Dell Henderson Movies

Poppy is the film version of the Dorothy Donnelly musical comedy which made W.C. Fields a Broadway star back in 1923 (an earlier, less-faithful version, also starring Fields and retitled Sally of the Sawdust, was directed by D. W. Griffith in 1926). The Great Man is cast as Professor Eustace McGargle, a small-time carnival confidence trickster. Accompanied by his adopted daughter Poppy (Rochelle Hudson), McGargle joins a travelling sideshow, fleecing as many of the local yokels as time will permit. During one stopover, Poppy falls in love with Billy Farnsworth (Richard Cromwell), the son of the town's mayor (Granville Bates), while McGargle pitches woo at the faded but alluring Countess de Puizzi (Catherine Doucet). When he finds out that the "Countess" is a phony claimant to the valuable Putnam estate, McGargle conspires with local lawyer Whiffen (Lynne Overman) to pass off Poppy as the genuine, long-lost heir. As it turns out, Poppy really is the heir, a felicitous turn of events which enables McGargle to avoid being tarred and feathered by the angry townsfolk. Finishing Poppy on schedule was quite a trial for W.C. Fields, who, in addition to breaking a vertebra while filming a chase sequence, further damaged his spine in a household accident. As a result, he could barely stand up during shooting, and many of his scenes had to be completed by a stunt double. One would never know that Fields was in excruciating pain throughout the film, however: Comedy-wise, he's at the top of his form, especially when he sells a "talking dog" to a gullible rube and finagles a free lunch from an equally dense hot-dog vendor. Poppy is also the film in which Fields imparts a sage bit of advice to his screen daughter: "Never give a sucker an even break." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The real "message to Garcia" was delivered by an American lieutenant to Cuban rebel General Garcia, asking for the General's help in the Spanish-American war. The fact that the lieutenant made his way to Garcia in absolute safety was ignored in 20th Century-Fox's Message to Garcia--which is just as well, since otherwise the movie would have been eight minutes long. In the film version, lieutenant John Boles is guided through the treacherous Cuban jungle by Barbara Stanwyck, doing her best to convince us that she's an Hispanic senorita. Also along for the trip is renegade marine Wallace Beery, who may not be as friendly as he seems. Fighting off Spaniards and spies at every turn, Boles successfully completes his mission. As history, Message to Garcia is about as reliable as the Hearst newspaper dispatches which triggered the Spanish-American war in the first place. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Working on the theory that the only thing funnier than Laurel and Hardy is two sets of Laurel and Hardys, Our Relations milks its central mistaken-identity situation for all it's worth. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two solid citizens, happily married and highly respected in their community. One morning, Hardy receives a letter from his mother, containing an old photo of himself and Laurel with their twin brothers, Alf Laurel and Bert Hardy. Mamma also reveals that Alf and Bert turned out to be "bad lads" and ran off to sea, and that reportedly they'd been hanged for taking part in a mutiny. "Isn't that calamitous!" remarks Hardy, who conspires with Laurel to hide the facts about their no-good brothers from their wives. Meanwhile, in another part of town, the S.S. Periwinkle pulls into port. Among the crew members are the selfsame Alf and Bert, who have decided to entrust their pal Fin (James Finlayson) with their month's salary. Fin has promised to invest the dough so that the boys will become millionaires "before you can say Jack Robinson". Alf and Bert are then summoned to the cabin of their captain (Sidney Toler), who orders them to pick up a valuable package for him, then meet him later at Denker's Beer Garden. While waiting for the captain at Denker's, Alf and Bert are captivated by a pair of waterfront floozies, Alice (Iris Adrian) and Lily (Lona Andre). Talked into buying the girls a huge meal for which they haven't the necessary funds, Alf and Bert decide to go back to Fin and reclaim their money, leaving the contents of the captain's package-a valuable pearl ring-with tough waiter Joe Groagan (Alan Hale) as security. Later, Laurel and Hardy take their wives Betty (Betty Healy) and Daphne (Daphne Pollard) to lunch-and, inevitably, they end up at Denker's Beer Garden, where the equally inevitable mix-ups begin to occur. Things snowball from bad to worse before both sets of twins, an angry captain, a disgruntled Fin, the wives, the floozies, a genial drunk (Arthur Housman) and a brace of smooth gangsters (Ralf Harolde and Noel Madison) all converge at the upscale Pirate Club. Several slapstick complications later, Laurel and Hardy are captured by the gangsters, who threaten to dump the boys in the river with their feet encased in cement if they don't cough up the pearl ring. Alf and Bert come to the rescue, and all is well, at least until the film's boffo punchline. Based on W.W. Jacobs' short story The Money Box, Our Relations is perhaps the most plot-heavy of Laurel and Hardy's features for Hal Roach Studios. It is also one of their funniest, as well as their most lavishly produced. The film was officially listed as "A Stan Laurel Production"-as if Laurel hadn't been the prime creative force behind all of the team's previous films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This peppy Monogram meller stars Robert Armstrong as a big-city newspaper reporter. After getting a bonus, Armstrong over-celebrates and wakes up in faraway St. Louis without a penny to his name. He finagles passing-stranger Maxine Doyle into posing as his wife so that he'll be able to get a hotel room. While thus occupied, Armstrong finds time to solve a local mystery and secure another bonus that will enable him to marry Doyle for real. Mystery Man was directed by Leo McCarey's kid brother Raymond, a veteran of the Hal Roach and Columbia 2-reel comedy factories. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marshall Neilan had fallen from the top ranks of directors by the time he helmed the Jane Withers vehicle This is the Life, but he still had it in him to deliver a first-rate job. Withers is cast as pint-sized vaudeville artiste Geraldine Revier. Tired of being professionally exploited by her parents (Gloria Roy and Gordon Westcott), Geraldine disguises herself as a boy and runs away from home. While on the road, she teams up with Michael Grant (John McGuire), a fugitive from justice. Naturally, Michael is innocent, and equally naturally, it is Geraldine who proves it. Future "Charlie Chan" Sidney Toler is a riot as blowhard medicine-show entrepreneur Professor Breckenridge. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1918 and 1923, Harry Leon Wilson's novel achieved movie classic status when it was remade by Leo McCarey in 1935. The story opens in Paris, circa 1908. Ruggles, beautifully underplayed by Charles Laughton, is the ultra-obedient manservant to the bibulous Earl of Burnstead (Roland Young). During one of the Earl's nocturnal forays, nouveau riche American cattle baron Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles) wins Ruggles in a poker game. Terrified at the prospect of being bundled off to the Wild West, Ruggles' resolve is weakened somewhat when he and the raucous but ingratiating Egbert spend a wild night on the town. (The besotted butler's periodic exclamations of "Whoopee!" are priceless.) Back in the frontier "boom town" of Red Gap, a misunderstanding obliges Egbert's social-climbing wife Effie (Mary Boland) to pass off Ruggles as an aristocratic British army officer, immediately arousing the suspicions of priggish social arbiter Charles Belknap-Jackson (Lucien Littlefield). The longer he spends in America, the more Ruggles grows to like the concept of democracy and self-determination. Of the film's many highlights, two are standouts: the scene in which Ruggles silences a rowdy saloon crowd with his recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and the droll, semi-improvised vignette in which dancehall girl Nell Kenner (Leila Hyams) teaches the Earl of Burnstead how to play the drums. Ruggles of Red Gap was filmed for a fourth time in 1950 as the Bob Hope-Lucille Ball musical Fancy Pants. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his only musical-comedy appearance, Spencer Tracy stars as fast-buck promoter Smoothie King. Our hero's latest scam is to pass off Hollywood extra Wanda Gale (Pat Patterson) and forger Limey Brook (Herbert Mundin) as British nobility, getting both of them prestigious jobs at a movie studio. Eventually Wanda becomes a big star, falling out of love with Smoothie along the way in favor of her leading man Hal Reed (John Boles). But Smoothie takes it all in stride; after all, there's still a world full of chumps and suckers, ripe for fleecing. Future film producer Harold Hecht handled the choreography, while the songs were provided by such noteworthies as Harold Adamson, Burton Lane, Richard Whiting and Gus Kahn. The slaphappy screenplay for Bottoms Up was a joint effort by producer B. G. DeSylva, director David Butler and Tracy's comedy-relief co-star Sid Silvers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted by director Paul Sloan from the novel by Will James, Lone Cowboy is an "outdoors" epic tailored to the talents of young Jackie Cooper. Actually the title character is not played by Cooper but by character actor Addison Richards, cast as a grizzled old rodeo rider named Dobe Jones. Placed in charge of Eastern lad Scooter O'Neal (Cooper), Dobe forms a strong friendship with the kid, but this does not dissuade him from his main purpose in life -- to track down his runaway wife Eleanor (Lila Lee) and her lover Jim Weston (Gavin Gordon). Finally catching up to the errant couple, Dobe shoots and kills Weston, a violent outburst that also seriously wounds Scooter. Evidently a more sombre ending was planned for Lone Cowboy than the hastily tacked-on happy denouement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

W.C. Fields stars in a remake of his silent comedy So's Your Old Man. Fields plays Sam Bisbee, an erstwhile inventor who is the laughingstock of his small town. Returning in defeat from a disastrous big-city demonstration of his latest invention, Sam makes the acquaintance of a beautiful young woman (Adrienne Ames) who happens to be an incognito foreign princess. After Bisbee tells her of how he'd like to be a success for the sake of his family, the princess decides to use her celebrity to Sam's benefit. She arrives in his town and lets it be known of her high regard for the downtrodden Bisbee. Suddenly Sam is the town's big shot, enabling him to merchandise his inventions and do right by his wife and daughter. Sam earns the respect he's so long deserved--but he's never completely convinced that the princess is who she claims to be, and keeps congratulating her on her "racket." Based on a story by Julian Street, You're Telling Me is climaxed by a sidesplitting recreation of W.C. Fields' Ziegfeld Follies golf routine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Marshall Neilan, a great silent film director on the verge of obscurity, had one last big-studio stand with The Lemon Drop Kid. Lee Tracy plays a racetrack tout who calls himself a "horse medium"--that is, he reads the horse's minds for the gullible bettors. He quits the track for the love of a good woman (Helen Mack) and settles down in a small town, determined to go straight. But when his wife falls ill, Tracy goes back to his old crooked ways to raise money for her treatment. Adapted from a Damon Runyon story, Lemon Drop Kid was refilmed in 1951 with a whole new plot to accommodate Bob Hope, the Christmas season, and the hit song "Silver Bells". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Back in the 1930s, the "Search for Beauty" contests were designed to scout the hinterlands of America and England for beautiful girls and handsome men who might qualify as movie contractees -- though most the winners were drawn from the ranks of Hollywood residents. These contests, coupled with a play by Schuyler E. Gray and Paul R. Milton, formed the basis for this 1934 comedy. Real-life "Search for Beauty" winners Larry "Buster" Crabbe and Ida Lupino (both of whom had already appeared in a few films) head the cast in this story of a contest staged by a two-bit "physical culture" magazine. When the winners, Don Jackson (Crabbe) and Barbara Hilton (Lupino), realize that they've been hired exclusively to pose in bathing suits for the pin-up trade, they leave for the greener pastures of a legitimate health farm. The magazine's crooked publishers try to extort money from Don and Barbara, but they're foiled by a local justice of the peace (Frank McGlynn Sr.) who turns out to be an agent of the U.S. Department of Justice! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I Have Lived takes place in a New York penthouse, a Broadway theater, and a seedy speakeasy, though not necessarily in that order. Alan Dinehart essays one of his rare leading roles as Thomas Langley, a brilliant playwright whose career has taken off like a skyrocket. Experiencing an attack of hubris, Langley decides to cast an unknown in his next play. His selection is the gorgeous Jean St. Clair (Anita Page), a woman with a tawdry past. Wanna bet that the opening-night audience will give the young actress a standing ovation despite her checkered history? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

There can never be Too Much Harmony in a Bing Crosby picture, not even in a bucolic backstage musical like this. Crosby plays Eddie Bronson, a big-time singing star stranded in a one-horse town. Refusing to let any grass grow under his feet, Eddie combs through the local talent, discovering comedians Benny Day (Jack Oakie) and Johnny Dixon (Skeets Gallegher) and aspiring actress Ruth Brown (Judith Allen). He brings his new protegees with him to Broadway, where Ruth becomes a huge success in spite of the machinations of prima donna Lucille Watson (Lilyan Tashman). Featured in the cast as Benny Day's mother is Jack Oakie's real-life mom Evelyn, who's absolutely terrific. A partial remake of 1929's Close Harmony, Too Much Harmony features such hummable Crosby tunes as Thanks, Black Moonlight and the self-parodying Boo Boo Boo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide