Pacific Destiny (1956-British) C-97m. D: Wolf Rilla. Denholm Elliott, Susan Stephen, Michael Hordern, Gordon Jackson, Inia Te Wiata. Boring (but true) story of Arthur Grimble, who serves in South Seas for British Colonial service circa 1912, and tries to quell native disputes. CinemaScope.

Pacific Liner (1939) 75m. D: Lew Landers. Chester Morris, Wendy Barrie, Victor McLaglen, Barry Fitzgerald, Alan Hale, Halliwell Hobbes, Cy Kendall, Paul Guilfoyle. Formula programmer focusing on breakout of epidemic and mutiny aboard a ship; cast is better than the material.

Pacific Rendezvous (1942) 76m. D: George Sidney. Lee Bowman, Jean Rogers, Mona Maris, Carl Esmond, Paul Cavanagh, Blanche Yurka. Bowman is a Navy code expert who helps break up a spy ring while getting amorous with Rogers. Lackluster propaganda piece weighed down by too many romantic distractions. Remake of 1935’s RENDEZVOUS, which was set in WW1.

Pack Train (1953) 57m. D: George Archainbaud. Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Gail Davis, Kenne Duncan, Sheila Ryan, Tom London, Harry Lauter. Gene leads a pack train bringing supplies to starving settlers and comes up against greedy storekeeper Duncan and cohort Ryan. Conventional Autry vehicle.

Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) 68m. ½ D: George Marshall, Ray McCarey. Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Mary Carr, James Finlayson, Charles Middleton, Grady Sutton, Billy Gilbert. Daffy duo are drafted during WW1; after some Army shenanigans they try to locate relatives of late pal’s daughter. Good fun.

Pack Up Your Troubles (1939) 75m. D: H. Bruce Humberstone. The Ritz Brothers, Jane Withers, Lynn Bari, Joseph Schildkraut, Stanley Fields, Leon Ames. Watch the Ritz Brothers’ opening routine, then forget the rest of this WW1 hodgepodge, especially when Jane is focus of the film.

Paddy O’Day (1936) 73m. ½ D: Lewis Seiler. Jane Withers, Pinky Tomlin, Rita Cansino (Hayworth), Jane Darwell, George Givot, Francis Ford, Vera Lewis, Louise Carter, Russell Simpson, Michael Visaroff. Jane plays a plucky Irish girl who befriends a Russian family while sailing to America, where she learns her mother has died. Too much time given over to mediocre musical numbers and Givot’s malapropisms, but Jane is fun to watch and young Rita is beautiful.

Pagan, The (1929) 78m. ½ D: W. S. Van Dyke. Ramon Novarro, Renée Adorée, Donald Crisp, Dorothy Janis. Van Dyke’s follow-up to WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS stars matinee idol Novarro as a carefree island native who incurs the wrath of evil white trader Crisp when he falls in love with the supposedly devout man’s adopted “daughter” (after singing “Pagan Love Song” about a thousand times). Flowery silent romance with synchronized musical sequences, sumptuously photographed in the Tuamotu Islands.

Pagan Love Song (1950) C-76m. D: Robert Alton. Esther Williams, Howard Keel, Minna Gombell, Rita Moreno. Keel inherits land in Tahiti, falls in love with Williams. Mediocre MGM musical made in Hawaii.

Pagans, The (1953-Italian) 80m. ½ D: Ferrucio Cereo. Pierre Cressoy, Hélène Rémy, Vittorio Sanipoli, Luigi Tosi, Franco Fabrizi. Uninspired costumer about a conflict between two wealthy clans during a 16th-century Spanish incursion into Rome. Aka THE BARBARIANS.

Page Miss Glory (1935) 90m. ½ D: Mervyn LeRoy. Marion Davies, Pat O’Brien, Dick Powell, Mary Astor, Frank McHugh, Lyle Talbot, Patsy Kelly, Allen Jenkins, Barton MacLane. Fine cast overshadows Davies in this amiable spoof of publicity stunts, with con man O’Brien winning beauty contest with composite photograph of nonexistent girl.

Paid (1931) 80m. ½ D: Sam Wood. Joan Crawford, Kent Douglass (Douglass Montgomery), Robert Armstrong, Marie Prevost, John Miljan, Polly Moran. Not-bad early Crawford. Innocent girl sent to prison; she hardens and seeks revenge. Remade as WITHIN THE LAW.

Paid in Full (1950) 105m. ½ D: William Dieterle. Robert Cummings, Lizabeth Scott, Diana Lynn, Eve Arden, Ray Collins, Stanley Ridges, John Bromfield, Frank McHugh. Kind-hearted Scott loves nice-guy Cummings, but keeps her feelings to herself because he naively desires to wed her selfish kid sister (Lynn). Turgid soaper, with a based-on-fact scenario. Film debut of Carol Channing, playing a dress-shop patron.

Paid to Dance (1937) 55m. ½ D: Charles C. Coleman. Don Terry, Jacqueline Wells (Julie Bishop), Rita Hayworth, Arthur Loft, Paul Fix, Paul Stanton, Louise Stanley, Ralph Byrd, Bess Flowers, Ann Doran. Pretty good, tight little B about a dance-hall racket that is a front for white slavery ring. Terry sets up a rival operation and gets unusual cooperation from the city and the courts. Hmmm. . . . Retitled HARD TO HOLD, with Rita as top-billed star.

Paid to Love (1927) 76m. D: Howard Hawks. George O’Brien, Virginia Valli, J. Farrell MacDonald, William Powell, Thomas Jefferson, Hank Mann, Sally Eilers, Henry Armetta. American banker MacDonald tries to find a suitable wife for the Crown Prince (O’Brien) of a European kingdom and unexpectedly finds her in a nightclub. Starts out snappy, then slows up, adding an unexpectedly serious complication to its simple story, which throws the film a bit off balance.

Painted Desert, The (1931) 75m. ½ D: Howard Higgin. William Boyd, Helen Twelvetrees, William Farnum, J. Farrell MacDonald, Clark Gable. Conflict and romance between the adopted son (Boyd) and daughter of two long-feuding Westerners. A bit stiff, though the scenery is beautiful; notable mainly for Gable’s talkie debut. Some action shots are missing, abruptly cut out to use in 1938 remake.

Painted Faces (1929) 74m. D: Albert S. Rogell. Joe E. Brown, Helen Foster, Barton Hepburn, Dorothy Gulliver, Lester Cole, Richard Tucker, Purnell Pratt, William B. Davidson. Brown is cast in a largely serious role as a circus clown on a murder trial jury, inexplicably holding out for a not guilty verdict. The man with the spandex grin gives quite a performance as a thickly accented German immigrant with heart, soul, and guilt, but comedy fans will be disappointed. Alas, nobody’s perfect.

Painted Hills, The (1951) C-65m. ½ D: Harold F. Kress. Lassie, Paul Kelly, Bruce Cowling, Gary Gray, Art Smith, Ann Doran. Nicely photographed adventure drama set in the West during the 1870s. Lassie stars as Shep, a collie who is ever-loyal to her prospector owner, with the story involving greed and a gold strike.

Painted Veil, The (1934) 83m. ½ D: Richard Boleslawski. Greta Garbo, Herbert Marshall, George Brent, Warner Oland, Jean Hersholt, Cecilia Parker, Keye Luke. Set in mysterious Orient, film tells Somerset Maugham’s story of unfaithful wife mending her ways. Mundane script uplifted by Garbo’s personality, supported by Marshall as her husband, Brent as her lover. Remade in 1957 (as THE SEVENTH SIN) and in 2006.

Painted Woman, The (1932) 73m. ½ D: John G. Blystone. Spencer Tracy, Peggy Shannon, William “Stage” Boyd, Irving Pichel, Raul Roulien, Murray Kinnell, Paul Porcasi, Stanley Fields. While singing in a sleazy South Seas nightclub, Shannon accidentally murders a man who’s trying to maul her. She flees to another island, where Tracy falls in love with her, ignorant of her past. Young Tracy is brash and irresistible; outdoor filming adds zest to this predictable but entertaining yarn.

Painting the Clouds With Sunshine (1951) C-87m. D: David Butler. Dennis Morgan, Virginia Mayo, Gene Nelson, Lucille Norman, Virginia Gibson, Tom Conway. Lukewarm musical of trio of gold-diggers in Las Vegas searching for rich husbands, a mild reworking of an old musical formula.

Paisan (1946-Italian) 90m. ½ D: Roberto Rossellini. Carmela Sazio, Gar Moore, Bill Tubbs, Harriet White, Maria Michi, Robert van Loon, Dale Edmonds, Carla Pisacane, Dots Johnson. Early Rossellini classic, largely improvised by a mostly nonprofessional cast. Six vignettes depict life in Italy during WW2; best has American nurse White searching for her lover in battle-torn Florence. Written by Rossellini and Federico Fellini; Giulietta Masina has a bit part. Italian running time 115m. The second in Rossellini’s war trilogy, following OPEN CITY, and followed by GERMANY YEAR ZERO.

Pajama Game, The (1957) C-101m. ½ D: George Abbott, Stanley Donen. Doris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy, Jr., Barbara Nichols, Reta Shaw. Adaptation of the Broadway musical hit—with much of its original cast intact—virtually defines the word “exuberance.” Day is a joy as the head of a factory grievance committee who unexpectedly falls in love with the new foreman (Raitt, in his only starring film). Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’ songs include “Hey, There.” Dancer Haney stands out in her “Steam Heat” feature and in the energetic “Once a Year Day” picnic number. Choreography by Bob Fosse.

Pajama Party (1964) C-85m. D: Don Weis. Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, Dorothy Lamour, Elsa Lanchester, Harvey Lembeck, Jody McCrea, Buster Keaton, Susan Hart, Donna Loren. Fourth BEACH PARTY movie moves indoors, changes director and star (although Frankie Avalon and Don Rickles do have cameos). Kirk plays Martian teenager who drops in and is understandably perplexed. Just fair, though it’s always nice to see Keaton at work. Teri Garr is one of the dancers buried in the sand. Went back outside for BEACH BLANKET BINGO. Panavision.

Paleface, The (1948) C-91m. D: Norman Z. McLeod. Bob Hope, Jane Russell, Robert Armstrong, Iris Adrian, Robert (Bobby) Watson. Enjoyable comedy-Western, a spoof of THE VIRGINIAN, has timid Bob backed up by sharpshooting Russell in gunfighting encounters; Oscar-winning song “Buttons and Bows.” Remade as THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST. Sequel: SON OF PALEFACE.

Pal Joey (1957) C-111m. D: George Sidney. Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, Barbara Nichols, Hank Henry, Bobby Sherwood. Sinatra is in peak form as a cocky nightclub singer who makes a move on every “dame” he meets—including innocent showgirl Novak—but meets his Waterloo when wealthy, demanding Hayworth agrees to bankroll his dream of running his own club. Almost complete rewrite of the 1940 Broadway show based on John O’Hara’s short stories, but entertaining just the same, with a great Rodgers and Hart score including “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” (with sanitized lyrics), “The Lady Is a Tramp.” Look fast for Robert Reed.

Palm Beach Story, The (1942) 87m. ½ D: Preston Sturges. Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Rudy Vallee, Mary Astor, Sig Arno, Robert Dudley, William Demarest, Jack Norton, Franklin Pangborn, Jimmy Conlin. Hilarious screwball comedy with Claudette running away from hubby McCrea, landing in Palm Beach with nutty millionairess Astor and her bumbling brother Vallee; overflowing with Sturges madness—from the mystifying title sequence to the arrival of the Ale & Quail Club (not to mention the Wienie King!).

Palm Springs Weekend (1963) C-100m. ½ D: Norman Taurog. Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Stefanie Powers, Robert Conrad, Ty Hardin, Jack Weston, Andrew Duggan, Carole Cook, Jerry Van Dyke, Billy Mumy. Cast tries to play teenagers; yarn of group on a spree in resort town is mostly predictable.

Palmy Days (1931) 77m. ½ D: A. Edward Sutherland. Eddie Cantor, Charlotte Greenwood, Charles Middleton, George Raft, Walter Catlett. Cantor is the patsy for a shady fortune-teller in this so-so musical, hampered by silly comic scenes which don’t quite work. Notable mostly for Busby Berkeley overhead shots and Cantor performing “My Baby Said Yes, Yes” and “There’s Nothing Too Good for My Baby.”

Palooka (1934) 86m. D: Benjamin Stoloff. Jimmy Durante, Stu Erwin, Lupe Velez, Marjorie Rambeau, Robert Armstrong, Mary Carlisle, William Cagney, Thelma Todd. Not much relation to Ham Fisher’s comic strip, but delightful entertainment with Erwin as naive young man brought into fight game by flashy promoter Knobby Walsh (Durante). Fine cast includes James Cagney’s lookalike brother William, and has Schnozzola in top form. Aka JOE PALOOKA.

Pals of the Golden West (1951) 68m. ½ D: William Witney. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Estelita Rodriguez, Pinky Lee, Anthony Caruso, Roy Barcroft, Pat Brady, The Roy Rogers Riders. Working for the U.S. Border Patrol, Roy tracks down the culprits responsible for sending diseased cattle over the Mexican border. Roy’s last big-screen Western (before turning to TV) is pretty good.

Pals of the Saddle (1938) 55m. D: George Sherman. John Wayne, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune, Doreen McKay, Ted Adams. Modern-day Western where Wayne, framed for murder, tangles with tough government agent McKay in combating munitions ring trying to smuggle illegal chemicals to foreign enemies. First entry in third season of popular Three Mesquiteers series based on characters created by William Colt MacDonald, with Wayne replacing debonair Bob Livingston as Stony Brooke. Prime prairie picture with pulsating action, unusually strong femme interest, and rousing Cy Feuer score.

Panama Hattie (1942) 79m. ½ D: Norman Z. McLeod. Ann Sothern, Red Skelton, Rags Ragland, Ben Blue, Marsha Hunt, Virginia O’Brien, Alan Mowbray, Lena Horne, Dan Dailey, Carl Esmond. Cole Porter’s Broadway musical (which starred Ethel Merman) about nightclub owner in Panama falls flat on screen. Porter’s score mostly absent, but Lena sings “Just One of Those Things,” and sprightly Sothern sings “I’ve Still Got My Health.”

Panama Lady (1939) 64m. ½ D: Jack Hively. Lucille Ball, Allan Lane, Steffi Duna, Evelyn Brent, Donald Briggs, Bernadene Hayes, Abner Biberman. Routine bungle in the jungle, as Panama cabaret gal Lucy tries to rob customer Lane but winds up accompanying him to South America, where he strikes oil and she tangles with his girlfriend, as well as her own sleazy ex. At least it’s short. Remake of 1932’s PANAMA FLO (with Helen Twelvetrees).

Panama Sal (1957) 70m. BOMB D: William Witney. Elena Verdugo, Carlos Rivas, Joe Flynn, Edward Kemmer. A gentleman-playboy (Kemmer) tries to teach “class” to an ill-bred singer (Verdugo). Not to be confused with PYGMALION. Naturama.

Pan Americana (1945) 84m. D: John H. Auer. Phillip Terry, Eve Arden, Robert Benchley, Audrey Long, Bettejane (Jane) Greer; narrated by Robert Benchley. Another ’40s gesture toward Latin-American goodwill. Magazine staff visits Latin America, with writer Long becoming involved with photographer Terry. Crammed with Latin-American musical and specialty numbers.

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951-British) C-123m. D: Albert Lewin. James Mason, Ava Gardner, Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender, Marius Goring, Pamela Kellino (Mason). Sorry to say, a big Technicolor bore, one of writer-director Lewin’s misfires, about a woman who destroys the lives of all the men around her; then mystical, otherworldly Mason materializes. Intriguing but unconvincing tale, inspired by the legend of The Flying Dutchman, a man cursed to live for all eternity until he can find a woman capable of loving him. Only real attribute is Gardner’s breathtaking beauty.

Pandora’s Box (1928-German) 133m. D: G. W. Pabst. Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz (Francis) Lederer, Carl Goetz. Hypnotic silent film stars legendary Brooks as flower girl who becomes protégée—then wife—of editor, with bizarre and unexpected consequences. Striking sexuality and drama, with Brooks an unforgettable Lulu. Scripters Pabst and Laszlo Wajda adapted two plays by Franz Wedekind.

Panhandle (1948) 84m. ½ D: Lesley Selander. Rod Cameron, Cathy Downs, Reed Hadley, Anne Gwynne, Blake Edwards, Dick Crockett. Reformed gunslinger Cameron is forced into one last showdown to avenge the murder of his brother at the hands of Hadley and his gang of land grabbers. Tough B Western, coproduced and cowritten by a young Blake Edwards (in his first work behind the camera), who also does a memorable turn as a vicious hired gun. Originally released in sepiatone.

Panic SEE: Panique

Panic Button (1964) 90m. BOMB D: George Sherman. Maurice Chevalier, Eleanor Parker, Jayne Mansfield, Michael Connors, Akim Tamiroff. Good cast is wasted in this amateurish, pathetically unfunny production involving the making of a TV pilot in Italy that’s supposed to flop so gangster producers will have legitimate tax loss. Wait for a rerun of THE PRODUCERS. Totalscope.

Panic in the Parlor (1956-British) 81m. ½ D: Gordon Parry. Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton, Gordon Jackson, Ronald Lewis. Broad but diverting humor about sailor Lewis coming home to get married, and the chaos it causes all concerned. Look for Michael Caine in a bit as a sailor. Originally titled: SAILOR BEWARE!

Panic in the Streets (1950) 93m. ½ D: Elia Kazan. Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, (Walter) Jack Palance, Zero Mostel. Taut drama involving gangsters, one of whom is a carrier of pneumonic plague, and the manhunt to find him. Makes fine use of New Orleans locale; Edward and Edna Anhalt won an Oscar for their story. Screenplay by Richard Murphy.

Panic in Year Zero! (1962) 95m. ½ D: Ray Milland. Ray Milland, Jean Hagen, Frankie Avalon, Mary Mitchel, Joan Freeman, Richard Garland. Intriguing film about L.A. family that escapes atomic bomb explosion to find a situation of every-man-for-himself. Loud, tinny music spoils much of film’s effectiveness. CinemaScope.

Panique (1946-French) 91m. ½ D: Julien Duvivier. Viviane Romance, Michel Simon, Paul Bernard, Max Dalban, Emile Drain, Guy Favières. Sizzling thriller, beautifully directed, about a nondescript middle-aged man (Simon) who becomes obsessed with a young woman despite the presence of her boyfriend; all this transpires during a murder investigation. Based on a Georges Simenon novel; remade in 1989 as MONSIEUR HIRE. Screenplay by Duvivier and Charles Spaak. Aka PANIC.

Pantaloons (1956-French) C-93m. ½ D: John Berry. Fernandel, Carmen Sevilla, Christine Carrere, Fernando Rey. Fernandel is peppy in this brisk little period piece as a phony gay blade intent on female conquests.

Panther Island SEE: Bomba on Panther Island

Papa’s Delicate Condition (1963) C-98m. ½ D: George Marshall. Jackie Gleason, Glynis Johns, Charlie Ruggles, Laurel Goodwin, Charles Lane, Elisha Cook, Juanita Moore, Murray Hamilton. Amusing nostalgia of Corinne Griffith’s childhood; Gleason dominates everything as tipsy father; set in 1900s. Oscar-winning song, “Call Me Irresponsible.”

Paper Bullets SEE: Gangs, Inc.

Parachute Jumper (1933) 65m. ½ D: Alfred E. Green. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Leo Carrillo. Ex-Marine flyers Fairbanks and McHugh and stenographer Davis, all jobless and broke in N.Y.C., get tangled up with gangster Carrillo. Fast-moving programmer with an entertaining mix of comedy, romance, and adventure.

Paradine Case, The (1948) 116m. ½ D: Alfred Hitchcock. Gregory Peck, (Alida) Valli, Ann Todd, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Ethel Barrymore, Louis Jourdan, Leo G. Carroll, John Williams. Talk, talk, talk in complicated, stagy courtroom drama, set in England. Below par for Hitchcock; producer David O. Selznick also wrote the script. Originally 132m., then cut to 125m. and finally 116m.

Paradise Alley (1961) 85m. ½ D: Hugo Haas. Marie Windsor, Hugo Haas, Billy Gilbert, Carol Morris, Chester Conklin, Margaret Hamilton, Corinne Griffith. Grade-D mishmash about elderly bit player who charmingly deceives the denizens of a slum neighborhood into believing he’s directing a movie there. Interesting only for the veteran cast. Originally made in 1957.

Paradise Canyon (1935) 53m. ½ D: Carl L. Pierson. John Wayne, Marion Burns, Reed Howes, Earle Hodgins, Yakima Canutt, Gino Corrado. Federal agent Wayne goes undercover working for medicine show to round up counterfeit ring. The last, languid entry in Wayne’s Lone Star series. Pierson was an editor with few directing credits, and rough edges here tear credibility in this Western quickie. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Paradise Lagoon SEE: Admirable Crichton, The

Paramount on Parade (1930) 77m. ½ D: Dorothy Arzner, Otto Brower, Edmund Goulding, Victor Heerman, Edwin Knopf, Rowland V. Lee, Ernst Lubitsch, Lothar Mendes, Victor Schertzinger, A. Edward Sutherland, Frank Tuttle. Jean Arthur, Clara Bow, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Nancy Carroll, Leon Errol, Stuart Erwin, Kay Francis, Fredric March, Helen Kane, Jack Oakie, William Powell, Buddy Rogers, many others. Early-talkie variety revue designed to show off Paramount’s roster of stars. Some amusing songs and skits, but a lot of dry spots in between. Highlights include Nancy Carroll’s “Dancing to Save Your Sole” and Chevalier’s two numbers. Film originally ran 102m. with several sequences in color; current prints feature director Edmund Goulding and such stars as Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur “introducing” a sequence that never comes!

Paranoiac (1963-British) 80m. ½ D: Freddie Francis. Janette Scott, Oliver Reed, Liliane Brousse, Alexander Davion, Sheila Burrell, Maurice Denham. Murder, impersonation, insanity all part of thriller set in large English country estate. CinemaScope.

Paratrooper (1953-British) C-87m. D: Terence Young. Alan Ladd, Leo Genn, Susan Stephen, Harry Andrews, Donald Houston, Anthony Bushell, Stanley Baker, Anton Diffring. Minor Ladd vehicle involving special tactical forces and Ladd’s guilt-ridden past. Original title: THE RED BERET.

Pardners (1956) C-90m. ½ D: Norman Taurog. Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Lori Nelson, Jackie Loughery, John Baragrey, Agnes Moorehead, Jeff Morrow, Lon Chaney, Jr. Ironically titled M&L vehicle (they were already on the road to their breakup) is pleasant remake of RHYTHM ON THE RANGE, with Jerry as Manhattan millionaire who cleans up Western town in his own inimitable fashion. Written by Sidney Sheldon. VistaVision.

Pardon My French (1951-U.S.-French) 81m. ½ D: Bernard Vorhaus. Paul Henreid, Merle Oberon, Paul Bonifas, Maximilliene, Jim Gerald. Fluff of Oberon inheriting a mansion in France occupied by charming composer Henreid.

Pardon My Past (1945) 88m. D: Leslie Fenton. Fred MacMurray, Marguerite Chapman, Akim Tamiroff, William Demarest, Rita Johnson, Harry Davenport. Excellent tale of unsuspecting lookalike for famous playboy, incurring his debts and many enemies; fine comedy-drama.

Pardon My Rhythm (1944) 62m. D: Felix E. Feist. Gloria Jean, Evelyn Ankers, Patric Knowles, Marjorie Weaver, Mel Tormé, Bob Crosby. Naive minor musical set in ultra-wholesome high school, with Gloria the singing belle of the ball.

Pardon My Sarong (1942) 84m. D: Erle C. Kenton. Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Lionel Atwill, Virginia Bruce, Robert Paige, William Demarest, Leif Erickson, Samuel S. Hinds, Nan Wynn, Four Ink Spots, Tip, Tap, Toe. A&C in good form as bus drivers who end up on tropical island, involved with notorious jewel thieves.

Pardon My Trunk SEE: Hello Elephant

Pardon Us (1931) 55m. ½ D: James Parrott. Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Wilfred Lucas, Walter Long, James Finlayson, June Marlowe. L&H’s first starring feature film is amusing spoof of THE BIG HOUSE and prison films in general; slow pacing is its major debit, but many funny bits make it a must for fans of Stan and Ollie.

Parent Trap, The (1961) C-124m. D: David Swift. Hayley Mills, Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith, Charlie Ruggles, Una Merkel, Leo G. Carroll, Joanna Barnes, Cathleen Nesbitt, Nancy Kulp, Frank DeVol. Hayley plays twins who’ve never met until their divorced parents send them to the same summer camp; after initial rivalry they join forces to reunite their mom and dad. Attempt to mix slapstick and sophistication doesn’t work, but overall it’s fun. Erich Kastner’s story filmed before as 1954 British film TWICE UPON A TIME. Hayley starred—as mom—in 1986 and 1989 TV sequels. Remade in 1998.

Paris After Dark (1943) 85m. ½ D: Leonide Moguy. George Sanders, Philip Dorn, Brenda Marshall, Madeleine LeBeau, Marcel Dalio. Preachy but effective melodrama of French patriot Dorn, who returns to Paris from concentration camp where he was coerced into accepting Nazi domination. Look for Peter Lawford as a young Resistance fighter.

Paris Blues (1961) 98m. D: Martin Ritt. Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Diahann Carroll, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong, Serge Reggiani. Film improves with each viewing; offbeat account of musicians Newman and Poitier in Left Bank Paris, romancing tourists Woodward and Carroll. Great Duke Ellington score, including explosive “Battle Royal” number; a must for jazz fans.

Paris Calling (1941) 95m. D: Edwin L. Marin. Elisabeth Bergner, Randolph Scott, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Eduardo Ciannelli, Lee J. Cobb. Exciting story of underground movement in Paris to destroy Nazis occupying France. Bergner’s only U.S. film.

Paris Does Strange Things (1956-French) C-98m. D: Jean Renoir. Ingrid Bergman, Jean Marais, Mel Ferrer, Jean Richard, Magali Noel, Juliette Greco, Pierre Bertin. Claude Renoir’s exquisite cinematography highlights this otherwise so-so account of impoverished Polish princess Bergman’s romantic intrigues with Marais and Ferrer. Overrated by some; far from Renoir’s (or Bergman’s) best. French-language version, called ELENA AND HER MEN, is better, and runs 95m.

Paris Express, The (1953-British) C-80m. ½ D: Harold French. Claude Rains, Marta Toren, Marius Goring, Anouk (Aimée), Herbert Lom, Lucie Mannheim, Felix Aylmer, Ferdy Mayne, Eric Pohlmann. A clerk embezzles money, hoping to use it for travel, but gets into more of an adventure than he bargained for. Middling crime yarn based on a Georges Simenon novel. Original British title: THE MAN WHO WATCHED TRAINS GO BY.

Paris Follies of 1956 SEE: Fresh From Paris

Paris Holiday (1958) C-100m. ½ D: Gerd Oswald. Bob Hope, Fernandel, Anita Ekberg, Martha Hyer, Preston Sturges. Mixture of French and American farce humor makes for uneven entertainment, with Hope in France to buy a new screenplay. Features writer-director Sturges in a small acting role. Technirama.

Paris Honeymoon (1939) 92m. ½ D: Frank Tuttle. Bing Crosby, Shirley Ross, Edward Everett Horton, Akim Tamiroff, Ben Blue, Rafaela Ottiano, Raymond Hatton. Texan Crosby visits France planning to marry Ross, but meets native Franciska Gaal and falls in love with her.

Parisian Love (1925) 62m. D: Louis Gasnier. Clara Bow, Donald Keith, Lillian Leighton, James Gordon Russell, Hazel Keener, Lou Tellegen, Jean De Briac. Hackneyed silent melodrama of Apache dancer Bow, a member of a band of Parisian thieves. When a prominent scientist, one of their intended victims, “steals” her lover, she seeks revenge.

Paris Interlude (1934) 72m. D: Edwin L. Marin. Robert Young, Madge Evans, Otto Kruger, Una Merkel, Ted Healy, Louise Henry, Edward Brophy. In post-WW1 Paris, world-weary American reporter Kruger and irresponsible protégé Young are both in love with Yank tourist Evans, and spend most of their time drowning their sorrows in bars until Kruger goes off to China. Slow-moving melodrama, cleaned up from a play by S. J. and Laura Perelman. Aims in vain for sophisticated “lost generation” feeling.

Paris Model (1953) 81m. ½ D: Alfred E. Green. Eva Gabor, Tom Conway, Paulette Goddard, Marilyn Maxwell, Cecil Kellaway, Barbara Lawrence, Florence Bates. Lackluster vehicle for veteran actors, revolving around a dress and four women who purchase copies of same.

Paris Playboys (1954) 62m. ½ D: William Beaudine. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey, Veola Vonn, Steven Geray, David (Gorcey) Condon, Bennie Bartlett. Sach impersonates a missing French professor and gets mixed up in a spy ring. Feeble Bowery Boys slapstick.

Paris Underground (1945) 97m. ½ D: Gregory Ratoff. Constance Bennett, Gracie Fields, George Rigaud, Kurt Kreuger, Leslie Vincent, Charles Andre. Well-acted story of American Bennett and Britisher Fields working in underground movement even while imprisoned in Nazi POW camp. Fields’ last film.

Paris—When It Sizzles (1964) C-110m. ½ D: Richard Quine. William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, Noel Coward, Gregoire Aslan. Labored, unfunny comedy defeats a game cast, in story of screenwriter and secretary who act out movie fantasies in order to finish script. Paris locations, cameos by Marlene Dietrich and other stars don’t help. Remake of Julien Duvivier’s LA FÊTE À HENRIETTE (1952).

Park Row (1952) 83m. D: Samuel Fuller. Gene Evans, Mary Welch, Herbert Heyes, Tina Rome, Forrest Taylor. Good, tough little film with newsman Evans starting his own paper, rivaling newspaper magnate Welch in 1880s N.Y.C. Written by the director, a former newspaperman. Typically gutsy, in-your-face Fuller fare.

Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) 75m. D: Edward Sedgwick. Buster Keaton, Charlotte Greenwood, Reginald Denny, Cliff Edwards, Dorothy Christy, Joan Peers, Sally Eilers, Natalie Moorhead, Edward Brophy. Buster plays a poor sap who’s hired to pose as a great lover in this adaptation of a venerable stage farce filmed before in 1920. Great moments with Buster are few and far between in this contrived vehicle, but at least he’s surrounded by compatible costars. Partly filmed in and around Keaton's “italian villa” home.

Parnell (1937) 119m. ½ D: John Stahl. Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Edna May Oliver, Edmund Gwenn, Alan Marshal, Donald Crisp, Billie Burke, Donald Meek. Biography of popular and powerful Irish nationalist leader of the late 1800s whose career was destroyed by the exposure of adulterous affair. Plodding film fails to realize great story potential; this was (understandably) a notorious flop in 1937.

Parole Fixer (1940) 58m. D: Robert Florey. William Henry, Virginia Dale, Robert Paige, Gertrude Michael, Richard Denning, Fay Helm, Anthony Quinn, Harvey Stephens, Marjorie Gateson, Lyle Talbot, Louise Beavers, Jack Carson. Zippy exposé of crooked lawyers and prison officials who take payoffs to give hardened criminals early paroles. The FBI moves in when one of the cons kills an agent and kidnaps a socialite. Quinn is at his nastiest as a cold-blooded killer. Based on J. Edgar Hoover’s book Persons in Hiding, with one chilling moment that predates THE BIG HEAT.

Parole Girl (1933) 68m. ½ D: Edward F. Cline. Mae Clarke, Ralph Bellamy, Marie Prevost, Hale Hamilton, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Ernest Wood, Sam Godfrey. Good girl Clarke gets mixed up with con man Hamilton in a department store pickpocket scam and winds up in jail, thanks to coldhearted store manager Bellamy. After getting out, she vows revenge and tricks Bellamy into marrying her. Likable cast and evocative atmosphere overcome the highly contrived plot of this pre-Code melodrama written by Norman Krasna.

Parole, Inc. (1948) 71m. D: Alfred Zeisler. Michael O’Shea, Turhan Bey, Evelyn Ankers, Virginia Lee, Lyle Talbot, Michael Whelan. By-the-numbers programmer in which federal agent O’Shea goes undercover to determine why dangerous convicts are mysteriously being granted paroles.

Parrish (1961) C-140m. ½ D: Delmer Daves. Claudette Colbert, Troy Donahue, Karl Malden, Dean Jagger, Connie Stevens, Diane McBain, Sharon Hugueny, Sylvia Miles, Madeleine Sherwood. Slurpy soaper is so bad that at times it’s funny; emotionless Donahue lives with his mother (Colbert, in her last theatrical film) on Jagger’s tobacco plantation and falls in love with three girls there. Malden overplays tyrannical tobacco czar to the nth degree. Carroll O’Connor and Vincent Gardenia have small roles.

Parson and the Outlaw, The (1957) C-71m. ½ D: Oliver Drake. Anthony Dexter, Sonny Tufts, Marie Windsor, Buddy Rogers, Jean Parker, Bob Steele. Minor version of life and times of Billy the Kid.

Parson’s Widow, The (1920-Swedish) 71m. ½ D: Carl Th. (Theodor) Dreyer. Hildur Carlberg, Einar Röd, Greta Almroth. A young man bests two rivals to become parson of a small parish, but there’s a catch: he must wed his predecessor’s elderly, grim-faced widow (a witch, rumor has it) instead of his pretty, patient fiancée. Simple, stark drama potently explores the impact of religious ritual on the human spirit. Early directorial credit for Dreyer, who adapted a story by Kristofer Janson. Originally titled PRÄSTÄNKAN; aka THE WITCH WOMAN.

Partners of the Plains (1938) 68m. D: Lesley Selander. William Boyd, Russell Hayden, Harvey Clark, Gwen Gaze, Hilda Plowright, John Warburton, Al Bridge. Strong-willed absentee owner arrives from England to inspect her ranch, leading to battle of the sexes with foreman Hopalong Cassidy. Subpar Hoppy film has Clark subbing for George Hayes as (alleged) comedy relief and imperious leading lady Gaze suggesting a slimmed-down Charles Laughton in drag. Nominally adapted from Clarence E. Mulford’s novel The Man From Bar-20, but drawn more from Buck Peters, Ranchman. Location scenes shot in San Jacinto National Forest.

Party Crashers, The (1958) 78m. ½ D: Bernard Girard. Connie Stevens, Robert (Bobby) Driscoll, Mark Damon, Frances Farmer, Doris Dowling, Walter Brooke, Cathy Lewis, Denver Pyle, Gary Gray. Low-rent curio about a group of bored, mischief-making middle-class teens who are victims of irresponsible parenting. Both Driscoll’s and Farmer’s last film; they play mother and son.

Party Girl (1958) C-99m. D: Nicholas Ray. Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb, John Ireland, Kent Smith. Crooked lawyer (Taylor) and showgirl (Charisse) try to break free from early 1930s Chicago mob life. Charisse has a couple of torrid dance numbers; Ray’s stylish treatment has won this film a cult following. Tony Martin (the star’s husband) sings the title song. CinemaScope.

Party Girls for Sale SEE: They Were So Young

Party Wire (1935) 70m. ½ D: Erle C. Kenton. Jean Arthur, Victor Jory, Helen Lowell, Robert Allen, Charley Grapewin, Clara Blandick, Geneva Mitchell, Maude Eburne. Fairly vicious look at small-town life and how gossip can ruin a person’s reputation, in this case Arthur’s, who’s falsely thought to be pregnant without benefit of a husband. Far from subtle, but Arthur is as appealing as ever.

Passage to Marseille (1944) 110m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michele Morgan, Philip Dorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine, John Loder, Victor Francen, Vladimir Sokoloff, Edward (Eduardo) Ciannelli, Hans Conried. WW2 Devil’s Island escape film marred by flashback-within-flashback confusion. Not a bad war film, just too talky; a disappointment considering the cast. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Passage West (1951) C-80m. ½ D: Lewis R. Foster. John Payne, Dennis O’Keefe, Arleen Whelan, Mary Beth Hughes, Frank Faylen, Dooley Wilson. Outlaws join up with wagon train with predictable results.

Passing Fancy (1933-Japanese) 101m. ½ D: Yasujiro Ozu. Takeshi Sakamoto, Nobuko Fushimi, Den Obinata, Choko Iida, Tokkan Kozo (Tomio Aoki), Reiko Tani. Heartrending tale of compassion, sacrifice, and human connection is set into motion when a genial, uneducated single father (Sakamoto, in a magnificent performance) performs an act of kindness toward a young woman (Fushimi) who is all alone in the world. With deep insight, Ozu explores the complexities of human relationships and, in particular, the inexorable bond between father and son.

Passion (1954) C-84m. D: Allan Dwan. Cornel Wilde, Yvonne De Carlo, Raymond Burr, Lon Chaney, Jr., Rodolfo Acosta, John Qualen, Anthony Caruso, Stuart Whitman. By-the-numbers Western set in Old California, with Wilde seeking vengeance against the murderers of his loved ones. Name another Western that climaxes atop a Mexican glacier!

Passionate Friends, The (1949-British) 91m. ½ D: David Lean. Ann Todd, Claude Rains, Trevor Howard, Betty Ann Davies, Isabel Dean, Wilfrid Hyde-White. Second-tier Lean (albeit extremely well crafted), which occasionally recalls BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Todd is in love with Howard but marries wealthy banker Rains for security. Will their romance be rekindled when they accidentally meet years later while on a Swiss vacation? Scripted by Eric Ambler, adapted by Lean and Stanley Haynes from an H. G. Wells novel. Previously filmed in 1923. Originally released in U.S. as ONE WOMAN’S STORY.

Passionate Plumber, The (1932) 73m. D: Edward Sedgwick. Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante, Irene Purcell, Polly Moran, Gilbert Roland, Mona Maris. Stilted adaptation of HER CARDBOARD LOVER as vehicle for Keaton, hired by Parisienne Purcell to make lover Roland jealous. Not enough laughs. Filmed before in 1928 as THE CARDBOARD LOVER and remade as HER CARDBOARD LOVER.

Passionate Sentry, The (1952-British) 84m. D: Anthony Kimmins. Nigel Patrick, Peggy Cummins, Valerie Hobson, George Cole, A. E. Matthews, Anthony Bushell. Wispy romantic comedy about madcap gal who falls in love with a guard at Buckingham Palace. Retitled: WHO GOES THERE?

Passionate Stranger, The SEE: Novel Affair, A

Passionate Thief, The (1960-Italian) 106m. D: Mario Monicelli. Anna Magnani, Totò, Ben Gazzara, Fred Clark, Edy Vessel, Gina Rovere. Uniquely Italian comedy, populated with comically contradictory characters, unfolds over a long New Year’s Eve in Rome. Magnani is a movie extra whose pride and stubbornness involve her in a series of misadventures with aged performer Totò and pickpocket Gazzara.

Passion Flower (1930) 79m. ½ D: William de Mille. Kay Francis, Kay Johnson, Charles Bickford, Winter Hall, Lewis Stone, ZaSu Pitts, Dickie Moore. Heiress Johnson defies her father by marrying the family chauffeur (Bickford), only to lose him to her glamorous cousin (Francis). Well-acted, effective triangle tale with some touching moments.

Passion of Joan of Arc, The (1928-French) 117m. D: Carl Theodor Dreyer. Maria Falconetti, Eugene Sylvain, Maurice Schutz. Joan of Arc’s inquisition, trial, and burning at the stake; the scenario is based on transcript of historical trial. Masterfully directed, with groundbreaking use of close-ups; Falconetti glows in the title role. Photographed by Rudolph Maté.

Passport to Adventure SEE: Passport to Destiny

Passport to Destiny (1944) 64m. D: Ray McCarey. Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver, Lloyd Corrigan, Gavin Muir, Lenore Aubert, Fritz Feld. Tidy programmer with Elsa a patriotic scrubwoman determined to eliminate the Fuehrer. Retitled: PASSPORT TO ADVENTURE.

Passport to Hell, A (1932) 76m. ½ D: Frank Lloyd. Elissa Landi, Paul Lukas, Warner Oland, Alexander Kirkland, Donald Crisp, Earle Foxe, Yola d’Avril. A tainted woman catches the eye of a naïve young lieutenant, much to the dismay of his father, a commandant in German West Africa in the days leading up to WW1. Aptly named film (from audience’s point of view), a plodding RED DUST–like triangle about people one couldn’t possibly care about.

Passport to Pimlico (1949-British) 85m. ½ D: Henry Cornelius. Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford, Betty Warren, Hermione Baddeley, Barbara Murray, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Paul Dupuis, Michael Hordern. Salty farce of ancient treaty enabling small group of Brits to form their own bounded territory in the middle of London. Screenplay by Cornelius and T.E.B. Clarke.

Passport to Suez (1943) 71m. ½ D: Andre De Toth. Warren William, Ann Savage, Eric Blore, Robert Stanford, Sheldon Leonard, Lloyd Bridges, Gavin Muir. Nazi spies lead sleuth William on a wild goose chase as part of a plan to blow up the Suez Canal in this well-made Lone Wolf entry with more comedy relief from Blore than usual.

Passport to Treason (1955-British) 70m. ½ D: Robert S. Baker. Rod Cameron, Lois Maxwell, Clifford Evans, John Colicos. Minor drama, with Cameron trying to solve homicide case for sake of friend.

Password Is Courage, The (1963-British) 116m. D: Andrew L. Stone. Dirk Bogarde, Maria Perschy, Alfred Lynch, Nigel Stock, Reginald Beckwith, Richard Marner. Bogarde tops a fine cast in droll account of British soldier’s plot to escape from WW2 prison camp. Metroscope.

Pat and Mike (1952) 95m. D: George Cukor. Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Aldo Ray, William Ching, Jim Backus, Carl (“Alfalfa”) Switzer, Charles Buchinski (Bronson), William Self, Chuck Connors. Hepburn is Pat, top female athlete; Tracy is Mike, her manager, in pleasing comedy, not up to duo’s other films. Ray is good as thick-witted sports star. Written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin; many sports notables appear briefly. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Patch of Blue, A (1965) 105m. D: Guy Green. Sidney Poitier, Shelley Winters, Elizabeth Hartman, Wallace Ford, Ivan Dixon, John Qualen, Elisabeth Fraser. Sensitive drama of blind girl (Hartman) falling in love with black man (Poitier); well acted, not too sticky. Winters won Oscar as Hartman’s harridan mother. Panavision.

Pather Panchali (1955-Indian) 112m. ½ D: Satyajit Ray. Kanu Banerji, Karuna Banerji, Subir Banerji, Runki Banerji, Uma Das Gupta, Chunibala Devi. Unrelenting study of a poverty-stricken Indian family in Bengal. Grippingly realistic, with Karuna and Subir Banerji outstanding as the mother and her young son Apu. Ray’s feature debut, and the first of his “Apu” trilogy. Music by Ravi Shankar.

Pathfinder, The (1952) C-78m. ½ D: Sidney Salkow. George Montgomery, Helena Carter, Jay Silverheels, Elena Verdugo, Chief Yowlachie. Low-budget version of James Fenimore Cooper tale of 1750s Great Lakes area, with Indian and French attacks on Americans. Remade for TV in 1996.

Paths of Glory (1957) 86m. D: Stanley Kubrick. Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Wayne Morris, Richard Anderson, Timothy Carey, Suzanne Christian, Bert Freed. During WW1, French general Macready orders his men on a suicidal charge; when they fail, he picks three soldiers to be tried and executed for cowardice. Shattering study of the insanity of war has grown even more profound with the years; stunningly acted and directed. Calder Willingham, Jim Thompson, and Kubrick adapted Humphrey Cobb’s novel—based on fact.

Patient in Room 18, The (1938) 59m. D: Bobby Connolly, Crane Wilbur. Patric Knowles, Ann Sheridan, Eric Stanley, John Ridgely, Rosella Towne. A hospital nurse teams up with her detective boyfriend to find out who killed a wealthy patient and stole the radium that was being used to treat him. Sheridan’s verve and sassy appeal single-handedly make this watchable.

Patsy, The (1928) 77m. D: King Vidor. Marion Davies, Orville Caldwell, Marie Dressler, Lawrence Gray, Dell Henderson, Jane Winton. Davies gives an inspired comedic performance as the ignored youngest child of bossy mom Dressler and henpecked father Henderson. She transforms herself into a vivacious flapper to woo her sophisticated older sister’s boyfriend. One of Davies’ best silents; her impersonations of Mae Murray, Pola Negri, and Lillian Gish are a riot.

Patsy, The (1964) C-101m. D: Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis, Ina Balin, Everett Sloane, Keenan Wynn, Peter Lorre, John Carradine, Neil Hamilton, Nancy Kulp. When a top comedian is killed in a plane crash, his sycophants try to groom a bellhop (guess who?) into taking his place. Forced, unfunny combination of humor and pathos, much inferior to somewhat similar ERRAND BOY. Lorre’s last film.

Patterns (1956) 83m. ½ D: Fielder Cook. Van Heflin, Everett Sloane, Ed Begley, Beatrice Straight, Elizabeth Wilson. Trenchant, masterfully acted drama of greed and abuse of power in corporate America, about an all-powerful company head (Sloane) who makes life miserable for humanistic underling Begley. Much better than the similar EXECUTIVE SUITE. Scripted by Rod Serling from his 1956 Kraft TV Theatre production (which also starred Sloane and Begley).

Paula (1952) 80m. ½ D: Rudolph Maté. Loretta Young, Kent Smith, Alexander Knox, Tommy Rettig. Young gives credence to role of otherwise happily married woman who’s distraught upon learning she cannot have children and comes to the aid of injured orphan Rettig. Marred only by a cop-out ending.

Pawnbroker, The (1965) 116m. D: Sidney Lumet. Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sanchez, Thelma Oliver, Juano Hernandez, Raymond St. Jacques. Important, engrossing film; Steiger is excellent as Sol Nazerman, a Jewish pawnbroker in Harlem who lives in a sheltered world with haunting memories of Nazi prison camps. Notable editing by Ralph Rosenblum and music by Quincy Jones. Edward Lewis Wallant’s novel was adapted by David Friedkin and Morton Fine.

Pawnee (1957) C-80m. D: George Waggner. George Montgomery, Bill Williams, Lola Albright, Francis J. McDonald, Raymond Hatton. Pat Western about Indian-raised white man with conflicting loyalties.

Payment Deferred (1932) 81m. D: Lothar Mendes. Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Sullivan, Dorothy Peterson, Verree Teasdale, Ray Milland, Billy Bevan. Very theatrical yet engrossing little film about a milquetoast who finds himself tangled up in murder. Laughton is at his most idiosyncratic, with all manner of facial grimaces and gestures.

Payment on Demand (1951) 90m. D: Curtis Bernhardt. Bette Davis, Barry Sullivan, Peggie Castle, Jane Cowl, Kent Taylor, Betty Lynn, John Sutton, Frances Dee, Otto Kruger. Well-handled chronicle of Davis-Sullivan marriage, highlighting events which lead to divorce.

Pay Off, The (1942) 70m. D: Arthur Dreifuss. Lee Tracy, Tom Brown, Tina Thayer, Evelyn Brent, Jack La Rue, Ian Keith. Later, lesser Tracy vehicle has him mugging outrageously as a hotshot newspaper reporter who springs into action upon the murder of a special prosecutor.

Pay or Die (1960) 111m. ½ D: Richard Wilson. Ernest Borgnine, Zohra Lampert, Al Austin, John Duke, Robert Ellenstein, Franco Corsaro, John Marley, Mario Siletti. Flavorful account of Mafia activities in 1910s N.Y.C.; sturdy performances.

Payroll (1961-British) 94m. ½ D: Sidney Hayers. Michael Craig, Françoise Prevost, Billie Whitelaw, William Lucas, Kenneth Griffith, Tom Bell. Well-handled account involving widow of payroll guard killed in robbery tracking down culprits.

Peach-O-Reno (1931) 63m. ½ D: William A. Seiter. Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, Zelma O’Neal, Joseph Cawthorn, Cora Witherspoon, Sam Hardy. The boys are shyster lawyers who run a quickie divorce service in Reno by day, then transform their office into a casino after dark! Lavish musical numbers, pre-Code banter, and racy gags highlight this typical Wheeler and Woolsey vehicle.

Pearl, The (1948) 77m. D: Emilio Fernandez. Pedro Armendariz, Maria Elena Marques. Mexican-filmed John Steinbeck tale of poor fisherman whose life is unhappily altered by finding valuable pearl; a bit heavy-handed. Beautifully photographed by Gabriel Figueroa.

Pearl of Death, The (1944) 69m. D: Roy William Neill. Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, Miles Mander, Rondo Hatton, Dennis Hoey, Richard Nugent. Deft Sherlock Holmes entry has the sleuth searching for six busts of Napoleon, one of which contains the Borgia pearl, before all the owners are murdered by “The Creeper” (Hatton). Suspenseful story inspired Universal to recast Hatton in two more films as “The Creeper.”

Pearl of the South Pacific (1955) C-86m. ½ D: Allan Dwan. Virginia Mayo, Dennis Morgan, David Farrar, Murvyn Vye. Greedy fortune hunters mix with island natives as they search for a hidden temple and untold riches. A so-bad-it’s-funny relic of its era. SuperScope.

Peck’s Bad Boy (1921) 51m. D: Sam Wood. Jackie Coogan, Wheeler Oakman, Doris May, Raymond Hatton, Lillian Leighton. Still-fresh and enjoyable vehicle for Coogan as young mischief-maker; clever card-titles written by humorist Irvin S. Cobb.

Peck’s Bad Boy (1934) 70m. ½ D: Edward Cline. Jackie Cooper, Thomas Meighan, Jackie Searl, O. P. Heggie. Cooper is ideally cast as the title character, who enjoys an idyllic relationship with widowed dad Meighan. Trouble comes when his obnoxious aunt and bratty cousin arrive on the scene.

Peck’s Bad Boy With the Circus (1938) 78m. D: Edward Cline. Tommy Kelly, Ann Gillis, Edgar Kennedy, Billy Gilbert, Benita Hume, Spanky McFarland, Grant Mitchell. Standard circus story slanted for kiddies. Kennedy and Gilbert wrap this one up.

Peeping Tom (1960-British) C-101m. D: Michael Powell. Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley, Brenda Bruce, Martin Miller. Sensational film—denounced in 1960—went on to develop a fervent following; personal feelings will dictate your reaction to story of psychopathic murderer who photographs his victims at the moment of death. Originally released in the U.S. at 86m. Director Powell plays the father of Boehm in the home-movie sequences.

Peggy (1950) C-77m. ½ D: Frederick de Cordova. Diana Lynn, Charles Coburn, Charlotte Greenwood, Rock Hudson, Jerome Cowan, Barbara Lawrence. Lightweight comedy of sisters Lynn and Lawrence entered in Rose Bowl Parade beauty contest.

Peg o’ My Heart (1933) 89m. D: Robert Z. Leonard. Marion Davies, Onslow Stevens, J. Farrell MacDonald, Irene Browne, Juliette Compton, Alan Mowbray. Sweet, old-fashioned vehicle for Davies as spunky Irish lass who’s separated from her father and brought to ritzy English manor, to fulfill terms of inheritance. Corny but fun. Filmed in 1923 with Laurette Taylor.

Peking Express (1951) 95m. ½ D: William Dieterle. Joseph Cotten, Corinne Calvet, Edmund Gwenn, Marvin Miller, Benson Fong. Remake of SHANGHAI EXPRESS lacks flavor or distinction. Cotten is the doctor and Calvet the shady lady he encounters on train.

Penalty, The (1920) 82m. D: Wallace Worsley. Lon Chaney, Ethel Grey Terry, Charles Clary, Claire Adams, Kenneth Harlan, James Mason, Cesare Gravina. Chaney is something to see as Blizzard, a cunning, sadistic crime lord, embittered because his legs were amputated by a negligent surgeon in childhood. Terry is the government operative assigned to infiltrate his den of iniquity. Melodramatic at times, but worth seeing for Chaney’s bravura performance.

Penalty, The (1941) 81m. D: Harold S. Bucquet. Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Marsha Hunt, Robert Sterling, Gene Reynolds, Emma Dunn, Veda Ann Borg, Richard Lane, Gloria DeHaven. Young Reynolds’ loyalties are divided between his notorious killer–bank-robber father (Arnold) and an honest, hardworking farm family. Slick, predictable potboiler. Phil Silvers appears briefly as a hobo.

Penguin Pool Murder (1932) 65m. D: George Archainbaud. Edna May Oliver, James Gleason, Mae Clarke, Robert Armstrong, Donald Cook, Clarence Wilson, Edgar Kennedy, Rochelle Hudson, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Sidney Miller, Edith Fellows. Schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers (Oliver) helps cigar-chomping cop Oscar Piper (Gleason) solve a grisly murder in an aquarium. First of the short-lived but entertaining Hildegarde Withers series based on the stories of Stuart Palmer.

Pennies From Heaven (1936) 81m. ½ D: Norman Z. McLeod. Bing Crosby, Edith Fellows, Madge Evans, Donald Meek, Louis Armstrong. Minor but pleasant Crosby vehicle about a self-styled troubadour and drifter who befriends orphaned girl (Fellows) and her grandfather (Meek). Bing’s rendition of title tune is classic.

Penn of Pennsylvania SEE: Courageous Mr. Penn.

Penny Princess (1951-British) C-91m. D: Val Guest. Dirk Bogarde, Yolande Donlan, Kynaston Reeves. Charming frou-frou of American Donlan (wife of director Guest) going to Europe to collect inheritance of small principality, and Bogarde who courts her.

Penny Serenade (1941) 118m. ½ D: George Stevens. Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi, Edgar Buchanan, Ann Doran, Eva Lee Kuney. Quintessential soap opera, with Dunne and Grant as couple who adopt baby after their unborn baby dies. A wonderful tearjerker; scripted by Morrie Ryskind, from Martha Cheavens’ story. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Penrod and His Twin Brother (1938) 63m. D: William McGann. Billy Mauch, Bobby Mauch, Frank Craven, Spring Byington, Charles Halton, Claudia Coleman. Penrod gets blamed for something he didn’t do; it’s his look-alike who’s really responsible. Second in a short-lived series of juvenile tales.

Penrod and Sam (1937) 64m. ½ D: William McGann. Billy Mauch, Frank Craven, Spring Byington, Craig Reynolds, Harry Watson, Bernice Pilot, Philip Hurlic. In this agreeable update of Booth Tarkington’s famous trio of books (filmed before in 1923 and 1931), Penrod and his pals play Junior G-men to go after some bank robbers. Yes, one of those kids is an older Matthew “Stymie” Beard from Our Gang. First of a short-lived B movie series.

Penrod’s Double Trouble (1938) 61m. D: Lewis Seiler. Billy Mauch, Bobby Mauch, Dick Purcell, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Hugh O’Connell, Charles Halton, Philip Hurlic. There’s a reward for Penrod’s return but a look-alike is turned in instead. Final entry in short-lived series featuring the Mauch Twins is forgettable B movie fare. Look sharp for Peter Lind Hayes, Carole Landis.

Penthouse (1933) 90m. ½ D: W. S. Van Dyke. Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, Charles Butterworth, Mae Clarke, C. Henry Gordon. Terrific comedy-melodrama, with Baxter as criminal lawyer who enlists the help of sprightly call-girl Loy to nail a crime kingpin (Gordon). A neglected gem. Remade as SOCIETY LAWYER.

People Against O’Hara, The (1951) 102m. ½ D: John Sturges. Spencer Tracy, Pat O’Brien, Diana Lynn, John Hodiak, Eduardo Ciannelli, Jay C. Flippen, James Arness, Arthur Shields, William Campbell. Middling drama, with Tracy a noted criminal lawyer who repents for unethical behavior during a case. Look fast for Charles Bronson as one of Campbell’s brothers.

People on Sunday (1929-German) 73m. D: Robert Siodmak. Brigitte Borchert, Christl Ehlers, Annie Schreyer, Wolfgang von Waltershausen, Erwin Splettstosser. Landmark silent docudrama notable for the dazzling group of young filmmakers who made it: Siodmak was assisted by Edgar G. Ulmer; Billy Wilder wrote it based on an idea by Curt Siodmak; and it was shot by future Oscar-winning cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan, whose assistant was Fred Zinnemann. Story follows the romantic adventures of a taxi driver and his married friend as they spend one Sunday trying to pick up two women before returning to their dreary lives. A lyrical portrait of pre-WW2 Berlin and the German countryside, filmed in a style that prefigures the Italian neorealist movement of the 1940s, with amateur actors playing themselves. Original title: MENSCHEN AM SONNTAG.

People’s Enemy SEE: Prison Train

People vs. Dr. Kildare, The (1941) 78m. D: Harold S. Bucquet. Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Bonita Granville, Alma Kruger, Red Skelton, Tom Conway, Walter Kingsford, Chick Chandler, Diana Lewis, Marie Blake, Nell Craig, Frank Orth. Verbose Kildare entry finds the medic being sued for malpractice after operating on ice skater Granville’s leg. Skelton’s comic relief is more annoying than amusing.

People Will Talk (1935) 67m. ½ D: Alfred Santell. Mary Boland, Charles Ruggles, Leila Hyams, Dean Jagger, Ruthelma Stevens, Hans Steinke. Slim comedy about married couple pretending to fight to teach daughter a lesson. Boland and Ruggles could read a newspaper and make it funny.

People Will Talk (1951) 110m. ½ D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cary Grant, Jeanne Crain, Finlay Currie, Walter Slezak, Hume Cronyn, Sidney Blackmer, Margaret Hamilton. Genuinely offbeat, absorbing comedy-drama of philosophical doctor Grant, who insists on treating his patients as human beings; a small-minded colleague (Cronyn) is intimidated by his radical approach to doctoring and sets out to defame him. Fine cast in talky but most worthwhile film, which features obvious parallels to the then-current HUAC investigation and McCarthy witchhunt.

Pepe (1960) C-157m. BOMB D: George Sidney. Cantinflas, Dan Dailey, Shirley Jones, 35 guest stars. Incredibly long, pointless film wastes talents of Cantinflas and many, many others (Edward G. Robinson, Maurice Chevalier, etc.). This one’s only if you’re desperate. Originally released at 195m. with overture, intermission/entr’acte. CinemaScope.

Pépé Le Moko (1937-French) 95m. D: Julien Duvivier. Jean Gabin, Mireille Balin, Gabriel Gabrio, Lucas Gridoux. Gabin is magnetic (in role that brought him international prominence) as gangster who eludes capture in Casbah section of Algiers, until he is lured out of hiding by a beautiful woman. Exquisitely photographed and directed; faithfully remade the following year as ALGIERS, later musicalized as CASBAH. 9m. originally cut from U.S. release have now been restored.

Perfect Clue, The (1935) 64m. ½ D: Robert G. Vignola. David Manners, “Skeets” Gallagher, Dorothy Libaire, Betty Blythe, Ralf Harolde, Robert Gleckler. Down-and-out Manners, embittered after doing time for a crime he didn’t commit, meets scatterbrained rich girl Libaire; when he’s jailed on a murder charge, she turns sleuth to clear him. Once the story finally gets going (around the two-thirds mark!), everything happens just the way you know it will.

Perfect Furlough, The (1958) C-93m. ½ D: Blake Edwards. Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Keenan Wynn, Linda Cristal, Elaine Stritch, King Donovan, Troy Donahue. Diverting comedy of soldier Curtis winning trip to France, romancing military psychiatrist Leigh. CinemaScope.

Perfect Gentleman, The (1935) 72m. ½ D: Tim Whelan. Frank Morgan, Cicely Courtneidge, Heather Angel, Herbert Mundin, Una O’Connor, Richard Waring, Henry Stephenson. Slight but likable yarn set in England about a blustering old scoundrel who is constantly embarrassing his vicar son, so he takes to the road and teams up with a female musical hall performer. Pleasant showcase for Morgan and delightful British comedienne Courtneidge in her first and only American film.

Perfect Marriage, The (1946) 87m. ½ D: Lewis Allen. Loretta Young, David Niven, Eddie Albert, Charles Ruggles, Virginia Field, Rita Johnson, ZaSu Pitts. Niven’s tired of wife Young; Young’s tired of husband Niven. Sharply observed, if talky, marital comedy. Scripted by Leonard Spiegelgass, based on a play by Samson Raphaelson.

Perfect Specimen, The (1937) 97m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Errol Flynn, Joan Blondell, Hugh Herbert, Edward Everett Horton, Dick Foran, May Robson, Beverly Roberts, Allen Jenkins. Fairly amusing whimsy about super-rich Flynn, who’s kept locked up and sheltered by grandmother Robson until vivacious Blondell comes crashing through his fence and they go off on a whirlwind courtship.

Perfect Strangers (1945) SEE: Vacation From Marriage

Perfect Strangers (1950) 88m. ½ D: Bretaigne Windust. Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, Thelma Ritter, Margalo Gillmore, Paul Ford, Alan Reed. Rogers and Morgan are jury members who fall in love; engaging romance story.

Perfect Understanding (1933-British) 81m. ½ D: Cyril Gardner. Gloria Swanson, Laurence Olivier, John Halliday, Nigel Playfair, Michael Farmer, Genevieve Tobin, Nora Swinburne, Miles Malleson. Swanson and Olivier make a marriage pact “never to be husband and wife but lover and mistress,” but of course things don’t go that smoothly. Romantic comedy trifle is filled with clever transition shots and montages. Swanson (who produced the film) also gets to sing. Interesting to see these two stars at this point in their respective careers.

Perfect Woman, The (1949-British) 89m. ½ D: Bernard Knowles. Patricia Roc, Stanley Holloway, Miles Malleson, Nigel Patrick, Irene Handl. Screwy scientist tries to improve on nature by making a “perfect” robot woman, modeled on his niece. Mix-ups follow in this OK British comedy.

Perilous Holiday (1946) 89m. D: Edward H. Griffith. Pat O’Brien, Ruth Warrick, Alan Hale, Edgar Buchanan, Audrey Long, Willard Robertson, Eduardo Ciannelli. Good O’Brien vehicle casts him as a troubleshooter encountering dangerous counterfeiting gang south of the border.

Perilous Journey, A (1953) 90m. D: R. G. Springsteen. Vera Ralston, David Brian, Scott Brady, Virginia Grey, Charles Winninger, Ben Cooper, Hope Emerson, Veda Ann Borg, Leif Erickson. Predictable but diverting Western of a ship manned by women who are heading to California to find husbands.

Perils From the Planet Mongo (1940) 91m. ½ D: Ford Beebe, Ray Taylor. Buster Crabbe, Carol Hughes, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Anne Gwynne. Truncated version of FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE serial. On Mongo, Flash, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov contend with the planet’s civilizations, eventually restore Prince Barin as rightful ruler and return to Earth. Uninspired handling of footage from this great serial.

Perils of Pauline, The (1947) C-96m. D: George Marshall. Betty Hutton, John Lund, Constance Collier, Billy de Wolfe, William Demarest. Lively, entertaining musical-comedy purports to be biography of silent-screen heroine Pearl White, but isn’t; energetic Hutton, good Frank Loesser songs, colorful atmosphere, and presence of silent-film veterans make up for it . . . until sappy denouement.

Period of Adjustment (1962) 112m. D: George Roy Hill. Tony Franciosa, Jane Fonda, Jim Hutton, Lois Nettleton, John McGiver, Jack Albertson. Newlyweds (Fonda and Hutton) try to help troubled marriage of Nettleton and Franciosa in this heartwarming comedy based on a Tennessee Williams play. Engaging performers make the most of both comic and tender moments.

Perri (1957) C-75m. D: N. Paul Kenworthy, Jr., Ralph Wright; narrated by Winston Hibler. Unusual Disney film combines elements of BAMBI with True-Life nature photography, in a romanticized look at a squirrel through the cycle of four seasons in the forest. Based on Felix Salten’s book.

Perry Mason Long before Raymond Burr made the part of Perry Mason his own on television, Erle Stanley Gardner’s crusading attorney was featured in a half-dozen screen adventures. Created in 1933, Perry made his film debut just one year later in THE CASE OF THE HOWLING DOG, based on one of Gardner’s best-selling novels. (In fact, all of the Mason films were adaptations of books from the series, which was not the norm for Hollywood.) Leading man Warren William had played both detectives and lawyers before, but the screenwriters (and possibly, directors) of these films kept changing their minds about the way Perry should be portrayed. He was definitely flashier than the Mason depicted on the printed page (with plush offices that could have been created only in Hollywood), and overall spent less time in the courtroom, but in THE CASE OF THE LUCKY LEGS he’s portrayed as a constant tippler (à la Nick Charles) and in THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE he’s positively giddy. Continuity was further undermined by recasting Perry’s secretary Della Street from one film to the next; only Claire Dodd managed to play the role twice in succession, winning Perry’s marriage proposal at the end of THE CURIOUS BRIDE and honeymooning in THE VELVET CLAWS. After just a couple of films, Warner Bros. downgraded the series from A status to B, and after four pictures, William left. Ricardo Cortez succeeded him, but just for one picture; by the time Donald Woods inherited the role, it was clear that Warners had lost all interest. It remained for television to really capitalize on Erle Stanley Gardner’s durable character some 20 years later.

PERRY MASON

The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)

The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)

The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935)

The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936)

The Case of the Black Cat (1936)

The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (1937)

Personal Affair (1953-British) 82m. ½ D: Anthony Pelissier. Gene Tierney, Leo Genn, Pamela Brown, Walter Fitzgerald, Megs Jenkins, Michael Hordern, Thora Hird, Glynis Johns, Nanette Newman. Seventeen-year-old Johns has a schoolgirl crush on her married Latin teacher (Genn). When she goes missing, he’s the subject of gossip and innuendo. Thoughtful drama is at its best when accentuating the consequences of small-town small-mindedness. Fitzgerald is a standout as Johns’ father.

Personality Kid, The (1934) 68m. ½ D: Alan Crosland. Pat O’Brien, Glenda Farrell, Claire Dodd, Robert Gleckler, Henry O’Neill, Thomas Jackson, Arthur Vinton, Clarence Muse. Brash, flashy club fighter O’Brien rises in the boxing world, but not without complications. Minor but snappy Warner Bros. B melodrama with some interesting story twists.

Personal Property (1937) 84m. ½ D: W. S. Van Dyke II. Jean Harlow, Robert Taylor, Una O’Connor, Reginald Owen, Cora Witherspoon. Taylor stiffly maneuvers through a series of masquerades, and finally courts Harlow in this MGM fluff. Remake of 1931 film THE MAN IN POSSESSION.

Persons in Hiding (1939) 69m. D: Louis King. Lynne Overman, Patricia Morison, J. Carrol Naish, William Henry, Helen Twelvetrees, William Frawley, Judith Barrett, Richard Stanley (Dennis Morgan), Richard Denning. Coldhearted, materialistic small-town beautician (Morison) hooks up with a petty gunman (Naish) and pushes him into the criminal big leagues. Swift, suspenseful gangster tale patterned after the exploits of Bonnie and Clyde; the first in a series of four Paramount B movies based on a book by F.B.I. chief J. Edgar Hoover.

Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955) C-95m. D: Jack Webb. Jack Webb, Janet Leigh, Edmond O’Brien, Peggy Lee, Andy Devine, Lee Marvin, Ella Fitzgerald, Martin Milner, Than Wyenn, Herb Ellis, Jayne Mansfield. Tedious roaring ’20s yarn about a cornet player at a Kansas City speakeasy who tries to shield himself and his band from bootlegger/mobster O’Brien. Webb is strictly one-note here, as actor and director, but the candy-colored production design and the music are strong assets. Lee is notable in a rare dramatic role. Based on Webb’s flop radio series, which he later revived for TV. CinemaScope.

Peter Ibbetson (1935) 88m. D: Henry Hathaway. Gary Cooper, Ann Harding, John Halliday, Ida Lupino, Douglass Dumbrille, Virginia Weidler, Dickie Moore, Doris Lloyd. Most unusual fantasy-romance, based on George du Maurier novel about sweethearts who are separated in childhood but whose destinies draw them together years later, and for all eternity. Someone more ethereal than Harding might have put this over better, but it’s still a moving and strikingly artistic endeavor. Beautifully photographed by Charles Lang.

Peter Pan (1924) 102m. D: Herbert Brenon. Betty Bronson, Ernest Torrence, Anna May Wong, Mary Brian, Virginia Browne Faire, Esther Ralston, Cyril Chadwick, Philippe De Lacey. Delightful adaptation of the James M. Barrie classic about the boy who can fly and never wants to grow up, and his adventures as he soars away with Wendy Darling and her brothers to Never Never Land. Bronson makes the role of Peter all her own in this charming fantasy.

Peter Pan (1953) C-77m. D: Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson. Voices of Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont, Hans Conried, Bill Thompson, Heather Angel, Paul Collins, Candy Candido, Tom Conway. Delightful Walt Disney cartoon feature of the classic James M. Barrie story, with Peter leading Wendy, Michael, and John Darling to Never Land, where they do battle with Captain Hook and his band of pirates. Musical highlight: “You Can Fly,” as the children sail over the city of London. Followed in 2002 by RETURN TO NEVER LAND.

Peterville Diamond, The (1943-British) 85m. D: Walter Forde. Anne Crawford, Donald Stewart, Renee Houston, Oliver Wakefield, Charles Heslop, Bill (William) Hartnell, Felix Aylmer. Bored wife of ever-busy businessman schemes to make her mate jealous by hinting that she’s involved with another man. Slight, silly, way-overlong comedy.

Petrified Forest, The (1936) 83m. ½ D: Archie Mayo. Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Dick Foran, Humphrey Bogart, Genevieve Tobin, Charley Grapewin, Porter Hall. Solid adaptation of Robert Sherwood play, focusing on ironic survival of the physically fit in civilized world. Bogart is Duke Mantee, escaped gangster, who holds writer Howard, dreamer Davis, and others hostage at roadside restaurant in Arizona. Stagy, but extremely well acted and surprisingly fresh. Howard and Bogart re-create their Broadway roles. Scripted by Charles Kenyon and Delmer Daves. Remade as ESCAPE IN THE DESERT. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Petticoat Fever (1936) 81m. D: George Fitzmaurice. Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Reginald Owen, Irving Bacon. Limp farce set in Labrador, with patronizing Montgomery romancing Loy (despite presence of stuffed-shirt fiancé Owen). The stars are defeated by their one-note material.

Petticoat Larceny (1943) 61m. ½ D: Ben Holmes. Ruth Warrick, Joan Carroll, Walter Reed, Wally Brown, Tom Kennedy, Jimmy Conlin, Vince Barnett, Paul Guilfoyle. Entertaining Runyonesque yarn involving precocious child actress Carroll, who stars on radio as the “Underworld Angel.” Determined to pen her own scripts, she conducts research by consorting with real criminals.

Petty Girl, The (1950) C-87m. ½ D: Henry Levin. Robert Cummings, Joan Caulfield, Elsa Lanchester, Melville Cooper, Mary Wickes, Tippi Hedren. Mild comedy of pin-up artist George Petty (Cummings) falling for prudish Caulfield; Lanchester steals every scene she’s in.

Peyton Place (1957) C-157m. ½ D: Mark Robson. Lana Turner, Hope Lange, Arthur Kennedy, Lloyd Nolan, Lee Philips, Terry Moore, Russ Tamblyn, Betty Field, David Nelson, Mildred Dunnock, Diane Varsi, Barry Coe, Leon Ames, Lorne Greene. Grace Metalious’ once-notorious novel receives Grade A filming. Soap opera of life behind closed doors in a small New England town boasts strong cast, fine Franz Waxman score. Original running time: 162m. Sequel: RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE. Later a hit TV series. CinemaScope.

Phaedra (1962-U.S.-French-Greek) 115m. D: Jules Dassin. Melina Mercouri, Anthony Perkins, Raf Vallone, Elizabeth Ercy. Mercouri, wife of shipping magnate Vallone, has an affair with stepson Perkins. Well acted and directed; inspired by Euripides’ Hippolytus.

Phantom (1922-German) 117m. D: F. W. Murnau. Alfred Abel, Lil Dagover, Lya de Putti, Frieda Richard, Aud Egede Nissen, H. H. von Twardowski, Karl Etlinger, Adolf Klein. Dreamlike silent film about a young clerk (Abel) who dreams of becoming a rich and famous writer after he is accidentally struck by a passing carriage driven by a wealthy beauty (de Putti), with whom he becomes hopelessly obsessed. Poetic psychodrama featuring some superb bits of German expressionist cinema.

Phantom Creeps, The (1939) 79m. D: Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind. Bela Lugosi, Robert Kent, Regis Toomey, Dorothy Arnold, Edward Van Sloan, Edward Norris. U.S. government and hostile spies vie for control of mad scientist Lugosi’s inventions, including an invisibility belt and a king-sized robot. So bad it’s actually entertaining; the whole kettle of fish is thrown in here, including stock footage of the Hindenburg disaster! Edited down from a 12-episode Universal serial of the same title.

Phantom Express, The (1932) 66m. D: Emory Johnson. William Collier, Jr., Sally Blane, J. Farrell MacDonald, Hobart Bosworth, Axel Axelson, Lina Basquette. Melodramatic, ever-so-obvious account of some villains attempting to sabotage a railroad . . . and it’s the company president’s son (Collier) to the rescue. Notice those violins after engineer Smokey North (MacDonald) is sacked from his job!

Phantom From Space (1953) 72m. ½ D: W. Lee Wilder. Ted Cooper, Rudolph Anders, Noreen Nash, Harry Landers, Jim Bannon. An invisible alien crash-lands near L.A., wreaks accidental havoc as he makes his way across the city. OK idea hampered by low budget—and lack of talent.

Phantom From 10,000 Leagues, The (1956) 72m. BOMB D: Dan Milner. Kent Taylor, Cathy Downs, Michael Whalen, Helene Stanton, Philip Pine, Rodney Bell, Vivi Janiss. Oceanographer Taylor investigates deaths caused by a monster created by radiation from an undersea rock, which is now guarded by the creature. Lots of spy stuff and a lousy monster fail to enliven this deadly dull early American-International effort.

Phantom in the House, The (1929) 64m. D: Phil Rosen. Ricardo Cortez, Nancy Welford, Henry B. Walthall, Grace Valentine. For early-talkie fans and the Henry B. Walthall Appreciation Society. After taking the rap for a killing his wife committed, saintly Henry B. returns from prison to find she’s put him behind her and kept their daughter clueless. Cortez’s casting as a bland nice guy and some hokey acting sink what’s left of the ship.

Phantom Lady (1944) 87m. ½ D: Robert Siodmak. Ella Raines, Franchot Tone, Alan Curtis, Thomas Gomez, Elisha Cook, Jr., Fay Helm, Andrew Tombes, Regis Toomey. First-rate suspense yarn of innocent man (Curtis) framed for murder of his wife. Secretary Raines seeks real killer with help of Curtis’ best friend (Tone) and detective (Gomez). Sexual innuendo in drumming scene with Cook is simply astonishing—the solo was reportedly dubbed by Buddy Rich. Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel; screenplay by Bernard C. Schoenfeld.

Phantom Light, The (1935-British) 73m. ½ D: Michael Powell. Binnie Hale, Gordon Harker, Donald Calthrop, Milton Rosmer, Ian Hunter, Herbert Lomas (Lom). The new chief lighthouse keeper in a coastal Welsh village must contend with rumors that his lighthouse is haunted. Some zippy directorial touches enliven this overly talky mystery, one of Powell’s early-career “quota quickies.”

Phantom of Chinatown (1941) 61m. BOMB D: Phil Rosen. Keye Luke, Lotus Long, Grant Withers, Paul McVey, Charles Miller. Sixth and final mystery in the Mr. Wong series is bottom-of-the-barrel fare, with Luke replacing Boris Karloff as a younger version of the Oriental sleuth. He’s on the trail of a killer out to obtain an ancient scroll and locate an oil deposit.

Phantom of Crestwood, The (1932) 77m. D: J. Walter Ruben. Ricardo Cortez, Karen Morley, Anita Louise, Pauline Frederick, H. B. Warner, Sam Hardy, Skeets Gallagher. First-rate old-dark-house whodunit with crafty Morley calling together the men in her life for mass-blackmail scheme, resulting in murder. Eye-riveting flashback technique highlights solid mystery.

Phantom of Paris, The (1931) 72m. D: John S. Robertson. John Gilbert, Leila Hyams, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt, C. Aubrey Smith, Natalie Moorhead, Ian Keith. Paris escape artist Gilbert, arrested on a murder charge, escapes—naturally!—and goes to extraordinary lengths to prove his innocence. Far-out to say the very least, but nicely buoyed by arch dialogue and several clever touches. Based on a novel by Gaston Leroux (who wrote The Phantom of the Opera), Chéri-Bibi et Cécily; remade as CHÉRI-BIBI in 1937 and 1955.

Phantom of the Opera, The (1925) 98m. ½ D: Rupert Julian. Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Snitz Edwards, Gibson Gowland. Classic melodrama with Chaney as the tortured composer who lives in the catacombs under the Paris Opera House and kidnaps young Philbin as his singing protégée. Famous unmasking scene still packs a jolt, and the Bal Masque is especially impressive in two-color Technicolor. One of Chaney’s finest hours. Most prints are of the 1929 reissue version, but the original is available on DVD; running times vary. Remade several times, and transformed into a Broadway musical.

Phantom of the Opera (1943) C-92m. D: Arthur Lubin. Claude Rains, Susanna Foster, Nelson Eddy, Edgar Barrier, Jane Farrar, Miles Mander, J. Edward Bromberg, Hume Cronyn, Fritz Leiber, Leo Carrillo, Steven Geray, Fritz Feld. First talkie version of venerable melodrama often has more opera than Phantom, but Rains gives fine, sympathetic performance as disfigured composer worshipping young soprano Foster. Oscar winner for Cinematography (Hal Mohr and W. Howard Greene) and Art Direction.

Phantom of the Opera, The (1962-British) C-84m. D: Terence Fisher. Herbert Lom, Heather Sears, Thorley Walters, Edward DeSouza, Michael Gough, Miles Malleson. Lom stars in this third screen version of the story. It’s more elaborate than most Hammer horror films, but also more plodding, with only occasional moments of terror.

Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954) C-84m. D: Roy Del Ruth. Karl Malden, Claude Dauphin, Patricia Medina, Steve Forrest, Allyn Ann McLerie, Erin O’Brien-Moore. Remake of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE suffers from Malden’s hamminess in the equivalent of Lugosi’s role, plus little real atmosphere. On the other hand, there is Merv Griffin as a college student! 3-D.

Phantom Planet, The (1961) 82m. ½ D: William Marshall. Dean Fredericks, Coleen Gray, Tony Dexter, Dolores Faith, Francis X. Bushman. Astronaut crash-lands on an asteroid, is shrunken to the tiny size of its inhabitants, and becomes involved in their war with silly-looking aliens. Bushman plays tiny folks’ leader Sesom, but he’s no Moses, backward or forward. Fascinatingly terrible movie. Also available in a computer-colored version.

Phantom President, The (1932) 80m. D: Norman Taurog. George M. Cohan, Claudette Colbert, Jimmy Durante, Sidney Toler. Musical antique about presidential candidate, with lookalike entertainer (Cohan) falling in love with former’s girl (Colbert). Interesting only as a curio, with forgettable Rodgers-Hart score.

Phantom Raiders (1940) 70m. ½ D: Jacques Tourneur. Walter Pidgeon, Donald Meek, Joseph Schildkraut, Florence Rice, Nat Pendleton, John Carroll. Slick, fast-paced Nick Carter detective entry has our hero investigating sabotage in the Panama Canal after Allied ships are sunk.

Phantom Ship (1935-British) 80m. D: Denison Clift. Bela Lugosi, Shirley Grey, Arthur Margetson, Edmund Willard, Dennis Hoey, Ben Welden, Gibson Gowland. Slow-paced “explanation” of one of the great unsolved maritime mysteries, the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste, in 1872. Routine but holds interest. Lugosi is broad but entertaining as superstitious one-armed seaman. All exteriors filmed on a real ship. Original title: THE MYSTERY OF THE MARY CELESTE.

Phantom Speaks, The (1945) 69m. D: John English. Richard Arlen, Lynne Roberts, Stanley Ridges, Tom Powers, Charlotte Wynters, Jonathan Hale. Strong-willed spirit of executed killer Powers can take control of psychic researcher Ridges to avenge himself on those he hated. Arlen is a reporter sweet on the scientist’s daughter. Understated horror melodrama never rises above its B-movie origins but is simple and efficient; ending is unusually grim. Ridges’ role resembles his part in BLACK FRIDAY.

Phantom Stagecoach, The (1957) 69m. ½ D: Ray Nazarro. William Bishop, Kathleen Crowley, Richard Webb, Hugh Sanders, John Doucette, Frank Ferguson, Ray Teal, Percy Helton. Stage line operator tries to corner the market by robbing his rival, utilizing an iron-plated, driverless stagecoach with snipers hiding inside. Enter brawny stranger Bishop, hired to ride shotgun to round up the varmints. Brisk, compact B Western with plenty of action.

Phantom Thief, The (1946) 65m. ½ D: D. Ross Lederman. Chester Morris, Jeff Donnell, Richard Lane, Dusty Anderson, George E. Stone, Frank Sully, Marvin Miller. Murder strikes at a seance and Boston Blackie is called in to investigate. Neat series entry with plenty of haunted-house comic relief from Stone.

Pharaoh’s Curse (1957) 66m. ½ D: Lee Sholem. Mark Dana, Ziva Rodann, Diane Brewster, George Neise, Kurt Katch, Terence de Marney. 1903 Egyptian expedition is menaced by a rapidly aging vampiric reincarnate and his mysterious sister. Pompous, slow moving; more supernatural melodrama than horror.

Phenix City Story, The (1955) 100m. D: Phil Karlson. John McIntire, Richard Kiley, Kathryn Grant (Crosby), Edward Andrews. Fast-paced exposé film, compactly told, with realistic production, fine performances as lawyer returns to corrupt hometown, tries to do something about it. Sometimes shown without 13-minute prologue.

PHFFFT (1954) 91m. D: Mark Robson. Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, Jack Carson, Kim Novak, Donald Curtis. Saucy sex romp by George Axelrod, with Holliday and Lemmon discovering that they were better off before they divorced.

Philadelphia Story, The (1940) 112m. D: George Cukor. Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday, Virginia Weidler, Mary Nash, Henry Daniell, Hillary Brooke. Talky but brilliant adaptation of Philip Barry’s hit Broadway comedy about society girl who yearns for down-to-earth romance; Grant is her ex-husband, Stewart a fast-talking (!) reporter who falls in love with her. Entire cast is excellent, but Stewart really shines in his offbeat, Academy Award–winning role. Donald Ogden Stewart’s script also earned an Oscar. Later musicalized as HIGH SOCIETY. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Philo Vance Debonair detective Philo Vance, created by master novelist S. S. Van Dine (real name Willard Wright) enjoyed a long and varied screen career, in the guise of many different actors, in films made over a span of some 20 years by several different studios. The man most closely identified with the role was William Powell, who starred in the first three mysteries for Paramount: THE CANARY MURDER CASE, THE GREENE MURDER CASE, and BENSON MURDER CASE. While these very early talkies are somewhat stilted (particularly CANARY, which was completed as a silent film, then hastily adapted for sound), the whodunit angles are first-rate, as urbane Powell solves the bizarre N.Y.C.-based murders. Eugene Pallette was a fine foil as skeptical Sergeant Heath of the homicide squad, with E. H. Calvert as the N.Y.C. D.A. MGM interrupted this series with one of its own, BISHOP MURDER CASE, casting Basil Rathbone as Vance; though a clever whodunit, with the villain matching his crimes to Mother Goose rhymes, the film was all but done in by a snail-like pacing. Powell’s last appearance as Vance was in Warner Bros.’ THE KENNEL MURDER CASE, probably the best film in the series, brilliantly directed by Michael Curtiz, and also one of the most complex cases of all. None of the later Vance outings reached this peak of ingenuity and sophisticated filmmaking, and Warren William simply marked time in THE DRAGON MURDER CASE at Warners. MGM’s next duo cast Paul Lukas in THE CASINO MURDER CASE, and Edmund Lowe in THE GARDEN MURDER CASE; slickly done, they suffered from formula scripting, acting, and direction. Wilfrid Hyde-White starred in a British production of THE SCARAB MURDER CASE in 1936, but this one never found its way to America. Meanwhile, Paramount remade THE GREENE MURDER CASE as NIGHT OF MYSTERY, a routine B with Grant Richards, and Warren William returned for THE GRACIE ALLEN MURDER CASE, with Vance taking a backseat to the comedienne, whose stupidity became a bit overpowering in this story written for her by Van Dine. Warners then redid THE KENNEL MURDER CASE as CALLING PHILO VANCE, another forgettable B with James Stephenson in the role. Philo Vance went into retirement until 1947, when cheapie company PRC brought him back for three final outings, all surprisingly good little whodunits: William Wright starred in PHILO VANCE RETURNS, and Alan Curtis was a deadpan hero in PHILO VANCE’S GAMBLE and the best of all, PHILO VANCE’S SECRET MISSION, with perky Sheila Ryan as his sleuthing girlfriend. The character of Philo Vance, sophisticated and aloof, did not really fit the hard-boiled detective image of the 1940s and 1950s, so the character never appeared again on-screen, but his better outings, from the beginning and end of his film career, remain first-rate murder mysteries today.

PHILO VANCE

Canary Murder Case (1929)

The Greene Murder Case (1929)

Bishop Murder Case (1930)

Benson Murder Case (1930)

The Kennel Murder Case (1933)

The Dragon Murder Case (1934)

Casino Murder Case (1935)

The Garden Murder Case (1936)

Night of Mystery (1937)

The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1939)

Calling Philo Vance (1940)

Philo Vance Returns (1947)

Philo Vance’s Gamble (1947)

Philo Vance’s Secret Mission (1947)

Philo Vance Returns (1947) 64m. D: William Beaudine. William Wright, Terry Austin, Leon Belasco, Clara Blandick, Iris Adrian, Frank Wilcox, Damian O’Flynn. Vance (Wright) tries to solve the murder of a philandering Casanova (O’Flynn) in this first of three not-bad entries by Poverty-Row studio PRC. Ignoring the Van Dine books, Vance is now a hard-boiled, wisecracking private eye.

Philo Vance’s Gamble (1947) 62m. D: Basil Wrangell. Alan Curtis, Terry Austin, Frank Jenks, Tala Birell, Gavin Gordon. Vance (Curtis) is up to his neck in corpses when he takes on a gang of jewel thieves in this acceptable mystery given a (low-budget) film noir mood.

Philo Vance’s Secret Mission (1947) 58m. ½ D: Reginald LeBorg. Alan Curtis, Sheila Ryan, Tala Birell, Frank Jenks, James Bell. Not-bad little mystery (last in the series) has Vance joining a detective magazine as technical advisor, only to see the publisher get bumped off.

Phone Call From a Stranger (1952) 96m. D: Jean Negulesco. Bette Davis, Shelley Winters, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie, Keenan Wynn, Evelyn Varden, Warren Stevens, Beatrice Straight, Craig Stevens. Engrossing narrative of Merrill, survivor of a plane crash, visiting families of various victims.

Phony American, The (1962-German) 72m. ½ D: Akos Rathony. William Bendix, Christine Kaufmann, Michael Hinz, Ron Randell. Strange casting is more interesting than tale of a German WW2 orphan, now grown up, wishing to become an American, and a U.S. Air Force pilot.

Photo Finish (1957-French) 110m. D: Norbert Carbonnaux. Fernand Gravet, Jean Richard, Micheline, Louis de Funes. Strained comedy about con-men at work at the racetrack.

Picasso Mystery, The SEE: Mystery of Picasso, The

Piccadilly (1929-British) 108m. ½ D: E. A. Dupont. Gilda Gray, Anna May Wong, Jameson Thomas, Cyril Ritchard, King Ho-Chang, Charles Laughton, Hannah Jones. Sensuous (and ambitious) scullery maid (Wong) attracts London nightclub owner Thomas, who casts aside his current flame and dancing star (Gray). Slick, oozing with atmosphere, but supremely silly, this silent film is redeemed by Wong, who is an unforgettable presence in her all-time best part. Laughton is memorable as an angry diner; look for Ray Milland as a Piccadilly Club patron.

Piccadilly Incident (1946-British) 88m. D: Herbert Wilcox. Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Michael Laurence, Reginald Owen, Frances Mercer. Familiar Enoch Arden theme of supposedly dead wife appearing after husband has remarried. Good British cast gives life to oft-filmed plot.

Piccadilly Jim (1936) 100m. ½ D: Robert Z. Leonard. Robert Montgomery, Madge Evans, Frank Morgan, Eric Blore, Billie Burke. Fine light-comedy players in P. G. Wodehouse story of father and son’s romantic pursuits; overlong.

Pick a Star (1937) 70m. ½ D: Edward Sedgwick. Jack Haley, Rosina Lawrence, Patsy Kelly, Mischa Auer, Tom Dugan, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy. Mistaken as L&H vehicle, actually a Hal Roach production about small-town girl (Lawrence) hoping for stardom in Hollywood. Sappy story, bizarre musical production numbers, but guest stars Stan and Ollie have two very funny scenes. Retitled: MOVIE STRUCK.

Pickpocket (1959-French) 75m. ½ D: Robert Bresson. Martin Lasalle, Marika Green, Kassagi, Pierre Leymarie, Jean Pélégri, Dolly Scal, Pierre Étaix. A petty thief finds himself inexorably attracted to a life of crime and spurns a woman’s love to become a professional pickpocket. One of Bresson’s great films, a brilliantly shot and edited minimalist portrait of the criminal as an existentialist. Paul Schrader borrowed the moving finale for the end of AMERICAN GIGOLO.

Pick-up (1933) 80m. ½ D: Marion Gering. Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, Lillian Bond, William Harrigan, Clarence Wilson, Brooks Benedict, Robert McWade, Louise Beavers. Mildly entertaining drama about ex-con Sidney, who’s down on her luck. She conceals her identity and becomes involved with cab driver Raft.

Pickup (1951) 78m. ½ D: Hugo Haas. Beverly Michaels, Hugo Haas, Allan Nixon, Howland Chamberlin, Jo Carroll Dennison. First of writer-producer-director-actor Haas’ tawdry low-budget melodramas is a kind of poor man’s THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, with gold-digger Michaels marrying aging railroad inspector thinking he’s got lots of dough. Not as enjoyably bad as Hugo’s later efforts.

Pickup Alley (1957-British) 92m. ½ D: John Gilling. Victor Mature, Anita Ekberg, Trevor Howard, Eric Pohlmann. Lackluster account of federal agent’s trackdown of dope-smuggling syndicate. Original British title: INTERPOL. CinemaScope.

Pickup on South Street (1953) 80m. ½ D: Samuel Fuller. Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Richard Kiley, Murvyn Vye, Milburn Stone. Pickpocket Widmark inadvertently acquires top-secret microfilm and becomes target for espionage agents. Tough, brutal, well-made film, with superb performance by Ritter as street peddler who also sells information. Story by Dwight Taylor; screenplay by the director. Remade as THE CAPE TOWN AFFAIR.

Pickwick Papers, The (1952-British) 109m. D: Noel Langley. James Hayter, James Donald, Hermione Baddeley, Kathleen Harrison, Hermione Gingold, Joyce Grenfell, Alexander Gauge, Lionel Murton, Nigel Patrick, Harry Fowler, Donald Wolfit. Flavorful adaptation of Dickens’ classic about observations of English society by members of the Pickwick Club.

Picnic (1955) C-115m. ½ D: Joshua Logan. William Holden, Rosalind Russell, Kim Novak, Betty Field, Cliff Robertson, Arthur O’Connell, Verna Felton, Susan Strasberg, Nick Adams, Phyllis Newman, Elizabeth W. Wilson. Excellent film of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play about drifter (Holden) who stops over in Kansas, stealing alluring Novak from his old buddy Robertson (making his film debut). Russell and O’Connell almost walk away with the film in second leads, and supporting roles are expertly filled; adapted by Daniel Taradash. Remade in 2000 for TV. CinemaScope.

Picnic on the Grass (1959-French) C-91m. D: Jean Renoir. Paul Meurisse, Catherine Rouvel, Fernand Sardou, Jacqueline Morane, Ingrid Nordine, Jean-Pierre Granval. Enchanting romantic comedy depicting the intoxicating effect of Mother Nature and the charms of a sensual peasant girl on an uptight professor who’s running for political office on a platform of artificial insemination! Warm, colorful, irreverent satire; gorgeous Impressionistic visual style pays homage to Renoir’s famous artist father.

Picture of Dorian Gray, The (1945) 110m. ½ D: Albert Lewin. George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford, Lowell Gilmore; narrated by Cedric Hardwicke. Haunting Oscar Wilde story of man whose painting ages while he retains youth. Young Lansbury is poignant, singing “The Little Yellow Bird” (and her real-life mother Moyna MacGill is the Duchess). Sanders leaves indelible impression as elegant heavy. Several color inserts throughout the film. Harry Stradling’s cinematography won an Oscar. Remade in 1970 and 2009 as DORIAN GRAY and for TV in 1974, with Nigel Davenport.

Picture Snatcher (1933) 77m. D: Lloyd Bacon. James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Alice White, Patricia Ellis, Ralf Harolde. Fast, funny, exciting little film based on true story of daring photographer who got taboo photo of woman in electric chair. Remade as ESCAPE FROM CRIME.

Pied Piper, The (1942) 86m. D: Irving Pichel. Monty Woolley, Roddy McDowall, Otto Preminger, Anne Baxter, Peggy Ann Garner. Woolley, not very fond of children, finds himself leading a swarm of them on chase from the Nazis. Entertaining wartime film scripted by Nunnally Johnson from a Nevil Shute novel. Remade for TV as CROSSING TO FREEDOM (1990, with Peter O’Toole).

Pièges (1939-French) 115m. ½ D: Robert Siodmak. Maurice Chevalier, Marie Déa, Pierre Renoir, Erich von Stroheim, Jean Témerson, André Brunot, Jacques Varennes. Someone is bumping off Parisian women who answer personal column ads; a victim’s roommate poses as a decoy but falls in love with a nightclub entertainer who becomes the prime suspect. Change of pace for Chevalier is a fairly absorbing and stylish mystery that dissipates its suspense with time-outs for musical numbers. Siodmak’s last European film before he came to Hollywood. Remade in the U.S. as LURED.

Pierre of the Plains (1942) 66m. D: George B. Seitz. John Carroll, Ruth Hussey, Bruce Cabot, Phil Brown, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Evelyn Ankers, Sheldon Leonard. Carroll is a happy-go-lucky French-Canadian trapper who romances Hussey while getting into scrapes with the Northwest Mounted Police and Brooklynesque bad guys Cabot and Leonard. He also has a habit of regularly bursting into his favorite song, “Saskatchewan.” Cheerfully simple-minded B remake of a story filmed before in 1918 and 1922.

Pierrot le Fou (1965-French-Italian) C-110m. D: Jean-Luc Godard. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina, Dirk Sanders, Raymond Devus, Samuel Fuller, Jean-Pierre Léaud. Belmondo and Karina run away together to the South of France; he is leaving his rich wife, she is escaping her involvement with gangsters. Complex, confusing, but engrossing drama, which exudes an intriguing sense of spontaneity. Allegedly shot without a script; also shown at 90m. and 95m. Techniscope.

Pig Across Paris, A SEE: La Traversée de Paris

Pigeon That Took Rome, The (1962) 101m. ½ D: Melville Shavelson. Charlton Heston, Elsa Martinelli, Harry Guardino, Baccaloni, Marietto, Gabriella Pallotta, Debbie Price, Brian Donlevy. Sometimes amusing WW2 comedy of Heston, behind enemy lines, using pigeons to send message to Allies, romancing local girl in whose home he is based. Panavision.

Pigskin Parade (1936) 93m. D: David Butler. Stuart Erwin, Patsy Kelly, Jack Haley, Johnny Downs, Betty Grable, Arline Judge, Dixie Dunbar, Judy Garland, Anthony (Tony) Martin, Elisha Cook, Jr., Grady Sutton, The Yacht Club Boys. Entertaining college football musicomedy with Erwin the hayseed who becomes a gridiron hero, Kelly the coach’s wife who knows more about the game than the coach (Haley). Cook appears as an anarchy-spouting campus radical! Garland plays Erwin’s kid sister, in her feature debut, and she swings “It’s Love I’m After.” Alan Ladd appears as a student, and sings with The Yacht Club Boys.

Pilgrimage (1933) 95m. ½ D: John Ford. Henrietta Crosman, Heather Angel, Norman Foster, Marian Nixon, Lucille La Verne, Hedda Hopper, Charles Grapewin. Unusual film, beautifully directed by Ford, about old woman who breaks up son’s romance by sending him off to war (WW1), living to regret it, but finding solace on visit to France. Delicately sentimental, it works up to a point, then goes overboard, but still has some memorable sequences.

Pillars of the Sky (1956) C-95m. ½ D: George Marshall. Jeff Chandler, Dorothy Malone, Ward Bond, Keith Andes, Lee Marvin, Sydney Chaplin. Chandler is aptly cast as swaggering Army officer fighting Indians, courting Malone. CinemaScope.

Pillow of Death (1945) 66m. D: Wallace Fox. Lon Chaney, Jr., Brenda Joyce, J. Edward Bromberg, Rosalind Ivan, Clara Blandick. The final Inner Sanctum finds lawyer Chaney mixed up with spiritualists after the murder of his wife. The must-miss movie of 1945.

Pillow Talk (1959) C-102m. ½ D: Michael Gordon. Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter, Nick Adams, Julia Meade, Allen Jenkins, Lee Patrick, William Schallert, Frances Sternhagen. Rock pursues Doris, with interference from Randall and sideline witticisms from Ritter. Imaginative sex comedy has two stars sharing a party line without knowing each other’s identity. Fast-moving; plush sets, gorgeous fashions. Oscar-winning story and screenplay by Stanley Shapiro, Russell Rouse, Clarence Greene, and Maurice Richlin. CinemaScope.

Pillow to Post (1945) 92m. D: Vincent Sherman. Ida Lupino, Sydney Greenstreet, William Prince, Stuart Erwin, Ruth Donnelly, Barbara Brown, Willie Best, Louis Armstrong, Dorothy Dandridge, Bobby (Robert) Blake, William Conrad. Cornball WW2 comedy of oil supplies saleswoman Lupino having soldier Prince pose as her husband so she can get a room; good cast saddled with predictable script. A highlight: Armstrong and Dandridge’s all-too-brief appearance performing “What D’ya Say?”

Pilot #5 (1943) 70m. ½ D: George Sidney. Franchot Tone, Marsha Hunt, Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Alan Baxter, Dick Simmons. GI pilot Tone volunteers to take off from Java on a suicide mission. As he flies to his death, his buddies recall his troubled past (including his involvement with a Huey Long–like governor). Good cast uplifts so-so curio; it’s intriguing to see Kelly in a supporting part, as a morally bankrupt hothead. Watch for Peter Lawford at the opening, and see if you can spot Ava Gardner.

“Pimpernel” Smith (1941-British) 122m. D: Leslie Howard. Leslie Howard, Mary Morris, Francis L. Sullivan, Hugh McDermott. Zesty updating of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL to WW2, with Howard replaying the role of the savior of Nazi-hounded individuals. Retitled: MISTER V.

Pink Panther, The (1964) C-113m. ½ D: Blake Edwards. Peter Sellers, David Niven, Capucine, Robert Wagner, Claudia Cardinale, Brenda DeBanzie, John LeMesurier, Fran Jeffries. Delightful caper comedy introduced bumbling Inspector Clouseau to the world (as well as the cartoon character featured in the opening titles), so obsessed with catching notorious jewel thief “The Phantom” that he isn’t aware his quarry is also his wife’s lover! Loaded with great slapstick and especially clever chase sequence; beautiful European locations, memorable score by Henry Mancini. Remade in 2006. Followed by A SHOT IN THE DARK. Technirama.

Pinky (1949) 102m. D: Elia Kazan. Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters, Nina Mae McKinney, William Lundigan. Pioneer racial drama of black girl passing for white, returning to Southern home; still has impact, with fine support from Mmes. Waters and Barrymore.

Pinocchio (1940) C-88m. D: Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske. Voices of Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Cliff Edwards, Evelyn Venable, Walter Catlett, Frankie Darro. Walt Disney’s brilliant, timeless animated cartoon feature, based on the Collodi story about an inquisitive, tale-spinning wooden puppet who wants more than anything else to become a real boy. Technically dazzling, emotionally rich, with unforgettable characters and some of the scariest scenes ever put on film (Lampwick’s transformation into a jackass, the chase with Monstro the whale). A joy, no matter how many times you see it. Songs include Oscar-winning “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

Pinocchio in Outer Space (1964-U.S.-French) C-65m. D: Ray Goossens. Voices of Arnold Stang, Jess Cain. Watchable cartoon adventure for kids, with unmemorable songs.

Pin Up Girl (1944) C-83m. ½ D: Bruce Humberstone. Betty Grable, Martha Raye, John Harvey, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette, Mantan Moreland, Charlie Spivak Orchestra. One of Grable’s weaker vehicles, despite support from Raye and Brown; songs are nil, so is plot.

Pioneer Builders SEE: Conquerors, The

Pirate, The (1948) C-102m. D: Vincente Minnelli. Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Walter Slezak, Gladys Cooper, Reginald Owen, George Zucco, The Nicholas Brothers. Judy thinks circus clown Kelly is really Caribbean pirate; lavish costuming, dancing and Cole Porter songs (including “Be a Clown”) bolster stagy plot. Kelly’s dances are exhilarating, as usual. Based on S. N. Behrman play.

Pirate Ship SEE: Mutineers, The

Pirates of Blood River, The (1962-British) C-87m. D: John Gilling. Kerwin Mathews, Glenn Corbett, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, Oliver Reed, Andrew Keir, Peter Arne. Earnest but hackneyed account of Huguenots fighting off buccaneers. Hammerscope.

Pirates of Capri, The (1949) 94m. D: Edgar G. Ulmer. Louis Hayward, Binnie Barnes, Alan Curtis, Rudolph (Massimo) Serato. Below-average adventure film has Neapolitan natives revolting against tyrant. Lots of action but not much else. Filmed in Italy. Retitled: CAPTAIN SIROCCO.

Pirates of Monterey (1947) C-77m. D: Alfred L. Werker. Maria Montez, Rod Cameron, Mikhail Rasumny, Philip Reed, Gilbert Roland, Gale Sondergaard. Dull film of exciting period in history, the fight against Mexican control of California in the 1800s.

Pirates of Tripoli (1955) C-72m. D: Felix E. Feist. Paul Henreid, Patricia Medina, Paul Newland, John Miljan, William Fawcett. Veteran cast in tired costumer, with colorful scenery the only virtue.

Pirates on Horseback (1941) 69m. D: Lesley Selander. William Boyd, Russell Hayden, Andy Clyde, Eleanor Stewart, Morris Ankrum, William Haade, Dennis Moore, Britt Wood. Grizzled miner is murdered for his strike and relative Clyde journeys to claim inheritance, but no one, including shrewd, obsequious heel Ankrum, can locate prospector’s lost lode. Suspenseful film also makes time for comedy interludes. A wonderful showcase for the majestic Sierras and the Hoppy Cabin, where Boyd and his wife bunked while on location in Lone Pine.

Pistol for Ringo, A (1965-Italian-Spanish) C-99m. ½ D: Duccio Tessari. Montgomery Wood (Giuliano Gemma), Fernando Sancho, Hally Hammond (Lorella De Luca), Nieves Navarro, George Martin, Antonio Casas, José Manuel Martin. Former stuntman Gemma (billed here under his Anglicized pseudonym) became a star in this popular early spaghetti Western. Captured outlaw Ringo is set free to infiltrate a gang of Mexican bandidos who have robbed a bank and taken refuge on a ranch where the sheriff’s fiancée is among the hostages. Relatively lighthearted for the genre, but has some exciting action scenes and a good Ennio Morricone score. Followed by THE RETURN OF RINGO. Techniscope.

Pistol Packin’ Mama (1943) 64m. ½ D: Frank Woodruff. Ruth Terry, Robert Livingston, Wally Vernon, Jack La Rue, Kirk Alyn, Eddie Parker, Helen Talbot. After being cheated out of all her money by gambler Livingston, Terry moves to N.Y.C. and gets a job singing in his nightclub. Then she takes it over—at gunpoint! Terry is appealing in this grade-B fluff, which features the (Nat) King Cole Trio.

Pit and the Pendulum (1961) C-80m. ½ D: Roger Corman. Vincent Price, John Kerr, Barbara Steele, Luana Anders, Antony Carbone. Slick horror tale set right after Spanish Inquisition. Price thinks he is his late father, the most vicious torturer during bloody inquisition. Beautifully staged; watch out for that incredible pendulum . . . and bear with slow first half. The second of Corman’s Poe adaptations, scripted by Richard Matheson. Panavision.

Pitfall (1948) 84m. D: Andre de Toth. Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr, John Litel, Byron Barr. Married man’s brief extramarital fling may cost him his job and marriage. Intriguing film noir look at the American dream gone sour, typefied by Powell’s character, who’s got a house, a little boy, and a perfect wife—but feels bored and stifled.

Pittsburgh (1942) 90m. D: Lewis Seiler. Marlene Dietrich, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Frank Craven, Louise Allbritton, Thomas Gomez, Shemp Howard. Big John loves the coal and steel business more than he does Marlene, which leaves field open for rival Scott. Slow-moving.

Place in the Sun, A (1951) 122m. D: George Stevens. Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Keefe Brasselle, Raymond Burr, Anne Revere. Ambitious remake of Theodore Dreiser’s AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY derives most of its power from Clift’s brilliant performance, almost matched by Winters as plain girl who loses him to alluring Taylor. Depiction of the idle rich, and American morals, seems outdated, and Burr’s scenes as fiery D.A. are downright absurd. Everyone gets A for effort; six Oscars included Best Direction, Screenplay (Michael Wilson, Harry Brown), Score (Franz Waxman), Cinematography (William C. Mellor), Film Editing, and Costume Design.

Place of One’s Own, A (1945-British) 92m. ½ D: Bernard Knowles. James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Barbara Mullen, Dennis Price, Helen Haye, Ernest Thesiger. Well-made film about couple who buy “haunted” house, and young woman who becomes possessed by spirit of former owner. Well acted but low key. Mason plays unusual role of older, retired man.

Plainsman, The (1936) 113m. D: Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Porter Hall, Victor Varconi, Helen Burgess, John Miljan, Gabby Hayes, Paul Harvey, Frank McGlynn, Sr. Typical DeMille hokum, a big, outlandish Western which somehow manages to involve Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill, George Custer, and Abraham Lincoln in adventure of evil Bickford selling guns to the Indians. About as authentic as BLAZING SADDLES, but who cares—it’s still good fun. Look for Anthony Quinn as a Cheyenne warrior. Remade in 1966.

Plainsman and the Lady (1946) 87m. D: Joseph Kane. William Elliott, Vera Ralston, Gail Patrick, Joseph Schildkraut, Andy Clyde. Uninspiring saga of pony express pioneer battling slimy villains and winning lovely Ralston.

Planet of the Vampires (1965-Italian) C-86m. ½ D: Mario Bava. Barry Sullivan, Norma Bengell, Angel Aranda, Evi Marandi, Fernando Villena. Eerily photographed, atmospheric science-fantasy of spaceship looking for missing comrades on misty planet where strange power controls their minds. Shown on TV as THE DEMON PLANET.

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) 79m. BOMB D: Edward D. Wood, Jr. Gregory Walcott, Tom Keene, Duke Moore, Mona McKinnon, Dudley Manlove, Joanna Lee, Tor Johnson, Lyle Talbot, Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Criswell. Hailed as the worst movie ever made; certainly one of the funniest. Pompous aliens believe they can conquer Earth by resurrecting corpses from a San Fernando Valley cemetery. Lugosi died after two days’ shooting in 1956; his remaining scenes were played by a taller, younger man holding a cape over his face! So mesmerizingly awful it actually improves (so to speak) with each viewing. And remember: it’s all based on sworn testimony! Followed by REVENGE OF THE DEAD.

Planter’s Wife SEE: Outpost in Malaya

Plastic Age, The (1925) 73m. ½ D: Wesley Ruggles. Clara Bow, Donald Keith, Gilbert Roland, Mary Alden, Henry B. Walthall, David Butler. Athletic Keith heads off to Prescott College, where he’s diverted by campus “hotsy-totsy” Bow. Vintage fun, albeit ever-so-predictable. Young Clark Gable is prominently featured as a student.

Platinum Blonde (1931) 90m. D: Frank Capra. Jean Harlow, Loretta Young, Robert Williams, Louise Closser Hale, Donald Dillaway, Walter Catlett. Snappy comedy about wisecracking reporter who marries wealthy girl (Harlow) but can’t stand confinement of life among high society. Despite engaging presence of Harlow and Young, it’s Williams’ show all the way.

Platinum High School (1960) 93m. D: Charles Haas. Mickey Rooney, Terry Moore, Dan Duryea, Yvette Mimieux, Conway Twitty, Jimmy Boyd. Limp attempt at sensationalism, with Rooney a father discovering that his son’s death at school wasn’t accidental. Retitled: TROUBLE AT 16.

Playboy of the Western World, The (1962-Irish) C-100m. D: Brian Desmond Hurst. Gary Raymond, Siobhan McKenna, Elspeth March, Michael O’Brian, Liam Redmond, Niall MacGinnis. Simple and eloquent, if a bit stagy, version of J. M. Synge’s classic satire. Boyish, boastful Christy Mahon (Raymond) charms a small Irish village with his tale of how he did in his dad.

Play-Girl (1932) 60m. ½ D: Ray Enright. Winnie Lightner, Loretta Young, Norman Foster, Guy Kibbee, Dorothy Burgess, Noel Madison, James Ellison, Edward Van Sloan. Sassy pre-Code soaper about ambitious department store clerk Young, who’s determined not to fall in love. Brash Foster has other ideas—although he’s not what he appears to be.

Play Girl (1940) 75m. D: Frank Woodruff. Kay Francis, Nigel Bruce, James Ellison, Margaret Hamilton, Mildred Coles, Katharine Alexander. Contrived programmer with Francis playing an aging gold digger who takes pretty but destitute Coles under her wing, but doesn’t count on her protégée falling in love.

Playgirl (1954) 85m. ½ D: Joseph Pevney. Shelley Winters, Barry Sullivan, Gregg Palmer, Richard Long, Kent Taylor. Winters is most comfortable in drama about girl involved with gangsters.

Playgirl After Dark SEE: Too Hot to Handle (1959)

Playmates (1941) 94m. ½ D: David Butler. Kay Kyser, Lupe Velez, John Barrymore, May Robson, Patsy Kelly, Peter Lind Hayes. Poor musical “comedy” about a has-been Shakespearean actor who teams up with bandleader Kyser in order to pay back taxes. Crude and tasteless; this was Barrymore’s last film.

Please Believe Me (1950) 87m. ½ D: Norman Taurog. Deborah Kerr, Robert Walker, James Whitmore, Peter Lawford, Mark Stevens, Spring Byington. Pleasant fluff of Britisher Kerr aboard liner headed for America, wooed by assorted bachelors aboard, who think she’s an heiress.

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960) C-111m. D: Charles Walters. Doris Day, David Niven, Janis Paige, Spring Byington, Richard Haydn, Patsy Kelly, Jack Weston, Margaret Lindsay. Bright film based on Jean Kerr’s stories about a drama critic and his family. Doris sings title song; her kids are very amusing, as are Byington (the mother-in-law), Kelly (housekeeper), and especially Paige as a temperamental star. Later a TV series. CinemaScope.

Please! Mr. Balzac (1956-French) 99m. D: Marc Allegret. Daniel Gelin, Brigitte Bardot, Robert Hirsch, Darry Cowl. Low-brow THEODORA GOES WILD variation, following Bardot’s plight after she pens an anonymous, scandalous book. Scripted by Allegret and Roger Vadim. Aka MADEMOISELLE STRIPTEASE and PLUCKING THE DAISY.

Please Murder Me (1956) 78m. ½ D: Peter Godfrey. Angela Lansbury, Raymond Burr, Dick Foran, John Dehner, Lamont Johnson, Denver Pyle. Just before signing on as Perry Mason, Burr played a lawyer in this moderately intriguing mystery. He’s become romantically involved with Lansbury, the wife of his best pal, and represents her when she kills her hubby. Paging Della Street and Paul Drake!

Please Turn Over (1960-British) 86m. ½ D: Gerald Thomas. Ted Ray, Jean Kent, Leslie Phillips, Joan Sims, Julia Lockwood, Tim Seely. OK froth about teen daughter’s lurid novel-writing and the repercussions it causes.

Pleasure Cruise (1933) 72m. ½ D: Frank Tuttle. Roland Young, Genevieve Tobin, Ralph Forbes, Una O’Connor, Herbert Mundin, Minna Gombell. Husband and wife take separate vacations, but he jealously follows her on board ocean liner. Chic Lubitsch-like comedy runs out of steam halfway through.

Pleasure Garden, The (1925-British) 75m. D: Alfred Hitchcock. Virginia Valli, Carmelita Geraghty, Miles Mander, John Stuart, George Snell. Hitchcock’s first feature, shot in Munich; uneven account of a pair of chorus girls, one (Valli) sweet and knowing, the other (Geraghty) a waif who becomes a glamorous bitch. Forgettable silent melodrama.

Pleasure of His Company, The (1961) C-115m. ½ D: George Seaton. Fred Astaire, Lilli Palmer, Debbie Reynolds, Tab Hunter, Gary Merrill, Charlie Ruggles. Delightful fluff, from Samuel Taylor and Cornelia Otis Skinner’s play about charming ex-husband who comes to visit, enchanting his daughter and hounding his wife’s new husband. Entire cast in rare form. Taylor also scripted.

Pleasure Seekers, The (1964) C-107m. ½ D: Jean Negulesco. Ann-Margret, Pamela Tiffin, Tony Franciosa, Carol Lynley, Gene Tierney, Brian Keith, Gardner McKay, Isobel Elsom. Glossy, semi-musical remake of THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (by same director) about three girls seeking fun and romance in Spain. CinemaScope.

Plot Thickens, The (1936) 67m. ½ D: Ben Holmes. James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Oscar Apfel, Owen Davis, Jr., Arthur Aylesworth, Paul Fix, Barbara Barondess. Pitts takes on the role of sleuthing schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers for this amiable comic whodunit with a plot that (as the title indicates) grows more elaborate as it goes along.

