Nils T. Granlund Movies
Amidst its usual yearly quota of adventure films, Paramount's Pine-Thomas unit turned out a handful of comedies and musicals. One of these was Take it Big, starring Jack Haley and Harriet Hilliard. Haley plays Jack North, the nether end of a vaudeville horse act who inherits a western ranch. When he heads to the Great Outdoors to take possession, Jack winds up at the wrong place: a swanky dude ranch. He immediately begins running things, at it's quite a while before his error is discovered. By the time he shows up at his own ranch, he's up to his ears in unpaid debts-which naturally requires a fund-raising musical show as a bail-out. Harriet Hilliard handles the romantic portion of the proceedings, occasionally dueting with her real-life husband, bandleader Ozzie Nelson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Haley, Harriet Hilliard, (more)
Originally released under the more informal cognomen Goin' to Town, this was the fifth RKO B-picture based on the popular radio series Lum 'N' Abner. This time Lum (Chester Lauck) and Abner (Norris Goff), proprietors of the Jot 'Em Down Store in Pine Ridge, Arkansas, talk their neighbors into mortgaging their land so that everyone can dig for oil. When the gushers fail to gush, L&A hightail it to Chicago, where they fall prey to a group of confidence artists. By conning the con-ners, our heroes manage to earn back all the money that their neighbors had lost in the failed oil scheme. The supporting cast of Goin' to Town includes such dependables as Grady Sutton, Herbert Rawlinson and Sam Flint, as well as a pretty new ingenue by the name of Barbara Hale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chester Lauck, Norris Goff, (more)
During the '40s, Monogram ground out musical comedies by the ton, most of them starring their resident song-and-dance cutie Gale Storm. In Rhythm Parade, Storm plays a young, aspiring singer named Sally, who through a series of misunderstandings is assumed to be the mother of an apparently abandoned baby. This plays right into the hands of Sally's bitchy rival Connie (Jan Wiley), who hopes to ruin the girl's career by fomenting a scandal. By the end of the requisite 68 minutes, all is straightened out, with time left over for 9 musical numbers, some performed by such guest acts as The Mills Bros. and Ted Fio Rito Orchestra. Rhythm Parade was produced in conjunction with Hollywood's Florentine Gardens nightclub, run by one Nils T. Granlund (aka N.T.G.), who appears in the film as "Granny". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nils T. Granlund, Gale Storm, (more)







