Chuck Morrison Movies

Columbia's belated effort to cash in on the popularity of Abbott & Costello's Buck Privates was the raucous and generally amusing wartime comedy Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. Jackie Gleason (the same!) and Jack Durant are teamed for the first and only time as Hank and Jed, a pair of dimwitted barbers who are forced into bankruptcy because all their customers have marched off to war. Figuring that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, Hank and Jed try to join the Army themselves, only to be rejected for a variety of reasons (When asked to read the eye-chart, Hank says he can't-not because he can't see, but because he can't read). Still wishing to serve their country, our heroes set up a "home guard" unit, and in this capacity manage to trap a gang of homicidal crooks. To his credit, Jackie Gleason does not try to imitate his idol Lou Costello, but the A&C influence is felt throughout this trivial little laughspinner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Three Mesquiteers are back in the saddle in Republic's Code of the Outlaws. In this outing, the Mesquiteers are played by Bob Steele (as Tuscon Smith), Tom Tyler (as Stony Brooke) and Rufe Davis (as Lullaby Joslin). Bennie Bartlett costars as the son of outlaw Weldon Heyburn, who refuses to inform on his dad's outlaw gang even after Heyburn is shot dead. Our three heroes try to set Bartlett on the right path-and, incidentally, attempt to round up the gang on their own. Reviewers in 1942 felt that Code of the Outlaws was one of the best "Mesquiteers" entries since the series' salad days of the late 1930s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In yet another full-length version of an earlier serial, Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd) is out to get the bizarre Ghost, a dastardly member of the vigilante group known only as the Council of Eight. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

The third of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's starring films, In the Navy was released second; Universal had just made a bundle off Abbott and Costello's Buck Privates, and the studio wanted another "service" comedy put into circulation in a hurry. Abbott and Costello share over-the-title billing with Dick Powell, who plays a popular radio singer. Eager to avoid his screaming fans, Powell enlists in the Navy under an assumed name, hoping to serve his country incognito. Girl reporter Claire Dodd chases after Powell, hoping to secure a photo of the fugitive "idol of millions." So much for the "straight" plot; what are Abbott and Costello up to? Well, Costello plays a ship's cook who wants to impress Patty Andrews of The Andrews Sisters. With his pal Abbott's help, Costello poses as an admiral -- and in so doing nearly destroys the entire American fleet. This climactic sequence ran into trouble when the U.S. Navy decided that it didn't want to be held up to ridicule by showing the bumbling Costello ordering its ships around. To save the climax -- the most expensive portion of the film -- the scriptwriters wrote a new coda, passing off Costello's "admiralty" as a dream sequence. The best Abbott and Costello routines have little if anything to do with the plot: our favorite (indeed, everyone's favorite) is Costello proving to Abbott that 7 X 13 = 28. Those viewers who prefer music to comedy will be thoroughly satisfied by the vocal contributions of Dick Powell and The Andrews Sisters, as well as a lively dance number offered by the Condos Brothers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wild Bill Hickock (William Elliott), aka The Peaceable Man, meters out justice in the tough town of Deadwood in this highly fictional western from Columbia. Unlike the historic character, Elliott's gunfighter survives his encounter with the South Dakota hellhole, where he arrives to aid beleaguered livery stable owner Clint Wilson (Richard Fiske) and his sister, Madge (Dorothy Fay), in their battle against self-appointed town czar "Flash" Kirby (Arthur Loft). But before he gets that far, there is a little matter of proving Kirby guilty of wrongdoing and to achieve that, Wild Bill earns the enmity of both the Wilsons. Comic sidekick Cannonball (Dub Taylor) relieves the tension by performing Milton Drake's "Of Course, It's Your Horse" and "Saturday Night in San Antone", both numbers culminating with an unwanted shower. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this western, the Three Mesquisteers face down angry Indians and outlaws while fighting to save the life of am abducted young woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After a couple of Westerns with barely any singing, former radio crooner Tex Ritter was back to form in this his fifth Monogram oater of 1940. Apart from his own and Frank Harbord's Gold Is Where You Find It, Ritter also performed Donohue's Done It Again, by Jack Frost and Johnny Lange and Lew Porter's They're Hanging Pappy in the Morning. Tex and bucolic sidekick Slim Andrews are prospectors in Boom Town, a community terrorized by a band of claim jumpers known as "The Ceegaret Gang" due to their practice of leaving the intended victim with a death threat written on cigarette paper. When Tex and Slim strike pay dirt, the former is falsely accused of being the leader of the gang. The real criminals plan to blow up the jail, but Tex and Slim escape. Seeking shelter in a cave, they discover Rawls (Forrest taylor), the only man alive able to identify the leader of the gang. Returning to town, Tex is reveals that the culprit is Prader (Stanley Price), a particularly unpleasant specimen who is in cahoots with the local county clerk. Little Sugar Dawn, a precocious child actress who had helped ruin Ritter's previous Pals of the Silver Stage with her sugary presence, returned for an encore in The Golden Trail, but her screen time was mercifully brief. (Rival Western hero Tom Keene was not so lucky; the irritating child would appear in no less than five of his Monogram oaters 1941-1942.) ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In his sixth of nine Monogram releases of 1940, Tex Ritter played a U.S. Marshal coming to the aid of a beleaguered schoolmarm. The latter was played by blonde Dorothy Fay, who had appeared in two previous Westerns with Ritter. By this time they were dating and would soon marry, a lifelong union that produced 1980s television personality John Ritter. Investigating a series of rustlings, Ritter and his bucolic sidekick Slim Chance (Slim Andrews) discover that the only school in the valley is threatened with closure by nasty town boss Jim Rader (James Pierce). Rader, as it turns out, is also behind the rustlings, but he had obviously not counted by Marshal Ritter and his flying fists. Backed by Romaine Lowdermilk and His Ranch House Cowboys, Ritter and Andrews performed Fleming Allen's title-tune, Johnny Lange and Lew Porter's Poor Slim and My Tonto Basin Home by Garland Edmundson. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this exciting western, Roaring Dan is the meanest old cuss around. He and his "son" are constantly bickering. But things are not as they seem as the young man is only pretending to be Dan's son so they can find the killers of the young man's real father. Among the guilty are two women. In the end, the young hero and the killer engage in a thrilling fist fight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Unique among the Gene Autry starrers of 1940, Ride Tenderfoot Ride actually contains more action than music. In this one, Autry falls heir to a meat-packing firm which has been targetted for a hostile takeover by the villains. June Storey plays Ann Randolph, owner of a rival meat concern, who is unaware until the last reel that her subordinates have been plotting to ruin or murder our hero. By the time Gene and Ann decide to merge-both professionally and romantically---the bad guys have been soundly trounced by Autry and his saddle pal Frog (Smiley Burnette). Legendary Broadway entertainer Joe Frisco is somewhat wasted in a minor role as a stuttering haberdasher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Buck Jones both produced and directed (with action expert B. Reeves Eason) this somewhat inconsistent Western about a ranger sent to the lawless town of Tombstone to bodyguard the local judge. The town is run by a mystery man known as "Twin Gun," whose henchmen, Clanton (Alexander Cross) and Smith (Chuck Morrison), actually manage to abduct the weak Judge Hart (Carl Stockdale), lest their compatriot Peters (Tom Forman) should go down for yet another stagecoach holdup. Working with Doc (Harvey Clark), an undercover agent pretending to be the town drunk, Alamo Bowie (Jones) is able to reveal the identity of "Twin Gun," who, not too surprisingly, turns out to be a pillar of society. Caving in, apparently, to the burgeoning popularity of singing westerns, Jones actually hums a few bars of a campfire song, while a bleach-blonde saloon floozy, Mary Carney, performs the ever-popular "La Cucaracha". ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

As one of Harry Carey's mid-1930s independent westerns, Ghost Town is noted for its good, atmospheric cinematography (as evidenced by the film's production stills). The star assumes his familiar guise as Cheyenne Harry, a wandering do-gooder with a questionable background but the noblest of intentions. His path intersects with that of an old pal with designs on a vacant mining town; the friend is killed, and Carey blamed for the murder and incarcerated.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Silent Western star Harry Carey returned to his roots in this low-budget Western from Ajax Pictures. The strong silent type, Carey plays Cheyenne Kinkaid, a stranger claiming to be an outlaw on the run in order to infiltrate a gang lead by the notorious El Diablo (Theodore Lorch). At the villain's lair, Rustler's Paradise, Kinkaid discovers that a girl living there, Connie (Gertrude Messinger), is his long-lost daughter, who, years earlier, had been taken from him by his wife and her lover, Rance Kimball. Kimball, of course, is none other than El Diablo, and with the assistance of Larry Martin (Edmund Cobb) and his vaqueros, Kinkaid manages to catch the entire gang. El Diablo is brought back to Rustler's Paradise, where, tied up and threatened with being skinned alive, he confesses to having killed Kinkaid's wife. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide