Jack Haley Movies

The first of 20th Century-Fox's college musicals, Pigskin Parade is also close to the best of them in musical terms -- though they were all at least pretty good on that level -- principally thanks to the presence of 13-year-old Judy Garland, playing an Arkansas farm girl with surprising sincerity and success (in addition to belting out a couple of numbers with the depth and sincerity of a performer at least twice that age). The plot starts rolling when the Yale University football team, looking for a credible but not too tough opponent for a charity game, accidentally invites the team from tiny Tesax State University (enrollment 700) instead of the University of Texas (enrollment 7500). Texas State has also just gotten a new football coach, Slug Winters (Jack Haley), who's had a lot of success coaching high school back in Flushing, New York but still has to prove himself with college players -- he arrives with his brassy, outspoken wife (Patsy Kelly) just ahead of the invitation from Yale, which nearly sends them running back to New York. Through sheer luck and Mrs. Winters' brainstorm, however, they figure out a way they can meet the Yale team on the field and not get steamrollered -- they come up with a fast, highly mobile brand of football that makes them contenders, but then they lose their star-player. Mrs. Winters manages to stumble onto Amos Dodd (Stuart Erwin), an Arkansas farm boy who developed his arm by tossing watermelons around, and brings him and his sister (Judy Garland) to the college. But now they have to make Amos -- who never finished high school -- eligible, and keep him interested enough in the team and the college to get him to the game. It's all a lot of fun, with lots of comic antics and a song spicing up the pace every few minutes, and Haley and Kelly are a delight to watch together. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

It is said that former gagman Clyde Bruckman spent most of his directing days sitting in his canvas chair quietly nursing a hangover. Well, someone must have directed Spring Tonic, and if it was Bruckman (as credited), he certainly sobered up long enough to deliver the goods. Claire Trevor walks out on her fiance Lew Ayres in search of adventure. She gets more than she bargained for when she stumbles upon a gang of bootleggers. Ayres comes to the rescue with the help of a circus troupe. The film was based on Man Eating Tiger, an obscure play by Ben Hecht and Rose Caylor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ann Sothern and Jack Haley star in this inconsequential little musical. Haley is a struggling playwright of minimal talent, whose latest play is miraculously selected for a Broadway berth by producer Roger Pryor. The problem: Pryor isn't a producer at all, but an out-of-work actor anxious to get into anyone's play, even Haley's. After several ups and downs, the play actually makes it to Broadway, where it is regarded as the ultimate in ridiculous comedy and becomes a success! It would be stretching things to suggest that this was the inspiration for Mel Brooks' similarly plotted The Producers, since the backstage legend of a flop play becoming an accidental hit is as old as the Theatre itself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No relation to the later Clifton Webb vehicle of the same name, Sitting Pretty is a dated but likable film about the songwriting racket. Jack Oakie and Jack Haley play a pair of would-be tunesmiths who team up with aspiring dancer Ginger Rogers. Through the kindness of a tippling director (Lew Cody), the trio is given a bid for stardom in a movie musical directed by an excitable Russian (Gregory Ratoff). The characters played by Oakie and Haley were loosely based on Paramount's real-life songwriting team Mack Gordon and Harry Revel, who show up in bit parts. Sitting Pretty is the film that introduced the sprightly tune "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide