PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Chiltern Hundreds 1949

The Chiltern Hundreds is a 1949 British movie that was released in the US as The Amazing Mr Beecham. John Paddy Carstairs is the director, William Douglas-Home and Patrick Kirwan shared the script writing. The story appeared on British TV first, in a play by William Douglas-Home. It was later adapted to the radio on the BBC. John Paddy spent 30 years directing, 1933 to 1963, he passed away in 1970 at age 60. In the last couple of years he directed a couple episodes of The Saint and 4 episodes of The Sentimental Agent. I haven't seen the latter show but it's now on my Wanted List. I know those two episodes, I do love The Saint, I've watched the series several times over the years.

David Tomlinson is a young Viscount, he's been called up to the Army but takes leave to run in the local election. His family have always held the seat. He loses to the Labour candidate and the Viscount decides to run as a Socialist. Cecil Parker is Mr Beecham, the family butler, he also runs for the seat. It's got a good number of goofy characters and some jokes. I enjoyed it. Keep an eye out for small bits by Desmond Llewelyn and Richard Wattis.

The Black Sheep Of Whitehall 1942

The third Will Hay movie in the three film set is The Black Sheep Of Whitehall. It's a 1942 film that was co-directed by Will Hay and Basil Dearden. Angus MacPhail and John Dighton are responsible for the story and screenplay. John would go on to write Kind Hearts And Coronets, The Happiest Days Of Our Lives, The Man In The Ice Cream Suit, Who Goes There!, and Roman Holiday to name a few I've seen. Angus wrote the screenplay to The Ghost Train starring Arthur Askey and the Hitchcock film Spellbound. I've seen very little of his other work.

Besides Will I only knew a couple in the cast: John Mills and Thora Hird. That's Will and John above. Will is a Professor at an unsuccessful correspondence school, John is his only student. Will is broke and John thinks he can get him a job at Whitehall. There Will gets mistaken for an economist and gets interviewed by the BBC. The real economist shows up, the viewers know he's a fake, put there by the Nazis, and somehow Will stumbles on the fifth columnists plot. Now he's got to get some proof and catch those baddies. I laughed several times and was happy to have picked it up. I'll be watching it again someday.

The Ghost Of St Michael's 1941

The Ghost of St Michael's is a 1941 Hill Hay comedy that's directed by Marcel Varnel. He's a Frenchman who started directing comedies on the Paris stage. He moved to New York in 1925 to direct on Broadway for the Shubert family. He made his way to Hollywood where he directed Chandu The Magician in 1932. He moved to England in 1934 where he would direct a lot of comedies for big stars like Will Hay, Arthur Askey and George Formby. He died in 1947.

Angus McPhail and John Dighton wrote the story and screenplay. They worked together and separately on many movies, some of which I've seen. Here they've got a murder mystery comedy with Will Hay as a teacher who gets sent to a school recently relocated to the Isle of Sky in Scotland. It's war time and the many young people were moved into the remote country to keep them from getting blown up in the cities. I liked the little miniature harbor and boat. No location shooting here, probably couldn't have gotten the gas to get them there.

The ghost of St Michael's returns after Will gets there and the Head Master is killed. That's Will with Charles Hawtrey and Claude Hubert above. Other than those three the rest of the cast were unfamiliar except for John Laurie. Some might know him from Dad's Army but he did a lot of films before that popular TV series. After the second Head Master is killed Will works out what is going on and eventually gets the baddies caught. There's some fun scenes and some OK jokes. Rapidly becoming one of my favorite Hay movies.

Forgotten Noir Volume 5

Two OK movies in Forbidden Noir Volume 5, the first up on the disc is F.B.I. Girl. It's a 1951 crime film that was written by Dwight V Babcock and Richard Landau with William Berke directing. Dwight wrote original stories or screenplays for 2 dozen movies and over 3 dozen TV episodes. You might have seen The Mummy's Curse, House Of Dracula, House Of Horrors, The Brute Man or She-Wolf Of London. Not all great films but entertaining. Richard has a few less movies and even more TV scripts than Dwight. I know I've seen Secret Of The Whistler, Spaceways, The Quatermass Xperiment, The Black Hole and Lost Continent. I know I've seen even more of his TV writing. William directed 86 movies and I've seen a few of them.

A sad story of a governor who murdered a man twenty years ago. Raymond Greenleaf plays the governor and he's managed to keep the secret so far. He fears a crime crackdown might lead to his getting fingerprinted and exposed. His pal, or sorts, Raymond Burr is a sleazy scumbag who is helping the gov get his fingerprints out of the FBI. He had a gal all primed and she fails, unfortunately Burr finds out after his goons have killed the woman. Since the woman worked for the FBI they take notice and put Cesar Romero on the job.

Audrey Trotter plays another woman at the FBI, Cesar uses her to get evidence on Burr. She's rumbled in the act and it's touch and go there. A nice solid story that moves along well. There's a good cast and they do the script right. A bit of film on a TV had a bit of the comedy styling by Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall. Peter would do himself right and get out of comedy and get into hosting Hollywood Squares. All in all a nice entertaining film.

Tough Assignment is the second feature and it came out in 1949. Don "Red" Berry and Marjorie Steele are a newly married couple, they've just returned home from their honeymoon. They stop off to get some groceries only to find the man at the butcher's has been attacked by hoodlums. They inadvertently snap a pic of the thugs as they leave and the thugs follow them home to get the film. A bit of rough and tumble leaves the couple alive but annoyed.

Don gets the idea that there's something fishy at the butchers and he's thinking protection racket. None of the butcher's in town will talk to him but he finds out that the problem is a gang has been forcing the butcher's to buy their illegally harvested beef products. The rustler's have a ranch and a meat factory. Quite a set up and they aren't none too happy to have the newspapers doing a story on stolen beef. They send some thugs after the couple but they manage to get away in time. The rest of the movie has the reporters going undercover at the ranch. Don maneuvers the crooks right from the get go.

There's a bit of jeopardy and some fun characters. I liked Don and Marjorie, too bad she only made four films. Marc Lawrence, Steve Brody and Sid Melton are among the crooks. Fun to watch. Glad to have it.

The Mystery Of The 13th Guest 1943

I found a copy of The Mystery Of The 13th Guest on YouTube today. I hadn't seen it before and after watching a few minutes I decided to continue to the end. It's directed by one of my favorite directors, William Beaudine, and the screenplay is by Tim Ryan, Charles R Marion and Arthur Hoerl. It's based on a novel by Armitage Trail called The 13th Guest. The book was adapted in 1932 as The Thirteenth Guest with Ginger Rogers. I've seen that and it was OK. Trail also wrote the novel Scarface.

In the 1943 movie the Morgan family meets at the bequest of the rich patriarch. They all sit at a table with 13 chairs but there are only 12 of them. Morgan shows the 8 year old granddaughter an envelope and says she will see it again in 13 years, when she's twenty one. Only then will the rest of the family know who gets the cash. Thirteen years later the girl is a young woman, played by Helen Parrish, and on her birthday she's given the envelope. She's supposed to go to the closed up Morgan mansion to open the envelope. She does and some weird things happen. Later she's found dead and the police arrive. Tim Ryan and Frank Faylen play Lt Burke and his dopey sidekick. Dick Purcell plays Johnny Smith, a detective hired by one of the Morgan family. More suspicious stuff starts happening, the family lawyer is found electrocuted and Helen comes back from the dead.

There's a bit of mystery, some creepy old house stuff, and a good bit of humor. It's just about an hour and it moves along quickly, no wasted time there. I enjoyed the thing and would recommend it to those that like that sort of thing. It's pretty much a B programmer but it was fun and I'd be happy seeing it again someday.

The Great McGinty 1940

I don't remember ever seeing The Great McGinty before but it's possible that I'd seen it in the 80s when we first had cable. It's the sort of movie that would be run on Turner Classic Movies and that was a favorite channel then. It's a 1940 Preston Sturges comedy, he wrote and directed it. It was his first directing job, he'd written two previous films and sold this one, for $10, with the provision he'd get to direct. He did a good job. The film won the Original Screenplay Oscar.

It's got Brian Donlevy as McGinty. He's a bit of a hobo and the prefect target for the men under The Boss to hire to vote. Akim Tamiroff plays The Boss and William Demarest plays Skeeters, his right hand man. McGinty takes advantage of the offer and votes 37 times. Now he wants his $74 from Skeeters but the guy's near tapped out at the end of the day. He take McGinty to see The Boss.

One thing leads to another and the next thing you know McGinty is working for The Boss. He rises through the ranks to Governor only to burn his bridges around him. The whole story is told in a series of flashbacks to a drunken guy in a seedy bar in South America.

I lucked out and wound up buying a 7 DVD set of Preston Sturges films for 0nly 7 bucks. I've got 6 more movies to go. Should be fun.

Miss Grant Takes Richmond 1949

Lucille Ball plays Miss Grant in Miss Grant Takes Richmond and William Holden plays Mr Richmond.It's the second movie in the Lucille Ball First Lady Of Comedy 4 movie 2 DVD set. The movies look pretty good and two of them share a full dual layer disc. That's better than you can expect from Mill Creek Entertainment normally.

It's a 1949 comedy that was written by Nat Perrin, Devery Freeman and Frank Tashlin. It's directed by Lloyd Bacon. All those guys behind the camera have oodles of films between them. They worked in TV too. Check out their IMDb pages, if you a fan of classic movies, they've done some darn good ones.

Lucy is a secretary school student and though she's at the bottom of the class William hires her to be secretary at his real estate company. He hires Lucy because he thinks she's kind of dumb and he doesn't want her to find out about the bookie joint he's got in the back room. Instead of keeping the customers away Lucy brings real estate into the firm with a bang. Frank McHugh and James Gleason work for William in the business.

The basic premise is all pretty silly and there are some fun gags and situations. I got a few laughs from it. I liked the supporting cast, especially that James Gleason. I'll watch most anything he's in.

Her Husband's Affairs 1947

Her Husband's Affairs is the first movie on the first disc from the First lady of Comedy Lucille Ball 4 movie set from Mill Creek Entertainment. Miraculously, MC is bringing the entertainment today. The movie has an original screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer. Ben has an amazing body of work, much of it uncredited until recent years. Charles doesn't have such a large list of works but if you like Classic Movies then you've probably seen a couple of two of his films. I'm particularly fond of his 1951 screenplay for The Thing From Another World and I know John Carpenter is too. I'm not sure if John would like Her Husband's Affairs but he's a kid of the 50s so he probably grew up with Lucy too. She's fun in the movie, it's her husband in the film, played by Franchot Tone, he's such a pill. He's an ad man and she's smarter than him. Rather than except the fact that he's hooked up with a woman who can help him, or even make use of it, Franchot's male pride gets wounded over and over. By the end of the movie I was ready for him to get to the electric chair but Lucy swooped in and saved him. I got a few laughs and I always enjoy Edward Everett Horton when I see him. I was glad to have picked up this set used, cost $2.95 at the Minneapolis Cheapo Discs, and will be getting on with the rest of the films.

Lost In Harlem 1944

Lost in Harlem is the second of the pictures that Abbott And Costello did for MGM while they were working at Universal. It was common for studios to loan out stars to other studios. Often as punishment to keep the actors in line.

Lost In Harlem has a screenplay by Harry Ruskin, John Grant, Harry Crane and an uncredited Robert E Hopkins. The director was Charles Reisner. 

The guys are stage magicians, not every good ones, who are touring the Middle East. They get involved with Prine Ramo and help him regain his throne. There's plenty of shenanigans as the guys run rampant through the palace. It made me laugh. It was packed on the two disc set with Abbott And Costello Go To Hollywood. A good addition to the comedy collection.

Abbott And Costello In Hollywood 1945

In an effort to see all the Abbott And Costello films I picked up Abbott And Costello In Hollywood. It's a 1945 picture, the 3rd of 3 films that the guys made, on loan, at MGM. Rio Rita and Lost In A Harem were the other two.

Nat Perrin and Martin A Gosch wrote the original story, Nat wrote the screenplay with Lou Breslow, and S Sylvan Simon is the director. Nat would later go on to produce all 64 episodes of The Addams Family. He'd even direct an episode. Nat also wrote 2 of the 3 Whistling movies with Red Skelton as The Fox. Oooooh!! Lou was another prolific writer, nothing too big, but plenty of titles. Sylvan directed a nice bunch of films, including all three of the Red Skelton Whistling pictures, Rio Rita, and The Fuller Brush Man.

Bud and Lou are a barber and a porter at a Hollywood Salon. They get called to Hollywood agent Norman Royce's office to give him a haircut and a shoeshine. While there they meet a young singer and convince him to let them be his agents. Now they have to get him a job. They've already pissed off the head of the studio so the thing to do is disguise themselves and sneak onto the studio lot. They cause some chaos and get the kid a job. The movie ends with the guys becoming successful agents.

There were some jokes and silly things. There's a nice cast in Frances Rafferty, Bob Haymes, Jean Porter, Lucille Ball, Preston Foster, Dean Stockwell, Rags Ragland, Mike Mazurki and the more I don't really know. Worth watching and a nice addition to the pile.