Victor Moore Movies

Like thousands of other Manhattanites, Tom Ewell annually packs his wife (Evelyn Keyes) and children off to summer vacation, staying behind to work at the office. This particular summer, the lonely Ewell begins fantasizing about the many women he'd foresworn upon getting married (in one of the fantasies, Ewell and Marguerite Chapman parody the beach rendezvous in From Here to Eternity). He is jolted back to reality when he meets his new neighbor--luscious model Marilyn Monroe. Inviting Monroe to dinner, Ewell intends to sweep her off her feet and into the boudoir. Things don't quite work out that way, thanks to Ewell's clumsiness (and essential decency) and Monroe's naivete. Still, Ewell becomes convinced that his impure thoughts will somehow be transmitted to his vacationing wife and to the rest of the world, leaving him wide open for scandal and ruination. In the original play, the husband and the next-door neighbor did have an affair, but both play and film arrived at the same happy ending, with Ewell and his missus contentedly reunited at summer's end. Featured in the cast of The Seven Year Itch are Robert Strauss as a lascivious handyman, Sonny Tufts as Evelyn Keye's former beau, Donald MacBride as Ewell's glad-handing boss, and veteran Broadway funny man Victor Moore in a cameo as a nervous plumber. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Kiss in the Dark opens with a shot of Jane Wyman in a two-piece bathing suit. Alas, the dictates of cinematic construction demand that some sort of plot must follow this promising beginning. Wyman plays model Polly Haines, one of several mildly eccentric tenants in an apartment building owned by neurotic concert pianist Eric Phillips (David Niven). Requiring absolute peace and quiet, Eric intends to evict his tenants and thereby have the building all to himself. Soon, however, he is won over by the apartment dwellers, who in their own various ways are as high-strung as the musician. He also falls in love with Polly, just as expected. The supporting cast of Kiss in the Dark is peopled by such expert farceurs as Victor Moore, Broderick Crawford, Wayne Morris, Joseph Buloff, and Curt Bois. Making her final screen appearance is Maria Ouspenskaya as the building's resident "earth mother." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

Based on the popular Russian novel The Twelve Chairs, this stars Fred Allen as flea-circus impresario Fred Floogle. Learning that he's inherited $12 million from his uncle, Fred also discovers that the money has been stuffed in one of thirteen chairs that he's sold at auction. The rest of the film goes off on any number of hilarious tangents, each tied-in ever so tenuously to the plot. Included is an episode at the movies (Fred and his wife Binnie Barnes are continually escorted up several balcony steps and out several alleyway doors), a visit to Floogle's radio cohort Mrs. Nussbaum (Minerva Pious), a brief misadventure with Jack Benny (this time Benny has a hat-check girl in his hall closet, so that he can collect tips from visitors), an impromptu barbershop quartet session with Fred, Rudy Vallee, Don Ameche and Victor Moore, and a confrontation with the dreaded William Bendix mob (Bendix isn't really a gangster; he simply inherited the mob from his mother). Also weaving in and out of the proceedings are John Carradine as a crooked attorney, Robert Benchley as Fred's pompous in-law-to-be, Sidney Toler as a popcorn-munching detective, and Jerry Colonna as Fred's live-in psychiatrist. Two versions of this film exists, one without Fred Allen's ongoing voice over narration. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his final starring film, bandleader Kay Kyser is cast as bandleader Kay Kyser. Picking up where Kyser's previous RKO Radio film Around the World left off, Columbia's Carolina Blues finds Kay and his band returning to America after a worldwide USO tour. Phineas J. Carver (Victor Moore), the woebegone "black sheep"scion of a powerful family of industrialists, poses as one of his wealthier relatives to persuade Kyser to perform at a defense plant. When Kyser's regular vocalist Georgia Carroll quits the band to get married, Carver's talented daughter Julie (Ann Miller) steps in as replacement. Naturally, Julie is a hit, and equally naturally, she lands Kyser as a husband. Outside of the expected musical numbers (which, in addtion to Kyser's aggregation, feature such artists as The Step Brothers and the Nicholas Brothers) Carolina Blues is highlighted by the bravura performance of Victor Moore, who essays five roles in all. Ironically, singer Georgia Carroll did retire from show business in real life to get married-to Kay Kyser! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After an absence of three years, Mae West returned to the screen in the musical comedy The Heat's On. La West is cast as Fay Lawrence, a famous Broadway actress who is loved intensely by her producer Tony Ferris (William Gaxton). Rival producer Forrest Stanton (Alan Dinehart) steals Fay away from Ferris by convincing her that she's been blacklisted from Broadway by blue-nosed moralist Hannah Bainbridge (Almira Sessions). Meanwhile, Hannah's puckish brother Hubert (Victor Moore) syphons money from his sister's "clean up show business" committee to produce a musical show for his actress niece Janey (Mary Roche). Somehow, all these characters converge for a spectacular closing production number spotlighting the formidable Fay. Part of the reason for the failure of The Heat's On is the fact that Mae West didn't write her own dialogue, as was usually her custom. The film performed so poorly that it would be 27 years before West would again appear on the Big Screen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Star-Spangled Rhythm is a typical wartime all-star musical-comedy melange, this time from Paramount Pictures. The slender plot involves the efforts by humble studio doorman Pop Webster (Victor Moore) to pass himself off as a big-shot Paramount executive for the benefit of his sailor son Jimmy (Eddie Bracken). The overall level of humor can be summed up by the scene in which Webster is advised that the best way to pretend to be a studio big-shot is to say "It stinks!" to everything -- whereupon Cecil B. DeMille shows up to ask Webster's opinion about his current production. Betty Hutton, cast as studio switchboard operator and co-conspirator Polly Judson, is at her most rambunctiously appealing here. The huge lineup of guest performers includes Bing Crosby (and his 8-year-old son Gary!), Bob Hope, Veronica Lake, Dorothy Lamour, Dick Powell, Mary Martin, Alan Ladd, Fred MacMurray, William Bendix, Paulette Goddard, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, most (but not all) of them going through their characteristic paces. Highlights include a surrealistic rendition of That Old Black Magic with Johnnie Johnston and Vera Zorina; a frantic staging of the old George S. Kaufman sketch "If Men Played Cards as Women Do" with MacMurray, Ray Milland, Franchot Tone, and Lynn Overman; and The Sweater, the Sarong and the Peekaboo Bang, first performed by Goddard, Lamour and Lake, then lampooned in drag by Arthur Treacher, Sterling Holloway and Walter Catlett! PS: The actor playing Rochester's chauffeur in the Smart as a Tack number is John Ford "regular" Woody Strode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in New York City's famed music hall and featuring an all-star cast, this musical chronicles the desperate search of two bungling aspiring songwriters who are looking for the tune that will make them stars. They hear the sweet sound of opportunity's knock when they find a naive country boy who can literally come up with hit tunes in his sleep. Jack Oakie and Milton Berle play the songwriters. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a marriage-license clerk is proud of the fact that during his 20-year career not one of the couples he has licensed have gotten divorced. A reporter learns of his record and writes an article resulting in the small town office being flooded with engaged couples. The reporter then nominates the clerk for mayor, dubbing him "Lucky License." Meanwhile his political rivals try to frame him by having him pose with seductive bathing beauties. When that fails, they try framing him for murder. Fortunately that fails too and things turn out for the best. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

While not a box-office success, this drama, directed by Leo McCarey, developed a potent reputation among film critics and movie buffs for its sensitive and perceptive treatment of the problems of the elderly. When McCarey won the Oscar for Best Director the same year for The Awful Truth, he remarked that the Academy gave him the award for the wrong movie. Barkley and Lucy Cooper (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) are a couple in their late 60s who have fallen on hard times and have been given the bad news that the bank is foreclosing on their house. Barkley and Lucy turn to their five children for help, but none are willing or able to do much for them; their son George (Thomas Mitchell) says that Lucy can stay with him and his wife Anita (Fay Bainter), while Nellie (Minna Gombell) and her husband Harvey (Porter Hall) can take in Barkley, but neither couple have the space or the means to house them both. Living with their children and their new families proves stressful for everyone involved, and Lucy decides to take up residence in a home for older women. She and Barkley realize that this will probably mean a permanent separation for the two of them, and they try to enjoy one last outing together before they part. Remarkably, Beulah Bondi was only 46 years old when this film was made, making her less then ten years older than several of her on-screen children; make-up wizard Wally Westmore used his bag of tricks to age her the appropriate two decades for the role. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this musical comedy, an irresponsible young heir is betrothed to the singing daughter of a wealthy matron. Unfortunately, the willful young is not even slightly interested in her "fiance," preferring the attentions of another instead. Unfortunately, the other man has a big problem. Though he really loves the girl, he will lose his $3 million inheritance if he marries her before the age of 30. Complicating matters is the private detective assigned to keep him from getting to involved with women such as the heroine. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The sixth of RKO's Fred Astaire -Ginger Rogers pairings of the 1930s, Swing Time starts off with bandleader Astaire getting cold feet on his wedding day. Astaire's bride-to-be Betty Furness will give him a second chance, providing he proves himself responsible enough to earn $25,000. Astaire naturally tries to avoid earning that amount once he falls in love with dance instructor Ginger Rogers. Numerous complications ensue, leading to the "second time's the charm" climax, with Ginger escaping her own wedding to wealthy Georges Metaxa in order to be reunited with Astaire. The film's most indelible image is that of Fred Astaire, immaculately attired in top hat and tails, hopping a freight car--a perfect encapsulation of the film's Depression-era cheekiness. The Jerome Kern-Dorothy Fields score includes such standards-to-be as "Pick Yourself Up," "A Fine Romance," "The Way You Look Tonight," "Never Gonna Dance" and "Bojangles of Harlem." The peerless supporting cast of Swing Time includes Helen Broderick, Victor Moore, Eric Blore, and Landers Stevens, the actor-father of the film's director, George Stevens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Universal's Romance in the Rain is a satire of network radio, a popular target of early-'30s movies. On behalf of dithery magazine publisher J. Franklyn Blank (Victor Moore), press agent Charlie (Roger Pryor) stages a "Cinderella contest" in search of new female talent for the airwaves. The winner turns out to be Cynthia (Heather Angel), a slum girl whom Charlie had previously befriended during a heavy rainstorm. Cynthia is madly in love with Charlie, but he doesn't realize it until his "Cinderella" has nearly been wed to someone else. Meanwhile, Blank has a few romantic travails of his own with his aggressive self-appointed fiancee Gwen (Esther Ralston), who literally drags him to the Justice of the Peace at film's end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide