82% (2) The Set-Up 73 min, Approved, [Crime, Film-Noir, Sport] [Robert Wise] [02 Apr 1949]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 79%, Rotten Tomatoes: 86%, External Reviews
Awards: Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins & 1 nomination.
Actors: Alan Baxter, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Robert Ryan
Writer: Art Cohn (screenplay), Joseph Moncure March (from the poem by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Over-the-hill boxer Bill 'Stoker' Thompson insists he can still win, though his sexy wife Julie pleads with him to quit. But his manager Tiny is so confident he will lose, he takes money for a "dive" from tough gambler Little Boy...without bothering to tell Stoker. Tension builds as Stoker hopes to "take" Tiger Nelson, unaware of what will happen to him if he does.
Rotten Tomatoes: As shown by the clock face that opens and closes the film, The Set-Up takes place within a compact 72 minutes, with the action played out in "real time." Robert Ryan plays Bill "Stoker" Thompson, a washed-up boxer who refuses to give up his career despite the pleas of his wife Julie (Audrey Totter). There's little chance that he's going to win this evening's bout; still, Stoker's manager Tiny (George Tobias) has secretly made a deal with a crooked gambler (Alan Baxter). Stoker is to take a dive, a fact withheld from him until the fight is well under way. His last vestige of pride is aroused in the ring, but the story doesn't end there. The fight sequence is one of the most brutal ever filmed, with close ups of Ryan's pummeled face intercut with shots of screaming spectators in the throes of bloodlust. Adapted by Art Cohn from a narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March, The Set-Up is arguably Robert Ryan's finest starring film.
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81% (2) Sergeant York 134 min, Not Rated, [Biography, Drama, History, Romance, War] [Howard Hawks] [27 Sep 1941]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 78%, Rotten Tomatoes: 85%, External Reviews
Awards: Won 2 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 10 nominations.
Actors: Gary Cooper, George Tobias, Joan Leslie, Walter Brennan
Writer: Abem Finkel (original screen play), Harry Chandlee (original screen play), Howard Koch (original screen play), John Huston (original screen play), Alvin C. York (based upon: the diary of), Tom Skeyhill (diary editor)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, French, German Country: USA
Plot: A hillbilly sharpshooter becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI when he single-handedly attacks and captures a German position using the same strategy as in turkey shoot.
Rotten Tomatoes: Based on a true WWI story, this film follows a religious Tennessee boy, who is initially opposed to war. York is drafted into the Army, where he realizes that there is indeed justification for fighting. In the course of service, he becomes one of the most decorated heros of WWI.
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74% (1) Objective, Burma! 142 min, APPROVED, [Action, Adventure, Drama] [Raoul Walsh] [17 Feb 1945]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 74%, External Reviews
Actors: Errol Flynn, George Tobias, James Brown, William Prince
Writer: Ranald MacDougall (screenplay), Lester Cole (screenplay), Alvah Bessie (original story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, Japanese Country: USA
Plot: A group of men parachute into Japanese-occupied Burma with a dangerous and important mission: to locate and blow up a radar station. They accomplish this well enough, but when they try to rendezvous at an old air-strip to be taken back to their base, they find Japanese waiting for them, and they must make a long, difficult walk back through enemy-occupied jungle.
