Bob Bailey Movies
A popular radio performer who starred on the popular soap "Let George Do It," Bob Bailey was one of many rather anonymous actors to obtain starring roles during the leading man shortage in WWII Hollywood. Contracted by 20th Century Fox, Bailey's most prominent appearances came in two latter-day Laurel and Hardy comedies, Jitterbugs and The Dancing Masters (both 1943). Although dropped from the studio roster at the end of the war, he continued to play the occasional supporting roles well into the 1950s but stardom eluded him. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
A Guest in the House is an involving psychological melodrama, well directed and acted, concerning a young woman's obsessive love. Evelyn (Anne Baxter), an emotionally vulnerable and unstable woman, stays at the home of her doctor Dan Proctor (Scott McKay). There she meets and falls in love with his brother, Douglas (Ralph Bellamy), who is happily married to Ann (Ruth Warrick). Evelyn then sets forth to break up the happy marriage and win the love of Douglas -- with tragic results. A Guest in the House directed by John Brahm, aided by Andre De Toth and Lewis Milestone, who are uncredited, is a sensitive, well-acted melodrama. Baxter gives a fine performance as the unstable young woman, who cannot overcome her obsessions. The fine musical score, composed by Werner Janssen, was nominated for an Academy Award. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, (more)
- 1943
If Jitterbugs is, as has often been claimed, the best of Laurel & Hardy's 20th Century-Fox films (an otherwise fair-to-mediocre lot), it is because the studio was using the picture as a showcase for their newest singing discovery Vivian Blaine. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of travelling "zoot suit" musicians who innocently team up with likable con man Chester Wright (Bob Bailey). In the course of their travels, Chester and the boys meet small-town girl Susan Cowan (Blaine), whose mother has been victimized by real-estate swindlers Corcoran (Robert Emmett Keane) and Bennett (Douglas Fowley). Reasoning that it takes a crook to catch a crook, Chester masterminds a complicated "sting" to recover Mrs. Cowan's money. Chester's scheme requires Hardy to disguise himself as amorous Southern colonel Wattison Bixby, and obliges Laurel to don women's clothing as Susan's Aunt Emily. Alas, the boys aren't quite up to the rigors of the confidence racket, and as result they end up the prisoners of Bennett's partner, gangster Tony Queen (Noel Madison). In escaping their captors, Laurel and Hardy utilize Chester's phony "gas pills", which when swallowed cause the bad guys to float to the ceiling! The film concludes with a wild runaway-showboat sequence, consisting largely of stock footage from the 1938 Fox musical Sally, Irene and Mary. A reworking of Arizona to Broadway (1933), Jitterbugs is hardly a classic, but Laurel & Hardy-and Vivian Blaine-are in fine form. Worth the admission price in itself is the romantic rendezvous between Oliver Hardy and phony Southern belle Lee Patrick. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vivian Blaine, Bob Bailey, (more)
- 1943
This lesser Laurel and Hardy vehicle casts Stan and Ollie as the proprietors of the "Arthur Hurry" dance studio. Despite a rather sizeable student body (consisting mainly of 20th Century-Fox contract starlets), the boys would starve to death were it not for their only paying customer, socialite Trudy Harlan (Trudy Marshall). Trudy is in love with Grant Lawrence (Robert Bailey), an aspiring inventor who needs financial backing for his revolutionary new flame thrower. Laurel and Hardy undertake several moneymaking schemes to help Grant, most of these coming a-cropper. Finally, Ollie remembers an accident-insurance policy taken out on Stan. He tries to arrange an accident so that the boys can collect a huge fee, but this scheme culminates in a wild bus ride, resulting in Ollie breaking his own leg. The plot of Dancing Masters is a hodgepodge of underdeveloped situations and old gags lifted from such earlier Laurel & Hardy comedies as The Battle of the Century and Thicker Than Water; only occasionally does the comic genius of Stan and Ollie shine through. If the film is memorable at all, it is because of the presence of Robert Mitchum, in an unbilled but sizeable role as an insurance racketeer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, (more)
