Grant Mitchell Movies

Honeymoon stars an attractively grown-up Shirley Temple as Barbara, the sweetheart of a GI corporal named Phil (Guy Madison). Eloping to Mexico City, Barbara discovers that her boy friend, stationed in the Panama Canal zone, is tied up in bureaucratic red tape and may not make it to his own wedding. The headstrong bride-to-be enlists the reluctant aid of American consul Flanner (Franchot Tone), leading to any number of compromising situations involving Barbara, Flanner, and Flanner's own girl friend Raquel (Lina Romay). The film extracts most of its laughs from the legal and language barriers facing Barbara and her beau while south of the Border. Posting a $675,000 loss, Honeymoon unfortunately proved that Shirley Temple's drawing power had slipped considerably since her 1930s heyday. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

It Happened On Fifth Avenue was easily the most ambitious movie made by the then-newly-organized Allied Artists for at least a decade after its release -- actually, as a "Roy Del Ruth Production," it was made through rather than by Allied Artists, which may explain why it stands so far apart from the Bowery Boys movies and other productions normally associated with Allied during this period. And amazingly, it works, mostly thanks to a genial cast and a reasonably light touch by director/producer Roy Del Ruth, and in spite of a script that needed at least one more editorial pass. Victor Moore is the star and dominant personality -- if there is one in what is, basically, an ensemble cast -- as Aloyisius T. McKeever, a genial hobo whose annual routine for finding winter quarters is to wait for multi-millionaire Michael O'Connor (Charlie Ruggles) to lock up his Fifth Avenue mansion and head to Virginia, and move in during the man's absence. He chances to meet Jim Bullock, a homeless WWII veteran (displaced, ironically, by one of O'Connor's development projects), and gives him shelter in the mansion. They become a trio when O'Connor's free-spirited daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) shows up, fleeing her finishing school, and the two men -- thinking she's an impoverished runaway from an abusive father -- take her in. She goes along with the masquerade and gradually falls in love with Jim, who also chances to meet two former army buddies (Alan Hale, Jr., Edward Ryan) who -- you guessed it -- are also desperately trying to find homes, in their cases for their wives and growing families. Now there are nine people living in the shelter of O'Connor's Fifth Avenue mansion, and in between setting up housekeeping, Jim and his two buddies manage to come up with an idea about how to build homes for veterans and their families. Trudy, her identity still a secret to the other, gets her father to meet the "squatters" incognito, in hope that he'll take to Jim, but a series of misunderstandings and his own impatience and lack-of-faith leads him to reject everything decent he sees about Trudy's friends. In desperation, to keep them from being evicted and arrested, she calls in reinforcements in the person of her mother (Ann Harding), long estranged from her father. O'Connor is still not convinced of Jim's worth, and definitely doesn't see him as a potential husband for Trudy -- and, in a comic mix-up, he ends up going head-to-head with Jim for the property where he plans to build those houses for veterans, causing them to lock horns once more. Matters do eventually fall into place, as they usually do in Christmas movies of this sort, which more closely resembles The Bells of St. Mary's or One More Spring -- to name another movie about displaced New Yorkers -- than It's A Wonderful Life (with which it is usually compared). It Happened On Fifth Avenue is usually defined as a Christmas movie, in part because of its plot time-line, but more than that, it's a movie that, like George Seaton's Miracle On 34th Street -- made the same year -- sings of the generosity of the human spirit, and the feeling of renewal that was in the air in the immediate post-World War II era, a funny, gentle, warm look at people making their way in a time when, for the first time since the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War, cautious optimism seemed an appropriate approach to life. And not for nothing was this reportedly lead actor Don Defore's personal favorite of all of his movies. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Reminiscent of the classic "screwball" comedy-mysteries of the prewar years, Columbia's The Corpse Came C.O.D stars Warner Bros. alumni George Brent and Joan Blondell as rival Hollywood-based reporters Joe Medford and Rosemary Durant. When movie star Mona Harrison (Adele Jergens) receives a dead body in her morning mail, Joe and Rosemary fall over each other trying to solve the mystery and deliver a newspaper story "that'll tear this town wide open." Joe deduces that the dead man was involved with a jewelry-smuggling racket, while Rosemary chases down the stolen gems. Three murders later, the two reporters expose the killer-and though it wouldn't be nice to reveal the killer's identity, it's also worth noting that it won't be much of a surprise, either. Topheavy with comedy at the expense of mystery, The Corpse Came C.O.D. is an entertaining trifle, with the actual Columbia backlot standing in for the movie's fictional film studio. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Busby Berkeley directed this lightweight musical comedy in which Judy Jones (Joan Leslie) is informed that she's due to receive a $10 million inheritance, but with one very large string attached: she has to marry an unusually intelligent man. With the call of her checking account ringing loudly in her ears, Judy gives her boyfriend Tommy Coles (Robert Alda), the leader of a dance band, his walking papers. She next enrolls in a (previously) all-male Institute of Technology, where she figures that bright boys will be easy pickings. However, snaring her dream man proves more difficult than she imagined, and she finds out that Tommy is a lot brighter than she originally thought. Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne wrote the songs for this film, which include "You Never Know Where You're Goin' Till You Get There" and "When the One You Love Simply Won't Love Back." ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

More expensive-looking than most PRC productions, Crime Inc. is based on a story by former crime reporter Martin Mooney. Drawing from his own experiences, Mooney has concocted a tale of a newspaper journalist who faces a prison term because he refuses to reveal his sources. Tom Neal plays the Mooney counterpart, a crime reporter who takes on a gang of racketeers. His effectiveness is somewhat diluted when he falls in love with Martha Tilton, the sister of one of the crooks. Further complicating things is the fact that the foreman of a jury listening to testimony against the racketeers is in fact the leader of the gang. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this high-spirited musical comedy, J. Newport Bates (Eddie Bracken) is a millionaire who finds women are only interested in him for his money. When he becomes infatuated with Teddy Collins (Veronica Lake), a cigarette girl, he tries to hide his true identity from her, hoping she'll be interested in him for himself rather than his bank account. However, once Teddy figures out who he is, Bates drops her, and he is about to give up on women entirely when he meets Sue Thomas (Marjorie Reynolds), a nice girl who isn't interested in his money (or at least not yet). Musical satirists Spike Jones and his City Slickers also appear, though most prints are missing a bit from one of their musical numbers: a verse from a song that made fun of Eleanor Roosevelt was clipped after the film's initial engagements. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

John Steinbeck cowrote this sometimes hilarious, sometimes heart-wrenching study of small-town hypocrisy. Shiftless Benny (who is never seen) has been tossed out of his Southern California town by the "proper" citizens. Drafted into the army, Benny is killed in action--and now that he's a hero, his old home town gears up for a Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony. Suddenly the same upright townsfolk who'd previously scorned Benny and his impoverished father (J. Carroll Naish) bend over backward to prove how much they "loved" the boy. Only Dorothy Lamour, playing Benny's former sweetheart, sees through the sham, though she's honor bound to celebrate Benny's heroism. A Medal for Benny bestows top billing upon Lamour, but the film's true star is J. Carroll Naish as Benny's volatile Italian papa--a performance which won Naish an Academy Award nomination. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This screwball comedy stars Claudette Colbert as Mary, the wife of bumbling but likeable banker Chris (Dick Foran). Foreign correspondent Joe (Don Ameche) Chris' best friend, is in danger of losing his job because he's not married (his boss insists that all his employees be married-and remember, bosses could get away with this in 1945!) Mary magnamimously offers to pose as Joe's wife, leading to all sorts of comic misunderstandings-the silliest of which finds Mary being accused of living in sin with her real husband. As one critic put it, "It's oh-ho time!" Guest Wife might have even been funnier had it not been hampered by the stringest censorship of the era. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though running a mere 15 minutes, Watchtower Over Tomorrow boasts some very impressive credits. Written by Ben Hecht, this paean to the newly-formed United Nations does its best to explain the importance of the organization and the Dubarton Oaks Conference which preceded it. The film is in the form of a subway debate, as gravel-voiced laborer Lionel Stander weighs the pros and cons of the UN with well-dressed intellectual Grant Mitchell. John Nesbitt, producer-host of MGM's "Passing Parade" short-subject series, narrates. Watchtower Over Tomorrow is distinguished by a rare on-camera appearance by then-Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, who presided over the inaugural UN meeting. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Previously filmed as a so-so Marx Brothers vehicle in 1938, the John Murray-Alan Boretz Broadway hit Room Service was effectively musicalized in 1944 as Step Lively. The plot remains intact: Fly-by-night theatrical producer Gordon Miller (Groucho Marx in the 1938 film, George Murphy in the remake) struggles to keep his production and cast together, despite severe deficiencies in the money department. Hotel-chain supervisor Wagner (Adolphe Menjou) threatens to throw Miller and his actors off the premises, an eventuality Miller hopes to forestall until he can obtain $50,000 from a wealthy backer. Meanwhile, Glen Davis (Frank Sinatra), the author of Miller's play, shows up to see how things are going. Before long, Glen is swept up in a desperate plot hatched by Miller and his underlings Binion (Wally Brown) and Harry (Alan Carney) to stay in the hotel despite Wagner's efforts to oust them. Caught in the middle are hapless hotel manager Gribble (Walter Slezak), potential backer Jenkins (Eugene Pallette), Glen's sweetheart Miss Abboli (Anne Jeffreys) and Miller's leading lady Christine (Gloria DeHaven). This being a musical, the outcome hinges on Glen's hitherto untapped singing ability, which might save the day if he overcomes a bout of psychosomatic laryngitis. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this domestic comedy, a housewife nervously awaits the return of her husband from military service. They married after a brief, passionate courtship and now she does not know if she really loves him. Sure enough, sparks fly upon his return and the couple decide to get a divorce. Fortunately, the upset wife's father keeps a cool head and makes the suggestion that saves his daughter's marriage. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Newspaper reporter Marion Hargrove's best-selling novel was adapted to the screen by MGM as a vehicle for Robert Walker. The story is basically a series of humorous anecdotes about Hargrove's tenure at boot camp in the early days of World War II. Keenan Wynn is terrific as Hargrove's topkick, and Robert Benchley is no less superb as the father of Hargrove's girl friend (Donna Reed). See Here, Private Hargrove not only secured the stardom of Robert Walker, but launched Marion Hargrove on a lengthy career as a Hollywood screenwriter (his son, Dean Hargrove, has carried on the tradition into TV). The film was followed by a lesser 1946 sequel, What Next, Corporal Hargrove?, which followed the leading character to France. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi