Ben Oakland

Movies

The Werewolf
Music
The arrival in a small mountain town of a dissheveled stranger launches a series of murders committed by some sort of animal. As the town doctor and his daughter attempt to help the stranger, the sheriff investigates the murders; and they uncover a sinister experiment involving two rogue scientists, a car accident victim, his wife and children, and a serum that causes a man to turn into a ravaging werewolf.
Leave It to Blondie
Original Music Composer
Older but no wiser, Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead enter a songwriting contest. It's all part of a plan to cover charity checks that they've signed separately but can't cover. Along the way, Blondie's blood boils when Dagwood gets innocently mixed up with beautiful music teacher Rita Rogers.
I Love a Mystery
Original Music Composer
In San Francisco, detective partners Jack Packard and Doc Long are hired by socialite Jefferson Monk who believes someone is following him with the aim to kill him.
One Mysterious Night
Additional Music
After a rare gem is stolen from an exhibition at a posh hotel, Inspector Farraday decides to recruit former thief Boston Blackie to find the stone. Along with his assistant, "The Runt", Blackie focuses his investigation on the hotel manager, George Daley, and his sister, Eileen. Through disguises and ruses, Blackie and the Runt try to trick their way to discovering the thieves.
The Chance of a Lifetime
Additional Music
A mad scramble for stolen loot ensues after Boston Blackie has prisoners released for work in a wartime defence plant.
Footlight Glamour
Original Music Composer
Mr. Dithers is trying to encourage a businessman to build a war-time manufacturing plant on land he owns while Dagwood tries to prevent the businessman from learning his daughter is involved in a local theatre production.
It's a Great Life
Original Music Composer
When the profits of their various film series began slumping in the mid-1940s, Columbia Pictures tried to broaden the appeal of these films by disguing the fact that they were indeed series entries. Thus it was that Columbia's 13th "Blondie" picture was shipped out as It's a Great Life. The comic confusion begins when Dagwood Bumstead (Arthur Lake), intending to buy a house, buys a horse instead. Before the film's 75 minutes have run their course, Dagwood gets mixed up in a fox hunt. But Blondie (Penny Singleton) saves the day as usual, with the help of eccentric millionaire Timothy Brewster (Hugh Herbert). After It's a Great Life and #14 "Footlight Glamour", Columbia restored the name "Blondie" to the titles of all subesequent installments in this long-running comedy series.
Blondie Plays Cupid
Original Music Composer
The Bumstead family is off to see relatives in the country when Blondie runs into Charlie and Millie, an eloping couple needing her help.
Glamour for Sale
Original Music Composer
A blackmail mob is waiting for you to go out with one of these girls.
The Man with Nine Lives
Music
Dr. Leon Kravaal develops a potential cure for cancer, which involves freezing the patient. But an experiment goes awry when authorities believe Kravaal has killed a patient. Kravaal freezes the officials, along with himself. Years later, they are discovered and revived in hopes that Kravaal can indeed complete his cure. But human greed and weakness compound to disrupt the project.
Blondie on a Budget
Original Music Composer
Dagwood wants to join the trout club and Blondie wants a fur coat. Jealousy reigns when Dag's old girlfriend Joan shows up, but nothing else matters when a drawing at the movie theatre provides money for the coat.
His Girl Friday
Music
Hildy, the journalist former wife of newspaper editor Walter Burns, visits his office to inform him that she's engaged and will be getting remarried the next day. Walter can't let that happen and frames the fiancé, Bruce Baldwin, for one thing after another, to keep him temporarily held in prison, while trying to steer Hildy into returning to her old job as his employee.
Blondie Brings Up Baby
Original Music Composer
Baby Dumpling, the six-year-old son of Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead disappears from sight during his first day at school. While Dagwood frantically combs the city in search of the boy, Baby Dumpling spents a nice, safe afternoon with poor little rich girl Melinda Mason, who with her new playmate's help arises from her sickbed to walk across the room for the first time in months.
The Man They Could Not Hang
Music
Dr. Henryk Savaard is a scientist working on experiments to restore life to the dead. When he is unjustly hanged for murder, he is brought back to life by his trusted assistant. Re-animated he turns decidedly nasty and sets about murdering the jury that convicted him.
Blind Alley
Music
A gangster takes a doctor and his family hostage.
Penitentiary
Musical
The story of a D.A. who becomes a prison warden and winds up overseeing the sentence of a man he prosecuted.
The Awful Truth
Music
Unfounded suspicions lead a married couple to begin divorce proceedings, whereupon they start undermining each other's attempts to find new romance.
Old Man Blues
Music
A woman sundered from her sweetheart sings the title song as a duet with a personified Old Man Blues, in fog-shrouded woodland.
Old Man Blues
Story
A woman sundered from her sweetheart sings the title song as a duet with a personified Old Man Blues, in fog-shrouded woodland.