Corman and Cohen

 

 (imdb)

SATURDAY THE 14TH-1981-John (Richard Benjamin) and Mary (Paula Prentiss) inherit a haunted house from a recently departed uncle. 

Unfortunately, a pair of vampires want a book they have that their son (Kevin Brando) has already opened and releasing some monsters. Weird things happen. An exterminator (Mousie Garner) sends Van Helsing (Severn Darden) to get rid of their bats. Waldemar (Jeffery Tambor), the male vampire puts the bite on Mary. 

Despite the inane jokes and the deliberate bad acting, there are some violent deaths and a severed head. It may have been funny in 1981 but now it's just a dated piece of dumbness. Also with Kari Michaelsen as their daughter, Rosemary De Camp, Stacey Keach Sr., and Roberta Collins. 

Written and directed by Howard R. Cohen, who made a sequel SATURDAY THE 14TH STRIKES BACK in 1988. He worked a lot for Roger Corman. Later directing SPACE RAIDERS (1983) and DEATHSTALKER 4 (he wrote the other Deathstalker movies too).

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Chaney in Charge

 

 (imdb)

THE MONSTER-1925-When Dr. Bowman disappears (actually his car is caused to crash and his body is taken by two ghoulish figures), the town of Danburg is in an uproar. The constable (Charles Sellon) and his "daring detectives'' investigate. Local boy Johnny Goodlittle (Johnny Arthur) who has a book "How Be A Detective" is the only one who finds a clue but the Constable laughs at him. Johnny works under Amos Rugg (Hallam Cooley) at a general store. They are both sweet on Betty Watson (Gertude Olmstead). The insurance company sends detective Jennings (William H. Turner). Once again Johnny shows them the clue he's found, a card from nearby Edwards sanitarium with the word help written backwards on the reverse side. Still, nobody believes it, since the doc is away and his sanitarium is closed. At Betty's party, she throws Johnny over for the pompous Rugg. Leaving dejectedly, Johnny meets a loony looking man who smokes an invisible pipe. When he mentions Bowman, Johnny follows him. When Rugg and Betty go for a ride, they fall victim to a planned auto accident just like Bowman had. Meanwhile Johnny accidentally gets into the sanitarium and later meets Rugg and Betty who went there to use the phone. They find a dead body. Asshole Rugg accuses Johnny of murder. Odd things happen around them. Then 30 minutes into the story Dr. Ziska (Lon Chaney) appears, saying he's in charge when Dr. Edwards is away. The guy they think is dead was actually in a trance. Ziska also has a huge mute servant Caliban (Walter James). Of course, Ziska is really an insane surgeon, once a patient who now has Edwards, Bowman and another guy captive in a dungeon. Meanwhile Ziska plans to transfer Rugg's soul into Betty's body. Fortunately, Johnny overcomes his cowardice and uses his "ingenuity" to put a stop to Ziska's evil machinations. 

THE MONSTER is thought to be the first type of haunted house mystery ala "THE OLD DARK HOUSE”. There's lots of strange characters and spooky goings on (clutching hands, secret doors etc). Co-star Johnny Arthur was known for playing timid characters, sometimes described as “effeminate”. After the Production Code was implemented in 1934, he had uncredited roles in many movies. He also portrayed Darla Hood's father in several “Our Gang” shorts. Star Lon Chaney is quite over the top in this horror-comedy which he made the same year as PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE UNHOLY THREE. 

Director/co-writer Roland West went on to make THE BAT and THE BAT WHISPERS but retired from the movies and went into business with ill-fated actress Thelma Todd. Co-writer Crane Wilbur (who wrote the play THE MONSTER is based on) made the controversial THE UNBORN in 1934 but went on to write many more movies (WEST OF SHANGHAI, HOUSE OF WAX, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND).

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Witchtrapped

 

 (the moviedatabase)

WITCHTRAP-1989-A group of psychic researchers go to the haunted Lauder House. 3 moronic security officers accompany them. The first victim of the group is Ginger (Linnea Quigley), who takes a nude shower and has the good sense to get killed (by a shower head) early on. A woman named Whitney (Kathleen Bailey) has a lot of seizures. A psycho handyman roams around too. The acting is terrible. 

Writer/director Kevin S. Tenney (who also has a role) also made WITCHBOARD, NIGHT OF THE DEMONS and THE CELLAR.

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Horror Remake

 

 (imdb)

WEB OF THE SPIDER-1971-An American reporter Foster (Anthony Franciosa) meets Edgar Allan Poe (Klaus Kinski) in England and winds up making a bet to spend the night in a haunted castle. After investigating the place he meets two women, Julia (Karin Field) & Elizabeth (Michele Mercier). They don't seem to like each other. It's clear that something is going on. After Elizabeth seduces Foster, a man breaks in and seems to kill her. Foster shoots the man but his body disappears. Then Elizabeth's body also vanishes. While searching for the missing bodies, Foster meets doctor Carmis (Peter Carsten) who vanished years before. He proves through some apparitions/flashbacks that everyone in the house is dead. 

This stylish remake of NIGHTMARE CASTLE directed Antonio Margheriti (under the pseudonym Anthony Dawson) is good but I prefer the original. This was one of 10 films Klaus Kinski made in 1971.

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Ghost?

 

(imdb)

THE GHOST TRAIN-1941-On a train in England full of very English people, music hall performer/pain in the ass Tommy Gander (Arthur Askey) loses his bowler. He pulls the emergency brake to stop the train and retrieve his hat. All the passengers are very loud and complaining except for a couple who plan on being married the next day (the guy's a wimp though). They all get stranded at a train depot and want to stay the night but the station master says they can't because the place is haunted. (It also seems he might want to get rid of them for some other reason…). He tells them a story about a train wreck and leaves. Later after Gander acts like a complete and annoying asshole, the station master is found dead. Then a frightened woman shows up looking for the ghost train. Then a man (Raymond Huntley) who claims to be her brother comes looking for her. The final conclusion is not supernatural at all. 

Star Askey was a music hall performer before entering film in the late '30's. He became very famous in England and later had his own TV show. Co-star Raymond Huntley had originated the stage role of “Dracula” in the 1927 English stage production (Lugosi would play it on Broadway and of course in the movies version). Director Walter Forde made several other movies with Askey (brave guy....).

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Two Out of the Way At Once

 

 (imdb)

REMNANTS-2013-Nothing new here. A couple (writer/director Brian Coppola & co-writer Stephanie Gershowitz) with a dog and a video camera believe their house is haunted. The next hour is them talking and walking around in the dark. The doggie was cute though......

FRANKENSTEIN-2011-Mary Shelly, James Whale and Boris Karloff must be spinning in their graves. This is a trashy modern low budget version of the horror classic with lots of characters yelling "No!" at the top of their lungs. Bad acting, direction, tons of talk. Really terrible. I hope director Jordan Salkil never heard of the novel “Dracula”....

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The Original

THE EVIL DEAD-1981-Ash (Bruce Campbell) and 4 jerky friends (1 guy, 3 girls) go to a secluded cabin. There's a lot of strange noises and there seems to be something in the woods. In the basement (where there's a THE HILLS HAVE EYES poster) they find some ancient books, artifacts and a tape recorder. The tape has a doctor talking about Sumeria, The Book of The Dead and resurrecting the deceased. The taped chanting of the doctor seems to bring up some force and a tree crashes through a window. At night one of the women Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) is attacked by tree branches then chased through the forest by an unseen force. On the tape the doctor says his wife is possessed. Cheryl becomes a ghoul and threatens the rest, stabbing Ash's girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker) with a pencil. They lock her in the basement. The third girl Shelly (Sarah York) becomes possessed and attacks Scott (Richard Manincor), the other guy. Shelly gets partially burned, has her hand cut off, then dies after being dismembered in a very gory scene. Then Linda becomes a giggling demon. Ash yells: “You bastards! Why are you torturing me like this?!”. When Scotty dies, Ash is left alone to fight the demons. 

There's a lot of bloody effects, decapitation, demon attacks and of course poor Ash is beaten, stabbed and generally terrorized but manages to destroy the demon and survive....or does he? 

This was director Sam Raimi's first feature film (he'd only made short films before this) and seems to be influenced the low budget horror film EQUINOX (1970). It still packs a wallop today. Followed by two sequels and a cable TV show many years later.

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Happy New Year!

13 GHOSTS-1960-College teacher Cyrus Zorba (Donald Woods; THE BLACK DOLL) inherits a spooky house from his dead uncle Pluto. After Zorba, his wife Hilda (Rosemary DeCamp) and 2 kids Medea (Jo Morrow) and Buck (Charles Herbert; THE BOY AND THE PIRATES) move in the real estate agent (Martin Milner; on TV's ROUTE 66 at the time) tells them the place is haunted and a Ouija board tells them there are 13 ghosts. When dad puts on some special glasses invented by Pluto he sees a few of them. A colleague Van Allen (John Van Dreelan) translates a book in Greek which tells how Pluto “captured” ghosts from all around the world and brought them to his house. Housekeeper Elaine (Margaret Hamilton), called “the witch” behind her back, gives them the scoop on how Pluto died and warns them to leave. Later Medea has a strange encounter and when Buck puts on the glasses he sees a headless lion tamer! There's also a ghost chef who killed his wife and her lover and a flaming skeleton. Thanks to a special bed Uncle Pluto gets his revenge on the person who killed him. 

William Castle directed this unusual horror story which had the gimmick “Illusion-O” wherein moviegoers were given special ghost viewers to see the ghosts more clearly. Castle provides on screen instructions at the film's onset.

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Country Western Horror Comedy

HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE-1967-On their way to Nashville, country and western singers Woody (Ferlin Husky), Boots (Joi Lansing) and Jeepers (Don Bowman) spend the night in a haunted house, actually the hideout of some spies lead by Madame Wong (Linda Ho) with her bodyguard Max (Lon Chaney also in the much more enjoyable SPIDER BABY the same year), Gregor (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Himmil (John Carradine). After Sonny James and his band visit and sing two songs, the group meets Wong and Max. She lets them spend the night and Merle Haggard shows up on their TV set to do a song (Max also makes a appearance). The spies think the yokels are from an organization called MOTHER and use their pet gorilla Anatole (George Barrows; the veteran man in an ape suit who'd “starred” in ROBOT MONSTER) to frighten them. Mother Agent #30 (Richard Webb) shows up and kills Anatole and Carradine. He and Max scuffle. They are all saved by the ghost of a Confederate war general. 

This crazy nonsense is a sequel to the previous year's LAS VEGAS HILLBILLIES which also featured Husky as Woody but has Mamie Van Doren in the Boots role and Jayne Mansefield. Veteran director Jean Yarbrough who had worked with Abbott and Costello and The Bowery Boys was directing episodes of TV's “Petticoat Junction” at the time.

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Bud & Lou

HOLD THAT GHOST-1941-Classic Abbott & Costello haunted house comedy has Bud & Lou (sometimes referred as “the boys”) as incompetent waiters Chuck and Ferdy who are fired from their jobs. While working at a gas station they wind up in the backseat of a mobster Moose Mattson's car just as he's “bumped off”. Since his will stated that who was ever with him when he died would inherit all he had the duo inherit his rundown inn. Another gangster Smitty (Marc Lawrence; later in the duo's HIT THE ICE) believes the mobster's fortune is hidden somewhere in the place and plans to do away with Chuck and Ferdy who are accompanied by a radio actress (Joan Davis), a nerdy doctor (Richard Carlson) and a blonde waitress (Evelyn Ankers) after their driver strands them all together. Though the team does a few routines, a highlight is a kind of violent dance between Costello and Davis.

 Director Arthur Lubin made the first five Abbott and Costello comedies and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA remake with Claude Rains. Later he did several in the FRANCIS THE TALKING MULE series. Shemp Howard appears as a soda jerk and the Andrews Sisters show up to sing at the end. 

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Scary Disney

MR. BOOGEDY-1986-A man who sells gags for a living (Richard Masur) moves his wife (Mimi Kennedy) and two kids (David Faustino and Kristy Swanson) into a haunted house. He doesn't think anything is wrong but the kids get the lowdown from a weird local historian (John Astin). It seems hundreds of years before a pilgrim wanted to marry a young widow but she spurned his advances so he made a deal with the devil and sold his soul for a cloak with magical powers. But on creating his first spell he killed himself, the widow and her son. Later when Mr. Boogedy terrorizes the family they use a vacuum cleaner to destroy him. 

Lame made for TV Disney movie directed by Oz Scott, a busy TV director still active at the time of this writing.  

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Old Creaky House

THE CAT AND THE CANARY-1939- Old house mystery turned into a vehicle for Bob Hope. 10 years after the death of millionaire Cyrus Norman, his remaining relatives gather for the reading of his will in his spooky Louisiana bayou mansion, watched over by the equally spooky caretaker Miss Lu (Gale Sondergaard). The heir most likely to gain the inheritance is Joyce Norman (Paulette Goddard) but if she is proven insane before a certain period of time the money goes to the second heir. Only the family lawyer (George Zucco, a busy actor in 1939) knows who that will be but when he's killed weird things happen to Joyce to make her seem unstable. Hope is a wisecracking actor and relative who helps Joyce find out what's really happening in a story that features secret panels, strange sounds, a clutching hand and a search for a rare necklace. John Beal, Douglas Montgomery, Elizabeth Patterson and Nydia Westman are the other relatives. Charles Lane appears as a reporter.

 

This is actually a remake of a 1927 silent film directed by Paul Leni and there are at least 4 other versions including one made in 1979 directed by Radley Metzger.

 

Former actor Eliot Nugent (he'd direct Hope again in MY FAVORITE BLONDE) also worked with Danny Kaye and Harold Lloyd and made a version of THE GREAT GATSBY starring Alan Ladd in 1949. His career was hampered by alcohol and mental condition and he retired in the early '50's. Hope and Goddard would team up again a year later in GHOST BREAKERS.

 

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Scooby Do Be Doooooooo!

SATURDAY MORNING MYSTERY-2012-This is a weird dark ghost hunters investigating a haunted house  film but the four lead characters seem to be based on those in the cartoon series SCOOBY DOO! Although it features sex, nudity and swearing. There's a pet dog (named Hamlet) too but he just acts like a real dog. The group sets up cameras and goes about exploring. The Shaggy character (who also has drugs) watches two of his partners having sex. When it appears they might actually have found a ghost it turns out they are on acid that the ersatz Shaggy hid in their water cooler. This also helps explain the characters bird brain antics. After some BLAIR WITCH  type chase scenes the dog is eaten and there's a bloody decapitation. The guys are killed. A local sheriff (who had told the group early about the legend of the house) comes to the rescue of the two girls but in the movies stupidest scene he's captured climbing over a wall (and later tortured). The vicious deeds are done by Mona & Frankie , a brother and sister who's parents were accused of killing them after they disappeared but in fact they were hiding out somewhere in the house the whole time and are now crazy killers. This picks up steam as it goes on and despite it's derivative story line it's suspenseful and well directed. I was actually surprised at the typical cliche' ending. This was director Spencer Parsons second full length film.

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Evil Remake

EVIL DEAD-2013-Sam Raimi's classic low budget horror masterpiece is given the big budgeted Hollywood treatment. Some stupid young people decide to take their drug addicted friend Mia (Jane Levy) to an isolated cabin in the woods to cure her. Bad idea. No really, it's idiotic even if one of them is a nurse. After one dork reads some passages from The Book of The Dead, Mia starts acting real weird. She sees dead people, spits blood, levitates and talks in a Linda Blair/Exorcist. It sorts of copies the original in some respects but as usual with so many modern horror stories you don't about the characters, the SFX are more disgusting than horrifying and the acting sucks.  

It was the first feature made by Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez (who also co-scripted). He had previously made a Sci-Fi short ATAQUE DE PANICOL (PANIC ATTACK) which debuted on You Tube. You can see it here and decide whether it was a good enough to warrant him a debut film costing 30 million dollars:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk .


But the movie did well so I guess it doesn't matter.

Original director Sam Raimi and original producer Robert Tapert were to of the producers for this remake as well as original star Bruce Campbell (who has a cameo).

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Calling Prof. Quatermass!

QUATERMASS AND THE PIT-1958-This is the third Professor Quatermass serial produced by the BBC. Despite a lot of talk and non-action it's very well done. In a London district, an archeological dig led by Prof. Roney (Cec Linder; Felix Leiter in GOLDFINGER) find evidence of a new hominid and later discover a huge metallic object. 

Roney brings in his friend Prof. Quatermass (Andre Morell) to investigate. Quatermass' war department nemesis the pompous Colonel Breen (Joseph Bushell who later directed TERROR OF THE TONGS for Hammer) gets involved as well. 

When an air tight compartment in the object is finally opened a bunch of dead insect like creatures are found. This leads Quatermass to the theory that the creatures are from Mars and 5 million year ago they came to Earth and experimented on early man! Of course the government will have none of it. A haunted house, telekinesis, ancient myths and a weird machine that can record “visual impressions inside the brain” all figure into this ambitious ahead of it's time story which if it sounds familiar was later re-made by Hammer as the full length film 20 MILLION YEARS TO EARTH. The final speech by Quatermass really rings true!

Also with Christine Finn (the voice of “Tin-Tin” on THE THUNDERBIRDS) & John Stratton. Michael Ripper portrays a army sergeant in the first five segments. Morrell was in THE GIANT BEHEMOTH around this time and played Dr. Watson to Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes in Hammer's THE HOUND OF THE BASERVILLES in 1959. 

 

Screenwriter Nigel Kneale had written the feature length film ENEMY FROM SPACE (where American actor Brian Donlevy was the professor) in 1957 and later did screenplays for movies like LOOK BACK IN ANGER, THE ENTERTAINER and FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. Director Rudolph Cartier had a long career in BBC TV.

 

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Horror House

HAUNTED HOUSE OF HORROR-1969-In this British production from Hammer rival Tigon, a group of mod young people in London get bored with their party and decide to go out in a deserted mansion in the countryside.

The group includes their nominal leader Chris (American Frankie Avalon), his girlfriend Sheila (Jill Haworth),two timing hipster Gary (Mark Wynter) and the women he's two timing with Dorothy (Carol Dilworth) and Sylvia (Gina Warwick). Creeping around outside is Inspector Bradley (Dennis Price), the older jilted lover of Sylvia's who still wants them to be a couple. When the group arrives, Richard (Julian Barnes) tells a story of why a ghost haunts the place but they can't decide whether to have coffee, booze, an orgy or a seance'. After Sylvia leaves, Gary is bloodily hacked to death. The murder seems to point at the Inspector (who the rest of the group is unaware of) but Chris convinces the others it could be one of them and they should dispose of the body.

 Hmmmm...?? Suspicious behavoir..no? 

Three days later the police are investigating and the group acts nervous and paranoid. When the inspector goes back to the old house he's killed.The group decides to go back and find clues 
themselves as to who might be the murderer and much time is spend with Chris and Richard debating why a person might kill until it's revealed that Richard is the killer (he's afraid of the dark) 
and poor Beach Blanket Frankie gets stabbed in the crotch! 

This dumb, talky run of the mill horror story was made by writer/director Michael Armstrong who one year later made the more infamous MARK OF THE DEVIL. Avalon had been in the Otto Preminger bomb SKIDOO the year before. Haworth had 
made her film debut in EXODUS and had been in the original Broadway cast of CABERET but by '69 her career was in decline. 

I've always read that the Price role was suppose to be played by Boris Karloff but he became ill (he died in Feb. of '69). Price was 54 at the time (he died in '73 at 58) and I found the older man/younger woman relationship a little strained but Karloff would have been 80 around that time! Obviously (I hope) the role had been re-written! 

Also known as HORROR HOUSE and THE DARK.

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Spook Chasers

SPOOK CHASERS-1957-By this time the Bowery Boys series was nearing it's end (this was the 45th of 48 movies made in the series) and it shows. 

Top billed Huntz Hall is moronic Sach and Stanley Clements is Duke (acting more Slip Mahoney-ish this time out). The rest of "the boys" are David Gorcey as Chuck, Jimmy Murphy as Myron, and Eddie LeRoy as Blinky. This time instead of having a landlady to harass or save they hang out in "Clancy's Diner" owned by Louie Dumbrowsky substitute Mike (Percy Helton). When a doctor tells the overworked Mike he needs a rest in the country two crooked real estate agents (William Henry & Darlene Fields) sell him a dilapidated haunted house. However, instead of finding the usual trouble, they find money. It turns out to be the hidden loot of a gangster (Peter Mamakos) who  later shows up (one of his henchman is Ben Welden) to collect. 

It's mostly tired bits of haunted house humor from other comedies (like HOLD THAT GHOST) and Robert Shayne shows up at the end as a detective. Ellwood Ullman scripted it once again and George Blair directed. Blair was also doing episodes of the SUPERMAN TV series at the time.

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They Got The First Four Letters Right

THE MESSENGERS-2007-A man (Dylan McDermott) and his family move into a isolated haunted farmhouse. Mom (Penelope Ann Miller) and troubled daughter (Kristen Stewart from TWILIGHT) don't seem to get along too well but that's the least of their problems. Crows hang around threateningly and their small son sees weird apparitions. Later on the daughter is terrorized by the house and some dead people in the basement. No one believes her though. Dad is more concerned about his sunflower harvest. John Corbett is a friendly but suspicious handyman. William B. Davis hangs around for a while wanting to buy the place as the family begins to disintegrate. This cliché ridden nonsense, full of false scares and boredom was made by Oxide and Danny Pang, the Pang brothers who made EYE 2 and BANGKOK DANGEROUS.

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From Japan

HOUSE-1977-This whacky story from Japan begins with two school girls, Gorgeous and Fantasy who are best of friends. Gorgeous plans to spend her summer vacation with her father until she meets dad's new wife. She gets mad and decides to go and stay at her aunt's house in the country. She brings along Fantasy and 5 equally unusual named friends: Mac (who likes to eat), Professor (a nerd), Sweet (who likes cleaning), Kung-Fu (who likes martial arts) and Melody (who plays the piano).

The happy group meets the lonely wheel chair bound aunt but it's obvious this is no ordinary old lady. She actually likes to eat unmarried girls! This is a very bizarre but entertaining horror-comedy (with touches of fantasy) with wild special effects, a possessed cat, a killer piano, Shaw Bros. like fights, animation, a laughing skeleton and severed limbs. And unlike most "teens in a haunted house" outings I really felt bad seeing the cute little girls being terrorized! The music is great too!

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Living?

THE LIVING GHOST-1942-Stupid Mongram whodunnit with a former detective (James Dunn) coming out of retirement (after being a phony swami) to solve a murder in an old house. Joan Woodbury plays his love interest and there are many suspects. There's some "haunted house" scenes but it's mainly a comedy. Mongram regular Minerva Urecal has a supporting role.

THE LIVING GHOST was one of eleven movies William "One Shot" Beaudine (whose directing career started in 1915) made in 1942. Star Dunn won a best actor Oscar portraying the father in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN in 1945. Woodbury later starred in a Brenda Starr serial.

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