Teddy Infur Movies

One of the most often revived of Abbott & Costello's early-1940s films, Pardon My Sarong casts Bud and Lou as Chicago bus drivers Algy Shaw and Wellington Pflug. At the behest of millionaire playboy Tommy Layton (Robert Paige), Algy and Wellington hijack their own bus and speed off to California so that Tommy won't be late for an important yachting race. Our heroes are hotly pursued by bus-company troubleshooter Kendall (William Demarest), while Tommy's trail is dogged by rival yacht-owner Joan Marshall (Virginia Bruce). Eluding Kendall when they inadvertently drive their bus into the ocean, Algy and Wellington are rescued by Tommy and Joan, who through a plot wrinkle have been forced to share the same yacht. After several days of drifting aimlessly across the Pacific, the yacht ends up on a remote South Sea Island, where Algy and Wellington flirt capriciously with the local native girls. Through a fluke, Wellington is served up as a sacrifice victim and ordered to enter a sacred volcanic mountain-which happens to be the hideout for jewel thief Varnoff (Lionel Atwill) and his gang. The story wraps up with a zany Sennett-like chase, with Wellington attempting to rescue the kidnapped Joan from Varnoff's speedboat. Filled to overflowing with hilarious sight gags, cross-talk routines and throwaway lines, Pardon My Sarong scores on two levels: as a devastating send-up of Dorothy Lamour jungle epics and as a first-rate vehicle for Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. One one quibble: the film certainly could have done without the scene in which Bud invites Lou to commit suicide! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When two young island-dwelling people fall for each other, their rival parents do not embrace the romance with welcomed arms as one family is content with a simple and lazy life and the other is just the opposite. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide

Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon team for the third time in this fact-based biography directed by Mervyn Leroy, based on Eve Curie's book about her mother. In early 1900s Paris, poor Polish student Marie (Greer Garson) gets a chance to study magnetism with kindly professor Jean Perot (Albert Basserman). Perot also arranges for the shy scientist Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon) to share the lab with Marie. As they work together, Pierre and Marie fall in love. Pierre eventually musters up the courage to ask her to marry him, and she accepts. After their honeymoon, Marie becomes obsessed with a piece of pitchblende that has been displaying some peculiar properties. After five years of work, Marie discovers radium. But as the years go on, Marie and Pierre struggle to raise money to continue their research, hoping to one day be able to isolate radium from the pitchblende. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

A romantic triangle between two best friends and a beautiful woman provides the basis of this romantic comedy. The girl in question is the niece of the head of the law firm the men work for. She likes both of the men, but one of them she considers more of a brother. This one is very manipulative and endeavors to thwart the romantic efforts of his friend by hiring the man's ex-girl friend, a singer, to distract him. It works and the manipulator gets the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, by that time he is dismayed to discover that he has actually fallen in love with the singer. Songs include: "Cae, Cae" (John Latouche, Pedro Barrios, Roberto Martins), "Do I Know What I'm Doing?," "Closer and Closer," and "Ain't You Got No Time for Love?." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Heavenly Days was the last of three RKO Radio film vehicles for the popular radio duo of Fibber McGee and Molly (aka Jim and Marion Jordan). Unlike their first two films, which were cacophonous, plotless musical farces, this one actually has a coherent storyline and not a little "heart appeal." Self-styled expert on everything Fibber McGee takes it upon himself to leave the safe environs of Wistful Vista to go to Washington DC, intending to present himself as the "common man" before the US Congress. Naturally, Fibber's wife Molly goes along for the ride, if only to keep her husband from making a fool of himself. Fibber's actions are given credibility when pollster George Gallup (played by Don Douglas) selects the McGees as Mr. and Mrs. Average Man (or Person). While at large in DC, the McGees also become involved with a group of wide-eyed war orphans. The film's highlight is an impromptu musical interlude with Fibber, Molly, and a group of GIs, played by the King's Men Quartet (regulars on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show). Perhaps because it took itself a bit too seriously, Heavenly Days failed to match the box-office success of RKO's earlier Fibber-and-Molly efforts, posting a loss of $205,000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Someone in London has driven several prominent men to madness and suicide. Normally, Scotland Yard would call in Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) to help solve the case, but Holmes has recently perished in an accident. Or has he? Officially declared dead, Holmes is able to move about undetected as he tries to find out who's behind the rash of suicides -- and why. The culprit turns out to be the bewitching, deadly Andrea Spedding (Gale Sondergaard), and for once, Holmes seems to have met his match. The now-famous climax finds a bound-and-gagged Holmes hidden behind a shooting-gallery target, while his faithful assistant, Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce), unwittingly prepares to blast away at the target with live ammunition (in wartime, yet). Filled to overflowing with amusing dialogue and devilishly clever plot twists (one of them involving an autistic pygmy!), Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman is among the best of the Universal Holmes series. Best bit: told to "act inconspicuous," Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey) ceremoniously rolls his eyes upward and begins whistling loudly -- whereupon Dr. Watson chides him with "Inconspicuous, Lestrade, not half-witted." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As Alfred Hitchcock's classic psychothriller opens, the staff of a posh mental asylum eagerly awaits the arrival of the new director. When the man in question shows up, it turns out to be handsome psychiatrist John Ballantine (Gregory Peck). But something's wrong, here: Ballantine seems much too young for so important a position; his answers to the staff's questions are vague and detached; and he seems unusually distressed by the parallel marks, left by a fork, on a white tablecloth. Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) comes to the conclusion that Ballantine is not the new director, but a profoundly disturbed amnesiac--and, possibly, the murderer of the real director. But is she correct in her inferences? Scriptwriters Angus MacPhail and Ben Hecht soon add to this the complication that Constance begins to fall in love with John. Director Hitchcock tapped surrealist artist Salvador Dali to design the visually arresting dream sequences in the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this a briefcase containing four wills is found next to the unconscious body of a man. He lies beside a plane crash. Each of the wills is made out to the man. Meanwhile a recent widow and a man work together to get the money her husband died for. They almost get it when they are accosted by the man who was found lying beside the planed. He claims to be a Nazi spy who is trying to get the money and use it to escape to Germany. The couple captures the spy and donates the money to their government. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The postwar classic The Best Years of Our Lives, based on a novel in verse by MacKinlay Kantor about the difficult readjustments of returning World War II veterans, tells the intertwined homecoming stories of ex-sergeant Al Stephenson (Fredric March), former bombadier Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), and sailor Homer Parrish (Harold Russell). Having rubbed shoulders with blue-collar Joes for the first time in his life, Al finds it difficult to return to a banker's high-finance mindset, and he shocks his co-workers with a plan to provide no-collateral loans to veterans. Meanwhile, Al's children (Teresa Wright and Michael Hall) have virtually grown up in his absence. Fred discovers that his wartime heroics don't count for much in the postwar marketplace, and he finds himself unwillingly returning to his prewar job as a soda jerk. His wife (Virginia Mayo), expecting a thrilling marriage to a glamorous flyboy, is bored and embittered by her husband's inability to advance himself, and she begins living irresponsibly, like a showgirl. Homer has lost both of his hands in combat and has been fitted with hooks; although his family and his fiancée (Cathy O'Donnell) adjust to his wartime handicap, he finds it more difficult. Profoundly relevant in 1946, the film still offers a surprisingly intricate and ambivalent exploration of American daily life; and it features landmark deep-focus cinematography from Gregg Toland, who also shot Citizen Kane. The film won Oscars for, among others, Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary William Wyler, Best Actor for March, and Best Supporting Actor for Harold Russell, a real-life double amputee whose hands had been blown off in a training accident. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the humorous autobiographical book by Betty McDonald, The Egg & I casts Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray as Manhattan-dwelling newlyweds. When MacMurray enthusiastically purchases an upstate farm in the hopes of cleaning up in the egg business, Colbert cautiously goes along. The film's humor is derived from the efforts of these two hopelessly citified slickers to adapt themselves to the rigors of rural life. In a plot complication added to the film, pretty neighbor Louise Allbritton upsets the equilibrium of MacMurray and Colbert's union, but both husband and wife are happily reunited at the finale (in real life, Betty McDonald and her husband were splitsville before the book even hit the stands). Retained from the novel, though heavily laundered, were the earthy characters of farmers Ma and Pa Kettle and their huge brood of children. Marjorie Main as Ma and Percy Kilbride as Pa struck so responsive a chord with filmgoers that Universal headlined them in their own "Kettle" series of B pictures, which endured until 1956. The Egg & I would be adapted into a live TV comedy serial in 1952, with Pat Kirkland and John Craven in the leading roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lucille Ball offers a seminal version of her Lucy Ricardo TV character in Her Husband's Affairs. Ball is cast as Margaret Weldon, the wife of advertising executive William Weldon (Franchot Tone). Though Weldon is successful, Margaret can't help but feel that he'd be more successful if she were to take an active part in his business affairs. The fun really begins when Margaret tries to help Weldon promote a crackpot inventor (Mikhail Rasumny) who's come up with a revolutionary new embalming fluid. As in the previous year's The Hucksters, Madison Avenue and Big Business are targetted for a great deal of derisive ribbing. If only Her Husband's Affairs were as funny as everyone involved seems to think it is. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For the Love of Rusty is an easy-to-take entry in Columbia's brief "Rusty" series of the late 1940s. Danny Mitchell (Ted Donaldson) can't seem to get along with his father Hugh (Tom Powers). An especially sore spot is Danny's affection for his dog Rusty; Hugh Mitchell can't stand Rusty, and demands that the boy lose the mutt immediately. Everything is straightened out with the help of another dog named Flash, and by lovable old veterinarian Aubrey Mather. For the Love of Rusty represented one of the earliest directorial assignments for John Sturges, who graduated to such high-priced fare as Bad Day at Black Rock, The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Columbia's dog-and-boy "Rusty" series galloped ever forward with Rusty Leads the Way. This time, young Danny Mitchell (Ted Donaldson) and his canine pal Rusty (played by "Flash") befriend blind girl Penny Moffatt (Penny Waters). Feeling cheated by life, Penny resists all efforts to cope with her handicap. But with Rusty's help, the girl gains a new lease on life and agrees to adopt a seeing-eye dog. In addition to Ted Donaldson, John Litel and Ann Doran make return appearances as Danny's understanding parents. Way, way down on the cast list is young "Wayne Hickman," who of course grew up to become Dobie Gillis' Dwayne Hickman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide