Gus Leonard Movies

March of the Wooden Soldiers is the 1952 reissue title for Hal Roach's 1934 film version of Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star as Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee, bumbling apprentices to the master toymaker of Toyland. This joyous fairy-tale community is populated by all the colorful Mother Goose characters we know and love; the one sour apple in the barrel is mean old Silas Barnaby (portrayed by Henry Kleinbach, aka Henry Brandon). Barnaby holds the mortgage on the outsized shoe where Widow Peep (Florence Roberts) and her daughter Little Bo Peep (Charlotte Henry) reside, and where Stannie and Ollie pay room and board. Bo Peep will be forced to marry the odious Barnaby if the rent isn't paid, so Stannie and Ollie try to raise the money by asking the toymaker for a raise. But the boys are fired when Stannie messes up an order from Santa Claus: instead of making six hundred toy soldiers one foot high, the dumb Mr. Dum makes one hundred toy soldiers six feet high. The wedding between Barnaby and Bo Peep goes on as planned--except that it's Stannie, disguised as the bride, who ends up walking down the altar. Publicly humiliated, Barnaby vows revenge. He steals one of the Three Little Pigs and places the blame on Bo Peep's boy friend, Tom-Tom the Piper's Son (Felix Knight). The penalty for pignapping is banishment to Bogeyland, a fearsome subterranean world populated by hideous bogeymen (look closely and you'll see the zippers on their costumes!) Stannie and Ollie expose Barnaby's perfidy and rescue Tom-Tom from Bogeyland, whereupon Barnaby rallies the bogeymen and leads an all-out attack on Toyland. Taking refuge in the toy warehouse, Stannie and Ollie activate the 100 6-foot wooden soldiers (a neat bit of stop-motion photography, courtesy of Hal Roach's "fx" wizard Roy Seawright), who vanquish the Bogeymen and save the day. One of the best of all the Laurel and Hardy features, March of the Wooden Soldiers has been a television holiday perennial ever since the cathode tube was invented. Only a handful of Victor Herbert's songs are utilized, but these lilting compositions more than compensate for the omissions (one song, "I Can't Do That Sum", is used as the leitmotif for the clueless Stannie and Ollie). For years available only in the 70-minute reissue version, March of the Wooden Soldiers has recently been fully restored to its full glorious 78 minutes. The parent property Babes in Toyland was remade by Disney in 1961 (with Gene Sheldon and Henry Calvin as Laurel and Hardy wannabes) and for television in 1986, with new songs by Leslie Bricusse. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels are next-door neighbors in a shabby boardinghouse. Harold scrapes together just barely enough money to pay his rent when he runs into Bebe, who is crying in the hallway. Her rent is overdue, so Harold gives her his cash. Harold has to use all his ingenuity to avoid his aptly-named landlord, Bearcat Simpson, so he can make his way to the theater to find out the status of a new play he has written. To get to the theater, he jumps on a passing car and annoys its stuffy passenger. Unfortunately, the man turns out to be the manager of the theater, and Harold enters his office, he throws him out. Meanwhile, Bebe, who is rehearsing on stage, is being unfairly fired by the musical director (Harry "Snub" Pollard). Harold comes to her defense and as a result, is tossed out of the theater completely. As he is nursing his wounds, a limo drives up -- it's a wealthy young man who takes Bebe out for an evening on the town. Harold literally hitches a ride by crawling into a streetcleaner's cart and hooking it on the back of the limo. Everyone arrives at a supper club where, through a chain of events, Harold wins a big pile of money at roulette and makes up with Bebe. The police raid the place and Harold and Bebe spend the last few minutes of the film successfully evading arrest. This was Lloyd's first two-reeler as his "glasses" character, and marked his initial jump into stardom. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Charles Ray returns to playing a bashful rural boy in this character study, loosely based on the James Whitcomb Riley poem. He's John Middleton, who protests furiously when his mother (Edythe Chapman) tells him that she has adopted an orphan girl. But John grows to love Mary (Patsy Ruth Miller) -- in fact, he falls in love with her. On their way home from a dance, he proposes but she turns him down, explaining that she is already engaged to his rival, Willie Brown (Ramsey Wallace). The startled John loses control of the horses and is thrown out of the carriage. While going through a semi-conscious dream state, he has a pair of visions. In the first he embraces Mary so violently that he kills her. In the second, he shoots Willie and then himself. He awakens from these nightmares determined to overcome these inner demons. Although broken-hearted, he stays out of Mary and Willie's romance. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

This rollicking comedy is Harold Lloyd's second feature film and like the first, A Sailor-Made Man was originally conceived of as a short film. During the shooting, Lloyd and long-time collaborator Hal Roach insisted on continually developing his character and moving beyond pure gags into a real story. $100,000 and five reels later the film was ready to preview. Because the entire work was so funny and well-done, it was decided to leave it intact and market it as a feature film. Following the success of Grandma's Boy, Lloyd abandoned short films in favor of full length films. The story centers on Sonny, a flighty young boy who is required to join the rest of the men in his small town on a manhunt for a murderer. Totally frightened by the prospect of finding the killer, Sonny heads for the safety of his grandmother's home. She inspires the cowering youth with a stirring tale about her formerly timorous husband who went to a mysterious old witch for the courage to fight in the Civil War. The old wise woman gave him a magical Zuni charm which made Sonny's grandfather invincible. Armed with his amulet, the newly courageous grandfather rushed out to steal some important Yankee plans. The story enraptures the wide-eyed Sonny. Suddenly grandmother hands him the very amulet that made her husband a hero. Not realizing that the bauble is really only a handle from one of grandma's umbrella's, the emboldened Sonny charges off to single-handedly save the town from the fugitive villain. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The third of MGM's profitable Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy songfests, Maytime opens in the early 20th century, with a young girl arguing with her boyfriend over her wishes to become an opera singer. The girl's neighbor, a lonely old woman whom we gradually recognize as a convincingly "aged" Jeanette MacDonald, tells the girl of her own career in opera. The old lady was once the radiant young diva Marcia Mornay. In 1868 she was the toast of Europe, thanks to the tutelage of her voice instructor Nikolai Nazarov (John Barrymore). He proposes marriage, and Marcia accepts, more out of gratitude than love. In a euphoric pre-nuptial state, Marcia finds herself on Paris' Left Bank, where she meets handsome café crooner Paul Allison (Nelson Eddy). They meet again at a lavish Maytime festival, falling in love (to the accompaniment of Sigmund Romberg's most dazzling duets) in the process. Sadly, Marcia returns to Nazarov, while Paul goes off to America to lick his wounds. Seven years later, Marcia, making her New York debut in a fictional opera based on the works of Tchaikovsky, finds that the leading baritone is none other than Paul. Unable to envision life without her new love, Marcia begs Nazarov for a divorce. He smiles slyly and promises to give her her freedom-whereupon he heads to Paul's apartment and kills the poor fellow. The flashback done, Marcia advises her pretty young neighbor that one can never have both love and a career. Out of tragedy grows the happy ending, in which the spirit of the now-deceased Marcia is reunited with Paul in a blossom-filled Hereafter. On paper, Maytime may seem to be the ultimate in Hoke, but even in recent revival showings the film never fails to cast its spell over an audience. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This time around, the Our Gang Kids are residents (or rather, inmates) of the Bleak Hill Boarding School, where the crabby old lady in charge forces them to do all the chores and feeds them a strict diet of mush. Fortunately, the kids have a strong ally in the form of lovable old Cap (Gus Leonard), the school's combination handyman and teacher. Cap promises the youngsters that he'll rescue them from Bleak Hill once his back pension comes in -- and, by golly, he does! Highlights include Spanky McFarland's garbled telephone conversation with perennial Laurel and Hardy foil James Finlayson, and 6-year-old Tommy Bond's stirring rendition of the very adult torch song "Friends, Lovers No More". Our Gang: Mush and Milk was originally released on May 27, 1933. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the silent film era's "third genius" was Harold Lloyd, who stars in this Horatio Alger-style story of an average country boy trying to make good in the big city. The Boy (Lloyd) leaves his sweetheart, The Girl (Mildred Davis, later the real-life Mrs. Lloyd) in Great Bend while he pursues his fortune in a teeming metropolis. The Boy lands a job as a clerk at a fabric counter of DeVore's, a huge department store, but he lies in his letters home to his beloved, pretending to be the store's manager and spending his earnings on lavish gifts. The Boy's roommate, The Pal (Bill Strother) makes money as a "human fly," performing attention-getting stunts. Promised $1,000 by DeVore's real manager if he can devise a publicity gimmick, The Boy convinces his friend to climb the 12-story establishment and split the winnings with him. On the day of the event, however, The Pal is busy dodging The Law (Noah Young), forcing The Boy to make the arduous climb solo. Dodging a variety of obstacles, The Boy climbs higher and higher, eventually dangling from the store's clock tower, in the film's most memorable image. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney were teamed for the only time in their careers in Smart Money. Robinson has the larger part as a small-town barber who fancies himself a big-time gambler. He travels to the Big City in the company of his younger brother Cagney, who wants to make sure that Robinson isn't fleeced by the high-rollers. Unfortunately Robinson has a weakness for beautiful blondes, most of whom take him for all his money or betray him in some other manner. The cops aren't keen on Robinson's gambling activities, but they can pin nothing on him until he accidentally kills Cagney in a fight. The incident results in a jail term for manslaughter, and a more sober-sided outlook on life for the formerly flamboyant Robinson. Watch closely in the first reel of Smart Money for an unbilled appearance by Boris Karloff as a dope pusher. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

On the last day of school, the Our Gang kids learn that their beloved teacher Miss Jones (Arletta Duncan) is going to be married; thus, come September, the kids will have a "new" teacher, Mrs. Wilson. Miss Jones' fiancee Ralph (Edward Norris) playfully paints a frightening picture of Mrs. Wilson as "a dried-up mean old woman" ---neglecting to inform the kids that his last name is Wilson, and that Miss Jones will continue to be their teacher under her new married name. Thanks to Ralph's ill-timed joshing, the youngsters convince themselves that the only way to retain their favorite teacher is to break up the wedding --- starting with the pre-nuptual reception, where the kids surreptitiously "spike" the food with tabasco sauce, horseradish and garlic peppers. Originally released on April 27, 1935, "Teacher's Beau" marks the final "Our Gang" appearance of series stalwart Mathew "Stymie" Beard. Note: the version included in the "Little Rascals" TV package has been severely edited, rendering the film's punchline incomprehensible (a complete and uncut version is available on home video). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of Harold Lloyd's best feature-length comedies, The Freshman, features the bespectacled regular guy as Harold Lamb, a naïve young man who heads off to college believing campus life will be just as it is in the movies; he even learns a little dance he saw one of his favorite actors do in a film. However, Harold soon discovers that real life isn't all that much like the pictures, and he quickly becomes the laughing stock of the university. Determined to prove himself, Harold tries out for the football team, but he serves as water boy and rides the pine until he finally gets a chance to redeem himself at the big game. Along the way, Harold also tries to woo a lovely co-ed, Peggy (Jobyna Ralston). 22 years later, writer/director Preston Sturges used the climactic football game as the opening for his collaboration with Harold Lloyd, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Lovable old Gus (Gus Leonard) is forced to move his tiny lemonade stand when sidewalk-diner owner William Wagner and his bratty son Leonard Kibrick complain that Gus represents "unfair competition." As Gus relocates near a barber shop at the invitation of friendly boot black Joe Mathey, the Our Gang kids decide to drum up business for their favorite merchant by staging a makeshift parade and musical show. Wagner and his son finally get their comeuppance when a scalp-massaging device becomes lodged in Wagner's trousers, forcing the villain into a brief but colorful "dancing" career. Highlights include Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer's deathless rendition of "Little Brown Jug" and a lengthy comedy set piece involving soap-spiked lemonade. Though filmed for Our Gang's 1934-1935 season, The Lucky Corner was inexplicably withheld from release until March 14, 1936. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A W. Somerset Maugham novel was the source for the fair-to-middling Greta Garbo vehicle The Painted Veil. In a situation comparable to the plotlines of most of her silent films, Garbo is lovelessly married to Herbert Marshall, but carries a flaming torch for George Brent. (Also harking back to Garbo's silent days is the fact that neither one of the men in her life is particularly interesting!) Marshall, a brilliant physician, is compelled to go into the interior regions of China to quell a cholera epidemic. He knows that Garbo has been having an affair with politician Brent, and chivalrously gives her the choice of remaining with Brent or accompanying him. Fearing a scandal, Brent bids farewell to Garbo. Once they're in the midst of the epidemic, Garbo tirelessly works by her husband's side; eventually she falls in love with him for the first time. Seriously injured in a peasant uprising, Marshall hovers near death. Brent reappears, offering to take Garbo back with him. She refuses, electing to stay with her husband no matter what the future brings. Among the supporting players in The Painted Veil are Warner Oland and Keye Luke, one year away from their memorable pairing in Fox's Charlie Chan films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi