Donald MacBride Movies

The fraternal comedy team of George and Bert Bernard gained fame in the 1950s with their "record act," wherein they pantomimed to the popular recordings of the day (other aspiring comics who labored in this peculiar brand of humor included Jerry Lewis and Dick Van Dyke). Republic Pictures decided that the time was ripe to turn the Bernard Brothers into movie stars, and so it came to pass that Gobs and Gals were born. George and Bert play a couple of sailors stationed at a remote South Sea weather station. To keep themselves well stocked with cookies, candy and the like, the boys send out love letters to various stateside girls, enclosing photographs of their much handsomer commanding officer (Robert Hutton). Somehow this harmless subterfuge gets the Bernard boys mixed up with a nest of Soviet spies, headed by modern-day Mata Hari Sonya Dubois (Florence Marly). Some of the jokes at the expense of Stalinist communism are amusing, as is the film's zany slapstick finale. Otherwise, Gobs and Gals was proof positive that George and Bert Bernard posed no threat to Martin and Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cuban Fireball is a vehicle for the combustible talents of Estelita Rodriguez, here cast as "herself." The plot finds Estelita arriving in Los Angeles to claim a multimillion-dollar inheritance. To fend off fortune hunters, she disguises herself as a meek little old lady. The rest of the story sustains this level of credibility. Warren Douglas co-stars as Estelita's true love, while Leon Belasco is the most prominent of the film's many antagonists. The film's 78-minute running time affords ample opportunity for Estelita Rodriguez to render four songs. Dyed-in-the-wool fans of Republic Pictures will easily recognize Cuban Fireball as a South-of-the-Border retooling of the studio's popular Judy Canova musical comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Personally supervised by Howard R. Hughes, the RKO Technicolor musical Two Tickets to Broadway stars Janet Leigh as a small-town girl who hopes to make it big in the Big Apple. Moving into a Manhattan boarding house populated by such showbiz hopefuls as Ann Miller, Tony Martin, Gloria De Haven and Barbara Lawrence, Leigh aspires to appear on the popular TV variety program hosted by bandleader Bob Crosby. Two-bit agent Eddie Bracken promises to make her dreams come true, even though he doesn't know Crosby from Adam. Along the way, Leigh falls for Martin, though the course of true love seldom runs smooth--in fact, at one point it threatens to run all the way back to Leigh's home town. Injecting their time-honored routines into the proceedings are veteran vaudevillians Joe Smith and Charlie Dale, playing a couple of stagestruck deli owners (their roles were originally slated for Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, but Laurel's illness precluded any film work). Despite the creative input of choreographer Busby Berkeley, the film's best number is the simplest: Let's Make Comparisons, wherein Bob Crosby explains why he's not his brother Bing. Seemingly a surefire box-office hit, Two Tickets to Broadway inexplicably posted a loss of $1,150,000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Using elements of two earlier films, The Fleet's In and Lady Be Careful, Paramount came up with the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis vehicle Sailor Beware. As usual, Jerry Lewis is the helpless goof and Dean Martin the suave ladies' man; this time Lewis is a navy recruit while Martin is his submarine-officer buddy. The film skips from one comic setpiece to another (the best is a parody of radio audience participation shows) until it reaches the slapstick climax: A boxing match pitting Lewis against the navy champion. After a few very funny moments in which Lewis pretends to be a punch drunk pug, the match commences, much to the dismay of Lewis and the delight of his fervent fan following. Martin makes good use of his screen time by romancing an "ice princess" movie star (Corinne Calvert), who of course melts once Dino turns on the charm. Betty Hutton, star of Sailor Beware's precursor The Fleet's In, pops up at the beginning and end of the Martin/Lewis epic as "Hetty Button." And watch for an unbilled James Dean as one of the team's shipmates. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Little Lippert Studios wasn't really equipped to produce large-scale musicals, but the company can't be faulted for trying. Holiday Rhythm stars David Street as Larry, a TV producer who plans a big musical spectacular. Knocked unconscious, Larry dreams of all the wonderful acts he intends to corral for his project. Guest stars include Tex Ritter, the Chuy Reyes and Ike Carpenter orchestras, George Arnold and his "Rhythm on Ice" show, The Cass Country Boys, The Four Moroccans, and (drum roll please) Bill Burns and His Birds. Distributed to most markets in a 60-minute version. Holiday Rhythm was made available in a 70-minute format to selected cities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The racehorse Seabiscuit really existed, but this is not his true story -- this is a romance and centers on lovely Margaret O'Hara (Shirley Temple), an Irish lass who comes to cheer on her uncle Shawn O'Hara's (Barry Fitzgerald) horse during the big races and ends up falling in love with handsome jockey Ted Knowles (Lon McCallister). He asks for her hand, but she will only marry him if he gives up racing because she is still mourning the death of her brother, who was also a jockey. Ted is torn because he loves her, but he also wants to ride her uncle's horse Seabiscuit to victory. Her uncle convinces him to ride and then engineers matters so that his niece will still marry Ted. The film includes footage of the real Seabiscuit winning two different races during the 1940s. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this musical comedy, a group of clean-cut teens desire to turn an abandoned warehouse into a youth center. Unfortunately they and their two leaders are opposed by the mayor who wants to use the building for his own gain. The kids then put on a show and soon the mayor is convinced to give them the building. Musical numbers include: "Young Man with a Beat" (performed by the Gene Krupa Orchestra), "Sincerely Yours" (sung by Stewart), "Isn't This a Night for Love?" (sung by Stewart), "Household Blues" (sung by Davis), and "Young Man" (sung by Davis, Stewart). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Broadway musical Beat the Band was boiled down to B-picture terms in this RKO Radio programmer. The plot concerns Damon (Philip Terry), a bandleader who finds himself financially embarrassed when he returns from WW2. In order to earn enough money to reassemble his orchestra, Damon poses as a famed Italian voice teacher. His first pupil is would-be songstress Ann (Frances Langford), whose family fortune figures prominently in Damon's comeback scheme. Ralph Edwards, emcee of the then-popular radio series "Truth or Consquences," provides comic relief as Damon's crooked business manager. The musical highlights include a "hot" arrangement performed in a boiler room by the Gene Krupa Orchestra. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This second film version of the DeSylva/Brown/Henderson Broadway musical Good News may not be the best of the Arthur Freed-produced MGM musicals, but it's certainly one of the peppiest. The film is set at Tait college during the Roaring 20s. The wisp of a plot involves Tait football-star Peter Lawford, who will be ineligible to play in the Big Game if his grades don't improve. June Allyson is the demure Tait coed who takes on the task of tutoring Lawford, while campus vamp Patricia Marshall takes action when she believes (rightly so) that she is losing Lawford to Allyson. The film is deftly stolen by comic relief Joan McCracken, who stops the show with her energetic rendition of "Pass That Peace Pipe"--which, like the famous Lawford/Allyson duet "The French Lesson," was specially written for this 1948 version of Good News. Retained from the original score is the rousing "Varsity Drag." Mel Torme, Tom Dugan and Donald McBride are among the familiar supporting-cast faces in this bubbly Technicolor musical, which was adapted for the screen by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The tragic Rondo Hatton, whose acromegaly-disfigured face secured him meaty screen roles in Universal's horror films, had died of a heart attack some eight months before the release of his final film, The Brute Man. Hatton plays former college student Hal Moffat, who when his face is destroyed in a chemical lab mishap vows to get even with those he holds responsible. After murdering several of his former classmates, Moffat, known to the police as "The Creeper", takes refuge in the home of blind piano teacher Helen (Jane Adams). Unable to see Moffat's hideous facial features, Helen falls in love with him. Momentarily softened by her affections, Moffat determines to raise enough money to pay for a sight-restoring operation, and to that end steals a cache of valuable jewels from his ex-classmates Clifford and Virginia Scott (Tom Neal and Jan Wiley), killing Clifford in the process. A diligent police detective (Peter Whitney), also in love with Helen, dedicates himself to capturing the elusive Creeper. Originally produced by Universal, The Brute Man was ultimately sold to PRC Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While perhaps not Abbott & Costello's best film, The Time of Their Lives is certainly their most unusual. Lou Costello plays a Revolutionary War-era tinker, whose prized possession is a letter from George Washington, commending Costello as a loyal patriot. Costello's lady love is Anne Gillis, maidservant to aristocratic Jess Barker. Costello's rival in romance is Barker's butler Bud Abbott, who locks the tubby tinker in a trunk to keep him away from Gillis. Meanwhile, Gillis stumbles onto a plot to betray the Colonial Armies, masterminded by Barker. The girl is kidnaped and spirited away, but not before Barker has appropriated Costello's letter from Washington and hidden it in a mantelpiece clock. All this is witnessed by Barker's fiancee Marjorie Reynolds, who disguises herself as a man, the better to make her way through the lines to warn the Colonial troops of Barker's plot. She frees Costello from his trunk and enlists his aid in locating Washington. Mistaken for traitors, Costello and Reynolds are shot dead. Their bodies are thrown in a well as a colonial officer curses their souls to remain on the grounds of Barker's estate "until the crack of doom," unless some evidence should prove them innocent of treason. A few moments later, Costello and Reynolds materialize as ghosts. They try to escape the grounds, but a supernatural force holds them back. Flash-forward nearly two centuries to 1946: Costello and Reynolds, still confined to the estate, resent the intrusion by Barker's descendants, who plan to renovate the mansion and open it to tourists. The two ghosts decide to haunt the estate, resulting in a series of amusing and well-conceived invisibility gags. Much to their surprise, Costello and Reynolds find none other than Costello's old nemesis Bud Abbott as one of the house guests. No, Abbott isn't a ghost: he's a famed psychiatrist, a descendant of the butler who double-crossed Costello back in 1780. Costello has a high old time playing tricks on the nervous Abbott (a fascinating reversal of the usual Abbott-Costello relationship) before the rest of the house's occupants decide to hold a seance to find out what's annoying the two ghosts. In a genuinely spooky sequence, sinister house servant Gale Sondergaard, possessed by the spirit of Jess Barker, reveals that the ghosts have been falsely accused of treason, and that their salvation lies in locating that letter from Washington. Driven by a feeling of remorse over the sins of his ancestor, Abbott does his best to help the ghosts. Before the plot is resolved, there is time for a standard Abbott-and-Costello chase scene, with the invisible Costello driving a car wildly around the estate, with a terrified Abbott cringing in the back seat. More than a little inspired by The Canterville Ghost, The Time of Their Lives was the second of two Universal films that attempted to recast Abbott and Costello as individual characters rather than smart guy-dumb guy team members. While the film is an unmitigated delight when seen today, it failed at the box office in 1946, compelling Bud and Lou to return to their standard formula in their next film, Buck Privates Come Home. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Killers uses Ernest Hemingway's short story as a springboard for a complex film noir. Two mysterious men (William Conrad and Charles McGraw) muscle their way into a small town and kill an aging boxer (Burt Lancaster, making his screen debut), who offers no resistance and seems to be welcoming his death. An insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) is hired to locate the beneficiary to Lancaster's policy, and in the course of his investigation reopens a long-dormant robbery case. In a series of flashbacks, O'Brien makes the connection between Lancaster and the robbery and tracks down the "brains" behind the operation. He also comes in contact with Lancaster's former girlfriend (Ava Gardner), whose duplicity played a big part in Lancaster's demise -- and his indifferent reaction to it. Siodmak's hard-edged, moody direction of the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Anthony Veiller, makes The Killers one of the definitive films noirs, including what is considered to be one of the greatest opening sequences in movie history. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide