Here's the second disc of movies from the Comedy Kings 50 Movie Pack. These are some short movies, let me tell you, but mostly worth a gander. Sometimes shorter is fine. You probably aren't going to be as lucky as me and find this box set for under 3 bucks so I've hidden some links on the post to lead you to online copies of the movies you can watch for free. These are all old public domain movies so there's no copyright infringement. Nice, huh.
Hay Foot is a 1942 film with William Tracy as Sgt Dorian 'Dodo' Doubleday. He's a smart nerdy guy with a great memory who's the assistant to Col Barkley on a military base. The Colonel is played by James Gleason, one of my favorite actors. He pretty much plays the same character, a kind of noisy and irascible guy. He made 160 films in his career and a lot of them were pretty good. This is about average. The story is pretty simple, the movie is only 46 minutes long, William is getting picked on my the tougher Sargent's. No matter the script is on his side and the nerdy guy gets the girl. You can see it on YouTube. This is the second movie with Tracy as the same character. The first, Tanks A Million can be seen on the Internet Archive.
Her Favorite Patientis a 1945 film about a doctor who's traveling to Chicago. She stops in her hometown to visit her uncle. He's the small towns doctor and he's played by the delightful Charles Ruggles. Charles wants her to take over his practice and he enlists the help of a test pilot. There's laughs, romance and some military men on leave. A nice mix of comedy and melodrama. I'd seen it before, just a few months ago, and it was still entertaining to watch again. You can see this on the IA.
Affairs Of Cappy Ricks was a fun bit of business with Walter Brennan. He's the Cappy Ricks of the title. He returns home to find his daughter planning a wedding. Turns out she is marrying the son of a rival businessman Cappy hates. He's not so fond of the rich spoiled son either. The mother in law has taken over his house and, since she bought some stock, 51% of his business. Cappy fights back and takes the family on his boat. He plans to strand them on an island so they can work out their differences. It doesn't go well at first, and they all get stranded for real, but it all works out in the end. There are some silly gags and life lessons learned. This one's worth the look and once again it's on the IA.
All Over Town stars Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson as a couple of comedians trying to help a theater owner to raise some money so she won't loose her building. Some evil guy wants to the lot and he kills to get it. It's a 1937 movie and it's fair to middlin' in story and quality. There's nothing much to the story and it has a few comedic bits and pieces. I just don't care much for the main two guys, either as actors or as characters. You can see it on the IA.
Niagara Falls is another really short movie. This 1941 movie runs 43 minutes. That's about what you get in an hour long show on commercial tv today. It's a quick paced silly comedy with a guy and a gal and some romance. They are both driving somewhere and they smack up their cars outside Niagara Falls. They get a lift into town and the hotel they stop in at is filled with honeymooners. That can go either way, huh. There's some confusion, it's that kind of a movie, and a meddling guy thinks they are fighting newlyweds and gives them his honeymoon suite. He's just trying to get them back together. They protest but it falls on his deaf ears and he forces them to stay in the room together. He's using a gun to keep them there. Nothing happens but it's not a time for a man and a woman to be left alone in a room overnight. There's even a scene where the other the hotel patrons get all riled up that an unmarried couple had stayed overnight. Scandalous. It was fun enough and it was over quick. You can take a gander at the movie at the IA. It's worth it.
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