Phil Regan Movies

MGM's Three Little Words is a "twin" musical biopic, covering the lives and careers of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. Fred Astaire plays Kalmar, a frustrated magician, while Red Skelton is cast as Ruby, a wannabe baseball player. After "meeting cute" during a disastrous vaudeville show, the oil-and-water Bert and Harry become a popular songwriting team, dashing off such favorites as Who's Sorry Now?, Nevertheless, So Long Oo-Long, I Wanna be Loved by You, All Alone Monday and the title song (the film unfortunately skimps on Kalmar and Ruby's Gilbert-and-Sullivan style novelty ditties, with the exception of Hooray for Captain Spaulding, Groucho Marx' signature tune in Animal Crackers). Adhering more to MGM formula than the facts, the script contrives to have Kalmar and Ruby split up over a trivial misunderstanding, only to be reunited by their wives for an "all is forgiven" radio broadcast hosted by bandleader Phil Regan. Vera-Ellen co-stars as Kalmar's vaudevillian wife Jessie Brown, while Arlene Dahl portrays Ruby's movie-star spouse Eileen Percy. Gloria DeHaven is seen as her own mother, Mrs. Carter DeHaven; and Debbie Reynolds plays "boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane, her singing voice dubbed in by Ms. Kane herself. Though not quite as humorous as the subject matter would seem to dictate (Red Skelton gets his biggest laughs in the scenes wherein he, as Harry Ruby, participates in spring training with his favorite baseball club) Three Little Words is an excellent example of MGM's musical unit at the height of its powers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, a struggling young singer falls in love with a nightclub owner whose father mistakes her for someone else and tries to convince her to serve a summons at the club. Fortunately, the love between the youngsters prevails. Music and happiness ensues. Songs include: Stormy Weather" (Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler) and "Just a Little Fond Affection" (Elton Box, Desmond Cox, Lewis Ilda), Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five with "Don't Worry About the Mule" (William Davis, Duke Groner, Charles Stewart), "A Tender Word Will Mend It All" (Doris Fisher, Allan Roberts) "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (Dorothy Fields, Jimmy McHugh), "Oh, Brother" (Matt Melneck, Allie Wrubel), "After All This Time" (Paul DeFur, Ken Thompson), and "Caledonia" (Fleecie Moore). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this semi-remake of Love is News (37), Betty Grable stars as a Gay-Nineties Bowery saloon singer. Ever seeking an opportunity for advancement, Grable heads to London, becomes a highbrow musical comedy "artiste", and concocts a scheme to land a wealth duke (Reginald Gardiner). Her plan is foiled by a snoopy reporter (Robert Young) from the Police Gazette who has long been a thorn in Grable's side. Young's motive has nothing to do with dishing out gossip; he's in love with Betty and wants her for his own. Tuneful frolics like Sweet Rosie O'Grady seem to be the collective reason that Technicolor was invented. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this high-flying drama, a foolhardy, free-spirited pilot throws his responsibilities as a mail pilot to the wind when he begins aggressively courting a beautiful flight attendant. Unfortunately, he pays so much attention to her, that he neglects his plane, resulting in the senseless death of his friend, a mechanic. Suddenly he becomes a pariah in the airline industry and no one will help him until the end of the film when he proves himself to be selfless and brave. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Musical comedy star Phil Regan headlines this modest Republic tunefest. He plays an American bandleader who inherits an Irish castle. With his band members and his singer (Penny Singleton) in tow, Regan takes charge of the castle, hoping turn it into a nightclub. Naturally, these plans arouses the ire of the local landed gentry, but pretty soon they're keeping in step with Regan's entourage. Like many Republic films of the 1930s, Outside of Paradise is generally available only in the 54-minute version prepared for television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this tuneful programmer a singer, believing that her husband, a Marine pilot accused of treason, has died in the Pacific, takes a job singing in Shanghai. There she see spies a certain handsome dancer in the club show who looks exactly like her late spouse. The resemblance is too uncanny for him to be anyone else. Surmising that he has amnesia, the singer decides she must somehow get him back and prove his innocence. But this is easier said than done as she soon discovers. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Singer-bandleader Phil Regan, Republic Pictures's answer to Dick Powell, stars in Laughing Irish Eyes. Regan plays Danny O'Keefe, a pugnacious County Cork blacksmith who rises to prizefighting fame in the U.S. Fight manager Pat Kelly (Walter C. Kelly) isn't above using his pretty daughter Peggy (Evelyn Knapp) to keep Danny happy, but things turn out OK when the boxer and the girl fall in love for keeps. The film is predicated on the notion that every true Irishman is a fighter or a singer at heart, a notion that worked just fine in 1936 but which might not go over quite as well in these more ethnically sensitive times. Serving as film editor on Laughing Irish Eyes was future cult-favorite director Joseph H. Lewis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An aspiring singer learns the bitter price of stardom in this musical drama. She starts out a small-town girl and soon becomes a big star. Unfortunately, she still cannot find true love and so must lead a successful but lonely life. Songs include: "He Was Her Man", "Let It Be Me", "Weary", and ""Who But You"". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This musical chronicles the rise to stardom of a humble bellhop after he is discovered by a talent agent. Though he becomes a very popular singer of contemporary songs, the young man really aspires to a career in opera. At first his manager is appalled and refuses to let him, but when his disconsolate star begins hitting the sauce, he relents and success ensues. Songs and production numbers include "Broadway Cinderella," "Where Am I?," "At Your Service Madam," "You Let Me Down," "Over Yonder Moon," "September in the Rain" (Al Dubin, Harry Warren), "Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie" (Carson J. Robison), and selections from "Aida" (Giuseppe Verdi), and "Martha" (Friedrich von Flotow). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The 1929 Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein Broadway musical Sweet Adeline has generally been credited as the vanguard for the "Gay 90s" nostalgia fad of the early 1930s. By the time the film was adapted to the screen in 1935, that fad had pretty much played itself out, making the property seem more old-fashioned than ever. Irene Dunne takes over from Broadway's Helen Morgan as beer-hall entertainer Adeline Schmidt, whose romance with songwriter Sid Barnett (Donald Woods) undergoes an inordinate number of setbacks in the course of the film's 85 minutes. Much of the play's libretto has been scrapped in favor of an espionage angle, as Adeline tries to avoid assassination at the hands of a Spanish spy named Elysia (Wini Shaw). Contemporary critics carped that Irene Dunne was unable to match Helen Morgan's delivery of such torch songs as "Why Was I Born"; this is true enough, but Warner Bros. deserves credit for endeavoring to cast Dunne against type. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Student Tour looks like an MGM musical two-reeler that was expanded to feature length as it went along. Charles Butterworth and Jimmy Durante are teamed respectively as fey philosophy professor Lippincott and brash athletic coach Hank. The two comics shepherd a co-ed college rowing team on a world tour, with orders to keep the team's rowdy captain Bobby (Phil Regan) out of trouble. Lackluster leading lady Maxine Doyle co-stars as Ann, a plain-jane who takes off her glasses at a Monte Carlo masquerade ball and wins BMOC Bobby for her very own. Ann also brings the story to a rousing conclusion by substituting for the cockswain in the climatic rowing race, urging the team to victory with a peppy song-and-dance. Nelson Eddy also shows up to sing "The Carlo," a pulsating number obviously inspired by "Bolero." The film's giddy highlight is "Taj Mahal," in which a group of pretty students (including a young Betty Grable) go swimming in the pool of the famous Indian shrine! According to studio publicity, a crop of genuine college coeds were hired to play the students in Student Tour, but to the trained eye they sure look like standard Hollywood extras and bit players. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A pre-stardom Bette Davis struggles mightily as the "other woman" in this rather obvious divorce court drama from Warner Bros. George Brent stars as William Reynolds, a hardworking but markedly unmotivated office manager whose wife, Nan (Ann Dvorak), manages to make ends meet with the little she's got. Enter Patricia Berkeley (Davis), a high-powered advertising exec, with whom William falls madly in love. Does he leave the little wife for the glamorous co-worker? Well almost, but all bets are off when young Buddy Reynolds (Ronnie Cosbey) is hit by a car and nearly killed. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide