. Fiery Stanwyck has always been able to sweet-talk her cattle-baron father, who presides over a vast New Mexico ranch called The Furies—but lately he isn’t listening, and she locks horns with him. Operatic-style Western saga of love and hate, adapted by Charles Schnee from a Niven Busch novel and directed with flair by Mann. Striking cinematography by Victor Milner. This was Huston’s final film.

Fury (1936) 94m. ½ D: Fritz Lang. Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson. Still timely drama of lynch mobs and mob rule in small town, making an embittered man of innocent Tracy, spoiling his love for sweetheart Sidney. Lang’s first American film; he also scripted with Bartlett Cormack, from a Norman Krasna story. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Fury at Furnace Creek (1948) 88m. D: H. Bruce Humberstone. Victor Mature, Coleen Gray, Glenn Langan, Reginald Gardiner, Albert Dekker. Ordinary Western tale of Mature erasing mar on father’s career against formidable opposition. Remake of FOUR MEN AND A PRAYER.

Fury at Gunsight Pass (1956) 68m. ½ D: Fred F. Sears. David Brian, Neville Brand, Richard Long, Lisa Davis, Katherine Warren, Percy Helton, Morris Ankrum. Brian tries to double-cross cohort Brand in carrying out plans for a bank robbery, with unexpected complications (including a ferocious sandstorm), in this fast-moving Western.

Fury at Showdown (1957) 75m. ½ D: Gerd Oswald. John Derek, John Smith, Carolyn Craig, Nick Adams, Gage Clarke, Robert Griffin, Malcolm Atterbury, Rusty Lane. It’s assumed that justifiably embittered Derek is the “mad-dog killer” who deliberately gunned a man down over a woman. Too much chatter and too little action sink this minor Western.

Fury at Smuggler’s Bay (1961-British) 92m. D: John Gilling. Peter Cushing, Michele Mercier, Bernard Lee, George Coulouris, Liz Fraser. Sea yarn of pirates scavenging passing ships and reaping rewards off the English coastline. Panascope.

Fury of the Congo (1951) 69m. ½ D: William Berke. Johnny Weissmuller, Sherry Moreland, William Henry, Lyle Talbot. Jungle Jim nonsense about a gang of smugglers who are out to capture strange animals called Okongos whose secretions form a potent narcotic.

Fuzzy Pink Nightgown, The (1957) 87m. D: Norman Taurog. Jane Russell, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, Keenan Wynn, Fred Clark, Una Merkel. Mediocre comedy. When movie star is kidnapped, everyone thinks it’s a publicity gag.