William Irving Movies

Ida Lupino, one of the few major Hollywood actresses to move from the sound stage to the director's chair in the 1940s and 1950s, helmed this story about a mother's obsessive drive to see her daughter succeed. Florence Farley (Sally Forrest) is a young woman with a tremendous gift as a tennis player, and her mother Milly (Claire Trevor) is determined to see Florence make the most of her talents. However, Milly's greatest concern isn't with her daughter's happiness or well-being, but with her own financial success, and when Milly begins interfering with Florence's romance with Gordon McKay (Robert Clarke), the daughter begins to rebel against her mother. Director Lupino and actor Robert Ryan both make cameo appearances as spectators at a tennis match. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Having read horror stories about wicked stepmothers, the Our Gang kids are determined to break up the marriage between Darla Hood's widowed father (Byron Shores) and his new bride (Barbara Bedford). Never bothering to find out (as Darla has) that the second Mrs. Hood is a wonderful woman, the kids pull off all sorts of pranks at the wedding ceremony, from playing the radio too loud to releasing a cylinder of laughing gas. This is one time that the climactic assembly-line spanking gag is thoroughly justified. Originally released on December 13, 1941, the one-reel Wedding Worries marked Darla Hood's final Our Gang appearance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Idiot's Delight starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway. Set in a lavish alpine hotel bordering an Italian air base, the story throws together several disparate people, each in his or her own way affected by the World War that threatens to erupt at a moment's notice. The only person who doesn't seem to have a political or economic stake in world affairs is Harry Van, a two-bit American entertainer who is stranded in the hotel with his travelling all-girl troupe, "Les Blondes." Harry is convinced that the alluring Irene, the foreign-accented "travelling companion" of munitions tycoon Achille Weber, is actually an American girl with whom he'd had a one-night stand years earlier, but Irene laughs off his insinuations. Eventually, Irene turns to Harry for comfort when Weber proves too disgustingly warmongering for her tastes. When war breaks out and the hotel is targeted for bombing, Harry makes sure that everyone gets to safety; he himself stays behind with Irene, with whom he has fallen in love. The two sing a hymn as the hotel is blown to oblivion. When Idiot's Delight was filmed in 1939, Norma Shearer did her best Lynn Fontanne imitation as Irene, while Clark Gable remained Clark Gable in his interpretation of Harry Van (his song-and-dance rendition of "Puttin' on the Ritz" is a classic of sneering insouciance). The film underwent an extensive "MGM-izing": while the pre-European affair between Harry and Irene is never dramatized in the play, the film shows Harry and Irene commiserating in a long prologue set in a seedy vaudeville house--and, in keeping with censorship restrictions, it is made abundantly clear that, while Harry befriends Irene, he does not sleep with her. The munitions manufacturer, here played by Edward Arnold, is depicted as an aberration, and not representative of "honest" business moguls (many of whom were close personal chums of MGM head Louis B. Mayer). And, while the ending of the play does not tell us whether or not Harry and Irene survive the bombing, the film permits the lovers a sun-streamed happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Down on the Farm was yet another entry in the seemingly endless saga of the Jones Family. The plot is set in motion when the Joneses' Aunt Ida (Louise Fazenda) invites the family to spend the summer on her farm while their house is undergoing repairs (thanks to an unfortunate encouter with a fire hose). Patriarch John Jones wins a cornhusking contest, whereupon he is invited to run for a local political office. The usual complications ensue, culminating in a ribtickling "drunk" scene and the ultimate exposure of the community's crooked politicians. Many of the biggest laughs are provided by Eddie Collins as Aunt Ida's moon-faced husband. Elements of several earlier Will Rogers vehicles managed to work their way into the screenplay of Down on the Farm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Three Stooges are restaurateurs who get into the horseracing business in this comic short. Quitting the restaurant is probably not such a bad idea; Curly makes chicken soup by pouring hot water over a chicken carcass, and makes fresh filet of sole by casting a line out the window into the ocean and pulling up an old boot. Moe and Larry wonder about the possibilities of horseracing, and a man who owns a loser horse believes them to be easy marks. He trades them the restaurant for Thunderbolt, the horse -- who turns out to be rail-thin and swaybacked. Even Curly can beat him around the track. Then the Stooges kick-start Thunderbolt's racing skills after accidentally feeding him hot chili peppers, which speed him up considerably. The boys wind up entering their steed in a big race. Larry (with a handful of the hot chilies) is the jockey. Although Thunderbolt starts off in the wrong direction, the chilies soon have him passing every other horse on the track, helped along by Moe and Curly, who are driving alongside him with a pail of water just out of reach. The last we see of the boys, they're wealthy and sitting down to a fine meal (a turkey apiece) -- and Thunderbolt is at the table, too. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Promoted as a follow-up to Frank Capra's 1933 hit Lady for a Day, Lady by Choice resembles the earlier film only in its choice of leading lady. May Robson plays a drunken derelict who'd once been quite a heartbreaker. Her self-respect is restored when she is asked to pose as fan-dancer Carole Lombard's mother. Lombard is part of the deal only to gain publicity for herself, but Robson takes her assignment seriously, ordering Lombard to give up her tacky profession and use her talents for something more dignified. At first against her will, Lombard starts taking formal acting and singing lessons and begins gaining a reputation as a serious artist. Wealthy Roger Pryor, a family friend of Robson's, falls in love with Lombard, but she breaks off the relationship so that Pryor won't be disinherited. Robson takes a hand in things, forcing Pryor and Lombard together in a delightfully devious fashion. Lady By Choice proved that Columbia Pictures (and scriptwriter Jo Swerling) could turn out a perfectly respectable Frank Capra film without Frank Capra. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

On the day that he is scheduled to perform a violin solo at a swank bridge luncheon held by his social-climbing mother, rich kid Wally Albright opts instead to play football with the Our Gang kids. With Wally's help, the kids win the game, but his expensive clothes are covered with mud. Unofficial "Gang" leader Spanky McFarland declares that he and his pals are perfectly capable of washing Wally's duds on their own --- and the result is a slapstick smorgasbord, culminating in a typically outsized Hal Roach traffic jam. Originally released on September 29, 1934, "Washee Ironee" was the only "Our Gang" comedy helmed by perennial Laurel and Hardy director James Parrott --- which may explain the presence of stalwart L & H supporting players Ellinor Van der Veer and Tiny Sandford in the cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In their fourth two-reeler for Columbia, the Three Stooges are mistaken for college football heroes by a beautiful gangster's moll. The latter was played by a very young Lucille Ball, who would always credit the Stooges with introducing her to "slapstick and physical comedy." According to Jack White, brother of Stooges producer Jules White, Lucille quickly left the studio because "Harry Cohn didn't want to bother with her. He didn't think she had any talent!" ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Radio tenor Lanny Ross made a game but unsuccessful bid for film stardom in Paramount's Melody in Spring. Though Ross, cast as one John Craddock, is given top billing, the picture belongs to the delightful screen team of Charlie Ruggles and Mary Boland as Warren and Mary Blodgett, sponsors of a popular network radio program. On vacation in Switzerland, the Blodgetts make the acquaintance of Craddock, who falls in love with the couple's pretty daughter Jane (Ann Sothern). The main plot concerns Blodgett's quest for a rare Swiss antique clock, which results in chaos for all concerned. Everything turns out all right, as Jane throws over her stuffy fiancé in favor of Craddock, who finds success as the star of the Blodgett's weekly radio tunefest. The inimitable Hermann Bing and the three Gale sisters --Joan, Jane and June -- dominate the supporting cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Notorious as the movie that gangster John Dillinger attended on the night he was killed, Manhattan Melodrama has weathered the years as one of MGM's finest examples of pure storytelling. The pageant-like story begins in 1904, when the excursion steamer "General Slocum" blows up and burns in the East River. Two young boys are orphaned by the disaster. They are adopted by a kindly Jewish businessman (Harry Green) who has lost his own children. Years later, when he is killed during a anarchist rally, the boys are separated once more. They grow up to be straight-arrow attorney Jim Wade (William Powell) and big-time gambler Blackie Gallagher (Clark Gable). Though the two men still like and respect one another, they are now on opposite sides of the legal fence. The professional rivalry becomes personal when Jim marries Blackie's ex-mistress Eleanor (Myrna Loy). The typically stellar MGM supporting cast includes Nat Pendleton as Blackie's faithful stooge, Isabel Jewell as his addled girlfriend, Mickey Rooney as the younger Blackie (a marvelous piece of mimicry here), and blonde singer Shirley Ross, here appearing in blackface in a Harlem nightclub sequence, singing a new Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart tune that would later gain popularity (with different lyrics) as "Blue Moon." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two barbers from an Indian reservation (Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey) are sent as the delegates of the Adoop tribe to an international peace convention in Geneva. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, one of the first to be completely shot in Technicolor, two shop clerks go out on the town to look for wealthy fellows to shower with them gifts and show them a good time. They end up pursuing two disparate men, a poor one and a rich one, to Havana where more romantic mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This early sound western was cowboy-star Ken Maynard's second to last under his 1929-1930 contract with Universal. The studio's emphasis on bringing music to the western genre despite Maynard's rather limited vocal capabilities was not paying off at the box-office. Sound in general was increasing expenditures, and the studio was about to scrap their entire series western units altogether. Besides Ken's vigorous warbling, Son of the Caballero was an average western at best, a rather flamboyant scene where Ken defeats ten sword-wielding bad guys notwithstanding. Maynard plays a drifter returning to the homestead to seek vengeance for past misdeeds done against his beloved mother (Evelyn Sherman). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide