Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1948)

ADVANCE SYNOPSES and information BLOOD ON THE MOON (RKO Radio) EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Sid Rogell. PRODUCER: Theron Warth. DIRECTOR: Robert Wise. PLAYERS: Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan. WESTERN DRAMA. In 1866, Jim Garry (Robert Mitchum) drifts into a western cattle region and takes a job with Riling (Robert Preston), who is plotting to force John Lufton, cattle baron, to sell his cattle to him at a ridiculous price. Garry falls in love with Lufton's, daughter and when he learns of Riling's plot, he lea\es town. In a nearby city, Riling and Garry have a showdown fist-fight and Garry returns to aid Lufton. When a crooked Indian agent announces that Lufton must move his herd off the Ute Reservation on penalty of confiscation by the Army, Garry kidnaps the agent, giving Lufton sufficient time to round up his herd. Riling is killed by Garry after a death struggle with Riling's avenging gang. GUNNING FOR JUSTICE [Monogram) PRODUCER: Barney Sarecky; DIRECTOR: Ray Taylor; PLAYERS: JohnnyMack Brown, Raymond Hatton, Max Terhune, Evelyn Finley, House Peters, Jr., Ted Adams. WESTERN. Johnny is entrusted with a map purporting te indicate the whereabouts of gold bullion hijacked en route to General Lee during the recent Civil War, and is ambushed by bandits who decide the map is a phony. By this time Johnny's pals, Banty and Alibi, have joined up with him, and together they overcome the forces of villainy and get the map information into the hands of its rightful owner. COURTIN' TROUBLE (Monogram) PRODUCER: Ford Beebe. DIRECTOR: Louis Gray. PLAYERS: Jimmy Wakely, Cannonball Taylor, Virginia Belmont. WESTERN. Wakely jails gunman Stockman after cattleman Curtis has accused the latter of murder. Penn, head of the merchants' association, hires Virginia to defend Stockman, but the gunman is freed when a witness is found murdered. Jimmy gets a singing job at Penn's saloon and renews acquaintance with Virginia. Virginia's father, a judge, petitions for an investigation of lawlessness. He is shot by a hired killer. Jimmy goes into action to permit Virginia to overhear the plot. She is caught eavesdropping. Jimmy and "Cannonball" Taylor come to her rescue in a blazing gun battle. Penn is felled by Jimmy's gun. GRAND CANYON TRAIL (Republic) PRODUCER: Edward J. White. DIRECTOR: William Witney. PLAYERS: Roy Rogers, Andy Devine, Jane Frazee, Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage. WESTERN. . Roy Rogers, quarter-horse breeder, sends money to his partners, the Riders of the Purple Sage, which they invest in a ghost town falsely represented as the site of a silver strike. Miss Frazee, daughter of the crooked promoter, and Roy, although working at cross purposes, save the situation for everybody when Roy discovers, in sequel to a murder of an old prospector, that there really is a silver vein on the premises. JIGGS'AND MAGGIE IN COURT (Monogram) PRODUCER: Barney Gerard. DIREC: TOR: William Beaudine. PLAYERS: Joe Yule, Renie Riano, June Harrison. COMEDY. Angered by cracks about her resemblance to the cartoon-strip Maggie, Renie Riano throws a pie into a baker's face and promptly^nds up in court. She is fined and paroled into Joe Yule's custody. Renie also resents other inconveniences arising from her similarity to the cartoon character and she sues George McManus, who originated the strip. In court Renie reveals that she is 35 years old. She finds peace and happiness when McManus tells her she is a composite picture of all beautiful women in the world — when they are mad. TROUBLE PREFERRED (20th-Fox) PRODUCER: Sol M. Wurtzel. DIRECTOR: Arnold Belgard. PLAYERS: Peggy Knudsen, Lynne Roberts, Charles Russell, Mary Baer, Paul Langton, James Cardwell, June Story, Paul Guilfoyle. MELODRAMA. The Misses Kundsen and Roberts enter training for jobs on the Los Angeles police force and are taken by their instructor on a routine suicide-attempt case which the victim insists was accidental. They persist in investigating further, however, and discover that a wayward husband is responsible for what happened. They extricate the recalcitrant husband from the wiles to a girl friend and restore him to his wife, all ending well. HE WALKED BY NIGHT (Eagle-Lion) PRODUCER: Robert Kane. DIRECTOR: Alfred Werker. PLAYERS: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, James Cardwell. MELODRAMA. Basehart shoots and kills a traffic officer who stops him for routine questioning, and flees the scene on