Rotten Tomatoes: A few corny moments aside, Objective Burma must rate as one of the best combat films of WW2. Errol Flynn stars as Captain Nelson, who leads a hardy band of paratroopers behind enemy lines in Burma, for the purpose of destroying a Japanese radar station. Their mission accomplished, Nelson and his men prepare to make their escape by plane, but this proves to be impossible. It is therefore necessary for the surviving paratroops to make a grueling 150-mile journey by foot through the Japanese-held jungle, in hopes of eventually reaching their own lines. With the exception of Henry Hull, who delivers a mannered, strained performance as an Ernie Pyle-like war correspondent, the performances are uniformly excellent, with Flynn, George Tobias and William Prince standing out. Director Raoul Walsh and cinematographer James Wong Howe stage the combat scenes (filmed on the "Lucky" Baldwin Santa Anita ranch) with brutal efficiency, showing little but conveying a lot in the way of gore and carnage. The strangest sequence (at least to modern viewers) has the paratroopers expressing horror and disgust at a vicious sneak attack by the Japanese-which occurs only a few reels after the Americans have staged an equally merciless attack on a Japanese unit! In England, Objective Burma was taken to task by newspaper journalist who felt that the Americans were unfairly taking full credit for the success of the Burmese campaign. The ensuing hue and cry compelled Warner Bros. to issue an apology, and to withhold the British release of the film until 1952, at which time it was accompanied by a lengthy prologue title extolling England's contribution to the Burma invasion. Originally released at 142 minutes, Objective Burma is usually shown on TV in its 128-minute reissue form. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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71% (1) My Sister Eileen 96 min, APPROVED, [Comedy] [Alexander Hall] [24 Sep 1942]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Brian Aherne, George Tobias, Janet Blair, Rosalind Russell
Writer: Joseph Fields (screenplay), Jerome Chodorov (screenplay), Joseph Fields (play), Jerome Chodorov (play), Ruth McKenney (stories)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Sisters Ruth and Eileen Sherwood move from Ohio to New York in the hopes of building their careers. Ruth wants to get a job as a writer, while Eileen hopes to succeed on the stage. The two ...
Rotten Tomatoes: Rosalind Russell plays aspiring Ohio journalist Ruth Sherwood, who heads for New York to seek her fortune, accompanied by her sister, Eileen (Janet Blair), an aspiring actress. The girls take a basement apartment in Greenwich Village, which becomes a gathering place for several oddball characters, including a football jock (Gordon Jones), his silly wife (Miss Jeff Donnell) and an eternally drunken fortuneteller (June Havoc). Ruth tries to sell her writing, but is advised by a friendly magazine editor (Brian Aherne) that she'll never succeed unless she writes from her own experiences. Meanwhile, Eileen is continually getting in trouble due to her ingenuous attractiveness. Ruth secures an assignment to interview several visiting Portuguese sailors, who follow her to her apartment, are immediately entranced by Eileen, and break up the joint with an impromptu conga line. Everyone ends up in jail, and it looks as though Ruth is going to have to leave New York without achieving success. But when Ruth begins writing about her life with her sister Eileen, she becomes a success -- and wins the love of the magazine editor in the bargain. My Sister Eileen was based on a series of autobiographical articles by real-life writer Ruth McKenney, who with Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodhorov adapted these stories into a Broadway play. The play was later musicalized for the stage as +Wonderful Town (again with Rosalind Russell), while the film version was itself adapted into a separate movie musical in 1955. There was also a brief 1960 TV series, starring Elaine Stritch and Shirley Bonne. As an added fillip, the 1942 My Sister Eileen includes a fleeting guest appearance by the Three Stooges!
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68% (1) The Seven Little Foys 93 min, APPROVED, [Biography, Comedy, Drama] [Melville Shavelson] [01 Jan 1955]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Actors: Angela Clarke, Bob Hope, George Tobias, Milly Vitale
Writer: Melville Shavelson (written for the screen by), Jack Rose (written for the screen by)
External Links: Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: After the young wife of vaudevillian Eddie Foy passes away, he incorporates their seven children into the act and takes it on the road.
