Donald Kerr Movies

Here Comes the Groom was the second collaboration between director Frank Capra and star Bing Crosby. Though not as "socially relevant" as previous Capra productions, the film is a thoroughly likeable yarn about a happy-go-lucky newspaperman named Pete (Bing Crosby). In order to legally adopt a brace of war orphans, Pete must marry within a week. His plans to wed his longtime sweetheart Emmadel (Jane Wyman) come acropper when she, tired of waiting for him to pop the question, becomes engaged to wealthy Wilbur Stanley (Franchot Tone). Conspiring with Wilbur's cousin Winifred (Alexis Smith), Pete spends the balance of the film trying to win Emmadel back. From all accounts, the set of Here Comes the Groom was a happy one, the conviviality extending to Alexis Smith's willingness to be on the receiving end of several jokes concerning her height (she seems nearly a head taller than Crosby!). The film's best scene is the Bing Crosby-Jane Wyman duet "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," reportedly filmed in one take without post-dubbing. As a bonus, Here Comes the Groom introduces a bright new singing talent, Anna Maria Alberghetti, and is festooned with uncredited guest stars, ranging from Dorothy Lamour to Louis Armstrong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rhubarb is an amusing, if not entirely faithful, adaptation of the H. Allen Smith novel of the same name. When Thaddeus J. Banner (Gene Lockhart), multimillionaire owner of the Brooklyn baseball team, passes away, he wills the team -- and his $30 million estate -- to his pugnacious pet cat Rhubarb. Banner's press agent Eric Yeagar (Ray Milland) finds this hilarious, until he discovers that he's been appointed Rhubarb's guardian and business manager. One of the crosses Yeagar has to bear is the fact that his sweetheart Polly Sickles (Jan Sterling), the daughter of Brooklyn team manager Len Sickles (William Frawley), is deathly allergic to cats. Still, Yeagar must keep Rhubarb with him at all times, especially when the cat turns out to be a good-luck charm for the perennially basement-dwelling Brooklyn ballplayers. Thanks to Rhubarb's inspiration, the team makes it to the Pennant Race, whereupon the plot really thickens. The first two-thirds of Rhubarb adheres to the original Smith novel, culminating with a zany sanity hearing brought about by Banner's disgruntled relatives to prove that the cat is mentally unfit to control the old man's money. But the final reels abandon the novel in favor of a Guys and Dolls-inspired plot strand, wherein crooked gamblers kidnap the cat to prevent a Brooklyn pennant win. As a result, H. Allen Smith's satiric barbs are somewhat blunted in the final scenes -- which, however, is not to suggest that the film is any less funny than before. One of the better baseball comedies of the era, Rhubarb maintains its merriment right to the end, which is capped by a cameo appearance by a well-known actor who happened to be married to leading lady Jan Sterling. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Warner Bros. made good use of its backlog of Harry Warren/Al Dubin tunes in its 1951 Doris Day musical Lullaby of Broadway. Day plays an American musical comedy star who comes back from a successful London engagement to visit her mother Gladys George. A once-great Broadway star herself, George is now living in drunken poverty, but this fact has been carefully hidden from Day by lovable millionaire S.Z. Sakall, who lives in the mansion once owned by Ms. George. Sakall arranges for George to pretend to still be the lady of the manor and to host a party in Day's honor. During the reception, love blooms between Day and Broadway hoofer Gene Nelson. There are several breakups and reconciliations involving a number of characters before the big-money finale. While the musical highlights in Lullaby of Broadway are consummately produced, the script (based on a story by Earl Baldwin) occasionally falls flat, especially when striving for laughs. The best comic bit is a throwaway: Sakall enjoys a nocturnal bottle of beer, which in closeup is advertised as "The Beer That Made Cincinnati Famous" -- Cincinnati being, of course, Doris Day's home town. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Painting the Clouds with Sunshine was a remake of the 1929 musical Gold Diggers of Broadway, which no longer exists for comparison (though its first remake, Gold Diggers of 1933, has been safely preserved). Carol (Virginia Mayo), Abby (Lucille Norman) and June (Virginia Gibson) arrive in Las Vegas for the express purpose of landing millionaire husbands. Securing work as a singing trio, the girls do their best to cozy up to potential wealthy mates, but always seem to end up with the "wrong" kind of guy. Abby falls for impecunious gambler Vince Nichols (Dennis Morgan). The girls decide to use Vince's resources to save hotelier Felix Hoff (S.Z. Sakall) from bankruptcy. Enter Vince's tight-lipped Boston-banker cousin Bennington (Tom Conway), determined to rescue his relative from gold-diggers, and on and on the plot rolls, occasionally interrupted by splashy, Technicolorful musical numbers emphasizing the physical attributes of the three heroines. Like MGM's Singin' in the Rain, Painting the Clouds with Sunshine was designed primarily to showcase Warner Bros' backlog of songs from its early-talkie musicals. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sterling Hayden and Forrest Tucker, two of Hollywood's most rugged leading men, head the cast of Paramount's Flaming Feather. Rancher Tex McCloud (Hayden) and cavalry lieutenant Tom Blaine (Tucker) despise each other at first sight. Even so, McCloud and Blaine are forced to work together to seek out and capture an elusive outlaw named Lucky Lee (Victor Jory), who heads a band of renegade Indians. Also involved in the manhunt are vengeful saloon gal Carolina (Arleen Whelan) and marriage-minded Nora Logan (Barbara Rush), each pursuing her own agenda (just like everyone else in the film!) The film's violent outcome is predicated upon the desultory romance between Lucky Lee and dour Indian maiden Turquoise (Carol Thurston). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sideshow was the last starring effort of Don McGuire, who would soon abandon acting in favor of writing, producing and directing. McGuire plays Steve Arthur, an undercover T-Man (or Treasury Agent), hot on the trail of jewel smugglers. He traces the crooks to a travelling carnival, where he takes a job as a barker in order to maintain surveillance without arousing suspicion. Among the suspects are sideshow-entrepreneurs Pierre (John Abbott) and Sam (Ray Walker), "kootch" dancer Dolly (Tracey Roberts), and general helpers "Big Top" (Eddie Quillan) and Johnny (Jimmy Conlin). In the course of the film's 67 minutes, Arthur faces death at the tunnel of love, aboard a roller-coaster ride, and within the walls of a wax museum. Sideshow gets by on the novelty of its surroundings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, an ambitious young singer and her band leave their small hometown to head for the Big Apple in hopes of finding fame and fortune. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

MGM's Three Little Words is a "twin" musical biopic, covering the lives and careers of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Fred Astaire plays Kalmar, a frustrated magician, while Red Skelton is cast as Ruby, a wannabe baseball player. After "meeting cute" during a disastrous vaudeville show, the oil-and-water Bert and Harry become a popular songwriting team, dashing off such favorites as Who's Sorry Now?, Nevertheless, So Long Oo-Long, I Wanna be Loved by You, All Alone Monday and the title song (the film unfortunately skimps on Kalmar and Ruby's Gilbert-and-Sullivan style novelty ditties, with the exception of Hooray for Captain Spaulding, Groucho Marx' signature tune in Animal Crackers). Adhering more to MGM formula than the facts, the script contrives to have Kalmar and Ruby split up over a trivial misunderstanding, only to be reunited by their wives for an "all is forgiven" radio broadcast hosted by bandleader Phil Regan. Vera-Ellen co-stars as Kalmar's vaudevillian wife Jessie Brown, while Arlene Dahl portrays Ruby's movie-star spouse Eileen Percy. Gloria DeHaven is seen as her own mother, Mrs. Carter DeHaven; and Debbie Reynolds plays "boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane, her singing voice dubbed in by Ms. Kane herself. Though not quite as humorous as the subject matter would seem to dictate (Red Skelton gets his biggest laughs in the scenes wherein he, as Harry Ruby, participates in spring training with his favorite baseball club) Three Little Words is an excellent example of MGM's musical unit at the height of its powers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Milkman is a low-key variation of a theme explored in such slapstick festivals as The Fuller Brush Man and The Yellow Cab Man. Donald O'Connor plays Roger Bradley, who hopes to become a top-flight milkman to please his father (Henry O'Neill), the owner of the milk company. Jimmy Durante co-stars as Breezy Albright, the older milkman who teaches Roger the ropes. After several comic set pieces, the plot rears its ugly head in the form of John Carter (Jess Barker), the nephew of rival milk-company proprietress Mrs. Carter (Elizabeth Risdon). Carter has gotten mixed up with a nasty bunch of gamblers, led by Mike Morrel (William Conrad). This leads to an exciting, albeit chucklesome finale wherein Roger, Breezy and ingenue Chris Abbott (Piper Laurie) combine forces to rout the bad guys. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Even his cinematic rival Lash LaRue allowed that Whip Wilson was one of the best whip wielders in the movies. Shadows of the West was Wilson's second starring vehicle for Monogram, and as in the first, Crashing Thru, the star is teamed with seasoned sagebrush funster Andy Clyde. The Whipster plays a vacationing lawman who takes time out from his much-needed R-and-R to help out a reformed criminal. Striking an incongruous note is heroine Reno Browne, whose lavish wardrobe is a bit too lavish for her frontier surroundings. Though Whip Wilson wasn't much in the acting department, and while his singing and fisticuffs left a lot to be desired, his prowess with a whip was nothing short of astonishing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As shown by the clock face that opens and closes the film, The Set-Up takes place within a compact 72 minutes, with the action played out in "real time." Robert Ryan plays Bill "Stoker" Thompson, a washed-up boxer who refuses to give up his career despite the pleas of his wife Julie (Audrey Totter). There's little chance that he's going to win this evening's bout; still, Stoker's manager Tiny (George Tobias) has secretly made a deal with a crooked gambler (Alan Baxter). Stoker is to take a dive, a fact withheld from him until the fight is well under way. His last vestige of pride is aroused in the ring, but the story doesn't end there. The fight sequence is one of the most brutal ever filmed, with close ups of Ryan's pummeled face intercut with shots of screaming spectators in the throes of bloodlust. Adapted by Art Cohn from a narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March, The Set-Up is arguably Robert Ryan's finest starring film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This suspenseful crime drama reenacts the famed 1947 prison break out of the Canon City, Colorado corrections facility and features the actual warden, Roy Best playing himself. The trouble begins when one prisoner manages to fashion a crude pistol. Enlisting the aid of eleven others, they successfully escape and terrorize the town until the warden and his men manage to round up the survivors and bring them back. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After turning down several other Hollywood producers, playwright William Saroyan sold the film rights of his whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Time of Your Life to James and William Cagney. The scene is a rundown San Francisco waterfront bar, populated by a group of lovable eccentrics. Joe (James Cagney), a philosophical souse, encourages all around him to indulge in their wildest dreams. Joe's pal Tom (Wayne Morris), a born patsy, runs errands for Joe, the only person who has ever shown him kindness. Kitty (Jeanne Cagney), a streetwalker, willingly allows Joe to sponge drinks off her in exchange for a few nice words. Harry (Paul Draper), an enthusiastic but hopelessly untalented dancer-comedian, is hired by bartender Nick (William Bendix) at Joe's urging. And Kit Carson (James Barton), an addled old man who lives in a dream world, is prodded by Joe into weaving his unlikely reminiscences of the Wild West. It is Kit Carson (James Barton) who solves everyone's problems by eliminating a particularly scabrous detective named Blick (Tom Powers). Time of Your Life was originally filmed with Saroyan's bizarrely humorous ending intact, but the preview audiences reacted negatively, forcing the Cagney brothers to shoot $300,000 worth of retakes. Though many historians have written off The Time of Your Life as a brave failure, the film was actually a hit, grossing $1.5 million. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide