STRANGE CONQUEST

Peter Cookson

STRANGE CONQUEST (1946). Director: John Rawlins.

Dr. Mary Palmer (Jane Wyatt) is quite put out when told that she can't join  Dr. Harris (Lowell Gilmore) at a research post in Sumatra because she's a woman. She's even more annoyed when she learns that her replacement is Dr. Bill Sommers (Peter Cookson of Fear), whose family is backing the foundation. When Bill arrives in Sumatra he is not warmly welcomed by Dr. Harris or his associate Bert (Milburn Stone of Swing It Professor), because they were expecting a more experienced doctor. Harris and Sommers both try to concoct a vaccine (or "serum") for something called "Black Grass Fever," which has already killed the man Sommers is replacing. Half an hour later in the running time Mary does get to meet Dr. Harris, although by this time he's impersonating Dr. Sommers. And then  Sommer's wife (Julie Bishop of Lady Gangster) shows up ...

Peter Cookson with Lowell Gilmore

I have withheld some of the plot details because the movie is unpredictable unless you've seen the previous version, which is called The Crime of Dr. Hallet. I think this film is meant to be ennobling and touching but it simply isn't convincing enough to do so. For that the actors cannot be faulted because everyone is perfectly on target, especially Cookson in one of his best portrayals. Cookson played Morris Townsend on Broadway in "The Heiress," but when the film was made the better-known Montgomery Clift got the part. Cookson would also have been marvelous and might have had an entirely different career had he been in the film version. Instead he mostly did cheap pictures for Monogram, and on occasion, bigger studios like Universal, which released Strange Conquest. 

Gilmore with Jane Wyatt

Lowell Gilmore was also an attractive and talented leading man type, but after a few movies, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, most of his credits were for television series. Jane Wyatt became more famous for Father Knows Best than anything else, but she did quite a few films earlier in her career. The synopsis on IMDB.com makes this sound like a film about a romantic triangle, but that is not the case. Wyatt is the only actor in this who is billed above the title. 

Verdict: Half-baked melodrama has a very adept cast. **1/2. 

LADY GANGSTER

LADY GANGSTER (1942). Director: Robert Florey. 

A failed actress, Dot Burton ( Faye Emerson), gets in with a gang of hoods and becomes embroiled in a bank robbery scheme. She winds up doing time with an interesting bunch of lady inmates, and then things get really complicated. This fast-paced, lively and very entertaining "B" movie is so unpredictable for the most part that it would be criminal to give away any more of the plot elements. It has the very casual immorality of most of these kind of movies. Emerson gives a vivid and adept performance as Dot, as does Ruth Ford as "stool pigeon" Lucy, Julie Bishop as inmate Myrtle, Dorothy Adams as "Deaf Annie," and Virginia Brissac as the warden Mrs. Stoner. Hedda Hopper's son William, herein billed as "DeWolf Hopper," has a small role, as does "The Great One" -- Jackie Gleason (billed as Jackie C. Gleason). Hopper is as stiff as ever (except when he was on Perry Mason), but Gleason makes a nice impression as a pleasant member of the robbery gang who has a soft touch for Dot. Roland Drew as gang leader Carey looks surprisingly good in drag. Frank Wilcox is only adequate as Kenneth, the old friend of Dot's who turns her in and then tries to help her. Robert Florey also directed The Beast with Five Fingers. Bishop, Ford, Drew, and Wilcox were all in The Hidden Hand. 

Verdict: A pleasant surprise. ***.

THE HIDDEN HAND

Milton Parsons

THE HIDDEN HAND (1942). Director: Benjamin Stoloff. 

Insane murderer John Channing (Milton Parsons) escapes from an institution by hiding in the back of a police car! He arrives at the mansion owned by his sister, Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham), who wants his help in carrying out a sinister scheme. Convinced that her relatives are only out for her money, she invites them all to her house, fakes her death, and hopes they will all kill each other off -- or become victims of John, who is pretending to be a new butler. Lorinda's secretary, Mary (Elisabeth Fraser) is said to be her main heir, so she becomes a target almost immediately. 

Craig Stevens and Cecil Cunningham

Half an hour into the film's brief running time, the star Craig Stevens, playing lawyer Peter Thorne, who is engaged to Mary, shows up to intercede in events. There are more murders and a bit of skulduggery as well, including sequences with secret panels and trapdoors that overhang deep drops into the ocean. The male relatives are played by Roland Drew, Tom Stevenson, and Frank Wilcox, while the ladies are portrayed by Julie Bishop and Ruth Ford, with Inez Gay cast as the unfortunate maid, Hattie, and Marian Hall as the sinister nurse, Eleanor. Kam Tong is the Chinest servant Mallo, who is one of several people who come to a bad end. 

"I don't like that pigeon." Willie Best

The most likable player is Willie Best, who plays Eustis, the chauffeur. Approaching an agitated raven in his mistress' bedroom, he says, "I don't like that pigeon and he doesn't like me, either." The Hidden Hand is too loopy to work as a serious mystery film, and it isn't funny enough to work as a black comedy, so what we've got is a fairly foolish melodrama with mostly insufficient acting. Even Cecil Cunningham isn't very good, and Stevens [Peter Gunn] has little to do but look pretty. Willie Best does his usual shtick, but he steals the move doing it. Elisabeth Fraser makes little impression as Mary, but Parsons is typically effective as one of his gallery of creeps. 

Verdict: An instantly forgettable so-called comedy melodrama.  **.