Tom Herbert Movies

Gary Cooper added "producer" alongside "star" on his resume with this light-hearted Western about a mild-mannered cowboy (Cooper) who drifts into a small town with his sidekick (William Demarest). Naturally, he's mistaken for a notorious highway robber (Dan Duryea), although he can barely handle a gun. His impersonation of the menacing gunman falls apart when his skills are put to the test, and he faces certain doom when challenged by the returning gunman himself. In the end, however, our hero defeats the villain and even ends up with his girl (Loretta Young). A send-up of both Western clichés and Cooper's own heroic persona, Along Came Jones is brisk, amusing entertainment. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

Lost in a Harem is arguably the best of Abbott & Costello's trio of MGM films; it's certainly the silliest, with any number of nonsensical plot twists and sidesplitting gags. This time, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play Pete and Harvey, two American magicians stranded in a mythical Arabian Nights kingdom with songstress Hazel Moon (Marilyn Maxwell). Our heroes and heroine become involved with the trials and tribulations of Prince Ramo (John Conte), who hopes to rightfully reclaim his throne from his evil usurping uncle Nimativ (Douglas Dumbrille). Alas, the villain is armed with a pair of hypnotic rings with which he forces everyone to do his bidding: his most anti-social act is to kidnap and hypnotize the entire Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra! Pete, Harvey, Ramo and Hazel risk death at every turn to thwart Nimativ, encountering a giant guard (Lock Martin, later to play the robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still), a gibbering lunatic (Murray Leonard) and a bevy of harem beauties along the way. The film's sets and costumes, as well as the more elaborate musical numbers, are "borrowed" from the recently completed MGM superproduction Kismet. While the plot is for the birds, Lost in a Harem is saved by the fast-and-furious antics of Abbott and Costello. And as a bonus, this is the film in which Bud and Lou, accompanied by Murray Leonard, perform those deathless burlesque classics "Slowly I Turned" and "Mike's Place." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ghosts on the Loose (which features no ghosts whatsoever) is perhaps the best-known of Monogram's "East Side Kids" series. This time, Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), and the rest of the kids offer to decorate the honeymoon cottage of Glimpy's sister, Betty (Ava Gardner), and her new husband, Jack (Rick Vallin). Unfortunately, the boys end up at the wrong house, a sinister mansion that serves as the headquarters for a Nazi spy ring headed by Emil (Bela Lugosi). The rest of the film is an extended chase -- first the Nazis chasing the boys, then the boys chasing the Nazis. Incidentally, this is the film in which Bela Lugosi allegedly sneezes out an obscenity. Ghosts on the Loose has been reissued under several titles, notably The East Side Kids Meet Bela Lugosi. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This drama chronicles the extreme measures taken by a determined young crime reporter to get an interview with a notorious convict. The zealous journalist, also a star quarterback on the town college team, decides to become a convict himself. He gets into the prison, becomes president of the prisoners' union, does his interview, successfully woo's the warden's daughter, and gets out in time to publish his story before anyone else does. His career is off to a tremendous start. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

When a common man pretends to be wealthy, hordes of desperate gold-diggers flock to win his affections. Before long, the deceiver is engaged to three women and must struggle to keep his fiancée from finding out about the ruse. Of course it doesn't take long for the truth to get out, and the scheming lothario to get his due. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Charles Farrell, once a heartthrob of the silent screen, is the snow-on-the-roof protagonist in Monogram's The Deadly Game. Farrell rescues the lovely June Lang from a jam, only to get involved with a complex murder case. Evidently, no one can be trusted, so Farrell has his hands full during the film's suspenseful 65 minutes. Featured in the cast are ace stuntman Dave O'Brien, and Hugh Herbert 's look-alike brother Tom. The Deadly Game gives us an idea of the sort of things Charlie Farrell was occupying himself with before becoming Gale Storm's father on My Little Margie. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though Ginger Rogers' starring vehicles always turned a profit for RKO Radio, many filmgoers thought of Rogers only in terms of "Fred Astaire's partner." Others considered her a delightful comedienne, but no great shakes as a dramatic actress. Thus it was both a personal and professional triumph when Ms. Rogers walked home with an Oscar for her performance in Kitty Foyle. Based on Christopher Morley's Story of an American Girl, the film, told in flashback, relates the progress of working-girl Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers) as she pursues her Cinderella dreams. While employed at a department store, Kitty is wooed by Dennis Morgan, scion of a wealthy Philadelphia family. She flirts with the notion of marrying Morgan for his money, but decides that he's a bit too weak-willed for her tastes. Kitty enters into a romance with poor-but-dedicated doctor James Craig, then does an about-face by accepting Morgan's proposal. She quickly runs afoul of Morgan's snobbish family, who are so tightly bound by centuries-old tradition that Kitty is moved to exclaim "You mean to say you let all those dead people tell you what do?" She walks out on Morgan, then discovers that she's pregnant. Even after the trauma of delivering a stillborn child, Kitty is too proud to go back to Morgan. When true-blue Craig comes back into her life, Kitty, repeating her favorite phrase "By Judas Priest!", decides to forego money for love. Though successful to the tune of an $860,000 profit in 1940, Kitty Foyle seems stilted and over-rehearsed when seen today, save for the refreshing spontaneity of Ginger Rogers' performance. The film's best scene is the opening montage of the American Woman's "progress" once she enters the workplace (an uncredited Heather Angel is the central character in this delightful pantomimic vignette). Featured in the cast of Kitty Foyle is director Sam Wood's daughter Katherine Stevens, better known as K.T. Stevens. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Harold Lloyd plays a professor of Egyptology, frightened by the notion that he has fallen under an ancient Egyptian curse. Lloyd has the opportunity to join an archeological expedition to search for a missing tablet that will determine his fate, but he has to travel from Los Angeles to New York before the party sails to Egypt. Alas, Lloyd is also required to appear in court to answer charges of "indecent exposure" (it's a long story). The rest of the film is a frantic chase with the authorities pursuing the fugitive professor across the country, highlighted by a daredevil sequence atop a moving train. Most of the individual gags are funny, but Professor Beware is several notches below the standard set by Harold Lloyd's silent films. The lukewarm boxoffice response to this film would convince Lloyd that he should retire from performing--which he did, returning to the screen only for 1947's Sins of Harold Diddlebock. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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, Rovi

Having turned down the opportunity to produce Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), MGM's Louis B. Mayer had second thoughts when the Capra film swept the 1935 Oscars ceremony. Mayer hastily commissioned an It Happened One Night wannabe titled Love on the Run, tailored for the talents of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable (who, of course, had starred in the Capra picture, and had copped one of those Oscars). Gable and Franchot Tone play rival journalists Michael Anthony and Barnabas Pells, who travel the length and breadth of Europe to outscoop one another. Crawford portrays madcap heiress Sally Parker, who is engaged to marry fortune-hunting Prince Igor (Ivan Lebedeff). Whereas in It Happened One Night the heroine (Claudette Colbert) linked up with Gable in order to expedite her elopement with the wrong man, in Love on the Run Crawford seeks out Gable's help to escape her impending marriage with Prince Igor. The two stars combine their flight across Europe with business, dogging the trail of international aviator Baron Spandermann (Reginald Owen), whom Anthony suspects of being a spy. Pells goes along with Anthony and Parker, and soon all three of them are tied up (literally, in Pells' case) with an espionage ring. While it is Clark Gable who ends up with Joan Crawford at fadeout time, it was Franchot Tone who claimed her as his bride in real life. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The 1936 comedy-mystery The Princess Comes Across might well have been inspired by a real-life incident during the silent-movie era, in which a crafty San Francisco stenographer hoodwinked the Hollywood elite into believing that she was a Spanish princess. Carole Lombard stars as an alluring Swedish beauty who travels under the name of Princess Olga. Everyone whom she meets en route to America on the steamship Mammoth bows and scrapes to the Princess, while Hollywood anxiously awaits her arrival to star her in a big-budget film. Only the ship's bandleader, King Mantell (Fred MacMurray), refuses to defer to Olga, sensing that she may not be all she claims. Mantell's instincts are right on target: the "Princess" is a brass-nickel phony, a Brooklyn girl named Wanda Nash who has cooked up her royal guise with drama coach Gertrude (Alison Skipworth) as a publicity stunt to crash into movies. Unfortunately, a weaselly blackmailer Darcy (Porter Hall) gloms onto Wanda's true identity and offers to keep quiet in exchange for a huge cash settlment. At the same time, Darcy is attempting to shake down several other passengers on the Mammoth, including King Mantell. Inevitably, Darcy is found murdered in the "Princess"'s stateroom, and Wanda finds herself one of several likely suspects, among them Mantell. A quintet of international detectives, travelling to a convention in America, sets out to solve the mystery, which becomes even more mysterious when one of the detectives also turns up dead. Taking matters in his own hands, Mantell vows to clear Wanda's name, and in the course of things he realizes that he's madly in love with her--but will Wanda give up her hoax, and her future showbiz career, for Mantell's sake? Among the many highlights in this engagingly daffy film is Fred MacMurray's rendition of the enchantingly forgettable song "My Concertina." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The old British musical-hall ditty "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" provides the title for this lightweight Ronald Colman vehicle. Colman, playing a refugee Russian prince, is the "man" in question, and the owners of the "broken bank"--that is, the proprietors of the Monte Carlo casino where Colman scored the big win--are anxious to get their money back. They dispatch the beautiful Joan Bennett to lure Colman back into the casino. He falls for her and loses his winnings in the process, but she has pangs of remorse when she learns that Colman had been gambling on behalf of his impoverished countrymen. Bennett joins Colman as he merrily heads off to chase another rainbow. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

S. S. Van Dine's intelligent, insufferable amateur sleuth Philo Vance is the protagonist of The Casino Murder Case. Paul Lukas plays Vance, who is brought to the mansion of a wealthy, eccentric widow (Alison Skipworth) by a mysterious unsigned letter. Several murders are committed in the elderly woman's home, with the evidence pointing to various red herrings before the truth is revealed. Rosalind Russell plays the old lady's secretary (and Vance's object of affections); Eric Blore is Vance's droll valet; and Ted Healy is the obnoxious Sgt. Heath, ever willing to slap the cuffs on the wrong person. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi