Walter Catlett Movies

Colonel Breckinridge Marshall (Walter Catlett) of Clearwater, GA -- who puts on a big front but is actually only a step away from the poor house -- rents a luxurious townhouse in Manhattan in anticipation of the Carnegie Hall debut of his two daughters, singer Melinda (Gloria Jean) and pianist/singer Susannah (Martha O'Driscoll). But on their first night there, they hear strange noises and other disturbances, including the sound of someone tap-dancing -- Susannah runs for help to the next building, which turns out to be a nightclub where Olsen (Ole Olsen) and Johnson (Chic Johnson) are working, and finds herself in the middle of one of their "nut humor" Hellzapoppin'-style sketches. The two comics try to make amends by helping her out and find themselves up to their neck in strange warnings ("First is worst"), noises, and bizarre, ghostly apparations seemingly from nowhere, and alleged ghostly goings on. They eventually figure out that the house once belonged to one Wilbur Duffington, a wealthy ne'er-do-well out of New York's "gilded age" whose main hobbies were tap-dancing and drinking plum brandy, before he fell from a third-story window in the year 1900 at a party he was throwing. The boys reason that Wilbur, if he is there, might want to finish the party he was having the night he died; when that doesn't work, they reason out that he had to be a real square because he died in 1900, and so they bring in a swing band and a bunch of jitterbug dancers to drive him out -- that seems to do the trick, the ghost seemingly departing. But then the noises continue and the Marshalls are at their wits' end, until Olsen and Johnson accidentally discover far more sinister goings on, involving a band of criminals who have already committed one murder, something in that house worth killing for, and a plan to eliminate the Marshall family. Before it's over, a pitched battle ensues between the heroes and a band of costumed thugs (including a pair of ill-tempered dwarves), and a race against time to get the Marshall girls to a performance on time to save their careers, plus the unmasking of the man behind all of the mayhem, all intermixed with lots of Olsen and Johnson's patented nut-humor and the presence of a pre-Sky King Kirby Grant leading a band, singing, and playing a violin. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this crazy comedy, a casino worker writes a book about headhunters and finds himself the target of the leader of an anthropological society who is determined to prove that the book is phony. The writer tricks the woman into going on a head-hunting expedition to prove his claims. He dresses up as a headhunter, and allows her to capture and return him to her society for study. Dressed as a native, the writer also manages to secure a $10,000 advance from his publisher to write an expose of the wealthy society-leader's life. Meanwhile, another heiress pursues the writer to collect on a $10,000 debt. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Singing, dancing, and ice skating are featured in this musical that focuses on ice-skating sensation Belita. The story begins as she travels to a California resort where she has been hired as a replacement for a dance team. The resort is run by a handsome fellow. As a result of the gig, the skater becomes a national star while the resort manager gets fired and becomes a drifter until he ends up in the Army. The Oscar nominated score includes the following songs: "Silver Shadows and Golden Dreams", "Dream of Dreams", "Rio", "In the Days of Beau Brummel", "Lady, Let's Dance", "Happy Hearts", "Ten Million Men and a Girl", and the rhumba standard "Esperanza". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Part of the series of Universal B-musicals teaming Martha O'Driscoll and Noah Beery Jr., this film is also a remake of the 1937 comedy Love in a Bungalow. Patty Callahan (O'Driscoll) offers residence in a model home to soldier Jeff (Beery) and soon falls in love with him. Although the pair are unmarried, they enter a marital contest intended to celebrate the "Happiest G.I. Couple." Winning the contest brings on all sorts of farcical troubles until the couple are able to be united for real. Songs include "Don't Sweetheart Me" and "Best of All." ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

It is said that producer Sam Goldwyn had a habit of addressing his new star of the 1940s, Danny Kaye, as "Eddie", confusing Kaye with Eddie Cantor. If true, it may be because Kaye's first starring film for Goldwyn, Up in Arms, was a remake of Cantor's Whoopee--which in turn was a musical version of that old theatrical chestnut The Nervous Wreck. Kaye plays Danny Weems, a hopeless hypochondriac who finds himself drafted into the army. While a passenger on an overseas transport ship, Danny is obliged to hide his girl friend Mary Morgan (Constance Dowling), who has stowed away on board, from the authorities. The plot (what there is of it) contrives to have Danny and Mary, together with Virginia (Dinah Shore), who's in love with Danny, and Joe (Dana Andrews), who's in love with Mary, arrive simultaneously on the same South Sea island. After numerous comic and romantic complications, Danny emerges as the hero of the hour by capturing a whole bunch of Japanese soldiers. The film shows signs of post-production tampering-an offscreen narration, an abrupt ending-indicating that, as yet, Sam Goldwyn wasn't quite sure how to package Danny Kaye for the screen. Despite its erratic editing and uneven scenario, Up in Arms contains some priceless moments, including Kaye's rapid-patter songs "The Lobby Number" and "Melody in 4F", both written by Sylvia Fine (Mrs. Kaye) and Max Liebman. There are also a few cute "inside" jokes referring to the illogical nature of the plotline and such esoterica as the out-of-nowhere appearances of the Goldwyn Girls (one of whom was Kaye's future leading lady Virginia Mayo). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Change of Heart is the reissue title of the Republic musical Hit Parade of 1943. The studio had been turning out these annual Hit Parade extravaganzas since 1941, but only the 1943 edition truly hit the bullseye. The plot, wherein fading songwriter John Carroll steals a tune from aspiring composer Susan Hayward, was used in several other Republic efforts between 1937 and 1947 (right down to the closing verbal exchange about "the elephants in the lobby"). No matter: the film positively sparkles during its musical numbers, featuring such talent as Freddy Martin and his Orchestra, Count Basie, The Harlem Sandmen and Dorothy Dandridge. The film's theme song, Harold Adamson and Jule Styne's "A Change of Heart," won Republic its first-ever Oscar nomination. As a bonus, Eve Arden is on hand for her evergreen wisecrackery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, the three Andrews Sisters play elevator operators who work in an office building containing a music publishing business. The girls, all aspiring singers, hope to get a break while working there. Another resident in the building, a songwriter must cope with a plagiarism suit served against him by another aspiring songwriter. In order to get her to drop her suit, the first composer hires the second and begins to woo her into submission. Meanwhile the three elevator girls are discovered and happiness ensues all around. Songs include: "Don't Mind the Rain," "Take It and Git," "East of the Rockies," "Going Up," and "Here Comes the Navy." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Don "Red" Barry took a break from westerns to star in the fair-to-middling sentimental drama The West Side Kid. Barry is cast as gangster Johnny April, who upon being sprung from prison is hired by dispirited millionaire Sam Winston (Henry Hull). Fed up with his selfish family, Winston wants to end it all and pays Johnny $25,000 to bump him off. Instead, Johnny takes a liking to the old coot, and sets about to reform Winston's profligate family. Dale Evans, future "Queen of the West," is intriguingly cast as Winston's spoiled-rotten daughter Gloria. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Yankee Doodle Dandy is no more the true-life story of George M. Cohan than The Jolson Story was the unvarnished truth about Al Jolson -- but who the heck cares? Dandy has song, dance, pathos, pageantry, uproarious comedy, and, best of all, James Cagney at his Oscar-winning best. After several failed attempts to bring the life of legendary, flag-waving song-and-dance man Cohan to the screen, Warners scenarist Robert Buckner opted for the anecdotal approach, unifying the film's largely unrelated episodes with a flashback framework. Summoned to the White House by President Roosevelt, the aging Cohan is encouraged to relate the events leading up to this momentous occasion. He recalls his birth on the Fourth of July, 1878; his early years as a cocky child performer in his family's vaudeville act; his decision to go out as a "single"; his sealed-with-a-handshake partnership with writer/producer Sam Harris (Richard Whorf); his first Broadway success, 1903's Little Johnny Jones; his blissful marriage to winsome wife Mary (a fictional amalgam of Cohan's two wives, played by Joan Leslie -- who, incredibly, was only 17 at the time); his patriotic civilian activities during World War I, culminating with his writing of that conflict's unofficial anthem "Over There" (performed by Nora Bayes, as played by Frances Langford); the deaths of his sister, Josie (played by Cagney's real-life sister Jeanne), his mother, Nellie (Rosemary DeCamp), and his father, Jerry (Walter Huston); his abortive attempt to retire; and his triumphant return to Broadway in Rodgers & Hart's I'd Rather Be Right.

His story told, Cohan is surprised -- and profoundly moved -- when FDR presents him with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first such honor bestowed upon an entertainer. His eyes welling up with tears, Cohan expresses his gratitude by invoking his old vaudeville curtain speech: "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you." Glossing over such unsavory moments in Cohan's life as his bitter opposition of the formation of Actor's Equity -- not to mention George M.'s intense hatred of FDR! -- Yankee Doodle Dandy offers the George M. Cohan that people in 1942 wanted to see (proof of the pudding was the film's five-million-dollar gross). And besides, the plot and its fabrications were secondary to those marvelous Cohan melodies -- "Give My Regards to Broadway," "Harrigan," "Mary," "You're a Grand Old Flag," "45 Minutes from Broadway," and the title tune -- performed with brio by Cagney (who modifies his own loose-limbed dancing style in order to imitate Cohan's inimitable stiff-legged technique) and the rest of the spirited cast. Beyond its leading players, movie buffs will have a ball spotting the myriad of familiar character actors parading before the screen: S.Z. Sakall, George Tobias, Walter Catlett, George Barbier, Eddie Foy Jr. (playing his own father), Frank Faylen, Minor Watson, Tom Dugan, John Hamilton, and on and on and on. In addition to Cagney, music directors Ray Heindorf and Heinz Roemheld also won Oscars for their efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Roy Rogers saves the day for the ranchers of Cherokee City in this fast-paced comedy-Western directed and produced by Joseph Kane. Roy and no less than three sidekicks -- Smiley Burnette, George "Gabby" Hayes and Bob Nolan of the music group The Sons of the Pioneers -- attempt to persuade eccentric river-boat owner Col. Silas Popen (Walter Catlett) to service Cherokee City. The surrounding ranchers would otherwise be forced to ship their cattle with crooked trucking company operator Ross Lambert (Edmund MacDonald). Aware of the colonel's phobia of anything Western, Lambert and his henchmen (William Haade and Hal Taliaferro) stage typical Wild West brawls, helped inadvertently by Roy's well-meaning sidekicks. Burnette, whom Rogers inherited from draftee Gene Autry, and Hayes perform their usual routines but the comedic highlights are provided by flibbertigibbet Catlett and blustery Paul Harvey, the latter playing B-Western history's perhaps most incompetent Cattlemen's Association president. Ruth Terry makes a spirited heroine as the colonel's daughter but the great African-American actor Leigh Whipper is sadly wasted in a stereotypical "comic" servant role. A proposed action scene in which Lambert and his men start a fire using gasoline was rewritten in order to avoid reminding theater-goers of the war-time rationing. In most prints seen today, Rogers' musical numbers have been cut, making Heart of the West a fast-paced hour or so of nearly non-stop action and comedy. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The combination of Ann Sothern and Red Skelton pays off in giggles, chortles and guffaws in Maisie Gets Her Man. Broke and stranded once more, showgirl Maisie Revere briefly works as the wrong end of a knife-throwing act, then dedicates herself to helping would-be comedian Hap Hixby (Skelton) overcome his debilitating stage fright. The plot then goes off on an entirely new tangent, as the hapless Hap gets mixed up with cherubic con artist Denningham (Lloyd Corrigan). Things end happily for both Maisie and Hap, but not quite in the way that either one of them would have predicted. It's a tribute to the comedy genius of Red Skelton that he can raise laughs while playing a character who can't raise laughs! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bob Hope's first starring vehicle for producer Sam Goldwyn borrows the title of Bob's 1942 autobiography They Got Me Covered and very little else. Co-scripted by Leonard Q. Ross (aka Leo Rosten), Leonard Spigelgass and Harry Kurnitz (among many others!), the film casts Hope as Robert Kittredge, the Moscow correspondent for a major American news service, who is fired when he neglects to file a report about Hitler's invasion of Russia. Hoping to get back in the good graces of his boss Norman Mason (Donald MacBride), Kittredge steals another reporter's story about a Nazi spy ring operating in New York. Though officially a comedy, the film is curiously unfunny at times, with Hope playing an unsympathetic, unappealing character who'll step on anyone -- including his long-suffering sweetheart (Dorothy Lamour) and a hysterical kidnap victim (Phyllis Povah) -- to get ahead. Otto Preminger is funnier (perhaps intentionally) as the head Nazi. A few good gags notwithstanding, They Got Me Covered is nowhere near as satisfying as Hope's second Goldwyn effort, The Princess and the Pirate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide