Andy Devine Movies

A Star is Born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a "true behind-the-scenes" story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. Janet Gaynor stars as Esther Blodgett, the small-town girl who dreams of Hollywood stardom, a role later played by both Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand in the 1954 and 1976 remakes. Jeered at by most of her family, Esther finds an ally in her crusty old grandma (May Robson), who admires the girl's "pioneer spirit" and bankrolls Esther's trip to Tinseltown. On arrival, Esther heads straight to Central Casting, where a world-weary receptionist (Peggy Wood), trying to let the girl down gently, tells her that her chances for stardom are about one in a thousand. "Maybe I'll be that one!" replies Esther defiantly. Months pass: through the intervention of her best friend, assistant director Danny McGuire (Andy Devine), Esther gets a waitressing job at an upscale Hollywood party. Her efforts to "audition" for the guests are met with quizzical stares, but she manages to impress Norman Maine (Fredric March), the alcoholic matinee idol later played by James Mason and Kris Kristofferson. Esther gets her first big break in Norman's next picture and a marriage proposal from the smitten Mr. Maine. It's a hit, but as Esther (now named Vicki)'s star ascends, Norman's popularity plummets due to a string of lousy pictures and an ongoing alcohol problem. The film won Academy Awards for director William Wellman and Robert Carson in the "original story" category and for W. Howard Greene's glistening Technicolor cinematography. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

At MGM, the studio's youth musicals were more rural than urban -- find a barn, get some friends together, and hey kids, let's put on a show. At Universal, for this musical for its young contract players, the atmosphere is more urban -- the kids at a settlement house, led by Trudy Costello (Peggy Ryan), have to raise $200 a month to support scholarships so that 10 of them can go to music school; they're helped by Carol Curtis (Ann Blyth), a wealthy young heiress who's in love with Billy Harper (Billy Dunn), who's too poor to afford the scholarship but also too proud to take her help. The kids decide to organize a night club for teenagers, and try to get help from Carol's eccentric uncle Malcolm (Leon Errol, who's never been comfortable with his upper-crust family's staid outlook on life. But standing in their way is Carol's aunt Martha Alma Kruger, who doesn't like music and sees no reason for her niece or any member of her family to be involved with this group of under-privileged kids. And running interference for the teenagers is her attorney, Dick Lorimer (Kirby Grant), who sympathizes with Carol and Malcolm and happens to like the director of the settlement house (nne Gwynne) a great deal. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Universal and producer/director Henry Koster had plans to make Diana Barrymore, the daughter of John Barrymore, into another Deanna Durbin with Between Us Girls, an ambitious sub-screwball comedy that undoubtedly owed some aspects of its existence to The Major And The Minor (in addition to anticipating elements of the Van Johnson/June Allyson vehicle Too Young To Kiss). Barrymore plays Caroline Bishop, an ambitious and gifted young actress and the daughter of actress Christine Bishop (Kay Francis). On a visit home, she discovers that her mother is involved in a serious romance -- which could lead to her re-marrying -- with businessman Steven Forbes (John Boles), but that he is under the impression that Christine is at least a decade younger than her actual age. When Forbes announces his intention to meet Christine's "young" daughter -- whom he presumes is on a visit home from boarding school -- in order to help her mother, Carrie pretends to be a 12-year-old; but she also meets his friend Jimmy Blake (Robert Cummings), who takes a paternal interest in the seemingly badly adjusted child, whom he believes is being neglected emotionally. This impression is only reinforced when Carrie must invent an alcoholic "aunt" to explain a picture in the Bishop home. The problem is that she genuinely starts to fall in love with Jimmy -- but by the time she recognizes this dilemma, it's too late to sort out the masquerade without admitting to dishonesty all around. And how will Carrie juggle her two "roles" within the family, and her own life as a theater actress with a production of Rain (in which she is to play Sadie Thompson) coming up? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Though the title of this episode refers to the young lady played by Sheila Wells, the emphasis is on George's father, photographer Enos Blessing (Jack Albertson). Hired to provide an alibi for crooked lawyer Cato Troxell (Gerald Mohr), who plans to murder the judge (Fred Clark) responsible for hanging his brother, Blessing takes a group picture of the Ponderosa entourage, then doctors the photo to include Troxell. This little arrangement ultimately proves fatal for both Troxell and Blessing. Featured in the all-star supporting cast are Andy Devine and Patsy Kelly) as Roscoe and Mrs. Neely. Written by William H. Wright, "A Girl Named George" first aired on January 14, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two Bowery vaudevillians compete to be the first to produce shows on Broadway. They might be friends were they not so convinced that each has stolen ideas from the others. This bouncy musical chronicles their rivalry and the success they find after they finally team up. Unfortunately the success is short-lived when one of them suddenly departs to work for a beautiful woman. This time the feud erupts with a vengeance. Fortunately, their paths again cross and a happy ending follows. Songs include: "Just Because You Made Dem Goo Goo Eyes at Me", "There'll Always Be a Moon", "Coney Island Waltz", "Yippie-I-Addy-I-Ay", and "Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dana Andrews -- in one of the best performances of his career -- plays Logan Stuart, a bold, ambitious general store and freight company owner based in the mining settlement of Jacksonville, OR, in 1856. He and his best friend, local banker and express company owner George Camrose (Brian Donlevy), share an attraction for young, beautiful Lucy Overmire (Susan Hayward). However, that's all the two men share -- Stuart sees life in the Oregon territory as a challenge, to be worked out and overcome with thought and time, with the opportunity to build something lasting and significant in the process. Camrose only sees the opportunity to get rich fast and live easy, and he's addicted to gambling at the local saloon. What no one knows is that he's been doing his gambling with the gold dust that the miners have left on deposit in his vault -- and he's been losing. He wants to get out of the territory, to someplace like San Francisco, and plans to take Lucy away. Stuart, by contrast, is as much a frontiersman as a businessman, and so much a part of the community and so trusted and liked that he might even be a potential political leader, if he ever had the time and the willingness to settle down and stay put. He finds consolation over his loss of Lucy in an engagement to Caroline Marsh (Patricia Roc), a daughter of an Englishman who came to Oregon only to see her father killed by Indians, who lives with the homesteading family of Ben Dance (Andy Devine) and his wife (Dorothy Peterson) and their children. Out of friendship, and also a little guilt over the fact that he would love to be engaged to Lucy, Stuart gives Camrose the money to get even, but Camrose can't resist one last card game, and not only loses what Stuart gave him, but the gold dust of one miner -- who shows up unexpectedly in town that night, planning on getting his dust the next day. When the man turns up drowned, Camrose is accused of murder; Stuart stands by his friend, but he's found guilty and the miners, led by hot-headed young Johnny Steele (Lloyd Bridges), plan on hanging him, and shooting anyone who tries to get in the way. But before his fate can be settled, an Indian war starts over the killing of a young Native American woman, and the lives of every white settler in and around Jacksonville are suddenly endangered. There's all of that, plus four songs (including "Old Buttermilk Sky") from Hoagy Carmichael (who does a great acting job), all convincingly woven into the drama along with one of the music legend's best acting performances. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Dore Schary, several years removed from his tenure as head of MGM, was screenwriter for the modest Universal actioner Chinatown Squad. Lyle Talbot plays Ted Lacey, a disgruntled ex-cop reduced to driving a sightseeing bus in Chinatown. When a man who has been collecting funds for the Chinese communist cause is murdered, Lacey leaps at the opportunity to solve the case in hopes of getting his badge back. The killing is tied in with some stolen airplanes -- and, this being Hollywood's version of Chinatown, there's an abundance of sinister-looking suspects. Eighteen-year-old Valerie Hobson is the pretty if antiseptic heroine. For reasons best known to the folks at Universal, Chinatown Squad was included in TV's "Shock Theatre" package, lumped together with the studio's Frankenstein and Dracula pictures! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide