Marie Wilson Movies

March of the Wooden Soldiers is the 1952 reissue title for Hal Roach's 1934 film version of Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy star as Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee, bumbling apprentices to the master toymaker of Toyland. This joyous fairy-tale community is populated by all the colorful Mother Goose characters we know and love; the one sour apple in the barrel is mean old Silas Barnaby (portrayed by Henry Kleinbach, aka Henry Brandon). Barnaby holds the mortgage on the outsized shoe where Widow Peep (Florence Roberts) and her daughter Little Bo Peep (Charlotte Henry) reside, and where Stannie and Ollie pay room and board. Bo Peep will be forced to marry the odious Barnaby if the rent isn't paid, so Stannie and Ollie try to raise the money by asking the toymaker for a raise. But the boys are fired when Stannie messes up an order from Santa Claus: instead of making six hundred toy soldiers one foot high, the dumb Mr. Dum makes one hundred toy soldiers six feet high. The wedding between Barnaby and Bo Peep goes on as planned--except that it's Stannie, disguised as the bride, who ends up walking down the altar. Publicly humiliated, Barnaby vows revenge. He steals one of the Three Little Pigs and places the blame on Bo Peep's boy friend, Tom-Tom the Piper's Son (Felix Knight). The penalty for pignapping is banishment to Bogeyland, a fearsome subterranean world populated by hideous bogeymen (look closely and you'll see the zippers on their costumes!) Stannie and Ollie expose Barnaby's perfidy and rescue Tom-Tom from Bogeyland, whereupon Barnaby rallies the bogeymen and leads an all-out attack on Toyland. Taking refuge in the toy warehouse, Stannie and Ollie activate the 100 6-foot wooden soldiers (a neat bit of stop-motion photography, courtesy of Hal Roach's "fx" wizard Roy Seawright), who vanquish the Bogeymen and save the day. One of the best of all the Laurel and Hardy features, March of the Wooden Soldiers has been a television holiday perennial ever since the cathode tube was invented. Only a handful of Victor Herbert's songs are utilized, but these lilting compositions more than compensate for the omissions (one song, "I Can't Do That Sum", is used as the leitmotif for the clueless Stannie and Ollie). For years available only in the 70-minute reissue version, March of the Wooden Soldiers has recently been fully restored to its full glorious 78 minutes. The parent property Babes in Toyland was remade by Disney in 1961 (with Gene Sheldon and Henry Calvin as Laurel and Hardy wannabes) and for television in 1986, with new songs by Leslie Bricusse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, which manages to look back with nostalgia upon prohibition and the depression (no small accomplishment), George Raft plays George, a hoofer looking back on his glory days. His memories are triggered when The Paradise Club, a nightspot where he used to work, is about to be turned into a bowling alley. In the Roaring '20s, George and his partner Billie (Janet Blair) were a star attraction at The Paradise, run by Nick (S.Z. Sakall). George wants his relationship with Billie to be as graceful off-stage as on, but he has several rivals vying for her affections, including gangster Steve (Broderick Crawford) and policeman Dan (Pat O'Brien). Marjorie Rambeau plays Lil, modeled after brassy nightclub owner Texas Guinan. Raft actually worked for Guinan in his early days as a dancer, and he gets a chance to show off his fancy footwork accompanied by a number of classic tunes, including "Alabamy Bound", "Yes Sir, That's My Baby", "Sweet Georgia Brown", and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". Broadway was a loose remake of the 1929 Merna Kennedy vehicle of the same name. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Broadway Musketeers is a remake of the 1932 Warner Bros. drama Three on a Match, with numerous concessions made to the now more stringent Hollywood censors. Brought up together in an orphanage, three young ladies-Isabel (Margaret Lindsay), Fay (Ann Sheridan) and Connie (Marie Wilson)-vow to remain friends through thick and thin. Fate, however, has other things in store for the three heroines, obliging them to trod widely divergent paths in life. One of the three girls deserts her husband in favor of a group of crooked gamblers, culminating in the kidnapping of her beloved child (Janet Chapman). Horace McMahon essays the tough-guy role originally played in Three on a Match by Humphrey Bogart. Producer Bryan Foy is careful to add several new plot twists and characters to prevent Broadway Musketeers from being a carbon copy of its predecessor, not least of which is transforming the character originally enacted by Joan Blondell into a dizzy-blonde type played by Marie Wilson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The titular colleen is Ruby Keeler, hired to manage a dress shop by wealthy Dick Powell. Keeler is the replacement for slatternly Joan Blondell, who'd been assigned the job by Powell's philandering father (Hugh Herbert). With Powell and Keeler at the helm, it's no time at all before the musical numbers proliferate, though none of the songs have the staying power of those in such earlier Warners musicals as 42nd Street and Golddiggers of 1933. The best number, "Boulevardier from the Bronx", is familiar to modern viewers thanks to its constant use in Warner Bros. cartoons. A lesser Powell/Keeler outing, Colleen contains what many film buffs regard as the definitive performance of character comedian Hugh "Woo Woo" Herbert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Flying Blind was the third of William Pine and William Thomas' independent productions for Paramount release. The cast includes such Pine-Thomas "regulars" as Richard Arlen and Jean Parker, and like its two predecessors dealt with the more dramatic aspects of aviation. Arlen plays Jim Clark, operator of a honeymoon air service which shuttles between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The plot shifts into melodramatic gear when Clark is forced to deal with a gang of foreign spies, determined to steal a new transformer designed for American fighter planes. A wild and largely impossible airborne chase brings this one to a rousing conclusion. For the record, Jean Parker plays Clark's secretary Shirley Brooks, who not-so-secretly hopes that her boss will fly her to Vegas for matrimonial purposes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This hastily assembled sequel to the popular British service farce Up the Creek finds David Tomlinson returning in the role of Lt. Fairweather, skipper of the not-so-good ship Aristotle. This time, however, Fairweather's enterprisingly larcenous bos'un is played not by Peter Sellers but by music-hall favorite Frankie Howerd. The plot finds the Aristotle being sold to a mythical middle-eastern country. Assigned to deliver the vessel to its new owners, Fairweather discovers that his faithful bos'un has once again sold tickets to passengers, in direct violation of regulations. The resulting comic complications are as predictable as they are hilarious. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

King of Hockey was one of three low-budget hockey films released during the 1936-37 season, each one produced by a different studio. Dick Purcell stars as swell-headed hockey champ Gabby Dugan, whose career is abruptly terminated when he's accused of shaving points during a crucial game. Even worse, a blow on the skull induces temporary blindness, causing Gabby to wonder if he'll ever get to play again. Not only does he stage a spectacular comeback, but he also wins back the love of his estranged sweetheart Kathleen O'Rourke (Anne Nagel). A goodly portion of the film is given over to juvenile performer Ann Gillis, whom Warner Bros. evidently hoped would develop into the "new Shirley Temple" (even though there was still plenty of mileage left in the "old" Shirley Temple). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This nonsensical farce stars Robert Cummings as an air force reserve pilot, called back to active duty on the eve of his wedding to Marie Wilson. When he returns, he discovers that Wilson has inherited a million dollars, and plans to be the head of their household. Under the circumstances, Cummings decides not to get married and to re-enlist. The air force subjects poor Cummings to a team of psychiatrists, on the theory that any man who wouldn't want to marry the wealthy and voluptuous Ms. Wilson has to be crazy! Marry Me Again has the look, feel and logic of an animated cartoon, which shouldn't be surprising since the director is former Warner Bros. animator Frank Tashlin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on Frederick Hazlett Brennan's play Battleship Gertie, Miss Pacific Fleet is short and snappy "gobs and gals" affair. At the urging of gold-digging showgirls Gloria Foy (Joan Blondell) and Mae O'Brien (Glenda Farrell), goofy promoter Augustus Frietag (Hugh Herbert) comes up with a "Miss Pacific Fleet" contest, with each 10-cent purchase at a seaside amusement park representing one vote. Hundreds of sailors participate in the voting process, including Kewpie Wiggins (Allen Jenkins), who hopes that his "goil" Gloria will emerge the winner -- whereupon she and Mae will confiscate the money collected and skeedaddle to New York. Naturally, there are a few snags in this scheme, especially when the girls both fall for handsome marine sergeant Tom Foster (Warren Hull). Marie Wilson pilfers most of the film with her standard dizzy-dame routine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Musical producer Joe Pasternak moved from Universal to MGM in the early 1940s, taking his pet director Henry Koster (the two men had teamed to make a star of Deanna Durbin) with him. The Pasternak/Koster collaboration Music for Millions features child star Margaret O'Brien as a Durbin-like Miss Fix-it, who tries to help her pregnant older sister (June Allyson), who in turn is pining away for her GI husband. As it happens, the older girl is a cellist in Jose Iturbi's orchestra; thus, in keeping with the formula established by Pasternak's One Hundred Men and a Girl, many of the plot threads are knotted together in a series of concert recitals. The highlight of Music for Millions features Jimmy Durante, giving a stirring rendition of his famed nightclub piece "Umbriago." The film won an Academy Award nomination for screenwriter Myles Connelly, plus a special Oscar for moppet Margaret O'Brien. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1949, Paramount put together a film version of the radio series My Friend Irma. It was assumed that the main attraction would be scatter-brained Irma, delightfully played by Marie Wilson. Instead, the picture was stolen by a couple of young upstarts named Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Accordingly, My Friend Irma Goes West concentrates almost exclusively on Martin and Lewis, with poor Marie Wilson virtually consigned to a supporting role in her own picture. The story begins when Irma and her friends head westward on the incorrect assumption that Steve Laird (Dean Martin) has landed a movie contract. During the train trip to California, Steve's goonish pal Seymour (Jerry Lewis) is entrusted with a pet monkey, owned by movie star Yvonne Yvonne (Corinne Calvet). There's a contretemps with gangsters and a kidnapping before a happy ending can be realized. Some critics found Jerry Lewis' moronic mugging to be tasteless; others were too busy laughing to be upset. Having proven their mettle with the two My Friend Irma flicks, Martin and Lewis were awarded with their own vehicle, At War With the Army. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Self-centered Washington socialite Rosalind Russell joins the WACS in order to be near her boyfriend William Ching, a GI stationed in Paris. Russell is certain that her DC connections will enable her to get out of the service as easily as she got in. Unfortunately for her, Russell's ex-husband Paul Douglas decides to teach her a lesson by pulling a few strings himself. Several of the army-camp scenes are stolen by Marie Wilson as an amply proportioned chorus girl, who's joined the WACS to escape stage-door johnnies. Filmed in part on location at the Women's Army Corps training center at Fort Lee, Virginia, Never Wave at a WAC was produced by Rosalind Russell's husband, Frederick Brisson. The film was released in England as The Private Wore Skirts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide