Ernie Alexander
Two classic animated shorts from the Disney studios. In 'The Reluctant Dragon' (1941), a young boy and a famous dragon fighter team up to teach a docile dragon the art of being a force to be reckoned with. In 'Mickey and the Beanstalk' (1947), Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck confront the fearsome Willie the Giant to try to retrieve the magical singing harp to Happy Valley.
Hat check man Louis Blore is in love with nightclub star May Daly. May, however, is love with a poor dancer, but wants to marry for money. When Louis wins the Irish Sweepstakes, he asks May to marry him and she accepts even though she doesn't love him. Soon after, Louis has an accident and gets knocked on the head, where he dreams that he's King Louis XV pursuing the infamous Madame Du Barry.
During Japan's invasion of the Philippines in 1942, Capt. Henry Lassiter, Sgt. Bill Dane and a diverse group of American soldiers are ordered to destroy and hold a strategic bridge in order to delay the Japanese forces and allow Gen. MacArthur time to secure Bataan. When the Japanese soldiers begin to rebuild the bridge and advance, the group struggles with not only hunger, sickness and gunfire, but also the knowledge that there is likely no relief on the way.
Career woman Jean. almost a partner in Mark's advertising firm, has been falling in love with Mark, who of course is unaware of it. But unknown to Jean, Mark has become engaged to singer Val. When Jean finds out she tries to save face by saying that she is also engaged, and then uses a little social blackmail to get psychiatrist Bill Perry to pretend to be her fiancé for an evening out with Mark and Val.
This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short looks at how a few specific inventions made a major contribution to the U.S. war effort.
This short film examines the origins of several superstitions including crossing your fingers, knocking on wood, rabbit's feet, and breaking champagne bottles to christen ships, plus the role of superstitions in the Flying Dutchman tale.
Chicago is gripped by an Axe Murderer. The streets are empty at night as there has been six murders and six people have been caught, but they are lunatics. Only one person has lived to tell about it, Edwina, who is as dumb as a brick. If it were not for Oliver, she would be number seven. When there is a second attempt on Edwina, Oliver figures that the crimes are not random and that someone is hypnotizing these people to do his bidding, but the police and Edwina are skeptical.
Two taxi-fleet operators rescue a girl and she follows them to a mountain resort.
Joe Smith is an ordinary American family man who works in an aircraft factory. Shortly after being a promoted to a much higher position, Joe is kidnapped by enemy agents who are determined to get military secrets out of him by any means possible. Will Joe keep quiet or betray his country...
Three seafaring fur traders fall in love with a female stowaway they discover aboard their ship. Many adventures follow.
A teenage horse trainer (Jane Withers) fears she'll lose her beloved horses when the stables where she works is sold.
Jimmy Kildare's impending nuptials are jeopardized by a diagnosis of possible epilepsy in his fiancee's brother.
Wendy Ballantine's parents decide to retire from show biz so she can have a normal life. They are unwelcome in the small town until a storm lets the family show their stuff.
Magazine editor Margot Merrick pretends to be married in order to avoid advances from male colleagues. Unfortunately, things don't go to plan when Jeff Thompson, a potential suitor, uncovers the deception and decides to show up at Margot's family home posing as her husband!
A man involved in a crime (Nolan) kills his key witness by mistake and resigns himself to death. He changes his name so as not to harm his family. The law is not content with his explanation, however.
Victorian melodrama gets a big send-up in this spoof production of the old play "The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved." The play within the movie is the old one where evil villain Cribbs schemes to get his lusty clutches on the heroine by driving her naive husband to alcoholic ruin. Luckily, a temperance lecturer is on hand to set things straight, as is the great Buster Keaton as the drunkard's brother.
Nellie Kelly, the daughter of Irish immigrants, patches up differences between her father and maternal grandfather while rising to the top on Broadway.
Stan and Ollie work in a horn factory. Ollie starts having violent fits every time he hears a horn. His doctor prescribes a restful sea voyage. Mayhem ensues.
A married singer, pianist/composer team are struggling to hit it big in New York. Finally, they audition before a Broadway producer, but the producer only wants the singer, leaving the husband without a job and feeling a failure.
Judge Hardy guides Andy through problems with girls, money and an essay contest.
A drunken college student invites a dance hostess to the big college dance and then forgets he asked her. When she shows up at school, he tries to get rid of her, but she won't leave. Instead she stays and shows up both him and his classmates snooty dates.
An attorney handling a murder case in unaware his own wife played a crucial role in the killing.
Newspaper editor (Foster) will do almost anything to increase circulation. He campaigns to free a condemned man while accusing a wealthy ex-criminal of a string of murders.
A mobster's moll (Joan Bennett) leads a newsman (Adolphe Menjou), cub reporter (John Hubbard) and photographer to a scoop.
Carmelita Fuentes is a fiery-Latin singer/dancer in Mexico City who has designs on Dennis Lindsay, an American publicity agent, for unclear reasons, while Lindsay's shiftless uncle Matthew Lindsay aids and abets her every step of the way to the marriage altar.
A newspaper editor turns a kidnapping into the banner headlines and exclusive story that could save his publication.
A dedicated police officer is torn between family and duty when his son turns to a life of crime.
Mandrake and his team attempt to prevent "The Wasp" from stealing and using a new Radium invention.
Studio publicist discovers Minnesota skating teacher and takes her to Hollywood. She goes back to Minnesota but he follows her.
Detective Nick Carter is brought in to foil spies at the Radex Airplane Factory, where a new fighter plane is under manufacture.
Joel and Garda Sloan, a husband and wife detective team, who also sell rare books in New York, take a vacation to Seaside City. At Seaside, Joel's pal, Mike Stevens is managing and preparing for their beauty pageant. Joel is made one of the judges plus he has invested $5,000 in it, to Garda's dismay. Eric Bartell, promoter, arrives to dupe Stevens. When Ed Connors, New York racketeer arrives, Bartell is mysteriously murdered. Joel and Garda set out to investigate the murder.
After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.
A press agent for a Broadway actress whose career is going downhill, attempts to get her some publicity by having her adopt two orphans, without her knowledge.
A naval officer is demoted for negligence and put in command of a run-down submarine chaser with a motley crew.
Three electrical linemen work through the hazardous conditions of the Depression Era. Sparks fly, and things become truly dangerous, when Ann (Sally Blane) comes between this band of brothers. Things get worse, after they move in together, following the death of her father, their supervisor, "Pop" Foster (Robert Homans), from an industrial accident.
Five closely knit showgirls sign a pact to reunite one year after the closing of their Broadway production, but the lives of all five take many different turns, often for the worse.
Humorist Robert Benchley illustrates the fine points of attending an American football game.
Two young people meet at a wedding and begin dating, each thinking the other is extremely wealthy. Comedy.
Despite his older brother's objections, a young man vows to become a newsreel cameraman.
With no other prospects, a World War I veteran puts the skills they taught him in the War to use.
Carey Wilson narrates this MGM Miniature short in which an average office worker suffers all week-end because his boss, who had a bad case of indigestion, didn't speak to him when he came to work on Friday and is convinced he is going to get fired.
A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.
Donovan unknowingly becomes tangled up with jewel thieves when Evelyn Howard gives him a cigarette lighter containing some hot rocks.
Terry is the chief car tester for Emery Motors and Frank is an Engineer. Jane has just been hired to work in publicity. Frank and Terry both want Jane to be their girl. Terry has designed a new carburetor that should bring him fame and money, but he cannot get it to work correctly. Terry and Gadget have tested it for over a year, but it still is not perfected. Emery Motors assigns Frank to help Terry with the carburetor, but Terry is not happy because Frank is an Engineer and is also vying for Jane. They finish the carburetor, and to test it, they enter a car in the Indianapolis 500 race. Terry is not yet satisfied with the carburetor before the big race even though it has passed all the tests.
A young lawyer is determined to identify the killer who is murdering members of a wealthy New York publishing family. Director Erroll Taggert's 1936 mystery stars Bruce Cabot, Magaret Lindsay, George Zucco, Joseph Calleia, Charley Grapewin, Stanley Ridges, Vivienne Osborne, Edward Pawley, Theodore von Eltz, George Lynn, Eadie Adams, Raymond Hatton, Jonathan Hale and, in the small role of a newspaper reporter, Dorothy Kilgallen.
Orphaned shoeshine boy Spanky is working on a Mississippi riverboat during the Civil War. There he befriends young runaway slave Buckwheat. After wronging a vicious gambler, Spanky and Buckwheat are forced to jump ship. Finding solace at a nearby house, the two are picked by Marshall Valiant for an important mission. This inspires Spanky to organize the local kids to form a small army of their own.
Austrian church bell ringer Freyman loves music and wants his two sons (both played by Ameche) to love it too. The first goes to America and the second is born deaf-mute but gains hearing during WWI bombing.
Director Benjamin Stoloff's 1936 mystery, set in Boston, stars Walter Abel as an amnesiac and Margot Grahame as an unemployed stage actress who work together to solve the murder of a playwright.
Thelma volunteers Patsy as a subject for her friend who is in dental school and needs somebody to practice on.
A country girl goes to the city and gets a job in a posh hotel, and winds up becoming an instant celebrity thanks to an ambitious photographer.
Ann Grey is wrongly convicted of murder. On her way to prison a car accident gives her the opportunity to escape. She is helped by young lawyer Tony Baxter. He hides her from the police, as well as his fiancée, with the help of his butler Peedles. Ann is also wanted by the mobsters who really committed the murder as they think she knows where $250,000 worth of bonds are hidden. When the mobsters find and abduct her, Tony enlists the help of the D.A. and the police to try to get her back.
An eccentric, wealthy spinster, 'Queenie' Baxter is erroneously presumed to be kidnapped. She subsequently pretends to indeed be kidnapped, , in order to allow a reward of $50,000 to benefit an impecunious family headed by Tony Orsatti and his three sons, Blackie, Doc and Flash.
An aging star finally recognizes the truth when she is replaced in her new movie by a girl from the chorus.
A circus wild animal trainer searches for the son who was taken away from him by a meddling relative years earlier.
Foxhall Ridgeway, arriving in New York City from the West, stumbles onto a murder in the hotel room next to his. He gets tangled up into the affair, and with the aid of Phoebe, the hotel telephone operator who takes a liking to him, and also Countess Louise Browssiloff, who innocently had left some personal belongings in the murdered man's room and is most anxious to recover the incriminating evidence, Foxhall solves the murder mystery.
Richard, a millionaire in love with his secretary, Diane, is dispirited when his wife refuses to divorce him. Concerned that Diane will now lose interest, Richard offers her an all-expense-paid cruise to Argentina so that she can think it over. While traveling, however, Diane falls in love with fellow traveler Mike. She resolves to come clean to Richard, but upon return she becomes conflicted when she finds out he was able to get divorced after all.
A socialite only realises that her friend is in love with her when she falls for the wrong man.
At a ritzy beauty salon, while a mud pack is on her face, a wealthy socialite invites Thelma and Patsy, two salon attendants, to a party, mistakenly thinking they are social acquaintances whom she wants to entertain a visiting count. Just before our working-class pair arrives at the party, the hostess is called away to see to an ill dog. Thelma tries to behave in a refined way, but Patsy, with a head full of practical jokes and a bra filled with trick gadgets, turns the party on its head. The butler calls the hostess back to her home. Is Thelma and Patsy's moment in high society coming to a crashing end?
Shanghai nightclub singer Jean falls in love to a sailor, but after his ship left Shanghai, he is of the opinion that he cannot support her in the States, so he writes her in a letter, that he will not see her again, but two practical jokers intercept it and write another with an opposite content. Jean comes to the states, but her sailor doesn't acknowledge her, but the two don't give up trying to bring Jean and sailor back together.
Thelma rushes into the apartment she shares with Patsy, excited because she's fallen in love with Archie, a rich man with yachts and a British accent. Patsy isn't impressed and less so when Archie comes calling. She does her best to sink the romance, making noise while the lovers talk and offering Limburger cheese sandwiches. In desperation, Archie calls his brother Benny, who's a sailor, and asks him to keep Patsy company. After a series of mishaps, they end up at a saloon where Patsy orders everything on the menu. Who's going to have to pay?
Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.
The two lovers are living together and are not married as they hesitantly explain to her brother. They had made a promise as children to get married when they grew up, but they "didn't wait." It's an important plot point as it drives Cooper's actions when he discovers that Crawford and Young are living in sin.
A Mack Sennett-produced sound short about couples playing bridge through the ages.
"Miriam Hopkins plays Louise Starr, who gets divorced from her husband and returns to the home she left on a farm where she reunites with her grandfather. He introduces her to Guy Crane with whom she falls in love; however, he is married."
The prodigal son of a Yukon prospector comes home on a night that "ain't fit for man nor beast."
Harold Hobbs doesn't much like that his lazy, sponging and unemployed brother-in-law Claude and his mother-in-law live with him and his wife, Hortense, especially as the in-laws seem to rule the roost ever since they moved in. To get his in-laws out of the house, Harold has regularly left a bottle of booze for Claude to be able to entertain prospective employers. When Harold learns that on all the other occasions the employers have not showed (he assumes there probably were no prospective employers) leaving Claude to consume the booze on his own, he decides to show Claude a lesson by spiking the bottle with castor oil. Complications ensue when Joe, Harold's friend, encourages him to skip work to attend the prize fight. What Joe doesn't tell Harold is that he tells his boss that Harold needs the day off to attend to the sudden death of his brother-in-law.
When Thelma is stopped by a cop for speeding, she tries to get out of it by telling him that she and Zasu are on their way to the hospital.
Zasu and Thelma are working their way through college by selling magazine subscriptions. Finding little success going door-to-door, the pair decide to use their charms to sell to men at their places of work.
A taxi dancer with a jealous husband finds herself falling for a wealthy client.
