Willie BestFilmography

The Trouble with Father [TV Series]

Actors: Stuart Erwin, June Collyer

Jiggs and Maggie in Jackpot Jitters

The Shanghai Chest

Actors: Roland Winters, Mantan Moreland, Deannie Best, John Alvin

Synopsis: Even after three appearances as oriental sleuth Charlie Chan, Roland Winters showed no interest in taking the role seriously. Shanghai Chest finds Charlie in the employ of the U.S. government, assigned to solve a series of puzzling murders. The victims all appear to have died by snakebite, which Read More

Smart Woman

Actors: Iris Adrian, Brian Aherne, Constance Bennett, Willie Best, Lee Bonnell

Synopsis: In this courtroom drama, two opposing lawyers lead a double life. In the courtroom they are ruthless toward each other, but once the day is over they become passionate lovers. Unfortunately their newest case may well threaten their relationship as the defense attorney is defending a corrupt Read More

Half Past Midnight

Actors: Kent Taylor, Peggy Knudsen, Joe Sawyer, Walter Sande, Gil Stratton

Synopsis: In this mystery, a detective encounters a woman in a nightclub. He finds that she is being blackmailed by a dancer who is murdered that very night. Of course, the woman becomes the main suspect. She and the gumshoe team up and begin searching for the real killer. The police are in hot pursuit. It Read More

Sepia Cinderella

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Freddie Bartholomew, Ruble Blakey, Jack Carter, Billy Daniels

Synopsis: As indicated by the title, Sepia Cinderella is an updated retelling of the classic fairy tale, featuring a cast of African-American performers. The "Cinderella" is this instance is a young man, played by Ruble Blakely. A struggling songwriter, Blakely scores an unexpected hit, then finds that he Read More

The Red Stallion

Actors: Willie Best, Robert Bice, Bill Cartledge, Ray Collins

Synopsis: Under the aegis of veteran program-feature producer Bryan Foy, the fledgling Eagle-Lion company made great strides during its first year of existence. Filmed in Cinecolor, The Red Stallion is on the surface a standard yarn about a ranch boy and his beloved horse, replete with a Read More

Suddenly It's Spring

Actors: Paulette Goddard, Fred MacMurray, MacDonald Carey, Arleen Whelan, Lilian Fontaine

Synopsis: A post-WWII romantic comedy that explores the effects of the war on American marriage, this film stars Fred MacMurray and Paulette Goddard as Peter and Mary Morley, a pair of constantly fighting attorneys. They are on the verge of breaking up their marriage when the war breaks out. Mary goes into Read More

The Red Dragon

Actors: Sidney Toler, Fortunio Bonanova, Benson Fong, Robert Emmett Keane, Willie Best

Synopsis: Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) heads south of the border in this so-so series entry. With the help of Mexican police official Luis (Fortunio Bonanova), Chan looks high and low for a stolen atomic-bomb formula. The oriental detective is also "aided" by his son Tommy (Benson Fong) and his chauffeur Read More

The Bride Wore Boots

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Cummings, Diana Lynn, Patric Knowles, Peggy Wood, Robert Benchley

Synopsis: Charmless films like The Bride Wore Boots helped to kill the postwar revival of the "screwball comedy" genre almost before it began. Here's the deal: Breeding-farm owner Sally (Barbara Stanwyck) loves horses. Novelist Jeff (Robert Cummings) hates horses, but loves Sally. Jeff and Sally marry, only Read More

Dangerous Money

Synopsis: In this episode of the popular detective series, Chan, along with Number Two Son, are aboard a ship bound for Pago Pago. On route a federal agent is murdered. The two sleuths investigate. The film is also titled "Charlie Chan in Dangerous Money." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Face of Marble

Actors: John Carradine, Claudia Drake, Robert Shayne, Maris Wrixon, Willie Best

Synopsis: Director William "One Take" Beaudine handles Face of Marble with his usual hasty professionalism. John Carradine stars as Professor Randolph, a brilliant brain surgeon. At the moment, Randolph and his assistant David Cochran (Robert Shayne) are experimenting with restoring the dead to life. But Read More

The Monster and the Ape

Synopsis: Columbia Pictures, as usual, cast a lesser-known player -- in this case the handsome but rather stolid Robert Lowery -- in the starring role of The Monster and the Ape, a rough-and-tumble serial released in 15 chapters. Lowery played Ken Morgan, an agent for a company manufacturing the newly Read More

Pillow to Post

Actors: Ida Lupino, Sydney Greenstreet, Stuart Erwin, Johnny Mitchell

Synopsis: Yes, even Ida Lupino occasionally starred in screwball comedies during the 1930s and 1940s. Pillow to Post casts Lupino as free-spirited travelling saleswoman Jane Howard, who has trouble finding suitable lodgings during the wartime housing shortage. In order to secure a room at a motor camp Read More

She Wouldn't Say Yes

Synopsis: Rosalind Russell plays yet another independent career woman in She Wouldn't Say Yes. This time she's a psychiatrist who sees no need for a man in her life. Her resolve weakens a bit when she meets Lee Bowman, a dashing combat sketch artist suffering from wartime emotional problems. Bowman falls in Read More

Hold That Blonde

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Veronica Lake, Albert Dekker, Willie Best, Frank Fenton

Synopsis: This curious mixture of comedy, romance and melodrama teams up comic actor Eddie Bracken and glamour girl Veronica Lake, two of Paramount's most popular stars of the mid-1940s. He plays Ogden Spencer Trulow III, a wealthy kleptomaniac; she plays Sally Martin, who may or may not provide the "cure" Read More

The Girl Who Dared

Synopsis: Lorna Gray, shortly before changing her professional name to Adrian Booth, plays the title character in Republic's The Girl Who Dared. Gray is one of several vacationers who makes a side trip to a remote island in Georgia. It isn't long before one of the tourists is murdered. As an act of Read More

Home in Indiana

Actors: Walter Brennan, Lon McCallister, Jeanne Crain, June Haver, Charlotte Greenwood

Synopsis: In this touching drama, city-slicker Sparke Thorton goes to live on his aunt and uncle's horse farm in the country. The couple have basically retired from horse-breeding and only have one trotter left. Sparks fly when the young man meets the lovely Char and Cri-Cri, the two farm girls who Read More

The Adventures of Mark Twain

Actors: Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Dismissed by critics as corny and obvious in 1944, this overlong but sincere biopic looks pretty good when seen today, cliches notwithstanding. Fredric March, 47 at the time, convincingly plays American author Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, from his early 20s to his death at 75. In typical Read More

The Kansan

Actors: Richard Dix, Jane Wyatt, Albert Dekker, Eugene Pallette, Victor Jory

Synopsis: Like several other Harry Sherman Productions of the 1942-43 season, The Kansan was originally slated for a Paramount release, then redirected to United Artists. Richard Dix and Jane Wyatt, stars of the previous Sherman effort Buckskin Frontier, are reunited herein as western lawman John Bonniwell Read More

Cabin in the Sky

Actors: Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram

Synopsis: MGM knew it would take a bath on its all-black musical Cabin in the Sky (few Southern theaters of 1943 would touch the film), but the studio still provided its standard A-plus production values to the film; besides, it served as a training ground for up-and-coming director Vincente Minnelli. Based Read More

Thank Your Lucky Stars

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Dinah Shore, Joan Leslie, Bette Davis, Dennis Morgan, Humphrey Bogart, Olivia de Havilland, Edward Everett Horton

Synopsis: Practically everybody on the Warner Bros. lot shows up in the wartime morale-boosting musical extravaganza Thank Your Lucky Stars. Believe it or not, this one has a wisp of a plot. A pair of enterprising producers, played by S.Z. Sakall and Edward Everett Horton, want to hire singer Dinah Shore Read More

Dixie

Actors: Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Billy De Wolfe, Marjorie Reynolds, Raymond Walburn, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: According to this exuberant Paramount musical, famed pre-Civil War minstrel performer Daniel Decatur Emmett looked and sounded exactly like Bing Crosby! Very loosely based on the real Emmett's life and career, the film is essentially an excuse for an unending stream of Southern-fried ballads and Read More

Whispering Ghosts

Actors: Milton Berle, Brenda Joyce, John Shelton, Willie Best

Synopsis: The Milton Berle starrer Whispering Ghosts was clearly inspired by the Red Skelton comedy-mystery Whistling in the Dark (itself inspired by Bob Hope's The Ghost Breakers). Uncle Miltie is cast as H. H. Van Buren, a radio sleuth who delights in solving real-life mysteries ahead of the official Read More

Cinderella Swings It

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Gloria Warren, Helen Parrish, Dick Hogan, Leonid Kinskey

Synopsis: Cinderella Swings It was the last in a series of RKO programmers based on the popular radio series Scattergood Baines (its original title, Scattergood Swings It, was changed in the light of the poor reception afforded the earlier series entries). Guy Kibbee stars as small-town busybody Baines, who Read More

Juke Girl

Actors: Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan, Richard Whorf, Gene Lockhart, Betty Brewer

Synopsis: Director Curtis Bernhardt hadn't wanted to make Juke Girl, but he was under contract to Warner Bros. and had to tow the line lest he find himself drawing Unemployment. One of Bernhardt's gripes against the film is that it starred Ronald Reagan, whom he considered an "unimportant" screen Read More

The Powers Girl

Actors: George Murphy, Anne Shirley, Carole Landis, Dennis Day

Synopsis: For the benefit of those who came in late, the John Robert Powers modelling agency was at one time the most famous and powerful enterprise of its kind in New York City. Acknowledging this prominence is the 1942 musical comedy The Powers Girl, with Anne Shirley and Carole Landis starring as sisters Read More

The Hidden Hand

Actors: Craig Stevens, Elisabeth Fraser, Julie Bishop, Willie Best, Frank Wilcox

Synopsis: Everybody seems to have had a good time making the overripe melodrama The Hidden Hand, especially cadaverous Milton Parsons as insane-asylum escapee John Channing. In her efforts to protect her brother from the authorities, John's sister Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham) opens the door for a series of Read More

Scattergood Survives a Murder

Actors: Guy Kibbee, John Archer, Maggie Hayes, Wallace Ford, Spencer Charters

Synopsis: The title neatly gives away the ending in RKO Radio's Scattergood Survives a Murder. Guy Kibbee once again stars as storekeeper Scattergood Baines, the sage of the small town of Coldriver. The story gets under way when two reclusive spinsters die under mysterious circumstances. Inasmuch the as the Read More

A-Haunting We Will Go

Actors: Sheila Ryan, John Shelton, Don Costello

Synopsis: Laurel & Hardy's second starring vehicle for 20th Century-Fox is arguably their weakest feature film, with the laughs few and far between. Broke as usual, the duo is given 24 hours to get out of town by the local constabulary. In dire need of travelling expenses, they take a job accompanying a Read More

Busses Roar

Actors: Richard Travis, Julie Bishop, Charles Drake, Eleanor Parker, Elisabeth Fraser

Synopsis: Long before Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock joined forces in Speed (1994), there was the strikingly similar Warner Bros. B-picture Busses Roar. A gang of Axis spies decide to use a California passenger bus to secretly transport a demolition bomb to a coastal oil field. The bomb is set to go off Read More

Kisses for Breakfast

Actors: Dennis Morgan, Jane Wyatt, Shirley Ross, Lee Patrick, Jerome Cowan

Synopsis: Kisses for Breakfast is a dumbed-down remake of the 1930 marital comedy The Matrimonial Bed, itself based on a British stage play by Seymour Hicks-which in turn was adapted from a French farce by Yves Mirande and Andre Mouzey-Eon. With that pedigree, it's amazing that this frenetic 1941 Read More

Highway West

Actors: Brenda Marshall, Arthur Kennedy, Olympe Bradna, William Lundigan, George "Slim" Summerville

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a remake of Heat Lightning(1931), a robber kills a bank teller during a robbery and then takes his wife, who believes he is a traveling businessman, on the road with him as he flees. He is eventually captured and sentenced. Meanwhile his wife returns to running a motel and gas Read More

The Smiling Ghost

Actors: Wayne Morris, Brenda Marshall, Alexis Smith, Alan Hale, Lee Patrick

Synopsis: Like MGM's Whistling in the Dark, Warner Bros.' The Smiling Ghost was inspired by the success of Paramount's comedy-mystery The Ghost Breakers--even unto the casting of Ghost Breakers' Willie Best in a similar role. During a gloriously oversized thunderstorm, hapless hero Lucky Downing (Wayne Read More

High Sierra

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Arthur Kennedy, Joan Leslie, Alan Curtis

Synopsis: In a manner of speaking, Humphrey Bogart had George Raft to thank for his ascendancy to stardom: after all, if Raft hadn't turned down both High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, Bogart might have continued playing second-billed gangsters to the end of his days. Adapted from W. R. Burnett's novel by Burnett Read More

Nothing But the Truth

Actors: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Edward Arnold, Glenn Anders

Synopsis: In this version of the oft-filmed stage play by James Montgomery, Nothing But the Truth stars Bob Hope as an up and coming young stockbroker working in Florida. He makes a bet with his coworkers that he can tell nothing but the absolute truth for 24 hours, and the other bettors are determined to Read More

Scattergood Baines

Actors: Guy Kibbee, Carolyn Hughes, John Archer, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: Inspired by the long-running (1937-1949) radio series of the same name, Scattergood Baines came to the screen in 1941, with Guy Kibbee replacing the radio version's Jess Pugh in the title role. In his first movie outing, storekeeper Scattergood Baines, resident philosopher of the town of Read More

The Lady from Cheyenne

Actors: Loretta Young, Robert Preston, Edward Arnold, Frank Craven, Gladys George

Synopsis: In this western, a schoolteacher battles for women's rights in mid 19th century Wyoming. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Body Disappears

Actors: Jeffrey Lynn, Jane Wyman, Edward Everett Horton, Sidney Bracey

Synopsis: Possibly inspired by Universal's The Invisible Woman, Warner Bros.' The Body Disappears is an agreeably daffy comedy with science-fiction undertones. Passing out from overindulgence during his engagement party, young millionaire Peter De Haven is placed on a slab in a college dissecting room by Read More

Flight from Destiny

Actors: Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell, Jeffrey Lynn, James Stephenson, Mona Maris

Synopsis: In this drama, a terminally ill college professor with only three months to live asks some younger colleagues what he should do with the rest of his life. One advises him to murder someone who deserves to die. The professor likes the idea and chooses to off a conniving seductress who really enjoys Read More

Road Show

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Carole Landis, John Hubbard, Charles Butterworth, Patsy Kelly

Synopsis: When millionaire bachelor John Hubbard takes a run-out powder at his own wedding, Hubbard's vengeful fiancee Polly Ann Young has the luckless fellow committed to an insane asylum. Hubbard escapes with certified looney Adolphe Menjou; together they join a carnival run by Carole Landis. Hubbard and Menjou Read More

Money and the Woman

Actors: Brenda Marshall, Jeffrey Lynn, Roger Pryor, John Litel, Lee Patrick, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: The fact that James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, Mildred Pearce et. al.) was responsible for the storyline is the sole distinguishing feature of the pedestrian Warner Bros. melodrama Money and the Woman. Roger Pryor plays bank teller Charles Patterson, an outwardly honest soul who is actually a Read More

Who Killed Aunt Maggie?

Actors: John Hubbard, Wendy Barrie, Edgar Kennedy, Elizabeth Patterson, Onslow Stevens

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Medora Field, Who Killed Aunt Maggie? would appear to be an attempt by Republic Pictures to launch a new series of comedy-mysteries a la MGM's The Thin Man. When a much-despised matriarch (Elizabeth Patterson) is murdered-or apparently murdered-all of her relatives and Read More

Slightly Honorable

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Edward Arnold, Broderick Crawford, Ruth Terry, Claire Dodd

Synopsis: The successful producer-director combination of Walter Wanger and Tay Garnett served up another winner with Slightly Honorable. Adapted from F. G. Presnell's novel Send Another Coffin, the story concerns the efforts made by corrupt politician Cushing (Edward Arnold) to frame honest attorney John Read More

Blondie on a Budget

Actors: Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms, Rita Hayworth

Synopsis: This is the celebrated Blondie episode that costars Rita Hayworth, who in 1940 was still just another Columbia contract actress. Hayworth plays an old flame of Dagwood Bumstead's (Arthur Lake), who moves into the Bumstead household when wife Blondie (Penny Singleton) advertises for a boarder. Read More

I Take This Woman

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, Veree Teasdale, Kent Taylor, Laraine Day

Synopsis: This soapy drama stars Hedy Lamarr as a would be model who meets a research doctor en route to the US from Europe. They meet when Dr. Spencer Tracy prevents her from taking a suicidal plunge from the upper decks of the ocean liner. It seems that Lamarr had been involved with married man Kent Read More

The Ghost Breakers

Actors: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson, Paul Lukas, Willie Best

Synopsis: Paramount followed up its successful Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard co-starrer The Cat and the Canary (1939) by warming up another venerable "old dark house" stage play, Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard's The Ghost Breaker, pluralizing the title to accommodate both stars. This time Hope plays radio Read More

The Covered Trailer

Actors: James Gleason, Lucille Gleason, Russell Gleason, Harry Davenport, Tommy Ryan

Synopsis: In this entry in the comedy series the "Higgins Family," the group must cancel a cruise to South America after the check they needed does not arrive. To save face before their neighbors, the family embarks upon a wilderness fishing trip. The family made a wise decision to forego the cruise as the Read More

Nancy Drew, Trouble Shooter

Actors: Bonita Granville, Frankie Thomas, John Litel, Aldrich Bowker, Charlotte Wynters

Synopsis: The third of Warner Bros.' series based on the teenaged sleuth created by Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew, Trouble Shooter stars Bonita Granville as the plucky Nancy. Nancy's father Judge Drew (John Litel) is tormented by the fact that an old friend has been accused of murder. The Judge insists that Read More

The Saint Strikes Back

Actors: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Jonathan Hale, Jerome Cowan, Neil Hamilton

Synopsis: The Saint Strikes Back was the second in the series of films featuring Simon Templay, better known as The Saint, and the first to star George Sanders in the role. Val Travers (Wendy Barrie) is the daughter of a police detective who killed himself after being dishonorably let go from the San Read More

Blackmail

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Hussey, Gene Lockhart, Bobs Watson, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: Through a miscarriage of justice, John Ingram (Edward G. Robinson) is convicted of a crime he did not commit and sentenced to a long stretch on a chain gang in the deep South. In time, Ingram flees to Oklahoma, where he makes a living fighting oil fires under an assumed name. Several years later Read More

At the Circus

Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Florence Rice, Kenny Baker

Synopsis: A distinct letdown from their previous MGM films, the Marx Bros.' At the Circus nonetheless contains intermittent moments of high hilarity. When Jeff Wilson (Kenny Baker) is in danger of losing his circus to crooked creditor Carter (James Burke), Jeff's faithful roustabout Antonio (Chico Marx) Read More

Private Detective

Actors: Jane Wyman, Dick Foran, Gloria Dickson, "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom, John Ridgely

Synopsis: Probably as a reward for her energetic performance in Torchy Plays with Dynamite, pert Jane Wyman was given another Glenda Farrell-like leading role in Private Detective. Wyman plays gorgeous P.I. Myrna Winslow, the principal rival of male gumshoe Jim Rickey (Dick Foran). The case at hand concerns Read More

Mars Attacks the World

Actors: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles B. Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts

Synopsis: This science fiction film features the revenge of Ming who vowed to destroy the Earth. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Youth Takes a Fling

Actors: Andrea Leeds, Joel McCrea, Frank Jenks, Dorothea Kent, Isabel Jeans

Synopsis: Andrea Leeds, whose career had shifted into hyperdrive after her brilliant performance in Stage Door (1937), stars in the Universal programmer Youth Takes a Fling. Leeds plays Helen Brown, a New York City department-store salesgirl who falls in love with Kansas City truckdriver Joe Meadows (Joel Read More

Gold Is Where You Find It

Actors: George Brent, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains, John Litel

Synopsis: Michael Curtiz directs this Technicolor Western based on the familiar story by Clements Ripley about the rivalry between farmers and miners in the Sacramento valley during the years following the California Gold Rush. Handsome engineer Jared Whitney (George Brent) from the Golden Moon mining Read More

Merrily We Live

Actors: Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray, Patsy Kelly

Synopsis: Merrily We Live is a blatant imitation of My Man Godfrey, courtesy of producer Hal Roach. This time Brian Aherne is the gentleman vagabond whom flighty society matron Billie Burke hires as a butler. Aherne's down-to-earth attitude jars against the high-toned phoniness of Burke's wealthy household Read More

Goodbye Broadway

Actors: Alice Brady, Charles Winninger, Tom Brown, Dorothea Kent, Frank Jenks

Synopsis: Goddbye Broadway is wrapped up by two stage & screen veterans, Alice Brady and Charles Winninger. The stars play vaudevillians Molly and Pat Malloy, who are suckered into investing $4000 in a ramschackle New England hotel. After a variety of predictable but amusing complications, the Malloys turn Read More

Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation

Actors: Peter Lorre, Joseph Schildkraut, Lionel Atwill, Virginia Field, John King

Synopsis: This eighth (and final) entry in 20th Century-Fox's "Mr. Moto" series once again stars Peter Lorre as J. P. Marquand's resourceful and unfailingly polite Japanese detective. When American archeologist Howard Stevens (John King) recovers the ancient crown of the Queen of Sheba, the priceless Read More

Blondie

Actors: Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms, Gene Lockhart, Ann Doran

Synopsis: When Columbia Pictures secured the movie rights to Chic Young's popular comic strip Blondie, the studio executives probably never imagined that the ensuing "Blondie" series would last for 12 years and 28 episodes! Part of the series' charm was Columbia's wisdom in casting the ideal actors for the Read More

Saturday's Heroes

Actors: Van Heflin, Marian Marsh, Richard Lane, Alan Bruce, Minor Watson

Synopsis: The low-budget football drama Saturday's Heroes is remarkably frank and timely -- at least for the first 4 reels or so. Debunking the squeaky-clean image then enjoyed by college football players, the film shows its amateur athletes betting on games, scalping tickets, and willingly accepting Read More

Super Sleuth

Actors: Jack Oakie, Ann Sothern, Eduardo Ciannelli, Alan Bruce, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: Super Sleuth stars Jack Oakie as an egotistical movie actor who specializes in detective roles. Despite the gentle remonstrations of his girl friend (Ann Sothern), Oakie fancies himself a genuine master sleuth, and in this capacity offers his services to the law in helping to solve a recent series Read More

Mississippi Moods

Breezing Home

Actors: William Gargan, Binnie Barnes, Wendy Barrie, Raymond Walburn, Alma Kruger

Synopsis: Framed by the fast-paced world of horse racing, this romance centers upon the wealthy young owner of a racing stable who falls in love with a beautiful singer who has just been given Galaxy, a promising young horse, by one of her beaus. Galaxy is accompanied by a trainer, who is also in love with Read More

Racing Lady

Actors: Ann Dvorak, Smith Ballew, Harry Carey, Berton Churchill, Frank M. Thomas

Synopsis: Professional horsewoman Ann Dvorak is the Racing Lady in this hit-and-miss romantic comedy. The story begins breaking into a trot when millionaire auto tycoon Steven Wendel (Smith Ballew) (later a movie "singing cowboy") purchases a thoroughbred horse and engages the services of Ruth Martin (Dvorak Read More

Meet the Missus

Actors: Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Anne Shirley, Alan Bruce, Edward H. Robins

Synopsis: Meet the Missus poked fun at the contest crazes of the 1930s. Helen Broderick stars as a woman who spends every spare moment entering contests, much to the discomfort of her browbeaten hubby Victor Moore, who is left with all the housework. She finally makes the finals in the "Happy Noodles Read More

The Lady Fights Back

Actors: Irene Hervey, Kent Taylor, William Lundigan, Willie Best, Frank Jenks

Synopsis: A novel by Arthur Stringer was the source for this two-fisted Universal programmer. When a giant utility company begins building a dam in the Northwoods, feisty conservationist Heather McHale (Irene Hervey) battles tooth and nail to keep the land sacred. Impressed by her determination and grit Read More

Down the Stretch

Actors: Mickey Rooney, Patricia Ellis, Dennis Moore, Willie Best, Gordon Hart

Synopsis: In this drama, a teen is adopted from a reform school by a wealthy couple. They own horses and the boy becomes a jockey. His father was also a rider, but he got involved with crime. The young rider soon finds himself being framed by gamblers who are using his father's reputation against him. Read More

Make Way for a Lady

Actors: Herbert Marshall, Anne Shirley, Gertrude Michael, Margot Grahame, Clara Blandick

Synopsis: Anne Shirley is the teenaged "lady" in this filmization of Elizabeth Jordan's novel My Daddy and I. Shirley plays the daughter of widowed Herbert Marshall, who suffers in silence as his daughter tries to "match" him with every eligible woman in sight. Misinterpreting a delicate situation, Shirley Read More

Muss 'em Up

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Margaret Callahan, Alan Mowbray, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: When New York police commissioner Lewis J. Valentine instructed his men that the best way to handle criminals was to "muss 'em up," he probably had no idea that he was supplying the title for this RKO Radio crime drama. It all begins when millionaire Paul Harding's (Alan Mowbray) dog is murdered. Read More

Mummy's Boys

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Barbara Pepper, Moroni Olsen, Frank M. Thomas

Synopsis: Were it not for the deplorable Silly Billies, Mummy's Boys might well have been the weakest of the Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey comedies. The boys are cast as ditch diggers Stanley Wright and Aloysius Whittaker, who sign on as "excavators" for an archaeological expedition into Egypt. What our Read More

Murder on a Bridle Path

Actors: James Gleason, Helen Broderick, Louise Latimer, Owen Davis, Jr., John Arledge

Synopsis: When Edna May Oliver decided to leave RKO Radio's "Hildegarde Withers" series, the studio came up with an unorthodox replacement in the form of the dry-witted Helen Broderick. Murder on a Bridle Path turned out to be Broderick's only appearance in the series, after which she was succeeded by ZaSu Pitts Read More

Thank You, Jeeves

Actors: Arthur Treacher, Virginia Field, David Niven, Lester Matthews, Colin Tapley

Synopsis: In this romantic mystery, based on the beloved characters of P.G. Wodehouse, the ever-impeccable, unflappable butler Jeeves does all he can to serve his clumsy young master. This time Jeeves falsely identifies evil spies as government agents. Unfortunately these bogus G-men have come to steal Read More

General Spanky

Actors: George "Spanky" McFarland, Phillips Holmes, Ralph Morgan, Irving Pichel, Rosina Lawrence

Synopsis: Having successful moved his top comedians Laurel & Hardy from short subjects to features, producer Hal Roach endeavored to do the same with the Our Gang Kids in 1936's General Spanky. Set in the South during the Civil War, the story focuses on Spanky (George "Spanky" McFarland), an orphaned Read More

The Lady Consents

Actors: Ann Harding, Herbert Marshall, Margaret Lindsay, Walter Abel, Edward Ellis

Synopsis: Ann Harding stars as Anne Talbot, the wife of prominent physician Michael Talbot (Herbert Marshall). Despite his happy marriage, the good doctor's head has been turned by much-younger socialite Jerry Mannerly (Margaret Lindsay). A "modern woman," Anne gallantly steps aside, confident that Michael Read More

The Bride Walks Out

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Raymond, Robert Young, Ned Sparks, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: Newlywed Carolyn Martin (Barbara Stanwyck) has been raised to expect the finer things in life, but these are things that can't be provided by her working-stiff husband Michael (Gene Raymond). Hoping to supplement the family coffers, Carolyn offers to take a job, but the chauvinistic Michael won't Read More

The Arizonian

Actors: Richard Dix, Margot Grahame, Preston S. Foster, Louis Calhern, James Bush

Synopsis: The Arizonian came at a time when Richard Dix's popularity was slipping, providing a welcome shot in the arm for the star and plenty of coin at the box office. Dix plays Clay Tallant, a territorial marshal assigned to Silver City, Arizona. Tallant's chief antagonist is crooked town boss Jake Read More

Jalna

Actors: Kay Johnson, Ian Hunter, C. Aubrey Smith, Nigel Bruce, David Manners

Synopsis: In this adaptation of author de la Roche's chronicle of the passionate lives of the strange Whiteoaks of Jalna, their beautiful family estate located in souther Ontario. The story begins as a young Whiteoak, a novelist travels to New York where he encounters a charming woman, marries her, and Read More

The Littlest Rebel

Actors: Shirley Temple, John Boles, Jack Holt, Karen Morley, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson

Synopsis: The old Edward Peble play The Littlest Rebel was gussied up in 1935 as a Shirley Temple vehicle. The curly-topped child star plays Virgie Cary, who lives in Southern-Plantation splendor with her dad Herbert (John Boles) and mom (Karen Morley). The family's idyllic existence is shattered when the Read More

The Nitwits

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Fred Keating, Betty Grable, Evelyn Brent

Synopsis: The Nitwits are Johnny (Bert Wheeler) and Newt (Robert Woolsey), cigar-counter proprietors in the building owned by music publisher Lake (Hale Hamilton). Johnny spends his spare time spooning with his sweetheart, Lake's secretary Mary (Betty Grable), while Newt tinkers with his inventions, the Read More

Little Miss Marker

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell, Shirley Temple, Charles Bickford, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: Perhaps the most memorable of all of the movies based on Damon Runyon's story because of the winning presence of Shirley Temple (although it was remade three times), this is the story of a little girl who is left as a marker for a $20.00 bet. Temple's father kills himself and the bookie doesn't Read More

Two Reelers: Comedy Classics 1

Synopsis: This trio of comedy shorts includes How Comedies Are Born (1933), Dog Blight (1933) and Feather Your Nest (1944) with Edgar Kennedy. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

The Virtuous Husband

Actors: Elliott Nugent, Jean Arthur, Betty Compson, Alison Skipworth, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Virtuous Husband was adapted from Apron Strings, a play by Dorrance Davis. Though his mother has been dead several years, wealthy young Daniel Curtis (Elliot Nugent) has never been able to cut himself loose from her smothering influence. Even when he marries the lovely Barbara Otwell (Jean Read More

Feet First

Actors: Harold Lloyd, Robert McWade, Lillian Leighton, Barbara Kent, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: Harold Lloyd's second talkie finds The Bespectacled One playing a shoe clerk in Honolulu. Harboring dreams of becoming an executive, Lloyd passes himself off as a millionaire to heiress Barbara Kent. As the plot merrily rolls along, Harold stows away on a ship bound for the mainland, and ends up Read More