Alan Carney Movies

Blackbeard's Ghost was one of the first Disney productions released after Walt's death. Peter Ustinov stars as the eponymous wraith, who returns to Earth to come to aid of his descendant, elderly Elsa Lanchester. The villains want to kick Lanchester and her friends out of their group home so that they can build a crooked casino. Good guy Dean Jones evokes the spirit of Blackbeard to thwart the bad guys. The supporting cast ranges from Richard Deacon to Gil Lamb, while Peter Ellenshaw performs the visual effects with mattes, miniatures, and process screens. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A man begins monkeying around with his new farm with hilarious results in this comedy for the whole family. American Hank Dussard (Dean Jones) inherits an olive plantation in a small French village after his uncle passes away. Hank soon gets a crash course in the expense of hiring pickers for the olive harvest from Father Sylvain (Maurice Chevalier), the local priest. Hoping to cut expenses, Hank buys four monkeys, and teaches them how to pick olives. While the plan looks good on paper, it doesn't go over well with the town's farm laborers -- who threaten a strike if Hank doesn't get rid of his new help. Hank also has troubles with his new work force when he discovers that his monkeys are all female, and the arrival of a male chimpanzee takes their minds off the olives. Monkeys, Go Home! features Maurice Chevalier in his final screen role; the supporting cast also includes Yvette Mimieux and Jules Munshin. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Police school rookie Lucy (Lucille Ball) gets herself assigned to handsome detective Bill Baker (Jack Kelly), who is participating in a stakeout to capture Green Scarf Louie (John Harmon), alias "The Lovers Lane Bandit." Making a shambles of the stakeout, Lucy must figure out a way to get back into Baker's good graces. Thus it is that she appoints herself a decoy to flush out the elusive Louie--while Viv (Vivian Vance) shows up in drag as Lucy's "boyfriend". ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

With this all-star Cinerama epic, producer/director Stanley Kramer vowed to make "the comedy that would end all comedies." The story begins during a massive traffic jam, caused by reckless driver Smiler Grogan (Jimmy Durante), who, before (literally) kicking the bucket, cryptically tells the assembled drivers that he's buried a fortune in stolen loot, "under the Big W." The various motorists setting out on a mad scramble include a dentist (Sid Caesar) and his wife (Edie Adams); a henpecked husband (Milton Berle) accompanied by his mother-in-law (Ethel Merman) and his beatnik brother-in-law (Dick Shawn); a pair of comedy writers (Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney); and a variety of assorted nuts including a slow-wit (Jonathan Winters), a wheeler-dealer (Phil Silvers), and a pair of covetous cabdrivers (Peter Falk and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson). Monitoring every move that the fortune hunters make is a scrupulously honest police detective (Spencer Tracy). Virtually every lead, supporting, and bit part in the picture is filled by a well-known comic actor: the laughspinning lineup also includes Carl Reiner, Terry-Thomas, Arnold Stang, Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, and The Three Stooges, who get one of the picture's biggest laughs by standing stock still and uttering not a word. Two prominent comedians are conspicuous by their absence: Groucho Marx refused to appear when Kramer couldn't meet his price, while Stan Laurel declined because he felt he was too old-looking to be funny. Available for years in its 154-minute general release version, the film was restored to its roadshow length of 175 minutes on home video; the search goes on for a missing Buster Keaton routine, reportedly excised on the eve of the picture's premiere. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Bungling courier Freddie Merkel (Tommy Noonan) dreams of creative success but always manages to botch things up at crucial moments. Shortly after destroying his motorcycle, he decides to become a songwriter. This gives con man Duke (Peter Marshall) the perfect opportunity for his latest scam, one that involves submitting Freddie's song to a contest. Unfortunately, a wind gust blows the finished piece away just before Freddie turns it in. The two scramble to catch the tune, but it ends up in the hands of a priest who is suddenly inspired to enter the contest himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Michael Curtiz's The Comancheros was a deceptively complex movie -- so enjoyable, that it masked some of the best character development seen in a John Wayne vehicle that was not directed by John Ford or Howard Hawks, and so well made that it got by with some of the most violent action seen in a major studio release of the era. It also bridged the gap between Ford's The Searchers and the upbeat buddy movies of the late '60s and '70s (The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc.). It's 1843 in the Republic of Texas, and Jake Cutter (John Wayne) is a two-fisted Texas Ranger who runs across a gang of white renegades, called the Comancheros, who are trading guns and other contraband with marauding Comanches from a secret hideout in Mexico. Substituting for a repentant gun-runner, he goes undercover as a partner with Crow (Lee Marvin), a vicious half-breed who is a contact man with the Comancheros and knows the whereabouts of their hideout in Mexico. But Crow manages to get himself killed, and Cutter is forced to throw in with Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman), a bystander who also happens to be an itinerant gambler wanted for killing a man in a duel in New Orleans, to complete his mission. It turns out that Regret is a more decent man than most, and he and Cutter, despite some different outlooks on right and wrong, take a liking to each other. Their quest eventually takes them south of the border, where they find the Comancheros and their leader, Graile (Nehemiah Persoff), a bitter, brilliant cripple -- think of The Sea Wolf's Wolf Larsen in a wheelchair -- who has established a landlocked pirate society, and his daughter Pilar (Ina Balin). The only thing that keeps Cutter and Regret alive when they enter the camp is that Pilar and Regret have a history, and she still has feelings for him, enough so that she won't tell what she knows about Cutter and who he is. The two men must play on Graile's greed and Pilar's love in the explosive surroundings of the Comancheros' camp, while figuring out a way to stay alive long enough to get word to the rangers about where they are -- and to survive the attack that must inevitably follow.

Director Michael Curtiz was ill for part of the shoot, and Wayne took up the slack, but The Comancheros displays some of the same freewheeling charm and deep passions that informed classic films of his such as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk. Wayne and Whitman between them manage to evoke some of the rambunctiousness of Errol Flynn, and when Balin (one of the sexiest leading ladies ever to grace a John Wayne movie) arrives onscreen, the testosterone level shoots up even higher and the sexual sparks fly. The film's 105 minutes go by very fast, and this is a movie whose ending comes almost too soon. Curtiz's final film is one that leaves audiences with a smile, but also wanting more, which was a pretty good way to go out. John Wayne's daughter, Aissa Wayne (who subsequently went into a law career) appears in a small role. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

1959's Li'l Abner was adapted from the hit 1956 Broadway musical--which, in turn, was inspired by the satirical comic strip by Al Capp. Peter Palmer recreates his Broadway role as Li'l Abner Yokum, the handsome, muscle-bound, muscle-brained leading hillbilly of Dogpatch, USA. The citizens of Dogpatch are in an uproar because their ramshackle community has been designated the "most useless" town in America, and therefore a prime candidate for an atomic bomb testing site. At first, the Dogpatchers consider their least-desirable status a great honor, but then they despair upon realizing that they'll have to vacate the premise before the annual girl-chases-boy Sadie Hawkins Day race. Together with his Mammy (Billie Hayes) and Pappy (Joe E. Marks), Li'l Abner is dispatched to Washington DC, to argue that Dogpatch has some vital significance: after all, only in Dogpatch can one partake of the Yokumberry Tonic, the source of Abner's super strength. Shifty billionaire General Bullmoose (Howard St. John) wants that Yokumberry tonic for his own devices, and to that end dispatches his lady friend Appasionatta von Climax (Stella Stevens) to Dogpatch to catch Li'l Abner during the Sadie Hawkins race and thus secure the mountain boy's cooperation via marriage. Li'l Abner's erstwhile girl friend Daisy Mae Scragg (Leslie Parrish) would likewise like to snare Abner in the race, but Appasionata wins, thanks to the squirrelly Evil Eye Fleegle (Al Nesor), whose "triple whammy" paralyzes Abner just inches before the finish line. If you think all this is unbelievable, wait till you see how the story resolves itself. Featured in the cast is Stubby Kaye as Marryin' Sam, who leads the hillbilly chorus in the musical's best number, "Jubilation T. Corpone". Other Johnny Mercer-Gene de Paul tunes carried over from the Broadway version of Li'l Abner are "A Typical Day," "If I Had My Druthers," "Namely You," "The Country's in the Very Best of Hands," "Past My Prime," "Put 'Em Back (The Way They Wuz)" and "The Matrimonial Stomp."The film is staged in the same broad, caricatured manner as the play, which only adds to the fun. An earlier, unrelated movie adaptation of Li'l Abner, filmed in 1940, is best forgotten, as is a series of lukewarm Abner cartoons produced by Screen Gems in the late forties. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Reliable serial and western leading lady Adrian Booth is awarded top billing in Republic's Hideout. Hannah (Booth) and Edie (Sheila Ryan) vie for the attentions of naïve attorney George Browning (Lloyd Bridges). Our hero wises up in a hurry when he takes on a gang of jewel thieves, headed by Fogerty (Ray Collins). Comic actor Alan Carney, of the "Brown and Carney" comedy team, turns in an unexpectedly sinister performance as Collins' chief henchman. Hideout was based on a serialized Saturday Evening Post story by William Porter. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

With Vacation in Reno, RKO contract actress Anne Jeffreys proved herself an accomplished comedienne, a fact verified by her later work on TV's Topper. Jeffreys is cast as Eleanor, the wife of would-be prospector Jack Carroll (Jack Haley). When hubby goes off to find a cache of hidden loot near Reno, Eleanor becomes convinced that he's actually gone to the Nevada city to secure a quickie divorce. She trails him to a dude ranch on the outskirts of Reno, where Jack has somehow gotten mixed up with a gang of thick-witted bank robbers (Morgan Conway, Alan Carney, Iris Adrian). No opportunity for a slapstick setpiece is ignored throughout the film, culminating with the inevitable "wild ride" through the desert. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Every so often, RKO Radio got the notion to launch a series of annual musical extravaganzas a la MGM's Broadway Melody and Paramount's Big Broadcast films. Despite the disappointing results of such earlier efforts as Radio City Revels and New Faces of 1937, RKO gamely tried again with 1945's Radio Stars on Parade. The film's ostensible leading actors are played by Abbott & Costello wannabes Wally Brown and Alan Carney, who play a couple of agents attempting to bestow radio stardom upon singer Sally Baker (Frances Langford). Along the way, our heroes stumble into a broadcast of Ralph Edwards' popular comedy quiz show Truth or Consequences, easily the film's highlight. With no budget for new songs, RKO dug up several compositions heard in previous films, notably McHugh-Loesser's "Can't Get Out of This Mood" and McHugh-Adamson's "Don't Believe Everything You Dream" and "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This irresistably-titled comedy is arguably the best of RKO Radio's Wally Brown-Alan Carney vehicles. The daffy duo is cast once more as Jerry Miles and Mike Strager, this time employed as Broadway press agents. Mike and Jerry's latest scheme is to hire a genuine zombie for the opening of a new nightclub. The boys head to a mysterious tropical island with cabaret singer Jean la Dance (Anne Jeffreys), where they cross swords with looney zombie expert Professor Renault (Bela Lugosi). Barely escaping with their lives, Jerry and Jean return to Manhattan with a "zombified" Mike, who is under the spell of Renault's secret formula. When Mike snaps out of his trance, the boys must face the wrath of nasty nightclub owner Ace Miller (Sheldon Leonard), who's a lot more frightening than any zombie. Zombies on Broadway turned a neat profit for RKO, encouraging the studio to reteam Brown, Carney, Anne Jeffreys and Bela Lugosi in the far less satisfying Genius at Work (1946). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Wally Brown and Alan Carney, RKO's own Abbott and Costello ripoffs, star in the comedy western The Girl Rush. As usual, Brown is cast as fast-talking Jerry Miles and Carney plays slow-witted Mike Strager. This time, Jerry and Mike are travelling showmen, stranded in San Francisco when the 1849 gold strike at Sutter's Mill commandeers all available transportation. Making the best of things, our heroes decide to stage a girl-filled musical revue for the entertainment-hungry miners. They also promise that the girls will prove to be excellent wives for the prospectors. Only one problem: where are the girls? This slapped-together effort would be utterly unmemorable were it not for the presence of Robert Mitchum, cast as a clever outlaw who at one point in the film disguises himself as a mail-order bride! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi