86% (2)  All I Desire  80 min,  APPROVED,  [Drama, Romance]  [Douglas Sirk]  [15 Oct 1953]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 72%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 100%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Barbara Stanwyck, Lyle Bettger, Marcia Henderson, Richard Carlson
Writer:  James Gunn (screenplay), Robert Blees (screenplay), Gina Kaus (adaptation), Carol Ryrie Brink (novel)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  In 1900, Naomi Murdoch deserted her small-town family to go on the stage. Some ten years later, daughter Lily invites Naomi back to see her in the Riverdale high school play. Her arrival sets the whole town abuzz, wakes up old conflicts, and sets off new emotional storms.
Rotten Tomatoes:   All I Desire an early exercise in Douglas Sirk Baroque, is set at the turn of the century. Long divorced from her husband Richard Carlson, itinerant actress Barbara Stanwyck returns to her home town to watch her daughter perform in a high school play. Stanwyck decides to turn over a new leaf and devote herself to the daughter she's never known. This she finds next to impossible, thanks to ugly small-town gossip attending her return. The film was obviously building up to an unhappy ending, but producer Ross Hunter intervened, tacking on an unbelievably upbeat denouement. This artistic outrage evidently didn't hurt Hunter's relationship with director Douglas Sirk, inasmuch as the two would continue to successfully collaborate in the future. All I Desire is based on a novel by Carol Brink.
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68% (1)  The Lone Ranger  86 min,  APPROVED,  [Adventure, Western]  [Stuart Heisler]  [25 Feb 1956]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 68%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Bonita Granville, Clayton Moore, Jay Silverheels, Lyle Bettger
Writer:  Herb Meadow (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Wealthy rancher Reese Kilgore aims to grab silver-rich Indian land by skilfully pitting Indians against settlers but the suspicious territorial governor sends The Lone Ranger to investigate.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, the Lone Ranger and Tonto of television, made the leap to the silver screen in this western tale about the masked man's battles with greedy ranchers.
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68% (1)  Union Station  81 min,  Approved,  [Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller]  [Rudolph Maté]  [01 Jan 1950]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 68%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Barry Fitzgerald, Lyle Bettger, Nancy Olson, William Holden
Writer:  Sydney Boehm (screenplay), Thomas Walsh (story)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Secretary Joyce Willecombe grows suspicious of two men boarding her train and is referred to 'Tough Willy' Calhoun, head of the Union Station police. The all-seeing, no-nonsense Calhoun is initially skeptical, but the men (who escape) prove to be involved in a kidnap case. Calhoun calls in equally tough police Inspector Donnelly, but the ruthless kidnapper's precision planning stays one jump ahead of them. Most of the action centers around bustling Union Station.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Union Station is a tense crime thriller in the tradition of The Naked City that unfolds in Los Angeles. William Holden plays railroad worker Lt. William Calhoun. Calhoun goes into action when Lorna Murchison (Allene Roberts), the sightless daughter of millionaire Henry Murchison (Herbert Heyes), is kidnapped by ruthless Joe Beacon (Lyle Bettger). The abduction is witnessed by Joyce Willecombe (Nancy Olson), Murchison's secretary. Using the handful of clues provided by Joyce, Calhoun and his associate, Inspector Donnelly (Barry Fitzgerald) do their best to second-guess the kidnapper. The film's most harrowing scene finds Beacon abandoning the blind and helpless Lorna in a deserted car barn in the deepest recesses of the titular station. Jan Sterling co-stars as Marge, Beacon's conscience-stricken moll. Former cinematographer Rudolph Mate does a nice, neat job as director, seamlessly matching location shots with studio mockups.
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65% (1)  The Sea Chase  117 min,  Approved,  [Action, Drama, War]  [John Farrow]  [04 Jun 1955]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 65%,   External Reviews
Actors:  David Farrar, John Wayne, Lana Turner, Lyle Bettger
Writer:  James Warner Bellah (screenplay), John Twist (screenplay), Andrew Geer (novel)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  As the Second World War breaks out, German freighter captain Karl Ehrlich is about to leave Sydney, Australia with his vessel, the Ergenstrasse. Ehrlich, an anti-Nazi but proud German, hopes to outrun or out-maneuver the British warship pursuing him. Aboard his vessel is Elsa Keller, a woman Ehrlich has been ordered to return to Germany safely along with whatever secrets she carries. When Ehrlich's fiercely Nazi chief officer Kirchner commits an atrocity, the British pursuit becomes deadly.
Rotten Tomatoes:   In this film, John Wayne appears as a Prussian sea captain who, at the outset of WWII, is trying to return from Australia to Germany. As a Prussian he opposes the Third Reich and finds himself in dangerous waters when both British and German navies pursue him.
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55% (1)  The Great Sioux Uprising  80 min,  APPROVED,  [Western]  [Lloyd Bacon]  [17 Jul 1953]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 55%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Faith Domergue, Jeff Chandler, Lyle Bettger, Peter Whitney
Writer:  Melvin Levy (screenplay), J. Robert Bren (screenplay), Gladys Atwater (screenplay), Frank Gill Jr. (additional dialogue), J. Robert Bren (story), Gladys Atwater (story)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  During the Civil War, Southern agitators and a crooked horse dealer endanger the peace between the Union and the Wyoming Sioux.
Rotten Tomatoes:   In this western, a surgeon goes out West and becomes an equine veterinarian after he suffers a debilitating injury. He winds up in Laramie Junction where he hopes to settle down and enjoy the peace and quiet. Unfortunately, the town is also the home of a shady horse trader who pretends to be an upstanding rancher, but is actually a rustler who steals his stock from the neighboring Sioux and sells them to the army. The other ranchers distrust and despise him for his sleazy buying tactics. Soon the Sioux catch on and begin fighting back. The newly arrived vet makes a deal with the Sioux chief to help calm the situation. Instead of having the ranchers sell through the rustler, he makes it so they can sell their stock directly to the army. The rustler retaliates by framing the doc and almost succeeds in getting the Indians and the ranchers alike to turn against the good doctor. When the army gets involved, an all-out war almost occurs, until the doctor clears his name in the nick of time, stops the war, and gets the rustler arrested.
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54% (1)  The Vanquished  84 min,  APPROVED,  [Western]  [Edward Ludwig]  [03 Jun 1953]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 54%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Coleen Gray, Jan Sterling, John Payne, Lyle Bettger
Writer:  Karl Brown (story), Lewis R. Foster (screenplay), Winston Miller (screenplay), Frank L. Moss (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  A Southern States official returns home after the Civil War and has to see that in his village the law is in the hands of a few scrupoulos people.
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