Showing posts with label Loretta Young. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Loretta Young. Show all posts
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| Rudy Vallee, Loretta Young and Van Johnson |
Since her trust fund can't be accessed for several months, Abigail Fortitude Abbott (Loretta Young), a widow with a college-age daughter, has to figure out how to pay her bills. Most people would get a job, but instead Abigail decides to take advantage of a bizarre clause in her grandmother's will which allows anyone with her exact name to get a scholarship to her alma mater. So Abigail goes to classes at the same school as her daughter, Susan (Betty Lynn of Cheaper By the Dozen), but the two keep their relationship a secret. Wouldn't you know that both mother and daughter fall for the same handsome and charming Professor Michaels (Van Johnson)? Mother is a Freshman is highly-contrived but cute, with excellent performances, but it doesn't quite sustain the fun, although it's consistently pleasant. Barbara Lawrence [Kronos] plays another co-ed, and Rudy Vallee, once a singing idol, is again cast in middle-age as a stuffy unattractive-to-women type, in this case Abigail's lawyer, as he was in Unfaithfully Yours and other movies.
Verdict: Perky Loretta and dreamy Van make a good combo. **1/2.
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| Jeff Chandler gives one of his best performances |
Flashy Christine Carroll (Loretta Young) is given a package by her fiance, Mike (Alex Nicol), and suddenly finds herself arrested and in jail despite her truthful protestations of innocence. She trains to be a nurse in prison and winds up ministering to a handsome vet named Steve Kimberly (Jeff Chandler), with whom she falls in love and vice versa. Her parole officer (Helen Wallace) warns her that Steve must be informed of her prison record before they can marry, so an apprehensive Christine manages to get around this, and a child soon follows. Then Mike comes back into her life and everything starts unraveling ... Because of You is an entertaining soap opera that soon becomes a study of frustrated mother love, with good performances from Young (in a Joan Crawford-type role) and Chandler, who is at his best in this. Notable supporting players include Alexander Scourby as a doctor at the veteran's hospital; Frances Dee as Steve's lovely sister, Susan; Lynne Roberts as his friend, Rosemary; Gayle Reed as little Kim; and Arthur Space as a judge. Pevny also directed Chandler in Female on the Beach and Foxfire.
Verdict: Pleasant enough if unremarkable soaper with two solid lead performances. **1/2.
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| Douglas Dick and Loretta Young |
"What do you think suicides are? Some little person thinks their little problems are all that matter in the world." -- Dr. Tuttle
College psychology professor Dr. Wilma Tuttle (Loretta Young) is concerned with a brilliant but brash and difficult student named Bill Perry (Douglas Dick). When Bill forces a smooch on her at an isolated spot, she reacts by hitting him repeatedly and killing him. Instead of coming clean, she covers up and hopes his death will be attributed to a bad dive off of a cliff into the water below; he was wearing swimming trunks. Perry's lawyer, Warren Ford (Robert Cummings), who didn't really know Perry that well nor especially like him, comes to town and begins a romance with Wilma even as homicide detective Lt. Ted Dorgan (Wendell Corey) begins to get suspicious ... The Accused features a good lead performance from Young [Because of You], fine support from an especially notable Douglas Dick and the wry, sardonic Corey [The Big Knife], but Bob Cummings is horribly miscast [as he always was in movies like this] and is terrible. Another problem with the movie is that while Perry does kiss Wilma forcibly and without permission, it doesn't necessarily mean he would have sexually assaulted her, and her viciously hitting him over and over again seems like literal overkill. Sara Allgood and Ann Doran are also in the cast, and Sam Jaffe offers a flavorful performance as Dr. Romley, whom Wilma finds ghoulish. Victor Young's score is a plus, and Ketti Frings' screenplay has some interesting dialogue. Unfortunately The Accused runs out of gas long before it's over. Dieterle directed Dark City and many, many others.
Verdict: Physician, heal thyself. **.
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| Teaching Davey to speak: Rettig, Knox and Young |
PAULA (1952). Director: Rudolph Mate.
After a miscarriage Paula Rogers (Loretta Young) is told by her doctor that she can't have any more children, and it is in this distracted mental state that she accidentally hits a young boy, David (Tommy Rettig), while driving home. Although she immediately gets out of her car and rushes to the child, an old man, Bascom (Will Wright) -- who actually contributed to the accident -- decides unfairly that she is drunk and forbids her to accompany them to the hospital. As Paula's husband, John (Kent Smith) may lose a coveted position if there's any hint of scandal, Paula hides the truth and decides to help the boy behind the scenes. She becomes a kind of nurse's aid, befriends the boy -- who has lost his ability to speak due to the trauma, and is an orphan -- and eventually takes him into her home. But what happens when and if he recognizes her from that night? And there's still that horrible old man who claimed she was inebriated ... Young gives a good performance and Rettig (Elopement), with his little, expressive face, is just marvelous. Alexander Knox (Son of Dr. Jekyll) plays a doctor who tries to get Davey to speak, and Kathryn Card (I Love Lucy) is cast as a nurse. While this is more of a light drama than a suspense film, it definitely has a lump-in-your-throat finale. Mate also directed the classic D.O.A.
Verdict: Minor but effective enough on its own terms. **1/2.
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| Joseph Cotten and Loretta Young |
"What the night shift has done to what was once irresistible beauty!" -- Nurse Kay
Now here's a weird one. Nurse Nora Gilpin (Loretta Young) is engaged to her boyfriend Tim (John Ridgely), but at night she enters a trance state and pays lascivious calls on a man she normally hates, a lawyer named John Raymond (Joseph Cotten). John is convinced he knows Nora from somewhere, but when he tries to speak to her during the daytime, she becomes apoplectic, leading to a trial and various complications. Half Angel seems to be using an old screwball script from the 1930's but it just doesn't work twenty years later, even though both Young and Cotten give good performances. Cecil Kellaway is Nora's father, and Irene Ryan of The Beverly Hillbillies adds a slight bit of fun as Nurse Kay. Jim Backus also has a supporting role. As usual in movies of this nature, Ridgely's character is treated very badly.
Verdict: Sleepwalking and multiple personalities given the allegedly comedic approach. **1/2.