Monte Brice

Movies

W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films
Director
A Criterion compilation of "six gems that feature the comic genius at his peak: The Golf Specialist, Pool Sharks (silent), The Pharmacist, The Fatal Glass of Beer, The Barber Shop, and, of course, the notorious The Dentist." Pool Sharks is his first film ever, released in 1915; the rest are all five of Fields’ talking shorts, released from 1930 to 1933.
Variety Girl
Screenplay
Dozens of star and character-actor cameos and a message about the Variety Club (a show-business charity) are woven into a framework about two hopeful young ladies who come to Hollywood, exchange identities, and cause comic confusion (with slapstick interludes) throughout the Paramount studio.
Singin' in the Corn
Story
Judy McCoy, a fortune teller with a circus, learns she has inherited some property and heads west to collect. When she arrives in the desert ghost town, she learns that a stipulation in the will is that she has to return the property to the rightful owners, an Indian tribe, before she gets the remaining inheritance
Genius at Work
Writer
Two actors who play detectives on the radio find themselves investigating a real crime masterminded by an arch-criminal named the Cobra.
Mama Loves Papa
Screenplay
A loose remake of the 1935 comedy of the same name. Thanks to the efforts of his social-climbing wife Jessie, furniture store employee Wilbur Todd is tossed headfirst into the world of small-town politics. Sized up as a patsy by crooked politician Kirkwood, poor Wilbur is plied with champagne as part of Kirkwood's scheme to land a sweetheart playground-equipment contract.
Radio Stars on Parade
Screenplay
A Hollywood talent agency tries to avoid finacial ruin by getting its best clients on the air.
A Guy, a Gal and a Pal
Screenplay
A young woman devises a clever scheme to secure a train reservation by pretending to be married to a stranger.
Eadie Was a Lady
Story
In this amiable Columbia B musical, society girl Ann Miller escapes her Back Bay family by performing in the chorus line in a burlesque house. But trouble starts when her boss (William Wright) decides to build her up as a star. One of the many bread-and-butter Columbia productions graced by the contributions of Cole’s in-house dance studio. Cole dances behind Miller in “I’m Gonna See My Baby.” --Museum of Modern Art
Eadie Was a Lady
Screenplay
In this amiable Columbia B musical, society girl Ann Miller escapes her Back Bay family by performing in the chorus line in a burlesque house. But trouble starts when her boss (William Wright) decides to build her up as a star. One of the many bread-and-butter Columbia productions graced by the contributions of Cole’s in-house dance studio. Cole dances behind Miller in “I’m Gonna See My Baby.” --Museum of Modern Art
Kansas City Kitty
Screenplay
A piano teacher and her roommate decide invest their savings in a music publishing company. Comedy with music.
Stars on Parade
Screenplay
In this musical showcase, two aspiring stars attempt to wow a pair of talent scouts with their stellar abilities. Songs include "My Heart Isn't in It" (Jack Lawrence), "It's Love, Love, Love" (Mack David, Joan Whitney, Alex Kramer), "When They Ask about You" (Sammy Stept), "Jumpin' at the Jubilee" (Ben Carter, Mayes Marshall), "Taking Care of You" (Lou Brown, Harry Akst), "Where Am I Without You?" (Don Raye, Gene De Paul), "Two Hearts in the Dark" (Dave Franklin), "Somewhere This Side of Heaven," "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel."
Beautiful But Broke
Screenplay
Theatrical agent Waldo Main is inducted into the army, and turns his now clientless agency over to his secretary Dottie Duncan. Dottie decides to organize an all-girl orchestra to fill the void caused by so many orchestra members being called to service due to WWII, and joins struggling singers/songwriters Sally Richards and Sue Ford in this endeavor. Dottie's screwball schemes to get engagements for the group often lead to disaster.
Is Everybody Happy?
Screenplay
This is the story of Ted Lewis, popular band leader and clarinettist.
Doughboys in Ireland
Additional Dialogue
According to Doughboys in Ireland, there were those who sang their way through WW2. Radio tenor Kenny Baker plays Manhattan orchestra leading Danny O'Keefe, who is drafted into the army along with a Ritz Brothers-like quartet called The Jesters. Stationed in Ireland, Danny believes that his New York sweetheart Gloria (Lynn Merrick) has forgotten about him, thus he inaugurates a romance with Irish colleen Molly Callahan (Jeff Donnell).
Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost
Screenplay
Carmelita and Uncle Matt find themselves in a haunted house, but the "ghosts" are actually enemy agents who are trying to frighten away visitors in order to develop a nitroglycerin bomb.
Sing Your Worries Away
Screenplay
This package for comedy and the musical numbers has Luke Brown being drugged by the gangster operators of the swank Boathouse Inn; most notably Roxie a sexy pickpocket. Brown has information that Chow Brewster and his cousin have inherited $3,000,000. The owner of the Inn intends to keep Brown under wraps until they can drive Chow to suicide. He will then marry Chow's cousin before she finds out about her inheritance.
The Fleet's In
Story
Shy sailor Casey Kirby suddenly becomes known as a sea wolf when his picture is taken with a famous actress. Things get complicated when bets are placed on his prowess with the ladies.
Four Jacks and a Jill
Story
Karanina "Nina" Novak, is befriended by Nifty, the leader of a four-piece orchestra, and in return, secures an engagement for them at the Little Aregal Cafe, with herself as the vocalist, by pretending she once knew the King or Aregal back in the old country. Steve shows up pretending to be the King of Aregal, and complicates the growing romance between Nina and Nifty. When Steve runs off with Opa, the real King of Aregal (also Steve) appears and complicates things again.
Night Work
Screenplay
The Fitch family is managing an apartment building when the grandfather of their adopted son Butch decides the family isn't worthy of raising his grandson.
You're a Sweetheart
Screenplay
A Broadway producer is in a quandary when he discovers that the opening of his newest big production coincides with that of a major charity event. He despairs that the show will close after opening night until an ingenious writer suggests that he simply give the production snob-appeal by making the tickets nearly impossible to get by fabricating a story that they were all purchased by a flamboyant Texas oil baron who is totally besotted by the show's star.
Merry Go Round of 1938
Screenplay
Two screwy characters travel to Hollywood and cause mischief.
Sweet Surrender
Producer
Anti-war propaganda musical set on an ocean liner.
Sweet Surrender
Director
Anti-war propaganda musical set on an ocean liner.
Take a Chance
Director
Take a Chance was based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name, though only one of the original songs, Eadie Was a Lady, has been retained. The thinnish plot involves the misadventures of a pair of pickpockets, played on Broadway by Jack Haley and Sid Silvers and on film by James Dunn and Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards.
Moonlight and Pretzels
Story
A song plugger is stranded in a small town. There he meets a girl who later helps him to put on a show on Broadway.
Moonlight and Pretzels
Screenplay
A song plugger is stranded in a small town. There he meets a girl who later helps him to put on a show on Broadway.
The Radio Murder Mystery
Director
This short, introduced and closed by Louis Sobol, features Richard Gordon as ‘Sherlock Holmes of the air.’ Not long after one broadcast explaining in a story how a murder was committed an actual murder is committed using the same technique. The police then call Gordon in to help solve the crime. The rest of this short with an ‘all-star cast’ (as the title card announces) includes Jack Fulton, Alice Joy and Peggy Healy. The latter 3 singers, however, do not participate in the plot of the 21 minute short, but provide musical interludes to it.
New Deal Rhythm
Director
Plotless musical revue celebrating President Franklin D. Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration.
I Know Everybody and Everybody's Racket
Director
Walter Winchell meets a budding country journalist and shows her around the Biltmore Hotel.
The Golf Specialist
Director
At a Florida hotel, absconding miscreant J. Effingham Bellweather goes slapstick golfing with the house detective's flirtatious wife and an incompetent caddy.
A Million Me's
Director
Lee at the piano singing a fragment of a blues when a young man enters her home with a pile of records: - Hello Miss Morse. I've brought over those records you just made for us. Oh, they're great. We'll be able to make the movie next week. Lee replies: I don't think so.
Deep 'C' Melodies
Director
Musical short.
The Plasterers
Director
A bizarre comedy short in which knockabout comics Charles O'Donnell and Jack Blair show up to repair a woman's house, but spend more time wrecking things and doing pratfalls. There's even a pantomime horse that causes trouble!
The Fleet's In
Screenplay
A girl who works in a dance hall falls in love with a sailor, but he has the wrong idea of what it is she does and doesn't want anything to do with her.
The Fleet's In
Story
A girl who works in a dance hall falls in love with a sailor, but he has the wrong idea of what it is she does and doesn't want anything to do with her.
Tillie's Punctured Romance
Writer
The ring master is plotting to get the circus owner done away with in a lion cage so he can take over.
Now We're in the Air
Writer
Wally and Ray are cousins intent upon getting the fortune of their Scots grandad, an aviation nut. They become mixed-up with the U. S. flying corps and are wafted over the enemy lines in a runaway balloon. Through misunderstanding they are honored as heroes of the enemy forces, and sent back to the U.S. lines to spy. Here they are captured and almost shot, but everything ends happily. Only 20 minutes of this 6 reel comedy are extant.
Fireman, Save My Child
Writer
Two firemen must put up with a variety of travails in their job, especially their chief's spoiled and bratty daughter, who keeps turning in false alarms whenever she needs some heavy lifting done so that she can get the responding firemen to do it.
Casey at the Bat
Writer
Casey is a slovenly junk man in a turn of the twentieth century hick town who has a remarkable ability to play baseball. An unscrupulous New York scout signs him up, so Casey and his equally dishonest manager go to the big leagues. Eventually, the scout and manager conspire to get him drunk and bet against him for a crucial game with the pennant at stake.
Casey at the Bat
Director
Casey is a slovenly junk man in a turn of the twentieth century hick town who has a remarkable ability to play baseball. An unscrupulous New York scout signs him up, so Casey and his equally dishonest manager go to the big leagues. Eventually, the scout and manager conspire to get him drunk and bet against him for a crucial game with the pennant at stake.
We're in the Navy Now
Story
"Stinky" Smith makes off with the prize money when his buddy, "Knockout" Hansen loses a fight with Percival "Sailor" Scruggs. Hansen pursues him him a U.S. Navt recruiting office, and, the next thing they know, both are in the Navy and aboard an overseas transport ship. Madelyn Phillips is on board and Scruggs is the the ship's Master-of-Arms. They overhear a mysterious conversation between Madelyn and the ship's radio officer. Later, Madelun induces the pair to take her off the ship and into a row boat. She disappears and they are picked up by a French ship, which sinks a German U-Boat. When the war ends they learn that Madelyn was an operative of the U.S. Secret Service.
Miss Brewster's Millions
Adaptation
Polly Brewster, a penniless Hollywood model/movie extra inherits one million dollars. But her new lawyer, Tom Hancock, informs her that she has to spend it all within 30 days to inherit $5 million more from her spiteful Uncle Ned Brewster who tries to prevent it from happening.
Behind the Front
Writer
During World War I a young man joins the army and winds up befriending another young recruit, not knowing that it's the same pickpocket who stole his watch. After finishing basic training, the two are sent to the front lines in France, where they wind up in trouble with the MPs, getting involved with some cute French girls and "volunteering" for a dangerous front-line mission, and their antics result in their endangering the armistice.
Hands Up!
Writer
Jack, a southern spy during the Civil War, must try to capture a shipment of gold. His task is complicated by the two sisters, Native Americans, and a firing squad.