CURTAIN CALL AT CACTUS CREEK. Universal, 1950. Donald O’Connor, Gale Storm, Walter Brennan, Vincent Price, Eve Arden, Chick Chandler, Rex Lease, I. Stanford Jolley. Director: Charles Lamont.

   As I have noted before, Universal was best-known for its horror films — not all of them classics — and their comedies tended toward dire efforts with the likes of Francis the Talking Mule. But now and again, quite unexpectedly (perhaps unintentionally) they came out with an off-beat and lightly enjoyable piece like Curtain Call at Cactus Creek, written and directed by the folks who usually worked on Abbott & Costello comedies. This hasn’t aired on TV in a generation, but I found it on DVD recently and fell in love.

   Curtain / Creek offers Donald O’Connor as the one-man stage crew of a threadbare theatrical troupe, shooting off amusing stunts and sight gags as he juggles props and struggles for stardom, worshiping ingénue Gale Storm from anear while handling deadly desperadoes and discontented customers with gawky aplomb.

   It’s the kind of part Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton made their own in the silent movies, and O’Connor wears their mantle quite capably, jumping about at the least excuse and generally making the film fun to look at. Gale Storm is also rather nice as the romantic interest, projecting a predatory vitality that has its moments, but the movie really belongs to its supporting players, Eve Arden, Walter Brennan and Vincent Price.

   Brennan here plays an aging bank robber who years ago fell in love with a picture of stage sensation Lily Martin (echoing his role in The Westerner a decade earlier) and delighted now to meet her in the impoverished person of Eve Arden.

   As the story jumps along, Brennan hides out with the acting troupe and takes an avuncular interest in O’Connor’s struggle to make himself worthy of Gale Storm, softening his (Brennan’s) crusty exterior — another familiar theme of the silent days, and the source of some fun here.

   Then there’s Vincent Price, strutting about as the Leading Man, dressed in elaborate-looking but rather tawdry outfits, looking aristocratically down his nose at the world in general (and O’Connor in particular) and dumping spectacularly eloquent abuse on Walter Brennan. It’s the kind of part Price was born for, and he’s consistently funny here, constantly quoting Shakespeare, but usually from the lesser plays — a nice touch that, and one you don’t expect in a Universal comedy.

   Chief delight, however, is Eve Arden as the sadder-but-still-arch faded star, ruefully accepting the worship of Brennan’s grimy outlaw and taking the world with that weary-but-game humor that she made her own. Tossing off her reaction to a near-sighted admirer (“That explains a lot!”) or trying to cheer up Donald O’Connor as he faces twenty years in jail with “See you (pause) later,” Arden adds a layer of thoughtfulness to a film that already has plenty of charm.