Harry Crane Movies

Running a short and sweet seven minutes and two seconds, "What's Her Name" originally aired as a sketch on the March 21, 1953, edition of The Jackie Gleason Show. Little more than a comic anecdote, the sketch finds the Kramdens and the Nortons discussing a movie that they've just seen. After arguing over the merits of romantic leads Ronald Colman and Lana Turner, Ralph Kramden tries to recall the name of a supporting actress who appeared in the film. Unable to come up with the right answer, a frenzied Ralph manages to keep the entire neighborhood awake, culminating in an angry visit from the local cop -- who inadvertently comes up with the correct name! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ralph invites his bus company supervisor Freddie Muller to dinner at the Kramden apartment. Ralph hopes to discuss a possible promotion, but every time he brings the subject up, Alice inadvertently butts in. The limit comes when Alice switches on the radio and suggests that everyone -- Freddie, his wife, Ralph, and herself -- dance the mambo. As soon as the Mullers leave, Ralph reprimands Alice for spoiling his chances for a promotion. As it turns out, however, Alice's "interference" was the best thing that could have happened to him. "Dinner Guest" originally aired as a ten-minute sketch on The Jackie Gleason Show of May 2, 1953. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Alice is chosen to appear in a magazine advertisement for Glow Worm sink cleanser -- much to the dismay of Ralph, who is afraid that Alice will desert him in favor of a career as a glamour model. He quickly changes his mind, however, when the company invites him to appear in the advertisement as well. Alas, the head of the ad agency decides that Ralph isn't the right "type" to appear as Alice's husband, and hires a handsome male model instead. If you think that Ralph is going to take this turn of events lying down, then you don't know your Honeymooners! "Glow Worm Cleaning" originally aired June 27, 1953, as a ten-minute sketch on The Jackie Gleason Show; a computer-colorized version of this sketch also exists. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Overhearing Alice as she rehearses for a play, Ralph jumps to the conclusion that Alice intends to kill him. His suspicions seem to be confirmed when Alice drops a vitamin in Ralph's juice. Convinced that Alice is trying to poison him, Ralph confronts her with the "evidence." Extracting a sweet revenge, Alice downs the juice and launches into an exaggerated death scene worthy of a Bette Davis! A happy ending caps this 11-minute sketch, which originally aired on January 24, 1953, as a component of The Jackie Gleason Show. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

On their wedding anniversary, Ralph and Alice eagerly prepare to exchange presents. Confiding in Ed Norton, Ralph shows off his gift for Alice -- a rare, "one of a kind" jewelry box, constructed of 2,000 matchsticks. Imagine Ralph's dismay when Trixie presents Alice with an identical box, then reveals that it only cost $2.98. Ashamed to admit that he has purchased so inexpensive a gift, Ralph claims that Alice's present will arrive by mail within the next day or so. At this precise moment, a delivery man shows up at the Kramden apartment, with a box containing a $25 dress purchased by next-door neighbor Mrs. O'Leary. Guess what happens next! A precursor to the "Classic 39" Honeymooners episode "Twas the Night Before Christmas," "Anniversary Gift" originally aired as a ten-minute Jackie Gleason Show skit on February 21, 1953. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

While filling out his income tax return, Ralph concludes that he owes the government 15 extra dollars -- money that he just plain doesn't have. When Alice suggests that Ralph relinquish the 15 bucks he'd been saving for a bowling ball, Ralph loudly refuses. Ultimately, however, a sheepish Ralph turns the money over to charity, then delivers a patriotic curtain speech that would probably not go down well with the overtaxed audiences of the early 21st century! Originally seen as an 11-minute sketch on The Jackie Gleason Show, "Income Tax" first aired on March 7, 1953. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ralph Kramden is upset that his wife Alice has dragged him all over town on a shopping tour, merely to save a few cents here and there on groceries. As it turns out, the scrimping and saving was all for naught: Alice has spent all of Ralph's weekly $42 paycheck. Both Ralph and Alice then produce a bit of hidden "mad money," which they had been hoarding to buy anniversary presents for one another. This O. Henry-like playlet comes to a riotous conclusion when Ralph, seeing Alice uncharacteristically eating pickles, assumes that he is about to become a father. At seven minutes one of the shortest Honeymooners sketches still in existence, "Pickles" originally aired on the November 8, 1952, edition of The Jackie Gleason Show. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One man's good luck leaves a very bad impression in this comedy. Johnny Dalton (Frank Sinatra) and Mildred Goodhug (Jane Russell) are two tellers working at the same bank who have fallen in love and want to get married. However, neither is making much money, and Johnny doesn't want to set a date until he has some savings in the bank. Emil J. Keck (Groucho Marx), a pal of Johnny's who waits tables at a diner, suggests that it can't be that difficult to "find" some money in a bank, but Johnny prefers to stay on the straight and narrow. However, Johnny enjoys a sudden windfall after he happens upon "Hot Horse" Harris (Nestor Paiva), a racetrack tout being beaten up by ne'er-do-wells, and breaks up the fight. Grateful Harris places a bet on a "can't lose" horse in Johnny's name, and suddenly Johnny is $60,000 richer. But before Johnny and Mildred can enjoy their good fortune, word leaks out that someone has embezzled $70,000 from the bank, and the suddenly prosperous Johnny seems a likely suspect. Double Dynamite was produced under Howard Hughes' supervision at RKO, but bad blood between Hughes and Sinatra led to "Ol' Blue Eyes" receiving third billing for the film's leading role; the film also spent over a year on the shelf before finally hitting theaters. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

So baseball pictures never make money, eh? Try telling that to MGM, which raked in a box office gross of $4 million on their 1949 baseball musical Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Set in 1906, the film concerns the adventures and misadventures of The Wolves, a champion ball club. The team's success is contingent upon the double-play combination of "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg." But while Goldberg (Jules Munshin) lives to play baseball, O'Brien (Gene Kelly) and Ryan (Frank Sinatra) would rather pursue their off-season vaudeville career. Both erstwhile song-and-dance men decide to stick around on the baseball diamond when they mutually fall in love with the Wolves' new owner, the lovely K.C. Higgins (Esther Williams). Though O'Brien wins K.C. for himself, Ryan is compensated with the aggressively affectionate Shirley Delwyn (Betty Garrett). Gambler Joe Lorgan (Edward Arnold), who has bet heavily against the Wolves in an upcoming Big Game, woos O'Brien away from the team with promises of a big role in an upcoming musical comedy. Having let down K.C. and the rest of the team, O'Brien vows to redeem himself by playing in the crucial game. Lorgan gets wind of this, and orders his henchmen to do away with O'Brien. Hoping to shield his buddy from harm, Ryan beans O'Brien with a pitched ball, thereby incapacitating the prodigal player. The crooks are vanquished, and K.C. forgives O'Brien. But upon learning that Ryan had knocked him out, O'Brien charges onto the diamond, thirsting for revenge. Believe it or not, this action results in no fewer than two winning home runs! We offer you this detailed synopsis because it's likely that you'll be too entertained by the film's musical numbers to pay any attention to the story. Outside of the title number and Gene Kelly's solo "The Hat My Father Wore on St. Patrick's Day," the picture's best songs are contributed by Betty Comden, Adolf Green and Roger Edens. Take Me Out to the Ball Game is so delightful as it stands that one can only wonder what the film would have looked like had MGM's first choice Kathryn Grayson--or the studio's second choice, Judy Garland--played the Esther Williams role (In a similar vein, the Frank Sinatra character was originally to have been played by real-life Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher!) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

By 1946, MGM's musical output was in the hands of two men: the incisive, progressive Arthur Freed, and the sentimental, old-fashioned Joe Pasternak. It was Pasternak who held the reins on Two Sisters from Boston, a period piece set in New York. June Allyson and Kathryn Grayson arrive fresh from prim 'n' proper Boston, only to secure work as entertainers in a rowdy Bowery saloon. Since the saloon owner is lovable old Jimmy Durante, the girls have nothing to fear so far as physical outrages are concerned, though they just barely withstand the assault to their eardrums when Schnozzola sings "G'wan Home, Your Mother's Calling." The cultural portion of the program is handled by Metropolitan Opera star Lauritz Melchior, who though in excellent voice isn't as much fun to watch as Durante. The efficacy of Joe Paternak's candy-box approach was proven by the excellent boxoffice response to Two Sisters From Boston. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The presence of William Powell as legendary showman Flo Ziegfeld at the beginning of Ziegfeld Follies might lead an impressionable viewer from thinking that this 1946 film is a Technicolor sequel to the 1936 Oscar-winning The Great Ziegfeld. Not so: this is more in the line of an all-star revue, much like such early talkies as Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Paramount on Parade. We meet a grayed, immaculately garbed Ziegfeld in Paradise (his daily diary entry reads "Another heavenly day"), where he looks down upon the world and muses over the sort of show he'd be putting on were he still alive. Evidently Ziegfeld's shade has something of a celestial conduit to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, since his "dream" show is populated almost exclusively by MGM stars. Vincente Minnelli is given sole directorial credit at the beginning of the film, though many of the individual "acts" were helmed by other hands. The Bunin puppets offer a tableau depicting anxious theatregoers piling into a Broadway theatre, as well as caricatures of Ziegfeld's greatest stars. The opening number, "Meet the Ladies", spotlights a whip-wielding (!) Lucille Ball, a bevy of chorus girls dressed as panthers, and, briefly, Margaret O'Brien. Kathryn Grayson and "The Ziegfeld Girls" perform "There's Beauty Everywhere." Victor Moore and Edward Arnold show up in an impressionistically staged adaptation of the comedy chestnut "Pay the Two Dollars". Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer (a teaming which evidently held high hopes for MGM) dance to the tune of "This Heart is Mine." "Number Please" features Keenan Wynn in an appallingly unfunny rendition of an old comedy sketch (performed far better as "Alexander 2222" in Abbott and Costello's Who Done It?) Lena Horne, strategically placed in the film at a juncture that could be edited out in certain racist communities, sings "Love". Red Skelton stars in the film's comedy highlight, "When Television Comes"-which is actually Skelton's classic "Guzzler's Gin" routine (this sequence was filmed late in 1944, just before Red's entry into the armed services). Astaire and Bremer return for a lively rendition of "Limehouse Blues". Judy Garland, lampooning every Hollywood glamour queen known to man, stops the show with "The Interview". Even better is the the historical one-time-only teaming of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in "The Babbitt and the Bromide". The excellence of these sequence compensate for the mediocrity of "The Sweepstakes Ticket", wherein Fanny Brice screams her way through a dull comedy sketch with Hume Cronyn (originally removed from the US prints of Ziegfeld Follies, this sequence was restored for television). Excised from the final release print (pared down to 110 minutes, from a monumental 273 minutes!) was Judy Garland's rendition of "Liza", a duet featuring Garland and Mickey Rooney, and a "Baby Snooks" sketch featuring Fanny Brice, Hanley Stafford and B. S. Pully. A troubled and attenuated production, Ziegfeld Follies proved worth the effort when the film rang up a $2 million profit. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Set in wartime (WW II), this film finds the fat guy, skinny guy comedy duo not much good at any attempted professions; they can't even enlist in the war effort. None of the services want them. But they do become air raid wardens, at least for a while, until their misadventures continue. They get all boozed up and are kicked off the air raid squad, too! But things get better when they thwart a spy ring and save the day. ~ Rovi