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With: Merle Oberon, Franchot Tone, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter, Elisha Cook Jr., John Qualen, Rex Ingram, Nina Mae McKinney, Odette Myrtil, Eugene Borden
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Written by: Joan Harrison, Marian B. Cockrell, based on a story by Francis M. Cockrell, Marian B. Cockrell, & additional dialogue by Arthur T. Horman
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Directed by: André De Toth
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MPAA Rating: NR
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Running Time: 90
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Date: 11/21/1944
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Liquid Assets
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Leslie Calvin (Merle Oberon) survives a wartime attack at sea, but the ship on which she travels sinks and her parents are killed in the ordeal. An aunt and uncle she has never met — Emily (Fay Bainter) and Norbert (John Qualen) — reach out and offer to let her stay with them. She arrives in Louisiana, on a run-down plantation, and meets her new family. She also meets a kindly doctor, George Grover (Franchot Tone), as well as the obnoxious Mr. Sydney (Thomas Mitchell) — a somewhat permanent resident of the plantation — and the weasel-like Cleeve (Elisha Cook Jr.). She begins to experience strange events as well as constant reminders of her tragedy at sea, and thinks she may be losing her mind. (George Cukor's Gaslight, released the same year, explored similar themes.) This was one of Hungarian-born director André de Toth's earliest American movies, and he instills it with a strong mood and menace, and making fine use of those Southern swamps.
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