Rotten Tomatoes: With his movie career fading in 1955, Bob Hope was amenable to writer/director Mel Shavelson's suggestion that Hope try something different. The Seven Little Foys was the first of Hope's two "straight" biopics (the second was 1956's Beau James). Though not completely abandoning his patented persona, Hope does an admirable job of impersonating legendary Broadway song-and-dance man Eddie Foy, right down to the soft-shoe shuffle and affected lisp. A successful "single" in vaudeville, Foy meets and marries lovely Italian songstress Madeleine Morando (Milly Vitale). The union results in seven children, moving the Foys' priest to comment "we're running out of Holy water" after the seventh baptism. Hardly an ideal family man, Foy leaves Madeleine and her sister Clara (Angela Clarke) behind in their Connecticut home to raise the kids, while he rises to spectacular career height. Returning home after attending a testimonial for George M. Cohan (James Cagney, who played this unbilled cameo on the proviso that Hope turn over Cagney's salary to charity), Foy discovers that his wife has died of pneumonia. Months pass: Foy sulks in his rambling house, while his seven kids run roughshod. Foy's manager (George Tobias) suggests that the entire family be assembled into a vaudeville troupe called The Seven Little Foys. Though the kids are profoundly bereft of talent, the act gets by on its charm, and before long Foy is a bigger success than ever. But when Foy and the kids are booked into the Palace on Christmas Day, Aunt Clara decides that the kids are being cruelly exploited, and arranges for the authorities to arrest the act on charges of violating a state law barring children from singing and dancing. The authorities decide to drop the charges when the kids rally around their father, declaring their genuine love for him--but the deciding factor is a quick demonstration that the kids can't sing or dance to save their lives! The Seven Little Foys is a standard Hollywood whitewash job, emphasizing Eddie Foy's virtues (including his on-stage heroism during the infamous Iroquois Theatre fire of 1903) and soft-pedaling or ignoring his faults (e.g. his capacity for alcohol). Wisely, the scenes between Bob Hope and the seven children playing the Little Foys (including Father Knows Best's Billy Gray, The Real McCoys' Lydia Reed and Leave It to Beaver's Jerry Mathers) are refreshingly free of cloying sentiment. Also, Hope is a good enough natural actor to convince us that he deeply cares for his children without gooey effusions of emotion. The film's hands-down highlight is the "challenge dance" between Foy (Bob Hope) and Cohan (James Cagney)--a lasting testament of the superb terpsichorean talents of both men. The Seven Little Foys was narrated by Eddie's son Charley Foy, a fine comedian in his own right.
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59% (1) This Is the Army 121 min, Approved, [Comedy, Musical, War] [Michael Curtiz] [14 Aug 1943]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 59%, External Reviews
Awards: Won 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 2 nominations.
Actors: Alan Hale, George Murphy, George Tobias, Joan Leslie
Writer: Casey Robinson (screenplay), Claude Binyon (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: In WWI dancer Jerry Jones stages an all-soldier show on Broadway, called Yip Yip Yaphank. Wounded in the war, he becomes a producer. In WWII his son Johnny Jones, who was before his father's assistant, gets the order to stage a new all-soldier show, called This is the Army. But in his personal life he has problems, because he refuses to marry his fiancée until the war is over.
Rotten Tomatoes: Based both on the play by Irving Berlin of the same name and his musical, Yip Yip Yaphank, this film pays tribute to American soldiers fighting in WW II (though Yip... was aimed at WW I) by providing a plot that includes a big Broadway-like show featuring many musical numbers. The all-star cast includes Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Stanley Ridges, Kate Smith, Joe Louis and even Irving Berlin himself.
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54% (1) Mission to Moscow 124 min, APPROVED, [Drama, History, War] [Michael Curtiz] [22 May 1943]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 54%, External Reviews
Actors: Ann Harding, George Tobias, Oskar Homolka, Walter Huston
Writer: Joseph E. Davies (book), Howard Koch (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, Russian, German, Mandarin, French Country: USA
Plot: "Mission to Moscow" was made at the behest of F.D.R. in order to garner more support for the Soviet Union during WWII. It was from the book by Joseph E. Davies, former U.S. Ambassador To Russia. The movie covers the political machinations in Moscow just before the start of the war and presents Stalin's Russia in a very favorable light. So much so, that the movie was cited years later by the House Un-American Activities Commission and was largely responsible for the screenwriter, Howard Koch being Blacklisted.
Rotten Tomatoes: The life and times of American ambassador to Russia Joseph Davies provide the basis of this pre-Cold War, pro-Soviet drama that is based on Davies' autobiography. Featuring many positive glimpses of Soviet life (something many Muscovite audiences found hilarious), and beautiful on-location photography, much of the story centers on the Diplomat's encounters with Stalin and Molotov. The real Joseph Davies introduces the film.
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