foot. Police, following clues and checking bullet casings, catch up with him later and he again shoots his way to freedom, wounding two and continuing a career of robery in the Los Angeles-Glendale area. Acting on a hunch, detectives check the Glendale police department files and identify a former civilian employee as the wanted man. Assembling all the robbery victims, they chart out a plan for capture based on the criminal's known habits and track him down. STREETS OF LAREDO (Paramount) PRODUCER: Robert Fellows; DIRECTOR: Leslie Fenton; PLAYERS: Macdonald Carey, William Holden, William Bendix, Mona Freeman. FRONTIER MELODRAMA. Carey, Holden and Bendix are successful badmen of the Old West, specializing in stagecoach stickups, who take time out to rescue Miss Freeman from marauding rustlers who have killed her father. The trio gets separated later on. Bendix and Holden pretending to join up with the Texas Rangers, but really planning to convey information to Carey which will help him in his banditry. Much later on, Bendix and Holden shift over from the wrong to the right side of the law, and Holden goes out to bring in his former pal, Carey. But it's Miss Freeman, who has believed herself in love with Carey, who actually shoots him down, realizing suddenly that it's Holden she loves. INDIAN AGENT (RKO Radio) PRODUCER: Herman Schlom. DIRECTOR: Lesley Selander. PLAYERS: Tim Holt, Nan Leslie, Richard Martin, Noah Beery, Jr., Harry Woods, Richard Powers. WESTERN : Holt and Martin come upon a band of Indians in the act of robbing an itinerant printer and his niece, rout them, and learn that their tribe is starving as result of a crooked deal between the Indian agent and a local badman, conditions having become so bad for the Indians that their leader, Red Fox, has placed his papoose with a white family in town. Holt#and Martin, aided by the printer, who opens a newspaper office, unearth the truth about what's been going on, prevent the Indians from going on the war path, bring the villains to justice and restore government supplies to the Indians. FIGHTER SQUADRON (Warner Brothers) PRODUCER: Seton I. Miller. DIRECTOR: Raoul Walsh. PLAYERS: Edmond O'Brien, Robert Stack, John Rodney, Tom D'Andrea, Henry Hull, Sheppard Strudwick. _WAR SUBJECT. O'Brien and Stack, of the 17th Fighter Squadron of the 3rd Fighter Group, stationed in England, are fast personal friends but rivalous officers, therefore frequently opposed on matters of squadron tactics and interpretation of rules. Their experiences include heroic rescues under enemy fire and terminate, dramatically, on D-Day. It's an allmale cast. A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT (Paramount) PRODUCER: Robert Fellows. DIRECTOR: Tay Garnett. PLAYERS: Bing Crosby, Rhonda Fleming, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Murvyn Vye, Virginia Field, William Bendix. CLASSIC COMEDY. This is Mark Twain's story of the adventures of Hank Martin (Bing Crosby) of Connecticut who finds himself living in 528 A.D. at King Arthur's court. He is captured by one of the knights and falls in love with the King's beautiful niece. He beats the royal sorcerer at his own game and saves himself from being burned at the stake. At the end, however, Hank awakens to find himself again in Connecticut in 1905 and confronted by a pretty girl who looks exactly like the one he wooed back in the 6th Century. HOMICIDE FOR THREE (Republic) PRODUCER: Stephen Auer. DIRECTOR: George Blair. PLAYERS: Warren Douglas, Audrey Long, Lloyd Corrigan, Grant Withers, Stephanie Bachelor. MELODRAMA. Douglas, honeymooning Navy officer on leave in Los Angeles, is given temporary tenancy of a circus performer's apartment. His bride is threatened by a voice on the phone, and his uniform is stolen while he is in the Turkish bath. Two women are killed under circumstances implicating him, and two detectives join him in trying to solve the mystery, which is accomplished at a circus where two clowns turn out to be the two detectives and in fact not detectives at all but actually the two murderers. EVERY GIRL SHOULD BE MARRIED (RKO Radio) PRODUCER-DIRECTOR: Don Hartman. PLAYERS: Gary Grant, Franchot Tone, Diana Lynn, Betsy Drake. COMEDY. Grant, a bachelor doctor, is singled out by Miss Drake, a matrimonially minded shopgirl, for romantic entrapment. Tone, her employer, is used by her as a tool in her campaign of fascination, the ensuing situations terminating in victory for Miss Drake. It's a comedy of situation, played strictly for amusement. PRODUCT DIGEST SECTION, NOVEMBER 6, 1948 4375