Plough and the Stars, The (1936) 78m. D: John Ford. Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Barry Fitzgerald, Una O’Connor, J. M. Kerrigan, Bonita Granville, Arthur Shields. Dreary, theatrical filmization of Sean O’Casey’s play with Foster as Irish revolutionary leader and Stanwyck as long-suffering wife who fears for his life; script by Dudley Nichols.

Plucking the Daisy SEE: Please! Mr. Balzac

Plunderers, The (1948) C-87m. D: Joseph Kane. Rod Cameron, Ilona Massey, Adrian Booth, Forrest Tucker. OK Republic Western involving outlaws and Army joining forces against rampaging redskins: clichés are there.

Plunderers, The (1960) 93m. ½ D: Joseph Pevney. Jeff Chandler, John Saxon, Dolores Hart, Marsha Hunt, Jay C. Flippen, Ray Stricklyn, James Westerfield. Above-par study of outlaws interacting with honest townsfolk.

Plunderers of Painted Flats (1959) 77m. ½ D: Albert C. Gannaway. Corinne Calvet, John Carroll, Skip Homeier, George Macready, Edmund Lowe, Bea Benadaret, Madge Kennedy, Joe Besser. Flabby Western of cowpoke seeking his father’s killer. Filmed in widescreen Naturama.

Plunder of the Sun (1953) 81m. ½ D: John Farrow. Glenn Ford, Diana Lynn, Patricia Medina, Francis L. Sullivan, Sean McClory. Competent cast in above-average goings-on. Ford is down-and-out American involved with treasure hunt and murder in Mexico.

Plunder Road (1957) 71m. ½ D: Hubert Cornfield. Gene Raymond, Jeanne Cooper, Wayne Morris, Elisha Cook (Jr.), Stafford Repp, Steven Ritch. Unusual, atmospheric crime tale involving an elaborate train heist and the dreams, frustrations, personalities, and fates of the perpetrators, led by cold-blooded Raymond. Regalscope.

Plymouth Adventure (1952) C-105m. ½ D: Clarence Brown. Spencer Tracy, Gene Tierney, Van Johnson, Leo Genn, Dawn Addams, Lloyd Bridges, Barry Jones. Superficial soap opera, glossily done, of the cynical captain of the Mayflower (Tracy) and the settlers who sailed from England to New England in the 17th century. This won an Oscar for its special effects.

Poacher’s Daughter, The (1960-Irish) 74m. ½ D: George Pollock. Julie Harris, Harry Brogan, Tim Seeley, Marie Keen, Brid Lynch, Noel Magee. Harris lends authenticity in title role as simple girl who straightens out her philandering boyfriend. Originally titled SALLY’S IRISH ROGUE.

Pocketful of Miracles (1961) C-136m. ½ D: Frank Capra. Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Hope Lange, Arthur O’Connell, Thomas Mitchell, Peter Falk, Edward Everett Horton, Ann-Margret, Mickey Shaughnessy, David Brian, Sheldon Leonard, Barton MacLane, John Litel, Jerome Cowan, Fritz Feld, Jack Elam, Ellen Corby. Capra’s final film, a remake of his 1933 LADY FOR A DAY, is just as sentimental, but doesn’t work as well. Bette is Apple Annie, a Damon Runyon character; Ford is Dave the Dude, the racketeer who turns her into a lady. Ann-Margret is appealing in her first film. Panavision.

Poil de Carotte (1925-French) 108m. ½ D: Julien Duvivier. Henry Krauss, Charlotte Barbier-Krauss, André Heuzé, Fabien Haziza, Renée Jean, Lydia Zaréna, Suzanne Talba. Heart-tugging, stunningly visual portrait of a young boy (Heuzé) who suffers a Dickensian existence in rural France. Scenario (by Duvivier from Jules Renard’s novel) spotlights his fears and travails, and his complex relationship with his oblivious father (Krauss) and abusive mother (mustachioed Barbier-Krauss, who resembles a young Leo G. Carroll). Duvivier remade this in 1932; also remade in 1952 and 1972, as an animated TV series, and for French TV.

Poil de Carotte (1932-French) 91m. ½ D: Julien Duvivier. Harry Baur, Robert Lynen, Catherine Fonteney, Louis Gauthier, Simone Aubry, Christiane Dor, Maxime Fromiot. Lynen is impressive as a dejected young boy who’s saddled with an unfeeling mother (Fonteney) and self-absorbed father (superbly played by Baur). Heartbreaking and unforgettable; imaginatively directed, with a flair for the poetic. Duvivier also scripted, from Jules Renard’s novel; he previously filmed this in 1925. Remade in 1952 and 1972, as an animated TV series, and for French TV.

Politics (1931) 71m. ½ D: Charles Riesner. Marie Dressler, Polly Moran, Roscoe Ates, Karen Morley, William Bakewell, John Miljan, Joan Marsh, Kane Richmond. Dressler runs for mayor (with Moran as her campaign manager) when a young girl is killed in a speakeasy, but then discovers her own daughter is in love with one of the crooks involved. Sociologically fascinating comedy-drama for the crowd-pleasing team of Dressler and Moran. Ates is hilarious as a stuttering barber.

Pollyanna (1920) 60m. D: Paul Powell. Mary Pickford, Katherine Griffith, Herbert Ralston, Helen Jerome Eddy, William Courtleigh, Herbert Prior. Delightful silent-film adaptation of Eleanor Porter’s book about “the glad girl,” who smiles through adversity and brings cheer even to the crabby old aunt who takes her in when she’s orphaned. Pickford is at her most charming; neat blend of sentiment, slapstick, and wholesome ideals. Remade by Disney in 1960.

Pollyanna (1960) C-134m. ½ D: David Swift. Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Richard Egan, Karl Malden, Nancy Olson, Adolphe Menjou, Donald Crisp, Agnes Moorehead. Disney’s treatment of Eleanor Porter story is first-rate, as “the glad girl” spreads cheer to misanthropes of a New England town, including her own Aunt Polly (Wyman). Fine direction and script by Swift, excellent performances all around. Mills was awarded a special Oscar for Outstanding Juvenile Performance. First filmed in 1920 with Mary Pickford. Remade for TV in 1989 as POLLY.

Polly of the Circus (1932) 69m. D: Alfred Santell. Clark Gable, Marion Davies, Raymond Hatton, C. Aubrey Smith, David Landau, Maude Eburne. Ill-conceived vehicle for Davies as sexy trapeze artist who falls in love with minister Gable. Ray Milland has bit part as church usher.

Polo Joe (1936) 62m. D: William McGann. Joe E. Brown, Carol Hughes, Skeets Gallagher, Joseph King, Gordon (Bill) Elliott, George E. Stone. Typical Brown comedy in which Joe’s got to learn polo fast to impress his girl.

Pontius Pilate (1962-Italian-French) C-100m. D: Irving Rapper. Jean Marais, Jeanne Crain, Basil Rathbone, John Drew Barrymore, Massimo Serato, Leticia Roman. Adequate retelling of events before and after Christ’s crucifixion from viewpoint of Roman procurator. Dubbing and confused script hamper good intentions. Barrymore plays Christ and Judas. CinemaScope.

Pony Express (1953) C-101m. D: Jerry Hopper. Charlton Heston, Rhonda Fleming, Jan Sterling, Forrest Tucker, Michael Moore, Porter Hall. Exuberant action Western (set in 1860s) about the founding of mail routes from Missouri to California, with Buffalo Bill (Heston) and Wild Bill Hickok (Tucker) attempting to scuttle plot to destroy east-west communications and have California secede from the Union.

Pony Soldier (1952) C-82m. ½ D: Joseph M. Newman. Tyrone Power, Cameron Mitchell, Robert Horton, Thomas Gomez, Penny Edwards. Power is sturdy in actioner about Canadian mounties and their efforts to stave off Indian war.

Poor Little Rich Girl, The (1917) 75m. ½ D: Maurice Tourneur. Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley, Gladys Fairbanks, Frank McGlynn, Sr. Mary plays the good-hearted titular character, who is ignored by her wealthy, money-driven father and social-climbing mother. Unsubtle, to put it mildly, but generally entertaining morality tale provides a custom-made role for the charming Pickford (then 25, playing an 11-year-old) as well as a strange, surreal dream sequence. Frances Marion adapted the play by Eleanor Gates.

Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) 72m. ½ D: Irving Cummings. Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Jack Haley, Gloria Stuart, Michael Whalen, Jane Darwell, Claude Gillingwater, Henry Armetta. One of Shirley’s best films, a top musical on any terms, with Temple running away from home, joining vaudeville team of Haley and Faye, winning over crusty Gillingwater, eventually joining her father (Whalen) and lovely Stuart. Best of all is closing “Military Man” number. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Poor Rich, The (1934) 76m. D: Edward Sedgwick. Edward Everett Horton, Edna May Oliver, Andy Devine, Leila Hyams, Grant Mitchell, Thelma Todd, Una O’Connor, E. E. Clive, John Miljan. Impoverished Oliver urges her equally threadbare cousin Horton to marry money, so they try to fix up their run-down family mansion to impress the potential bride’s family. Slack-paced grade-B comedy with a cast of old pros, including young Ward Bond and Walter Brennan in bit parts.

Poppy (1936) 75m. ½ D: A. Edward Sutherland. W. C. Fields, Rochelle Hudson, Richard Cromwell, Catherine Doucet, Lynne Overman. Fields re-creates his stage role as ever-conniving carnival man traveling with daughter Hudson. Too much romantic subplot, not enough of W.C.’s antics. The Great Man also starred in a silent version, SALLY OF THE SAWDUST.

Porgy and Bess (1959) C-138m. ½ D: Otto Preminger. Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis, Jr., Brock Peters, Diahann Carroll, Ivan Dixon, Clarence Muse. Classic Gershwin folk opera about love, dreams, and jealousy among poor folk of Catfish Row; a bit stiff, but full of incredible music: “Summertime,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “I Got Plenty of Nothin.” Davis shines as Sportin’ Life. Music arrangers Andre Previn and Ken Darby won Oscars. Final film of producer Samuel Goldwyn. Originally released at 146m. with overture, intermission/entr’acte, exit music. Todd-AO.

Pork Chop Hill (1959) 97m. D: Lewis Milestone. Gregory Peck, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn, George Peppard, James Edwards, Bob Steele, George Shibata, Biff Elliot, Woody Strode, Robert Blake, Norman Fell, Martin Landau, Bert Remsen, (Harry) Dean Stanton, Gavin MacLeod. Gritty Korean War combat film about the taking of a seemingly worthless hill, and the political (and communications) problems that interfere with lieutenant Peck’s efforts to get the job done. Impressive cast of stars-to-be. Based on a true story.

Port Afrique (1956-British) C-92m. D: Rudolph Maté. Pier Angeli, Phil Carey, Eugene Deckers, James Hayter, Rachel Gurney, Anthony Newley, Christopher Lee. Bernard Dyer’s picaresque actioner gets middling screen version; adulterous wife’s past comes to light when husband investigates her death.

Portland Exposé (1957) 71m. D: Harold Schuster. Edward Binns, Carolyn Craig, Virginia Gregg, Russ Conway, Lawrence Dobkin, Frank Gorshin, Joseph Marr, Rusty Lane. Family man vows to nail the ruthless mobsters who turned his neighborhood tavern into a den of iniquity and assaulted his teenage daughter. Taut, trim, and quite nasty entry in the string of ’50s true-life crime exposés, well shot on real locations. Gorshin is memorably creepy as a thug with a weakness for jailbait.

Port of Call (1948-Swedish) 95m. D: Ingmar Bergman. Nine-Christine Jonsson, Bengt Eklund, Erik Hell, Berta Hall, Mimi Nelson. Slim, minor early Bergman drama about troubled young outcast Jonsson and her relationship with seaman Eklund. Setting is a grim harbor slum, and film’s ultimately hopeful, upbeat tone just doesn’t ring true.

Port of Hell (1954) 80m. ½ D: Harold D. Schuster. Dane Clark, Carole Mathews, Wayne Morris, Marshall Thompson, Marjorie Lord, Hal (Harold) Peary, Otto Waldis, Tom Hubbard. Tensions mount when Clark, warden of the Port of Los Angeles, imposes tough new rules and falls for tug captain Morris’ sister (Mathews). Then it’s learned a nuclear bomb is set to explode in one of the harbor’s ships. Trim thriller with an unusual premise features extensive location shooting.

Port of New York (1949) 86m. D: Laslo Benedek. Scott Brady, Richard Rober, K. T. Stevens, Yul Brynner. Gloomy tale of customs agents cracking down on narcotics smuggling; Brynner’s film debut . . . with hair!

Port of Seven Seas (1938) 81m. D: James Whale. Wallace Beery, Frank Morgan, Maureen O’Sullivan, John Beal, Jessie Ralph. Marcel Pagnol’s FANNY isn’t quite suitable Beery material, but he and good cast try their best as O’Sullivan falls in love with adventuresome sailor in Marseilles. Script by Preston Sturges.

Port of Shadows (1938-French) 91m. D: Marcel Carné. Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, Pierre Brasseur, (René) Génin, (Marcel) Perez (Pérès), (Roger) Legris. Atmospheric, poetic-realist account of a loner, world-weary Army deserter Gabin (perfectly cast), who wanders into the port city of Le Havre and comes in contact with various characters, including Morgan, who is lusted after by her seemingly erudite guardian (Simon) and a wimpy petty thug (Brasseur). Jacques Prévert’s script, from Pierre Mac Orlan’s novel, is crammed with grim philosophizing and cynicism, as if the film’s makers smell the coming of WW2 and can only stand aside and shrug their shoulders in despair.

Portrait in Black (1960) C-112m. ½ D: Michael Gordon. Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Richard Basehart, Lloyd Nolan, Ray Walston, Anna May Wong. Average murder/blackmail mystery filled with gaping holes that producer Ross Hunter tried to hide with glamorous decor and offbeat casting.

Portrait of Alison SEE: Postmark for Danger

Portrait of a Mobster (1961) 108m. ½ D: Joseph Pevney. Vic Morrow, Leslie Parrish, Peter Breck, Ray Danton, Norman Alden, Ken Lynch. Pretty good gangster movie following the career of Dutch Schultz (Morrow), centering on his relationship with a woman who marries a crooked cop. Danton reprises his role as Legs Diamond from THE RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND.

Portrait of an Assassin (1949-French) 86m. ½ D: Bernard-Roland. Maria Montez, Erich von Stroheim, Arletty, Pierre Brasseur, (Marcel) Dalio, Marcel Dieudonné, Jules Berry. Carnival motorcycle stunt rider Brasseur, determined to murder wife Arletty, accidentally shoots another woman and finds himself involved with sultry Montez and crippled von Stroheim. Diverting tale of twisted love will interest fans of Montez and von Stroheim.

Portrait of a Sinner (1959-British) 96m. ½ D: Robert Siodmak. William Bendix, Nadja Tiller, Tony Britton, Donald Wolfit, Adrienne Corri, Joyce Carey. Tiller is effective in leading role as corrupting female who taints all in her path. Based on Robin Maugham story. Original British title: THE ROUGH AND THE SMOOTH.

Portrait of Clare (1951-British) 94m. D: Lance Comfort. Margaret Johnston, Richard Todd, Robin Bailey, Ronald Howard. Unpretentious little film, pegged on gimmick of woman telling granddaughter about her past romances.

Portrait of Jennie (1948) 86m. D: William Dieterle. Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe, Henry Hull, Florence Bates, Felix Bressart. Strange otherworldly girl (Jones) inspires penniless artist Cotten. David O. Selznick craftsmanship and a fine cast work wonders with foolish story based on the Robert Nathan novella. Originally released with last reel tinted green and final shot in Technicolor; the special effects earned an Academy Award.

Port Sinister (1953) 65m. D: Harold Daniels. James Warren, Lynne Roberts, Paul Cavanagh, William Schallert, House Peters, Jr., Eric Colmar. Sunken pirate stronghold island Port Royal rises again from Caribbean depths. Modest, somewhat dull B movie with stilted dialogue and a few giant crabs; unusual premise keeps it watchable, but little more.

Posse From Hell (1961) C-89m. ½ D: Herbert Coleman. Audie Murphy, John Saxon, Zohra Lampert, Vic Morrow, Lee Van Cleef. Gunslinger Murphy, a loner, agrees to pursue four deadly outlaws after they’ve robbed a bank and kidnapped a young woman, but he’s saddled with an inexperienced posse. Murphy vehicle is surprisingly thoughtful and well written.

Possessed (1931) 76m. D: Clarence Brown. Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Wallace Ford, Skeets Gallagher, John Miljan. Factory girl Crawford becomes the mistress of Park Avenue lawyer Gable. Fascinating feminist drama, crammed with symbolism and featuring a radiant Crawford. Outrageous pre-Code script by Lenore Coffee.

Possessed (1947) 108m. D: Curtis Bernhardt. Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges. Crawford gives fine performance in intelligent study of woman whose subtle mental problems lead to ruin. Heflin and Massey are the men in her life; Brooks, as Massey’s daughter, is radiant in her film debut. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Postal Inspector (1936) 58m. D: Otto Brower. Ricardo Cortez, Patricia Ellis, Michael Loring, Bela Lugosi, David Oliver, Wallis Clark. A real-life postal inspector’s life could never be this unusual: a novel romantic tale, a big robbery, and a major flood are all worked into this routine B picture. Lugosi plays a nightclub owner forced into crime by gambling debts. Oh, yes, there’s also a song titled “Let’s Have Bluebirds on All Our Wallpaper.”

Postman Always Rings Twice, The (1946) 113m. D: Tay Garnett. Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Audrey Totter, Leon Ames, Alan Reed, Wally Cassell. Garfield and Turner ignite the screen in this bristling drama of lovers whose problems just begin when they do away with her husband (Kellaway). Despite complaints of changes in James M. Cain’s original story (mostly for censorship purposes), the film packs a real punch and outshines the more explicit 1981 remake. Harry Ruskin and Niven Busch scripted (from Cain’s novel). Filmed twice before, in France and Italy. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Postman’s Knock (1962-British) 87m. D: Robert Lynn. Spike Milligan, Barbara Shelley, John Wood, Miles Malleson, Ronald Adam, Wilfrid Lawson. Milligan is an overly efficient postal worker who upsets the equilibrium of the London post office—and some ambitious thieves. Scattered laughs in this heavy-handed comedy.

Postmark for Danger (1955-British) 84m. ½ D: Guy Green. Terry Moore, Robert Beatty, William Sylvester, Geoffrey Keen, Josephine Griffin, Allan Cuthbertson. Hokey, overbaked murder mystery about what happens when an artist’s journalist brother is “accidentally” killed in a car crash, and the actress who supposedly died with him mysteriously appears. Original British title: PORTRAIT OF ALISON.

Potemkin SEE: Battleship Potemkin

Pot o’ Gold (1941) 86m. D: George Marshall. James Stewart, Paulette Goddard, Horace Heidt, Charles Winninger, Mary Gordon, Jed Prouty. Very minor item about harmonica-playing, music-mad Stewart, and his experiences with a band of struggling musicians. Stewart called this his worst movie! Look briefly for Art Carney as a radio announcer.

Powder River (1953) C-78m. D: Louis King. Rory Calhoun, Corrine Calvet, Cameron Mitchell, Carl Betz. Straightforward minor Western, with Calhoun becoming town sheriff and clearing up a friend’s murder.

Powdersmoke Range (1935) 72m. D: Wallace Fox. Harry Carey, Hoot Gibson, Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, Tom Tyler, Bob Steele, Sam Hardy, Boots Mallory, Sam Hardy, Buzz Barton, Wally Wales, Art Mix, Buffalo Bill, Jr. (Jay Wilsey), Buddy Roosevelt, Franklyn Farnum, William Farnum. Partners Carey, Gibson, and Williams come to the aid of ex-con Steele, who’s run up against town boss Hardy. Likable stars are lost in this snail-like story with bad dialogue and a paucity of action. Tyler steals the show as a hired gun. Touted as “the Barnum and Bailey of Westerns,” this was the first film based on William Colt MacDonald’s Three Mesquiteers characters.

Powder Town (1942) 79m. D: Rowland V. Lee. Victor McLaglen, Edmond O’Brien, June Havoc, Dorothy Lovett, Eddie Foy, Jr., Damian O’Flynn, Marten Lamont, Marion Martin. O’Brien is an eccentric scientist working to develop a secret explosive, clashing with plant foreman McLaglen, who’s assigned to keep watch and ferret out spies. Humdrum, talky WW2 propaganda is, curiously, played mainly for laughs.

Power and the Glory, The (1933) 76m. D: William K. Howard. Spencer Tracy, Colleen Moore, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson. Considered by many a precursor to CITIZEN KANE, Preston Sturges’ script tells rags-to-riches story of callous industrialist (Tracy) in flashback. Silent-star Moore gives sensitive performance as Tracy’s wife.

Power and the Prize, The (1956) 98m. ½ D: Henry Koster. Robert Taylor, Elisabeth Mueller, Burl Ives, Charles Coburn, Cedric Hardwicke, Mary Astor. Sporadically effective study of big men in corporation and their private lives. CinemaScope.

Power of the Press (1943) 64m. D: Lew Landers. Guy Kibbee, Gloria Dickson, Otto Kruger, Lee Tracy, Victor Jory, Minor Watson, Larry Parks. Hard-hitting but dramatically clumsy B movie about small-town newspaperman Kibbee, who challenges N.Y.C. publisher Kruger, a power-hungry isolationist out to foment dissent amongst the public. Sam Fuller’s story is more intriguing for its ambition than its execution.

Power of the Whistler (1945) 66m. ½ D: Lew Landers. Richard Dix, Janis Carter, Jeff Donnell, Loren Tindall, Tala Birell, John Abbott. Carter tries to help amnesiac Dix recall his identity, only to discover that he’s an escaped psycho killer. Third Whistler entry is a little padded but still genuinely eerie.

Powers Girl, The (1942) 93m. D: Norman Z. McLeod. George Murphy, Anne Shirley, Dennis Day, Benny Goodman, Carole Landis, Alan Mowbray. Trifling plot revolving about Shirley’s attempt to become member of famed modeling school, with musical numbers tossed in.

Practically Yours (1944) 90m. D: Mitchell Leisen. Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Gil Lamb, Robert Benchley, Rosemary DeCamp, Cecil Kellaway. Stars’ expertise redeems contrived story of girl intercepting pilot’s message to his dog.

Prairie Moon (1938) 58m. D: Ralph Staub. Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Shirley Deane, Tommy Ryan, Walter Tetley, David Gorcey, Stanley Andrews, William Pawley, Warner Richmond. Gangster Pawley is gunned down, but before he dies he makes childhood friend Gene swear to take care of his three tough sons. They soon learn the ways of the West and help bring rustlers to justice. Odd combo of Autry and would-be Dead End Kids adds only spark to standard B Western, with Gene singing (and yodeling) “He’s in the Jailhouse Now.”

Prehistoric Women (1950) C-74m. BOMB D: Gregg Tallas. Laurette Luez, Allan Nixon, Joan Shawlee, Judy Landon, Jo Carroll Dennison. Sexy, lonely cavewomen (who have their hair permed and faces made up!) set out to find some cave-hunks. Incredibly silly—and incredibly boring—programmer.

Prehistoric World SEE: Teenage Cave Man

Prelude to Murder SEE: Dressed to Kill (1946)

Premature Burial (1962) C-81m. D: Roger Corman. Ray Milland, Hazel Court, Richard Ney, Heather Angel, Alan Napier, John Dierkes. Title tells the story in another of Corman’s Poe adaptations, with Milland oddly cast as medical student with phobia of accidental entombment. Lavish (for this series), but not one of director’s best. Panavision.

Premier May SEE: Man to Man Talk

Presenting Lily Mars (1943) 104m. D: Norman Taurog. Judy Garland, Van Heflin, Fay Bainter, Richard Carlson, Spring Byington, Marta Eggerth, Marilyn Maxwell, Ray McDonald, Leonid Kinskey, Connie Gilchrist, Bob Crosby, Tommy Dorsey. Well, there she is, and there lies the script. Stale story of determined girl getting big chance on Broadway only comes alive when Judy sings. From a Booth Tarkington novel.

President’s Lady, The (1953) 96m. D: Henry Levin. Charlton Heston, Susan Hayward, John McIntire, Fay Bainter, Carl Betz. Heston as Andrew Jackson and Hayward the lady with a past he marries work well together in this fictional history of 1800s America, based on the Irving Stone novel. Heston would again play “Old Hickory” five years later in THE BUCCANEER.

President’s Mystery, The (1936) 80m. D: Phil Rosen. Henry Wilcoxon, Betty Furness, Sidney Blackmer, Evelyn Brent, Barnett Parker. Utterly fascinating Depression-era curio about a prominent lawyer/lobbyist (Wilcoxon) who reluctantly helps greedy capitalists kill some pro–labor/small business legislation. Believing his life empty, he liquidates his assets and “reinvents” himself—but not without murderous complications. This would make a great double bill with King Vidor’s OUR DAILY BREAD. Based on an idea by F.D.R., developed as a magazine article by six writers (including S. S. Van Dine)! Screenplay by Lester Cole and Nathanael West. Beware 53m. version.

President Vanishes, The (1934) 83m. D: William A. Wellman. Edward Arnold, Arthur Byron, Paul Kelly, Peggy Conklin, Andy Devine, Janet Beecher, Osgood Perkins, Sidney Blackmer, Edward Ellis, Irene Franklin, Charles Grapewin, Rosalind Russell. The American president fakes his own kidnapping in order to thwart an avaricious group of business tycoons who use propaganda and a fascist group called the Grey Shirts to force the U.S. into taking part in a European war. Utterly fascinating and still-timely political fable, if not always believable. Based on a novel by an anonymous author who was later revealed to be Rex Stout.

Pressure Point (1962) 91m. D: Hubert Cornfield. Sidney Poitier, Bobby Darin, Peter Falk, Carl Benton Reid, Mary Munday, Barry Gordon, Howard Caine. Intelligent drama, with Poitier the prison psychiatrist trying to ferret out the problems of his Nazi patient (Darin). Based on a true case from Dr. Robert M. Lindner’s The Fifty-Minute Hour.

Prestige (1932) 71m. ½ D: Tay Garnett. Ann Harding, Melvyn Douglas, Adolphe Menjou, Clarence Muse, Ian MacLaren. Flamboyant direction and solid performances elevate hackneyed melodrama about life at French Army outpost in the Far East where White Supremacy—and Douglas’ sanity—are threatened.

Pretender, The (1947) 69m. ½ D: W. Lee Wilder. Albert Dekker, Catherine Craig, Linda Stirling, Charles Drake, Charles Middleton, Alan Carney. Dekker gives sharply etched performance as N.Y.C. financier trying to do in a competitor, discovering he may be the victim instead.

Pretty Baby (1950) 92m. D: Bretaigne Windust. Dennis Morgan, Betsy Drake, Zachary Scott, Edmund Gwenn, Barbara Billingsley. Coy minor comedy involving working girl Drake, who snowballs a gimmick to get a subway seat on the morning train into a good job and romance.

Pretty Boy Floyd (1960) 96m. D: Herbert J. Leder. John Ericson, Barry Newman, Joan Harvey, Herb (Jason) Evers, Carl York, Peter Falk, Roy Fant, Shirley Smith. Average chronicle of infamous 1930s gangster, played energetically by Ericson.

Preview Murder Mystery, The (1936) 62m. D: Robert Florey. Reginald Denny, Frances Drake, Gail Patrick, Rod La Rocque, Ian Keith, George Barbier. A murderer stalks a movie studio preying on the cast and director of a new production. Stylish, lightning-paced B movie from Florey, with a nifty mystery and good studio atmosphere. Cast features former silent-film stars, including Conway Tearle, Jack Mulhall, Bryant Washburn, Franklyn Farnum, and Chester Conklin.

Price of Fear, The (1956) 79m. ½ D: Abner Biberman. Merle Oberon, Lex Barker, Charles Drake, Gia Scala, Warren Stevens. Middling account of Oberon involved in hit-and-run accident which snowballs her life into disaster.

Pride and Prejudice (1940) 118m. D: Robert Z. Leonard. Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Edna May Oliver, Edmund Gwenn, Mary Boland, Maureen O’Sullivan, Karen Morley, Melville Cooper, E. E. Clive, Ann Rutherford, Marsha Hunt. Outstanding adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel about five husband-hunting sisters in 19th-century England. Excellent cast, fine period flavor in classic comedy of manners; Aldous Huxley was one of the screenwriters. Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse’s art direction deservedly earned an Oscar. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Pride and the Passion, The (1957) C-132m. ½ D: Stanley Kramer. Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren, Theodore Bikel, John Wengraf. Miscast actioner involving capture of huge cannon by British naval officer (Grant) in 19th-century Spain. Spectacle scenes—filmed on location—are impressive; but most of the film is ridiculous. From the C. S. Forester novel. VistaVision.

Pride of St. Louis, The (1952) 93m. ½ D: Harmon Jones. Dan Dailey, Joanne Dru, Richard Crenna, Hugh Sanders, Richard Hylton, James Brown. Dailey does well in this otherwise formula biography of brash, colorful Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean. Watch for Chet Huntley as a baseball broadcaster.

Pride of the Blue Grass (1954) C-71m. D: William Beaudine. Lloyd Bridges, Vera Miles, Margaret Sheridan, Arthur Shields, Joan Shawlee. Familiar racetrack story; competent production.

Pride of the Bowery (1941) 61m. D: Joseph H. Lewis. Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, Donald Haines, Bobby Stone, Carleton Young, Kenneth Howell, David Gorcey, Mary Ainslee. The East Side Kids are sent to a Civilian Conservation Corps. camp where Muggs is in training for a big boxing match; some well-shot ring scenes.

Pride of the Marines (1945) 119m. ½ D: Delmer Daves. John Garfield, Eleanor Parker, Dane Clark, John Ridgely, Rosemary DeCamp, Ann Doran, Ann Todd, Warren Douglas. Ensemble acting by Warner Bros. stock company enhances true account of Marine blinded during Japanese attack, with Garfield as injured Al Schmid, Clark as sympathetic buddy. Screenplay by Albert Maltz.

Pride of the West (1938) 55m. ½ D: Lesley Selander. William Boyd, George Hayes, Russell Hayden, Earle Hodgins, Charlotte Field, Billy King. After stage holdup, Hopalong Cassidy rides to rescue Bar 20 pals and determines town banker is behind wrongdoing. Compact, well mounted, if a bit slow; adapted from series creator Clarence E. Mulford’s 1920 novel Johnny Nelson. In tribute to Russell Harlan’s picturesque photography, extraordinary credit line reads, “Photographed near Lone Pine, California, in the shadow of majestic Mt. Whitney.”

Pride of the Yankees, The (1942) 127m. D: Sam Wood. Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, Babe Ruth, Walter Brennan, Dan Duryea, Ludwig Stossel, Addison Richards, Hardie Albright. Superb biography of baseball star Lou Gehrig, with Cooper giving excellent performance; fine support from Wright as devoted wife. Truly memorable final sequence. Script by Jo Swerling and Herman J. Mankiewicz, with Oscar-winning editing by Daniel Mandell. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Prime Minister, The (1941-British) 109m. ½ D: Thorold Dickinson. John Gielgud, Diana Wynyard, Will Fyffe, Owen Nares, Fay Compton, Pamela Standish, Frederick Leister, Lyn Harding. Episodic account of the life and works of Benjamin Disraeli. Gielgud at 37 ages from a budding novelist of 30 to an elder statesman of 70, painting the Tory leader as a man of noble principle who proves invaluable to Queen Victoria (a credible Compton) and her expanding British Empire. Gielgud is at least equal to George Arliss’ 1929 portrayal, but the movie’s budget doesn’t begin to support the script’s intentions.

Primrose Path, The (1925) 53m. ½ D: Harry O. Hoyt. Wallace MacDonald, Clara Bow, Arline Pretty, Stuart Holmes, Pat Moore, Tom Santschi, Lydia Knott. MacDonald is a reckless lout who drinks, gambles, writes bad checks, becomes involved in diamond smuggling—and more. What will it take to reform him? So-so programmer is worth a look for Bow’s radiant presence as a Broadway beauty.

Primrose Path (1940) 93m. ½ D: Gregory La Cava. Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marjorie Rambeau, Miles Mander, Henry Travers. Girl from wrong side of the tracks falls in love with ambitious young McCrea; starts engagingly, drifts into dreary soap opera and melodramatics. Rambeau is excellent as Ginger’s prostitute mother.

Prince and the Pauper, The (1937) 120m. ½ D: William Keighley. Errol Flynn, Billy and Bobby Mauch, Claude Rains, Alan Hale, Montagu Love, Henry Stephenson, Barton MacLane. Rousing filmization of Mark Twain’s story of young look-alikes, one a mistreated urchin, the other a prince, exchanging places. Top-billed Flynn, cast as the boys’ rescuer, doesn’t appear until around the midway point. Great music score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Remade as CROSSED SWORDS. Also available in computer-colored version.

Prince and the Showgirl, The (1957) C-117m. ½ D: Laurence Olivier. Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike, Jeremy Spenser, Richard Wattis. Thoughtful but slow-moving comedy of saucy American showgirl Monroe being romanced by Prince Regent of Carpathia (Olivier) during the 1911 coronation of George V. Filmed in England, with delightful performances by Monroe and Olivier. Script by Terence Rattigan from his play The Sleeping Prince. The film’s troubled production was later dramatized in MY WEEK WITH MARILYN.

Prince of Foxes (1949) 107m. ½ D: Henry King. Tyrone Power, Wanda Hendrix, Orson Welles, Marina Berti, Everett Sloane, Katina Paxinou. Lavish, incredibly handsome costume epic of Renaissance-era Italy (filmed on location), with adventurer Power defying all-powerful Cesare Borgia. Story elements—from Samuel Shellabarger novel—don’t match impact of Leon Shamroy’s sumptuous cinematography.

Prince of Pirates (1953) C-80m. ½ D: Sidney Salkow. John Derek, Barbara Rush, Whitfield Connor, Edgar Barrier. Enjoyable little costumer involving French-Spanish wars.

Prince of Players (1955) C-102m. ½ D: Philip Dunne. Richard Burton, Maggie McNamara, Raymond Massey, Charles Bickford, John Derek, Eva Le Gallienne, Mae Marsh, Sarah Padden. Burton is 19th-century actor Edwin Booth, embroiled in more offstage drama than on. Shakespearean excerpts thrown in; well performed by earnest cast. Derek plays John Wilkes Booth. Script by Moss Hart. CinemaScope.

Prince of Thieves, The (1948) C-72m. D: Howard Bretherton. Jon Hall, Patricia Morison, Adele Jergens, Alan Mowbray, Michael Duane. Colorful swashbuckler of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, aimed at juvenile audiences.

Princess and the Pirate, The (1944) C-94m. D: David Butler. Bob Hope, Virginia Mayo, Walter Slezak, Walter Brennan, Victor McLaglen, Hugo Haas, Marc Lawrence. One of Bob’s wackiest; he and glamorous Virginia are on the lam from pirate McLaglen, trapped by potentate Slezak. Brennan is hilarious as a pirate; great closing gag, too.

Princess Comes Across, The (1936) 76m. D: William K. Howard. Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, Douglass Dumbrille, Alison Skipworth, William Frawley, Porter Hall, Sig Ruman, Mischa Auer. Lombard, posing as royalty on ocean voyage, meets romantic MacMurray; together they are involved in whodunit. And Fred sings “My Concertina.” Delightful blend of comedy and mystery.

Princesse Tam Tam (1935-French) 77m. D: Edmond T. Greville. Josephine Baker, Albert Prejean, Robert Arnoux, Germaine Aussey, Georges Peclet, Viviane Romance, Jean Galland. Baker lives up to her legend in this disarming reworking of Pygmalion: a poor, beautiful, wild African lass is polished and educated by writer Prejean, then passed off as an Indian princess—much to the consternation of his snobbish, two-timing wife. Charming story (by Pepito Abatino, then Baker’s husband), lavish Busby Berkeley–ish musical numbers. Partially filmed in Tunisia.

Princess of the Nile (1954) C-71m. ½ D: Harmon Jones. Debra Paget, Jeffrey Hunter, Michael Rennie, Dona Drake, Wally Cassell, Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef. Hokey script diverts any potential this costumer may have had.

Princess O’Rourke (1943) 94m. ½ D: Norman Krasna. Olivia de Havilland, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, Harry Davenport, Gladys Cooper. Very dated comedy starts charmingly with pilot Cummings falling in love with Princess de Havilland, bogs down in no longer timely situations, unbearably coy finale involving (supposedly) F.D.R. himself. Krasna won Best Screenplay Oscar.

Princess Yang Kwei Fei (1955-Japanese) C-91m. D: Kenji Mizoguchi. Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, So Yamamura, Eitaro Shindo, Sakae Ozawa. Emperor Mori takes country girl Kyo as his concubine. He is forced out of power by his greedy family: she is killed, and he worships her statue. Breathtakingly beautiful, poetic love story/ fable/tragedy.

Prince Valiant (1954) C-100m. ½ D: Henry Hathaway. James Mason, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Debra Paget, Sterling Hayden, Victor McLaglen, Donald Crisp, Brian Aherne. Hal Foster’s famed comic-strip character is the hero of this cardboard costumer decked out in 20th Century-Fox splendor, battling and loving in Middle Ages England. Script by Dudley Nichols. CinemaScope.

Prince Who Was a Thief, The (1951) C-88m. ½ D: Rudolph Maté. Tony Curtis, Piper Laurie, Everett Sloane, Jeff Corey, Betty Garde. Juvenile costumer with Curtis fighting to regain his rightful seat on the throne; sparked by enthusiastic performances.

Priorities on Parade (1942) 79m. D: Albert S. Rogell. Ann Miller, Johnny Johnston, Betty Rhodes, Jerry Colonna, Vera Vague, Eddie Quillan, Harry Barris, Rod Cameron. Swing bandleader Johnston and his septet sign up at a defense plant where they entertain the workers, but vocalist-dancer Miller won’t sacrifice her career for Uncle Sam. Then welding boss Rhodes turns out to have a nice voice. Topical (if inconsequential) B musical was cowritten by songwriter Frank Loesser.

Prisoner, The (1955-British) 91m. D: Peter Glenville. Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Raymond Huntley, Wilfrid Lawson. Grim account of cardinal in Iron Curtain country undergoing grueling interrogation. Guinness-Hawkins interplay is superb.

Prisoner of Shark Island, The (1936) 95m. ½ D: John Ford. Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Claude Gillingwater, John Carradine, Harry Carey, Arthur Byron, Ernest Whitman, Francis McDonald. Excellent film based on true story of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who innocently treated John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg after Lincoln assassination, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Gripping story; Baxter superb, Carradine memorable as villainous sergeant, Whitman fine as Baxter’s black comrade. Scripted by Nunnally Johnson. Remade as HELLGATE and the TV movie THE ORDEAL OF DR. MUDD.

Prisoner of the Iron Mask, The (1962-Italian) C-80m. ½ D: Francesco De Feo. Michael Lemoine, Wandisa Guida, Andrea Bosic, Jany Clair, Giovanni Materassi. Usual costume shenanigans: an evil count imprisons a man who has proof of the nobleman’s treachery. Based not on the expected Dumas novel, but on his Ten Years After. D’Artagnan and The Three Musketeers do not appear. Techniscope.

Prisoner of the Volga (1960-Yugoslavian) C-102m. D: W. Tourjansky. John Derek, Elsa Martinelli, Dawn Addams, Wolfgang Preiss, Gert Frobe. Well-mounted but ordinary costume drama of soldier who suffers when he seeks revenge on general who impregnated his wife. Totalscope.

Prisoner of War (1954) 80m. D: Andrew Marton. Ronald Reagan, Steve Forrest, Dewey Martin, Oscar Homolka, Robert Horton, Paul Stewart, Harry Morgan, Stephen Bekassy, Darryl Hickman, Jerry Paris. G.I. Reagan parachutes into North Korea to observe the manner in which the Commies are brainwashing American P.O.W.s. By-the-numbers Korean War drama, primarily of interest as a reflection of its era.

Prisoner of Zenda, The (1922) 113m. D: Rex Ingram. Ramon Novarro, Lewis Stone, Alice Terry, Robert Edeson, Stuart Holmes, Malcolm McGregor, Barbara La Marr, Snitz Edwards. Entertaining version of the Anthony Hope novel (and play by Edward E. Rose), with Stone, light-years away from Judge Hardy, offering a charismatic performance as Rudolf Rassendyll, a commoner forced to impersonate his double, the heir to the throne of Ruritania. Novarro matches him as Rupert of Hentzau. Great fun! Previously filmed in 1914, then again in 1937, 1952 (with Stone in a supporting role), and 1979.

Prisoner of Zenda, The (1937) 101m. D: John Cromwell. Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, David Niven, Montagu Love, Alexander D’Arcy. Lavish costume romance/ adventure with excellent casting; Colman is forced to substitute for lookalike cousin, King of Ruritanian country, but commoner Colman falls in love with regal Carroll. Fairbanks nearly steals the show as villainous Rupert of Hentzau. Screenplay by John L. Balderston, from Anthony Hope’s novel. Remade in 1952 and 1979. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Prisoner of Zenda, The (1952) C-101m. ½ D: Richard Thorpe. Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, Jane Greer, Louis Calhern, Lewis Stone, James Mason, Robert Douglas, Robert Coote. Plush but uninspired remake of the Anthony Hope novel, chronicling the swashbuckling adventures of Granger, a dead ringer for a small European country’s king. Stick with the Ronald Colman version; this one copies it scene for scene.

Prisoners of the Casbah (1953) C-78m. ½ D: Richard Bare. Gloria Grahame, Turhan Bey, Cesar Romero, Nestor Paiva. Low-budget costumer with diverting cast in stale plot of princess and her lover fleeing killers in title locale. Turhan Bey’s last movie—for 40 years.

Prison Farm (1938) 69m. ½ D: Louis King. Shirley Ross, Lloyd Nolan, John Howard, J. Carrol Naish, Porter Hall, Esther Dale, May Boley, Marjorie Main. Innocent Ross gets involved with no-good Nolan; they both end up in a brutal prison, where she falls for compassionate doctor Howard. Formula jailhouse melodrama, smoothly done, with memorable performances by Naish as a corrupt sheriff and Main in atypical serious role as a matron.

Prison Train (1938) 63m. ½ D: Gordon Wiles. Fred Keating, Linda Winters (Dorothy Comingore), Clarence Muse, Faith Bacon, Alexander Leftwich, Nestor Paiva. Stylized, atmospheric little chronicle of racketeer Keating, who’s convicted of murder and is traveling cross-country to begin doing time at Alcatraz. Hampered by its ultra-low budget but still a nice surprise. Aka PEOPLE’S ENEMY.

Prison Warden (1949) 62m. D: Seymour Friedman. Warner Baxter, Anna Lee, James Flavin, Harlan Warde, Charles Cane, Reginald Sheffield. A public health official is recruited to take over a brutal prison and enact reforms, unaware that his new wife is plotting to break out her former boyfriend. Baxter looks tired in his penultimate film, a standard big house yarn with a few unusual angles.

Private Affairs of Bel Ami, The (1947) 112m. ½ D: Albert Lewin. George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, Frances Dee, Albert Basserman, Warren William, John Carradine. Delicious, literate adaptation (by Lewin) of Guy de Maupassant’s “story of a rogue.” Sanders, who gets ahead by using his charm on prominent women, denies himself the real love of Lansbury. Fine performances; beautifully photographed by Russell Metty.

Private Buckaroo (1942) 68m. D: Edward Cline. The Andrews Sisters, Dick Foran, Joe E. Lewis, Donald O’Connor, Peggy Ryan, Jennifer Holt. Mini-musical from Universal Pictures is vehicle for 1940s favorite sister trio, accompanied by Harry James et al. in Army camp show.

Private Detective (1939) 55m. ½ D: Noel Smith. Jane Wyman, Dick Foran, Gloria Dickson, Maxie Rosenbloom, John Ridgely, Morgan Conway, John Eldredge, Willie Best, Leo Gorcey. Homicide inspector Foran is continually upstaged by private eye Wyman when the two are forced to team up to solve the case of a murdered millionaire. Snappy, enjoyable mystery-comedy with Warners basically rehashing the formula of their defunct Torchy Blane series.

Private Detective 62 (1933) 67m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. William Powell, Margaret Lindsay, Ruth Donnelly, Arthur Hohl, Natalie Moorhead, Arthur Byron. Powell accepts job with shady private detective Hohl and agrees to dupe wealthy Lindsay, but falls in love with her instead. Warner Bros. programmer picks up after a slow start.

Private Eyes (1953) 64m. ½ D: Edward Bernds. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, David (Gorcey) Condon, Bennie Bartlett, Rudy Lee, William Phillips, Joyce Holden, Bernard Gorcey, Chick Chandler, Myron Healey. Good Bowery Boys entry, as they open a detective agency when Sach develops the ability to read minds.

Private Hell 36 (1954) 81m. ½ D: Don Siegel. Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, Dean Jagger, Dorothy Malone. Well-balanced account of guilt overcoming two cops who retrieve stolen money but keep some for themselves. Interesting low-budgeter with first-rate cast, but gets awfully talky in the second half. Lupino also wrote and produced the film with Collier Young.

Private Life of Don Juan, The (1934-British) 80m. D: Alexander Korda. Douglas Fairbanks, Merle Oberon, Binnie Barnes, Joan Gardner, Benita Hume, Athene Seyler, Melville Cooper. Lifeless costumer with aging Fairbanks in title role, pursuing a bevy of beauties in his final film.

Private Life of Henry VIII, The (1933-British) 97m. D: Alexander Korda. Charles Laughton, Binnie Barnes, Robert Donat, Elsa Lanchester, Merle Oberon, Miles Mander, Wendy Barrie, John Loder. Sweeping historical chronicle of 16th-century English monarch, magnificently captured by Oscar-winning Laughton in a multifaceted performance. Lanchester fine as Anne of Cleves, with top supporting cast. Also shown in computer-colored version.

