George Sidney Movies

The life and career of 1940s sex symbol Rita Hayworth (1918-1987) is affectionately but uncompromisingly recounted in this cable TV documentary, produced by Hugh Hefner and narrated by actress Kim Basinger. Born into a show business family, Rita Cansino was still a pre-teen when she attracted the attention of Hollywood with her sultry Latin looks and her remarkable dancing skills. With her first husband, the much-older Edward C. Judson, as her manager and agent, Rita managed to land a starlet contract at 20th Century Fox, then moved on to greater glory when, signed by Columbia Pictures, she was re-christened Rita Hayworth and given a more "all-American" image via cosmetic surgery, electrolysis, and a new crop of flaming red hair. Though her career was sometimes impeded by Columbia boss Harry Cohn, who was upset that she continued to fend off his advances, Rita ultimately achieved superstardom as the alluring star of such films as Cover Girl and Gilda. Alas, her private life was never quite as satisfying as her professional one: After breaking up with Judson, she entered into a well-publicized but ultimately unhappy marriage to Orson Welles, then, in quick succession, wed a foreign prince, Aly Khan; a popular singer, Dick Haymes; and a flamboyant movie producer, James Hill. Through it all, the painfully shy and retiring actress yearned to be simply a normal wife and mother, but the pressures and responsibilities of international stardom denied her this balm. Rita's final years were clouded by Alzheimer's disease, which ended not only her career but her life. Among the interviewees in this documentary are Hayworth's daughter Yasmin Aga Khan, who has devoted her life to helping other victims of Alzheimer's, and Rita's best friend, musical star Ann Miller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Good Old Soak was based on a story by Don Marquis, creator of the immortal "Archy and Mehitabel." Wallace Beery is well-cast as town drunk Clem Hawley, a blot on the escutcheon of a small Prohibition-era Midwestern town. When a large sum of bank money is stolen, Clem immediately falls under suspicion. His previously spineless son Clemmie (Eric Linden) rushes to his dad's defense, insisting that he, and not Clem, is the thief. But the "good old soak" manages to recover the money and expose the thief, a respectable "social" drinker and stock-market swindler whose hypocrisy is in stark contrast to Clem's bibulous honesty. In one of his last film roles, Ted Healy manages to steal quite a few scenes from Beery (no small feat) as a cheerful bootlegger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Notorious as the movie that gangster John Dillinger attended on the night he was killed, Manhattan Melodrama has weathered the years as one of MGM's finest examples of pure storytelling. The pageant-like story begins in 1904, when the excursion steamer "General Slocum" blows up and burns in the East River. Two young boys are orphaned by the disaster. They are adopted by a kindly Jewish businessman (Harry Green) who has lost his own children. Years later, when he is killed during a anarchist rally, the boys are separated once more. They grow up to be straight-arrow attorney Jim Wade (William Powell) and big-time gambler Blackie Gallagher (Clark Gable). Though the two men still like and respect one another, they are now on opposite sides of the legal fence. The professional rivalry becomes personal when Jim marries Blackie's ex-mistress Eleanor (Myrna Loy). The typically stellar MGM supporting cast includes Nat Pendleton as Blackie's faithful stooge, Isabel Jewell as his addled girlfriend, Mickey Rooney as the younger Blackie (a marvelous piece of mimicry here), and blonde singer Shirley Ross, here appearing in blackface in a Harlem nightclub sequence, singing a new Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart tune that would later gain popularity (with different lyrics) as "Blue Moon." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in New York's Greenwich Village (specifically, on Bleecker Street), William Seiter's Rafter Romance is a cute romantic comedy, the plot of which contains echoes (or, more accurately, foreshadowings) of Shop Around The Corner. Ginger Rogers plays Mary Carroll, a young woman from upstate who came to New York to find a job and a career, but whose money has almost run out; Norman Foster is Jack Bacon, an aspiring artist living in the same building, in the attic loft, who is months behind on his rent, as well; their landlord, Max Eckbaum (George Sidney), a good-natured soul who wouldn't harm a flea, as he might put it, nevertheless has expenses to meet, and could have rented Mary's apartment to a paying tenant several times over. He comes up with the solution -- move Mary into Jack's loft; after all, Jack works all night as a watchman and sleeps all day, and Mary now has a job selling refrigerators (a relatively new household gadget in 1934) by telephone, that keeps her out all day. To make it all work for the two unwilling tenants, Eckbaum arranges so that neither one ever sees or knows who the other is, but each still manages to get the most dreadful impression of what the other is like, and a series of misunderstandings, and the inevitable crowding that goes on in these situations, leads to a series of increasingly annoying pranks aimed at the other. But their situation really gets complicated when Mary and Jack manage to cross paths and meet out of the apartment, each not knowing who the other is, vis-a-vis the loft, and start to fall in love. And matters get even more complicated (and the comedy ratcheted up several steps higher) by the presence of Robert Benchley as Mary's boss, a lecherous if bumbling executive; Laura Hope Crews as Jack's would-be "patron," a lonely, libidinous older woman with a ton of money; and Guinn Williams as Fritzie, a cab-driver who takes on the role (initially with her encouragement) of Mary's protector. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

This was the next-to-last entry of the Cohens and Kellys series, which were becoming increasingly more tiresome with each picture. Once again, Charlie Murray and George Sidney reprise their roles as Kelly and Cohen, respectively, but instead of Kate Price and Vera Gordon as their wives, they have Esther Howard and Emma Dunn. The story centers around the Cohen and Kelly kids, Melville Cohen (Norman Foster) and Kitty Kelly (June Clyde). Melville enters Kitty's picture in a movie contest and she wins a Hollywood contract. The Kellys dump their diner and move from the little town of Hillsboro to the glamour of Tinsletown. Kitty's subsequent success goes to the Kelly's heads (in fact, Clyde puts on airs not unlike the Marion Davies character in Show People). When the earthy (and proud of it) Cohens come to visit, it creates an embarrassing situation for everyone all around. Then talkies come in, Kitty's acting career fails, and Melville's songwriting takes off. Eventually Melville's career also goes belly-up and both the Cohens and Kellys head back for the safer confines of Hillsboro, friends once again. The one really bright note in this film is its cameos -- most of them take place in a scene at the Cocoanut Grove, back then Hollywood's place to be seen. That's where you can see Boris Karloff, Tom Mix, Lew Ayres, and Gloria Stuart, among others. One additional surprise is former silent star Eileen Percy, who plays a writer interviewing Kitty Kelly -- in real life, Percy was in the midst of giving up her acting career in favor of writing a newspaper society column. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Charlie Murray and George Sidney, the Irish-Jewish duo who'd starred in so many The Cohens and the Kellys comedies of the silent era, team up again for Tiffany Studios' Caught Cheating. The burden of the plot falls on the shoulders of the portly Sidney, who is mistakenly put "on the spot" by a criminal gang. A rival gang comes to Sidney's rescue just in the nick of time. Top-billed Charlie Murray hasn't got much to do outside of reacting in mock dismay to Sidney's fractured English. Caught Cheating was written by W. Scott Darling, whose later scripts for Laurel & Hardy were likewise festooned with gangsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Cohens and the Kellys, those ever-feuding in-laws introduced in the 1925 play Two Blocks Away, are at large again in this fourth entry in the Cohen-Kelly series. Once again, George Sidney stars as Jewish shopkeeper Cohen, while Charlie Murray co-stars as Irish cop Kelly. On vacation with their wives (Vera Gordon and Kate Price) our heroes arrive in Scotland to buy up as much plaid fabric as possible, intending to sell the material at a handsome profit to a foreign prince, likewise in Scotland to participate in a national golfing tournament. It must needs be that Cohen and Kelly find themselves on the golf links, with hilarious results. Most of the gags arise from the ongoing comparison between Jewish and Scottish stinginess, the sort of exaggerated ethnic humor that would be purged from Hollywood films after the strengthening of the Production Code in 1933. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This comedy is the first episode of the five-movie series "The Cohens and Kellys." In each movie the rivalry between the Jewish and Irish business owners is chronicled. This time they play competing manufacturers of bathing suits. The story centers upon their children, a son and a daughter who shock both sets of parents by introducing a new, very risque, line of swimsuits in Atlantic City. The parents soon change their tunes when the money starts rolling in. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

George Sidney and Charlie Murray, stars of Universal's popular "Cohens and Kellys" comedies, moonlight at First National in Flying Romeos. Sidney and Murray play Cohen and Cohan, two barbers who share a common interest in manicurist Minnie (Fritzi Ridgeway). To impress their mutual heartthrob, the middle-aged hairsnippers try to become aviators. Several hilarious (and vertigo-inducing) sequences follow, culminating in a Lindbergh-like flight to Europe. Director Mervyn LeRoy was some distance removed from films like Little Caesar, They Won't Forget and Quo Vadis when he called the shots in Flying Romeos. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Latest from Paris takes place in New York's garment district, where business rivals Blogg (George Sidney) and Littauer (Tenen Holz) have been carrying on a feud for years. In the tradition of Romeo and Juliet, heroine Ann Dolan (Norma Shearer) works for Blogg, while her sweetheart Joe Adams (Ralph Forbes) is employed by Littauer. Without the knowledge of either boss, Ann and Joe develop their own clothing line, with Ann serving as model. The happy result of all this industrial intrigue is a merger -- in every sense of the word. It was during filming of The Latest From Paris that Norma Shearer became the wife of MGM production chief Irving Thalberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Recently fired by comedian Harry Langdon, young director Frank Capra found it difficult to line up any new projects. He was finally afforded the opportunity to direct a New York-based production originally titled Hell's Kitchen, but eventually released as For the Love of Mike. The story is the old bromide about three men -- Irishman O'Malley (Hugh Cameron), German Schultz (Ford Sterling) and Jewish Katz (George Sidney) -- who adopt an orphaned lad named Mike (played as an adult by Ben Lyon) and finance his education. Once he gets into Yale, Mike nearly falls in with a bad crowd but in the end is redeemed by the love of pert coed Mary (Claudette Colbert, in her movie debut). Despite a strong supporting cast and worthwhile production values, For the Love of Mike was sabotaged by distribution problems and ended up a failure -- and worst of all, Frank Capra was never paid for his participation. Completely on the outs in Hollywood, Capra was forced to take a job at bottom-barrel Columbia Pictures, which in the long run turned out to be immeasurably beneficial for both director and studio. As for newcomer Claudette Colbert, she too managed to survive the For Love of Mike debacle, eventually winning an Academy Award for her work in the Frank Capra-directed It Happened One Night. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This entertaining knockoff of Abie's Irish Rose and The Cohens and the Kellys stars George Sidney and Will Armstrong as rival clothing-store owners Hyman Cohen and Timothy Clancy. Right on schedule, Cohen's daughter Leah (Sharon Lynn) and Clancy's son Tom (Rex Lease) fall in love. To break up the romance, Cohen forces Leah to date the suitor of his choice, Jewish boxer Izzy Murphy (Ed Brady). Determined to win back his sweetheart, Tom challenges Izzy to a fight, while both fathers place bets on the outcome, putting up their businesses as collateral. Tom wins, whereupon the young lovers force Cohen and Clancy to merge their stores, allowing the two bickering neighbors to live scrappily ever after. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The incredible success of the Broadway comedy Abie's Irish Rose sent movie producers scurrying abot for similar "Catholic-Jewish romance" yarns. First on the scene was Universal's Carl Laemmle, who purchased an obscure theatrical piece titled Just Next Door and transformed it into The Cohens and the Kellys. Jacob Cohen (George Sidney) is a Jewish dry-goods merchant, while Patrick Kelly (Charlie Murray) is an Irish cop. Though they carry on a grumpy-old-man feud, one gets the feeling that the two guys would really like each other were the circumstances right. Those circumstances are forced upon them when Jacob's daughter Nannie Cohen (Olive Hasbrouck) secretly marries Patrick's son. Once the truth comes out, there's a lot of anguish, hand-wringing and denunciations, but all turns out well when the Cohens and the Kellys become business partners. Universal managed to parlay The Cohens and Kellys into a series of feature films, which extended well into the talkie era; many of the follow-up films also starred Charlie Murray and George Sidney, who later teamed for a group of Columbia 2-reelers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide