Jimmy Conlin Movies

A midwestern girl heads for Hollywood in hopes of becoming a star. She is accompanied by two good buddies and this comedy chronicles their adventures in Tinseltown. It all begins when the new arrivals enroll in a bogus acting school run by two con artists. A wealthy entrepreneur shows up looking to invest his money. One of the greedy grifters persuades him into financing a film starring the new girl from Peoria, but he gives one condition to the businessman: if the film fails, the conman gets to keep the money. To insure failure, the fellow hires a washed up boozer of a director. The director takes the job seriously and wants to prove that he is not a has-been. This doesn't set well with the "producer" who has his partner take the starlet to a remote cabin and leave her stranded after he gets drunk and passes out. By this time, the director has fallen in love with the girl. Meanwhile, her buddies have found that they'd rather go home and resume their old jobs. The director begins looking for the girl so he can save her and his career. Her buddies hear of her predicament and they too rush to her rescue. It is they who return her safe and sound to the studio. The director makes his film and it is a smash hit. The girl becomes a star and the conmen go to jail. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The general perception of the Technicolor costume adventure movies that Maria Montez and Jon Hall made for Universal in the early 1940's is that they were pure escapist entertainment, intended to make people forget for an hour or so about the Second World War and the general world situation. And generally that is true about them -- they were mostly no "about" much more than having fun for 90 minutes or so amid pretty sets with lots of action and some pretty women in exotic outfits. But watching Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, one has to wonder if even here the screenwriter, Edmund L. Hartmann, was able to totally get away from the day-to-day reality around him. The opening Mongol invasion of Bagdad and the murder of the old Caliph (Moroni Olsen) while trying to set up a government-in-exile without thinking of the German and Japanese conquests and occupations of various nations that would have been going on at the time; additionally, the fact that the old Caliph is murdered with the help of a traitor in his own noble ranks -- a "quisling" in the term coined during World War II -- wouldn't have been missed by audiences at the time. Further, the screenplay very specifically paints the forty thieves as heroes who have gone from being criminals to an active resistance force against the occupying Mongols -- indeed, at the denouement, their invasion of the palace is greeted as a day of liberation by the people of Bagdad. The movie walks a strange tightrope, casting about veiled topical references of that sort, even as is otherwise sufficiently tongue-in-cheek to cast Andy Devine as a desert bandit. Obviously, Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves was sold as -- and mostly intended as -- light entertainment, but just below that glitzy Technicolor surface were some fascinating allusions to the real world. None of this stops Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves from being immense fun -- it is, even if the "fun" isn't totally escapist in nature -- and it's great to look at as well, even 60 years on; Universal has apparently kept preservation-quality source materials on this and Hall and Montez's other Technicolor costume romps. And this particular entry in that group of movies also contains one very instructive clue to the morays and censorship of the time in one scene, in which the hero meets the heroine bathing at an oasis -- the makers seem to have been forced to insert a particular shot that is there for no other reason then to make it clear that she is not totally naked when he sees her. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Based on the best-selling novel by Robert Traver (the pseudonym for Michigan Supreme Court justice John D. Voelker), Anatomy of a Murder stars James Stewart as seat-of-the-pants Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler. Through the intervention of his alcoholic mentor, Parnell McCarthy (Arthur O'Connell), Biegler accepts the case of one Lt. Manion (Ben Gazzara), an unlovable lout who has murdered a local bar owner. Manion admits that he committed the crime, citing as his motive the victim's rape of the alluring Mrs. Manion (Lee Remick). Faced with the formidable opposition of big-city prosecutor Claude Dancer (George C. Scott), Biegler hopes to win freedom for his client by using as his defense the argument of "irresistible impulse." Also featured in the cast is Eve Arden as Biegler's sardonic secretary, Katherine Grant as the woman who inherits the dead man's business, and Joseph N. Welch -- who in real life was the defense attorney in the Army-McCarthy hearings -- as the ever-patient judge. The progressive-jazz musical score is provided by Duke Ellington, who also appears in a brief scene. Producer/director Otto Preminger once more pushed the envelope in Anatomy of a Murder by utilizing technical terminology referring to sexual penetration, which up until 1959 was a cinematic no-no. Contrary to popular belief, Preminger was not merely being faithful to the novel; most of the banter about "panties" and "semen," not to mention the 11-hour courtroom revelation, was invented for the film. Anatomy of a Murder was filmed on location in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An unofficial remake of the 1935 Alice Faye-George Raft vehicle Every Night at Eight, And the Angels Sing stars Dorothy Lamour as Nancy Angel, unofficial leader of a struggling, Andrews-like singing sister act. Nancy is in love with saxophone player Happy Morgan (Fred MacMurray), self-appointed "protector" of the Angel Sisters. Unfortunately -- and as it turns out, unharmoniously -- Nancy's sister Bobby (Betty Hutton is also ga-ga over Happy, but he barely acknowledges her existence. Meanwhile, the third Angel sister, Josie (Diana Lynn), stands on the sidelines and cracks wise. Before a happy ending can be realized, virtually every person in the cast goes through an extended period of poverty, which at one juncture forces Happy to form a singing-waiter act with his longtime crony Fuzzy Johnson (Eddie Foy Jr.. Although the film's title song is (surprisingly) never performed, And the Angels Sing is otherwise a smorgasbord of typical 1940s tunes, with Betty Hutton taking front and center with her inimitable "scat" renditions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few B-picture factories ground out topical wartime dramas with as much regularity as Monogram. In Army Wives, Elyse Knox plays bride-to-be Jerry, who follows her GI fiance Barney (Rick Vallin) from camp to camp. Thanks to numerous complications, both foreseen and otherwise, Jerry and Barney never quite make it to the altar-at least not during the first five reels. That shameless old barnstormer Marjorie Rambeau effortlessly steals the film as Mrs. Shannahan, matriarch of a loud and rowdy brood which figures prominently in the storyline. Either by accident or design, Army Wives was followed in 1945 by Monogram's GI Honeymoon (not a sequel!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this high-spirited musical comedy, J. Newport Bates (Eddie Bracken) is a millionaire who finds women are only interested in him for his money. When he becomes infatuated with Teddy Collins (Veronica Lake), a cigarette girl, he tries to hide his true identity from her, hoping she'll be interested in him for himself rather than his bank account. However, once Teddy figures out who he is, Bates drops her, and he is about to give up on women entirely when he meets Sue Thomas (Marjorie Reynolds), a nice girl who isn't interested in his money (or at least not yet). Musical satirists Spike Jones and his City Slickers also appear, though most prints are missing a bit from one of their musical numbers: a verse from a song that made fun of Eleanor Roosevelt was clipped after the film's initial engagements. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Broadway Musketeers is a remake of the 1932 Warner Bros. drama Three on a Match, with numerous concessions made to the now more stringent Hollywood censors. Brought up together in an orphanage, three young ladies-Isabel (Margaret Lindsay), Fay (Ann Sheridan) and Connie (Marie Wilson)-vow to remain friends through thick and thin. Fate, however, has other things in store for the three heroines, obliging them to trod widely divergent paths in life. One of the three girls deserts her husband in favor of a group of crooked gamblers, culminating in the kidnapping of her beloved child (Janet Chapman). Horace McMahon essays the tough-guy role originally played in Three on a Match by Humphrey Bogart. Producer Bryan Foy is careful to add several new plot twists and characters to prevent Broadway Musketeers from being a carbon copy of its predecessor, not least of which is transforming the character originally enacted by Joan Blondell into a dizzy-blonde type played by Marie Wilson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A boy learns life-changing lessons about the importance of friendship and the dignity of labor in this adventure saga based on a story by Rudyard Kipling. Young Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew) is the working definition of a spoiled brat; the only child of a wealthy widowed businessman, Harvey has everything he needs, but never stops asking for more, convinced he can get anything if he yells, pouts, or throws the right tantrum. Even other boys his age are disgusted with his antics, and when he accompanies his father on an ocean cruise, he finds he has no friends to play with. After wolfing down six ice-cream sodas, Harvey gets sick to his stomach and while vomiting over the side of the ship, he falls into the drink. He is rescued by Manuel (Spencer Tracy), a Portuguese old salt who drags him on board a Gloucester fishing boat where he's a deck hand and doryman. Harvey shows no gratitude to Manuel for saving his life and demands to be taken home immediately; Manuel and the crew, not the least bit sympathetic, inform him that once they've filled the ship's hold with fresh catch, they'll return to shore, and not a moment sooner. Over the next few weeks, Harvey grows from a self-centered pantywaist into a young man who appreciates the value of a hard day's work, and in Manuel he finds the strength, guidance, and good sense that he never got from his father. Spencer Tracy earned an Academy Award for his performance in Captains Courageous and even sings a bit; the story was parodied years later (with a few rather drastic changes) in the Chris Elliott vehicle Cabin Boy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This modest Preston Sturges comedy stars Dick Powell as an office clerk dreaming of better things and Ellen Drew as his more pragmatic girlfriend. Powell convinces himself that his fortune will be made if he can win a slogan contest sponsored by a coffee company. Powell's contribution: "If you can't sleep at night, it isn't the coffee, it's the bunk!" Three of Powell's fellow workers decide to have some fun with him; they fake a telegram which announces that he's won the contest. The deception snowballs to the point that even the head of the coffee firm (Raymond Walburn) labors under the misapprehension that Powell has won. When the painful truth is revealed, Powell finds himself broke (because of all the creature comforts he's bought) and jobless, but at least he's retained the love of his wife. A cute deus ex machina to the story appears in the person of William Demarest, the foreman of the "jury" that is judging the slogan contest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Despite the presence of Busby Berkeley in the director's chair, Comet Over Broadway contains nary a single musical number. Instead, the film concentrates on the lachrymose private life of stage star Eve Appleton (Kay Francis). While appearing in amateur theatricals, Eve indirectly causes the death of a fellow actor at the hands of her husband Bill (John Litel). When Bill is thrown into jail, Eve goes on the road, appearing in one cheap stock company after another to earn enough money for her husband's parole. Seven years pass, during which time Eve becomes the toast of Broadway. Falling in love with playwright Bert Ballin (Ian Hunter), Eve almost forgets the reason that she climbed to stardom in the first place, but by the final reel she elects to give up personal happiness to remain loyal to her incarcerated husband. Way, way down the cast list of Comet Over Broadway is Linda Winters, who as Dorothy Comingore achieved stardom in Orson Welles'Citizen Kane (1941). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

True Confession was one of the unfunniest of the "screwball" comedies of the 1930s, and its musical remake, Cross My Heart, isn't much of an improvement. Betty Hutton steps into the old Carole Lombard role as Peggy, a compulsive liar who'll do anything to help her attorney fiance Oliver Clarke (Sonny Tufts) get ahead. When it looks as though an unsolved murder case will be Clarke's ticket to success, Peggy, sticking her tongue in her cheek (as she always does when she's about to tell a whopper), glibly confesses to the killing. Peggy's plan is to allow her boyfriend to prove her innocence, thereby cementing his reputation as a man of integrity-but things don't go quite as planned. The subsequent trial is enlivened by the antics of looney Russian actor Peter (Michael Chekhov), who may or may not be the actual murderer. Betty Hutton's song numbers are just about as mediocre as the rest of the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

According to this exuberant Paramount musical, famed pre-Civil War minstrel performer Daniel Decatur Emmett looked and sounded exactly like Bing Crosby! Very loosely based on the real Emmett's life and career, the film is essentially an excuse for an unending stream of Southern-fried ballads and boisterous blackface production numbers. The best scenes involve Emmet's creation of the minstrel tradition, helped along by Billy De Wolfe as the original "Mr. Bones." As Emmet's sweetheart Millie Cook, Dorothy Lamour has less to do than fourth-billed Marjorie Reynolds as Jean Mason, the physically challenged girl whom Emmet ultimately marries. In the midst of several old-time musical numbers, Bing Crosby introduces one of his lasting hits, "Sunday, Monday and Always". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide