True Boardman, Jr. Movies

Newly paroled and working at a group home for convicts' children, ex-prisoner Carl Parkos (Paul Burke) receives word that his oldest son has been killed in a gang fight. It is up to Chief Ironside to prevent Parkos from exacting vengeance against the killer, not so much for Carl's sake as for the man's surviving son. Featured as one of the Parkos kids is juvenile actor Butch Patrick, late of The Munsters and Lidsville. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

At large in the Bay Area is an elusive maniac who has assaulted several different women--all blondes, all single and living alone, all approximately 25 years old. There was one other thing that the victims had in common: all of them had met their assailant through a computer dating service. In order to bring the criminal out in the open, Eve (Barbara Anderson) signs up for the service and sets herself up as bait. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After purchasing the diary of an alleged suicide victim at an auction, Della (Barbara Hale) is surprised when someone offers her $1000 for the book. Turning down the offer, the intrigued Della begins paging through the diary, ultimately arriving at the conclusion that its author did not kill herself, as originally reported. Della brings the diary to the attention of her boss Perry Mason (Raymond Burr)--thereby setting off a chain of strange and sordid events, culminating in Perry's defense of Josephine Kempton (Lurene Tuttle) on a murder charge. The "grinning gorilla" mentioned in the title is played by celebrated stunt man and simian impersonator Janos Prohaska. This episode is based on a 1952 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

'Tis murder most foul when actor Franz Lachman (Jeff Morrow), starring in a stage production of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", is stabbed to death during Romeo's duel with Paris. There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell you that the police charge Steve Brock (Rex Reason), the actor playing Paris, with murder. In his efforts to save the star-cross'd Brock from the gas chamber, Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) concludes that "the play's the thing," wherein he'll catch the conscience of the real murderer. Thus, Perry moves the trial to the scene of the crime--then asks the "Romeo and Juliet" troupe to re-enact the events leading up to the moment that Lachman shuffled off his mortal coil. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Abbott & Costello vehicle Hit the Ice started life as satire of health clinics, with Lou Costello cast as a hypochondriac who used a streetcar conductor's change-purse to dispense pills to himself. By the time the film hit the screens, it was a standard A&C melange of comedy, music and fast-paced chase scenes, with nary a pill in sight. Bud and Lou are cast as would-be photojournalists Flash and Tubby, who inadvertently snap a picture of two bank robbers leaving the scene of the crime. Accused of knocking over the bank themselves, our heroes find it expedient to hide out at a Sun Valley ski resort. Here they tie up with Silky Fellowsby (Sheldon Leonard), the mastermind of the bank heist, who is led to believe that Flash and Tubby are a couple of Detroit "hit men". In the course of events, Tubby falls in love with Silky's girl Marcia Manning (Ginny Simms), romancing her by pretending (with Flash's dubious assistance) to be an accomplished concert pianist. The final confrontation with the crooks leads to an elaborate chase on skis, with all manner of hilarious (and wildly impossible) sight gags. The barely necessary romantic subplot involves doctor Bill Elliot (Patric Knowles) and nurse Peggy Osborne (played by Elyse Knox, the mother of actor Mark Harmon). Best bits: the classic "packing-unpacking routine, a zany skating sequence, and the old "I'll bet I can stand next to you and you can't touch me" chestnut. Hit the Ice was Lou Costello's last film before rheumatic fever kept him off screen for a full year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a harem in a Middle Eastern palace, the guardian leads the women he protects in telling the tale of Halroun-Al-Raschid (Jon Hall), the Caliph of Bagdad, who found himself an enemy close to home in the form of his half-brother Kamar (Leif Erickson), who was ineligible for the throne because of his mother's having been a slave. Halroun and his followers initially put down Kamar's attempt at usurpation, until Halroun's ambitious vizier Nadan (Edgar Barrier) changes sides. In the confusion of the ensuing battle, Halroun is wounded -- spotted by the young acrobat Ali (Sabu), he is sheltered by a group of traveling players led by Ahmad (Billy Gilbert), whose ranks also include a player and storyteller (and, if he is to be believed, former sailor) named Sinbad (Shemp Howard) and a man named Aladdin (John Qualen) who is searching for a magic lamp -- and a dancer named Scheherazade (Maria Montez), who had beguiled Kamar and welcomes his ascent to the throne, because she has been told that she is destined to marry a king. She loves the wounded man in her care, whose identity she doesn't know, but is intent on marrying Kamar, now that he is Caliph. But her plans are thwarted by Nadan, who wants no competition from her in his sway over Kamar, and has arranged to have her killed; but when an avaricious officer (Turhan Bey)instead sells her and the entire performing troup to a dishonest slave trader (Thomas Gomez). From that moment, complications ensue for all concerned, as the new Caliph goes after his beloved, the deposed king Halroun tries to protect her and regain his throne, and Nadan hopes to come out sitting on the throne himself. Treachery and narrow escapes, and even a few thwarted plans ensue on all sides as the hero Haroun has to watch out for Scheherazade and himself from several sides at once, all while keeping his identity from her. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

One of the most often revived of Abbott & Costello's early-1940s films, Pardon My Sarong casts Bud and Lou as Chicago bus drivers Algy Shaw and Wellington Pflug. At the behest of millionaire playboy Tommy Layton (Robert Paige), Algy and Wellington hijack their own bus and speed off to California so that Tommy won't be late for an important yachting race. Our heroes are hotly pursued by bus-company troubleshooter Kendall (William Demarest), while Tommy's trail is dogged by rival yacht-owner Joan Marshall (Virginia Bruce). Eluding Kendall when they inadvertently drive their bus into the ocean, Algy and Wellington are rescued by Tommy and Joan, who through a plot wrinkle have been forced to share the same yacht. After several days of drifting aimlessly across the Pacific, the yacht ends up on a remote South Sea Island, where Algy and Wellington flirt capriciously with the local native girls. Through a fluke, Wellington is served up as a sacrifice victim and ordered to enter a sacred volcanic mountain-which happens to be the hideout for jewel thief Varnoff (Lionel Atwill) and his gang. The story wraps up with a zany Sennett-like chase, with Wellington attempting to rescue the kidnapped Joan from Varnoff's speedboat. Filled to overflowing with hilarious sight gags, cross-talk routines and throwaway lines, Pardon My Sarong scores on two levels: as a devastating send-up of Dorothy Lamour jungle epics and as a first-rate vehicle for Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. One one quibble: the film certainly could have done without the scene in which Bud invites Lou to commit suicide! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this Navy drama, a young sailor finds himself interested in everything but marriage. But then he encounters a runaway orphan who sees the sailor and decides that he would do anything to make him become his father. He begins dogging the salt, who does everything he can to get rid of the troublesome kid. Eventually he can't help but care for the poor lad and so adopts him. A pretty woman comes along and soon their little family is complete. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide