Leonard Sues Movies

After an absence of three years, Mae West returned to the screen in the musical comedy The Heat's On. La West is cast as Fay Lawrence, a famous Broadway actress who is loved intensely by her producer Tony Ferris (William Gaxton). Rival producer Forrest Stanton (Alan Dinehart) steals Fay away from Ferris by convincing her that she's been blacklisted from Broadway by blue-nosed moralist Hannah Bainbridge (Almira Sessions). Meanwhile, Hannah's puckish brother Hubert (Victor Moore) syphons money from his sister's "clean up show business" committee to produce a musical show for his actress niece Janey (Mary Roche). Somehow, all these characters converge for a spectacular closing production number spotlighting the formidable Fay. Part of the reason for the failure of The Heat's On is the fact that Mae West didn't write her own dialogue, as was usually her custom. The film performed so poorly that it would be 27 years before West would again appear on the Big Screen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this musical comedy, a musical comedy star is finally reunited with her estranged son whom she hasn't seen in 20 years. She is so happy she buys him a little restaurant which he and his friends turn into a dinner theater. Soon they make the place a great success. Songs include: include "Annabella," "It Makes No Difference When You're in the Army" (Johnny Lange, Lew Porter), "Put Your Trust in the Moon" (June Baldwin, Charles Callender), "Zis Boom Bah" (Elaine Cannon), "Good News Tomorrow," "I've Learned to Smile Again" (Neville Fleeson). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A nightclub singer becomes actively involved in the education of the son she has never seen. She uses almost everything she makes to pay his tuition and expenses. One day she goes to the college to see how well he is doing. She is horrified to see that he is squandering his opportunity by spending his time going to parties and carousing with women. Later she learns that the college is nearly bankrupt. To save it she opens a club near campus and uses the profits to help out. Meanwhile her son grows up a bit, understands why education is important and buckles down to become a serious student. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this musical comedy, a motley band of musicians have only their extreme poverty in common. They end up writing a hit and getting a recording contract. The trouble is, the composer's works are never played without another band member doctoring them up to make them swingier. Fortunately, the composer isn't too averse to the changes as he has just won the heart of the beauty who sings his revamped songs. Songs include: "Where Did You Get That Girl?" (Harry Puck, Bert Kalmar, sung by Helen Parrish), "Sergeant Swing," "Rug-Cuttin' Romeo" (Milton Rosen, Everett Carter). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Paramount followed up its successful Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard co-starrer The Cat and the Canary (1939) by warming up another venerable "old dark house" stage play, Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard's The Ghost Breaker, pluralizing the title to accommodate both stars. This time Hope plays radio personality Lawrence L. Lawrence (the middle initial stands for Lawrence: "My folks had no imagination") who has to flee New York to avoid being mistakenly arrested for murder. He and his manservant Alex (Willie Best) book passage on a Cuba-bound liner, where they meet lovely heiress Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard). She is heading to Cuba to take charge of her ancestral mansion, despite warnings from several sinister characters that to enter this "haunted" house will mean certain death. Appointing himself Mary's protector, Lawrence investigates the mansion on his own, thereby crossing the path of a zombie (Noble Johnson) and an apparently genuine ghost. He also meets the twin brother of the man he's accused of killing (Anthony Quinn), who seems the most likely suspect when Mary nearly comes to harm. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Hey, gang! Let's put on a swell show and call it Strike Up the Band! Yes, it's the irrepressible Mickey Rooney, teamed up again with Judy Garland to show the grownups how to do things right. This time, Rooney wants to organize a high-school band. He hopes to enter a competition being held in Chicago by the great orchestra leader Paul Whiteman; all he needs is two hundred dollars for train fare. To raise the money, Rooney, Garland and company stage a student "mellerdrammer" that in real life would have cost the equivalent of a third-world-nation annual budget. They get the dough, but soft-hearted Rooney turns over the money to the mother of student musician Larry Nunn, who is in desperate need of emergency surgery. It looks hopeless until, luck of luck, Paul Whiteman arrives in Rooney's town. The original George and Ira Gershwin Broadway musical Strike Up the Band was a satire of warfare, with America declaring war on Switzerland in order to corner the chocolate industry. You'll see none of that subversive stuff in this MGM musical; instead, we are treated to such highlights as a George Pal animated sequence involving dancing fruit. It ain't profound, but Strike Up the Band is sure entertaining. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Paramount's screwball comedy Midnight is the first collaboration between director Mitchell Leisen and screenwriting duo Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. The film merges Brackett and Wilder's early emphasis on repartee and masquerade with ex-costume designer Leisen's flair for high style and sophistication. American Eve Peabody (Claudette Colbert), a wily ex-showgirl, must impersonate Hungarian royalty in order to infiltrate the Parisian jet set. Midnight begins during a midnight rainstorm as Eve arrives penniless at Paris' Gare de L'Est, owning only the gold lamé gown on her back. She attracts the attention of Hungarian cab driver, Tibor Czerny (Don Ameche), but walks out on their budding romance; Eve will no longer make the mistake of dating for love rather than money. Instead, she finds shelter from the downpour by crashing a socialite's late-night soirée using a pawnticket and a pseudonym, the Baroness Czerny (the cab driver's surname). There, Eve meets aristocrat Georges Flammarion (John Barrymore), who entices her with a place in society if she agrees to remain disguised as the Baroness and seduce his wife's playboy lover. Meanwhile, Tibor Czerny has not given up his search for Eve. When he locates her whereabouts and discovers the fact that she is using his name, Tibor also travels to the Flammarion estate -- to win back Eve, and to pose as her husband, the Baron. What ensues is quintessential screwball comedy, full of deception, love, quadruple entendre, and outright farce. Midnight remains Leisen's most heralded directorial effort, as well as one of Brackett and Wilder's earliest successes. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, Rovi

Technicolor is the main attraction of this overheated South Seas adventure. Ray Milland, Akim Tamiroff and Barry Fitzgerald play three shifty sailors who commandeer a smallpox-ridden boat and set out to sea. A typhoon washes them ashore on a faraway Pacific island, which is ruled by a white religious fanatic (Lloyd Nolan) who has set himself up as the local god. The three sailors anxiously await an opportunity to appropriate the "god's" valuable stash of pearls and head for the mainland. Only one of the sailors escapes to tell his story; check out the cast list and guess which one survives. The third filmization of Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osborne's novel, Ebb Tide is rough going until Lloyd Nolan shows up to deliver the picture's best and subtlest performance. The story would be filmed again in 1947 as Adventure Island. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi