Bobby Watson Movies

Danny Kaye headlines this lively WW II-era comedy. He plays a foot soldier who with his fellow troop is preparing for D-day. Trouble begins when he is caught pretending to be the most important generals in England, a man he closely resembles. The two look so much alike that military intelligence assign him to keep on impersonating the general so as to keep the Nazis on their toes. He is good at his job and fools many of the general's staff. He does not, however, fool the general's estranged wife. Still in order to protect her country, she goes along with the ruse. Things get really sticky when the real general is killed and Army intelligence asks Kaye to continue with the deception. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Bold and the Brave traces the destinies of three American soldiers stationed in Italy during World War II. Wendell Corey is top-billed as an idealistic soul who doesn't believe in killing. Don Taylor portrays a religious bigot, who can't see anything in terms other than Good and Evil. The most intriguing (and entertaining) member of the trio is Mickey Rooney, an inveterate gambler who runs a floating crap game up and down the Italian front. Since Rooney frequently declares that he's building up enough money to open a fancy New York restaurant, it's a foregone conclusion that he's not going to get out of the war alive. The title song for Bold and the Brave was cowritten by Mickey Rooney and Ross Bagdasarian, the latter best known as the creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of the most subtle and sophisticated of the musical comedies that came out of MGM's Arthur Freed Unit in the '40s and '50s, The Band Wagon stars Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter, a movie star whose career is in a downturn. Looking for a boost, Tony decides to try starring in a Broadway musical. His friends Lester and Lily Marton (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray) have written a show they feel would be just right for Tony, and the three team up with Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan), a self-styled "genius" director, who gets the idea to turn the play into a revised version of Faust. Cordova's more pretentious ideas don't always sit well with the Martons, and Tony isn't too happy with his leggy co-star, Gaby Gerard (Cyd Charisse), whom he's convinced is too tall (then again, she thinks he's too old). But when the show proves a disaster in out-of-town tryouts, everyone realizes they have to put aside their differences if they want a show that will be on Broadway for longer than four hours. The Band Wagon featured a rare American appearance for British musical star Jack Buchanan, who does a fine soft-shoe with Fred Astaire on "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan." Astaire also shines in the numbers "Shine on Your Shoes" and "The Girl Hunt," a witty Mickey Spillane parody. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions onscreen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can't stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the company of aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), whom he met while escaping his screaming fans. Watching these intrigues from the sidelines is Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), Don's best pal and on-set pianist. Cosmo is promoted to musical director of Monumental Pictures by studio head R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) when the talking-picture revolution commences. That's all right for Cosmo, but how will talkies affect the upcoming Lockwood-Lamont vehicle "The Dueling Cavalier"? Don, an accomplished song-and-dance man, should have no trouble adapting to the microphone. Lina, however, is another matter; put as charitably as possible, she has a voice that sounds like fingernails on a blackboard. The disastrous preview of the team's first talkie has the audience howling with derisive laughter. On the strength of the plot alone, concocted by the matchless writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Singin' in the Rain is a delight. But with the addition of MGM's catalog of Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs -- "You Were Meant for Me," "You Are My Lucky Star," "The Broadway Melody," and of course the title song -- the film becomes one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Set just after the close of the Civil War, a former Confederate officer (Ray Milland) joins a vaudeville target-shooting show to avoid detection by the Union army. Working his way West, he falls in league with a group of Southern copper-miners being harassed as they try to make a living. ~ John Bush, Rovi

John Farrow's movie adaptation of Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock, based on a screenplay by Jonathan Latimer (and produced by future James Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum), is a near-perfect match for the book, telling in generally superb visual style a tale set against the backdrop of upscale 1940s New York and offering an early (but accurate) depiction of the modern media industry. Told in the back-to-front fashion typical of film noir, it opens with George Stroud (Ray Milland) trapped, his life in danger, his survival measured in the minute-by-minute movements of the huge central clock of the office building where he's hiding. In flashback we learn that Stroud works for media baron Earl Janoth (Charles Laughton), loosely based on Henry Luce, as the editor of Crimeways magazine. Janoth is a manipulative, self-centered megalomaniac with various obsessions, including clocks; among other manifestations of the latter fixation, the skyscraper housing his empire's headquarters has as one of its central features a huge clock that reads out the time around the world down to the second.

Twenty-four hours earlier, on the eve of a combined honeymoon/vacation with his wife, Georgia (Maureen O'Sullivan), that has been put off for seven years, Stroud was ordered by Janoth to cancel the trip in order to work on a special project, and he resigned. As the narrative picks up speed, in his depression, Stroud misses the train his wife is on and crosses paths with Pauline York (Rita Johnson), a former model for Janoth's Styleways magazine, who is also Janoth's very unhappy mistress, and the two commiserate by getting drunk together in a night on the town. While hurriedly leaving Pauline's apartment, he glimpses Janoth entering. Janoth and York quarrel, and the publisher kills her in a jealous rage, using a sundial that she and Stroud picked up the night before while wandering around in their revels. Janoth and his general manager, Steve Hagen (George Macready), contrive to pin the murder on the man that Janoth glimpsed leaving York's apartment, whom he thinks was named Jefferson Randolph -- the name Stroud was drunkenly bandying about the night before. He gets Stroud back to Crimeways to lead the magazine's investigators in hunting down "Jefferson Randolph," never realizing that this was Stroud. And Stroud has no choice but to return, desperately trying to gather evidence against Janoth and, in turn, prevent the clues gathered by the Crimeways staff from leading back to him. The two play this clever, disjointed game of cat-and-mouse, Janoth and Hagen planting evidence that will hang "Randolph" (and justify his being shot while trying to escape), while Stroud, knowing what they don't about how close the man they seek to destroy is, arranges to obscure those clues and, in a comical twist, sends the least capable reporters and investigators to follow up on the most substantial clues.

Janoth sometimes seems to be unraveling at the frustrating pace and lack of conclusion to the hunt, but Stroud can't escape the inevitable, or the moments of weakness caused by fear and his own guilt over his near-unfaithfulness to his wife or the inscrutable gaze of Janoth's mute bodyguard Bill Womack (Harry Morgan), a stone-cold killer dedicated to protecting his employer. The trail of proof and guilt winds ever tighter around both men, taking some odd twists courtesy of the eccentric artist (Elsa Lanchester) who has seen the suspect. Milland is perfect in the role of the hapless Stroud, and Laughton is brilliant as the vain, self-centered Janoth, but George Macready is equally good as Hagen, his smooth, upper-crust Waspy smarminess making one's skin crawl. Also worth noting is Harry Morgan's sinister, silent performance as Womack, and sharp-eyed viewers will also recognize such performers as Douglas Spencer, Noel Neill (especially memorable as a tart-tongued elevator operator), Margaret Field (Sally's mother), Ruth Roman, and Lane Chandler in small roles. Additionally, the Janoth Publications building where most of the action takes place is almost a cast member in itself, an art deco wonder, especially the room housing the clock mechanism and the lobby and vestibules, all loosely inspired by such structures as the Empire State Building and the real-life Daily News headquarters on East 42nd Street. This film was later remade as No Way Out. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

This wild, once-controversial comedy stars Betty Hutton as Trudy Kockenlocker, a man-crazy single girl whose favorite pastime involves entertaining every visiting GI in town. One morning after a particularly wild night, Trudy labors under the apprehension that last eve, she'd married a soldier named Ratzkywatzky or something. Evidently something had happened that night, for soon Trudy discovers that she's pregnant. She hides this information from her bombastic policeman father (William Demarest), and before long, Trudy's on-again, off-again boyfriend, hapless bank clerk Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), gets tapped to be the father of the unborn child. He takes the assumed name Ratzkywatzky and poses as a GI (in a World War I uniform!). Unfortunately, this only leads to further complications.
Disasters pile up thick and fast, and before long Norval is facing arrest on a variety of charges. Then the miracle of the title occurs. This vintage Preston Sturges farce plays so fast and loose with the censorial restrictions of mid-1940s Hollywood that critic James Agee was moved to comment that, "the Hays office must have been raped in its sleep." As usual, Sturges populates his cast with steadfast members of his stock company-- including, in guest roles, Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff, the stars of his previous film, The Great McGinty. Originally filmed in 1942, Miracle was held from release for an inordinate period of time. The picture was remade (and considerably laundered) as the 1958 Jerry Lewis vehicle Rock-a-bye Baby.

~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In one of their most genial comedies -- based on a Damon Runyon story -- Bud Abbott and Lou Costello have to help one friend (Cecil Kellaway) replace his beloved carriage horse, and another friend (Leightno Noble) put together a US Army camp show. Through a misunderstanding, they take what they think is a worthless nag from a racetrack stall, only to discover that they've actually stolen "Tea Biscuit," the world's greatest racehorse. Not only are the authorities after the pair -- who try to hide the horse in their hotel room -- but so is freelance trouble-shooter Eugene Pallette (who already has had one unrelated run-in with the boys), and complicating matters even further are three racetrack touts (led by Shemp Howard) who want to cash in on the mistake. Grace McDonald and Patsy O'Connor), along with bandleader Noble and the Step Brothers, provide the music and dancing in this wild romp, that takes us from New York's Central Park to the racetrack at Saratoga. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

In this light romantic comedy, William B. Whitley (William Powell) is an astronomer who is very excited about his latest discovery, a comet that has been named after him. However, Whitley has been so busy tracking the course of his comet as its path leads straight into the moon that he's been ignoring his new wife, Vicky (Hedy Lamarr). Bored and lonely, one day Vicky visits an astrologer who informs her that she will -- on a specific day -- meet a handsome stranger, and they will fall in love. A bit perplexed at this news, Vicky shares the astrologer's report with William; however, he's so appalled that she would waste her time on pseudo-scientific hooey like astrology that he storms out of the house, moving into his observatory for a few days. On the predicted day, Vicky is wondering what happened to her dream man when an air raid warden, Lloyd Hunter (James Craig), shows up to confront Vicky and ends up going inside her house and shutting off her lights. Vicky and Lloyd strike up a conversation, and she begins to realize that he could well be the man the astrologer predicted she would meet; Vicky is interested in him, but just as he's leaving, William returns. William, however, senses that Vicky is infatuated with Lloyd, and he quickly hatches a devious plan to win back her good graces. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Columbia Pictures evidently felt that ex-boxer "Slapsy" Maxie Rosenbloom was the funniest man on earth, despite the fact that he consistently proved otherwise in vehicles like Harvard, Here I Come. This little masterpiece finds Rosenbloom, playing himself, receiving an award from the satirical Harvard Lampoon for his well-known stupidity. Instead of being enrage, Slapsie Maxie is delighted by the "honor", and promptly tries to enroll at the ivy-league university. Upon arriving on campus, our punchy hero is pounced upon by a group of eccentric scientists led by Professor Alvin (Byron Foulger), who is convinced that Rosenbloom is the "missing link" that science has long been searching for. The professors subsidize Maxie's education, which seems to consist exclusively of fraternity hazings and product endorsements! Though a zaftig Yvonne de Carlo shows up in several publicity stills for Harvard, Here I Come, she is nowhere to be seen in the film itself; instead, the leading-lady duties were handled by Marie Wilson, whose character comes across as even dumber than Maxie Rosenbloom, if such a thing is possible. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

German director Joe May was light-years removed from his glory days at UFA when he helmed the "Little Tough Guys" entry Hit the Road. This time, the youthful protagonists-Tom (Billy Halop), Pig (Huntz Hall), String (Gabe Dell) and Ape (Bernard Punsley)-are all the orphaned sons of gangsters who'd been murdered by mob boss Spike (Edward Pawley). "Graduating" from reform school, the boys show every sign of follwing in their parents' footseps, so they're paroled in the custody of kindhearted reformed gangster Jimmy Ryan (Barton MacLaine). Taking the kids to his cattle farm, Ryan gives them more than enough chores and responsiblities to keep them out of trouble, and before long the boys have cleaned up their act-but not without a bit of strong-arm persuasion from Ryan's tough-talking wife Molly (Gladys George). When Spike and his mob try to steal the $50,000 which the Ryans have saved to build a Boys' Town-like school for wayward youths, the Little Tough Guys rally to the defense of their benefactors, throwing punches and wisecracks with reckless abandon. The most pleasant aspect of Hit the Road is the presence of charming leading lady Evelyn Ankers (who later recalled having to fend off the amorous advances of teenaged Huntz Hall by deploying a well-aimed knee!); the least pleasant is the lachrymose performance of child actor Bobs Watson, who never spoke when crying would do. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Secrets of a Model was an "exploitation" picture, designed for theatre-by-theatre distribution and a quick financial turnover. Sharon Lee heads the cast as Rita Wilson, a country girl who comes to the big city in hopes of becoming a model. To make ends meet, she takes a job at a carhop, providing the opportunity for a brief but tantalizing sequence in which Rita and her coworkers strip to their undies before donning their uniforms. While on duty, Rita is ardently wooed by handsome milkman Bob Grey (Julien Madison) and by shifty-looking Jack Thorndyke (Harold Daniels), whom the audience pegs as a villain because he wears a mustache. Jack promises to find a modelling job for Rita, but this is merely a come-on to trap her in his boudoir. In the nick of time, Bob breaks down the bedroom door, trounces Thorndike and rescues Rita from a fate worse than death (though the scene is nebulously directed, suggesting that perhaps Rita has been deflowered by the caddish Thorndike). It's hard to tell whether the producers were taking this thing seriously or not: in its own way, Secrets of a Model is as ineptly hilarious as that granddaddy of exploitationers, Reefer Madness. Incidentally, leading lady Sharon Lee later changed her name to Cheryl Walker, and under this monicker was one of the leading players of the 1943 morale-booster Star Door Canteen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Hero for a Day is elderly night watchman Frank Higgins (Charley Grapewin), still basking in the memories of his long-age college football triumphs. To stir up publicity for a crucial post-season game, his alma mater plucks Higgins out of obscurity and once more showers him in glory. The old man's triumph turns to tragedy when he drops dead during the Big Game, but at least he goes out secure in the knowledge that his protégé Brainy (Dick Foran) has scored the winning touchdown. Critics in 1939 were amused by the inconsistencies during the gridiron sequences (the scenes appeared to have been shot at several different stadiums, then haphazardly patched together in the cutting room) and by the lavish wardrobe sported by "humble" stenographer Sylvia Higgins (Anita Louise). Featured in the cast of Hero for a Day is Richard Lane, who seems to have been in every sports movie ever produced between 1935 and 1945. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi