Harrison's Reports (1948)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

April 10, 1948 HARRISON'S REPORTS 59 "Fury at Furnace Creek" with Victor Mature and Coleen Gray (20th Century-Fox, May; time, 88 min.) Replete with rip-roaring action, beautiful outdoor photography, an interesting story, expert direction and fine performances, this is a first-rate "super-western" that should not only go over big with the Western fans but also please others as well. It is one of the better examples of this type of film fare, for it has a plot that does not offend logic, characterizations that are different, and a sprinkling of comedy, furnished by Charles Kemper, as the town's good-natured bad boy, which is refreshing. As a ne'er-do-well who sets out to clear the reputation of his dead father, an army officer who had been implicated innocently in an Indian massacre, Victor Mature makes a completely convincing hero in a performance that adds much to his acting stature. His romance with Coleen Gray is pleasant and properly subdued. An exciting highlight is a vicious Indian attack on a wagon train in the opening scenes: — Unjustly accused of giving orders that resulted in an Apache Indian massacre, General Robert Warwick dies of a heart attack while being court-martialed. His two sons, Glenn Langan, an army officer, and Victor Mature, an adventurer who had been estranged from the family, set out to clear his reputation. Mature traces Captain Reginald Gardiner, who had testified against his father, to Furnace Creek, where he finds the man retired, a drunken weakling who feared that a silver mining syndicate, headed by Albert Dekker, would kill him. Learning that the syndicate owned huge silver deposits in the territory from which the Apaches had been routed after the massacre, Mature suspects that Dekker had engineered the massacre for his own benefit, and that he had bribed Gardiner to forge his father's name to the orders. Mature enters Dekker's employ under an assumed name in the hope of gaining a confession from Gardiner. Meanwhile his brother arrives in town. Dekker, fearing that Gardiner might talk to Langan, orders the weakling killed. Aware that the syndicate was out to murder him, Gardiner writes a confession just as he is shot down. Langan manages to obtain the paper and conceal it, but through a frame-up he is charged with Gardiner's murder and sentenced to hang. Mature helps him to escape with the confession while he shoots it out with Dekker and his henchmen in a rousing finale, during which he overcomes the villains with the unexpected aid of an Apache Indian, whom Dekker had double-crossed. Though seriously wonded, Mature recovers and learns that Langan had delivered the confession to the authorities, thus clearing their father's name. Fred Kohlmar produced it and Bruce Humberstone directed it from a screen play by Charles G. Booth, suggested from a story by David Garth. The Cast includes George Cleveland, Roy Roberts, Fred Clark and others. Unobjectionable morally. "Shaggy" with Brenda Joyce, Robert Shayne and George Nokes (Paramount, June 11; time, 72 min.) Ordinary program fare. Photographed in Cinecolor, it is one of those oft-told stories about a boy's devotion to his dog, and about the misunderstandings between the youngster and his new stepmother, despite her efforts to win his love. It is the sort of entertainment that will appeal mainly to the juvenile trade, for the story has been done many times and this version offers little that is original. The use of color photography makes for some nice scenic shots of the outdoor backgrounds, but it is not enough to compensate for the trite handling of an overworked theme. The performances are adequate, but no one in the cast means anything at the box-office : — Returning home to his sheep ranch, Robert Shayne brings with him Brenda Joyce, his new wife and stepmother for George Nokes, his eight-year-old son. Brenda does her best to make friends with the boy, but her fear of his pet raccoon, which he is compelled to keep out of the house, causes him to resent her. To add to the youngster's troubles, a neighboring ranch owner accuses the boy's pet dog, Shaggy, of killing his sheep. Certain that the dog was not a killer, Shayne rejects the accusation. Brenda finally wins the boy's affection when he sees her trying to make friends with the raccoon. But this affection is shortlived when the raccoon dies after eating some poisoned food and the youngster mistakenly believes that Brenda has fed it to him. Meanwhile a vicious mountain lion had been roaming the range killing sheep and, through a series of coincidents, during which Shaggy is seen traveling at night with a shewolf, and during which he gets blood on his fur while defending his mate from an attack by the lion, the dog is erroneously identified as the sheep killer. Shayne decides to shoot him, but George helps the animal to escape into the hills and follows him when scolded by his father. Brenda, worried over the child's safety, goes in search of him and finds him. Just then the mountain lion appears and attacks them. Shaggy springs to their defense and courageously wards off the attack in a losing battle, but he, too, is saved by the timely arrival of Shayne, who shoots the lion dead. Shaggy is cleared when sheep bones and skins are found in the lion's den, and it all ends with a happy family reunion. William Pine and William Thomas produced it, and Robert Emmett Tansey directed it from an original screen play by Maxwell Shane. The cast includes Ralph Sanford, Jody Gilbert and others. Suitable for the family. "Homecoming" with Clark Gable, Lana Turner and Anne Baxter (MGM, May; time, 113 min.) With Clark Gable and Lana Turner heading the cast, "Homecoming" undoubtedly will prove to be an outstanding box-office attraction. The substance of the story is in no sense novel and it is not without its shortcomings, but on the whole most audiences, particularly women, will find it to be a well-acted, interest-holding drama that will give them a full measure of entertainment. As a successful and happily married surgeon whose experiences make him realize that his life had been self-centered and lacking in purpose, Gable handles his role with poise and meaning, as does Lana Turner, as a widowed army nurse, with whom he falls in love but who is killed before he returns to his wife. Their romance is restrained, quite believable, and sympathetic. Anne Baxter, as his understanding wife, and John Hodiak, as a fellow-doctor and family friend, contribute effective characterizations. The chief criticisms one may make of the film are that some of the situations are too pat and contrived, and that the action tends to drag in spots. There are, however, several exciting war scenes: — Happily married to Anne, Gable, a successful small-town surgeon, is so busy improving his own practice and attending social functions that he cannot find time to help his friend, Hodiak, eradicate the malaria-infested slums of a town nearby. When war is declared, he enlists in a medical unit because it seems "the thing to do," but once overseas he faces real problems while operating on battle casualties and comes to the realization that his work at home had been lacking in purpose. He discovers also that more than anyone else his nurse, Lana, a forthright, down-to-earth person, was responsible tor the change in his attitude. Working side by side with her through different battle campaigns, Gable eventually falls in love with her. They are separated when Lana is transferred to another unit but meet again during a furlough in Paris, just as word comes that the Germans had broken through Bastoigne. Gable returns to the front at once and Lana insists upon accompanying him. She is wounded on the battlefield and dies in a Paris hospital shortly thereafter. Returning home at the end of the war. Gable, his mind confused, confides to Anne the story of Lana and the influence she had on his life. Through Anne's patient understanding, he gets a new grip on himself and sets out to use his medical skill in a way that will benefit mankind. Sidney Franklin produced it and Mcrvyn LcRoy directed it from an original screen play by Sidney Kingsley. The cast includes Ray Collins, Gladys Cooper and others. Unobjectionable morally.