Jack Baxley

Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

A Hollywood singing-cowboy star with a big heart and an even bigger secret (he uses a double in most scenes because he can't ride, fight or sing) comes to the aid of a rancher about to lose his home on a rodeo bet.

A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.

An innocent trucker takes it on the lam when he's accused of robbery.

World War II veteran Bob MacDonald surprises his new wife, Betty, by quitting his city job and moving them to a dilapidated farm in the country. While Betty gamely struggles with managing the crumbling house and holding off nosy neighbors and a recalcitrant pig, Bob makes plans for crops and livestock. The couple's bliss is shaken by a visit from a beautiful farm owner, who seems to want more from Bob than just managing her property.

Driving a herd of cattle to market, Jimmy finds the trail has been fenced off by an old friend of his. While the two sides try to settle the matter peaceably, a man from each outfit get together to try and start a range war between them figuring they will end up with the cattle. When cattle are rustled, Jimmy finds the clue, horses with shoes that make tracks that look like cattle.

Jimmy Wakely wishes to sell to the government a group of wild mustangs which he has captured and trained for rancher Matt Blake. The competition is Flora Carter, the owner of a near-by ranch. The army colonel in charge decides to buy the winning horses of a cross-country race. Flora has her henchmen, led by Sam Phelps resort to foul means in order to try to win the race.

Jimmy Wakely and Dusty, traveling with the medicine show owned by "Lasses" White, stop at the Ferguson ranch and find the rancher and his wife killed. They take the Ferguson baby to their camp, where outlaws Joe, Slick and Pete attempt to kidnap the baby, while Dusty is reporting the murders to Sheriff Beasley and town mayor Melinda Pringle. Wakely and his singers hide the baby from its legal guardian, Doc Judd Thomas, as they suspect him of being connected with the Ferguson murders.

A WW-II defense plant worker gets knocked out and dreams about helping the war effort in various ways, including solving a crime.

A writer for a radio program needs some fresh ideas to juice up his show. For inspiration, he rents a room with a typical American family and begins to secretly write about their true life antics. The show becomes a big hit, but he begins to feel guilty about his charade when he falls in love with the family's pretty older daughter.

A good entry in one of the better B-Western series of the 1940s, A Tornado in the Saddle starred Russell Hayden as the new sheriff of Crestview. Hot on the trail of a gang of claim jumpers led by Dalton (Tristram Coffin) and Slim (Donald Curtis), the novice lawman also has to deal with hotheaded wrangler turned deputy Bob Wilson (Bob Wills), whom he is constantly forced to fight, but only after prudently removing his sheriff's star.

Lucky Jordan is a gangster living in New York City and when he's drafted into the army, he tries to escape duty by using an old con woman named Annie to convince the draft board he's needed at home. When that fails, Jordan is sent to boot camp, but he doesn't stay there long. He takes a beautiful USO worker hostage and flees back to New York. There, he learns that a rival gangster is plotting against America.

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.

Sadistic killer-for-hire Philip Raven becomes enraged when his latest job is paid off in marked bills. Vowing to track down his double-crossing boss, nightclub executive Gates, Raven sits beside Gates' lovely new employee, Ellen, on a train out of town. Although Ellen is engaged to marry the police lieutenant who's hunting down Raven, she decides to try and set the misguided hit man straight as he hides from the cops and plots his revenge.

When two of their Marshal friends are killed, the Rough Riders are sent to investigate. They have to find the killers in a ghost town where the houses and an old mine are interconnected by secret passages and tunnels.

Two Virginians are heading for a new life in Texas when they witness a stagecoach being held up. They decide to rob the robbers and make off with the loot. To escape a posse, they split up and don't see each other again for a long time. When they do meet up again, they find themselves on different sides of the law. This leads to the increasing estrangement of the two men, who once thought of themselves as brothers.

Fast-talking con-man and grifter Candy Johnson rises to be the corrupt boss of Yellow Creek, but his wife's alcoholic father tries to set things right.

The fifth film in the 24-film Range Busters series finds "Crash", "Dusty" and Alibi, on their way to Gopher City to become the town's peace officers. In the saloon, young Jimmy Rowell is losing money in a crooked poker game to saloon owner Bob Harmon. Harmon and his henchman Bart Gill are in reality wanted-outlaw brothers Jim and Ike Breedon seeking revenge against Jimmy and his school-teaching sister Sally as their father, a circuit judge in Nebraska, had sentenced their brother Bud to be hanged. Harmon involves Jimmy, because of his gambling debts, in a robbery of a rancher known to keep large amounts of money at his ranch. The Range Busters break up the robbery, Bart is killed, as is Rancher Fleming, and Jimmy is wounded but escapes. Harmon, setting a trap for Crash, tricks Sally and Jimmy to his hideout, and Crash follows them.

Young lawyer Tod Jackson arrives in pioneer Kansas to visit his prosperous rancher friends the Daltons, just as the latter are in danger of losing their land to a crooked development company. When Tod tries to help them, a faked murder charge turns the Daltons into outlaws, but more victims than villains in this fictionalized version. Will Tod stay loyal to his friends despite falling in love with Bob Dalton's former fiancée Julie?

Inventor Thomas Edison's boyhood is chronicled and shows him as a lad whose early inventions and scientific experiments usually end up causing disastrous results. As a result, the towns folk all think Tom is crazy, and creating a strained relationship between Tom and his father. Tom's only solace is his understanding mother who believes he's headed to do great things.

A lawyer is framed for the murder of a young party girl and tries to clear his name.

An attorney handling a murder case in unaware his own wife played a crucial role in the killing.

The zany plot follows nitwit Gracie Allen trying to help master sleuth Philo Vance solve a murder.

Charlie Dugan is a quick-thinking boss of a traveling circus playing small towns in Missouri and Kansas.

A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.

After committing a murder, Kay assumes a new identity and boards a ship. But, Kay is unaware that Sam, a skirt chasing detective, is following her and must outwit him to escape imprisonment.

Mary Smith decides after a lifetime of being a shut-in to do something wild while her father is out campaigning for the presidency, so she takes off for the family's home in West Palm Beach and inadvertently becomes romantically entangled with earnest cowboy Stretch Willoughby. Neither the dalliance nor the cowboy fit with the upper class image projected by her esteemed father, forcing her to choose.

Harvard senior Sam Thatcher (Lew Ayres) and his best friend and roommate, known as "The Lippencott" (Burgess Meredith), plan to go to Russia after graduation, a decision Sam has kept from his girlfriend, Alexandra Benson (Maureen O'Sullivan).

In an effort to impress Darla, Alfalfa tells her that he's a famous bear trainer. Little does he know that Darla's father owns a circus - and a bear costume. It's time for everyone to uncover the "bear facts".

In the 1840s, Ramsey MacKay, the driver for the struggling Wells Fargo mail and freight company, will secure an important contract if he delivers fresh oysters to Buffalo from New York City. When he rescues Justine Pryor and her mother, who are stranded in a broken wagon on his route, he doesn't let them slow him down and gives the ladies an exhilirating ride into Buffalo. He arrives in time to obtain the contract and is then sent by company president Henry Wells to St. Louis to establish a branch office.

Andy Hardy and his sister find romance during a family vacation in Catalina.

Lady lawyer Portia Merryman (Frieda Inescourt) defends woebegone Elizabeth Manners (Heather Angel), who is on trial for shooting her lover Earle Condon (Neil Hamilton). Ironically, Portia herself had once had a relationship with Earle Condon, but Earle's father, powerful publisher John Condon (Clarence Kolb), forced them apart. She has a pretty good idea of what is going on in Elizabeth's head, since she herself was on the verge of killing Earle Condon when his father ruthlessly took custody of her illegitimate son. As Portia toils and strains to free her client, she carries on a romance with Dan Foster (Walter Abel) -- the attorney for the prosecution. LA Law and The Practice have nothing on this one!

A Night at the Movies is a short film starring Robert Benchley. It was Benchley's greatest success since How to Sleep, and won him a contract for more short films that would be produced in New York. In this comedic short, a man and his wife suffer through a night at the movies. The film was nominated for an Academy Award at the 10th Academy Awards, held in 1937, for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).

A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process.

A young woman inherits a newspaper whose editor refuses to hire lady reporters.

An early Technicolor musical that concentrates on the fashions of the late 1930s, this film was reissued under the title All This and Glamour Too. The top models of the era, including several who are advertising household products, are in the cast. The plot centers around a chic boutique, whose owner, George Curson (Warner Baxter), tries hard to please his customers while keeping peace with his unhappy wife. A wealthy young woman, Wendy Van Klettering (Joan Bennett), decides to take a job as a model at the fashion house, just to amuse herself, but her presence annoys Curson, who must put together the best possible show to compete with rival fashion houses at the Seven Arts Ball. The film includes several hit songs, including the Oscar-nominated "That Old Feeling" by Sammy Fain and Lew Brown.

A pretty architect devises a wild scheme to convince a handsome millionaire to fund a new housing development project.

When a crafty reporter uses false pretenses to get a story out of heiress Tony Gateson, she turns the tables on him, telling the press that they are engaged. Suddenly he's front page news, every salesman is at his doorstep, and he loses his job. A series of misadventures ensues with him alternately back on his job and fired and her ex-fiancé showing up.

An Italian immigrant studying the law gets mixed up with crooks.

A law student poses as a fight promoter to catch a notorious gangster.

A circus wild animal trainer searches for the son who was taken away from him by a meddling relative years earlier.

Mary wants to marry a gangster because that is where the money is. Unfortunately, the life expectancy and finances of a gangster are unstable.

The dim-witted son of a heroic fire chief tries to follow in his late father's footsteps, only to become the unknowing pawn of corrupt politicians.

Butch Saunders has been transferred to Missing Persons because he was too brutal in other police work...

One woman faces many trials on the road to romance after unwittingly marrying a bigamist, then a carnival's barker and then falling for a young engineer.

Socialite Carol Morgan romps through the Depression and her wealth while breaking up with Bill Wade and getting back together with him.

The evils of alcohol before and during prohibition become evident as we see its effects on the rich Chilcote family and the hard working Tarleton family.

Ivy Stevens is a cafe entertainer in love with a shifty salesman who deserts her. In attempting to commit suicide, she is saved by Carl, a Salvation Army officer. Encouraged by Carl, Ivy joins the Salvation Army. When her old flame re-enters her life, Ivy finds she is still attracted and begins another affair with him.

Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.