Vernon Dent Movies
Actor Vernon Dent launched his career in stock companies and as one-third of a singing cabaret trio. Silent comedian Hank Mann, impressed by Dent's girth (250 pounds) and comic know-how, helped Vernon enter films in 1919. Dent starred in a 2-reel series at the Pacific Film Company, then settled in at Mack Sennett studios as a supporting player, generally cast as a heavy. During his Sennett years, Dent was most often teamed with pasty-faced comedian Harry Langdon, who became his lifelong friend and co-worker. Remaining with Sennett until the producer closed down his studio in 1933, Dent moved to Educational Pictures, where he was afforded equal billing with Harry Langdon; and when Langdon moved to Columbia Pictures in 1934, Dent followed, remaining a mainstay of the Columbia 2-reel stock company until 1953. Here he was featured with such comic luminaries as Andy Clyde, Buster Keaton, Hugh Herbert, Vera Vague, and especially the Three Stooges. Among Dent's dozens of talkie feature-film credits were W.C. Fields' Million Dollar Legs (1932) and You're Telling Me (1934); in one of his rare feature starring roles, Dent played a boisterous, wife-beating sailor in the 1932 "B" Dragnet Patrol. Well-connected politically in the Los Angeles area, Dent supplemented his acting income by running the concession stand at Westlake Park. Vernon Dent retired in the mid-1950s, due to total blindness brought about by diabetes; the ever-upbeat actor was so well-adjusted to his handicap that many of Dent's close friends were unaware that he was blind. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1938
Rising star Rita Hayworth puts in a little box-office duty in the Columbia "B" Juvenile Court. The star of the proceedings is Paul Kelly as crusading public defender Gary Franklin, who hopes to establish a Police Athletic League to give street kids a new chance in life. His toughest charge is Stubby (Frankie Darro), a born leader with potential for either the White House or the Electric Chair. Once he's won over Stubby, Franklin is able to get the rest of the neighborhood kids to attend his new athletic outfit. The far- reaching influence of Franklin's pet project is proven when a group of young punks change their minds about committing a robbery. As Franklin's girl friend Marcia Kelly, Rita Hayworth has virtually nothing to do but stand around and look pretty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Kelly, Rita Hayworth, (more)
- 1938
Who Killed Gail Preston? gets off to a rousing start with a nocturnal prison break which turns out to be the prelude for a nightclub musical number, masterminded by bandleader Traynor (Robert Paige). Gail Preston (Rita Hayworth), Traynor's vocalist, is much-despised by practically everyone, so it comes as no surprise when she's bumped off in the third reel. The most likely suspect is a weaselly hanger-on (Dwight Frye) who removes himself from consideration when he takes a header from a fourth-floor roof. This leaves such disreputable types as Marc Lawrence, Arthur Loft and John Gallaudet for detective Connolly (Gene Morgan) to choose from. Set almost entirely in Columbia's standard nightclub set, Who Killed Gail Preston? is a remake of 1934's The Crime of Helene Stanley, which took place at a movie studio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Don Terry, Rita Hayworth, (more)
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore), a former businessman who has turned his back on commerce to enjoy life. At the Sycamores', everyone does just what he or she pleases. Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington), Grandpa's daughter, has become a novelist because someone delivered a typewriter to her home by mistake. Penny's husband makes firecrackers in his basement with the help of Mr. DePinna (Halliwell Hobbes), an iceman who showed up at the Sycamore doorstep one day and never left. Their daughter, Essie (Ann Miller), imagines that she's a prima ballerina, even though her dour teacher, Boris (Mischa Auer), assesses her work with, "Confidentially, it steenks!" Essie's husband, Ed (Dub Taylor), who'd rather play a xylophone than work, spends his free time selling Essie's candy, wrapping each package in paper from a used printing press that dispenses anarchistic slogans. The one normal member of the household is Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur), in love with wealthy Tony Kirby (James Stewart).
Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Naturally, when the stuffy, aristocratic Kirbys come to the Sycamores' for dinner, the event is a disaster, capped with the arrest of everyone in the household. Hart and Kaufman's third act found the previously judgmental Kirby softening his attitude toward the freewheeling Sycamore clan, admitting that he's never had so much fun in his life. Screenwriter Riskin altered the focus of the play by throwing out the third act and concentrating upon Tony Kirby's father, Kirby Sr., who as played by Edward Arnold is transformed from a stock stuffed shirt into a ruthless, grasping tycoon, eager to buy up every house on the Sycamores' block to make room for a munitions plant. The film thus became the story of Kirby's regeneration at the hands of the carefree Sycamores. Enough of the play's screwball elements are retained to compensate for Riskin's speechifying and plot distortions (though the softening of one of the play's vital ingredients, Grandpa's refusal to pay his income tax, borders on the sacrilegious). You Can't Take It With You earned several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Capra's third Oscar). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, (more)
Leo McCarey directed this classic screwball comedy in which Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play Jerry and Lucy Warriner, a couple whose marriage is starting to fall apart. Jerry informs Lucy that he's taking a vacation alone in Florida; instead, he holes up with his buddies and plays poker for a week (while sitting under a sun lamp so he'll have an appropriate tan). Lucy concludes that Jerry was never in Florida just as Jerry discovers that Lucy was spending her time with Armand Duvalle (Alex D'Arcy), a handsome voice teacher. Both Jerry and Lucy believe the other was unfaithful, so they agree to a trial divorce, with a bitter battle fought over custody of Mr. Smith, the dog (Lucy gets the dog, but Jerry has visitation rights). Determined to make Jerry jealous, Lucy continues keeping company with Armand while also dating Daniel Leeson (Ralph Bellamy), a wealthy oil man from Oklahoma. Convinced that turnabout is fair play, Jerry starts going out with Dixie Belle Lee (Joyce Compton), a brassy nightclub singer, as well as socialite Barbara Vance (Molly Lamont). However, Lucy has belatedly decided that she wants Jerry back, and she hatches a plan to win him back by making a spectacle of herself at a party. The Awful Truth was based on a play which had been filmed twice before, but McCarey gave his superb comic cast free reign to improvise and add new business, and the results were splendid; you haven't lived until you've heard Irene Dunne attempt to sing "Home on the Range." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, (more)
- 1937
This Three Stooges comedy is especially fast-paced. The boys wake up at their usual time -- 11 a.m. -- and fix themselves breakfast, only to have their wives come home and threaten divorce if they don't find work. So they land jobs as salesmen for Brighto, a miracle medicine that "brightens old bodies." The Stooges never bother reading the label, however, and don't even know what it's for: "It's for sale!" Moe declares. They proceed to show off Brighto's many attributes to potential customers but, unfortunately, the formula eats through everything -- shoes, a policeman's jacket, car paint -- and the Stooges find themselves pursued by several angry men. When Dr. Brighto tells them that the stuff is medicine, they try their luck selling it at the Los Arms hospital. After creating much mayhem amongst the patients, they discover that the supervisor (Vernon Dent) is the man whose car-finish they destroyed. After a frantic chase, the Stooges sail out of the hospital on a gurney. It smashes into a car and the boys dive into the window of their own apartment -- right back into bed. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
Financier J.B. Ball (Edward Arnold) -- known in the press as "the Bull of Broad Street" -- may be one of the wealthiest investment bankers in the country, but he also knows the value of a dollar. And when his wife (Mary Nash) spends 50,000 of them on a sable coat, he is driven into such a fury in the ensuing argument on the roof of their Fifth Avenue townhouse, that he throws the coat into the street -- where it promptly lands on the head of Mary Smith (Jean Arthur), a clerk-typist on her way to work, riding on the upper deck of a double-decker bus, ruining her hat in the process. She jumps off the bus to try to return the coat, but Ball insists that she keep it. What she really needs, however, is not a 50,000-dollar sable coat so much as a ride to work -- as she doesn't even have a dime for bus fare -- and perhaps a new hat. Ball obliges, taking her to one of the top clothing stores in New York, buying her an expensive fur hat to go with the coat, and then dropping her at work in his limo. Her superiors, seeing her decked out in a sable coat and a new hat, and getting out of the chauffeured car, conclude that Mary is a kept woman, and, therefore, unfit to work for the boys magazine where she is employed, and they fire her. Now out of work and virtually broke, she seems to have become a victim of random fate, but suddenly the scales start to tip the other way from the very same misunderstanding that got her fired. Having been seen in the company of J.B. Ball -- whose name she didn't even get -- she is rumored to be his mistress; the prissy clothing store proprietor (Franklin Pangborn) spreads this story, and that turns Mary into the object of attention for Mr. Louis Louis (Luis Alberni), the owner of a failed luxury hotel on which Ball's bank holds the mortgage, and is about to foreclose. For reasons that she can't begin to understand, since there is nothing going on between her and J.B. Ball (whose name she doesn't even know), or between her and anyone, Louis moves her into the most luxurious suite in his hotel for a dollar a day, asking her only to inform "that certain someone" of how she loves living there. Mary has no idea of who "that certain someone" is, or what Louis is talking about, but she needs a place to live, and Louis is insistent. She still needs to eat, and, while trying to get a meal at the automat, she crosses paths with a handsome, well-meaning, but inept waiter (Ray Milland), who gets fired for helping her. She takes him into her suite so he has a place to stay, and the two fall in love in the course of finding out about each other. She knows that he is John Ball Jr., but doesn't realize that he is the son of J.B. Ball, trying to make it on his own, nor does she yet realize who J.B. Ball is, in terms of being the man who gave her the coat and the new hat, or one of the wealthiest men in the country. But after the elder Ball spends an innocent night at the Hotel Louis, a gossip columnist named "Wallace Whistling" (William Demarest) prints that he is keeping a woman at the hotel, and suddenly the Hotel Louis, perceived as a fashionable playground for the upper-crust, is filled with guests. This multiple case of mistaken identity plunges through two or three new layers, eventually bringing about an impending stock market crash to rival 1929, before Mary discovers who her would-be benefactor and her would-be fiancé are. She bails them out of the jam that they're in, also restoring the Ball's marriage, her own reputation, and her romance with Ball's son in the process. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, (more)
- 1937
No relation to the radio program of the same name, The Shadow is a lightning-paced murder mystery with a Big Top background. Rita Hayworth plays Mary Gillespie, the young owner of a travelling circus in danger of losing financial control of her show to hissable bareback rider Peter Martinet (Donald Kirke). Since Martinet has made it known that he intends to fire everybody in the troupe, he has no shortage of dangerous enemies -- few more dangerous than knife-thrower Carlos (Dick Curtis) or hunchbacked horse-wrangler Vindecco (Dwight Frye). On cue, Martinet is murdered during a performance in front of hundreds of witnesses -- but how, and by whom? Road manager Jim Quinn (Charles Quigley) hopes to find out before the cops close the show down or lovely Mary is herself murdered, or both. The ending is a beaut, even if it does fly in the face of logic. Fans of Columbia's "Three Stooges" two-reelers will enjoy seeing such Stooge supporting players as Dick Curtis, Vernon Dent, John Tyrrell and Bess Flowers in important roles, while devotees of Universal's "Ma and Pa Kettle" features will get a kick out of Marjorie Main's interpretation of "the world's only female ringmaster." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rita Hayworth, Charles Quigley, (more)
- 1937
The Three Stooges are lawbreakers in merry olde England in this comic short. For their crimes, the Stooges are sent to the American colonies to defend the Pilgrim settlement against Indians. They arrive, muskets in hand, and proceed to flirt with the daughters of the governor (Vernon Dent). But they get down to business soon enough, as the Indians demand "five thousands shekels" for peace, a far greater sum than the Pilgrims have. While hunting for turkey the Stooges head for the outskirts of Plymouth (you can tell they've reached it by the signs). They mistake the Indians' headdresses for birds and fire, and the battle is on. Larry is caught and tied to a tree. Moe and Curly come to his rescue, knocking out the Indians with their clubs, and then Curly knocks out Moe. Larry faints and when Curly tosses water on him, he misses and wakes up the unconscious Indians, who give chase. The Stooges finally escape in a motorized canoe -- a shot stolen from an earlier short, Whoops, I'm an Indian. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1936
Ken Maynard at least tries to keep his characteristic off-the-wall ad-libs to a minimum in Fugitive Sheriff. Hoping to rid a small western community of its corrupt political machine, Maynard runs for sheriff against the bad guys' candidate and wins the election. Dissatisfied with this, the villains contrive to frame Ken on a murder charge. He breaks out of jail (hence the film's title) and tracks down the genuine culprit, pausing ever so briefly to sing a song or two for the benefit of leading lady Beth Marion. Maynard's singing is definitely an acquired taste, but there's no argument that his riding stunts are astonishing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Maynard, Beth Marion, (more)
The MGM historical "spectacular" San Francisco was allegedly based on a three-sentence synopsis, submitted verbally to producer B.F. Zeidman by studio troubleshooter Bob Hopkins. The story begins on the Barbary Coast on New Year's Eve, 1906, as rakish but likeable political boss Blackie Norton (Clark Gable) hires demure young singer Mary Blake (Jeanette MacDonald) to perform at his rowdy Paradise gambling house. Local priest Father Mullin (Spencer Tracy), Blackie's best friend, disapproves of the exploitation of the lovely Mary, feeling that she's suited for classier surroundings. Jack Hurley (Jack Holt), Nob Hill socialite and Blackie's political rival, agrees with Father Mullin and offers the girl the opportunity to sing with the San Francisco Opera. Blackie, who's fallen in love with Mary but won't admit it to himself, jealously holds on to her contract, forcing Mary to walk out on him. For the rest of the film, Mary is torn between the "respectable" lifestyle offered her by Hurley and the baser creature comforts provided by Blackie. It looks for a while that Hurley has won out, but fate takes a hand in the form of the devastating San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906 (a special effects tour de force for art directors Arnold Gillespie and his uncredited associate James Basevi). Hurley is killed in the holocaust, while Blackie, desperately searching for Mary in the rubble, at long last finds religion and prays to God for his sweetheart's salvation. At the end, an unidentified bit player shouts defiantly "We'll build a new San Francisco!" -- and by golly, they do! The Hollywood censors were not so much bothered by the sexual subtext of San Francisco or its harrowing earthquake finale as they were by a scene in which Father Mullin is knocked down by an unrepentant Blackie. To "purify" this potentially blasphemous sequence, screenwriter Anita Loos quickly added an earlier scene in which Mullin and Blackie, both dressed in turtleneck sweaters, genially duke it out at an exercise gym, whereupon the priest cold-cocks Blackie with the greatest of ease. By establishing that Mullin could have punched out Blackie, but chooses not to in the controversial later scene, not only allows that scene to pass, but also strengthened the priest's character. San Francisco proved to be one of MGM's biggest hits, remaining in almost constant reissue for the next three decades. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, (more)
- 1936
Even a run-of-the-mill Three Stooges short had its moments, as this one proves. It begins in November, 1918, and Larry, Moe and Curly are sleeping through the end of World War I. The sergeant (Stanley Blystone) wakes them up to tell them the war is over -- and to abuse them, blacking Curly and Larry's eyes and mercilessly twisting Moe's arm. But the Stooges release their pent-up anger at the sarge once they have their discharge papers, and he winds up much the worse for wear. Seventeen years later, it's the depths of the depression and the Stooges are broke and hungry. When they see a diner sitting in front of a sumptuous feast, they get a stray dog to run in and grab the roast chicken. The dog, of course, won't give it up, and the diner is ready to throttle them. Instead, he tricks them into re-enlisting in the Army. The worst part about being back in uniform is that once again they're stuck with the same nasty sergeant. During one drill with a cannon, they are sent out to get the shells and gun powder. When they return they don't realize that target practice has been canceled and proceed to shoot everything in sight, including the admiral's flagship (at this point it's pretty obvious that Columbia thanked its lucky stars for stock footage!). The boys are proud of their work, and the sergeant cheerfully lines them up. But instead of the reward they're expecting, he points the cannon at them and fires. All that's left of the Stooges is their smoking boots. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1935
Knockabout slapstick dominates this two-reel Navy comedy from Educational. Naval recruit Elmer (Buster Keaton) is seemingly unable to discharge any of his duties without making life miserable for his irascible commanding officer (Vernon Dent), who winds up getting doused with paint, splattered with muck, and repeatedly tossed into the water due to Elmer's ineptitude. To make matters worse, Elmer takes a shine to the CO's girlfriend (Dorothea Kent), which prompts her jealous boyfriend into several wrathful chases after Elmer. He eventually has Elmer locked into the brig -- but his girlfriend is in there too, so she can be together with her beloved Elmer. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buster Keaton
- 1934
W.C. Fields stars in a remake of his silent comedy So's Your Old Man. Fields plays Sam Bisbee, an erstwhile inventor who is the laughingstock of his small town. Returning in defeat from a disastrous big-city demonstration of his latest invention, Sam makes the acquaintance of a beautiful young woman (Adrienne Ames) who happens to be an incognito foreign princess. After Bisbee tells her of how he'd like to be a success for the sake of his family, the princess decides to use her celebrity to Sam's benefit. She arrives in his town and lets it be known of her high regard for the downtrodden Bisbee. Suddenly Sam is the town's big shot, enabling him to merchandise his inventions and do right by his wife and daughter. Sam earns the respect he's so long deserved--but he's never completely convinced that the princess is who she claims to be, and keeps congratulating her on her "racket." Based on a story by Julian Street, You're Telling Me is climaxed by a sidesplitting recreation of W.C. Fields' Ziegfeld Follies golf routine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- W.C. Fields, Joan Marsh, (more)
- 1934
A W. Somerset Maugham novel was the source for the fair-to-middling Greta Garbo vehicle The Painted Veil. In a situation comparable to the plotlines of most of her silent films, Garbo is lovelessly married to Herbert Marshall, but carries a flaming torch for George Brent. (Also harking back to Garbo's silent days is the fact that neither one of the men in her life is particularly interesting!) Marshall, a brilliant physician, is compelled to go into the interior regions of China to quell a cholera epidemic. He knows that Garbo has been having an affair with politician Brent, and chivalrously gives her the choice of remaining with Brent or accompanying him. Fearing a scandal, Brent bids farewell to Garbo. Once they're in the midst of the epidemic, Garbo tirelessly works by her husband's side; eventually she falls in love with him for the first time. Seriously injured in a peasant uprising, Marshall hovers near death. Brent reappears, offering to take Garbo back with him. She refuses, electing to stay with her husband no matter what the future brings. Among the supporting players in The Painted Veil are Warner Oland and Keye Luke, one year away from their memorable pairing in Fox's Charlie Chan films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Greta Garbo, Herbert Marshall, (more)
- 1934
- NR
Notorious as the movie that gangster John Dillinger attended on the night he was killed, Manhattan Melodrama has weathered the years as one of MGM's finest examples of pure storytelling. The pageant-like story begins in 1904, when the excursion steamer "General Slocum" blows up and burns in the East River. Two young boys are orphaned by the disaster. They are adopted by a kindly Jewish businessman (Harry Green) who has lost his own children. Years later, when he is killed during a anarchist rally, the boys are separated once more. They grow up to be straight-arrow attorney Jim Wade (William Powell) and big-time gambler Blackie Gallagher (Clark Gable). Though the two men still like and respect one another, they are now on opposite sides of the legal fence. The professional rivalry becomes personal when Jim marries Blackie's ex-mistress Eleanor (Myrna Loy). The typically stellar MGM supporting cast includes Nat Pendleton as Blackie's faithful stooge, Isabel Jewell as his addled girlfriend, Mickey Rooney as the younger Blackie (a marvelous piece of mimicry here), and blonde singer Shirley Ross, here appearing in blackface in a Harlem nightclub sequence, singing a new Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart tune that would later gain popularity (with different lyrics) as "Blue Moon." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clark Gable, William Powell, (more)
- 1932
Very loosely based on Booth Tarkington's novel The Plutocrat, Business and Pleasure stars Will Rogers as Earl Tinker, a newly rich Oklahoma razor-blade manufacturer. On the pretext of taking a vacation with his family, Earl journeys to far-off Syria, there to purchase the secret formula for Damascus steel. During the ocean voyage to the middle east, Earl's daughter Olivia (Peggy Ross) falls in love with struggling playwright Lawrence Ogle (Joel McCrea), while a worldly adventuress named Madame Momora (Jetta Goudal) apparently sets her sights on the bashful Earl, much to the dismay of his wife (Dorothy Peterson). In truth, however, Madame Momora is an "industrial spy" in the employ of Tinker's main competitor, and it is her job to prevent Earl from completing his business mission. But our dumb-like-a-fox hero manages to turn the tables with the use of a clever disguise and a few other dexterous diversions. Filmed before the 1931 Will Rogers vehicle Ambassador Bill, Business and Pleasure was released afterward in early 1932, thereby giving audiences the pleasant surprise of seeing Boris Karloff, newly famous thanks to his performance as The Monster in Frankenstein, popping up unbilled as a desert sheik. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Will Rogers, Jetta Goudal, (more)
In this his first Western of 1932, Tim McCoy is supported by a young John Wayne. Learning that he is a dead ringer for rancher Jim Rawlins, drifter Texas Grant (McCoy) agrees to keep up the charade in order to scare off a gang of rustlers that has been terrorizing the area. The missing man's wife, Helena (Shirley Grey in the second of four appearances opposite McCoy), at first believes Texas to be her husband but when learning otherwise agrees to keep his real identity hidden. Helena has been having trouble with Utah Becker (Wheeler Oakman), the owner of the Red Dog Saloon, who is secretly employing a majority of the Rawlins' cow hands. Texas, as Jim Rawlins, has the crooks thrown off the property, keeping only Steve, who has remained loyal to Helena throughout. When Becker learns of the newcomer's real identity, he accuses the cowboy of taking advantage of Helena and challenges him to a gunfight at dawn. The saloon owner hedges his bets, however, by having Nick hide in ambush, but both men are killed and Texas wounded. Nursed back to health by Helena, Texas reveals that he is indeed Jim Rawlins, a victim of amnesia caused by an earlier scuffle with Becker. Rotund Vernon Dent, later a popular villain in Three Stooges two-reelers, appeared in this film as Hefty, the bartender, a role he would re-create in future McCoy Westerns. Young John Wayne would also reappear in a future McCoy Western, Two Fisted Law (1932), in both instances playing characters sympathetic to Tim. Offscreen, Wayne and McCoy were less friendly, the former finding the latter morose and distant. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1932
As cheap as any other poverty-row talkie, Dragnet Patrol possesses a breezy charm that is hard to resist. Glenn Tryon stars as a rambunctious sailor who marries carnival cutie Vera Reynolds. For her sake, he hires himself out to shady business entrepreneur Walter Long, only to face extermination when Long's faithless wife Symona Boniface "comes on" to him. Finally getting his priorities straight, Tryon returns to his wife, but not before an understanding judge gives him a severe dressing-down in court. Effortlessly stealing the picture is 2-reel comedy perennial Vernon Dent as Tryon's sailor pal; the scene in which Dent returns home to his wife Marjorie Beebe, only to be forced to kick Beebe's current boyfriend out the back door, is priceless. Also worth noting is the performance of veteran screen heavy Walter Long, who turns out to be more honorable and up-front than the so-called hero. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vernon Dent, Walter Long, (more)
- 1932
A typical low-budget but competently made Columbia Western, The Riding Tornado featured Tim McCoy as a famous rodeo champ who, incognito, wins a supposed killer stallion, Pal, and a purse of 500 dollars in a small town race. Having amicably lost the money in a poker game, Tim is hired by Pal's prior owner, rancher Hiram Olcott (Lafe McKee), to track down a gang of cattle rustlers headed by Hetch Engle (Wheeler Oakman). In between fighting hothead ranch foreman Dick Stark (Wallace MacDonald) for the attention of lovely Patsy Olcott (Shirley Grey), Tim manages to track down Hetch and his gang before they can do more damage. Stark, meanwhile, is heroically killed attempting to stop a stampede, leaving Tim and Patsy free to plan a future together. Vernon Dent, who later menaced the Three Stooges in countless two-reelers, played Hefty, the bartender, a role he had originated in an earlier McCoy effort, Texas Cyclone. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Grey, Wallace MacDonald, (more)
- 1932
Although based on a story by William Colt McDonald, the creator of The Three Mesqueteers, this Tim McCoy effort from Columbia was a conventional Western at best. McCoy played Tim Madigan, a cowpoke coming to the aid of Jerry Norris (Alberta Vaughn), whose father (Murdock MacQuarrie) is in trouble with a gang of cattle rustlers. The leaders of the rustlers, Hugo Distang (Robert Ellis) and Bull Bagley (Richard Alexander), prove to be the very same villains Madigan was trailing. Aided by a new friend, Jughandle (Wallace MacDonald), Madigan manages to catch the rustlers red-handed. The bandits are carted off to jail and Jughandle proves to be an agent for the Cattlemen's Association. McCoy offered a competent and believable performance but this time the material was not quite up to his usual high standard. Future Three Stooges menace Vernon Dent appeared as an ill-fated bartender. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberta Vaughn
- 1932
"Klopstokia: A Far-Away Country. Chief Exports: Goats and Nuts. Chief Imports: Goats and Nuts. Chief Inhabitants: Goats and Nuts." This introductory title ushers in Million Dollar Legs, one of the zaniest comedies ever to emerge from a major studio. W.C. Fields stars as the president of Klopstokia, who will hold on to his office so long as he can best the secretary of the treasury (Hugh Herbert) in their daily arm-wrestling contests. Like most of the Depression-era world, Klopstokia is broke, forcing the government to take drastic measures to raise money. Fortunately, everyone in the country is a super-athlete, inspiring visiting Fuller Brush salesman Migg Tweeney (Jack Oakie) to come up with a brilliant idea: Klopstokia will enter the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Alas, the subversive cabinet members, hoping to overthrow the president, plot to undermine the Klopstokian athletic team with the aid of sexy seductress Mata Machree (Lyda Roberti), "the woman no man can resist." Words can hardly describe the nonstop parade of gags and verbal insanity in Million Dollar Legs: Ben Turpin, playing a cloaked-and-caped spy, pops in and out with neither rhyme nor reason; the conspirators' outdoor hideout is incongruously equipped with hydraulic lifts and elevators; Mata Machree's butler informs the villains that "Madame can only be resisted from 2 to 4,"; and, when asked why all the Klopstokian men are named George and the women named Angela, the president's daughter (Susan Fleming, later the wife of Harpo Marx), replies "Why not?" then launches into the national anthem -- a double-talk version of "One Hour With You." Among the writers were Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Henry Myers, who were also responsible for the wacky Wheeler andWoolsey political satire Diplomaniacs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, (more)
