Director: Gordon Douglas
Gildersleeve’s Ghost was the last in a series of four B-pictures that were based on the popular The Great Gildersleeve radio program. As is expected of any series of its ilk, part of the amusement of each installment was in seeing which direction the characters would take. While not as genre-hopping as the Maisie series, Gildersleeve’s Ghost certainly points in that direction by having very little to do with previous installments and instead following the model of classic scare comedies like The Ghost Breakers and Hold That Ghost. The plot is as baffling as they get–Gildersleeve’s ancestors return from the grave in spectral form and wish to aid in Gildersleeve being elected as Police Commissioner. Their plan? To release an ape from a mad scientist’s lair, which would lead him to said scientist and his plot to perfect an invisibility potion that would threaten the world. It’s a convoluted excuse to utilize a number of the familiar gags in which a real ape and a character in an ape suit are confused, as well as the ghostly cinematic tricks that would be seen in The Invisible Man and Topper films. As a lustful showgirl who can vanish and reappear at will, Marion Martin steals the show, channeling Ginger Rogers with her sassy deliveries. Nicodemus Stewart has a stereotypical role as the easily scared black chauffeur (a role that actors like Willie Best made famous), but he shows great comic timing and is given a substantial amount of screen time. This last installment is certainly the most absurd of the series, but fans of this hybrid genre will find it mildly amusing.
Director: Gordon Douglas
The third entry in the Gildersleeve series has the misleading title of Gildersleeve on Broadway, which would make one expect that Throckmorton’s latest mishaps land him a role in a major play. While uprooting the character does seem like a well-reasoned ploy to bring new interest into the series, the New York setting is largely a wasted opportunity–Gildersleeve interacts with high society urbane folk, but much of the material simply takes place in a hotel. This time, Billie Burke lends some enjoyable comedic support as a society dame who instantly develops an infatuation with Gildersleeve, and Hobart Cavanaugh is her eccentric brother with a William Tell infatuation. Much of the humor of the picture involves bystanders mistaking a homosexual relationship between Throckmorton and Summerville’s druggist, Mr. Peavey (an expanded role for the enjoyably deadpan Richard LeGrand). There are some enjoyable reaction shots, particularly from a window washer played by Leonid Kinskey. If one thinks the homophobic humor is dated, just take a look at the first act in which Throckmorton goes to the drug store in search of sedatives to knock out his love-struck niece! Despite the impressive cast additions and a few enjoyable gags (there’s a nice bit of physical comedy with a drunk who walks along a window ledge), this is largely a dull, forgettable installment in the series.
Director: Gordon Douglas
The second installment in a series of filmed adaptations of the long-running radio program The Great Gildersleeve, Gildersleeve’s Bad Day is an improvement over its predecessor. Harold Peary returns as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, the pompous, bloviating dunce who in this installment is thrilled to be called for jury duty. Believing himself to be well-versed in the law, Gildersleeve becomes responsible for a hung jury in a case that everyone else perceives as being fairly cut-and-dried. Unbeknownst to him, it is assumed that he has taken a bribe by a pair of crooks who wish to get their associate out of his conviction. The first film featured little in the way of plot–there was a loose through-line in the suggestion of a marriage proposal, but it mostly felt like a series of small ideas cobbled together. This installment creates a better mounting tension, with Gildersleeve getting deeper into trouble as his family (including Nancy Gates and Freddie Mercer as his niece and nephew) attempts to bail him out. Peary, again, proves to be an acquired taste, but he’s more palatable when the root of the comedy involves others reacting to his quirks, unlike his mediocre attempts at very gestural screwball gags in the first installment.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Harold Peary first premiered his enormously popular Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve character on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show before earning a spinoff that would last for a decade and half, one of the format’s longest-running successes. RKO Pictures would try to capitalize on the success of the broadcast with a series of films based on the program. Peary’s operatic groans and laughs are a tough pill to swallow–he gives the type of hyper-emotive vocalization that might be suited to the radio, but it comes off as quite grating on film. Despite the rough go at translating the character to a new medium, however, The Great Gildersleeve does move along fairly well, utilizing an episodic structure and involving a number of fairly inventive lowbrow gags. In one particular tangent, Gildersleeve seeks to break the world record for running backwards. The great Jane Darwell, hot off her Academy Award win for The Grapes of Wrath, lends support as Aunt Emma, but the show is stolen by Mary Field as the spinster sister of a judge who is determined to make Gildersleeve her husband.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Hal Roach hoped to make the blonde beauty Marjorie Woodworth a star when he offered her the leading part in Broadway Limited, a train-set screwball comedy boasting an impressive cast of character actors. Unfortunately for her, the screenplay doesn’t give her a whole lot to do, and she is largely relegated to serving as a generic young lover surrounded by much more colorful personalities. Victor McLaglen plays an engineer who is tasked with finding a baby as a publicity stunt for an actress (Woodworth). Once the child is aboard the train, however, news of a high profile kidnapping case begins to trickle in, and McLaglen fears what trouble awaits him once the train stops. The team of ZaSu Pitts and Patsy Kelly steals the show, with the former in particular giving the funniest performance as an enthusiast of a radio program entitled, “Renfrew of the Mounted.” Just the way Pitts longingly utters “Renfrew” is good for a couple of laughs, and there’s also a humorous scene in which a whole cabin of irritated listeners has to put up with the latest episode as Pitts is enraptured with delight. The screenplay doesn’t have the wit to match the cast, but it’s a pleasant diversion.
Director: Gordon Douglas
The most enduring element of Zombies on Broadway might be that irresistible title, but the picture is actually a nice treat for fans of the horror classic I Walked With a Zombie. Returning to the screen are the calypso singer Sir Lancelot and the unforgettable Darby Jones as a towering zombie with bulging eyes. Even Bela Lugosi shows up to the further delight of genre devotees! Stars Wally Brown and Alan Carney were RKO’s answer to Abbott and Costello, only they didn’t have the same charm or chemistry. What this film gets right, however, is very much in predicting the formula of Abbott and Costello’s later horror pictures (this one actually predates Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein). The horror elements are played straight, with the bumbling comedians mostly reacting with fright to the undead monster lurking in the jungles. Bob Hope’s dalliances with the genre better captured the horror aesthetic and even found genuine scares, but this is a surprisingly watchable effort from the forgettable team–perhaps because they have more reasons to keep their mouths shut!
Director: Gordon Douglas
The wild success of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the 1940s led to a number of imitators that yielded mixed results. While Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson were brought back to Hollywood for Universal and filmed the memorably frantic Hellzapoppin’, RKO’s short-lived answer in the pair of Wally Brown and Alan Carney was not particularly successful. Girl Rush finds Brown and Carney as a couple of traveling vaudevillians who struggle to make a buck because many of their potential audience members have left to prospect for gold. Eventually, they find their way out west and acquire the enthusiasm of a town that enlists their services… only the predominately male townsfolk are far more interested in the chorus girls than the comedy routines! It’s hard to pinpoint what about the team doesn’t quite work–comparing them to their predecessors, Brown is too incompetent to be the straight man, and Carney isn’t quite loony enough–but regardless, the writing doesn’t do them many favors either. The only saving graces are the delightful Frances Langford and Robert Mitchum in his first role at RKO Pictures, the studio that would launch him to stardom. In the film’s climax, Mitchum dons a drag outfit. True to his cool nature, he seems unfazed by his bonnet and smirks his way through the sequence.
Director: Gordon Douglas
As one of the first responses that the science fiction genre had to the nuclear age, Them! signaled a significant advancement for the genre in the 1950s. It was produced by Warner Brothers, a studio that would normally be understood to be above such material, but one that provided the film with the necessary resources to get across the sense of scale. Director Gordon Douglas famously begins things in an atmospheric fashion, surveying what appears to be a post-apocalyptic landscape as a pair of police offers discover a young girl (Sandy Drescher) suffering from shock. If the idea of giant ants now seems disreputable, that comes with the modern knowledge of the genre that would follow. The circumstances of Them! are delivered with a fatalistic tone, achieving a convincing sense of paranoia that was all too fitting for the Cold War era. What lingers even longer than the monstrous ants are the dark, hollow caves that are the Los Angeles sewers, or the traumatized girl’s face that registers the unspeakable horrors to come.
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