Bobby Ray Movies
A minor (in both senses of the word) comedian from New York, Bobby Ray (real name Robert Fuhrer) co-starred with Oliver Hardy in four Mirthquake Comedies in 1925, a teaming that suggested the embryonic Laurel and Hardy. Ray, needless to say, was no Stan Laurel and the resemblance was purely superficial. The little comic went behind the camera after this brief partnership, directing Danny O'Shea in the service comedy Dugan of the Dugouts (1928) and then functioning as editor and/or assistant director on scores of mainly low-budget films, ranging from John Wayne's His Private Secretary (1932) to Navajo Trail, a 1945 Johnny Mack Brown oater. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide- 1938
Tex Ritter's final music Western for floundering company Grand National, The Utah Trail was yet another low-budget patch-up job with plenty of stock footage from earlier releases. Horace Murphy and Snub Pollard (who is credited as "Peewee Pollard" in the film's credits) once again lent dubious comedy relief, while Charles King took it on the chin for the umpteenth time. As opposed to Murphy, Pollard and King, Utah Trail proved the Western debut of Adele Pearce, a pert actress later known as Pamela Blake. Miss Blake summed up everyone's feelings when she years later told B-Western historian Boyd Magers: "It was terrible! I never saw it and never wanted to!" Ritter, who also supplied the story for The Utah Trail, played Tex Stewart, an agent for the Border States Railroad investigating sightings of a mysterious "ghost train." Posing as an outlaw, The Pecos Kid, Tex discovers that the mysterious train is part of a rustling operation headed by the well-named Hiram Slaughter (Karl Hackett) and his henchman Badger (King). At first, railroad heiress Sally Jeffers (Miss Pearce/Blake) is under the influence of Slaughter but she is soon enough convinced otherwise by Tex who, in between battling the Bad Guys, gets to sing Utah Trail by Bob Palmer and Give Me My Saddle and A Roamin' I'll Be by Frank Harford. Executive producer Edward F. Finney and director Al Herman filmed Utah Trail in a few days on an abandoned railroad siding bear Bakersfield, California, and at the movie ranches in Chatsworth. Finney and Ritter then enjoyed a more or less amicable parting of the ways with Grand National before relocating, lock, stock and barrel, at rival Monogram Pictures. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tex Ritter, Horace Murphy, (more)
Filmed after the star and his producer already had signed a new deal with rival company Monogram, this Grand National Tex Ritter Western slashed the usual parsimonious budget even further by recycling the entire final reel of Ritter's previous Sing, Cowboy, Sing. Filmed back-to-back with Utah Trail, Ritter's final Grand National Western, Rollin' Plains once again burdened the star with perhaps the worst comic sidekicks available at the time, Horace Murphy and Snub Pollard, the latter still sporting the paint-on mustache he had used since the silent days at Keystone. The three played rangers coming to the assistance of Gospel Moody (silent screen star Hobart Bosworth), a cattle rancher in trouble with an ornery sheepman, Trigger Gargan (Charles King). Soon, Gospel is accused of killing old Hank Tomlin (Horace B. Carpenter), an act actually committed by his half-brother Cain (Ernie S. Adams). With Tex's help, Moody stages his own "death," only to come back as a "ghost." Accompanied by a group calling themselves The Beverly Hill Billies, Ritter performed Rollin' Plains by Whitcup, Samuels and Powell, Me, My Pal and My Pony by Frank Harford, and Rock of Ages by Augustus Montague Toplady and Thomas Hastings. Hank Worden, a friend of Ritter's from his days on Broadway, appeared in a bit part, still billed under his real name, Heber Snow. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tex Ritter, Horace Murphy, (more)
A very young John Wayne is atypically cast as a randy playboy in His Private Secretary. Much to the dismay of his businessman father, Dick Wallace (Wayne) prefers a life of wine, women and more women to honest work. The elder Wallace demands that Dick take a job as his company's collection manager, and it is in this capacity that our hero heads to the small town of Somerville to collect a debt. Here he meets pretty Marion (Evelyn Knapp), the granddaughter of the man from whom Dick must extract overdue payments. Immediately putting the moves on Marion, Dick is rebuffed with a slap and several harsh words -- and for the first time in his life, the prodigal son is really in love! Inevitably, Marion ends up working as a secretary for Dick's dad, driving the poor boy crazy in his efforts to make up for his previous boorish behavior. Excerpts from His Private Secretary have frequently shown up in TV documentaries about John Wayne, as "proof" of his inability to act in his pre-John Ford years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Evelyn Knapp, John Wayne, (more)
- 1931
Silent screen serial star Charles Hutchison produced and directed this low-budget marital drama, which benefitted from one of those icy performances by the platinum blond Natalie Moorhead. Slinking her way through scores of early talkies, Moorhead -- sexy slouch and all -- created havoc whenever she arrived on the screen to drop a haughty remark or two. Here, she leads naive Sally Blane into almost having an affair with her husband's boss (Crauford Kent). Almost, but the pert Blane manages to resist the elderly man's dubious charms. Blane's equally naive hubby, Randolph Scott, at first believes that it is the brash Moorhead who's having the affair, but a valuable bracelet on his wife's arm convinces him otherwise. There is a confrontation and the proverbial shot in the dark. Both Blane and Scott assume the other shot the amourous Kent, but the shooter proves to be Moorhead's hot-headed husband Kenneth Harlan. She's having a tryst all right, but with someone named Perky, not Kent. The latter, who apparently wasn't having an affair with anybody, recovers from his gunshot wound and everyone lives happily ever after -- with their original spouses. Perhaps screenwriter John Francis Natteford could follow the needlessly complicated plot of this cheap potboiler, but nobody else could. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sally Blane, Natalie Moorhead, (more)
- 1927
Information about the slapstick comedy The Stupid Prince is sketchy. Some sources claim the film was a feature, while others dismiss it as a two-reel comedy. Whatever the case, the film revolved around a dimwitted dope who bears a striking resemblance to a visiting foreign prince. Three fireworks salesman cash in on the hero's looks to crash a high-society party, where they hope to sell their wares. But once they've arrived, the trio begins stealing the valuable jewels worn by the guests, whereupon "The Stupid Prince" turns the tables on the enterprising crooks. Heading the cast was Bobby Ray, a Harry Langdon look-alike who had earlier co-starred with Oliver Hardy in a series of cheap short comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobby Ray
- 1925
Bobby Ray and Oliver Hardy are rival bellboys at the Hotel Bilkmore in this two-reel farce, one of four "Mirthquake Comedies" the team would make for low-budget Cumberland Productions. The guest in room nine (Frank "Fatty" Alexander) is carrying a large bankroll, which both Ray and Hardy plan to help him spend. The Bilkmore, however, is rather ramshackle and a loose nail causes room number nine to appear as number six, causing Ray to repeatedly give the wrong guest a bath. Hardy, meanwhile starts a fire to divert attention from his plans to steal the bankroll, but he is caught by Ray and the inevitable chase is on. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oliver Hardy, Bobby Ray, (more)
- 1925
Although there's no longer any way to tell for sure (many records have been lost, and nitrate film negatives disintegrated), this seems to be the last time Oliver Hardy and Bobby Ray would appear in a film together (within a couple of years, Hardy would be teamed up with Stan Laurel, creating comic history). Ray plays the janitor at the local movie theater, and Hardy is his boss. The boss and his fiancée, the cashier, are planning to be married, and Bobby and his girlfriend decide to get married, too. But first Bobby has to post playbills all over town -- he winds up sticking them mainly on the townsfolk, including a cop, his sergeant, and the theater manager himself. The theater manager gets his marriage license mixed up with a playbill, which he doesn't discover until he arrives at the parson's home. He angrily goes after Bobby, who escapes and runs off with his boss' fiancée. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobby Ray, Oliver Hardy, (more)
- 1925
Diminutive Bobby Ray and portly Oliver Hardy play employees of the Blatz and Blatz Interior Design company, hired to wallpaper Dr. Brown's sanatarium. When an inmate accidentally drops alcohol into the hospital's water supply, the two drunken wallpaperers go at their work with a vengeance. A now-forgotten comic, Ray looked enough like Stan Laurel for this inexpensive two-reel comedy to be advertised as a Laurel and Hardy offering when released to the home movie market in the early '60s. Hardy himself later acknowledged that his character in this film resembled the Ollie of later fame, with a condescending attitude toward his less-brainy partner, dainty hand gestures and all. Produced by comedian Billy West and released as a "Mirthquake Comedy," Stick Around also featured Hazel Newman as a nurse and Harry McCoy as the owner of the sanitarium. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bobby Ray, Oliver Hardy, (more)
