John Kelly Movies

Starving artist Robert Montgomery could care less if his paintings sell, so long as he's happy. Montgomery falls in love with Rosalind Russell, an heiress who's gone "slumming" in Greenwich Village. Russell becomes Montgomery's patroness as well as his wife, urging him to make his paintings more commercial. He becomes a success following her advice, but popularity goes to his head and soon Russell realizes she's created a monster. She walks out, he gets his act together, she comes back, and they return to their blissful hand-to-mouth existence. Live, Love and Learn scores its biggest laughs unintentionally with MGM's prettified concept of what a "run down" Greenwich village apartment looks like. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1919, the Kate Douglas Wiggin novel Timothy's Quest was remade as a talkie in 1935. Dickie Moore plays Timothy Tarbox, a dewy-eyed orphan united in misery with his little sister Samantha (Virginia Weidler). The kids are taken in by maiden lady Vilda Cummins (Elizabeth Patterson), an old battle-ax who allegedly hates all children. It takes some doing, but Timothy and Samantha eventually win over Vilda, whose bark (as suspected) is far worse than her bite. A romantic subplot involving grown-ups Martha (Eleanor Whitney) and David (Tom Keene) never intrudes too long on the sentimental main story. Among the scenarists of Timothy's Quest are former Harold Lloyd director Gil Pratt and future MGM executive Dore Schary. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Devil Is a Sissy deserves an historical footnote as the only film to team three of the biggest child stars of the 1930s: Mickey Rooney, Jackie Cooper and Freddie Bartholomew. Bartholomew is a wealthy young English boy attending a New York "magnet" school, whose students are drawn from all walks of life. He is befriended by slum kid Rooney, son of a recently executed gangster, who in his own roughneck fashion helps Bartholomew to "assimilate" (Translation: He helps him to steal and evade the cops). Cooper is a middle-class gang leader with whom Rooney frequently clashes. Freddie attempts to fit in with his new chums by masterminding a break-in at a Park Avenue townhouse. None too soon, all three boys end up in juvenile court. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A never-completed stage musical was the source for the MGM superproduction Born to Dance. The plot is another three-sailors-on-leave affair, with Ted (James Stewart), Mush (Buddy Ebsen) and Gunny (Sid Silvers, who also co-wrote the script) romancing the eminently romanceable Nora (Eleanor Powell), Peppy (Frances Langford) and Jenny (Una Merkel). Nora aspires to become a dancing star, but her career nearly ends before it begins when she inadvertently comes between Broadway luminary Lucy James (Virginia Bruce) and her producer-lover McKay (Alan Dinehart). If anyone watching back in 1936 really cared about the plot, they probably weren't music lovers. The lovely Cole Porter score (his first written directly for the screen) includes "I've Got You Under My Skin", sung by Virginia Bruce to James Stewart, and "Easy to Love", warbled by Stewart to Eleanor Powell. Highlights include Reginald Gardiner's impersonation of a symphony-conducting traffic cop (a routine he'd previously performed on stage) and Eleanor Powell's climactic tap routine on board an art-deco battleship (a sequence later re-deployed for the climax of 1944's I Dood It). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Myrna Loy plays the glamorous member of a trio of jewel thieves. G-Man Spencer Tracy goes undercover to join the gang when it transports its stolen jewels from Paris to New York. Loy falls in love with Tracy, has a change of heart, and quits the gang. But Tracy arrests her all the same when he recovers the jewels. The girl forgives Tracy when the latter is wounded in a climactic gun battle with the rest of the thieves. Why, oh why, is this thing called Whipsaw? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A remake of the 1917 Mary Pickford vehicle of the same name, Poor Little Rich Girl stars Shirley Temple in the title role. Neglected by her widowed soap-tycoon father (Michael Whalen), lonely Barbara Barry (Temple) spends most of her time in the company of her nursemaid Collins (Sara Haden). While on a shopping excursion in the City, Collins is killed in a traffic accident, and Barbara gets lost in the crowd. She finds shelter in the warm and loving tenement home of barber Tony (Henry Armetta), where she makes the acquaintance of vaudeville entertainers Jerry and Jimmy Dolan (Alice Faye and Jack Haley). Assuming that the girl is an orphan, the Dolans invite her to join their act when they discover that she possesses considerable singing and dancing talents. As fate would have it, Jerry, Jimmy and Barbara audition for a radio program which happens to be sponsored by Barbara's dad! For all its music, charm and vivacity, Poor Little Rich Girl has an unsettling inner lining of cruelty: Not only is the plot motivated by the death of Shirley's governess, but our poor heroine spends a good portion of the film avoiding a seedy would-be child molester (John Wray)! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Kathleen Norris novel was the source for this romantic drama, which begins when widowed navy doctor Quentin Harden (Ralph Bellamy) falls in love with nurse Vicki Blake (Claire Trevor). Despite her awareness that most naval marriages end in divorce, Vicki says "yes" when Harden proposes. Soon she begins to suspect that he still carries a torch for his late wife, but she remains with Harden for the sake of his crippled daughter (Anne Howard). Vicki's loyalty is rewarded when Harden proves once and for all that he is in love with her, and only her. Warren Hymer provides comic relief as a goofy gob who deliberately gets injured so he can enjoy the attentions of a bevy of beautiful nurses. Navy Wife was largely filmed on location at the U.S. Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Working on the theory that the only thing funnier than Laurel and Hardy is two sets of Laurel and Hardys, Our Relations milks its central mistaken-identity situation for all it's worth. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two solid citizens, happily married and highly respected in their community. One morning, Hardy receives a letter from his mother, containing an old photo of himself and Laurel with their twin brothers, Alf Laurel and Bert Hardy. Mamma also reveals that Alf and Bert turned out to be "bad lads" and ran off to sea, and that reportedly they'd been hanged for taking part in a mutiny. "Isn't that calamitous!" remarks Hardy, who conspires with Laurel to hide the facts about their no-good brothers from their wives. Meanwhile, in another part of town, the S.S. Periwinkle pulls into port. Among the crew members are the selfsame Alf and Bert, who have decided to entrust their pal Fin (James Finlayson) with their month's salary. Fin has promised to invest the dough so that the boys will become millionaires "before you can say Jack Robinson". Alf and Bert are then summoned to the cabin of their captain (Sidney Toler), who orders them to pick up a valuable package for him, then meet him later at Denker's Beer Garden. While waiting for the captain at Denker's, Alf and Bert are captivated by a pair of waterfront floozies, Alice (Iris Adrian) and Lily (Lona Andre). Talked into buying the girls a huge meal for which they haven't the necessary funds, Alf and Bert decide to go back to Fin and reclaim their money, leaving the contents of the captain's package-a valuable pearl ring-with tough waiter Joe Groagan (Alan Hale) as security. Later, Laurel and Hardy take their wives Betty (Betty Healy) and Daphne (Daphne Pollard) to lunch-and, inevitably, they end up at Denker's Beer Garden, where the equally inevitable mix-ups begin to occur. Things snowball from bad to worse before both sets of twins, an angry captain, a disgruntled Fin, the wives, the floozies, a genial drunk (Arthur Housman) and a brace of smooth gangsters (Ralf Harolde and Noel Madison) all converge at the upscale Pirate Club. Several slapstick complications later, Laurel and Hardy are captured by the gangsters, who threaten to dump the boys in the river with their feet encased in cement if they don't cough up the pearl ring. Alf and Bert come to the rescue, and all is well, at least until the film's boffo punchline. Based on W.W. Jacobs' short story The Money Box, Our Relations is perhaps the most plot-heavy of Laurel and Hardy's features for Hal Roach Studios. It is also one of their funniest, as well as their most lavishly produced. The film was officially listed as "A Stan Laurel Production"-as if Laurel hadn't been the prime creative force behind all of the team's previous films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this bouncy musical, a sax-playing ex-convict joins a swing band and embarks upon a cross-country tour. He does really well until an old friend tries to tempt him into becoming a criminal again. The convict refuses the offer so the "friend" retaliates by doing the job anyway and leaving the con to take the rap. Then the band is kidnapped by a powerful person desiring a private concert. The ex-con saves the band by informing on the crook. He is then allowed to play with them again and musical happiness ensues. Songs include: "Would There Be Love," "Let's Spill the Beans," "I Never Had a Man to Cry Over," and "Fagin Youse is a Viper" (Mack Gordon, Harry Revel). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Paul Muni is a prominent physician who is kidnapped by gangsters and forced to tend the needs of head crook Barton MacLaine. MacLaine takes a liking to the intellectual doctor and allows him to go home after his job is done. Muni finds himself the reluctant "staff physician" for the gangster, thus is periodically spirited away from his practice to look after the criminal. He has given his word not to "rat" on the crooks, but he can't sit idly by while the gangsters loot the city. Muni foils the crooks by injecting them with a drug which induces temporary blindness. Dr. Socrates was remade in 1939 as King of the Underworld, with Humphrey Bogart as the gangster boss and actress Kay Francis in Paul Muni's role (with surprisingly few dialogue alterations to accommodate the gender switch!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After a burst of creativity in 1933 and 1934, independent Majestic Pictures had settled into the usual "B"-picture rut by 1935. One of the last Majestic efforts was Motive for Revenge, starring Donald Cook as hapless bank teller Barry Webster. Plagued by a domineering mother-in-law (Doris Lloyd), Webster impulsively steals bank funds so that he may properly support his wife Muriel (Irene Hervey). It isn't long before the Law catches up with Webster, and soon he's doing hard time in prison. Holding his mother-in-law responsible for his present sorry state, our anti-hero plots a terrible revenge -- but is he too nice a guy to go through with it? Most of the prison scenes in Motive for Revenge were culled from stock footage, which only served to emphasize the overall cheapness of the whole enterprise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Columbia Pictures workhorse Lambert Hillyer was both writer and director of Men of the Night. Bruce Cabot plays Kelly, a Hollywood detective, assigned to capture a holdup gang. While dallying with carhop Mary (Judith Allen), Kelly jumps to the hasty conclusion that the girl is somehow tied in with the crooks. Acting on this misapprehension, he nearly gets both Mary and himself killed by the villains (headed by Charles Sabin, a stage actor who never quite clicked in films). Ward Bond, a mere supporting player in 1934, goes into his comedy-relief mode as Cabot's dimwitted partner. Men of the Night ran 58 minutes, just long enough to fit comfortably on the bottom half of a Columbia double bill. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Department-store owner Horatio Allen's (George Barbier) biggest mistake is to name his scatterbrained daughter Gracie (Gracie Allen) as his sole heir. Suddenly Gracie becomes obsessed with the notion of converting her dad's store into a bird sanctuary. Psychologist Dr. Otto von Strudel (Egon Brecher) suggests that the best way to dissuade Gracie is to marry her off to Burns (George Burns). Burns vetoes the idea until Allen Sr. offers to pay him 10 dollars for every mile he travels with Gracie away from the store. This leads to a series of zany "on the road" complications, with Gracie's foolishness causing no end of trouble for the long-suffering George. Much ado about nothing, Many Happy Returns is recommended for Burns and Allen's staunchest admirers, though music fans will enjoy Larry Adler's harmonica solo and the dulcet sounds of Guy Lombardo's Orchestra (incidentally, some of Lombardo's numbers are actually performed sans screen credit by the Duke Ellington band). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide