Robert E. O'Connor Movies

This airy bit of MGM fluff stars Lana Turner as small-town soda clerk Peggy Evans. After telling off the self-important new drugstore manager Bob Stuart (Robert Young), Peggy, convinced that there's no future for her in her hometown, fakes her suicide and heads for the big city. After a series of dizzying comic complications, she successfully poses as the long-lost daughter of millionaire Cornelius Burden (Walter Brennan). Meanwhile, poor Bob, held responsible for Peggy's "death," comes to town determined to clear his name by exposing Peggy as an impostor. How this all works itself out is as hard to swallow as the rest of the picture, but the stars are attractive and the production values first-rate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The last of three films starring Red Skelton as ace radio detective Wally "The Fox" Benton, Whistling in Brooklyn opens with Fox and girl friend Carol Lambert (Ann Rutherford) making final preparations for a trip to Niagara Falls, where they intend to get married. Of course, they've made these plans before, and true to form, something comes up to derail the trip to the altar. The something this time is Constant Reader, a murderer who delights in taunting the police by letting newspapers know about his latest victims and where their bodies can be found. Through an error on his valet's part, the police come to believe that Wally is Constant Reader, forcing him to delay his plans, go undercover and search out the killer himself. After being chased through various warehouses and creaky old houses, Wally eventually ends up disguised as a member of a bearded baseball team playing the Brooklyn Dodgers. (Leo Durocher makes his screen debut, playing himself.) All gets straightened out in the end, and even the real Constant Reader is apprehended. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide

Five original cast members of the hit Broadway musical Best Foot Forward appear in this Technicolor MGM screen adaptation. Set at a small town military prep school, the story gets under way when movie star Lucille Ball (played by movie star Lucille Ball) pays a visit to the campus for publicity purposes. Several of the students, led by Bud (Tommy Dix), offer to make Lucille the queen of the upcoming prom. But the plot dictates that Bud and his pals are forced to back off from their offer, and to hide Lucille's presence from the faculty. Cast as a hoydenish blind date, Nancy Walker steals the show with her spirited rendition of "Buckle Down, Winsocki"; but of the five carryovers from the original Broadway production, only June Allyson went on to lasting film stardom. Enhancing the film's box-office appeal was MGM's decision to add Harry James and His Music Makers to the cast: James' performance of "The Two O'Clock Jump" is worth the admission price in itself. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

In this comedy, the town gossip fills her time running the lives of others. Naturally, she is also a matchmaker. When she tries to find a suitable mate for her nephew, trouble ensues because he only has eyes for the daughter of the busybody's nemesis, the town judge. Meanwhile the girl the town yente wanted for her nephew finds herself attracted to the judge's son and ends up marrying him on the sly. He impregnates her and then goes to war. She later gives birth, but dies before she can tell anyone the truth. To protect her, the old gossip begins claiming the babe as her own. No one believes her. Fortunately, the judge's son returns and tells the truth. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Old stock shots are blended with freshly filmed material in the Universal programmer Hot Steel. Richard Arlen plays a metallurgist who brings his formula for super-strength steel to a mining town. The formula is promptly stolen, putting everyone under suspicion. To make matters worse, a murder is committed, and the evidence points to Arlen. Helping the hero clear himself are true-blue comic sidekick Andy Devine, Devine's kid sister Peggy Moran, and leading lady Anne Nagel. Watch for Joe "You Crazy, You!" Besser in the role of "Siggie." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1940 Warner Bros. quickie A Fugitive From Justice is based on Leonard Neubauer's short story "Million Dollar Fugitive." Roger Pryor plays insurance investigator Don Miller, who endeavors to hide Lee Leslie (Donald Douglas), holder of a million-dollar policy, from both the police and the underworld. Miller's efforts are frequently stymied by Mark Rogers (John Gallaudet), a Winchellesque radio reporter in cahoots with the G-Men. Our hero's allies include his wisecracking assistant Ziggy (Eddie Foy Jr., brother of Bryan Foy, the film's producer) and all-purpose heroine Janet Leslie (Lucille Fairbanks, niece of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.) A Fugitive from Justice sure looks like a remake, but a remake of what remains a mystery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The story goes that such stars as Fred MacMurray, Jack Oakie and Burns & Allen had turned down The Road to Singapore before the leading roles went to Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. More conventionally structured than future "Road" efforts, the film casts Crosby as Josh Mallon, the irresponsible son of shipping magnate Joshua Mallon IV (Charles Coburn). Though the elder Mallon wants his son to enter the family business and marry longtime fiancee Gloria Wycott (Judith Barrett), Josh would rather pal around with his carefree sailor buddy Ace Lannigan (Bob Hope). On the eve of his wedding, Josh escapes with Ace to Singapore, where the two of them cook up a get-rich-quick scheme involving a highly unreliable spot remover. The boys' friendship is strained when they both fall in love with cabaret dancer Mima (Dorothy Lamour), who is on the lam from her jealous partner Caesar (Anthony Quinn). Hiding out from the authorities, the three protagonists wind up in the midst of a native ceremony, where Ace and Mima rescue Josh from a hasty marriage to a local temptress. When Gloria shows up to drag Josh back to the altar, Mima nobly gives him up, pretending to be in love with Ace. Eventually, however, big-hearted Ace realizes that Mima belongs with Josh, and thus concocts another scheme to lure his pal back to the Far East. Though many of the earmarks of the "Road" series are evident in Road to Singapore (the "patty-cake" bit, the presence of such guest stars as Hope's radio stooge Jerry Colonna, etc.), the film lacks the spontaneous quality of the later Hope-Crosby-Lamour starrers. Even so, it's an awful lot of fun, especially when Bob and Bing team up on the novelty number "Captain Custard" and Dorothy croons her requisite "moon and stars" romantic ballads. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Throughout most of the running time of Universal's Double Alibi, it looks as though ostensible hero Stephen Wayne (Wayne Morris) really is guilty of three murders. Even so, girl reporter Sue Carey (Margaret Lindsay) falls in love with Wayne, despite the fact that she also thinks he's guilty. This causes no end of discomfort for city editor Walter Gifford (William Gargan), who is in love with Sue himself, and police captain Orr (James Burke), who has a vested interest in seeing Wayne delivered to the executioner. By film's end, of course, Sue has helped to prove Wayne's innocence, through the simple expedient of stumbling upon the identity of the real killer. With so much going on, it's surprising that Double Alibi could squeeze in the traditional comedy relief of Roscoe Karns, cast once more as a wisecacking photojournalist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A young punk hooks up with a mobster and helps him rob a gas station in this crime drama. From there the crimes become more serious and the boy is very happy until something goes wrong and the gangster shoots someone using the stolen gun of the boy's sister's lover. The innocent lover is given the death sentence. The guilt-plagued youth wants to take the rap, but the gangster threatens him and he remains quiet. Later they are caught stealing a car and end up in Sing Sing where the boy finds a mentor who advises him to come clean. Meanwhile the gangster hears of this and devises a way to silence the youth forever. Not one of Bogie's best. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The cumbersome title refers to the fact that tenement-dwelling teenager Jackie Cooper is studying to become a lawyer. Monogram Pictures decided that the title was too clever for its own good, thus the film was released as Streets of New York. Star Cooper manages a newstand by day, while attending law school by night. He and his crippled pal Martin Spellman are threatened by extortion-gathering hoods, but a happy ending is just around the corner. Reasonably entertaining, Streets of New York isn't half as much fun as its outtakes (available on a reel titled Things You Don't See in the Movies), wherein the straight-arrow Jackie Cooper lets fly with a stream of unlawyer-like epithets after burning himself with an iron. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Harold Lloyd plays a professor of Egyptology, frightened by the notion that he has fallen under an ancient Egyptian curse. Lloyd has the opportunity to join an archeological expedition to search for a missing tablet that will determine his fate, but he has to travel from Los Angeles to New York before the party sails to Egypt. Alas, Lloyd is also required to appear in court to answer charges of "indecent exposure" (it's a long story). The rest of the film is a frantic chase with the authorities pursuing the fugitive professor across the country, highlighted by a daredevil sequence atop a moving train. Most of the individual gags are funny, but Professor Beware is several notches below the standard set by Harold Lloyd's silent films. The lukewarm boxoffice response to this film would convince Lloyd that he should retire from performing--which he did, returning to the screen only for 1947's Sins of Harold Diddlebock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Super Sleuth stars Jack Oakie as an egotistical movie actor who specializes in detective roles. Despite the gentle remonstrations of his girl friend (Ann Sothern), Oakie fancies himself a genuine master sleuth, and in this capacity offers his services to the law in helping to solve a recent series of "poison pen" murders. In truth, Oakie is so dense that he can't figure out that the seemingly benign criminologist (Eduardo Cianelli), who supplies him technical information on his film roles, is the actual murderer. Edgar Kennedy, the real detective on the case, solves the mystery himself, but not before Oakie is nearly bumped off in the criminologist's "chamber of horrors." Super Sleuth was ineptly remade in 1946 as Genius at Work, a vehicle for RKO's prefabricated comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide