Louise Currie

Louise Currie

Birth : 1913-04-07, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Death : 2013-09-08

History

a B movie and serial actress of the 1940s. Born Louise Gunter in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, she attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Moving to Hollywood, Currie enrolled in Max Reinhardt's drama school. “At the time, I was not necessarily a movie fan, but once I came to California, of course, that’s what California’s all about, the movie industry.” Attracting the interest of movie scouts while appearing in one of the school’s stage productions, Currie surprised them by expressing no desire at that point to enter movies. She wanted to wait until she graduated, and was better equipped as an actress, before she decided her next career move. When she was ready, she signed with agent Sue Carol. After she made a movie at Columbia, Harry Cohn wanted to put her under contract, but Currie would have none of it – she thought it “would maybe be more interesting to freelance.” She stated in 1999 that that was “more fun for me because I was able to pick and choose and do what I wanted, rather than all the little contract players who had to do exactly as they were told and go into films that they didn’t want or like. So, I had my independence, and I chose to do it that way.” The not-overly-ambitious Currie worked steadily during the next few years, with small, uncredited parts in As and leads in Poverty Row flicks. She found herself in a bunch of Westerns – her bullwhip-carrying role in GUN TOWN was her favorite – and also as the heroine in Bela Lugosi’s THE APE MAN. She was again menaced by Bela in VOODOO MAN. Her most enduring and fondly remembered credit is ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, considered by many the greatest cliffhanger of all time; two years later, she acted for 12 episodes opposite another serial marvel: THE MASKED MARVEL. Currie enjoyed the fast-paced shooting schedules of her B movies and serials: “Fortunately, I had enough training that I could do my scenes and not mess them up, not muff the lines. And I thought that was more stimulating and interesting than pictures like CITIZEN KANE [in which she played a reporter], where you just sat on a set for endless hours, doing nothing – which to me was just a trial and a bore. So I sort of enjoyed the activity, and the fact that you could do something quickly and do it well, and have it finished... But I’m sure that most of the people that started with big A productions would never have understood that, or been able to cope with it!” 

Profile

Louise Currie
Louise Currie
Louise Currie

Movies

Lugosi: Hollywood's Dracula
Self
Lugosi: Hollywood's Dracula uncovers the life and career of legendary actor Bela Lugosi, examining his early life in Hungary and Germany through his Hollywood successes and eventual decline. The film features a vast array of never-before-seen footage of the actor, ranging from remains of his 1918 film Struggle for Life to behind-the-scenes home movies on the set of RKO Studios. Lugosi is peppered with dozens of rare films clips and photographs, with the story itself coming to life thanks to the vast array of on-camera interviewees.
Lugosi: The Forgotten King
Self
A one hour documentary on the life of one of Hollywood's neglected horror icons, hosted by fear fan extraordinare Forrest J Ackerman & interviews with Hollywood legends John Carradine, Ralph Bellamy, Carroll Borland and B-movie producer Alex Gordon.
Sakima and the Masked Marvel
Alice Hamilton
Queen for a Day
Secretary
Adapted from the TV and radio series of the same name, the producer of said show reads letters from three woman providing the framing story for this melodrama anthology film. The tales focus on parenting and family struggles.
And Baby Makes Three
Miss Quigley
A recently divorced couple see things differently after learning they are going to be parents.
The Chinese Ring
Peggy Cartwright
Soon after a Chinese princess comes to the US to buy planes for her people, she is murdered by a poison dart fired by an air rifle.
Second Chance
Joan Summers
Jewel thieves battle investigators.
The Crimson Key
Heidi
Larry Morgan, a private detective, is hired by a woman who wants Larry to trail her husband. The husband is murdered and, shortly afterwards, the wife is also killed. Larry shuffles through a long list of suspects before revealing the killer...
Three on a Ticket
Helen Brimstead
A private detective, who has been shot, stumbles into the office of Michael Shayne (Hugh Beaumont), and dies before Shayne can question him. Shayne finds a baggage ticket in his hand. He claims it and finds the checked-bag contains the loot from a robbery. Now, he has about fifty minutes left of the running time to find the crooks, bring them to justice and return the money to the rightful owners. And needs all of it.
Backlash
Marian Gordon
In a series of flashbacks, shows that attorney John Morland has given a lift to a hitchhiker who turns out to be a murderer. As a result, Morland himself is implicated in a killing. A pair of detectives discover that Morland has been having business problems and no end of difficulties with his wife Catherine. The trail of clues leads to a surprising revelation.
Wild West
Florabelle Bannister
Eddie and his sidekicks have been called in to help get a new telegraph line through. Dawson and his men along with his stooge Judge are out to stop them. When Eddie and the boys catch three of Dawson's men destroying telegraph equipment, the Judge releases them and this leads to the showdown between the two sides.
Gun Town
Buckskin Jane Sawyer
Indian Agent Kip Lewis arrives in Gun Town where Buckskin Sawyer is having her payroll shipments robbed by Indians. Kip and his men are ready the next time and learn the robbers are white men dressed as Indians. Kip finds Davy Sawyer's case at the scene and confronts him. When Davy accuses Talbot whom he lent it to, Talbot shoots him. But Davy names Talbot before he dies and Kip goes after him.
Forty Thieves
Katherine Reynolds
When he runs for sheriff, Hoppy is beaten by Jerry Doyle, the gutless wonder voted for by every crook in town. When Hoppy moves to have the new sheriff impeached, outlaw leader Tad Hammond hires forty gunslingers to stop him. Stop Hoppy? Hah!
Million Dollar Kid
Louise Cortland
The gang is friend with a millionaire because they saved him from an agression. However, the gang is suspecting that the man's son was actually one of the agressors.
Voodoo Man
Stella Saunders
A mad doctor (Bela Lugosi) and his helpers (John Carradine, George Zucco) lure girls to his lab for brain work, to help his wife.
Around the World
WAAC
Bandleader Kay Kyser takes his troupe of nutty musicians, goofball comics and pretty girl singers on a tour around the world to entertain the troops during World War II.
The Masked Marvel
Alice Hamilton
A team of two-fisted insurance investigators (one of whom disguises himself as The Masked Marvel) endeavor to discover and thwart the loathsome saboteur Sakima.
The Ape Man
Billie Mason
A scientist is turned into an ape man.
A Blitz on the Fritz
Mrs. Egbert Slipp
Harry is a patriotic citizen who starts a scrap drive but he soon encounters a group of Nazi spies and their hideout.
HIs Wedding Scare
Susie - the New Bride
El and his new bride go on their honeymoon; no matter where they go, they keep running into her former husbands.
Tireman, Spare My Tires
Fay Springer
Harry picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a runaway heiress. Under threat, Harry agrees to help her hide by pretending to be husband and wife.
Stardust on the Sage
Nancy Drew
A singing cowboy (Gene Autry) and his partner (Bill Henry) thwart a foreman who wants their mine.
The Bashful Bachelor
Marjorie
Lum Edwards is annoyed with his partner in Pine Ridge's Jot-'em-Down general store, Abner Peabody, because Abner has swapped their delivery car for a racehorse. Lum is also too timid to propose to Geraldine, so he involves Abner in a "rescue" effort which nearly gets both of them killed. They try again, and this time Geraldine is impressed. Lum writes a proposal note, but Abner, by mistake, delivers it to the Widder Abernathy, who has been ready to remarry for years. This puts Lum in a peck of trouble until the sheriff appears with the Widder's long-gone and hiding husband.
Dude Cowboy
Gail Sargent
A Nevada rancher goes undercover for the U. S. Secret Service to help capture a gang of counterfeiters. Director David Howard's 1941 B-western stars Tim Holt, Marjorie Reynolds, Lee White, Eddie Kane, Ray Whitley, Helen Holmes, Glenn Strange, Byron Foulger, Eddie Dew, Tom London and Hank Worden.
Look Who's Laughing
Jane (uncredited)
Fibber McGee enlists the help of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy in enticing an aircraft manufacturer to build a factory in the small town of Wistful Vista. Based on the "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio series
Double Trouble
Miss Mink
Harry Langdon and Charley Rogers star in this 1941 Monogram comedy, about two bumbling brothers who take jobs at a New York food cannery and accidentally lose a valuable diamond inside a can of pork-and-beans.
Citizen Kane
Reporter at Xanadu (uncredited)
Newspaper magnate, Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
Adventures of Captain Marvel
Betty Wallace
On a scientific expedition to Siam young Billy Batson is given the ability to change himself into the super-powered Captain Marvel by the wizard Shazam, who tells him his powers will last only as long as the Golden Scorpion idol is threatened. Finding the idol, the scientists realize it could be the most powerful weapon in the world and remove the lenses that energize it, distributing them among themselves so that no one would be able to use the idol by himself. Back in the US, Billy Batson, as Captain Marvel, wages a battle against an evil, hooded figure, the Scorpion, who hopes to accumulate all five lenses, thereby gaining control of the super-powerful weapon
The Pinto Kid
Betty Ainsley
Pinto Kid was one of Charles Starrett's last "formula" westerns before he permanently assumed the screen guise of the Durango Kid. The story takes places just after the Civil War, with hostilities between Yanks and Rebels still in effect between Kansas and Texas. The villain, cattle rustler Vic Landreau (Paul Sutton), intends to play both factions down the middle for his own benefit. But Landreau meets his match in the form of wandering do-gooder Jud Calvert (Charles Starrett).
Billy the Kid's Gun Justice
Ann Roberts
Escaping from the law once again, Billy, Fuzzy, and Jeff ride to the ranch of Jeff's uncle only to find another family living their. They soon learn of Cobb Allen's scheme where he sells a ranch, makes sure the rancher can't pay off his note, kicks him out, and resells the ranch. But Billy has a plan to recover the ranchers' money and he sends Fuzzy to town with a fake map to a gold treasure.
The Green Hornet Strikes Again!
Bordine's Girlfriend
Second serial featuring The Green Hornet and Kato.
You'll Find Out
Marion (uncredited)
The manager of Kay Kyser’s band books them for a birthday party bash for an heiress at a spooky mansion, where sinister forces try to kill her.
Billy the Kid Outlawed
Molly Fitzgerald
In the first of the six films Bob Steele made in PRC's "Billy the Kid" series, gun law rules in Lincoln County, New Mexico in 1972, where Sam Daly and Pete Morgan operate a general store. Daly expects to be elected sheriff and he and Morgan intend to bring off a final big coup and then disappear. To further their plans, they have local ranchers such as the Bennett brothers killed. Billy Bonney and his friends Fuzzy Jones and Jeff Travis, driving a cattle herd and friends of the Bennetts,engage in a gun battle with the killers that frightens the stage horses. Billy gives chase and rescues Judge Fitzgerald and his daughter Molly. The judge has been sent by Washington's Department of Justice to take over the law enforcement in Lincoln County, but is murdered by the Daly/Morgan henchman. Sheriff Long deputizes Billy and his friends to bring in the killers, but Daly is elected sheriff, and promptly brands Billy, Jeff and Fuzzy as outlaws. Billy, now known as Billy the Kid, retaliates by ...