Private Lives (1931) 84m. D: Sidney Franklin. Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Una Merkel, Reginald Denny, Jean Hersholt. Sparkling, witty adaptation of the Noel Coward comedy about a divorced couple (Shearer and Montgomery) who marry others and find themselves honeymooning at the same hotel.

Private Lives of Adam and Eve, The (1960) C/B&W-87m. BOMB D: Albert Zugsmith, Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney, Mamie Van Doren, Fay Spain, Mel Tormé, Martin Milner, Tuesday Weld, Cecil Kellaway, Paul Anka, Ziva Rodann. Perfectly awful fantasy about a stranded Nevada couple, Ad (Milner) and Evie (Van Doren), who dream that they are back in the Garden of Eden. Rooney chews the scenery as the Devil.

Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The (1939) C-106m. ½ D: Michael Curtiz. Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, Vincent Price, Henry Stephenson, Henry Daniell, James Stephenson, Ralph Forbes, Robert Warwick, Leo G. Carroll. Colorful, elaborate costume drama with outstanding performance by Davis as queen whose love for dashing Flynn is thwarted. Not authentic history, but good drama. Norman Reilly Raine and Aeneas MacKenzie adapted Maxwell Anderson’s play Elizabeth the Queen. Adult film debut of Nanette Fabray (Fabares). Aka ELIZABETH THE QUEEN.

Private Number (1936) 80m. ½ D: Roy Del Ruth. Robert Taylor, Loretta Young, Basil Rathbone, Patsy Kelly, Marjorie Gateson, Paul Harvey, Joe (E.) Lewis. Young is charming as a maid who becomes romantically involved with her employers’ son (Taylor), causing various complications. Rathbone is effective as the villain butler in this otherwise OK melodrama. Filmed previously in 1919 (with Fannie Ward) and 1931 (with Constance Bennett), as COMMON CLAY.

Private’s Affair, A (1959) C-92m. ½ D: Raoul Walsh. Sal Mineo, Christine Carere, Barry Coe, Barbara Eden, Gary Crosby, Terry Moore, Jim Backus, Jessie Royce Landis. Energetic young cast involved in putting on the “big Army show” on TV. CinemaScope.

Private’s Progress (1956-British) 99m. D: John Boulting. Richard Attenborough, Jill Adams, Dennis Price, Terry-Thomas, Ian Carmichael, Peter Jones, Christopher Lee. Prize collection of funny men, splendidly played by cast, involved in Army shenanigans. Sequel: I’M ALL RIGHT JACK.

Private War of Major Benson, The (1955) C-105m. ½ D: Jerry Hopper. Charlton Heston, Julie Adams, William Demarest, Tim Hovey, Sal Mineo, David Janssen, Tim Considine, Milburn Stone. Hovey is the little boy at military school who charms rugged commander-turned-schoolmaster Heston into sympathetic person. Remade as MAJOR PAYNE (1995).

Private Worlds (1935) 84m. ½ D: Gregory La Cava. Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Joan Bennett, Joel McCrea, Helen Vinson, Esther Dale, Jean Rouverol. Dated but engrossing tale of mental institution, with doctors Boyer and Colbert giving restrained performances; noteworthy support by Bennett.

Prix de Beauté (1930-French) 94m. ½ D: Augusto Genina. Louise Brooks, Jean Bradin, Georges Charlia, Gaston Jacquet, A. Nicolle. Brooks is the whole show in this, her first sound film (and last major screen role). The story may be clichéd—a melodrama in which she’s cast as a typist who becomes a beauty queen—but Brooks is as lovely and sensuous as ever. The final sequence is truly memorable. René Clair, originally scheduled to direct, had a hand in the script. Aka MISS EUROPE.

Prize, The (1963) C-136m. D: Mark Robson. Paul Newman, Elke Sommer, Edward G. Robinson, Diane Baker, Kevin McCarthy, Micheline Presle, Leo G. Carroll. Irving Wallace novel is mere stepping stone for glossy spy yarn set in Stockholm, involving participants in Nobel Prize ceremony. Newman and Sommer make handsome leads; Robinson has dual role. Fast-moving fun; script by Ernest Lehman. Panavision.

Prizefighter and the Lady, The (1933) 102m. D: W. S. Van Dyke. Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Otto Kruger, Walter Huston, Jack Dempsey, Primo Carnera, Jess Willard, James J. Jeffries. Entertaining film breathes life into potential clichés; real-life boxing champ Baer plays a prizefighter who falls for high-class gangster’s moll Loy. Many boxing and wrestling greats cameo in extended, exciting prize-fight finale.

Prize of Arms, A (1961-British) 105m. ½ D: Cliff Owen. Stanley Baker, Tom Bell, Helmut Schmid, John Phillips. Hindered by heavy British accents ruining much dialogue, tale unfolds methodical plan for big heist of Army funds.

Prize of Gold, A (1955-British) C-98m. D: Mark Robson. Richard Widmark, Mai Zetterling, Nigel Patrick, Donald Wolfit, Eric Pohlmann. Taut caper in post-WW2 Berlin involving a planned heist of gold from the air lift circuit.

Problem Girls (1953) 71m. ½ D: E. A. Dupont. Helen Walker, Ross Elliott, Susan Morrow, Anthony Jochim, James Seay, Marjorie Stapp, Roy Regnier, Beverly Garland, Joyce Jameson, Nan Leslie, Mara Corday. Doctor Elliott hires on as psychologist at a school for warped rich girls. The students are collectively certifiable, the faculty even more so; the romance languages professor did 20 years for murdering his wife with a meat cleaver! Positively weird and hilariously awful, with a great B-movie cast. Also known as THE VELVET CAGE.

Prodigal, The (1931) 76m. D: Harry Pollard. Lawrence Tibbett, Esther Ralston, Roland Young, Cliff Edwards, Purnell Pratt, Hedda Hopper, Emma Dunn, Stepin Fetchit. The ne’er-do-well scion of an aristocratic Southern family returns home after years of kicking around the country as a hobo, only to fall in love with his brother’s wife. Easygoing drama for famed opera star Tibbett allows him to perform a few songs, but the stereotyped portrayal of black plantation workers may make you cringe.

Prodigal, The (1955) C-114m. ½ D: Richard Thorpe. Lana Turner, Edmund Purdom, James Mitchell, Louis Calhern, Audrey Dalton, Neville Brand, Taina Elg, Cecil Kellaway, Henry Daniell, Walter Hampden, Joseph Wiseman. Juvenile biblical semi-spectacle, with Turner the evil goddess of love corrupting Purdom; glossy MGM vehicle. CinemaScope.

Professional Soldier (1936) 78m. ½ D: Tay Garnett. Victor McLaglen, Freddie Bartholomew, Gloria Stuart, Constance Collier, Michael Whalen. McLaglen is hired to kidnap young king Bartholomew, but mutual friendship gets in the way. Good teaming supports average script, based on a Damon Runyon story.

Professional Sweetheart (1933) 68m. D: William A. Seiter. Ginger Rogers, ZaSu Pitts, Norman Foster, Frank McHugh, Edgar Kennedy, Betty Furness, Gregory Ratoff, Sterling Holloway, Franklin Pangborn. Good cast can’t put over weak radio spoof, with Rogers as airwaves star who becomes engaged to hick Foster in publicity stunt.

Professor Beware (1938) 87m. ½ D: Elliott Nugent. Harold Lloyd, Phyllis Welch, William Frawley, Etienne Girardot, Raymond Walburn, Lionel Stander, Thurston Hall. One of Lloyd’s last vehicles has good moments, but tale of archeologist searching for rare tablet is thin.

Project Moon Base (1953) 63m. D: Richard Talmadge. Donna Martell, Hayden Rorke, Ross Ford, Larry Johns, Herb Jacobs. In the near future, three people make the first trip to the Moon from the American space station circling the Earth, but one of them is an enemy spy. Mediocre acting in this routine but scientifically accurate story. Famed sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein cowrote the movie; the low budget shows.

Promises! Promises! (1963) 75m. BOMB D: King Donovan. Jayne Mansfield, Marie McDonald, Tommy Noonan, Mickey Hargitay, Fritz Feld, T. C. Jones, Claude Stroud, Marjorie Bennett, Eddie Quillan, Eileen Barton, Imogene Coca. Dreadful comedy about couples Mansfield-Noonan and McDonald-Hargitay, and their sexual shenanigans on a cruise. Notorious in its day for Jayne’s baring her bod, a first for its time. Still, beware: it is a truly bad movie. Mansfield was in real life married to Hargitay; Noonan coproduced and coscripted.

Promoter, The (1952-British) 88m. D: Ronald Neame. Alec Guinness, Glynis Johns, Valerie Hobson, Petula Clark, Edward Chapman. Charming comedy about a likable but penniless young man who sees how to get ahead in the world—and seizes his opportunity. Script by Eric Ambler from Arnold Bennett’s story The Card, also its title in England.

Prosperity (1932) 87m. D: Sam Wood. Marie Dressler, Polly Moran, Anita Page, Norman Foster, Jacquie Lyn, Jerry Tucker, Henry Armetta, John Miljan. In the last of their several popular teamings, Dressler and Moran sock over lots of belly laughs as longtime friends who become feuding mothers-in-law when their kids marry. Fascinating Depression-era banking subplot enhances this genuinely funny film.

Proud and Profane, The (1956) 111m. ½ D: George Seaton. William Holden, Deborah Kerr, Thelma Ritter, Dewey Martin, William Redfield, Ross Bagdasarian, Marion Ross. Spotty WW2 romance story has many parallels to FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, but Kerr-Holden romance is never believable. VistaVision.

Proud and the Beautiful, The SEE: Proud Ones, The (1953)

Proud Ones, The (1953-French-Mexican) 94m. ½ D: Yves Allegret. Michele Morgan, Gérard Philipe, Victor Manuel Mendoza, Michele Cordoue. Well-bred Morgan and down-and-out doctor Philipe cross paths in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in this absorbing tale of love, religion, and the effects of a deadly plague on the impoverished populace. Striking and atmospheric; based on Jean-Paul Sartre novel L’Amour Redempteur (set in China!). Original title: LES ORGUEILLEUX. Aka THE PROUD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.

Proud Ones, The (1956) C-94m. ½ D: Robert D. Webb. Robert Ryan, Virginia Mayo, Jeffrey Hunter, Robert Middleton, Walter Brennan. Staunch acting involving the inevitable showdown between disabled sheriff and outlaws perks up this Western. CinemaScope.

Proud Rebel, The (1958) C-103m. D: Michael Curtiz. Alan Ladd, Olivia de Havilland, Dean Jagger, David Ladd, Cecil Kellaway, Henry Hull, John Carradine, (Harry) Dean Stanton. Well-presented post–Civil War study of two-fisted Southerner Ladd seeking medical help for mute son (played by Ladd’s real-life son); de Havilland is the woman who tames him.

Proud Valley (1940-British) 77m. ½ D: Pen Tennyson. Paul Robeson, Edward Chapman, Simon Lack, Rachel Thomas, Edward Rigby. Mild drama of Welsh coal-mining village beset by mine shutdown; uplifted only by Robeson’s commanding presence and fine voice.

Prowler, The (1951) 92m. ½ D: Joseph Losey. Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, John Maxwell, Katharine Warren. Stark, sinuous film noir about a (literal) bad cop (Heflin) who seduces a vulnerable married woman. Opens with a bang and never lets up. Unusually nasty and utterly unpredictable. Striking camerawork (by Arthur Miller) and production design. Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted at the time and received no credit, though he is heard as the voice of Keyes’ husband on the radio.

Psyche ’59 (1964-British) 94m. ½ D: Alexander Singer. Patricia Neal, Curt Jurgens, Samantha Eggar, Ian Bannen, Elspeth March. Turgid melodrama involving infidelity, with good cast doing their best.

Psycho (1960) 109m. D: Alfred Hitchcock. Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, John McIntire, Lurene Tuttle, Simon Oakland, John Anderson, Mort Mills, Frank Albertson, Patricia Hitchcock. The Master’s most notorious film is still terrifying after all these years, as larcenous Leigh picks the wrong place to spend a night: The Bates Motel (12 cabins, 12 vacancies . . . and 12 showers), run by a peculiar young man and his crotchety old “mother.” Hitchcock’s murder set pieces are so potent, they can galvanize (and frighten) even a viewer who’s seen them before! Bernard Herrmann’s legendary (and endlessly imitated) score adds much to the excitement. Script by Joseph Stefano from the Robert Bloch novel. Followed by three sequels (the last for cable TV), a TV movie (BATES MOTEL), a remake in 1998, and a cable TV series, also called Bates Motel.

Psycho Killers, The SEE: Mania

Psychomania (1963) 93m. ½ D: Richard Hilliard. Lee Philips, Shepperd Strudwick, Jean Hale, Lorraine Rogers, Margot Hartman, Kaye Elhardt, James Farentino, Dick Van Patten, Sylvia Miles. War hero turned painter, suspected of murdering two beautiful young women, undertakes his own investigation. Exploitive independent production filmed in Connecticut. Originally titled VIOLENT MIDNIGHT.

PT 109 (1963) C-140m. D: Leslie H. Martinson. Cliff Robertson, Ty Hardin, James Gregory, Robert Culp, Grant Williams, Lew Gallo, Errol John, Michael Pate, Robert Blake, Biff Elliot, Norman Fell. Gung-ho WW2 action yarn based on President John F. Kennedy’s experiences in the Pacific as a PT boat captain. Very much of its time; it was released in June of the year JFK died. Panavision.

PT Raiders SEE: Ship That Died of Shame, The

Public Be Damned SEE: World Gone Mad, The

Public Cowboy No. 1 (1937) 60m. D: Joseph Kane. Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, Ann Rutherford, William Farnum, Arthur Loft, Frankie Marvin, House Peters, Jr. The Old West meets the New as deputy sheriff Gene battles truck rustlers who use shortwave radio and airplanes to divert cattle on their way to a meatpacking plant. Good Autry vehicle with one song (“The West Ain’t What It Used To Be”) that even makes fun of singing cowboys!

Public Defender, The (1931) 69m. D: J. Walter Ruben. Richard Dix, Shirley Grey, Purnell Pratt, Ruth Weston, Edmund Breese, Frank Sheridan, Alan Roscoe, Boris Karloff, Nella Walker. Dix is a society gentleman who works undercover as The Reckoner in a crusade against unscrupulous banking executives who framed an innocent man and defrauded customers. Disappointingly static treatment of an intriguing premise. Karloff’s role is unmemorable.

Public Enemy, The (1931) 84m. ½ D: William Wellman. James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Eddie Woods, Beryl Mercer, Donald Cook, Joan Blondell, Mae Clarke. Prohibition gangster’s rise and fall put Cagney on the map, and deservedly so; he makes up for film’s occasional flaws and dated notions. Still pretty powerful, this is the one where Cagney smashes a grapefruit in Clarke’s face. Screened for decades at 82m., restored to full length for DVD.

Public Enemy’s Wife (1936) 69m. ½ D; Nick Grinde. Pat O’Brien, Margaret Lindsay, Robert Armstrong, Cesar Romero, Dick Foran. Romero is good as mobster serving life whose insane jealousy over wife (Lindsay) makes her a perfect pawn for G-man O’Brien. Not-bad Warner Bros. B. Remade as BULLETS FOR O’HARA.

Public Hero #1 (1935) 91m. ½ D: J. Walter Ruben. Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur, Chester Morris, Joseph Calleia, Paul Kelly, Lewis Stone. Interesting but uneven hybrid of gangster yarn (with jailhouse theatrics dominating the first half) and romantic comedy. Arthur is always a pleasure to watch. Remade in 1941 as THE GET-AWAY.

Public Menace, The (1935) 72m. ½ D: Erle C. Kenton. Jean Arthur, George Murphy, Douglass Dumbrille, George McKay, Robert Middlemass, Victor Kilian. Wacky manicurist Arthur somehow loses her American citizenship and cons cocky reporter Murphy into marrying her in exchange for a phony scoop about a gangster. Pretty amusing bit of froth blending screwball comedy, romance, and crime.

Public Pigeon No. One (1957) C-79m. D: Norman Z. McLeod. Red Skelton, Vivian Blaine, Janet Blair, Allyn Joslyn, Jay C. Flippen. Bland Skelton vehicle with Red accidentally exposing gang of crooks; typical slapstick. Based on a 1956 Climax TV episode in which Skelton starred.

Public Wedding (1937) 58m. ½ D: Nick Grinde. Jane Wyman, William Hopper, Dick Purcell, Marie Wilson, Berton Churchill, James Robbins, Raymond Hatton, Veda Ann Borg, Horace McMahon, Eddie Anderson. To avoid the hoosegow, down-on-their-luck carny hustlers scheme to raise some dough by staging a fake public wedding. Fast-paced, generally enjoyable comedy.

Pumpkin Eater, The (1964-British) 110m. D: Jack Clayton. Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason, Cedric Hardwicke, Alan Webb, Richard Johnson, Maggie Smith, Eric Porter. Intelligent if overlong drama chronicling the plight of the mother of eight children, who discovers her third husband has been unfaithful. Fine performances all around, with Bancroft a standout. Script by Harold Pinter, from the Penelope Mortimer novel.

Purchase Price, The (1932) 68m. D: William A. Wellman. Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lyle Talbot, Hardie Albright, David Landau, Murray Kinnell, Leila Bennett, Dawn O’Day (Anne Shirley). Pre-Code Warner Bros. film about nightclub singer Stanwyck, who’s seen and done it all, taking it on the lam and becoming—of all things—a mail-order bride for a naive North Dakota farmer. Starts out snappy, winds up silly, though Stanwyck is always worth watching.

Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s, The (1960-British) 94m. D: Frank Launder. Cecil Parker, Joyce Grenfell, George Cole, Thorley Walters. Absence of Alastair Sim from series lessens glow; outrageous girls’ school is visited by sheik seeking harem.

Purim Player, The SEE: Der Purimshpiler

Purple Gang, The (1960) 85m. D: Frank McDonald. Barry Sullivan, Robert Blake, Elaine Edwards, Marc Cavell, Jody Lawrance, Suzy Marquette, Joseph Turkel. Capable cast, limp police-vs.-gangster yarn.

Purple Heart, The (1944) 99m. D: Lewis Milestone. Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Sam Levene, Richard Conte, Donald Barry, Trudy Marshall, Tala Birell, Nestor Paiva, Benson Fong, Marshall Thompson, Richard Loo. Absorbing drama of U.S. Air Force crew shot down during Tokyo raid, held prisoner and put on trial. Receives strong performances by good cast. Produced and cowritten by Darryl F. Zanuck.

Purple Mask, The (1955) C-82m. D: H. Bruce Humberstone. Tony Curtis, Colleen Miller, Gene Barry, Dan O’Herlihy, Angela Lansbury, George Dolenz, Allison Hayes. Wooden historical adventure with Curtis as a Scarlet Pimpernel–like swashbuckling hero who goes up against Napoleon in 1803 France. CinemaScope.

Purple Noon (1960-French-Italian) C-118m. D: René Clement. Alain Delon, Marie Laforet, Maurice Ronet, Frank Latimore, Ave Ninchi. Marvelously photographed (in southern Italy, by Henri Decaë), tautly directed suspenser about Delon, who envies playboy-friend Ronet and schemes to murder him and assume his identity. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. That’s Romy Schneider among the friends stopping by cafe in opening scene. Remade as THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY; also see THE AMERICAN FRIEND and RIPLEY’S GAME.

Purple Plain, The (1954-British) C-102m. D: Robert Parrish. Gregory Peck, Win Min Than, Bernard Lee, Maurice Denham, Brenda De Banzie, Lyndon Brook. Absorbing Eric Ambler–scripted drama of love, loss, and survival during WW2, charting the plight of disaffected pilot Peck, whose wife was killed on the night of their wedding during a London air raid.

Pursued (1947) 101m. D: Raoul Walsh. Teresa Wright, Robert Mitchum, Judith Anderson, Dean Jagger, Alan Hale, Harry Carey, Jr., John Rodney. Grim, passionate Western noir, a family saga of love, hate, revenge, and a hint of incest. Mitchum is an orphan raised by Anderson; he falls in love with foster sister Wright, complicated by his having killed her murderous brother. Stunning photography by James Wong Howe.

Pursuit (1935) 61m. D: Edwin L. Marin. Chester Morris, Sally Eilers, Scotty Beckett, Henry Travers, C. Henry Gordon, Dorothy Peterson. Morris and Eilers are chased by plane, car, and on foot while helping a little boy escape his nasty custody-claiming relatives and delivering him to his mother in Mexico. Briskly paced but routine B movie with too much comic-romantic banter.

Pursuit of the Graf Spee (1956-British) C-119m. ½ D: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, Peter Finch, Ian Hunter, Bernard Lee, Patrick Macnee, Christopher Lee. Taut documentary-style account of WW2 chase of German warship by British forces. Original title: THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE. VistaVision.

Pursuit to Algiers (1945) 65m. ½ D: Roy William Neill. Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Riordan, Rosalind Ivan, Martin Kosleck, John Abbott. Lesser Sherlock Holmes entry is still diverting tale of heir to an Eastern throne on a perilous Mediterranean voyage.

Pushover (1954) 88m. ½ D: Richard Quine. Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Phil Carey, Dorothy Malone, E. G. Marshall. MacMurray is cop who falls in love with Novak, moll of a bank heist artist; he plots with her to rob the robber, and complications ensue. Good cast covers familiar ground.

Puttin’ on the Ritz (1930) 88m. D: Edward Sloman. Harry Richman, Joan Bennett, James Gleason, Aileen Pringle, Lilyan Tashman. Famed nightclub entertainer Rich- man made his film debut in this primitive early talkie about vaudevillian who can’t handle success and turns to drink. You may do the same after watching Richman’s performance—though he does introduce the title song by Irving Berlin. Partially redeemed by a few production numbers originally filmed in Technicolor, including a charming “Alice in Wonderland.” Sets by William Cameron Menzies.

Puzzle of the Red Orchid, The (1962-German) 94m. D: Helmut Ashley. Christopher Lee, Marisa Mell, Klaus Kinski, Fritz Rasp, Adrian Hoven. Moderate Edgar Wallace entry; Scotland Yard and F.B.I. track down international crime syndicate. Retitled: THE SECRET OF THE RED ORCHID.

Pygmalion (1938-British) 95m. D: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard. Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr, David Tree. Superlative filmization of the witty G. B. Shaw play which became MY FAIR LADY. Howard excels as the professor, with Hiller his Cockney pupil. Shaw’s screenplay won an Oscar, as did its adaptation by Ian Dalrymple, Cecil Lewis, and W. P. Lipscomb. Edited by David Lean.

Pygmy Island (1950) 69m. ½ D: William Berke. Johnny Weissmuller, Ann Savage, David Bruce, Tristram Coffin, Steven Geray, William Tannen, Billy Curtis, Billy Barty, Pierce Lyden. Jungle Jim Weissmuller leads a search party to find missing Savage in this silly entry exemplified by having famous white midget Curtis as the leader of the pygmy tribe.

Pyro (1964-Spanish) C-99m. ½ D: Julio Coli. Barry Sullivan, Martha Hyer, Sherry Moreland, Soledad Miranda. Strange chiller of man burned in fire seeking revenge on ex-girlfriend who started it.