Acting
Jack Roper
Born — Died
1904-03-25 — 1966-11-28
Place of birth
Ponchatoula, Louisiana, USA
Known for
Acting
Credits
46 titles
Known for
7.2Jobless sportswriter Eddie Willis is hired by corrupt fight promoter Nick Benko to promote his current protégé, an unknown Argentinian boxer named Toro Moreno. Although Moreno is a hulking giant, his chances for success are hampered by a powder-puff punch and a glass jaw. Exploiting Willis' reputation for integrity and standing in the boxing community, Benko arranges a series of fixed fights that propel the unsophisticated Moreno to #1 contender for the championship. The reigning champ, the sadistic Buddy Brannen, harbors resentment at the publicity Toro has been receiving and vows to viciously punish him in the ring. Eddie must now decide whether or not to tell the naive Toro the truth.
The Harder They Fall
1956
6.0Comedy about a bandleader with hypnotic powers.
Swing Fever
1943
6.2Jonesy and Lou are in Algeria looking for a wrestler they are promoting. Sergeant Axmann tricks them into joining the Foreign Legion, after which they discover Axmann's collaboration with the nasty Sheik Hamud El Khalid.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the Foreign Legion
1950
6.5In the city, someone is murdering children. The police search is so intense, it is disturbing the 'normal' criminals, and the local hoods decide to help find the murderer as quickly as possible.
M
1951
6.5Egbert Sousé becomes an unexpected hero when a bank robber falls over a bench he's occupying. Now considered brave, Egbert is given a job as a bank guard. Soon, he is approached by charlatan J. Frothingham Waterbury about buying shares in a mining company. Egbert persuades teller Og Oggilby to lend him bank money, to be returned when the scheme pays off. Unfortunately, bank inspector Snoopington then makes a surprise appearance.
The Bank Dick
1940
7.0An upper-class female reporter is (despite herself) attracted to a hulking laborer digging a tunnel under the Hudson River.
No Time for Love
1943
Film credits
1950s · 5 titles
7.2Jobless sportswriter Eddie Willis is hired by corrupt fight promoter Nick Benko to promote his current protégé, an unknown Argentinian boxer named Toro Moreno. Although Moreno is a hulking giant, his chances for success are hampered by a powder-puff punch and a glass jaw. Exploiting Willis' reputation for integrity and standing in the boxing community, Benko arranges a series of fixed fights that propel the unsophisticated Moreno to #1 contender for the championship. The reigning champ, the sadistic Buddy Brannen, harbors resentment at the publicity Toro has been receiving and vows to viciously punish him in the ring. Eddie must now decide whether or not to tell the naive Toro the truth.
The Harder They Fall
1956
6.2Jonesy and Lou are in Algeria looking for a wrestler they are promoting. Sergeant Axmann tricks them into joining the Foreign Legion, after which they discover Axmann's collaboration with the nasty Sheik Hamud El Khalid.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the Foreign Legion
1950
6.5In the city, someone is murdering children. The police search is so intense, it is disturbing the 'normal' criminals, and the local hoods decide to help find the murderer as quickly as possible.
M
1951
8.0Joe Palooka encounters gangsters and tries to alert the law.
Joe Palooka in the Squared Circle
1950
9.0The trials and tribulations of a cab driver working the night shift, who must put with an assortment of crazies, hardcases and sob stories during work and then has to come home to a loud, argumentative, shrewish wife.
Stop That Cab
1951
1940s · 30 titles
6.0Comedy about a bandleader with hypnotic powers.
Swing Fever
1943
6.5Egbert Sousé becomes an unexpected hero when a bank robber falls over a bench he's occupying. Now considered brave, Egbert is given a job as a bank guard. Soon, he is approached by charlatan J. Frothingham Waterbury about buying shares in a mining company. Egbert persuades teller Og Oggilby to lend him bank money, to be returned when the scheme pays off. Unfortunately, bank inspector Snoopington then makes a surprise appearance.
The Bank Dick
1940
7.0An upper-class female reporter is (despite herself) attracted to a hulking laborer digging a tunnel under the Hudson River.
No Time for Love
1943
7.2As bare-knuckled boxing enters the modern era, brash extrovert Jim Corbett uses new rules and dazzlingly innovative footwork to rise to the top of the boxing world.
Gentleman Jim
1942
6.4Popular crooner Russ Raymond abandons his career at its peak and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halstead. However, Dorothy Roberts, a reporter, discovers his identity and follows him in the hopes of photographing him and revealing his identity to the world. Aboard the Alabama, Tommy meets up with Smoky and Pomeroy, who help hide him from Dorothy, who hatches numerous schemes in an attempt to photograph Tommy/Russ being a sailor.
In the Navy
1941
5.5Songwriters Calhoun and Harrigan get Katie and Lily Blane to introduce a new one. Lily goes to England, and Katy joins her after the boys give a new song to Nora Bayes. All are reunited when the boys, now in the army, show up in England.
Tin Pan Alley
1940
6.2The nefarious Dr. Fu Manchu searches for the keys to the tomb of Genghis Khan, in order to fulfill a prophecy that will enable him to conquer the world. His nemesi, Dr. Nayland Smith and his associates fight to keep the evil doctor from getting his hands on the keys. In 1943 the serial was edited together into a feature movie also called Drums of Fu Manchu.
Drums of Fu Manchu
1940
NRIn the second film of Monogram's Joe Palooka series, Joe is 'used', by two state senators scheming to obtain oil-rich lands, in a publicity campaign to get the land transferred to the state, supposedly for a park. When Joe learns that he has been used as a dupe he becomes disillusioned and leaves the prize=fighting profession. But, his manager, sparring partners, and fiancée manage to expose the land-grab scheme, clear Joe's name and discredit the crooked politicians.
Gentleman Joe Palooka
1946
5.8A mysterious plague, the Purple Death, ravages the earth. Dr. Zarkov, investigating in his spaceship, finds a ship from planet Mongo seeding the atmosphere with dust. Sure enough, Ming the Merciless is up to his old tricks. So it's back to Mongo for Flash, Dale, and Zarkov.
Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe
1940
5.8An ex-gunfighter woos two women while avenging his brother, victim of a crooked gambler.
Panhandle
1948
6.5Gangsters frame Joe on a drunk charge and a murder rap so they can put their own fighter into a big event. Joe investigates in an attempt to prove his innocence.
Joe Palooka in the Big Fight
1949
6.4On her way by stagecoach to visit relatives out west, Flower Belle Lee is held up by a masked bandit who also takes the coach's shipment of gold. When he abducts Flower Belle and they arrive in town, Flower Belle is suspected of being in collusion with the bandit.
My Little Chickadee
1940
5.9Small-time businessman Charles Engle is threatened with exposure for embezzling $3,000 for his free-spending wife. Deciding on suicide, he scribbles a note, stuffs it in his pocket and goes for one last night on the town. He is pulled into a poker game by conman Bill O'Brien and singer Nina Barone, but when they discover the dropped note, they resolve to turn the tables, get Engle his $3,000 and save his life.
Angels Over Broadway
1940
6.0In the second of the PRC "Michael Shayne" series,civic crusader Burton Stallings hires private detective Michael Shayne to locate the former's missing step-daughter Helen. Shayne discovers that Stallings himself has had Helen confined in an asylum in order to obtain her money.
Larceny in Her Heart
1946
7.0Andy becomes the manager of a prizefighter. The problem is, the figher has just skipped town.
The Ring and the Belle
1941
5.5West of Carson City remains one of the best of Johnny Mack Brown's Universal westerns. The story takes place in a gold-rush community where the locals are taken to the cleaners by duplicitious Eastern gamblers. When it becomes obvious that the local constabulary has been "bought off" by the crooks, two-fisted cattleman Jim Bannister (Brown) swings into action. The film's highlight is an outsized fistic brawl between the hero and secondary villain Breed, played by loose-limbed comic stuntman Frank Mitchell.
West of Carson City
1940
7.0A skip tracer--someone who collects late payments from people who've purchased appliances, etc., or takes them back them when they don't pay--repossesses a small radio from a deadbeat who's skipped payments. What he doesn't know is that a gang that has stolen diamonds from a Hollywood movie star has stashed them inside the radio, and they start hunting for him.
Hold That Woman!
1940
6.5A gang of urban street kids and a club of suburban would-be federal agents, at first rivals, join forces to rescue the father of one of the kids, the inventor of a super-explosive and its remote detonator, from the clutches of a band of foreign subversives call the "Flaming Torch Gang". A 12-episode movie serial with the chapters: •1. Enemies Within •2. The Blast of Doom •3. Human Dynamite •4. Blazing Danger •5. Trapped By Traitors •6. Traitors' Treachery •7. Flaming Death •8. Hurled Through Space •9. The Plunge of Peril •10.The Toll of Treason •11.Descending Doom •12.The Power of Patriotism
Junior G-Men
1940
5.5A bucolic lawyer takes on big-city corruption, setting out to prove that an above-suspicion politician is actually a crook - all while falling in love with the politician's daughter.
A Man Betrayed
1941
7.0Singing cowboy Tex Ritter and his sidekick, Slim Andrews, star in this musical Western about a couple of Texas Rangers who defend the citizens of a small territory from power-hungry outlaws. Villain Bradley Craven (Forrest Taylor) is determined to stop the election process that would allow the region to join the Union. Tex and Slim join a rancher and his daughter to stop Craven, with fearless Tex going undercover to ensure that justice is served.
Ridin' the Cherokee Trail
1941
8.0Joe Palooka goes blind during a fight. An operation restores his vision, but he's told not to fight for a year. His trainer Knobby has picked up another fighter, but gangsters are pressing him to fix fights. Joe decides to risk his eyesight to save Knobby's honor.
Joe Palooka in Fighting Mad
1948
7.5Joe is scheduled for the big fight as usual. This one has more fight sequences than plot.
Joe Palooka in Winner Take All
1948
7.5A pair head to the frozen wastes with an expedition in search of radium deposits. Certain members of the group succumb to greed, plotting to bump off the others and claim the radium for themselves.
Mutiny in the Arctic
1941
5.0A teenage girl from a traditional family goes on a date with a pilot and ends up having sex with him. After the pilot dies in a plane crash, the girl discovers she is pregnant with his child.
Mom and Dad
1945
9.0A fast-paced, enjoyable entry in the long-running Three Mesqueteers Western series, Heroes of the Saddle featured the three cowboy pals promising to look after Peggy Bell, the little daughter of mortally wounded rodeo champ Montana. Legal technicalities, however, halt the adoption proceeding and Stony, Rusty, and Rico can only watch as the little girl is placed in the county orphanage.
Heroes of the Saddle
1940
8.0Wild Bill Hickock (William Elliott), aka The Peaceable Man, meters out justice in the tough town of Deadwood in this highly fictional western from Columbia. Unlike the historic character, Elliott's gunfighter survives his encounter with the South Dakota hellhole, where he arrives to aid beleaguered livery stable owner Clint Wilson (Richard Fiske) and his sister, Madge (Dorothy Fay), in their battle against self-appointed town czar "Flash" Kirby (Arthur Loft). But before he gets that far, there is a little matter of proving Kirby guilty of wrongdoing and to achieve that, Wild Bill earns the enmity of both the Wilsons.
North from the Lone Star
1941
8.5The evil and masked "Gargoyle" is sabotaging all of America's industrial plants. It is up to the Spider to save the country.
The Spider Returns
1941
8.0After losing heavyweight contender Al Costa to mob boss Florini fight promoter Knobby Walsh recruits small town boy Joe Palooka to take his place. First in the series.
Joe Palooka, Champ
1946
7.0Unable to sign boxer Joe Louis to movie contract, Republic Pictures had to make do with the losers of Louis' heavyweight championship bouts. One of these was Billy Conn, who after being knocked out by Louis in the 13th round awakened to star in the Republic programmer The Pittsburgh Kid. The story finds clean-limned pugilist Conn (playing himself) being managed by pretty Patricia Mallory.
The Pittsburgh Kid
1941
9.0This drama chronicles the extreme measures taken by a determined young crime reporter to get an interview with a notorious convict. The zealous journalist, also a star quarterback on the town college team, decides to become a convict himself. He gets into the prison, becomes president of the prisoners' union, does his interview, successfully woo's the warden's daughter, and gets out in time to publish his story before anyone else does. His career is off to a tremendous start.
Broadway Big Shot
1942
1930s · 7 titles
5.8When his ranch falls on hard times, Cowboy Roy Roger has trouble making his mortgage payment and he takes his song and dance to Wall Street to try to raise cash fast.
Wall Street Cowboy
1939
4.8Pals Pat Rogers and Slag Bailey try to collect a debt from Slag's recently deceased boxing promoter but wind up collecting his child, instead, and raising him as their own son.
Unmarried
1939
5.7Two people with ties to rich murdered socialite Lowe Hammle die from unusual suicides—but Vance suspects foul play.
The Garden Murder Case
1936
5.6In this short, a modern-day promoter tries to sell a man the idea of searching for Captain Kidd's buried treasure, claiming he has the original map. A flashback reveals that Kidd was known to be a pirate and also to have had a commission from William III at one time, which instructed him to act as a unit of the British Navy. What became of the fabulous treasure Kidd took from the ship "Kedah Merchant".
Captain Kidd's Treasure
1938
5.1Tom Grant has found a rich gold vein and Bart Eaton is after it. Tom's sister Mary heads for the gold fields and Eaton and his men follow. Eaton teams up with Ace Daggett who plans to doublecross him and get the gold for himself. They frame Tom for murder and then try to get him to sign over his claim. The famous scout Tex Houston is on hand, escaping the attempts on his life, saving Mary from various perils, and trying to bring in the real killer and clear Tom.
Flaming Frontiers
1938
7.0An egotistical boxer romances a rich backer's daughter.
Invitation to Happiness
1939
6.7A would-be songwriter and a would-be inventor run a cigar stand and get mixed up in the murder of a song publisher.
The Nitwits
1935
1920s · 2 titles
7.0A "love-'em-and-leave-'em" sailor hooks up with a dance-hall girl in Paris while waiting for his ship to sail. She falls in love with him, and when his ship leaves port she decides to show up at its next stop and reunite with her lover. However, when she arrives at the ship's next destination, she discovers that her "lover" has already found another local girl to spend his time with. Complications ensue.
Sharp Shooters
1928
6.5Millionaire's son Duke wants to be a champion boxer but takes time out to enroll in college when he sees co-ed Susie. The students wonder about his having a chauffeur and house full of servants. Susie likes him but, to get rid of her, his manager tells her Duke already has a New York chorus girl. As the students listen to a radio broadcast of his victorious fight from San Francisco, she learns that the student Duke is the boxer Duke and that there is no chorus girl.
The Duke Steps Out
1929


