William Edmunds Movies

Bob Hope stars in this "educational musical comedy," which marks his first film appearance. Hope is traveling through South America with his fiancée and her mother. They arrive in the town of Los Poachos Eggos, where the citizens are celebrating a curious holiday called Don't Do It Day. According to custom, if one sings a little tune after insulting or assaulting someone, they must be instantly forgiven. When Hope learns this, he takes full advantage, picking the Mayor of the city (Jules Epailly) to bear the brunt of his wisecracks and destructive pranks. His Excellency is steamed, but has to keep his cool until the bells toll the end of Don't Do It Day. Meanwhile, Hope's fiancée has been wooed away by a rogue who has lied about his wealth, leaving the path open for romance and music with a lovely young señorita (Leah Ray). The Mayor is also in love with the girl, though, so Hope has to get out of town before the holiday ends and his luck runs out. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide

Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Idiot's Delight starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway. Set in a lavish alpine hotel bordering an Italian air base, the story throws together several disparate people, each in his or her own way affected by the World War that threatens to erupt at a moment's notice. The only person who doesn't seem to have a political or economic stake in world affairs is Harry Van, a two-bit American entertainer who is stranded in the hotel with his travelling all-girl troupe, "Les Blondes." Harry is convinced that the alluring Irene, the foreign-accented "travelling companion" of munitions tycoon Achille Weber, is actually an American girl with whom he'd had a one-night stand years earlier, but Irene laughs off his insinuations. Eventually, Irene turns to Harry for comfort when Weber proves too disgustingly warmongering for her tastes. When war breaks out and the hotel is targeted for bombing, Harry makes sure that everyone gets to safety; he himself stays behind with Irene, with whom he has fallen in love. The two sing a hymn as the hotel is blown to oblivion. When Idiot's Delight was filmed in 1939, Norma Shearer did her best Lynn Fontanne imitation as Irene, while Clark Gable remained Clark Gable in his interpretation of Harry Van (his song-and-dance rendition of "Puttin' on the Ritz" is a classic of sneering insouciance). The film underwent an extensive "MGM-izing": while the pre-European affair between Harry and Irene is never dramatized in the play, the film shows Harry and Irene commiserating in a long prologue set in a seedy vaudeville house--and, in keeping with censorship restrictions, it is made abundantly clear that, while Harry befriends Irene, he does not sleep with her. The munitions manufacturer, here played by Edward Arnold, is depicted as an aberration, and not representative of "honest" business moguls (many of whom were close personal chums of MGM head Louis B. Mayer). And, while the ending of the play does not tell us whether or not Harry and Irene survive the bombing, the film permits the lovers a sun-streamed happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The late cinema historian William K. Everson once wrote an article titled "Movies Out of Thin Air", referring to films that were comprised almost exclusively of stock footage from earlier productions. A prime example of this sort of patchwork entertainment is the 1939 Paramount production Geronimo, which though advertised and distributed as an "A" picture was largely and economically cobbled together from existing film vignettes. Essentially a western remake of Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), the film concentrates on the rocky relationship between crusty Cavalry general Steele (Ralph Morgan) and his shavetail lieutenant son (Richard Cromwell). The boy is taken under the wing of kindly Captain Starrett (Preston Foster), who is also occupied with bringing renegade Indian warrior Geronimo (played by Native American actor Chief Thundercloud, unbilled despite his title-character status) to justice. The fly in the ointment is treacherous gunrunner Gillespie (delightfully played as a snivelling coward by Gene Lockhart) who for a price agrees to help Geronimo decimate the local white population. Nominal heroine Ellen Drew has one of the least demanding assignments in movie history, spending two-thirds of the film in a coma after being injured in a stagecoach accident! Among the previous Paramount epics represented in Geronimo via stock footage are Frank Lloyd's Wells Fargo and Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

20th Century Fox's Christmas gift to moviegoers in 1939, this fanciful comedy-drama features the studio's darling of the ice, Sonja Henie. She plays the daughter of a Nobel Peace Prize-winner feared murdered by the German Gestapo. A couple of rival American newspaper reporters, Ray Milland and Robert Cummings, discover that the legendary Professor Norden (Maurice Moscovich) is still very much alive and living under an assumed name in Switzerland. The heroes, however, completely forget their critical assignment after spotting the professor's lovely daughter, Louise (Henie), and their preoccupation with the girl nearly leads to disaster. Fox borrowed Ray Milland from Paramount for this Henie vehicle, which was partially filmed at Sun Valley, ID. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Shop Around the Corner is adapted from the Hungarian play by Nikolaus (Miklos) Laszlo. Budapest gift-shop clerk Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and newly hired shopgirl Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) hate each other almost at first sight. Kralik would prefer the company of the woman with whom he is corresponding by mail but has never met. Novak likewise carries a torch for her male pen pal, whom she also has never laid eyes on. It doesn't take a PhD degree to figure out that Kralik and Novak have been writing letters to each other. The film's many subplots are carried by Frank Morgan as the kindhearted shopkeeper and by Joseph Schildkraut as a backstabbing employee whose comeuppance is sure to result in spontaneous applause from the audience. Directed with comic delicacy by Ernst Lubitsch, this was later remade in 1949 as In the Good Old Summertime, and in 1998 as You've Got Mail. It was also musicalized as the 1963 Broadway production She Loves Me. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This slick marital farce features Joel McCrea as T. H. Randall, a race horse owner whose devotion to his work causes a strain in his relationship with wife Valerie (Nancy Kelly). Unable to stand any more neglect, Valerie divorces Randall, even though the audience is well aware that she's still in love with him. Reduced to poverty by his huge alimony payments, Randall cooks up a scheme with lawyer Bill Carter (Roland Young) to marry off Valerie to staid Paul Hunter (Lyle Talbot). But during a weekend party at the home of dowager Ethel (Mary Boland), Randall resents the attentions lavished upon Valerie by rakish young Freddie (Cesar Romero). It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to figure out who winds up with whom in the last scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"Strange" is right: this mystical MGM melodrama has to be the oddest of the studio's Clark Gable-Joan Crawford vehicles. When eight prisoners escape from a New Guinea penal colony, they are picked up by a sloop commandeered by another escapee named Verne (Gable) and his trollop girl friend Julie (Joan Crawford). Among the fugitives is Cambreau (Ian Hunter), a soft-spoken, messianic character who has a profound effect on his comrades. One by one, the escapees abandon their evil purposes and find God-and a peaceful death--through the auspices of the Christlike Cambreau. The last to succumb to Cambreau's ministrations is Verne, who agrees to return to return to the prison colony serve out his sentence if Julie will wait for him (which she does). A superb Franz Waxman score provides a touch of show-biz grandeur to this haunting fable. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When Our Gang member Mickey (Robert Blake) reads an article stating that one out of every four children born is Chinese, he begins to worry that his new baby brother will be Chinese as well. Spanky McFarland and the rest of the Gang put Mickey at ease by introducing him to the family of Spanky's new friend Lee Wong. Once he's learned that people are people no matter what their ethnic background, Mickey is mollified -- until he discovers that his much-anticipated "kid brother" is not only a girl, but twins to boot. Originally released on February 15, 1941, the one-reel Our Gang comedy Baby Blues might be regarded as patronizing and even offensive by contemporary viewers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Nazi Party's rise to power has disastrous consequences for a German family in this drama. Victor Roth (Frank Morgan) is a college professor teaching in Germany in 1933 who leads a peaceful and contented life with his wife Emelie (Irene Rich), son Rudi (Gene Reynolds), daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan), and stepsons Otto (Robert Stack) and Erich (William T. Orr). However, Adolph Hitler's emergence as Germany's ruler has an unexpected impact on their lives. Fritz (Robert Young) and Martin (James Stewart) both vie for Freya's hand in marriage, but anti-Nazi activist Martin is forced to flee to Austria, while Freya is disturbed by Fritz's membership in a pro-fascist group. Victor repudiates Hitler's theories about Aryan superiority in class, and he not only loses his teaching position, but he is sentenced to a concentration camp. And while Emelie and Rudi join Freya as she tries to escape to Martin's new home in Austria, they find themselves hunted by Otto and Erich, now members of the Hitler Youth. The Mortal Storm was perhaps the most explicitly anti-Nazi film made in Hollywood prior to America's entry into WWII, and it resulted in all of MGM's product being banned in Germany. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

MGM tried to recapture the magic of the Wallace Beery/Marie Dressler films of the 1930s with Barnacle Bill. Beery is teamed with Marjorie Main, a Dressler "type" who had a roughneck style all her own. In the film, grumbly old fisherman Beery spends most of his screen time avoiding Main, who intends to trap him into matrimony. The rest of the time, Beery must contend with a daughter he never knew he had and with landlubbers who want to rob him of his seagoing livelihood. Barnacle Bill was one of six MGM films costarring Wallace Beery and Marjorie Main, an experience neither star enjoyed very much. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this boxing drama, champion fighter Johnny Rocket decides to leave the ring to please his new bride. Unfortunately, his greedy manager, unwilling to get off the gravy train engineers things so that the fighter cannot find work and must return to the squared circle to make a living. His ploy works, and the fighter resumes his career. He also begins falling in love with a sexy female sports writer. This causes his marriage to disintegrate. The avaricious manager decides to make a lot of money fast and so sets his fighter up to take a dive and betting against him. The doped up fighter loses the fight. He also loses the sportswriter. Fortunately his true love is around to pick him up and help him start anew. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this WW II spy comedy, an American pilot stationed in England is flying a routine mission when the Nazis shoot down his plane. He ends up seeking shelter in the home of an unhappily married Dutch woman. She covers for the pilot by introducing him as her mentally unbalanced but basically harmless husband. A Nazi major has taken over her home, and mayhem ensues when he and her "husband" meet. In the end, the pilot steals a German plane and takes the woman safely to England. The film is also known as Yank in Dutch. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Better known as Reunion in France, this women's-magazine-style romantic melodrama was the first major production for director Jules Dassin -- who was promptly demoted back to the MGM "B" department when the picture tanked at the box office. Joan Crawford stars as Frenchwoman Michele de la Becque, who comes to believe that her fiancé, wealthy munitions manufacturer Robert Cortot (Philip Dorn) is a Nazi collaborator. When her suspicions are apparently corroborated, Michelle falls in love with Pat Talbot (John Wayne), a downed American aviator stranded in occupied Paris. Only then does Michelle discover that she's been all wrong about Cortot -- but what to do about Talbot, who has been marked for death by the Gestapo? Ava Gardner has a tiny role as a Parisian shopgirl. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide