Ted Healy
A documentary hosted by Leonard Maltin featuring rare clips of the Three Stooges
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
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.
Ronny Bowers, a saxophonist in Benny Goodman's band has won a talent contest an got a ten week contract with a film studio. On his first evening he is supposed to go with the studio's star Mona Marshall to a movie premiere. But this lady doesn't want to go, so the bosses decide to use for Mona a double, Virginia. When Mona finds out next morning that happened, she insisted to fire her double and Ronny. Ronny finds work as singing waiter in a drive in, and is spotted by a director of the same studio, who wants him to lend his voice for an leading actor in a musical.
A small town drunk beats a teetotal banker guilty of a shady transaction.
Winfield College students rebel against a stodgy professor who won't permit "swing" music be played in their varsity show. They appeal to a big Broadway alumnus and have him direct their show. What they don't know is that this "star's" last three shows were flops.
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 beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the big earthquake.
The "Caliban-Ariel" romance of fiftysomething John Barrymore and teenager Elaine Barrie is spoofed in this delightful 20th Century Fox musical. Adolphe Menjou plays the Barrymore counterpart, a loose-living movie star with a penchant for wine, women, and more wine. Alice Faye plays a nightclub singer hungry for publicity. Her agent (Gregory Ratoff) arranges a "romance" between Faye and Menjou. Eventually Faye winds up with Michael Whalen, allowing Menjou to continue his blissful, bibulous bachelorhood. Sing, Baby, Sing represented the feature-film debut of the Ritz Brothers, who are in top form in their specialty numbers--and who are awarded a final curtain call after the "The End" title, just so the audience won't forget them (The same device was used to introduce British actor George Sanders in Fox's Lancer Spy [37]).
Love with a clerk and a robbery by gangsters preoccupy a department store's new owner.
The overlong but absorbing MGM "B" melodrama Mad Holiday stars Edmund Lowe as vacationing movie idol Philip Trent. Tired of starring in murder mysteries, Trent discovers he can't escape typecasting even on an ocean voyage: one of the passengers is murdered in our hero's cabin. The killing is tied in with a stolen diamond and a seemingly unending supply of suspects. To avoid being arrested himself, Trent teams up with pretty detective novelist "Peter" Dean (Elissa Landi) to solve the mystery. As Trent's wisecracking press agent Mert Morgan, Ted Healey has a wonderful moment when he stumbles over a corpse and asks nonchalantly, "What's the matter with him, he crocked?"
A barber tries to find the winning lottery ticket he hid from his moralistic wife.
In this musical, a songwriter goes to court to claim the rights to his song that was stolen by an unscrupulous music publisher. He brings his girlfriend with him. Also going to court are the Jubilee singers, hillbillies, and some cowboys and Indians who demonstrate that the composer wrote his song by rearranging four folk tunes. He wins his song back and $50,000 in damages. Songs include: "Heading Home," "Roll Along Prairie Moon," "Tender Is the Night," "You're My Thrill," "I'm Bound for Heaven," and "The Army Band."
Hollywood stars participate in a Mexican-themed revue and festival in Santa Barbara. Andy Devine, the "World's Greatest Matador", engages in a bullfight with a dubious bovine supplied by Señor Keaton, and musical numbers are provided by Joe Morrison and the Garland Sisters.
When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the casino owned by Uncle Kinkaid, Lynn is indeed poisoned under the watchful eye of Philo. However, he recovers, but the same cannot be said for Lynn's wife Virginia, who is at the family home. Only a family member could have poisoned Lynn and Virginia and everyone has their dark motives. Philo will follow the clues and find the perpetrator.
A traitor is lurking somewhere aboard the USS Carolina, and Lt. Tom Randolph is determined to find the offender. First a revolutionary new piece of technology -- an electric firing device -- is sabotaged. Then one of the cruiser's crew is murdered. In order to catch the killer, the captain locks down the ship. With foreign dignitaries, corporate goons and even Tom's girlfriend, Betty, trapped on the vessel, there is no shortage of suspects.
Con men Calvin Churchill and Clip McGurk know how to fix a horse-race or boxing match…but can they get themselves out of their current fix? Calvin wants to go straight and win back his estranged wife, but first the two sharpies must dodge a dogged IRS agent and bilk a bunch of aviation investors out of the backing boodle for a balloon excursion into the stratosphere.
American Civil War, 1862. After the disaster of the Second Battle of Bull Run, Major Allen, chief of the Secret Service of the Union, asks actress Gail Loveless to become one of his operators and infiltrate enemy territory.
Jimmy Durante is jungle star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lions. So when Baron Munchausen comes to town with real man-eating lions, Durante throws a big party with so that he might use the lions in his next movie. His film rival sneaks into the party to buy the lions before Durante.
Pop Clark is about to lose his baseball team, unless they can win the pennant so he can pay off debts. He hires ace player Larry Kelly to ensure the victory. As well as rival teams, mobsters are trying to prevent the wins, and as the pennant race nears the end, Pop's star players begin to be killed, on and off the field. Can Larry romance Pop's daughter, win enough games, and still have time to stop a murderer before he strikes more than three times?
A judge hands four wayward boys to a college football coach who turns them into backfield stars.
Jimmy Durante asks popular song writing team Mack Gordon and Harry Revel to demonstrate some of their songs. There is interplay with impersonator Florence Desmond, Ben Turpin, Rudy Vallee and many others.
Ted Healy is the proprietor of the "Big Idea Scenario Company" (Ideas While You Wait). Unfortunately, various visitors to his one-room office constantly interrupt his train of thought. These include a man with a machine gun, a woman who empties waste baskets on the floor, and a trio of musicians who play "Marching Through Georgia" on various instruments.
In a hopeful effort to evade gangster Legs Caffey, chorus girl Letty Morris hops a bus in New York bound for Los Angeles--with Legs close on her heels. Along the way the bus picks up escaped convict Paul Porter, who quickly allies himself with Letty. With the police in hot pursuit and Legs monitoring his every move with Letty, Paul is running out of both time and ideas.
Myrt has a show chock full of talented performers that deserves to be on Broadway, but can't raise the necessary money. Jackson, a lecherous "producer", provides the money in order to get his hands on the show's pretty young star, Marge. Myrt teams up with Marge's boyfriend to try to thwart the randy producer and get the show to Broadway.
Kitty Lorraine has one purpose in life: turning her daughter Shirley into a star. Kitty controls every aspect of the girl's nascent career -- even blackmailing a stage manager so that Shirley can take a more prestigious gig. But Kitty goes too far when she breaks up her daughter's budding relationship with sweet artist Warren Foster. Heartbroken, Shirley sets off on a series of disastrous but profitable relationships.
A charlatan posing as Baron Munchhausen is invited to be guest speaker at a girls' school.
Ted Healy and His Stooges alternate mildly risque vaudeville routines with semi-elaborate Berkeleyesque musical numbers with beautiful chorines.
Janie lives to dance and will dance anywhere, even stripping in a burlesque house. Tod Newton, the rich playboy, discovers her there and helps her get a job in a real Broadway musical being directed by Patch. Tod thinks he can get what he wants from Janie, Patch thinks Janie is using her charms rather than talent to get to the top, and Janie thinks Patch is the greatest. Steve, the stage manager, has the Three Stooges helping him manage all the show girls. Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy make appearances as famous Broadway personalities.
Ted Healy and The 3 Stooges are fired and evicted from a theatre because Ted is annoying women working there. They then get jobs as waiters at a nightclub. Chaos ensues.
Mr. Schmidt's costume store is bankrupt because he spends his time on Rube Goldberg-style inventions; the creditors send a young manager who falls for Schmidt's niece Louise, but she'll have none of him. Schmidt's friends Ted, Queenie, and some goofy firemen try to help out; things come to a slapstick head when Louise needs rescuing from a fire.
The crotchety dean of Pinkham University blames the "bad behavior of the school's female students on a dress shop owned by Helene, and informs her he's shutting her shop down. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Napoleon has invented a plaster that restores youth. The dean accidentally sits on the plaster and reverts back to his younger days when he himself used to chase college girls. Complications ensue.
The Story of Mouseland was a story first told by Clarence Gillis, and later and most famously by Tommy Douglas, leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation that became the New Democratic Party of Canada, both social democratic parties. It was a political fable expressing the CCF's view that the Canadian political system was flawed in offering voters a false dilemma: the choice of two parties, neither of which represented their interests.
