Madonna of the Desert

Sheldon Leonard reads of an ivory Renaissance Madonna, decorated with gems in a farmhouse out in the middle of farm country. It's an opportunity in the making, so he has a pal in the fake antiques business make a copy. Then, deciding it needs to be done with a bit of class, he dispatches Lynne Roberts to pull the switch. She charms the Madonna's owner, Don Castle, and his grumpy hand, Paul Hurst.... and gradually comes to believe the statuette has actual powers, and her resolve wavers, even as fellow crook, Don Barry shows up, intending to steal it himself.

It's a beautiful script, co-written by Frank Wisbar and Albert Demond. At a whisker less than an hour in length, it can't really pull off the mysticism that I would like to think was in the script. It's a sweet, watchable, but not overwhelming moving.

Castle had been hired by MGM as a young Clark Gable type, but they never did anything worthwhile with him. He did a little better at Paramount, although usually on loan-out. His acting career had largely ended in 1951, but old co-star, Bonita Granville, got his a job producing job on TV's LASSIE. He died in 1962 of a drug overdose, aged 48.