Men Without Names
Cast & Crew
Ralph Murphy
Fred Macmurray
Madge Evans
David Holt
Lynne Overman
Elizabeth Patterson
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Department of Justice agent Richard Hood goes undercover in a small town near Kansas City after bills with serial numbers from a major robbery appear in the currency there. He boards at Aunt Ella's boardinghouse under the pseudonym Dick Grant and quietly goes to work around town to locate where the stolen money is being spent. At the boardinghouse, he befriends David Sherwood, who is cared for by his older sister Helen. Helen takes an instant disliking to Dick, in spite of his earnest attempts to befriend her. In the meantime, one of the robbers, Sam "Red" Hammond, who stays at the boardinghouse, is transporting food to the gangsters' hideout. Government agent Gabby Lambert arrives in the guise of a travelling salesman to assist Dick. With his help, they obtain fingerprints of the robbers, which they send to Washington, D.C. to be identified. Using binoculars found in Hammond's room, they determine the location of the hideout, and after hearing about a shootout at a nearby roadhouse, they go to the hideout. After Gabby goes in alone, the gangsters tie him up and shoot him. In the meantime, Dick intercepts a nurse, who was called to treat one of the injured gangsters, and takes her to the hideout. Suspicious of Dick's actions, Helen follows him. When the nurse does not cooperate, Dick handcuffs her to the car and goes into the hideout, where he discovers Gabby's dead body. After they make their escape, the gangsters kidnap David and Helen and head to a deserted factory. There, Dick and other federal agents capture or kill all of the gangsters, and Dick rescues David and returns him to Helen, who has new admiration for Dick.
Director
Ralph Murphy
Cast
Fred Macmurray
Madge Evans
David Holt
Lynne Overman
Elizabeth Patterson
J. C. Nugent
Grant Mitchell
John Wray
Leslie Fenton
Clyde Dilson
Herbert Rawlinson
Arthur Aylesworth
Dean Jagger
Harry Tyler
Helen Shipman
George Lloyd
Hilda Vaughn
Russ Clark
Frank Shannon
Paul Fix
Helen Brown
Creighton Hale
Oliver Eckhardt
Irving Bacon
Henry Roquemore
Ricca K. Allen
Caroline "spike" Rankin
Victor Potel
Ben Hall
Dora Mayfield
Frank Sheridan
Phil Tead
Samuel T. Godfrey
Jack Mulhall
Ben Taggart
Arthur S. "pop" Byron
Ivan "dusty" Miller
Buddy Roosevelt
Stanley Andrews
Frank O'connor
Crew
Hans Dreier
Kubec Glasmon
John Goodman
Stuart Heisler
Henry Herzbrun
Bob Johnson
Jack Kirkland
Albert Lewis
Ben Reynolds
Marguerite Roberts
Don Ryan
Chandler Sprague
Dale Van Every
Hal Walker
Hal Walker
Captain Don Wilkie
Captain Don Wilkie
Phil G. Wisdom
Adolph Zukor
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title was Federal Dick. Pre-release production charts credit James Remington McCarthy with the original story, and Dale Van Every and Howard J. Green with the screenplay. Early scripts in the Paramount story files at the AMPAS Library reveal that Gertrude Michael and Helen Sherwood were considered for the role of "Helen." Although the film was scheduled to begin production on April 8, 1935, a news item in Daily Variety revealed that production was cancelled due to "story trouble," and would be rewritten. The news item also noted that although Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert were originally slated to play the leading roles, the production was scaled down and would be recast. Copyright records and a news item in Daily Variety noted that Captain Don Wilkie was a former Secret Service man. Also lending technical assistance were "gumshoe" Thomas C. Cullen and the Los Angeles bureau of the Department of Justice, according to Daily Variety and copyright records. A pre-release article in Variety notes that Paramount rushed production of the film so that it could be released in conjunction with news regarding the Weyerhaeuser "ransom note roundup." George Weyerhaeuser, a member of the Weyerhaeuser lumber family, was kidnapped in May 1935. The boy was released when the ransom was paid, after which the ransom money was traced from San Francisco, through Oregon, Washington and Utah. H. M. Waley and his wife were arrested in Utah for the kidnapping. In the meantime, over $90,000 in ransom was "unearthed" in Utah, as reported by New York Times. Mr. Waley was sentenced to forty-five years in federal prison and served time in Alcatraz, while his wife was convicted and sentenced to a prison farm. A third kidnapper, ex-convict William Mahan, was arrested in San Francisco in May 1936 after a lengthy chase and sentenced to eighty years in prison, which he served in Leavenworth.
