Wilkie Mahoney Movies
- 1961
In this comedy, a young man stands to inherit a vast fortune, but first he must spend a small fortune in two months. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Watling, Carole Lesley, (more)
When Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne appeared in S. N. Behrmann's The Pirate on Broadway, there were no musical numbers whatsoever. But with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland in the leading roles of the 1948 filmization of The Pirate, the MGM production staff would have been drawn and quartered had there not been song after song. The story is merely serviceable: on a Caribbean isle in the early 19th century, sheltered young Garland comes to believe that travelling troubadour Kelly is in reality "Mack the Black," a notorious pirate. Kelly realizes that the surest way to win Garland's heart is to impersonate the romantic buccaneer, and this is what he does--nearly getting himself hanged in the process. Cole Porter's marvelous score yielded only one bona-fide hit: "Be a Clown", which has practically nothing to do with the storyline, but do you care? Highlights include the magnificently staged "Mack the Black," a heady combination of Broadway glitz and Caligariesque nightmare. Seven MGM screenwriters toiled away on The Pirate, though only the team of Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich were credited. While The Pirate was not a huge moneymaker on its first release, it has since been embraced by the cultists, who apparently can never get enough of Judy Garland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lester Allen, Judy Garland, (more)
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, (more)
- 1945
- NR
The 1945 version of the Winchell Smith/Byron Ongley theatrical war-horse Brewster's Millions stars Dennis O'Keefe as the lucky recipient of an $8,000,000 inheritance. But there's a catch; O'Keefe will receive his legacy only if he spends $1,000,000 in two months. Prohibited from giving the money away, O'Keefe invests in several losing propositions, including a flop Broadway musical; alas, every one of his bad investments turns a profit. African-American comic actor Eddie "Rochester" Anderson co-stars as O'Keefe's valet; the bantering master-servant relationship was much too casual for several Southern cities, which banned the film on the grounds that blacks should behave more "respectfully" to whites. In the original Brewster's Millions, the hero was a stockbroker; in this 1945 version, Brewster is a returning GI. The seventh and most recent filmization of Brewster's Millions (1985) starred Richard Pryor as a washed-up baseball player. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis O'Keefe, Helen Walker, (more)
- 1944
Allan Dwan directed this light-hearted service comedy starring William Bendix (best known from the television series The Life of Riley) and Dennis O'Keefe as a pair of Marines stationed in Australia. As might be expected, the two soldiers fall for the same woman, a pretty Australian named Joyce Stuart (Helen Walker), and comic misadventures ensue. John Loder, James Flavin and Arthur Hunnicutt are among the familiar faces in the cast. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Bendix, Dennis O'Keefe, (more)
- 1943
The last of three films starring Red Skelton as ace radio detective Wally "The Fox" Benton, Whistling in Brooklyn opens with Fox and girl friend Carol Lambert (Ann Rutherford) making final preparations for a trip to Niagara Falls, where they intend to get married. Of course, they've made these plans before, and true to form, something comes up to derail the trip to the altar. The something this time is Constant Reader, a murderer who delights in taunting the police by letting newspapers know about his latest victims and where their bodies can be found. Through an error on his valet's part, the police come to believe that Wally is Constant Reader, forcing him to delay his plans, go undercover and search out the killer himself. After being chased through various warehouses and creaky old houses, Wally eventually ends up disguised as a member of a bearded baseball team playing the Brooklyn Dodgers. (Leo Durocher makes his screen debut, playing himself.) All gets straightened out in the end, and even the real Constant Reader is apprehended. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Red Skelton, Ann Rutherford, (more)
The racy, ribald Cole Porter musical Du Barry Was a Lady is here given a thorough dry-cleaning by prudish MGM. Richard "Red" Skelton takes over the role of Louis Blore (played on Broadway by Bert Lahr), while Lucille Ball steps into the shoes of the original play's Ethel Merman. The story proposes that Blore is a men's room attendant in a New York nightclub who has a yen for gorgeous showgirl May Daly (Lucille Ball). After drinking a potent mixture, Louis dreams that he is King Louis XV of France, and May is the magnificent Madame Du Barry. Also showing up in Louis' dream is Alex Howe (Gene Kelly), who in "real life" is the guy who ends up with May at fade out-time. It's hard to determine what's more fun to watch in Du Barry Was a Lady: the three stars, the antics of supporting player Zero Mostel, or the incredible sequence in which Tommy Dorsey & His Band -- including drummer Buddy Rich -- perform in 18th century garb and powdered wigs. Five of the original Cole Porter songs are retained for this Technicolor-ful film: "Katie Went to Haiti," "Do I Love You, Do I?," "Well, Did You Evah?," "Taliostro's Dance,", and, best of all, "Friendship." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, (more)
- 1942
This second entry in MGM's "Whistling" series is more elaborate than the first (Whistling in the Dark) and equally as funny. Red Skelton returns as radio sleuth Wally Benton, aka "The Fox", while Ann Rutherford is back as his ever-patient fiancee Carol Lambert (Ann Rutherford). After receiving a sorority pin in the mail, Carol heads southward to help out her old college chum Ellamae Downs (Diana Lewis), who's enmeshed in a local mystery. Wally tags along, only to find himself up to his neck in intrigue and murder. The climax finds our hero and heroine trapped in the basement of an old Civil War fort, which is rapidly filling with water-a sequence that's as thrilling as it is hilarious. Best line: "Got a hanky, Panky?" Rag Ragland, who played the comic villain Chester in Whistling in the Dark, returns in Whistling in Dixie as Chester and his less odious twin brother, thereby permitting this lovable character player to "redeem" himself and qualify to appear in the third and last "Whistling" epic, Whistling in Brooklyn. Little Billie Thomas, "Buckwheat" in the Our Gang comedies, shows up in an uncredited bit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Red Skelton, Ann Rutherford, (more)
- 1942
Cole Porter's musical hit Panama Hattie originally starred Ethel Merman on Broadway. But Merman was not a proven movie commodity, thus it was Ann Sothern who appeared in the film version as Hattie, brassy but golden-hearted proprietress of a Canal Zone hotel. Accustomed to dealing with such raucous cohorts as she-sick sailors Red (Red Skelton), Rags (Rags Ragland) and Rowdy (Ben Blue), Hattie isn't quite certain how to handle herself when she falls in love with wealthy and cultured Dick Bulliett (Dan Dailey Jr.) Socialite Leila Tree (Marsha Hunt), who'd previously set her cap for Dick, does her best to break up the romance, but Hattie is championed by Dick's kid sister Geraldine (Jackie Horner) and family butler Jenkins (Alan Mowbray). The play's original storyline, which shifted into gear when Hattie began picking up Nazi shortwave radio broadcast in the fillings of her teeth, is virtually nonexistent here, as is Porter's score, save for "I've Still Got My Health" and "Let's be Buddies" (Lena Horne does, however, show up to sing "Just One of Those Things", a carryover from an earlier Porter musical). A notoriously troubled production, Panama Hattie was completely refilmed after a disastrous preview, delaying its scheduled release by nearly a year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Red Skelton, Ann Sothern, (more)
- 1941
Bob Hope plays a famous movie star who does his best to avoid the pre-war draft, but ends up in uniform all the same. Hope marries Dorothy Lamour, the daughter of Army colonel Clarence Kolb, in hopes that this union will help him sidestep military service. Stuck in boot camp, Hope is a class-A screw-up until redeeming himself during a sham battle--though his "heroic" commandeering of a tank began as yet another boo-boo. Still not entirely certain that Hope could carry a film by himself, Paramount teamed him with Eddie Bracken and Lynne Overman--a sort of Abbott and Costello plus One. Despite the efforts to make Bob Hope part of an ensemble, it is clear from the first frame to the last who is truly the star of Caught in the Draft. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, (more)
- 1940
Popular Australian film star Chips Rafferty made his screen debut in 1940's Ants in His Pants.But you'll have to look hard for Rafferty, for his is a very minor role in this musical comedy-drama. Will Mahoney stars as a small-time carnival worker whose girlfriend's kid sister (Jean Hatton) needs a throat operation. To do this, Mahoney enters the boxing ring, despite his inexpertise in pugilism. Miraculously Mahoney wins the bout, and the little girl is able to belt out the film's closing tune. Ants in His Pants was released in the US as Come Up Smiling. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1939
Rhythm Romance is the television title for the 1939 Bob Hope comedy Some Like It Hot (the change was made to avoid confusion with the 1959 Billy Wilder film of the same name). Hope plays a penny-ante carnival concessionaire with both eyes on the Main Chance. Exploiting the musical talents of his girl friend (Shirley Ross), Hope tries to bankroll a big-time stage show. The prospect of riches goes to Hope's head and loses him his girl, but the two are reunited before the film's 64 minutes run out. This minor Bob Hope/Shirley Ross vehicle was first filmed in 1934 as Shoot the Works, which in turn was based on The Great Magoo, a Broadway flop written by Ben Hecht. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, Shirley Ross, (more)
