George Wells Movies

Updated from the 1951 film of the same name, Angels In The Outfield takes liberties with the original to bring sentimental values to a modern setting. Roger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a foster child whose irresponsible father promises to get his act together when Roger's favorite baseball team, the California Angels, wins the pennant. The problem is that the Angels are in last place, so Roger prays for help to turn the team around. Sure enough, his prayers are answered in the form of angel Al (Christopher Lloyd), and, before you know it, the Angels' bitter manager (Danny Glover) is watching in amazement as his team starts making the plays -- with the help of angels visible to the audience only as glowing special effects. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

An amoral film student will stop at nothing to gain a movie contract in this pretentious effort. Tony Hall (Robert Forster) insults his cinema professor (Reegis Toomey), degrades his girlfriend Sondra Locke), and alienates his agent. Ken Kerchival and Sam Waterston also appear in this dreary film. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this lightweight comedy, David McCallum stars as Stanley Thrumm, a retiring British tour guide who strikes it rich one night in a casino on the Riviera. He's not sure that he wants to take the cash back to England, because he'll have to pay taxes on it, so he decides to put it in a Swiss bank account. But Carla Moretti (Sylva Koscina), an apparently helpful woman whom he has met, has designs on the loot, and she enlists her ex-husband in an effort to get it. Thrumm takes his winnings on a roundabout trek to Switzerland while Carla and her husband pursue, and the result is a long car chase with many comic diversions and a lot of Alpine scenery. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Although the talented cast in this uninspired comedy do the best they can with their lines, nothing quite brings The Horizontal Lieutenant to an upright, stand-up-and-take-notice presence. Paula Prentiss as Lt. Molly Blue and Jim Hutton as Lt. Merle Wye are once again paired, this time as officers in action in the Pacific at the end of World War II. Lt. Wye is given the challenge of bringing in a lone Japanese hold-out on an island that was taken by the American forces many months earlier. Though the situation has great potential, pratfalls and the most obvious gags take the place of a more sophisticated humor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Yvette Mimeux, Paula Prentiss, Connie Francis, and Dolores Hart star in this frothy teen romance-drama as attractive co-eds who take off from Midwest colleges on the annual spring break to land in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida -- where the boys are. There are plenty of parties, booze, and sex to keep minds off calculus for awhile. Merritt Andrews (Hart) and Ryder Smith (George Hamilton) manage to get together, Tuggle Carpenter (Paula Prentiss) manages to let her comedic talents shine, Angie (Connie Francis) sings the hit title song, but Melanie (Yvette Mimeux) becomes a casualty of too many good times. She will recover, and all the leads will go on to good, even great careers in some cases. Dolores Hart was the only featured player here to leave Hollywood behind -- she became a Benedictine nun in 1963. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Viewers know they're in a 1959 comedy film early in the proceedings of Ask Any Girl, when secretary Shirley MacLaine is advised by her new supervisor Jim Backus to wear a sweater "a size too small." But she is a good girl: like Doris Day, she won't offer any carnal favors unless a wedding ring is part of the bargain. She targets irresponsible CEO Gig Young for matrimony, asking Young's sober-sided older brother David Niven to help her out. The highlight of Ask Any Girl is Shirley MacLaine's extended drunk scene in the club car of a commuter train. The film was based on a satirical novel by Winifred Wolfe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Vincente Minnelli directed this sophisticated comedy, which owes a debt to Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn vehicles. Sportswriter Mike Hagen (Gregory Peck) and fashion designer Marilla (Lauren Bacall) are New Yorkers who meet while both are vacationing in California. It's love at first sight, and the two decide on the spur of the moment to get married. However, once they return to the Big Apple, it starts to occur to them just how different they are after Mike moves out of his sloppy bachelor lair in the Village and joins Marilla in her luxury flat on the Upper East Side. While they try to sort out their differences, Mike encounters his former girlfriend Lori (Dolores Gray), while Marilla runs into her onetime beau Zachary (Tom Helmore); given the haste with which they married, neither of their exes had yet heard that Mike and Marilla were hitched, and the notion that they could still be lured away hangs in the air. Meanwhile, Mike has written a series of articles exposing corruption in boxing, which earns him no friends among some ill-mannered Gotham mobsters. Bacall's sparkling comic performance was a remarkable display of personal strength; as the movie was being filmed, her husband Humphrey Bogart was suffering from the last stages of the cancer that would soon claim his life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Esther Williams' long association with MGM came to an abrupt end with Jupiter's Darling, which even she will admit was her silliest film. Based on Robert Sherwood's satirical play The Road to Rome, the film cast as Williams as Amytis, fiancee of vacillating Roman statesman Fabius Maximus (George Sanders). When it appears as though the forces of Hannibal (Howard Keel) will conquer Rome, Amytis takes it upon herself to halt the invasion. In the process, she and Hannibal embark upon a tempestuous romance, much to the consternation of the barbarian general's aide-de-camp Mago (William Demarest) and the bemusement of Hannibal's official chronicler Horatio (Richard Haydn). A subplot concerns the romance between Varius (Gower Champion), who tends Hannibal's fabled elephants, and spunky slave girl Meta (Marge Champion). Somewhere along the line Williams performs a water ballet with "living statues", and Varius and Meta come up with a herd of pink elephants. The Burton Lane-Harold Adamson songs are as forgettable as the film itself. Curiously, Jupiter's Darling opened to good reviews, but the film was killed by word of mouth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Singin' in the Rain co-stars Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds were re-teamed in the ebullient little musical I Love Melvin. O'Connor plays Melvin Hoover, the hapless assistant to Look magazine photographer Mergo (Jim Backus). When he falls in love with chorus girl Judy LeRoy (Reynolds), Melvin claims that he's the magazine's head photographer. Carrying the ruse to the limit, Melvin arranges to shoot a portrait of Judy and her entire family, insisting that it appear on the cover of Look. On the verge of being found out, Melvin is saved when his boss decides that Judy is photogenic enough to be a cover girl for real. The plot is so lightweight that it threatens to blow away, but the stars are cute as can be, and the musical highlights even more so. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The reason the 1935 Astaire/Rogers film version of Roberta was unavailable for years was that, in 1952, MGM bought the property and refilmed it under the title Lovely to Look At. Inheriting one-half of a Parisian dress salon from his late aunt, Red Skelton travels to France with his showbiz friends Howard Keel and Gower Champion. The threesome hopes to convince the owners of the other half of the salon to sell their share so that Skelton, Keel and Champion can finance a Broadway show. Meeting Skelton's "partners" Kathryn Grayson and Marge Champion, the three Americans discover that the salon is all but broke, so they pool their resources and wits to make the establishment a winning proposition. The plot thickens as more and more characters are added to the storyline, including stagestruck gendarme Kurt Kaznar and chorus girl Ann Miller. Songs retained from the original Jerome Kern Broadway score for Roberta include "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," "I Won't Dance" and, of course, "Lovely to Look At." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third and (to date) last film version of the Edna Ferber/Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Show Boat falls just short of greatness but is still a whale of a show. Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson are in fine fettle as irresponsible gambler Gaylord Ravenal and showboat ingenue Magnolia Hawks. The plot adheres closely to the Broadway original making several welcome improvements in the final act (which was always a bit shaky). Magnolia, daughter of showboat impresario Captain Andy (Joe E. Brown) and Parthy Hawkes (Agnes Moorehead), falls head over heels in love with the raffish Ravenal. When the show's leading lady, Julie (Ava Gardner), and leading man, Steve (Robert Sterling), are forced to leave when Julie's mulatto heritage is revealed by disgruntled suitor Pete (Leif Erickson), Magnolia and Gaylord step into the vacant stage roles and score a hit. Eventually, the two are married and for several months are quite happy. After incurring serious gambling losses, however, Gaylord walks out of Magnolia's life never realizing that his wife is expecting a baby. With the help of her former showboat colleagues Ellie and Frank Schultz (Marge and Gower Champion) and a behind-the-scenes assist from the tragic Julie, Magnolia secures work as a Cabaret singer in Chicago. Her new year's eve debut threatens to be a bust until her father Captain Andy quells the rowdy crowd and guides his daughter through a lovely rendition of After the Ball (a Charles K. Harris tune that pops up in every stage version of Show Boat). Magnolia returns to her family, with her daughter Kim in tow. Upon learning from Julie that he has a daughter, Gaylord returns to Magnolia and Kim, setting the stage for a joyous ending.

Virtually all of the Kern-Hammerstein songs are retained for this version of Show Boat (though none of the songs specially written for the 1936 film version are heard). These cannot be faulted, nor can MGM's sumptuous production values. Still, the 1951 Show Boat leaves one a bit cold. Perhaps it was the removal of the racial themes that gave the original so much substance (as black stevedore Joe, William Warfield exists only to sing a toned-down version Ol' Man River while Joe's wife Queenie is virtually written out of the proceedings). Also, MGM reneged on its original decision to cast Lena Horne as Julie; the role was recast with Ava Gardner and rewritten with an excess of gooey sentiment). Or perhaps it was the production's factory-like slickness; typical of the film's smoothing out of the original property's rough edges was the casting of Marge and Gower Champion, who are just too darn good to be convincing as the doggedly mediocre entertainers Frank and Ellie. Even so, Show Boat does have Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson at their peak, not to mention the peerless Joe E. Brown as Captain Andy. And the film was a financial success, enabling MGM to bankroll such future musical triumphs as Singin' in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's Three Little Words is a "twin" musical biopic, covering the lives and careers of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Fred Astaire plays Kalmar, a frustrated magician, while Red Skelton is cast as Ruby, a wannabe baseball player. After "meeting cute" during a disastrous vaudeville show, the oil-and-water Bert and Harry become a popular songwriting team, dashing off such favorites as Who's Sorry Now?, Nevertheless, So Long Oo-Long, I Wanna be Loved by You, All Alone Monday and the title song (the film unfortunately skimps on Kalmar and Ruby's Gilbert-and-Sullivan style novelty ditties, with the exception of Hooray for Captain Spaulding, Groucho Marx' signature tune in Animal Crackers). Adhering more to MGM formula than the facts, the script contrives to have Kalmar and Ruby split up over a trivial misunderstanding, only to be reunited by their wives for an "all is forgiven" radio broadcast hosted by bandleader Phil Regan. Vera-Ellen co-stars as Kalmar's vaudevillian wife Jessie Brown, while Arlene Dahl portrays Ruby's movie-star spouse Eileen Percy. Gloria DeHaven is seen as her own mother, Mrs. Carter DeHaven; and Debbie Reynolds plays "boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane, her singing voice dubbed in by Ms. Kane herself. Though not quite as humorous as the subject matter would seem to dictate (Red Skelton gets his biggest laughs in the scenes wherein he, as Harry Ruby, participates in spring training with his favorite baseball club) Three Little Words is an excellent example of MGM's musical unit at the height of its powers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston resident becomes angry when the census forgets to record her presence. Another sketch chronicles the achievements of African Americans while still another pays tongue-in-cheek tribute to Texas. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide