A far from factual filmed biography of Mexican patriot Pancho Villa, Viva Villa! was written by lengendary screenwriter Ben Hecht. We first meet the young Villa when his father is beaten to death after protesting Diaz' seizure of the Mexican peons' land. Pancho exacts a temporary revenge by knifing one of his father's killers, then heads for the ...
Based on the popular comic strip by Ham Fisher, this fast-paced and funny boxing outing follows the exploits of a boxing manager and the up-and-coming fighter he mentors to. The film is also known as Joe Palooka. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
In this Disney family film, brainy college student Merlin Jones (Tommy Kirk) invents a mind-reading machine, but the consequences of its use prove to be a lot of trouble. With help from his girlfriend (Annette Funicello), he must set to right all that has gone wrong. The movie spawned the sequel Monkey's Uncle two years later. ~ John Bush, All ...
Neither James Cagney nor Bette Davis were particularly pleased with the outdated screwball comedy The Bride Came C.O.D., but both performers behaved with thorough professionalism, doing a lot more for the film than the film did for them. Davis stars as flighty heiress Joan Winfield, whose impending marriage to bandleader Allen Brice (Jack Carson) ...
Reportedly at the request of Marion Davies herself, Bing Crosby was borrowed from Paramount for the MGM Davies vehicle Going Hollywood. Der Bingle plays a struggling crooner who falls in love with Davies, a French teacher in a girl's school. He rises to fame and fortune in Hollywood, leaving Davies behind. She trails after him and becomes a movie ...
Hollywood responded to the exigencies of the Depression with such glorious nonsense as International House. The plot is motivated by a revolutionary television device called the Radioscope, which its Chinese inventor (Edmund Breese) is offering to the highest bidder. All interested parties are obliged to converge at International House, an ultra ...
Joan Crawford is at her most glamorous (a different outfit and hairdo in each scene!) in the romantic melodrama Chained. Crawford plays Diane Lovering, the mistress of prominent Manhattan businessman Richard Field (Otto Kruger). Though she really isn't in love with him, she feels obligated to marry him when he divorces his wife (Margaret Gateson) ...
There's nothing wrong with Hold Your Man that a little editing wouldn't cure. Clark Gable plays a raffish young petty crook who hides out in hard-boiled Jean Harlow's apartment after he pulls off a robbery. Harlow enjoys Gable's company, and soon the two are living together. Gable puts his criminal career on hold for a while, but when Harlow, ...
William K. Howard, a once-prestigious director fallen on hard times in 1939, proved that he still had the "right stuff" with the modest tearjerker Back Door to Heaven. Wallace Ford stars as Frankie, a pugnacious drifter stigmatized by his reform-school upbringing. Frankie and his former "classmate" Jud (Stu Erwin) try to go straight, but get mixed ...
In this comedy, a dull statistician changes his life after winning a pile of money after successfully determining the number of beans in a barrel. He decides to do something novel with the prize and ends up buying a barrel factory. He encounters trouble when the nearby pickle factory is threatened by a shyster attempting to close it. ~ Sandra ...
Sheriff Andy is coaxed into heading the fund-raising campaign for the children's charity established by Annabelle Silby (Lurene Tuttle), the wealthiest woman in Mayberry. Reasoning that charity begins his home, Andy scolds his son Opie for contributing a puny three cents to the charity. Andy soon discovers to his embarrassment that, in his own ...
The Great Mike is a horse owned by sensitive farm boy Jimmy (Buzzy Henry). Though the nag is prestently hitched to a milkwagon, Jimmy is convinced that he's got a racing champ on his hands. Convincing big-time sportsman Whitley (Pierre Watkin) that The Great Mike has what it takes, Jimmy and veteran trainer Spencer (Stu Erwin) begin prepping the ...
In this comedy, a realtor at the end of his rope is grossly misdiagnosed as having three months to live. The already hyper-nervous man is therefore convinced that he will die. Later some of his clothing is recovered from a local creek and his family and friends assume that the poor man took his own life. The bereaved then consult a swami to see if ...
Screen Guild's Killer Dill trods a comedy path previously taken by such films as Mr. Lemon of Orange and The Whole Town's Talking. Stuart Erwin stars as Johnny Dill, milquetoast door-to-door salesman who happens to be the exact double of a notorious Prohibition gangster. When the bad guy murders a rival, poor Dill is really in a pickle. Our hero ...
Hollywood Cavalcade was a fictionalized history of silent films and the growth of the movie industry. Don Ameche portrays a character based on equal portions of Mack Sennett and D. W. Griffith, while Alice Faye's silent star is an amalgam of Mabel Normand and Gloria Swanson. Ameche breaks into pictures with slapstick comedies, initiating the first ...
The first of 20th Century-Fox's college musicals, Pigskin Parade is also close to the best of them in musical terms -- though they were all at least pretty good on that level -- principally thanks to the presence of 13-year-old Judy Garland, playing an Arkansas farm girl with surprising sincerity and success (in addition to belting out a couple of ...
Small Town Boy was the 33rd release from the burgeoning "B"-picture factory of Grand National Pictures. Stuart Erwin plays the title character, a milquetoast named Henry, who's brimming with good ideas but lacks the confidence to express them. All this changes when he finds a thousand-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Emboldened by his sudden wealth, ...
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