Jack Norton Movies

Absent from films since 1938 (except as producer of a brace of RKO Radio features), silent-screen comedy favorite Harold Lloyd returned before the cameras in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. The project began as a labor of love between Lloyd and the brilliant, innovative producer/writer/director Preston Sturges. Though these two comedy geniuses eventually had a stylistic falling out, resulting in an uneven, spasmodically dreary film, on the whole Harold Diddlebock is well worth having. Sturges cleverly opens the picture with the final reel of Lloyd's silent classic The Freshman(1925), in which the drudge of the college football team makes good and scores the winning touchdown. The story proper begins in the locker room, where football hero Harold Diddlebock (Lloyd, looking three decades younger than his 53 years) is impulsively offered a job by banker J.E. Wagglebury (Raymond Walburn). Taking his place at his new desk and festooning his walls with inspirational homilies, Harold starts to work, supremely confident that he's poised on the brink of bigger things. Twenty-three years pass: In 1946, a weary, stoop-shouldered Harold is still at the same desk at the same job, his dreams of success but a dim memory. Summarily fired by the pompous Wagglebury ("You have not only ceased to go forward, you have gone backward"), Harold collects his final paycheck, cleans out his desk, and bids farewell to office girl Miss Otis (Frances Ramsden), all of whose older sisters had previously been Harold's sweethearts. Wandering aimlessly on the street with his severance pay in hand, Harold is spotted by a dessicated street hustler named Wormy (Jimmy Conlin), who inveigles the newly fired clerk to join him at a nearby bar. Informed that Harold has never taken a drink in his life, the bartender (Edgar Kennedy) lights up and declares, "Sir, you rouse the artist in me!" With great ceremonial flourish, the bartender concocts a potent beverage called the Diddlebock. Harold takes one sip of the brew, lets out a yell, and immediately loses all the inhibitions that have kept him from advancing himself in the past two decades. With Wormy in tow, Harold goes on a wild spending and carousing spree, totally losing track of an entire day-and-a-half.

At the end of his revelry, the hung-over Harold is awakened by his sister (Margaret Hamilton), who informs him that he's bought a garish new wardrobe, a ten-gallon hat, and goodness knows what else. He soon finds out what else when he ventures into the street and is informed that he's bought a horse-drawn cab (with driver!) -- and a circus, complete with hungry lions. Quickly formulating a plan to get rid of the circus at a substantial profit, Harold decides to elicit bids from the town's various bankers, bringing Jackie the Lion along with him so that the bank guards won't stop him at the door. All of this leads to a wild recreation of Lloyd's skyscraper-teetering gags from his silent days, a noisy episode at the local jail, and a romantic tête-à-tête with Miss Otis, who reveals at the very end how Harold really spent his "missing" Wednesday! Though it tested well upon its first release, Sin of Harold Diddlebock was abruptly withdrawn from circulation by its co-producer Howard R. Hughes, who spent four years reediting and sometimes reshooting the film before finally releasing it through RKO as Mad Wednesday. Both this version and the original Sin of Harold Diddlebock still exist; while the earlier version is undeniably richer in comic invention and characterization, the shortened Mad Wednesday works better in front of an audience. Neither version completely fulfills the potential of its premise, however. Though not to be missed, this final Harold Lloyd vehicle pales in comparison with his vintage silent comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a novelist visits a local nightclub to do some research for her upcoming novel. Her husband, away on a business trip, knows nothing of her shenanigans. While in the club, the novelist sees her boss out with a stripper. To help her husband's flagging career, the writer begins blackmailing her employer into promoting him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Bringing Up Father was the first of a series of Monogram comedies based on the popular comic strip by George McManus. Joe Yule (aka Mickey Rooney's father) and Renie Riano star as Jiggs and Maggie, a shanty-Irish couple who suddenly become millionaires. While Jiggs remains his old, loveable self, forever escaping his magnificent mansion in order to enjoy some corned beef & cabbage at Dinty Moore's restaurant, Maggie is nouveau riche to an obnoxious degree. The plot rears its ugly head when Dinty Moore (Tim Ryan) is in danger of losing his diner thanks to the well-meaning but misguided machinations of Moore's architect son Danny (Wallace Chadwell). Jiggs gets into hot water by mistakenly circulating a petition to raze Dinty's eatery, and then must spend the rest of the picture setting things right. Cartoonist George McManus shows up briefly as "himself". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Three Stooges -- Moe, Larry, and Curly -- become suicidal when thrown out of the 26th vaudeville theater in a row in this average two-reel farce from Columbia Pictures. Deciding to "off" themselves from the roof of a high-rise building, they encounter a trio of chorus girls (Gloria Patrice, Ruth Godfrey, and Nita Bieber) who have reached the same conclusion. While discussing how and when to jump, the sextet is rescued by Mr. Walsh (Jack Norton), a gentleman "afflicted with millions," who auditions them for his upcoming musical show. Unfortunately, the theatrical backer is as "nutty as a nest of cuckoos" and is summarily taken away to the loony bin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Sidney Toler seems listless and barely awake throughout the intrigues of the Monogram "Charlie Chan" opus Shadows over Chinatown. This time out, Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) and his erstwhile assistants, son Jimmy (Victor Sen Yung) and chauffeur Birmingham (Mantan Moreland), investigate a clever insurance scam. The crooks are using a series of brutal "torso murders" to rip off an insurance company by claiming that the long-missing Mary Conover (Tanis Chandler) is a victim of the unknown murderer. Actually, Mary is in hiding from the insurance hucksters themselves, forcing Chan to race against time (if "race" is the correct word) to save the girl from certain doom. Perennial movie drunk Jack Norton has all the film's best lines as a garrulous boozer who isn't quite what he seems. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jed Potter (Fred Astaire) is a popular radio personality who was once a famous dancer. He also used to be friends with Johnny Adams (Bing Crosby) until they became rivals for the affections of Mary O'Hara (Joan Caulfield). Jed lost out when Johnny and Mary got married, but life hasn't been too rosy for the couple since; Johnny's career in business was a washout, and not long after the birth of their daughter, the couple decided to divorce. Mary gave Jed another chance with her, but in time she chose to patch things up with Johnny, leading Jed to a close partnership with alcohol that ended with an accident, preventing him from ever dancing again. However, the aftermath of this tragedy helps bring the three former friends back together. Blue Skies was not much more than a framework for a bunch of musical numbers featuring great tunes from the Irving Berlin catalog, but when you've got Bing singing and Fred dancing to songs like "Puttin' on the Ritz," "You Keep Coming Back Like a Song," "A Couple of Song and Dance Men," and "White Christmas," why carp? Noted stage actor and tap dancer Paul Draper was originally cast as Jed, but he was fired after several days of filming and replaced by Astaire; Draper would make only one more movie before his film career came to an end after he was branded a Communist sympathizer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Danny Kaye's The Kid From Brooklyn is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of Harold Lloyd's The Milky Way (1936), with music and Technicolor added to the proceedings. Kaye is cast as timid milkman Burleigh Sullivan, who through a fluke knocks out prizefighting champion Speed McFarlane (Steve Cochran). Sensing a swell publicity angle, McFarlane's manager Gabby Sloan (Walter Abel) promotes Burleigh as the next middleweight champ-and to insure this victory, Gabby fixes several pre-title bouts. Unaware that his fighting prowess is a sham, Burleigh develops a swelled head, which alienates him from everyone he cares about, including his sweetheart Polly Pringle (Virginia Mayo). The truth comes out during the climactic title fight, but a chastened Burleigh emerges victorious thanks to a series of incredible plot twists. The strong supporting cast includes Vera-Ellen as Burleigh's sister Susie, Eve Arden as Gabby's wisecracking girl friday Ann Westley, and, repeating his role from Milky Way, Lionel Stander as Speed's lamebrained trainer Spider Schultz. Danny Kaye does his best to play Burleigh Sullivan rather than Danny Kaye, though his efforts are undermined by the interpolated "specialty" number "Pavlova," which just plain doesn't belong in this picture. Like The Milky Way, The Kid From Brooklyn was adapted from the Broadway play by Lynn Root. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this suspense story (released as part of Universal's "Inner Sanctum" series, named for the popular radio series of the day), Jeff Carter is a scientist who is working on a medicine which would cure the flu. Carter's duplicitous boss Roger Graham (J. Carrol Naish) sends him on a business trip to South America, and uses his absence to steal Carter's uncompleted formula, as well as the affections of his wife Mary (Brenda Joyce). When Carter returns home and discovers what Graham has done, he plots a grisly revenge. Strange Confession was a remake of the 1934 Claude Rains vehicle The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Future film producer Ross Hunter heads the cast of Columbia's A Guy, a Gal and a Pal. Hunter is the "guy", serviceman Jimmy Jones; the "gal" is Jimmy's sweetheart Helen Carter (Lynn Merrick), while the "pal" is the couple's self-appointed chaperone, 10-year-old Butch (Ted Donaldson). Helen's dilemma: should she marry Jimmy, or settle for financial security in the form of civilian Granville Breckinridge (George Meeker)? A clue to her decision: this is a Hollywood movie, and guys with names like Granville Breckinridge never get the girl in Hollywood movies. A Guy, a Gal and a Pal was directed by Oscar Boetticher Jr., who like Ross Hunter went on to bigger and better things-but only after changing his billing to Budd Boetticher. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This curious mixture of comedy, romance and melodrama teams up comic actor Eddie Bracken and glamour girl Veronica Lake, two of Paramount's most popular stars of the mid-1940s. He plays Ogden Spencer Trulow III, a wealthy kleptomaniac; she plays Sally Martin, who may or may not provide the "cure" for the lovesick Trulow. As it turns out, Sally is a professional thief, part of a gang planning to rip off the Romanoff necklace. Trulow tries to prevent this, and in so doing divest himself of his own kleptomania. Sally's cohorts aren't at all interested in Trulow's problems, and accordingly spend half the film trying to bump him off. Buried somewhere in the glossy silliness of Hold That Blonde is a pre-WW1 play by Paul Armstrong; some of the sight gags in the film are even older than the Armstrong original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Surprisingly, leading lady Marjorie Weaver isn't the Fashion Model in this tongue-in-cheek Monogram meller. When two employees of a clothing factory are murdered, the shadow of suspicion falls upon lowly stock boy Robert Lowery. One of the victims (Lorna Gray) was the titular model, whom Lowery may or may not have been romancing. The hero's loyal girlfriend (Weaver) sleuths around until she comes face to face with the real killer. Fashion Model was co-written by Tim Ryan, who plays the irascible detective assigned to the case. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

More tightly scripted than most of the Monogram Charlie Chan whodunits, The Scarlet Clue is set in a radio station that, rather fortuitously, is located in the same building as a government research lab. It's wartime, and the Chinese master detective (Sidney Toler) is searching for the killer of an enemy agent. The trail leads to the aforementioned radio station, where the owner of a soap opera, Mrs. Marsh (Virginia Brissac), is terrorizing her hard-working actors. The sneaky-looking station manager, Ralph Brett (I. Stanford Jolley), is reporting back to an unknown boss; a blackmailing actress (Janet Shaw) is poisoned; and the halls are haunted by a former Shakespearean star turned horror actor, Horace Carlos (Leonard Mudie, whose character is obviously patterned after Boris Karloff), and a Swedish char woman (Victoria Faust), who, so help her, says "yumpin' yimini!" As always, Chan's detective work is interrupted on occasion by the antics of manservant Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) and dense Number Three Son, Tommy Chan (Benson Fong). One of the villains literally "gets the shaft" and Monogram fearlessly flirts with a potential new media rival: television. The pièce de résistance is a couple of very funny vaudeville turns by African-American comedians Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter. All in all, The Scarlet Clue makes for an entertaining enough hour or so. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide