MACHINE GUN MAMA. PRC Pictures, 1944. Armida, El Brendel, Wallace Ford, Jack La Rue, Luis Alberni, Julian Rivero. Director: Harold Young.

   I must have lived a sheltered life. I had never heard of El Brendel until I watched this movie. You’re never too old to learn more about the movies than you knew the day before. “El” is short for Elmer, and Brendel is pronounced “Bren-DELL.”

   He was a vaudeville star, so I’m told, whose shtick was a comically funny Swedish accent. Most of the films he made through the 1940s were comedy shorts, in which he invariably played characters named Ole, Ollie, Oley, Knute or Axel Swenson, but by the 1950s he’d worked his way up to television, including an appearance on Perry Mason, among other quite prestigious shows.

   In Machine Gun Mama he’s teamed up with Wallace Ford as two guys from Brooklyn who are in Mexico trying to deliver an elephant to someone whose address they’ve apparently lost. When their truck breaks down, a carnival nearby catches their eye, and that’s where the movie begins.

   Let me back up for a moment. I thought when I bought this movie that maybe I was I was buying a movie about Ma Barker and her gang. Not so. Not at all. Not for a minute. The Mexican actress named Armida plays the title character, and where the machine gun comes in is a small story in itself. As it happens, Armida, the carnival owner’s daughter, is also the girl sitting in the dunking booth. Hit the bulls-eye with a baseball, and in she goes.

   Three times in a row. All at the hands (or pitching arm) of Wallace Ford’s character. Armida, a miniature spitfire (just under five feet tall), takes offense at this, runs over to the booth opposite, turns the prop machine gun around and blasts away, destroying a lot of property but no lives, thank goodness.

   She also falls in love with John O’Reilly, the famous “kibitzer” from Brooklyn (that’s Wallace Ford), but her father… Wait, wait, there’s an elephant in the room. Really. And there’s a bad guy (Jack Le Rue) to whom Armida’s father owes a lot of money to, but the elephant (really) is such a star attraction that…

   I suppose that if you’re still with me, there’s a chance you’ll watch the movie, so I’ll say no more. It’s a lot of fun, not the silly, slapstick sort at all — or mostly not — but the kind of quiet fun that may make you smile a lot without ever cracking you up.

   There are some songs and dance, too, but mostly (and strangely) not until the very end of the movie, which finishes up all of the story lines so quickly I had to back up the DVD to see what I’d missed. You can watch the entire 60 minutes for yourself online here on www.archive.org.

THAT NIGHT IN RIO. 20th Century Fox, 1941. Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda, S. Z. Zakall, J. Carrol Naish. Musical direction by Alfred Newman; Hermes Pan, choreographer; music and lyrics by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren. Director: Irving Cummings. Shown at Cinevent 35, Columbus OH, May 2003.

   Oh, that eye-popping technicolor! Great color cinematography makes you want to lap it up like sugar candy, and there was a time when that kind of color was not an unusual occurrence on the screen.

   And That Night in Rio, starring a very popular trio of musical comedy performers, matches its eye-grabbing color with vibrant performances that provide some of the movie magic (and it doesn’t have to involve ghosts) that used to be more commonplace.

   Well, maybe Alice Faye, a favorite of my errant youth, is somewhat matronly and reserved, but she still cuts a mighty lush figure in a nightgown. (Yes, there’s a semi-naughty bedroom sequence that stays fairly primly but still suggestively on the right side of the Production Code.)

   And Carmen Miranda exudes so much energy that it’s relaxing to have Faye taking center screen, with her mellow voice purring seductively in the lyrics for “They Met in Rio.” Ameche’s dual roles may not have the malevolent fierceness of Chaney’s in The Blackbird [reviewed here ], but they suit the well-constructed comic plot to a “T.” A delightful opening film for the Saturday night screenings.

Editorial Comment:   To watch a five minute clip from this movie, featuring Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche singing “Chica Chica Boom Chic”, go here on YouTube. Spectacular, indeed!

THE GHOST GOES WEST. London Films, UK, 1935 / United Artists, US, 1936. Robert Donat, Eugene Pallette, Jean Parker, Everly Gregg, Elsa Lanchester. Screenplay by Robert Sherwood; cinematography: Harold Rosson. Director: René Clair. Shown at Cinevent 35, Columbus OH, May 2003.

   Don’t blink or you’ll miss the elegant and icy Elsa Lanchester playing a psychic.

   An American businessman buys a Scottish castle, dismantles it, and transports it (along with the resident ghost) to America where it is reassembled and restored. I kept waiting for the “magic” to happen, but this film remained earthbound until the ending when there was a somewhat brief sentimental rush that might qualify as the intrusion of a bit of magic.

   The director is notable, the cast a good one, the premise promising, but the film is overproduced and the execution flat-footed. Or maybe I’m just one of those “sophisticates” the program notes refer to who “regularly prowl the art houses” and find Clair’s American films inferior to his French work. This film is, indeed, inferior to it and I don’t think you have to be a “sophisticate” to conclude that.

  THE HOT HEIRESS. First National, 1931. Ben Lyon, Ona Munson, Walter Pidgeon, Tom Dugan, Holmes Herbert, Inez Courtney, Thelma Todd. Music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; cinematographer: Sol Polito. Director: Clarence G. Badger. Shown at Cinecon 39, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2003.

   An excerpt from this musical was included in a laser disk box set of early sound films. Lyon, as riveter “Hap Harrigan”, works and sings until a hot rivet flies through the window of sleeping socialist Ona Munson (“Juliette Hunter”), who, after an initial uncomfortable moment, likes what she sees through the window and invites Hal the Riveter to come in through the window for lunch.

   It was good to see the rest of the film, which traces the difficult courtship of Lyon and Munson, an apparently ill-fated romantic pair, although the difference is in class and not in warring families and the movie does have a happy ending.

   Walter Pidgeon is Munson’s proper suitor, Thelma Todd, a most attractively photographed (she doesn’t do much acting) society friend of Munson’s, and Tom Dugan and Inez Courtney friends of Hal’s who double date with the ill-matched couple: The most extended sequence is a weekend party at the estate of Juliette’s wealthy parents where Juliette’s family and friends do their damdest to break up the couple.

   Only three of the Rodgers-Harts songs were used, but the sprightly direction and accomplished performances made this an entertaining attraction.

Editorial Comment:   The photo just above is that of Thelma Todd, reportedly taken in connection with (or from) The Hot Heiress. For a glimpse of Ona Munson and Ben Lyon singing “You’re The Cats, You’re The Berries” from this film, check out this YouTube clip online here.

NINE GIRLS. Columbia, 1944. Ann Harding, Evelyn Keyes, Jinx Falkenburg, Anita Louise, Leslie Brooks, Jeff Donnell, Nina Foch, Lynn Merrick, Shirley Mills, Marcia Mae Jones, Williard Robertston, William Demarest, Lester Matthews, Grady Sutton. Director: Leigh Jason. Shown at Cinecon 39, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2003.

   This was the third of the Leigh Jason films that have become an eagerly awaited event at Cinecon. (The earlier films were Dangerous Blondes and Three Girls About Town.)

   A bevy of sorority sisters, chaperoned by Ann Harding (recovered from her tragic demise in East Lynne), drives to a mountain lodge where almost immediately Anita Louise, the most unpleasant member of the group, is murdered. Nina Foch and Evelyn Keyes are the prime suspects as the cops arrive and the entire crew is prevented from leaving by a convenient storm.

   The humor is somewhat broader (and less effective) than in the other two films, but this was still a delightful film. The screenwriters (Karen DeWolf and Connie Lee) also wrote for the Blondie series, one of my early affections (or rather, Penny Singleton was the affection).

Editorial Comments:   My own review of this film appeared earlier on this blog. Check it out here. Of the three lobby cards shown below, only the first two are (as I recall) from the movie itself. I have a feeling that the one at the bottom (with the girls in bathing suits) is only a promotional pose.

I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER. Warner Brothers, 1934. Joan Blondell, Pat O’Brien, Allen Jenkins, Glenda Farrell, Eugene Pallette, Gordon Westcott. Director: Ray Enright.

   This light and lively (and just a little risque) pre-Code comedy is well worth your time and money, if the opportunity should ever come your way. Pat O’Brien and Allen Jenkins, his somewhat dour sidekick, play a couple of telephone company repairmen, and I’ve Got Your Number is filled to the brim with tales of their various adventures.

   Among which are being asked to install longer cords in a luxury apartment inhabited by a coterie of beautiful call girls (if I can fill the gaps, then you should be able too, but one blonde’s backless dress goes a long way in giving it away); unmask a phoney medium (Glenda Farrell) who’s using her phone line to flimflam her clientele who think she’s connecting them to their dearly departed: and finding a new job for a good-looking hotel switchboard operator (Joan Blondell) who lost her job playing along with a practical joke that turned out not to be so funny.

   And it also turns out that Pat O’Brien is quite the operator himself. Getting Joan Blondell to agree to go out for dinner with him is quite a task, but it’s one that he’s more than up far – what with his very persuasive rat-a-tat non-stop vocal ability. It is great, as always, to see a man with a way with women in action, even if he is so good-looking.

   Allen Jenkins claims to hate the ladies, but when he turns up later on with Gloria Farrell as his lady friend on a double date with the other two, we are not surprised (and, I have to admit, just a little jealous).

   Most of the tale is centered on Joan Blondell and her propensity for getting into trouble. It’s not her fault – well, not completely – when some bonds go missing while she’s on duty at the switchboard on the new job O’Brien gets for her, and getting her out of trouble again takes all of her brash young suitor’s formidable abilities.

   What makes the story the most fun, though, is that the players seem to be enjoying themselves as much as they’re hoping the members of the audience will, and I think they must have.

TWO OF A KIND. Columbia, 1951. Edmond O’Brien, Lizabeth Scott, Terry Moore, Alexander Knox, Virginia Brissac, J. M. Kerrigan, Louis Jean Heydt. Director: Henry Levin. Shown at Cinecon 39, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2003.

   This was scheduled to showcase Terry Moore, who was interviewed after the film. She’s a garrulous senior citizen now, very up-beat, but in her prime (and the film seems to have caught her in it) she was a busty, perky, sexy but wholesome-looking actress.

   This was, indeed, a nifty crime film and may even have had a bit of crackle, much of it due to the cast and the crisp direction of Levin.

   Alexander Knox is a shady lawyer, who manages the affairs of a wealthy couple whose only son disappeared many years ago. O’Brien is prepared to be that son and lay claim to their inheritance, while Scott is their partner-in-crime and Moore a ward of the wealthy couple.

   O’Brien is first-rate as the good/bad con-man, Knox is appropriately smooth and dissembling as the lawyer and Moore and Scott make an interesting contrast in sexpots.

Editorial Comments:   My own review of this film appeared earlier on this blog. Check it out here. A two-minute clip from the movie can be found here on YouTube. It’s the scene in which the three conspirators get together to plan strategies. It’s short, but while Terry Moore is everything that Walter says she is (see the photo above), the clip helps to show why, in my words, “this is Lizabeth Scott’s film all the way.”

DAMES AHOY. Universal, 1930. Glenn Tryon, Helen Wright, Otis Harlan, Eddie Gribbon, Gertrude Astor. Director: William James Craft. Shown at Cinecon 39, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2003.

   An early version of a situation so memorably later treated by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green in On the Town (the effervescent stage musical, somewhat diminished in the MGM film).

   Tryon, Harlan and Gribbon are three sailors on weekend shore leave. Tryon and Gribbon promise to help Harlan find the conniving blonde who has swindled Harlan out of half his monthly pay as his wife and go to a dance hall where Harlan had met her.

   The problem is that he can only remember a distinctive tattoo and the boys spend much of the film trying to get into position to sneak a peek at the tattoo. During the search, Tryon is maneuvered into a short engagement and quick marriage in a dance contest, but he finds true love, Harlan locates his duplicitous blonde, and all three sailors seem headed toward domestic bliss at the end.

   A pleasant, low-keyed comedy.

Editorial Comments:   Helen Wright’s movie career was a short one. According to one online source, she was an operatically trained singer with blue eyes and auburn hair. She made only one other film, Spurs, a western starring Hoot Gibson that was also released in 1930.

   And in case you were wondering, the tattoo (or birthmark; sources vary) was on her knee.

“Punchy Cowpunchers” (1950). A Three Stooges short. Running time: 17 minutes. Shemp Howard, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Jock O’Mahoney (Elmer), Christine McIntyre (Nell), Kenneth MacDonald (Dillon), Dick Wessel (Mullins), Vernon Dent (Colonel), Emil Sitka (Daley), George Chesebro (Jeff, uncredited). Written and directed by Edward Bernds.

   The Three Stooges are definitely not for all tastes, so if you don’t like slapstick comedy just skip this review.

    “Punchy Cowpunchers” spoofs just about every cliche hitherto found in Western films: the outlaw gang looting the town; the stalwart, jut-jawed, guitar-playing, “aw shucks!” hero; the virginal love interest for the hero; and the U.S. Cavalry ready to ride in on a moment’s notice and save the day.

   Only the outlaws (“The Killer Dillons”) aren’t too bright — and neither is our hero (Elmer), a total klutz who can’t stay on his horse, constantly collides with objects and people (“I hurt mah knee agin”), forgets to load his guns (and when he does remember can’t shoot straight), and, let’s face it, doesn’t play his “geetar” very well.

   As for his “gal” (“Nell honey”), she’s far from being the “poor, defenseless woman” she claims to be. When one gang member after another tries to kidnap her (for nefarious purposes, no doubt), she decks them all and then each time demurely passes out — but not until she’s found something soft to land on.

   And forget the cavalry — they just got paid, and as the colonel says, “Well, you know, boys will be boys.”

    “Punchy Cowpunchers” takes the best of Stooges slapstick and distills it into less than twenty minutes of fast-paced nonsense. The only other short feature I really liked from these guys was “Dutiful But Dumb” (1941), a political satire featuring Curly’s epic battle with his supper, a bowl of chowder inhabited by a very rude clam (a masterpiece of timing and film editing).

   The klutzy “hero” was played by Jock Mahoney (1919-89), a former stunt man double for Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck, and John Wayne. Mahoney went on to appear many times in films and TV, including 77 episodes of The Range Rider (1951-53), 34 episodes as Yancy Derringer (1958-59), and several appearances in Tarzan films, sometimes as the villain and sometimes as the vine swinger himself. For a more intellectual Mahoney, see the sci-fi snoozer The Land Unknown (1957).

    “Nell honey” was played by Christine McIntyre (1911-84), who possessed an operatic-level singing voice (not employed in “Punchy Cowpunchers”). She spent most of her film career working in short features, many of them with The Three Stooges. She even appeared several times in Mahoney’s Western series, The Range Rider.

   Kenneth MacDonald (1901-72) frequently showed up in Stooges shorts as a bad guy. He went on to play the judge 32 times in the Perry Mason series, starting with the second show and finishing up with the very last episode.

   Mention should also be made of George Chesebro (1888-1959), whose film career started in 1915. Chesebro often appeared as a henchman (usually the third one through the door) or a cop. The IMDb credits him with over 400 titles.

   You can watch “Punchy Cowpunchers“ in two segments on YouTube: Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

LAW OF THE JUNGLE. Monogram Pictures, 1942. Arline Judge, John King, Mantan Moreland, Arthur O’Connell, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Kingsford, Laurence Criner, Victor Kendall. Director: Jean Yarbrough.

   I didn’t begin watching this movie with high expectations, and after five minutes, I was ready to turn it off. I’d seen it all before, I thought, and far better done, and this assuming I wanted to see another girl-singer-stranded-in-the-African-outback movie again in the first place.

   But something caught my attention – maybe it was Arline Judge, a good-looking brunette with beautifully expressive eyes – or maybe it was Mantan Moreland, playing another comedy role in a low budget picture as “Jeff,” in this case the fellow heading up John King’s safari into the jungle looking for bones.

   Or maybe it was the only player in this movie who later on received two Oscar nominations, Arthur O’Connell, the grizzled, dissipated and thoroughly crooked owner of the traders’ bar where Arline Judge has been stranded without a passport, which O’Connell, unknowing to her, has in his possession.

   Palaeontologist John King, whom Arlene calls “Professor,” is her only lifeline out of Africa, as well as her means of escape from some Nazi-like fellows that O’Connell is in cahoots with.

   Which just about explains everything, including perhaps why I kept watching. And enjoying myself, especially the scene in the moonlight in the jungle with Arlene Judge’s head on John King’s shoulder, and he totally oblivious to her charms.

   In movies made by Monogram in their heyday, scientists were either mad, you see, or hopelessly naive. (John King’s acting is also as stiff as they come, but among other highlights of his career, he was one of the Range Busters in a series of early 40s B-westerns for Monogram after having the title role in the Ace Drummond serial in 1936.)

   There is also later on a guy dressed up in a gorilla suit, and Mantan Moreland learns not to say “Scrambola” to the head chief’s hefty-sized daughter when trying to persuade her to release him and the other two stars of this motion picture. Whenever Mr. Moreland is on the screen, this movie is a comedy. When he’s not, it’s a below average jungle adventure, but believe it or not, none the worse for it.