Edward Kilroy Movies
- 1944
MGM intended Rationing to be an object lesson as well as a comedy, to teach the moviegoers the importance of rationing products during World War II. Wallace Beery plays a small town butcher who comes under fire from the local citizens for attempting to honor the ration system. Beery finds himself swamped in a sea of government red tape, and at times is tempted to sidestep the law, but at the end he does his patriotic duty. Like Laurel and Hardy's MGM feature Air Raid Wardens (43), Rationing tends to sacrifice laughs to get its message across. The Beery film has the added handicap of running about twenty minutes too long. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, (more)
Edward Arnold made the first of his two screen appearances as Bayard Kendrick's blind detective Captain Duncan McLain in MGM's Eyes in the Night. The plot is set in motion by Norma Lawry (Ann Harding), whose stepdaughter Barbara (Donna Reed) has been keeping company with washed-up actor Paul Gerente (John Emery). Norma feels that Gerente, an ex-lover of hers, is a bad influence for Barbara, but the girl merely assumes that Norma wants Gerente all to herself. When the ageing actor is murdered, Barbara assumes that Norma committed the crime. Rather than go to the police, Norma heads to her old friend Duncan McLain, but when the detective arrives at the scene of the murder, the body has disappeared. Detecting the odor of violets in the room, McLain uses this tiny clue to build a case against a gang of Nazi spies, headed by the Lawry's butler Hansen (Stanley Ridges), with whom the late Mr. Gerente had been collaborating. Just knowing who did it isn't enough in this case, however: getting the drop on McLain and his associates, the villains hold the detective and Lawry prisoner until they are able to get their hands on a secret formula developed by Barbara's father (Reginald Denny). In true movie-serial fashion, it is McLain's faithful seeing-eye dog Friday (played by "himself") who saves the day. A "B" picture with "A" entertainment value, Eyes in the Night proved successful enough to warrant a sequel, 1945's The Hidden Eye. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, (more)
- 1939
Merlini the Magician, Clayton Rawson's crime-solving illusionist, has been singularly ill-used by Hollywood, having appeared in a mere two films, "starring" in only one. Miracles for Sale compounds the oversight by rechristening Merlini as "Michael Morgan", in the person of Robert Young. The picture starts well, with a grisly political execution revealed to be an elaborate bit of stage magic perpetrated by the personable Morgan. The story then goes into a fraud and murder scheme perpetrated by Dave Duvallo (Henry Hull), whose consummate skill with makeup and Houdinilike escape devices comes in handy for phony spiritualist Madame Rapport (Gloria Holden). The film's highlight finds Morgan exposing several tricks utilized by magicians and fortune-tellers to gull the public, a sequence which incurred the wrath of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians, who took a dim view at having the secrets of their trade revealed for the cost of a movie ticket. Of historical interest is the fact that Miracles for Sale was the final directorial effort of Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks etc.) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Young, Florence Rice, (more)
