Alonzo Price
Fast-talking con-man and grifter Candy Johnson rises to be the corrupt boss of Yellow Creek, but his wife's alcoholic father tries to set things right.
The Saturday matinee crowd got two cowboy stars for the price of one in this lavishly budgeted western serial starring former singing cowboy Dick Foran and Buck Jones. The latter contributed deadpan humor to the proceedings, making Jones perhaps the highest paid B-western comedy relief in history. The two heroes defend the Death Valley borax miners from an outlaw gang headed by Wolf Reade. An extraordinarily strong cast -- for a serial, at least -- supported the stars, headed by Charles Bickford as Reade, Leo Carillo, Lon Chaney, Jr., and silent screen star Monte Blue. Leading lady Jeanne Kelly later changed her name to Jean Brooks and starred in the atmospheric RKO thriller The Seventh Victim (1943). Universal claimed to have spent $1 million on this serial and made sure to get their money's worth by endlessly recycling the action footage in serials and B-westerns for years to come.
Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which Métis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation. Dusty falls for nurse April Logan, who is also loved by Mountie Jim Brett. April's brother is involved with Courbeau's daughter Louvette, which leads to trouble during the battles between the rebels and the Mounties. Through it all Dusty is determined to bring Corbeau back to Texas (and April, too, if he can manage it.)
Modern meteorology and a hard-working government weather team put their science and organization to work as a cold front moves from Alaska toward the citrus groves of Southern California. First, the scientists predict the storm's course, giving several days' warning to farmers and growers. The growers, typified by the Morgan family, prepare the oil-burning pots throughout their grove. Then, as the temperature dips below freezing, they light the pots. The cold snap continues as oil-supplies dwindle; the smoky air slows traffic, including trucks bringing more oil. The scientists strive to predict how long freezing temperatures will last: can the Morgans hold out?
Huckleberry Finn, a rambunctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River.
A dedicated police officer is torn between family and duty when his son turns to a life of crime.
A French doctor (Boris Karloff) sentenced for treason performs brain surgery on the prison commandant's (James Stephenson) daughter.
The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
In this youth-oriented western, a young man's father is wrongfully accused of murder. Unfortunately, his pa can't prove it and so flees into the rugged mountains. He brings his boy with him. In those lonely hills lives a sad, but wealthy young woman. Love blossoms between the son and the girl as the son struggles to clear his father's name and bring the real villains to justice.
When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.
A sailor bets his friends he can get a date with any woman they choose. They pick out a librarian with glasses and a bookish appearance. When he pursues her, he discovers that she is quite beautiful and that he has competition -- but his rival has more sinister intentions than anyone imagines.
Bonnie Brewster (Claire Trevor) and "Packy" Campbell (Brian Donlevy), rival reporters on competing newspapers, team up to put an end to a smuggling gang that brings illegal aliens to the United States, and then makes further victims of them by extortion payments. They go to Vancouver, Canada and board a ship carrying aliens. But the gang recognizes them as reporters and gang-henchmen Tony Scula (Ralf Harolde) and Ira Conklin (Harry Woods, posing as government officials take them off the ship. But Campbell recognizes Scula as the gunman who killed Carmen Zoro (Rita Hayworth).
In this action film, a courageous test pilot works with experimental aircraft for the US Armed Forces. When an important airplane manufacturer dies, his daughter is left to run the company. The company seems to be producing dangerous prototypes, so the woman decides to close the company.
