Winifred Harris Movies

With the exception of the brilliant The Court Jester, Knock on Wood must rank as the best of Danny Kaye's movie vehicles. Capitalizing on the star's recent successful engagement in London, the film casts Kaye as a neurotic American ventriloquist performing in England and Europe. In a parody of the 1946 thriller Dead of Night, Kaye is unable to control the words coming out of his dummy, resulting in a near-nervous breakdown. On the advice of his manager (David Burns), Kaye seeks out the help of a psychiatrist, who turns out to be beautiful Mai Zetterling. But first, he heads to a local repair shop to pick up one of his dummies. What Kaye doesn't know is that a set of stolen blueprints for a top-secret weapon have been secreted into his dummy's head. Before he knows what's happening, our hero is up to his ears in spies, counterspies, and corpses. Falsely accused of murder, Kaye spends the rest of the film adopting one disguise after another to elude both the authorities and the various enemy agents roaming about. Filled to overflowing with musical and comedy highlights, Knock on Wood includes the famous "under the table" bit wherein Kaye finds himself literally between two warring spy factions, and a climactic ballet sequence reminiscent of (and superior to) the comic-opera finale of Kaye's Wonder Man (1945). And of course, the audience is treated to the tongue-twisting patter songs written for Kaye by his wife Sylvia Fine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After suffering nobly in several heavyweight MGM dramas, Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon begged the studio to cast them together in a comedy. Though not an all-out laff riot, Julia Misbehaves strives hard to please. Garson plays an ever-in-debt British music-hall performer who relies on the largess of her friends to keep the wolf from the door. Pidgeon portrays Garson's ex-husband, who for the past 20 years has lived in Paris with their daughter Elizabeth Taylor. When Taylor becomes engaged, she sends Garson a wedding invitation. Broke again, Garson hastily joins an acrobatic act to earn steerage money, and charms British nobleman Nigel Bruce into giving her enough cash for a wedding present. Once she arrives in Paris, Garson sticks her nose into everyone's affairs, much to the dismay of the uptight Pidgeon. Garson even advises daughter Taylor to marry someone other than her betrothed. Despite her screwball behavior, Pidgeon can't help falling in love with Garson all over again--but it takes a zany sequence in and around a mountain chalet to knot together the many loose plotlines. Julia Misbehaves was adapted from The Nutmeg Tree, a novel by Margery Sharp. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Song of Love is the MGM-ified version of the lives and loves of 19th century musicians Clara Wieck Schumann (Katharine Hepburn), Robert Schumann (Paul Henreid) and Johannes Brahms (Robert Walker, who the previous year had played another composer, Jerome Kern, in Til the Clouds Roll By). Clara gives up her thriving career as a concert pianist to devote herself to her struggling composer husband Robert. Unable to cope with disappointment and failure, Robert dies in an asylum, leaving poor Clara to cope with seven children and mounting debts. At this point, the eminently successful Brahms, who has loved Clara all along, proposes to her, but Clara insists upon going it alone, perpetuating her husband's memory on the concert stage. Also represented in this musical "through the years" pageant is Franz Liszt, played with remarkable understatement by Henry Daniell. Clearly designed to capitalize on the popularity of Columbia's Chopin biopic A Song to Remember, Song of Love is slow and poky at times, though it's fascinating to see Katharine Hepburn at the piano (reportedly, she learned to play enough classical music to get by in the close-up scenes, though her music is dubbed in medium and long shots). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this entry in the enduring series, the suave jewel thief finds himself helping the police break up a ring of diamond smugglers. Along the way, he winds up accused of both robbery and murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this improbable romantic drama set in Gay Nineties London, a member of Parliament jeopardizes his career when he falls in love with a music hall dancer. When his stodgy older brother finds out about the affair, he sternly counsels the dancer to jilt her lover, lest she damage his political career. Not wanting to hurt her beloved, she leaves him and goes back to the dancehall. Unfortunately, trouble begins one night when the police mistake her for a hooker. She flees and ends up hiding in the apartment of a concert pianist. He has his own troubles when he is arrested for a murder he did not commit. Only the dancer can prove him innocent, but he doesn't know how to find her. While the police begin a city-wide search for the girl, her true-love decides he loves her more than politics and proposes to her. She joyfully accepts. The next day, a formal announcement and picture of the happy couple appears in the newspaper. The police find and question her, but she, fearful that a scandal could jeopardize her nuptials, denies ever having seen the pianist. His case goes to court and things look bleak until the girl finds her courage and shows up to clear his name. Fortunately, her confession generates a happy ending all around. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Otto Preminger directed this romantic musical (something of a change of pace for the rather serious-minded director) set in Philadephia in 1876. The upcoming Centennial Exposition is the talk of the town, and sisters Julia (Jeanne Crain) and Edith (Linda Darnell) find themselves romantic rivals when they both fall for Philippe (Cornel Wilde), a suave Frenchman in town for the celebration. Their mother Harriet (Dorothy Gish) might offer more advice if she weren't busy looking after her husband Jesse (Walter Brennan), who is busy tinkering with inventions that he's convinced will make him a rich man. Jerome Kern composed the film's'score and co-wrote several songs, including "Up with the Lark," "The Right Romance," and "All Through the Day." It was the last film work he would complete prior to his death in 1945. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The overcrowding in WWII-era Washington, D.C., provided the concept for this comedy, as well as another film from the previous year, The More the Merrier (1943). Lee Stevens (Fred MacMurray) is an executive from a toy company owned by T.J. Todd (Edward Arnold). In hopes of landing a lucrative wartime production contract, Todd has dispatched Stevens and Jane Rogers (Paulette Goddard), a secretary, to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with a political fat cat. Once there, Jane foolishly cancels their hotel reservations, unaware that the capitol is so jammed that there is nowhere else to stay. She devises a plan -- she and Lee will pose as servants in the home of wealthy Ira Cromwell (Roland Young), where their lodging will be part of their salary. Lee is a disaster as a domestic, and when the very same politician they've come to meet arrives for a formal dinner, disaster looms. Standing Room Only (1944) was the third of five films in which MacMurray and Goddard would appear together. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Dorothy McGuire charmingly recreates her stage role in this film adaptation of Rose Franken's Broadway hit Claudia. The title character (McGuire) is the naïve, somewhat childish young bride of David Naughton (Robert Young). Slowly adapting to married life, the unworldy Claudia receives several "wake-up calls" regarding the maintenance of a household, dealing with her husband's (and her own) sexual urges, impending childbirth, and, on a more somber note, the inevitable death of a loved one. A subplot involving the criminal past of the family butler is downplayed on screen, and the film is the better for it. Tops among the supporting cast of Claudia is Ina Claire as the heroine's witty, sprightly and, alas, doomed mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn costarred for the first time in the delectable romantic comedy Woman of the Year. Tracy plays New York sportswriter Sam Craig, who becomes incensed at comments about the uselessness of sports made by foreign correspondent Tess Harding (Hepburn). Sam and Tess subsequently use their respective columns to carry on a feud-at least, until they finally meet face to face. After Sam takes Tess to her first baseball game (one of the funniest scenes ever committed to celluloid), the two fall in love. Once married, however, their happiness is threatened by their wildly divergent lifestyles (Sam hadn't intended to spend his honeymoon helping to hide a prominent European refugee from the authorities, nor is Tess prepared for her husband's rowdy sports-oriented pals). When Tess is voted "Woman of the Year", a jealous Sam walks out on her. She endeavors to win him back by cooking him breakfast-with disastrous results. Despite their oil-and-water relationship, Sam and Tess are made for each other, and they're back together for the final fadeout. A hands-down winner at the box office, Woman of the Year earned a "best original screenplay" Oscar for Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin. Nominated for an award was director George Stevens, an RKO contractee brought to MGM at Hepburn's insistence. And need we remind you at this late date of the subsequent lifelong romance between stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The box-office success of Paramount's What a Life (1939), coupled with the popularity of the spinoff Henry Aldrich radio series, inspired the studio to launch an "Aldrich" series of its own. The inagural entry was Life with Henry, with Jackie Cooper repeating his role as befuddled teenager Henry Aldrich. This time around, Henry and his pal Dizzy (Eddie Bracken) conspire to win an all-expenses-paid trip to Alaska. The boys' bumbling efforts have unfortunate long-range repercussions, culminating in the decision by a group of investors not to build a factory in town, as originally planned. How will Henry get himself out of this one? For the record, in all subsequent "Henry Aldrich" endeavors, Henry would be played by Jimmy Lydon, while Dizzy would be enacted by Charles Smith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Given the omnipresence of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1940, the second film version of Robert E. Sherwood's Waterloo Bridge would have to be laundered and softened to pass muster. In the original, made in 1931, the heroine is nothing more or less than a streetwalker, patrolling London's Waterloo Bridge during World War I in hopes of picking up the occasional soldier. She falls in love with one of her clients, a young officer from an aristocratic family. Gently informed by the young man's mother that any marriage would be absolutely impossible, the streetwalker tearfully agrees, letting her beau down gently before ending her own life by walking directly into the path of an enemy bomb. In the remake, told in flashback as a means of "distancing" the audience from what few unsavory story elements were left, the heroine, Vivien Leigh, starts out as a virginal ballerina. Robert Taylor, a British officer from a wealthy family, falls in love with Vivien and brings her home to his folks. This time around, Taylor's uncle (C. Aubrey Smith), impressed by Vivien's sincerity, reluctantly agrees to the upcoming marriage. When Taylor marches off to war, Vivien abandons an important dance recital to bid her fiance goodbye, losing her job as a result. Later, she is led to believe that Taylor has been killed in battle. Thus impoverished and aggrieved, she is given a motivation for turning to prostitution, a plot element deemed unecessary in the original-which indeed it was. Now the stage is set for her final sacrifice, though the suicidal elements are carefully weeded out. Waterloo Bridge was remade for a second time in 1956 as Gaby, with Leslie Caron and John Kerr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Those popular MGM co-stars William Powell and Myrna Loy take a break from their usual Thin Man duties to star in the zany comedy I Love You Again. The film opens with Loy prepared to divorce her dull businessman husband Powell. A blow on the head causes Powell to remember his former life as a notorious con man. No one in town has any knowledge of Powell's criminal past, a fact he hopes to use to his advantage. Loy, astounded at Powell's sudden surge of amorous ardor, reconsiders her divorce. When she learns of his true identity, she is even more fascinated. Another blow on the head restores the non-criminal Powell--at least, that's what he and Loy would like you to believe. The film's highlight is a screamingly funny sequence in which Powell plays scoutmaster to a group of surly youngsters (including Our Gang veterans Carl Switzer and Mickey Gubitosi, aka Robert Blake). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Child is Born is a remake of 1932's Life Begins, softened to conform to stricter movie censorship and lengthened to qualify as an "A" picture. The film is an episodic account of one particularly busy night in a maternity hospital. A generous portion of screen time is lavished on a gangster's moll (Geraldine Fitzgerald), about to give birth to her illegitimate baby. The young woman dies in childbirth, but other subplots end more happily. Even at 79 minutes, A Child is Born seems more padded and protracted than its 1932 predecessor--notably in a contrived sequence wherein the only surgeon qualified to perform a delicate operation is blinded in an accident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide