Charlie Ruggles Movies

Granny is both astonished and flattered when she finds herself courted by two distinguished suitors: Milburn Drysdale's father-in-law Lowell Farquahr (Charlie Ruggles) and Drysdale's banking rival Mr. Cushing (Roy Roberts). Of course, the audience knows that both men are merely interested in Granny's money -- but try telling that to Granny. Jo Ann Pflug appears as Lil. "Granny Lives It Up" was first broadcast on November 23, 1966. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Herman (Fred Gwynne) may be up for a better-paying position at the mortuary, but only if he can get a special hearse-driving license. Accordingly, Herman takes a driving test, with disastrous results. Hoping to re-qualify for the exam, Herman accompanies Grandpa (Al Lewis) to a small town where there will be fewer cars (and fewer pedestrians!) for him to plow into as he practices. Prominent in the proceedings is an old-timer named Charlie Wiggens, played by veteran character comedian Charlie Ruggles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charles Ruggles, who played soup tycoon Philip Caldwell in the first-season Bewitched episode "Help, Help, Don't Save Me," returns to the series in the role of Aunt Clara's former boyfriend, warlock Hedley Partridge. Not wishing to reveal that Clara has lost her magic touch (literally), Samantha makes certain that all of her aunt's tricks work when Hedley pays a visit. But then Sam leaves the room and the result is chaos and confusion for both Hedley and the eternally snoopy Gladys Kravitz. First aired on November 25, 1965, "Aunt Clara's Old Flame" was written by Bernard Slade. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story arc, Mrs. Drysdale's aristocratic -- and perennially broke -- father, Lowell Farquhar (Charles Ruggles), is still hanging around Beverly Hills. Hoping to strike it rich at the gaming tables, Farquahr invites Granny -- and her millions -- to accompany him to Las Vegas. But Granny believes that the old reprobate wants to marry her. "Mr. Farquhar Stays On" was originally telecast on December 8, 1965. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maurice Chevalier plays Philip Dulaine, a supposedly dying millionaire, while Sandra Dee co-stars as Cynthia, the elderly man's granddaughter. To allow Dulaine to die happy, Cynthia promises to find a husband. Actually, Dulaine is only pretending to be at death's door to get Cynthia married off. Subsequent complications involve Cynthia's personal choice for a husband, Warren Palmer (Andy Williams), and Dulaine's selection, Paul Benton (Robert Goulet). Deanna Durbin fans will quickly detect that I'd Rather Be Rich is a remake of Durbin's It Started With Eve (1941), with a gender switch (in the original, Robert Cummings is the grandson, and Durbin is the instant fiancee) and with Maurice Chevalier filling the sizeable shoes of Charles Laughton as the foxy grandpa. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This charming tale is about a young girl's father and his slightly erratic behavior after sampling a refreshing alcoholic beverage. Although Papa Jack Griffith (Jackie Gleason) never appears to be drunk, his "delicate condition" is well known to his family. His wife is definitely unhappy over his penchant but loves him just the same. He is adored by his youngest daughter, six year old Corinne (Linda Bruhl). When he tries to buy a pony for Corinne, he not only gets the pony but the entire broken down, debt ridden circus as well. This is too much for wife Ambolyn (Glynis Johns), who packs up the kids and heads for her father's house in Texarkana. Jack follows with the entire circus in pursuit to take his loving family back home. He also hoodwinks some local investors to put money into a proposed drug store, thereby circumventing a blue law that forbids the sale of alcohol. Gleason's performance contain many fine moments that run the full spectrum of human emotions and clearly illustrates why he has deservedly been referred to as "The Great One." ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Tony Ryder (Dean Martin) thinks that Katie Robbins (Shirley MacLaine) was the mistress of a recently deceased millionaire. On this fragile plot peg hangs the rest of All in a Night's Work. The millionaire died with a smile on his face, and Tony, who stands to inherit the dead man's publishing business, suspects that Katie, who has been left a fortune, administered the "favors" that pushed the old coot into the great beyond. Katie, wholly innocent, resents Tony's implications and gives him the brush-off. All turns out for the good when Tony realizes that he loves Katie for herself and not for her legacy. It took three writers (five, if you count the authors of the play upon which this film is based) to cook up the tickle-and-tease souffle that we've come to know as All in a Night's Work. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This highly anticipated and lavishly publicized semi-musical TV adaptation of Kay Thompson's "Eloise" stories stars 7-year-old Evelyn Rudie as the titular 6-year-old heroine. As devotees of the books written by Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight already know, Eloise is a precocious little girl who lives with her Nanny, her dog Weenie (actually a cat) and her turtle Skipperdee at New York's posh Plaza Hotel. Forever sticking her nose into other people's business, Eloise tries to promote a "storybook" romance between a visiting Prince (Louis Jourdan) and a hotel chambermaid (Inger Stevens). Despite the presence of several venerable guest stars playing themselves--including Ethel Barrymore, Monty Woolley, hotelier Conrad Hilton and Kay Thompson herself--"Eloise" was one of the biggest flops in the history of the CBS anthology Playhouse 90. What seemed cute and whimsical in print came off as loud and obnoxious, largely due to the overbearing personality of child actress Evelyn Rudie. Incredibly, several subsequent attempts were made to foist Rudie on the public, including a not-bad episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but the kid never quite became another Shirley Temple, and faded from view after a few years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The short but colorful life of American musical comedy star Marilyn Miller is given the standard prettified Hollywood treatment in Look for the Silver Lining. June Haver, an accomplished dancer-singer in her own right, is well-cast as Miller, who rises from an appendage in her parents' vaudeville act to the toast of Broadway. Along the way, she suffers such personal tragedies as the wartime death of her first husband, songwriter Frank Carter (Gordon Macrae), but manages to smile through the tears and go on to even loftier showbiz heights. The film ends in 1936, the year of Miller's death; we last see her "giving her all" to her audience, while an offstage observer makes ominous comments about her future. The Phoebe and Henry Ephron/Marian Spitzer screenplay (based on a story by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby) glosses over Marilyn Miller's notorious prima donna behavior; she is shown lording it over the "little people" in only one scene, whereupon she is gently put in her place by the remonstrative Frank Carter. Charles Ruggles and Rosemary DeCamp co-star as Miller's vaudevillian parents, while Ray Bolger is his usual ebullient self as Jack Donahue; also on hand are S.Z. Sakall and Walter Catlett, recreating a scene from Miller's 1925 Broadway triumph Sally (Catlett had appeared in the original production). Look for the Silver Lining was produced by Warner Bros., the same company that released the real Marilyn Miller's three starring films back in the early days of the talkies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from a play by Honore de Balzac, Lovable Cheat offers a veritable smorgasbord of Hollywood's top character actors. The title character, one Claude Mercadet, is played by Charlie Ruggles. Posing as a wealthy Parisian, Mercadet fleeces friends and casual acquaintances alike. He is forced into this life of crime to keep up appearances, so that his daughter Julie (Peggy Ann Garner) can land herself a rich husband. Iris Adrian enjoys one of her largest film roles as Ruggles' wife; Alan Mowbray is right in his element as an elegant butler; and future financial advisor Richard Ney is ironically cast as an impoverished bank clerk. Also on hand is Buster Keaton, as a nonplused creditor who spends his screen time waiting in vain for his missing business associate Godot (could playwright Samuel Beckett have seen this film?) Not entirely successful, Lovable Cheat is nonetheless a courageous exercise in the offbeat. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It Happened On Fifth Avenue was easily the most ambitious movie made by the then-newly-organized Allied Artists for at least a decade after its release -- actually, as a "Roy Del Ruth Production," it was made through rather than by Allied Artists, which may explain why it stands so far apart from the Bowery Boys movies and other productions normally associated with Allied during this period. And amazingly, it works, mostly thanks to a genial cast and a reasonably light touch by director/producer Roy Del Ruth, and in spite of a script that needed at least one more editorial pass. Victor Moore is the star and dominant personality -- if there is one in what is, basically, an ensemble cast -- as Aloyisius T. McKeever, a genial hobo whose annual routine for finding winter quarters is to wait for multi-millionaire Michael O'Connor (Charlie Ruggles) to lock up his Fifth Avenue mansion and head to Virginia, and move in during the man's absence. He chances to meet Jim Bullock, a homeless WWII veteran (displaced, ironically, by one of O'Connor's development projects), and gives him shelter in the mansion. They become a trio when O'Connor's free-spirited daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) shows up, fleeing her finishing school, and the two men -- thinking she's an impoverished runaway from an abusive father -- take her in. She goes along with the masquerade and gradually falls in love with Jim, who also chances to meet two former army buddies (Alan Hale, Jr., Edward Ryan) who -- you guessed it -- are also desperately trying to find homes, in their cases for their wives and growing families. Now there are nine people living in the shelter of O'Connor's Fifth Avenue mansion, and in between setting up housekeeping, Jim and his two buddies manage to come up with an idea about how to build homes for veterans and their families. Trudy, her identity still a secret to the other, gets her father to meet the "squatters" incognito, in hope that he'll take to Jim, but a series of misunderstandings and his own impatience and lack-of-faith leads him to reject everything decent he sees about Trudy's friends. In desperation, to keep them from being evicted and arrested, she calls in reinforcements in the person of her mother (Ann Harding), long estranged from her father. O'Connor is still not convinced of Jim's worth, and definitely doesn't see him as a potential husband for Trudy -- and, in a comic mix-up, he ends up going head-to-head with Jim for the property where he plans to build those houses for veterans, causing them to lock horns once more. Matters do eventually fall into place, as they usually do in Christmas movies of this sort, which more closely resembles The Bells of St. Mary's or One More Spring -- to name another movie about displaced New Yorkers -- than It's A Wonderful Life (with which it is usually compared). It Happened On Fifth Avenue is usually defined as a Christmas movie, in part because of its plot time-line, but more than that, it's a movie that, like George Seaton's Miracle On 34th Street -- made the same year -- sings of the generosity of the human spirit, and the feeling of renewal that was in the air in the immediate post-World War II era, a funny, gentle, warm look at people making their way in a time when, for the first time since the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War, cautious optimism seemed an appropriate approach to life. And not for nothing was this reportedly lead actor Don Defore's personal favorite of all of his movies. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In later years, director Fred Zinneman seldom referred to My Brother Talks to Horses as one of his career highpoints. Even so, this leisurely period comedy has its moments, most of them delivered by precocious Jackie "Butch" Jenkins as the title character. Living with his family in Baltimore, 9-year-old Lewie Penrose (Jenkins) claims that he can converse with horses-and also pick the winners of upcoming races. When it appears as though Lewie is telling the truth, he attracts the interest of gambler Rich Roeder (Charles Ruggles), who needs a "sure thing" in the upcoming Preakness. Meanwhile, Lewie's older brother John (Peter Lawford) carries on a romance with the lovely Martha (Beverly Tyler). An unexpected tragedy slows down the film in the home stretch, but otherwise My Brother Talks to Horses is a pleasant second-echelon MGM production. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide