Stanley Smith Movies
The plot of the Pine-Thomas adventure quickie Submarine Alert is more than a little beholden to Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. Richard Arlen plays FBI radio engineer Lee Deerhold, who turns bitter and vindictive when he is abruptly fired. Actually, his termination was engineered by his FBI superiors, so that Deerhold will be susceptible to a job offer from a gang of Nazi saboteurs. When Deerhold finally gets wise to what's going on, he finds himself being hotly pursued by practically everyone else in the picture. The better-than-average cast includes Wendy Barrie as undercover agent Ann Patterson, Nils Asther as a mysterious doctor, and Abner Biberman, Marc Lawrence and Dwight Frye as various villains. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Arlen, Wendy Barrie, (more)
- 1942
With America's Air Force not completely mobilized in mid-1942, Universal paid tribute to those foresighted Yankee flyboys who joined England's Royal Air Force before America's entry into WW2 in Eagle Squadron. Robert Stack stars as Chuck Brewer, one of several US flyers participating in RAF bombing raids of Germany. The film stresses the importance of hands-across-the-sea teamwork in this massive undertaking, concluding with Brewer leading his British compatriots on a Commando raid behind enemy lines, the better to capture a revolutionary new Nazi war plane. Every so often, the story slows to a walk as Brewer romances British lass Anne Partridge, played by the unfortunate Diana Barrymore in her last truly important screen role. Producer Walter Wanger made special arrangements with the British government to incorporate several exciting shots of authentic air battles in the film's 108 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Stack, Diana Barrymore, (more)
- 1941
Having joined the army in Buck Privates and the navy in In the Navy, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello signed up with Air Force in Keep 'Em Flying. Abbott and Costello play Blackie and Heathcliff, carnival workers who are fired from their jobs along with their pal, reckless stunt pilot Jinx Roberts (Dick Foran). When Jinx joins the Army Air Corps-the better to be nearer pretty USO singer Linda Joyce (Carol Bruce)-Blackie and Heathcliff loyally join up as well, obtaining low-echelon ground crew jobs. While Jinx tries to cure Linda's brother Jim (Charles Lang) of his fear of flying, Heathcliff pursues a romance with wisecracking waitress Gloria Phelps (Martha Raye), never quite catching on that Gloria has an identitical-twin sister (also Martha Raye). A bit too plot-heavy for its own good, Keep 'Em Flying is at its best when concentrating on Abbott & Costello, who in addition to performing their patented cross-talk routines participate in a zany runaway-torpedo chase and a gratuitous but amusing episode in a spooky carnival funhouse. As a bonus, Costello gets to do a bit of "straight" acting, and he's quite good at it. Deleted scenes include a comedy magic act (later restaged in Abbott & Costello's Lost in a Harem) and a wild episode at a skating rink (reworked two years later in Hit the Ice). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, (more)
- 1940
MGM had a tendency to overglamorize the sort of rough-hewn film fare that Warner Bros. offered to its public without adornments. Such was the case of Flight Command. Instead of Warners' streetwise James Cagney, the MGM film stars pretty-boy Robert Taylor as the obligatory hotshot cadet who chafes at the authority and discipline of a naval flight squadron. While Warners might have done without a romantic subplot, MGM contrives to have Taylor fall for the wife (Ruth Hussey) of squad commander Walter Pidgeon. And whereas Warners would have told this story compactly in 90 minutes, MGM lolls around for nearly two hours before Taylor's anticipated redemption and "make good" scene. MGM newcomer Red Skelton shows up in Flight Command for comedy relief, which turns out to be neither. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Taylor, Ruth Hussey, (more)
- 1933
The most exciting thing about Reform Girl is its title. Released from prison, hard-boiled Lydia Johnson (Noel Francis) immediately returns to her old lifestyle. In concert with a gang of crooks, Lydia tries to frame Senator Putnam (Hale Hamilton), a reform candidate. But when she falls in love with Putnam's straight-arrow campaign manager Joe Burke (Skeets Gallegher), she decides to turn the tables on her unsavory confederates. In a plot twist that could only happen in a hurriedly-assembled "B" picture, our heroine makes a startling discovery about her parentage. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Hale Hamilton, (more)
- 1933
Hard to Handle stars James Cagney as a fast-talking promoter who pounces upon every current fad and foible to make a quick buck. He promotes marathon dances (where spectators feel cheated because no one drops dead), crash diets, reducing creams and treasure contests, finagling his way into the confidence of high rollers and money men. In a cute "inside" joke harking back to a choice Cagney moment in The Public Enemy, our hero at one point takes up the promotion of grapefruits! Like most conners, Cagney isn't aware when he is being conned himself, and he falls victim to his marathon-dance business partner, who absconds with the winnings. The contest winner is pretty Mary Brian, whose mother (Ruth Donnelly) tries to extract payment by forcing Cagney to marry her daughter. He does, but only after eight reels of high-pressure wheeling and dealing. In the tradition of Jimmy Cagney's other early-1930s, Hard to Handle is socked over by the energetic insouciance of its star. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Mary Brian, (more)
- 1932
In this romantic comedy, a socialite has an argument with her sweetie and decides to exact revenge by spending the whole day, and much of the night with a notorious playboy. It is all innocent, but unfortunately, gossip ensues and she loses her job. Things get worse when the scandal gets back to her beau and he threatens to call of their wedding. The whole mess is straightened out when the playboy comes forth and swears her innocence. Later it is he that becomes her husband. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Nancy Carroll, (more)
- 1932
Stepping Sisters was a variation on Fox Studio's favorite plots, "three girls on the make," the difference being that the three ladies depicted herein were well past the "girl" stage. Louise Dresser, Minna Gombell, and Jobyna Howland are cast as Mrs. Ramsey, Rosie La Marr, and Lady Chetworth-Lynde, who try to keep their past lives as burlesque dancers a secret as they hobnob with High Society. But blood will tell, and soon all three ladies have reverted to their old bump-and-grind routines, much to the dismay of their sophisticated companions. Somehow it was inevitable that at least one of the heroines would end up with a pie in her face; in this instance, its is Lady Chetworth-Lynde, the most pretentious of the trio, who is the recipient of the flying custard. A dash of drama is thrown in the stew when it appears that the impending marriage of Mrs. Ramsey's daughter Norma (Barbara Weeks) will be endangered by the revelation of her mom's show-biz past (it isn't, as it turns out). Stepping Sisters certainly sounds fascinating, and one hopes that someday this long-lost film will be found by some enterprising archivist or other. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louise Dresser, Minna Gombell, (more)
- 1930
The 1916 Alice Duer Miller play Come Out of the Kitchen, previously filmed in 1921 with Marguerite Clark, was expertly transformed into early musical Honey. The story takes place in a poverty-stricken Virginia household, where blue-blooded brother and sister Olivia and Charles Dangerfield (Nancy Carroll and Skeets Gallagher) are reduced to renting out their mansion. Pretentious Yankee dowager Mrs. Falkner (Jobyna Howland) moves in with her spunky daughter Cora (Lillian Roth) in tow, while Olivia and Charles remain as servants. It isn't long before Cora has fallen in love with Charles, and Olivia has done likewise with Cora's former fiancee Burton Crane (Stanley Smith). The songs range from the self-spoofing "In My Little Hope Chest" to the lively "Sing You Sinners" (later used as a jazzy leitmotif in several Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons!) The Alice Duer Miller original was filmed again in 1934 as the British comedy Come Out of the Pantry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Carroll, Stanley Smith, (more)
- 1930
Lensed at Paramount's Astoria studios, Follow the Leader is the film version of the 1927 Broadway musical Midnight Mary, with Ed Wynn making his talkie debut in his original stage role. The story has something to do with bombastic Broadway singer Helen King (Ethel Merman in her first feature-film appearance) and her understudy, winsome Mary Brennan (Ginger Rogers). To make certain that Rogers will be able to go on in Helen's place, comedy-relief character Crickets (who else but Wynn?) is hired to kidnap the latter. He makes precious little effort to hide his larcenous intentions, noisily stumbling into the lobby of Helen's hotel with the tools of his trade -- rope, sledgehammers, et. al. -- in full view of the assembled guests. Amazingly, he manages to bind Helen to a chair, only to wind up knocking himself out with a bottle of chloroform. Needless to say, Mary becomes a star, but the audience never sees Crickets or Helen again; for all anyone knows, they may still be locked up in that hotel room. Incredibly silly, Follow the Leader did little to advance the careers of any of its stars, though Ed Wynn and Ethel Merman continued packing 'em in on Broadway. If nothing else, the film offers modern audiences a chance to see several vaudeville headliners in action, including Lou Holtz, James C. Morton and Bobby Watson (here cast as Broadway impresario George White instead of his usual guise as Adolph Hitler). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ed Wynn, Ginger Rogers, (more)
Popular Broadway comedian Ted Healy (sort of a Milton Berle without the charm) was tapped for potential movie stardom by Fox Studios, who cast Healy in the wacky semi-musical comedy Soup to Nuts. The film was written by comic-strip artist Rube Goldberg (who also appears in the film), utilizing several of Goldberg's zanier comedy notions, including his incredibly complex "inventions." Healy plays a fireman who comes to the rescue of Mr. Schmidt (Charles Winninger) when the latter's costume shop faces foreclosure. Our hero's get-rich-quick schemes generally come acropper, but all is resolved in the climactic scene wherein Healy and his fellow smoke-eaters rescue Schmidt's daughter Louise (Lucille Browne) and her millionaire sweetheart (Stanley Smith) from a roaring blaze. Only recently made available for reappraisal, Soup to Nuts is of inestimable historical value as the movie debut of Ted Healy's Three "Stooges" Moe Howard (billed as Harry Howard), Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine, here joined for the first and last time by a fourth stooge, the relentlessly unfunny Fred Sanborn. Though somewhat restrained throughout the film, the Stooges enliven several otherwise plodding scenes with their tried-and-true material. The best bits included the gruesome threesome's opening song ("You'll Never Know Just What Tears Are") -- in which they stand stock still and flinch not an inch as Sanborn drops heavy sandbags in their vicinity -- and a hilarious extended routine at a costume party, culminating with Larry's deadpan "elevator dance" ("No steps!"). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ted Healy, Stanley Smith, (more)
- 1930
In this musical comedy, two partners in the garter business fight for control and decide to play a round of poker to settle their differences. The winner will get to run the company for a year while the loser will serve as his butler. Meanwhile a pretty girl falls in love with one of their sons. Songs include: "Everything Will Happen for the Best" (B.G. DeSylva, Lewis E. Gensler), "Brother, Just Laugh It Off" (Arthur Schwartz, Ralph Rainger), "It Seems to Me", "I'm Afraid of You" (Dick Howard, Rainger), "I Love the Girls in My Own Peculiar Way" (E.Y. Harburg, Henry Souvain). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stanley Smith, Ginger Rogers, (more)
- 1930
Considered the best of the all-star "studio" musicals of 1929 and 1930, Paramount on Parade utilized the talents of practically everyone on the Paramount Pictures payroll. Under the supervision of British musical-comedy favorite Elsie Janis, 11 top directors contributed to the project: Dorothy Arzner, Otto Brower, Edmund Goulding, Victor Heerman, Edwin H. Knopf, Rowland V. Lee, Ernst Lubitsch, Lothar Mendes, Victor Schertzinger, Edward Sutherland and Frank Tuttle. Introduced by masters of ceremonies Jack Oakie, Skeets Gallegher and Leon Errol, the film is a vaudeville-like maelstrom of musical duets, comedy sketches, occasional dramatic interludes, and spectacular production numbers. To mention all the highlights would take a book in itself but among them are Nancy Carroll's rendition of "Dancing to Save Your Sole" (performed inside a giant shoe!); Maurice Chevalier (and chorus) soaring heavenward in "Sweeping the Clouds Away" ; child actress Mitzi Green's dead-on impersonations of Chevalier, George Arliss, Moran & Mack and Helen "Boop-a-doop" Kane; Ernst Lubitsch's witty staging of an Apache dance in the style of a polite boudoir farce, with Chevalier (again) and Evelyn Brent; Clara Bow's saucy "I'm True to the Navy Now" ; the wish-fulfillment sketch "Impulses," in which George Bancroft and Kay Francis delightedly upset a dinner party by saying what's really on their minds; and best of all, "Murder Will Out," a murder-mystery parody wherein Fu Manchu (Warner Oland) bumps off Sherlock Holmes (Clive Brook) and Philo Vance (William Powell) when they refuse to give him proper credit for his killing of Jack Oakie. Only the dramatic sketch with Frederic March and Ruth Chatterton truly creaks when seen today. Originally released at 102 minutes, Paramount on Parade is presently available only in an 80-minute version, with all its Technicolor sequences missing: casualties include the elaborate "Drink to the Girl of My Dreams" number, directed by Edmund Goulding and featuring Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur and Fay Wray, and Harry Green's dialect song "Isadore the Toreodor". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice Chevalier, Richard Arlen, (more)
- 1930
The DeSylva-Brown-Henderson Broadway musical Good News was first brought to the screen by MGM in 1930. The scene is Tait College, where everyone is in a blue funk over the dilemma of gridiron star Tom (Stanley Smith). Since the only thing he's ever passed is a football, Tom is in danger of flunking out before the Big Game. Plain-looking Connie (Mary Lawlor) is enlisted to tutor Tom through his final exams, and in the process the two students fall in love -- much to the dismay of campus vamp Patricia (Lola Lane). Managing to finagle a marriage proposal out of Tom, it looks as though Patricia will emerge triumphant, but all is set aright during the lavish Technicolor finale. Good News is an instructive example of how Hollywood perceived the movie musical during this period: While much of the film is shot in the static, nailed-down-camera technique so common to early talkies, several isolated sequences -- most of them featuring comedy-relief characters Bessie Love and Gus Shy -- are cleverly and inventively photographed (as Love shoots dice with the football team, the camera records her reactions from the dice's point of view!) Many of the original play's songs are retained in the film, including the title number, "The Best Things in Life are Free" and the lively "Varsity Drag," performed con brio by soubrette Dorothy McNulty (later known as Penny Singleton) and including such esoterica as animated wall paintings and a superimposed thermometer which boils over as the dancing gets "hotter. Future writer-director Delmer Daves has a good supporting role as surly campus jock "Beef." Existing prints of Good News are minus the final Technicolor reel, but Turner Films has provided a videotaped synopsis, complete with production stills, for television showings. Good News was remade -- and vastly improved upon -- by MGM producer Arthur Freed in 1947. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Lawlor, Stanley Smith, (more)
- 1930
Clara Bow, the "It" girl of the silent screen, goes through the motions of the Cinderella yarn Love Among the Millionaires. A humble (but dazzlingly beautiful) waitress, Pepper Green (Bow) wins the heart of Jerry (Stanley Smith), the son of a wealthy railroad magnate Hamilton (Claude King). The father, evidently well-versed in Camille, begs Pepper to give up Jerry, suggesting that she behave in a "tartish" manner so as to disillusion the boy. Reluctantly, she does so, but be assured that True Love will out by the end. It isn't that Clara Bow was an inept talkie actress: it's simply that her flapper "type" was woefully out of date in the Depression era. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clara Bow, Stanley Smith, (more)
- 1929
In this comedy, a college sophomore gets into deep trouble when he gambles away his tuition money on the first day of school. Now to pay for his education, he must work as a soda jerk at a local fountain. There he meets and falls in love with a pretty coed. Because the shop's owner also loves her, he fires his rival. The student is now destitute and unemployed. He is just about to drop out when the money he needs mysteriously arrives in the mail. He thinks the money came from his mother and then begins readying himself for the big football game. He ends up sidelined until the final three minutes of the game. It is a tie score. No sooner is the hapless fellow placed on the field than he fumbles the ball and is knocked unconscious. He groggily awakens on a stretcher and as he is carried off the field, he learns that the girl paid his way. Suddenly the excited fellow sits bolt upright, leaps from the stretcher and begins running across the field to catch her before she boards the train. As he runs, the ball is thrown to him and he manages to score the winning touch down. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Quillan, Sally O'Neil, (more)
- 1929
In this college-campus musical, a Broadway star finds herself the proud owner of a North Carolina college. The star's boy friend attends the school where he is a big football hero. The trouble begins when the star begins trying to convince the young man to forget about school and elope with her and he refuses because he would let down his team. The determined young woman begins trying to force him to give up football, but she fails. Songs include: "My Sweeter Than Sweet," "The Prep Step," "I Think You'll Like It," "Alma Mammy" ( a parody of Jolson's minstrel classic, sung by Jack Oakie), "Bear Down Pelham" (Richard A. Whiting, George Marion, Jr.), "He's So Unusual" (Al Lewis, Abner Silver, Al Sherman), "Sweetie" (sung by Helen Kane). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Carroll, Helen Kane, (more)
