Chet Brandenburg Movies

One of the gutsiest movie musicals of the 1950s, Love Me or Leave Me is the true story of 1930s torch-singer Ruth Etting, here played by Doris Day. While working in a dime-a-dance joint, Ruth is discovered by Chicago racketeer Martin "The Gimp" Snyder (fascinatingly played with nary a redeeming quality by James Cagney). The smitten Snyder exerts pressure on his show-biz connections, and before long Ruth is a star of nightclubs, stage and films. Ruth continues to string Snyder along to get ahead, but she can't help falling in love with musician Johnny Alderman (Cameron Mitchell). After sinking his fortune into a nightclub for Ruth's benefit, Snyder is rather understandably put out when he finds her in the arms of Alderman. Snyder shoots the musician (but not fatally) and is carted away to prison. Upon his release, Snyder finds that Ruth is still in love with Alderman; he is mollified by her act of largesse in keeping her promise to perform in his nightclub at a fraction of her normal salary. No one comes off particularly nobly in Love Me or Leave Me, even though the still-living Ruth Etting, Martin Snyder and Johnny Alderman were offered full script approval. The fact that we are seeing flesh-and-blood opportunists rather than the usual sugary-sweet MGM musical stick figures naturally makes for a more powerful film. In his autobiography, James Cagney had nothing but praise for his co-star Doris Day, and bemoaned the fact that she would soon turn her back on dramatic roles to star in a series of fluffy domestic comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Desert Hawk deserves to be seen on the basis of its cast alone. No more believable than any of Universal's other sword-and-sand epics, this one stars Yvonne de Carlo as Princess Shaharazade (sic) and Richard Greene as Omar, aka the Desert Hawk. By day a humble blacksmith, the Desert Hawk spends his evenings battling against the oppresive regime of Prince Murad (George Macready). One of the Hawk's tactics is to trick Shaharazade into marriage, so that he can enlist the aid of the army commanded by the Princess' father. Murad retaliates by kidnapping Shararazade, leading to an exciting climactic rescue. Never mind all that: the real fun in Desert Hawk is spotting the celebrities-to-be in the supporting cast. Playing the villainous Captain Ras is none other than Rock Hudson, while the Desert Hawk's loyal companions Aladdin and Sinbad are played, respectively, by Jackie Gleason and Joe Besser--and surprise, Joe is heavier than Jackie! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In their first 20th Century-Fox vehicle, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are cast respectively as the butler and chauffeur of wealthy young Dan Forrester (Dick Nelson). Tired of being pampered and coddled by his overprotective aunts (Mae Marsh, Ethel Gryffies), Dan is delighted when he is drafted into the Army. To make certain that no harm will befall their "frail" master, Stan and Ollie also don uniform and accompany Dan to US Cavalry training camp. While the boys get mixed up in one disaster after another-at one point, they find themselves behind a moving target on the rifle range-Dan pursues a romance with photo-shop proprietor Ginger Hammond (Sheila Ryan), much to the consternation of Ginger's erstwhile beau Sergeant Hippo (Edmund MacDonald). Convinced that Ginger is a gold-digger, Stan and Ollie try to break up the romance, to no avail. All plotlines are resolved during a climactic "sham battle", wherein Dan proves his courage and grit while Laurel & Hardy end up captured by the "enemy". Obviously inspired by the success of Abbott & Costello's Buck Privates (it's even more obvious in the earlier drafts of the script), Great Guns is a major letdown from Laurel & Hardy's previous starring features at Hal Roach Studios, with Stan and Ollie looking most uncomfortable as they mouth the inanities written for them by Lou Breslow. Still, a few good bits emerge, including a surrealistic routine with a faulty light bulb and an amusing bridge-building sequence. Watch for Alan Ladd in a jaunty bit role as a camera-store customer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lodge members Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy take a solemn oath to attend the 80th-annual Sons of the Desert Convention (read: annual binge) in Chicago. That is, Ollie takes the oath, but Stanley balks. When asked why, Stanley answers that he's afraid his wife won't let him go. Ollie is appalled: "Every man must be king in his own castle." But when Ollie meekly brings up the subject of the convention with his wife Lollie (Mae Busch), she soon dethrones the "king." Lollie wants to take a vacation in the mountains, and is dead-set against her husband going around "with a pack of hooligans." But Ollie is determined to attend the convention, and to that end cooks up a scheme with Stanley. Ollie will pretend to be deathly ill; Stan will fix it so the doctor will prescribe a trip to Honolulu. Knowing that his wife can't stand going on sea voyages, Ollie will request that Stan accompany him to Hawaii--then, both men will sneak off to Chicago. A few hitches notwithstanding (Stan hires a veterinarian instead of a doctor, explaining that he didn't think the man's religion would make any difference), the boys go to the convention, where they cut up royally with practical joker Charley Chase. Alas, the Honolulu-bound boat on which Stan and Ollie are supposed to be travelling is sunk in a typhoon. While the grief-stricken wives are at the steamship company attempting to find out if their husbands survived the sea disaster, Stan and Ollie arrive home, wearing leis and carrying pineapples as "evidence" of their Honolulu vacation. When the boys find out about the shipwreck, they desperately try to escape to a hotel, but the wives arrive home prematurely, forcing Stan and Ollie to camp out in the attic. It looks as though the boys might just get away with their new plan of coming home at the same time that the rescue boats arrive....until Lollie Hardy and Betty Laurel (Dorothy Christie), attending a picture show, are treated to the spectacle of their husbands cavorting merrily before the newsreel cameras covering the Sons of the Desert conclave in Chicago. The film's final ten minutes are priceless--especially that bit about "ship-hiking." Considered the best of Laurel and Hardy's feature films, One of the top ten moneymaking pictures of 1934, it was released in Europe as Fraternally Yours and Sons of the Legion, and is also available in a crudely edited 20-minute TV version, Fun on the Run. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While this isn't one of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best shorts, its premise is very similar to one of their finest features, Sons of the Desert. In both films, the hapless duo is trying to sneak around their wives' backs to join a group of club mates. In Sons of the Desert, they're going to a convention; in Be Big, it's an evening in their honor. The boys have just agreed to go to Atlantic City with their spouses (Isabelle Keith and Anita Garvin), but one of the club men calls Ollie with such enticing details of the celebration that he just has to attend...with Stan in tow, of course. With the help of some talcum powder, Ollie looks pale enough to convince the wives to leave on the trip without him and Stan. Then they hurriedly get into their club outfits, but trouble ensues when Ollie puts on Stanley's much smaller boots and can't get them off. The pair's various attempts to get the boots off Ollie all but destroy Ollie's apartment -- and Ollie. The wives miss the train and return home to discover that they've been tricked. Their panicked husbands try to hide in the folding bed, but the wives pull out their shotguns (a common prop for Laurel and Hardy wives) and start blasting away. Originally filmed in black & white, a colorized version was released in the late 1990s. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The Our Gang kids prepare to enter their scraggily pets in a high-society dog show, where their pal Allen "Farina" Hoskins is working as an usher. Meanwhile, Jackie Cooper tries vainly to prevent his troublesome kid sister (Dorothy "Echo" DeBorba) from jumping into every mud puddle that she sees. And little Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins has a high old time trying to round up his runaway puppies, who change directions every time they hear a bell ringing. A truly delightful two-reeler, "Pups is Pups" expertly combines slapstick, verbal humor and pathos in one neat, entertaining package. Originally released on August 30, 1930, this was the first "Our Gang" comedy to utilize the captivating background music of LeRoy Shield, notably such familiar tunes as the lilting "Teeter-Totter", the rousing "Hide and Go Seek", and the lively "On to the Show", later made famous as the secondary opening theme for Hal Roach's Laurel and Hardy comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is arguably Laurel and Hardy's best two-reel silent (the other contender for first place is Big Business). The boys play sailors on furlough. They have rented a Model T Ford for the day and meet a pair of pretty girls (Thelma Hill and Ruby Blaine). After an altercation with a gum machine and an irate shopkeeper (Charlie Hall), the foursome go on a drive and find themselves in a traffic jam. They drive past the long line of cars to discover the cause for the delay -- a driver who has run out of fuel on one side, and road workers on the other. Since they can't go forward, Ollie and Stan back up, running into another driver (Edgar Kennedy). They exchange angry bumps and the driver hits the next car back and breaks a headlight. Now the fun really begins -- the rest of the film is what Stan Laurel referred to as "reciprocal destruction." The fight that ensues goes all down the line, and very methodically, each car in the traffic jam is mutilated. Stan and Ollie, of course, are doing the most damage, pulling up fenders, removing tires, etc. Finally a cop comes and as the boys' girlfriends beat a hasty retreat, he puts a halt to the proceedings. All the drivers point at the sailors as the initial cause of the trouble, so the cop motions them to wait while the others leave. As the long row of sorry looking vehicles limp past, Stan and Ollie have a hard time remaining serious. When a truck runs over the cop's motorcycle, the boys take the opportunity to quickly drive off. The policeman orders everybody to "follow them sailors!" They do, even when they enter a railway tunnel. But an oncoming train puts the pursuers in reverse, while Stan and Ollie come out on the other side of the tunnel, their Model T squashed like a pancake on its edge. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

While on a cross-country train trip, the Our Gang kids drive the rest of the passengers crazy with a never-ending game of cowboys and Indians. During a stopover in the sleepy town of Red Dog, the kids disembark in hopes of savoring a taste of genuine Western life. They get more than they bargained for when a trio of bandits rides into town for a showdown with the local sheriff. Meanwhile, black youngster Allen "Farina" Hoskins tries to pass himself off as an Indian, but the members of a local tribe aren't amused. The silent, two-reel Our Gang comedy War Feathers was originally released on November 21, 1926. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide