Wallace Beery Movies

Robert Youngson's second feature-length compilation of silent comedy highlights (the first was The Golden Age of Comedy), When Comedy Was King covers the years 1914 to 1929. Using snipettes from the 1929 Charley Chase 2-reeler Movie Night as a framing device, Youngson offers vintage clips from the silent era's greatest clowns. The film's first section is devoted to Charlie Chaplin's formative Keystone comedies, notably Kid Auto Races at Venice and His Trysting Place (the humor in this sequence is slightly dampened by the narrator's sanctimonious comments concerning Chaplin's political views). We are next regaled with Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand in the riotous Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1915), followed by top-hatted Wallace Beery chaining 17-year-old Gloria Swanson to the railroad tracks in Teddy at the Throttle (1916). From Sennett, we move to the studios of Hal Roach, where wacky inventor Snub Pollard holds court in It's a Gift (1923) and Edgar Kennedy, Stu Erwin, Anita Garvin and Marion Byron try and fail to purchase four ice cream cones in A Pair of Tights (1928). Baby-faced Harry Langdon is next on the docket, dealing with aggressive kitchen help, unwelcome old pals and a mysterious spy in The First Hundred Years (1925). Next up, Buster Keaton inadvertently lays waste to a police parade in the brilliant 2-reeler Cops (1922). Brief snippets of such mid-1920s Mack Sennett stars as Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde and Ben Turpin follow Langdon and Keaton. The closing sequence of When Comedy Was King consists of the 1929 Laurel and Hardy tit-for-tat classic Big Business, virtually in its entirety. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this lightweight musical comedy, Judy Foster (Jane Powell) and Carol Pringle (Elizabeth Taylor) are teenagers and best friends who find their loyalties tested when they both fall for the same good-looking older man, Stephen Andrews (Robert Stack). This situation is particularly troublesome for Judy, who already has a boyfriend, "Oogie" Pringle (Scotty Beckett), Carol's brother. Meanwhile, the girls join forces for a little sleuthing when Judy discovers that her father, Melvin Foster (Wallace Beery), has been spending time with Brazilian bombshell Rosita Conchellas (Carmen Miranda). Judy and Carol suspect hanky-panky, but actually Melvin is taking dancing lessons from Rosita as a surprise for his wife. A Date With Judy certainly offers your only opportunity to see Wallace Berry dance the mambo, and it also features a guest appearance by Xavier Cugat and his band. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

It's The Champ all over again, with Wallace Beery as a down-and-out prizefighter and Dean Stockwell as the small boy whom he adopts. Mighty McGurk also borrows from Beery's earlier The Bowery (33) by placing its story in that New York neighborhood in 1900. The final echo from Wally Beery's movie past is Aline McMahon, who costarred with Beery in Ah, Wilderness (35). The plot of Mighty McGurk involves Beery's rescuing of the orphaned Stockwell, an English lad, from the clutches of his evil guardian Edward Arnold. The boy in turn inspires Beery to return to the boxing ring after several years of boozy grub work as a Bowery waiter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ned Trumpet (Wallace Beery), the chief pilot of a Navy blimp, is given to weaving accounts of the fighting prowess of his non-existent son. His friendship with widow Maude Weaver (Selena Royle) and her son Jess (Tom Drake) in effect sets him up with a real family. Jess enters the service and goes on to sink an enemy submarine -- from a blimp. Having that real-life feat to brag about, Ned can at last quell all the longtime doubts of his friend Jimmy (James Gleason), and he decides to marry Maude. Bit-Part Alert: Watch for a young Blake Edwards, the future writer/director of 10, S.O.B., and Victor/Victoria, as a flier. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

A con artist heads for the gold fields of Nevada during the 1880s after he is tossed off of San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Once in the state, he poses as an important banker. When he actually does find a gold mine, he is forcibly compelled to divvy up the take with the townsfolk. He doesn't mind going straight until his former buddies (still crooks) show up and try to steal the town payroll. To save the town and the mine, the phony financier becomes a crook himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This might be a film about junk mail...but it isn't. Wallace Beery and Marjorie Main are teamed again for this rambunctious western comedy. Beery plays a horse thief who romances saloon owner Main. His goal is to marry the lady and take over her lucrative mail route. He accidentally becomes a hero; she completes the reformation. Jackass Mail made money, but it just wasn't the same as the classic Wallace Beery/Marie Dressler combo of the 1930s. Great title, though. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan star, respectively, as grandfather Henry Jones and grandson Gil Jones, two proprietors of a Mexican ranch, in The Bad Man. Gil is overjoyed to discover that his childhood sweetheart, Lucia (Laraine Day) has returned to town, but feels slightly dismayed by her marriage to Morgan Pell (Tom Conway), a Manhattan businessman. Later that day, Mexican outlaw Pancho Lopez (Wallace Beery rides into town and causes trouble for the good folks by rustling all of their cattle and injuring Gil. Meanwhile, Morgan admits to Lucia that he's worried about the possibility of her still being in love with Gil, but she reassures him that this isn't the case, and reminds him of her undying commitment to their marriage. One month later, Mr. Hardy (Henry Travers, a banker, arrives at the ranch, and acts suspiciously by revealing his overeagerness to foreclose. In a desperate move, Henry makes a feeble attempt to stave off Hardy's actions by trying to convince Gil to marry Hardy's daughter, Angela (Nydia Westman). Meanwhile, "Red" Giddings (Chill Wills secretly pines for Angela, who is the great love of his life.
Morgan then crops up and offers $20,000 for the ranch, alerting Henry to an ulterior motive -- he gets Morgan and Hardy to confess their suspicion of oil on the property. Gil hastily signs the deed that gives the ranch over to Morgan. Just when matters cannot seem to get any worse, Lopez turns up once again and takes everyone hostage, except for Gil, who has trekked off to the barn. Lopez makes none-too-subtle advances to Lucia and indicates his warm feelings toward Henry, as well as his innate dislike of Morgan and Hardy. When Henry decides to play off of this dislike by informing Lopez of both men's attempts to wrangle the ranch away from him, a bidding war ensues, and Lopez craftily attempts to determine how much ransom he can get for his captives. Gil then draws a gun on him, but is overcome by Lopez's men; Lopez prepares to hang Gil, but suddenly recognizes Gil as the same man who saved his life several years earlier. He then works toward fixing the financial problems that are plaguing the Joneses, and the romantic problems that are plaguing Gil, Lucia, Red and Angela. Based on a war-horse stage play by Porter Emerson Browne, The Bad Man had been previously filmed in 1923 and 1930; Boris Karloff starred as a Chinese warlord in a thinly disguised 1937 reworking of The Bad Man, titled West of Shanghai. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wallace Beery trots out his "lovable lout" act for the zillionth time in Man From Dakota. Beery plays a Union army sergeant who, along with his superior officer (John Howard), is captured and incarcerated in a Confederate prison. Upon escaping, Beery and Howard cross the path of Dolores Del Rio, playing a Russian refugee (with a Mexican accent). Dolores helps the escapees in their efforts to reach Northern lines and deliver secret information to General Grant. Based on a novel by MacKinlay Kantor, The Man From Dakota was distorted and truncated so that Wallace Beery would end up with the largest role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In addition to being a fine Western in its own right, this film served to introduce perhaps Hollywood's oddest romantic couple: the gruff but lovable Wallace Beery and the tart but lovable Marjorie Main. Beery plays "Reb" Harkness who, with his Mexican pal Pete (Leo Carrillo), is almost caught red-handed attempting to rob a train carrying General Custer (Paul Kelly) and the cavalry. Double-crossed by his partner and with the cavalry in hot pursuit, Reb escapes to Wyoming where he finds shelter on a ranch belonging to orphaned Lucy Kinkaid (Anne Rutherford) and her kid brother Jimmy (Bobs Watson). The local ranchers are battling an unscrupulous empire builder, Buckley (Joseph Calleia), and Reb is involuntarily dragged into the feud. When plain-speaking blacksmith Mehitabel (Marjorie Main) loses her brother to Buckley's bullets, Reb takes matters into his own hands, and with the help of Custer's men, he manages to end Buckley's reign of terror. Casting plain-looking, twangy Marjorie Main as Beery's leading lady was a stroke of genius. The two actors complimented each other to the nth degree, and Main was seen as a worthy replacement of the late Marie Dressler. As a result, the former stage actress (Dead End) was put under a seven-year contract by MGM, who co-starred her with Beery in Barnacle Bill (1941), The Bugle Sounds (1941), Jackass Mail (1942), Rationing (1944), and Bad Bascomb (1946). Wyoming, which also benefitted from fine performances by Henry Travers as a sly sheriff and Stanley Fields as Buckley's chief henchman, was filmed on location at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the Grand Tetons National Park by a director, Richard Thorpe, who had worked in the Western field since the silent days. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Originally designed for exhibition at the 1939 World's Fair, Land of Liberty is a 137-minute compendium of filmclips from past American historical epics. The project was sponsored by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. and supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, who also edited the film with the assistance of his crack Paramount production staff. The narration was written by old DeMille hands Jeannie MacPherson and Jesse Lasky Jr. and spoken by a talented team of uncredited announcers (one of whom sounded suspiciously like old C. B. himself). Clips from such Hollywood productions as America (1924), Abraham Lincoln (1930), Alexander Hamilton (1931), Show Boat (1936), Man of Conquest (1939) and DeMille's own The Plainsman (1936), The Buccaneer (1938) and Union Pacific (1939) are woven together into a chronological continuity, tracing American history from the Revolutionary War to the "present," which is largely represented by newsreel footage of President Roosevelt, the TVA project, and other current personalities and events. In later years, Land of Liberty was redistributed on the classroom circuit, with new footage added from historical dramas of the 1940s and 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this interesting drama, a highly respected straight-arrow Irish cop is pleased when his son follows him onto the force. Unfortunately, the son is more interested in promotions than in upholding the law and he makes few friends among his peers. When he shoots a child caught stealing, the others frame him and he is sent to prison where his attitude becomes even worse than before. Upon his escape, the bad seed goes on a crime spree. He then learns that his wife has just borne him a son. When he goes to the hospital to see the babe, his father, who set this trap, arrests him and sends him back to the pokey, proving that in this case, justice is thicker than blood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Stablemates is a typically treacly vehicle for Wallace Beery, who goes through his usual slobbery paces as an eternally inebriated ex-veterinarian named Tom Terry. Aspiring jockey Mickey (Mickey Rooney) idolizes Tom, who reciprocates by passing along horsemanship advice to the boy. The film's dramatic high point is the scene in which Tom, his judgement benumbed by years of alcohol abuse, tries to pull himself long enough to perform a delicate operation on Mickey's beloved horse Lady-Q. It goes without saying perhaps that the film culminates in the standard Big Race, with Mickey and Tom pinning their hopes on the obligatory "long shot." Just as Mickey Rooney has replaced Jackie Cooper as Beery's juvenile costar in Stablemates, so too has Margaret Hamilton supplanted the late Marie Dressler as Beery's romantic sparring partner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Good Old Soak was based on a story by Don Marquis, creator of the immortal "Archy and Mehitabel." Wallace Beery is well-cast as town drunk Clem Hawley, a blot on the escutcheon of a small Prohibition-era Midwestern town. When a large sum of bank money is stolen, Clem immediately falls under suspicion. His previously spineless son Clemmie (Eric Linden) rushes to his dad's defense, insisting that he, and not Clem, is the thief. But the "good old soak" manages to recover the money and expose the thief, a respectable "social" drinker and stock-market swindler whose hypocrisy is in stark contrast to Clem's bibulous honesty. In one of his last film roles, Ted Healy manages to steal quite a few scenes from Beery (no small feat) as a cheerful bootlegger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide