Isabel O'Madigan Movies
- 1949
The title couple and their enormous brood of bumpkins made their movie debut in the film version of Betty McDonald's humorous book The Egg and I (1947) where they appeared as supporting characters. Audiences found them funny and so the characters got their own long-running series of B movies. Ma and Pa Kettle is the first in that series and centers on the exploits of the impoverished hayseed family after Pa wins a contest by writing a jim-dandy slogan for a tobacco company. The Kettle's prize is a brand new, ultra modern, fully automated home. It's a good thing too, for Ma, Pa and their 15 kids were about to get booted out of their previous wreck of a home. Of course the film is at its funniest when the Kettles are trying to figure out how to operate their fancy new digs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, (more)
So baseball pictures never make money, eh? Try telling that to MGM, which raked in a box office gross of $4 million on their 1949 baseball musical Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Set in 1906, the film concerns the adventures and misadventures of The Wolves, a champion ball club. The team's success is contingent upon the double-play combination of "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg." But while Goldberg (Jules Munshin) lives to play baseball, O'Brien (Gene Kelly) and Ryan (Frank Sinatra) would rather pursue their off-season vaudeville career. Both erstwhile song-and-dance men decide to stick around on the baseball diamond when they mutually fall in love with the Wolves' new owner, the lovely K.C. Higgins (Esther Williams). Though O'Brien wins K.C. for himself, Ryan is compensated with the aggressively affectionate Shirley Delwyn (Betty Garrett). Gambler Joe Lorgan (Edward Arnold), who has bet heavily against the Wolves in an upcoming Big Game, woos O'Brien away from the team with promises of a big role in an upcoming musical comedy. Having let down K.C. and the rest of the team, O'Brien vows to redeem himself by playing in the crucial game. Lorgan gets wind of this, and orders his henchmen to do away with O'Brien. Hoping to shield his buddy from harm, Ryan beans O'Brien with a pitched ball, thereby incapacitating the prodigal player. The crooks are vanquished, and K.C. forgives O'Brien. But upon learning that Ryan had knocked him out, O'Brien charges onto the diamond, thirsting for revenge. Believe it or not, this action results in no fewer than two winning home runs! We offer you this detailed synopsis because it's likely that you'll be too entertained by the film's musical numbers to pay any attention to the story. Outside of the title number and Gene Kelly's solo "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day," the picture's best songs are contributed by Betty Comden, Adolf Green and Roger Edens. Take Me Out to the Ball Game is so delightful as it stands that one can only wonder what the film would have looked like had MGM's first choice Kathryn Grayson--or the studio's second choice, Judy Garland--played the Esther Williams role (In a similar vein, the Frank Sinatra character was originally to have been played by real-life Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, (more)
- 1947
Based on the humorous autobiographical book by Betty McDonald, The Egg & I casts Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray as Manhattan-dwelling newlyweds. When MacMurray enthusiastically purchases an upstate farm in the hopes of cleaning up in the egg business, Colbert cautiously goes along. The film's humor is derived from the efforts of these two hopelessly citified slickers to adapt themselves to the rigors of rural life. In a plot complication added to the film, pretty neighbor Louise Allbritton upsets the equilibrium of MacMurray and Colbert's union, but both husband and wife are happily reunited at the finale (in real life, Betty McDonald and her husband were splitsville before the book even hit the stands). Retained from the novel, though heavily laundered, were the earthy characters of farmers Ma and Pa Kettle and their huge brood of children. Marjorie Main as Ma and Percy Kilbride as Pa struck so responsive a chord with filmgoers that Universal headlined them in their own "Kettle" series of B pictures, which endured until 1956. The Egg & I would be adapted into a live TV comedy serial in 1952, with Pat Kirkland and John Craven in the leading roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, (more)
The Stranger is often considered Orson Welles' most "traditional" Hollywood-style directorial effort. Welles plays a college professor named Charles Rankin, who lives in a pastoral Connecticut town with his lovely wife Mary (Loretta Young). One afternoon, an extremely nervous German gentleman named Meineke (Konstantin Shayne) arrives in town. Professor Rankin seems disturbed--but not unduly so--by Meineke's presence. He invites the stranger for a walk in the woods, and as they journey farther and farther away from the center of town, we learn that kindly professor Rankin is actually notorious Nazi war criminal Franz Kindler. Conscience-stricken by his own genocidal wartime activities, Meineke has come to town to beg his ex-superior Kindler to give himself up. The professor responds by brutally murdering his old associate. If Kindler believes himself safe--and he has every reason to do so, since no one in town, especially Mary, has any inkling of his previous life--he will change his mind in a hurry when mild-mannered war crimes commissioner Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) pays a visit, posing as an antiques dealer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, (more)
- 1919
From its title, one would think this picture was a light comedy, but it isn't -- it's a World War I spy drama, a subject which was growing increasingly stale by early 1919. Carlyle Blackwell plays Charles Conant, a young, wellto-do man who is masquerading as a muleteer on a tramp steamer. He quits the boat in England to look up some distant relatives, Lord and Lady Dartridge. Lady Dartridge's daughter, Lady Joan Templar (Evelyn Greeley) helps him out by giving him work on the estate, but his behavior is suspicious. There are several workers who are secretly plotting to smuggle titanium on board a German submarine, and Conant is quite interested in their activities. Of course by the end of the film, he has proved himself a true-blue American by capturing these bad men -- it turns out that the titanium belongs to his father's company and was inadvertently sold to the Germans. Before Conant goes off to join the Lafayette Squadron in France, Lady Joan has decided to throw away her title and marry him. This convoluted film was originally a Saturday Evening Post story by Kenyon Gambier with an equally convoluted title: "A Huge, Black One-Eyed Man." Some of the English countryside in the picture looks an awful lot like Fort Lee, New Jersey, where World Pictures had its studio. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1918
This drama was based on the Miriam Michelson novel Michael Thwaite's Wife, and it gave Alice Brady the chance to play a dual role (something that was practically de rigueur for nearly every star in the 1910s). Although Louise and Trixie (both Brady) are identical twins, their temperaments couldn't be more different -- Trixie is flighty and frivolous while Louise is a dutiful homebody. Both of them love the same man, Michael Thwaite (David Powell). Thwaite is dazzled by Trixie's sparkle and marries her, but soon she grows bored with him and starts up a flirtation with Hendrick Thurston (Crauford Kent). While Trixie runs off with Thurston, Thwaite is beaten by thugs and blinded. To save him from suffering the shock of his wife's loss, Louise steps in and takes his wife's place. She happily takes care of Thwaite, but then Trixie shows up once again. Louise's place by Thwaite's side is threatened, but in pictures of the 1910s, the bad girl never came out on top, so by the last frames of the final reel, Trixie is out of the picture and Louise becomes Mrs. Michael Thwaite. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1918
The Studio Girl was the film version of the 1911 Billie Burke stage vehicle The Runaway. The original play's French locale was changed to New England, where Celia Laird (Constance Talmadge) resides with her two overprotective aunts. When artist Frazer Ordway (Earle Foxe) arrives in town, he falls in love with Celia -- much to the dismay of the aunts, who'd intended the girl to marry a local millionaire. Inasmuch as Frazer has his own romantic cross to bear in the form of his possessive fiance Adriana Peroni (Edna Earle), he and Celia decide that it might be best to go their own separate ways. But this proves impossible when the heroine inadvertently boards the wrong train and, with comparable guilelessness, ends up in Frazer's New York apartment. The film's climactic rainstorm was obviously shot during an actual deluge, which somehow enhanced its comic impact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1918
This film was purely a showcase for the charms of ex-Follies girl (and future Glenda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz) Billie Burke. It takes place at a vacation home in the mountains where several young couples have gathered. The group of friends go climbing, but Phyllis Ashbrook (Burke) and John Manning (David Powell) leave the others behind. They get lost and have to spend the night in a cabin. When they are brought back the next day, appearances compel them to marry, even though they are already engaged to others. They intend to get divorced as soon as possible so they can return to their original partners. Since this is a light romantic comedy, Phyllis and John eventually realize they are really in love with each other. Burke's outfits here got as many positive notices as the actress. In a couple of years, another star from the same studio, Paramount -- Gloria Swanson -- would also become famous for her fashions. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Marguerite Clark added to her already considerable film fame by appearing in a brace of comedies based on a Mary Roberts Rinehart character. In Bab's Burglar, Bab Archibald (Clark) is in boarding school, running through her dad's money like there's no tomorrow. She also gets mixed up in a planned elopement, involving her sister and sis' boyfriend. The burglar shows up instead of the boyfriend at the appointed hour, leading to no end of silly complications. Bab's Burglar performed so well at the box office that a sequel was immediately put into production (see Bab's Diary). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1917
In Bab's Burglar, we were introduced to boarding-school brat Bab Archibald (Marguerite Clark). In Bab's Diary, Bab comes home for the Christmas holidays. Given to fabrications, Bab has been keeping a diary in which she describes and imaginary boyfriend named Harold Valentine. Imagine what happens when a real Harold Valentine (Jack O'Brien) shows up as her parents' house guest. Like Bab's Burglar, Bab's Diary was based on a story by Mary Roberts Rinehart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1916
This first of four film adaptations of Israel Zangwill's stage comedy Merely Mary Ann starred Vivian Martin as the title character. The story involves the romance between a pretty boarding-house slavey (Mary Ann, of course) and a handsome young composer. A slave to his "art," the composer refuses to write popular tunes, even though this decision may reduce him to the dregs of poverty. When Mary Ann inherits a fortune, she offers to wed the composer so that he can follow his muse without worrying about finances. But he turns her down, worried that people will think he married her for her money. Eventually, of course, Love Triumphs. A Hungarian version of Merely Mary Ann was also filmed in 1916, directed by Michael Curtiz. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
