Paul Newlan Movies

The title doesn't refer to mosquitoes but to the amount of money that could be earned in the radio business of the 1930s. Samuel S. Hinds plays a Major Bowes-type entrepreneur who sponsors a weekly radio amateur contest. Hinds' daughter Wendy Barrie has show-biz aspirations, but dad won't hear of it. She enters his contest under an assumed name, winning not only the prize but the heart of a the program's emcee (John Howard). Millions in the Air is one of the few feature films costarring Broadway comedian Willie Howard, whose Jewish characterization and "blue" humor made him difficult to cast in most Hollywood productions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Swing High Swing Low is a new coat of paint on the old stage play Burlesque, first filmed in 1929 as The Dance of Life. Ex-serviceman Skid Johnson (Fred MacMurray) rises to the uppermost rungs of show business as a bandleader. As his fame swells, so does his head, and he becomes impossibly arrogant, forgetting the friends who helped him get to the top -- not to mention his ever-faithful sweetheart, band vocalist Maggie King (Carole Lombard). Consuming great quantities of booze, Skid hits the skids, ending up a skid-row derelict (there seems to be a pattern here). The ultimate humiliation comes when he isn't even allowed to return to the Army because his insides are shot. In the film's calculatedly teary finale, Skid is rescued emotionally and professionally by Maggie, now a big star in her own right. As indicated by the synopsis, the film is banal and old-hat, but the stars are terrific, especially Carole Lombard, who sings in several scenes (and not all that badly!) Swing High, Swing Low was remade in 1948 as When My Baby Smiles at Me. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The legendary Cocoanut Grove nightclub is the setting for this all-star Paramount musical. Fred MacMurray heads the cast as Johnny Prentice, a small-time bandleader who heads to the Grove for an all-important audition. He is accompanied by his foster son Half-Pint (Billy Lee), a talented drummer in his own right. Joining the troupe is Linda Rodgers (Harriet Hilliard), ostensibly Half-Pint's tutor but actually an aspiring vocalist. The thinnish plot serves as an excuse for an unending stream of specialty numbers featuring Royal Hawaiian orchestra leader Harry Owens, comedian Ben Blue, the zany Yacht Club Boys (a WASP version of the Ritz Brothers), funny-noise specialist Rufe Davis and bandmaster Red Stanley. In the course of events, nine new original songs are performed, none of which graduated to hit-parade status. Curiously, the real Cocoanut Grove is never seen, though the Paramount mockup is reasonably convincing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The "Lady" of the title is horse-farm owner Penelope Hollis (Ellen Drew), but during the first half of this film, bookie Marty Black (George Raft) only has eyes for Penelope's prize two-year-old. After losing his gambling joint, Marty finds himself with half ownership of the horse as his sole asset. He tries to persuade Penelope to continue racing the horse, but she will have none of this and packs the nag back to her Kentucky farm. Through Marty's persistence, the horse is entered in an important stake race, but in the process is "ridden out" and rendered useless. The enraged Penelope refuses to have anything to do with Marty again unless he changes his reckless ways-which of course he does. The best moment in The Lady's From Kentucky comes at the end, when supporting players Hugh Herbert ("Woo woo!") and ZaSu Pitts ("Oh, dear, oh, my") imitate each other's catch-phrases, a gag repeated the following year by Mae West and W.C. Fields in My Little Chickadee. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Paramount followed up its successful Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard co-starrer The Cat and the Canary (1939) by warming up another venerable "old dark house" stage play, Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard's The Ghost Breaker, pluralizing the title to accommodate both stars. This time Hope plays radio personality Lawrence L. Lawrence (the middle initial stands for Lawrence: "My folks had no imagination") who has to flee New York to avoid being mistakenly arrested for murder. He and his manservant Alex (Willie Best) book passage on a Cuba-bound liner, where they meet lovely heiress Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard). She is heading to Cuba to take charge of her ancestral mansion, despite warnings from several sinister characters that to enter this "haunted" house will mean certain death. Appointing himself Mary's protector, Lawrence investigates the mansion on his own, thereby crossing the path of a zombie (Noble Johnson) and an apparently genuine ghost. He also meets the twin brother of the man he's accused of killing (Anthony Quinn), who seems the most likely suspect when Mary nearly comes to harm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though Republic Pictures had discontinued its "Higgins Family" series in 1940, the studio continued filming its stray "Higgins" scripts under new titles. In The Gay Vagabond, Roscoe Karns plays the "Pa Higgins" counterpart, a henpecked small-towner named Arthur Dixon. Karns also doubles up as Dixon's carefree, globetrotting twin brother Jerry. Inevitably, the two brothers' identities become confused when prodigal son Jerry returns home after a mysterious adventure in China. By being mistaken for Jerry, milquetoast Arthur is finally permitted to shed his inhibitions and assume his "proper" place as master of his domicile. Matching Roscoe Karns' performance laugh for laugh are Ruth Donnelly as Mrs. Dixon and such reliable supporting players as Ernest Truex and Margaret Hamilton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hold That Ghost was the second of Abbott and Costello's starring films, but was held back from release in favor of their third picture, the more "topical" In the Navy. In Ghost, Bud and Lou play a couple of service-station owners who happen to be hanging around when gangster Moose Mattson (William B. Davidson) is killed. According to the terms of Mattson's will, whosoever is present when "the coppers dim my lights for the last time" will inherit his estate, which consists of a deserted mansion in the middle of nowhere. Crooked attorney Russell Hicks, who knows that Mattson has hidden hundreds of thousands of dollars somewhere in the lodge, dispatches sinister Charlie Smith (Marc Lawrence) to escort Abbott and Costello to the house, with instructions to "take care" of the trusting boys once they've arrived. Charlie charters a bus to take A&C out to the mansion; also on board, going off to various other destinations, are handsome Dr. Jackson (Richard Carlson), lovely Norma Lind (Evelyn Ankers) and professional radio screamer Camille Brewster (Joan Davis). It is inevitable that this disparate group is stranded along with Abbott and Costello in the forbidding mansion on a dark and stormy night. Charlie Smith is promptly murdered by parties unknown; throughout the rest of the film, Charlie's body pops up at the most inopportune moments, reducing the already tremulous Costello to a quivering mass of jello. The plot is merely an excuse to showcase Abbott and Costello's superbly timed cross-talking routines, a riotous impromptu dance performed by Costello and Joan Davis, and, of course, the legendary "moving candle" bit, which may well be Costello's funniest-ever screen scene. Hold That Ghost was originally designed and previewed as a 65-minute programmer title Oh, Charlie, but Universal decided to expand the length and throw in a few guest stars to secure top-of-the-bill bookings. This is why Hold That Ghost begins and ends with barely relevant musical numbers featuring Ted Lewis and the Andrews Sisters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Number ten in MGM's heart-warming (and immensely profitable) "Andy Hardy" series was the 1941 entry Life Begins for Andy Hardy. Upon his graduation from high school, Andy (Mickey Rooney) decides to seek his fortune in New York City without benefit of a college education, much to the consternation of his father Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone). Moving to the Big Apple, Andy lands a job in a stockbroker's office, where he falls in love (at least he thinks it's love) with fickle telephone operator Jennitt Hicks (Patricia Dane). Alas, Andy is unable to cope with life in the fast lane, but it takes the combined efforts of his father and his hometown sweetie Betsy Booth (Judy Garland) to convince him of this fact. For reasons that defy logic, each of Judy Garland's four songs in Life Begins for Andy Hardy were cut from the final release print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, a news editor writes a scandalous expose about a notorious gangster. The gangster then has the gall to sue him for libel and mayhem ensues. ~ 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

The racy, ribald Cole Porter musical Du Barry Was a Lady is here given a thorough dry-cleaning by prudish MGM. Richard "Red" Skelton takes over the role of Louis Blore (played on Broadway by Bert Lahr), while Lucille Ball steps into the shoes of the original play's Ethel Merman. The story proposes that Blore is a men's room attendant in a New York nightclub who has a yen for gorgeous showgirl May Daly (Lucille Ball). After drinking a potent mixture, Louis dreams that he is King Louis XV of France, and May is the magnificent Madame Du Barry. Also showing up in Louis' dream is Alex Howe (Gene Kelly), who in "real life" is the guy who ends up with May at fade out-time. It's hard to determine what's more fun to watch in Du Barry Was a Lady: the three stars, the antics of supporting player Zero Mostel, or the incredible sequence in which Tommy Dorsey & His Band -- including drummer Buddy Rich -- perform in 18th century garb and powdered wigs. Five of the original Cole Porter songs are retained for this Technicolor-ful film: "Katie Went to Haiti," "Do I Love You, Do I?," "Well, Did You Evah?," "Taliostro's Dance,", and, best of all, "Friendship." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

True to Life stars Dick Powell as a radio writer in search of saleable material. He comes up with a weekly sitcom about a typical American family. To soak up inspiration, he hangs around the household of waitress Mary Martin and her parents (Ernest Truex, Mabel Paige), transcribing their conversations for use on the air. When Mary listens to the radio and discovers that Powell's attentions towards her are strictly professional, she runs to the arms of Franchot Tone. But Powell convinces her that his ardor is genuine--while musical fans are disappointed that only one song has been sung in the whole of True to Life. Devotees of two-reel comedies will note the presence of veteran second bananas Billy Bletcher and Bud Jamison as two of the "family members" in Dick Powell's radio series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dismissed by critics as corny and obvious in 1944, this overlong but sincere biopic looks pretty good when seen today, cliches notwithstanding. Fredric March, 47 at the time, convincingly plays American author Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from his early 20s to his death at 75. In typical movie-biography fashion, every single incident that happens in Twain's life is an INSPIRATION: he hears the depth-indication call "Mark Twain" while working on a riverboat and his face lights up; he engages in a jumping-frog contest against Bret Harte (John Carradine) and comes up with his first popular published story; and so on. Alexis Smith is better than usual in the role of Twain's wife Olivia Langdon, even keeping a straight face while Twain courts her in Fluent Quotation ("Everybody talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it", he says during a Hollywood-romance cloudburst). Though the script barely touches upon the dark side of Twain's nature, we are not spared his financial reverses (brought about by bad investments and his struggle to publish Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs. The closing sequence, with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn beckoning the spirit of Mark Twain to heaven as Halley's Comet fills the skies, may seem laughable on paper, but works quite well on film; even director Irving Rapper expressed amazement at the effectiveness of this scene! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide