Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she’s really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris’s work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.
Based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film deals with the prejudice against the Mexican-American workers, who struck to attain wage parity with Anglo workers in other mines and to be treated with dignity by the bosses.
High-school principal Dr. Alfred Carroll relates to an audience of parents that marijuana can have devastating effects on teens. In his story, a drug supplier entices several restless teens, including sister and brother Mary and Jimmy Lane and Mary’s boyfriend, Bill, into frequenting a “reefer” house. Gradually, Bill and Jimmy are drawn into smoking dope, which affects their family lives and leads to a terrible crime.
Young auto mechanic Dan Brady takes $20 from a cash register at work to go on a date with blonde femme fatale Vera Novak. Brady intends to put the money back before it is missed, but the garage’s bookkeeper shows up earlier than scheduled. As Brady scrambles to cover evidence of his petty theft, he fast finds himself drawn into an ever worsening “quicksand” of crime.
While listening to a recording of Penny Serenade, Julie Gardiner Adams begins reflecting on her past. She recalls her impulsive marriage to newspaper reporter Roger Adams, which begins on a deliriously happy note but turns out to be fraught with tragedy. Other songs remind her of their courtship, their marriage, their desire for a child, and the joys and sorrows they have shared. A flood of memories come back to her as she ponders on
A thug robs a young engaged couple of their last few dollars. When the thug’s gang boss hears of the robbery, he gives them back their money and takes them under his wing. The thug, resentful of the couple, plans to organize a mutiny against the gang’s boss, but when he is killed in a botched robbery, the police focus their attention on the young couple.
Club-footed medical school student Philip Carey falls in love with cynical waitress Mildred Rogers. She rejects him and runs off with a salesman, later returning pregnant and unmarried. Philip takes her in, though “happily ever after” is not to be.
Fifth Avenue socialite Irene Bullock needs a “forgotten man” to win a scavenger hunt, and no one is more forgotten than Godfrey Park, who resides in a dump by the East River. Irene hires Godfrey as a servant for her riotously unhinged family, to the chagrin of her spoiled sister, Cornelia, who tries her best to get Godfrey fired. As Irene falls for her new butler, Godfrey turns the tables and teaches the frivolous Bullocks
A pretty singer/dancer is becoming an actress whereas the playboy crown prince is becoming a monarch. The both will have their clandestine romance interfered with by their changing circumstances.
Millie Blake is very careful about picking her husband, but that is no guarantee that a marriage will turn out well, nor that she will.
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed “John Doe,” who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate “Doe.” Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it’s worth, until the made-up “John Doe” philosophy starts a whole political movement.
A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.
The Man with the Golden Arm Read More »
