Gloria Jean, Deanna Durbin’s successor at Universal, plays a teen eager to secure success for the drummer she adores (Mel Tormé) and his band, piling up schemes to win a contest, to gain his affection, to thwart those who would co-opt his talent for their own ends. Patric Knowles portrays her long-suffering but somewhat scattered …
Read the full post →“<em>Pardon My Rhythm</em> (Universal, 1944)”
Fans of mid-century wrestling will get a kick out of this Bowery Boys entry, as an unexplained medical condition renders part of Sach’s anatomy impervious to pain, making him a powerhouse in the wrestling ring as he takes on various real-life wrestlers on his way to the championship. Of course, there’s a scheming villain — …
Read the full post →“<em>No Holds Barred</em> (Monogram, 1952)”
Snow takes the place of sand — at least for most of the movie — in this variation on the beach movie theme, with Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman as college kids who join a ski club outing in order to be near the girls they hope to romance (Deborah Walley and Yvonne Craig). The …
Read the full post →“<em>Ski Party</em> (American International, 1965)”
Buster Keaton at the height of his powers as a physical comedian delivers the goods in Steamboat Bill, Jr., the story of a soft young man from the East joining his rough but good-natured riverboat captain father (Ernest Torrence) and trying to make good. The comedy is terrific, both in understated ways — in his …
Read the full post →“<em>Steamboat Bill, Jr.</em> (UA, 1928)”
The final film pairing Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey (their career curtailed by Bob’s illness and death the following year) sees the boys as carnies tricked into helping jewel robbers with a shipboard heist, though their misguided flight ends up landing them right at the home of the rightful owner of the stolen jewels. Complicating …
Credit a post at the blog Fists and .45s! for turning me on to the espionage comedy with music Out of Sight. Released in 1966 and starring John Daly as a butler impersonating his secret agent boss, the movie owes a good deal to American International’s beach movies, I’d say, extending even to including musical …
Read the full post →“<em>Out of Sight</em> (Universal, 1966)”
Laurel & Hardy are vacationing in France, and Ollie has become enamored of an innkeeper’s daughter, who — unknown to him — is already married to an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Disappointed in his romance, Ollie resolves to end it all, taking Stan along with him, but instead decides to join the Legion …
Read the full post →“<em>The Flying Deuces</em> (RKO, 1939)”
Pia Zadora stars as Dee Dee, who just wants a chance to sing with a band, though her jerk of a boyfriend, who has a Stray Cats-like rockabilly group, doesn’t want her to do so. She gets her chance, however, when aliens arrive and decide to perform at the local high school cotillion — if …
Read the full post →“<em>Voyage of the Rock Aliens</em> (1984)”
College student Eddie (Eddie Cantor) and his buddy Ricardo (Robert Young) are booted out of college just before graduation because of a prank. When Eddie innocently becomes involved in a bank holdup, the crooks force him to leave the country and go to Mexico, Ricardo’s homeland, and, to try to put a clever detective off …
Read the full post →“<em>The Kid from Spain</em> (Goldwyn / UA, 1932)”
A crime fighter, City Hunter (Jackie Chan), reluctantly becomes involved in battling a criminal plot to loot a cruise ship, finding some allies and plenty of opponents — including one from the past — along the way. There are many characters, action-filled sequences, and comedy as well, though the jumble isn’t in the end particularly …
