MEET ME AFTER THE SHOW. 20th Century Fox, 1951. Betty Grable, Macdonald Carey, Rory Calhoun, Eddie Albert. Screenplay:Richard Sale & Mary Loos. Director: Richard Sale.

   A rift develops between the star of a Broadway musical and her producer-director husband. When amnesia strikes, she heads straight for Miami, with seven years missing from her life – or so she says.

   Pure corn. On the other hand, Betty Grable seems ten times the glamorous movie star in this creaky vehicle than she did seven years earlier, in Pin-Up Girl [reviewed here]. Her strength was in musical comedy, and she made the most of it.

LOOK WHO’S LAUGHING. RKO Radio Pictures, 1941. Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy, Fibber McGee & Molly, Lucille Ball, Harold Peary. Director: Allan Dwan.

   Edgar and Charlie make an unscheduled landing in Wistful Vista, the home of Fibber McGee and Molly. Lucille Ball is Edgar’s secretary, and to make things complicated, she is secretly in love with him.

   The rest of the story has to do with land for a proposed airplane factory in Wistful Vista, but the main attraction of the story is seeing so many famous radio characters in the flesh – including Fibber’s long-time nemesis, Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve.

PIN-UP GIRL. 20th Century Fox, 1944. Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette, Dave Willock. Director: Bruce Humberstone.

   A secretary poses as Broadway star during wartime to win the love of a sailor. Dave Willock plays the sailor’s buddy, and as a team Martha Raye and Joe E. Brown display a bit of denture work.

   Lots of large-scale production numbers add to the proceedings, but not much to the story, which is low-scale. Just in passing, I wonder if Betty Grable would be a glamour girl today. I’m not trying to be awkward. I just think standards have changed.

WALKING ON AIR. RKO Radio Pictures, 1936. Gene Raymond, Ann Sothern. Director: Joseph Santley.

   A girl hires an obnoxious suitor to force her father to let her marry the man she loves. Nature naturally takes its own way in such matters, and here is no exception. You can very easily write the rest on your own.

   Gene Raymond’s character is also an aspiring young radio singer, which allows for a fine opportunity for a few extra songs, resulting in a pleasant mixture of comedy and music. If Ann Southern could never be called beautiful, she was the next best thing to it.

WHEN WILLIE COMES MARCHING HOME. 20th Century Fox, 1950. Dan Dailey, Corinne Calvert, Colleen Townsend, William Demarest. Screenplay by Richard Sale & Mary Loos. Director: John Ford.

   Dan Dailey stars as the first young man in his hometown to sign up for World War II, but the fanfare becomes frustration as he soon discovers he’s permanently stationed only five miles from home.

   Finally given the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of his family and friends, his mission to France ends so quickly, no one believes he was gone. As a young actor, Dailey proves to have been a lanky, likable sort of chap, and I liked his performance here.

HIGHER AND HIGHER. RKO Radio Pictures, 1943. Michele Morgan, Jack Haley, Frank Sinatra, Leon Errol, Marcy McGuire, Victor Borge, Mary Wickes, Elisabeth Risdon, Barbara Hale, Mel Torme. Director: Tim Whelan.

   A former millionaire tries to pass a maid off as his daughter and the season’s number one debutante, hoping to recoup some recent business losses. Naturally humorous romantic complications arise.

   Notable as one of the first movie appearances for Frank Sinatra, who does a fine job playing himself. The plot makes very little sense, and the songs, while more than acceptable, do not entirely seem to match the story.

WHITE TIE AND TAILS. Universal Pictures, 1946. Dan Duryea, Ella Raines, William Bendix, Donald Curtis, Seymour S. Hinds. Screenplay by Bertram Millhauser. Story by Rufus King and Charles Beahan. Directed by Charles Barton. Currently streaming on YouTube (see below).

   Charles Dumont (Dan Duryea) is the perfect butler, a man who can mix the perfect martini, keep up with his mistress’s spectacles, advise his master on art purchases, and solve their children’s teenage problems all in the course of readying the family to leave on their vacation. The Latimers just can’t function without him.

   He even reminds them to give the staff paid holidays while they are gone.

   But Charles Dumont has an ulterior motive. You see Charles is planning a staycation, where he will enjoy the lifestyle of his employer and indulge in the life of a playboy with a little help from the chauffeur George (Frank Jenks).

   What could possibly go wrong?

   Well… for instance on his first night on the town, Charles could meet beautiful wealthy Louise Bradford (Ella Raines) and her father (Samuel S. Hinds), and while endeavoring to impress the beautiful Louise as something of a charming mystery man, he could discover her sister is involved with Nick Romano (Donald Curtis) who works for casino owner Ludie (William Bendix) and owes Ludie $100,000 dollars, and naturally Charles offers to write a check to cover the amount because Mr. Bradford will repay him the next morning and Ludie, a charming fellow impressed by Charles clothes and manner, will happily call Romano off and cut off the sister’s future credit.

   Again, what could possibly go wrong?

   Save Mr. Bradford is going to need time to sell some bonds and raise that $100 K in cash and Mr. Ludie is going to come calling at the Latimer mansion to check on Charles legitimacy and seeing the Latimer’s art collection, which Charles can’t help but show off as his own, Ludie is going to take a few paintings as collateral until he cashes Charles check.

   And from there on it gets complicated, as Charles, who gave up a promising art career because it was easier to be a butler and now is falling for Louise, and his house of cards is getting more and more precarious.

   This charming romantic comedy is a surprise for Duryea who is perfectly suited to the lead and romances the lovely well-cast Raines, ably abetted by Bendix as an urbane figure (almost as much of a stretch for Bendix as Duryea) who would like a little tutoring in clothes and art and style from Charles if not for the little matter of that $100 K.

   Jenks even gets a nice scene as he tries to win back the $100K at Ludie’s casino at the crap table.

   In the manner of romantic comedy, the complications pile on until it seems as if there is no way a happy ending can be eked out of the mess, and then, being romantic comedy it somehow is and charmingly so.

   It is also refreshing that Raines and Duryea hit it right off, and she is level-headed and smart and not the least the flighty screwball heiress.

   This is not a mystery or crime film, though several times it seems as if it might be. Maybe it’s just Duryea’s presence though, and the fact that half of the writing team for the original story is mystery writer Rufus King, creator of Philo Vance-like Reginald De Puyster, Lt. Valcour, Colin Starr, and Chief Bill Dugan.

   What it is, though, is an involving attractive and intelligent romantic comedy. As far as I know it is Duryea’s only lead in a romantic comedy (he is in several comedies including Howard Hawks’ Ball of Fire, but usually playing comic versions of Dan Duryea roles). It is quite possibly unique in this aspect, though I think you will agree after watching it that it should not have been.

   I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out of Duryea’s great villain and character parts, but it would have been nice if he got a few more chances like this to show other aspects of his talent.
   

   Speaking of The Old Days (wasn’t I?), back when I first got interested in Movies there were maybe a dozen books on the subject, mostly very shallow or abstrusely academic. A recent visit to the Library, though, reminded me how much times have changed. On fifty full shelves filled with books on movies I found detailed reference books, books devoted to single films, and a variety of carefully researched works on highly-specialized topics like science fiction serials, the “Road to” movies, Abbott Costello’s horror spoofs, and The Films of the Bowery Boys (Citadel, 1984) by David Hayes & Brent Walker.

   Now I don’t recommend the Bowery Boys to anyone; the humor is crude and forced at the best of times, and at their worst, the films are so shoddy as to defy their own existence. But I find them possessed of a raw energy and persistent vision that cannot be denied, and I confess I watch them every chance I get.

   The Boys started out in the New York production of Sidney Kingsley’s classic play Dead End, and when the property went to Hollywood in 1937 they went with it, where they were billed as the “Dead End Kids” in films like Angels with Dirty Faces until Warners lost interest, whereupon they took a step down to Universal as “the Little Tough Guys” for a series of “B”s and hung around for a couple of serials. In 1940 they osmosed into “the East Side Kids” at Monogram, and coalesced into the Bowery Boys in 1946, the form they remained in until the series demise ten years later.

   By this time, there were only two real members of the group: Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall, plus a changing roster of hangers-on, frequently abetted by Leo’s dad Bernard, as Louie Dumbrowski, owner of the minimalist soda shop where the boys hung out. In this universe the “Boys” – now quite middle-aged and looking every misspent minute of it – went through a series of situations frankly quite beyond their B-movie budgets, but impressive nonetheless, with romps through London, Paris, the Orient, Olde Englande, Africa ….

   They were also visited by every character actor with a few free days and some bills to pay. The roster will mean little to non-addicts, but those of us who once worshipped the grainy black-and-white images think fondly of Noah Beery, Erle Blore, Hillary Brooke, Iron Eyes Cody, Lloyd Corrigan, John Dehner, Douglas Dumbrille, Douglas Fowley, Steven Geray, Billy Gilbert, Mary Gordon (from the Sherlock Holmes movies) Raymond Hatton, Percy Helton, Warren Hymer, Ian Keith (once considered for Dracula) Bela Lugosi (who got the part and ended up here anyway), Fuzzy Knight, Martin Kosleck, Sheldon Leonard, Keye Luke from the Chan films, J. Farrell McDonald, Mike (Murder My Sweet) Mazurki, Alan Napier, Sig Rumann, Dan Seymour, Lionel Stander Craig Stevens, Glen Strange, Woody Strode, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Minerva Urecal, Lee Van Cleef and Clint Walker True, we remember them from much better films, but here they are nonetheless, plugging along in cinematic obscurity.

   The authors somehow manage to document all this, watch the films and do research on a series to which respectable critics wouldn’t give the time of day. And, as with the Boys themselves, one must admire their perseverance.

   Incidentally, one of the Bowery Boys movies actually received an Academy Award nomination, which it turns out is not exactly the same as being nominated for an Oscar, which is the basis of an amusing story which unfortunately cannot be related here.

THE FATAL GLASS OF BEER. Paramount, 1933. With W.C. Fields, Rosemary Theby, George Chandler and Gordon Douglas. Produced by Mack Sennett. Written by W.C. Fields. Directed by Clyde Bruckman.

NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK.  Universal, 1941. With W.C. Fields, Gloria Jean, Leon Errol, Margaret Dumont, Franklin Pangborn, Anne Nagel (as “Madame Gorgeous”) Minerva Urecal, Carlotta Monti, and Emil Van Horn (as “Gargo the Gorilla”) Written by John T. Neville, Prescott Chaplin, and “Otis Criblecoblis.” Directed by Edward Cline.

   Genius strikes twice, near the beginning and shortly before the end, of W C Fields’ career in talking pictures.

   Fields was a confirmed star in silent movies, but studio heads must have been nervous about his fitness for sound, because early on, Paramount featured him mostly in their “All Star” features, co-billed with players like Burns & Allen, Charlie Ruggles, and even Bela Lugosi and Gary Cooper!

   But at the same time, Fields was working on ultra-low-budget shorts for Mack Sennett, mostly recreations of his old Vaudeville routines, and among these mini-films, Fatal Glass of Beer calls out to this discerning critic, with its stunning location photography, stirring music, heart-wrenching drama, breath-taking special effects, and thematic resonance, contrasting man’s struggle with the elements and his struggle against sin, for a deeply-felt statement about the savagery of both.

   We-ell, that may be stretching things just a bit.

   The location photography is actually grainy old stock footage with mis-matched sound effects. The music is written & performed by Fields himself (“Mind if I play with my mittens on?”) and the special effects are only astonishing in their audacious ersatzery, so obviously fake as to evoke gasps of disbelief in the audience.

   In fact, what we have here is Fields testing the notion of what it is to be a movie. He deliberately calls attention to the language of film-making, just to craft cinematic puns with it, and the drama creaks with age, played with stony seriousness by a cast of seasoned pros acting like amateurs. The result is a film as anarchistic — and as funny — as Duck Soup or Airplane, hacked out by a genius fluid in the language of Cinema.

   Eight years later we find W.C. Fields physically deteriorating in his last solo-starring feature film, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, and once again we find him toying with the question, What does it mean to be a Movie? Artists and critics have asked What is a Painting? What is a Novel? A Statue? A Bird? A Plane? A Superman? (Well, only Shaw, Siegel & Schuster asked that last one, and really no critic worth his by-line bothers with birds & planes anymore.)

   But I digress. With Never/Break, Fields threw together every element of a 1940s comedy, then tore them all apart. Once again, we get stunning locations — glass-painted courtesy of Universal Studio’s Jack Otterson (of The Killers and Son of Frankenstein).   We get musical production numbers, some quite elaborate, and there’s even drama of sorts, but don’t try to summarize the plot, because there isn’t any, just a rickety framework about Fields trying to sell a story to his producer, a framework that quickly sinks into the story itself.

   Ah yes. Where Fatal/Beer marches through melodrama, Never/Break   tiptoes through the tulips of timeworn cliché, with predictable romantic rivalries, vapid young lovers, doting dotards and twinkle-eyed teenagers. And Margaret Dumont. And a Gorilla. And a wild chase for a finale that has nothing to do with the rest of the story. Like I said: every element of B-movie comedy broken down and packaged up like a celluloid Xanadu.

   It’s seldom that a career is bookended so neatly. In fact, the closest I can recall is John Wayne going out with The Shootist.  And let’s face it, Fatal Glass… wasn’t Fields’ first film, nor was Never Give his last. But they’re close enough — and memorable enough — to work for me.

DAMON RUNYON “The Lemon Drop Kid.” Short story. First appearance: Collier’s, 03 February 1934.

   Damon Runyon (1880-1946) used to be a household name. He was famous for two reasons: his reportage, often covering some of the most sensational stories of the first half of the 20th century, and his fiction, featuring thinly disguised real people in occasionally outlandish situations, written in a narrative style uniquely his own.

   Nowadays Runyon’s reputation rests almost entirely in his “Broadway stories,” such as Guys and Dolls. People who knew Runyon well claimed his hardboiled exterior concealed a cultured and sensitive interior. In any case, he was friends with the infamous (Al Capone was a neighbor) as well as the famous (in accordance with Runyon’s wishes, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker flew low over Broadway and scattered his ashes over the district).

   One of Runyon’s “ironic mini-comedies” involves a racetrack tout named The Lemon Drop Kid. A tout, for the uninitiated, is a hustler who pretends he has inside information on an upcoming race (when, in fact, he has none), and who by getting some sucker to get in on the betting is able to clear a few “bob” for himself, the sucker usually being happy enough to cut the tout in on the winnings  —  but being very unhappy when the tip doesn’t pay off as advertised.

   This is called “telling the tale,” and The Lemon Drop Kid is normally very good at it.

   But on this particular occasion, The Kid accidentally misdirects his mark, and through a major misunderstanding takes it on the lam to escape what he mistakenly assumes will be retributive justice in the form of The Kid’s tender flesh.

   And so he literally runs away from the racetrack, with his mark in hot pursuit.

   Eventually, The Kid will find love for the first time in his life, but the experience will prove bittersweet . . . .

   Runyon’s story has been filmed twice, once by Paramount in 1934 with Lee Tracy, Helen Mack, and William Frawley (remember the growly landlord in I Love Lucy?); and a second time by Paramount in 1951 with Bob Hope, Marilyn Maxwell, Lloyd Nolan, Fred Clark, and William Frawley again.

   The 1934 version, we are told, adheres more closely to the original story. Those who have seen it say it starts out a comedy and ends up on a more serious note, very much like Runyon’s tale. The claim has been made that Paramount suppressed this film in favor of the remake.

   The 1951 edition takes the idea of The Kid misinforming someone about a bet and runs with it; the whole thing is played for as many laughs as possible (e.g., The Kid initiating a scam on little old ladies, Bob Hope in drag; you get the idea).

   Hope’s film also introduced a song that became an instant Christmastime standard, “Silver Bells.”

   To give you an idea of how much the 1951 movie differed from Runyon’s story, get a load of this list of characters’ names that never appeared in the original tale: Sidney Melbourne, ‘Brainy’ Baxter, Oxford Charley, Nellie Thursday, Moose Moran, Straight Flush, Gloomy Willie, Sam the Surgeon, Little Louie, Singing Solly, The Bird Lady, and Goomba. “Sidney Melbourne” was the moniker they gave The Kid and “‘Brainy’ Baxter” was gorgeous Marilyn Maxwell.