Bobby Barker Movies
- 1950
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play wrestling promoters whose star attraction, Wee Willie Davis, skips town to return to his home in Arabia. While scouring the desert in search of Davis, Bud and Lou inadvertently purchase slave girl Patricia Medina, and with equal inadvertence join the Foreign Legion. In their own bumbling, inept fashion, our heroes manage to foil a desert uprising fomented by shiek Douglas Dumbrille and traitorous Legion commandant Walter Slezak. The film's highlights include an opening-scene parody of pre-rehearsed wrestling matches, a "mirage" routine capped by one of the hoariest vaudeville punchlines in history, and a runaway-jeep climax. All in all, however, Abbott & Costello in the Foreign Legion is one of the team's lesser efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, (more)
- 1946
A rare black-and-white Maria Montez vehicle, Tangier can be described as a second-echelon Casablanca. Montez plays a Spanish dancer named Rita, who is determined to bring Nazi collaborator Colonel Jose Artiego (Preston Foster) to justice. Artiego is at presently working incognito, as military governor of the North African city of Tangier. Maria finds an unexpected ally in the form of Artiego's discarded mistress Dolores (Louise Allbritton). Dominating the film's hotel-lobby set is an old-fashioned "open" elevator, which will obviously figure prominently in the climax. A camp classic, Tangier is distinguished by supporting actor Sabu's offkey renditions of such American standards as "Polly Wolly Doodle" and "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain"! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maria Montez, Preston S. Foster, (more)
- 1944
Paramount Pictures did their patriotic duty with this World War II era musical, with a number of the studio's biggest stars making cameo appearances. Tony West (George Raft), his sister Kitty (Grace McDonald), and their father Nick (Charles Grapewin) tour together as The Three Wests, a failing act just scraping by in the latter days of vaudeville. With job opportunities drying up on the East Coast, Tony persuades the family to take their chances in California, and for once luck is with him. Not long after arriving in Hollywood, Tony is hired as a chorus boy on a musical starring Latin bombshell Vera Zorina (Gloria Vance). Cocky Tony offers Vera some much-needed advice on her dancing. She's intrigued by his confidence, and a romance blooms; soon, the two marry. Tony becomes a major star as Vera's on and off screen dancing partner, but when World War II breaks out, Tony's conscience gets the better of him. Tony is 4-F because of a bad knee, but he's ashamed to admit this, even to Vera, who thinks he's avoiding the service out of cowardice. Vera eventually gives Tony his walking papers, and desperate to show his support of our troops, Tony organizes an all-star U.S.O. revue bringing much needed entertainment to America's fighting men overseas. Follow the Boys also features guest shots by Marlene Dietrich, W.C. Fields (demonstrating trick billiard shots), Orson Welles (doing his magic act), Dinah Shore, The Andrews Sisters, Jeanette MacDonald, Sophie Tucker, Randolph Scott, Lon Chaney Jr., and Maria Montez, among many others. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Raft, Vera Zorina, (more)
- 1942
This might be a film about junk mail...but it isn't. Wallace Beery and Marjorie Main are teamed again for this rambunctious western comedy. Beery plays a horse thief who romances saloon owner Main. His goal is to marry the lady and take over her lucrative mail route. He accidentally becomes a hero; she completes the reformation. Jackass Mail made money, but it just wasn't the same as the classic Wallace Beery/Marie Dressler combo of the 1930s. Great title, though. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, (more)
- 1941
No relation to the Cracked Nuts he directed in 1931, this hokey sci-fi-comedy from director Edward F. Cline stars Stuart Erwin as Lawrence Trent, a country rube who wins a refrigerator-slogan contest and gets some money for his efforts. Meanwhile, mad scientist Boris Kabikoff (Mischa Auer) builds a silly-looking robot in his own image and hooks up with a New York patent attorney (William Frawley from I Love Lucy) to bilk Trent out of his prize money. Shemp Howard plays the robot as a lusty creature with a penchant for skirt-chasing and is used by black servant Chloe (Hattie Noel) to do housechores and frighten her husband Burgess (Mantan Moreland), who has a gambling problem. Una Merkel co-stars with Astrid Allwyn and Pierre Watkin. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
