Robert Benchley (archive footage)
A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.
Writer
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.
Robert Benchley
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.
Himself (archive footage)
The story of the legendary wits who lunched daily at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. The core of the so-called Round Table group included short story and poetry writer Dorothy Parker; comic actor and writer Robert Benchley; The New Yorker founder Harold Ross; columnist and social reformer Heywood Broun; critic Alexander Woollcott; and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Robert Sherwood.
Archive Footage
While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War II, the majority used their talents to rally the American public through bond sales, morale-boosting USO tours, patriotic war dramas and escapist film fare. Comedian David Steinberg plays host for this star-studded, 90-minute documentary, which looks at the way Tinseltown helped the United States' war effort.
(archive footage)
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
(archive footage)
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Henry Fonda hosts this retrospective on the career and films of iconic filmmaker David O. Selznick, who epitomized the era of the auteur producer in the 30s and 40s.
John Van Brunt
Newlywed Janie's (Joan Leslie) World War II-veteran husband (Robert Hutton) goes to work at her father's (Edward Arnold) newspaper.
Uncle Todd Warren
Rich and beautiful Southern heiress Sally Warren loves horse-racing and running her horse-farm although her husband of seven years hates the four-legged mammals. Spouse Jeff Warren is a successful author, Civil War scholar, and popular lecturer on the ladies club circuit. After Jeff buys aging twelve-year old nag Albert in the mistaken belief that he's a colt and Sally purchases a desk for her husband in the naive belief that it once belonged to Jefferson Davis, it's obvious that they have few interests in common. The squabbling is complicated by Jeff's jealousy of Sally's relationship with Lance Gale, her childhood friend, neighbor, and fellow horse breeder.
Tom P. Curtis
Director Hal Walker's 1945 musical comedy stars Betty Hutton as a hat-check girl at New York City's famous nightclub. The cast also includes Barry Fitzgerald, Don Defore, Andy Russell, Iria Adrian and Robert Benchley.
Ben Stevens
A 14-year-old boy lies about his age and enlists in the United State Marine Corps without his family's consent or knowledge. He is sent into battle in the Pacific war-zone, decorated, and spotted in a newsreel by his family. The family asks the War Department to discharge him and send him home.
Narrator
While on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, Duke and Chester find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been 'stolen' by thugs. In Alaska to recover her father's map, Sal Van Hoyden falls in with Ace Larson, who secretly wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke, Chester, the thugs, Ace and his henchman chase each other all over the countryside—for the map.
George Archer
Film adaptation of the Broadway hit, about the comic mayhem that erupts in a small town when a 15-year old high-schooler (Shirley Temple) is wrongly suspected of being pregnant.
Randy Morton
Anything can happen during a weekend at New York's Waldorf-Astoria: a glamorous movie star meets a world-weary war correspondent and mistakes him for a jewel thief; a soldier learns that without an operation he'll die and so looks for one last romance with a beautiful but ambitious stenographer; a cub reporter tries to get the goods on a shady man's dealing with a foreign potentate.
Robert Benchley
A girl is desperate to get to Washington D.C. to be with her lonesome brother, a wounded G.I. She persuades Bing Crosby to let her join his caravan.
Robert Benchley
The staff of a record factory drown their sorrows at Duffy's Tavern, while the company owner faces threats of bankruptcy.
Parker
The ringmaster of a flea circus inherits a fortune...if he can find which chair it's hidden in.
Charlie Corker
A New York magazine sends its editors to South America to find beautiful girls.
Judge Robert Simpson
In this screwball comedy a WW2 US pilot bombs a Japanese aircraft carrier, is assumed to be dead, and then is misquoted in the press as fondly remembering his days back home walking his dog Piggy. Instead of his dog Piggy he is thought to be in love with Peggy, a girl he worked with. The usual farce ensues after he returns home alive and tries to play along with the mistake to save embarrassment for all.
J.B. Mitcham
This film gives a fictionalized version of how the popular real-life radio program of the title began.
John Van Brunt
Teenage Janie (Joyce Reynolds) falls in love with a private (Robert Hutton) from an Army base opposed by her editor father (Edward Arnold).
Martin Osborne
An anthropologist unwittingly takes a man disguised as a "primitive man" back to New York as a specimen.
Writer
When Joe Doakes listens to a quiz show on the radio and knows all the answers, his wife encourages him to go on a quiz show himself. He appears on a new show called "Why Daddy?", where a child and an adult compete against each other, with less than stellar results.
Story
When Joe Doakes listens to a quiz show on the radio and knows all the answers, his wife encourages him to go on a quiz show himself. He appears on a new show called "Why Daddy?", where a child and an adult compete against each other, with less than stellar results.
Joseph A. Doakes
When Joe Doakes listens to a quiz show on the radio and knows all the answers, his wife encourages him to go on a quiz show himself. He appears on a new show called "Why Daddy?", where a child and an adult compete against each other, with less than stellar results.
Joseph A. Doakes
Robert takes a train ride to Washington, DC, on "important business."
Hank Higgins
American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.
Writer
Robert Benchley answers questions ranging from across the political spectrum.
Answer Man
Robert Benchley answers questions ranging from across the political spectrum.
Joseph A. Doakes
Joe Doakes is lamenting to his wife the lack of variety in his meals. In particular, he misses eating stewed tomatoes, the fruit which he believes incorrectly is being rationed as a war measure. Mrs. Doakes knows that tomatoes aren't rationed, but she doesn't correct him, especially after he announces that he will grow enough tomatoes to feed the entire block. As he proceeds with his tomato garden, he, unaware of what it actually takes to grow tomato plants successfully, accepts advice from the many people who are willing to give it. The problem ends up being that much of the advice is conflicting. But at the end of the process, Joe is pleased with the fact of having grown a fruit to maturity - regardless of the actual yield of the garden - until someone else, or something else, has a say in what happens to that fruit. Written by Huggo (Taken from the imdb page)
Doakes
Anthology film of three tales of the supernatural. The first story is set at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The second involves a psychic who predicts murder. The third is about a man who literally meets the girl of his dreams.
Philip 'Phil' Harriman
Flying Tiger Fred Atwell sneaks away from his famous squadron's personal appearance tour and goes incognito for several days of leave. He quickly falls for photographer Joan Manion, pursuing her in the guise of a carefree drifter.
Self
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.
Arthur Kenny
For those, if any, who have wondered why so many Paramount contractees appeared in United Artists' films during the war years, this is another one of the Paramount productions that was sold to United Artists in the early-40's when U.A. was having trouble meeting their exhibitor contracts because of lack of product, mainly due to their loss of production in England. A group of starving, but young and willing, actors band together to share finances and an apartment. Norman Reese (William Holden) orders no love nonsense between the boys and girls till they are set on broadway, but Marge Benson (Barbara Britton) and Tony Dennison (James Beown) are already secretly married. A friend drops in to see Dottie Coburn (Martha O'Driscoll) and is shocked to find the boys and girls sharing the same apartment and insists it is her duty to inform Dottie's father (Jay Fassett.)
Dr. Dudley White
Rocksford, New England, 1672. Puritan witch hunter Jonathan Wooley is cursed after burning a witch at the stake: his descendants will never find happiness in their marriages. At present, politician Wallace Wooley, who is running for state governor, is about to marry his sponsor's daughter.
Albert Osborne
Susan Applegate, tired of New York after one year and twenty-five jobs, decides to return to her home town in Iowa. Discovering she hasn't enough money for the train fare, Susan disguises herself as a twelve-year-old and travels for half the price. Caught out by the conductors, she hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby, a military school instructor who takes the "child" under his wing.
Joe Doakes
Robert Benchley lectures on physical witness in middle age.
Doakes (scenes deleted)
A young trumpeter rises through the jazz world and finds love.
G.B. Atwater
A struggling painter takes a job as a secretary to a female advertising executive. While working to obtain an account from a tobacco company, they end up falling in love.
Mr. Benchley
After some investigation, Robert Benchley finds his nerves are in a bad state. He has the jitters so bad he can't hold his cup still enough to drink his coffee, and he thinks the arrival of some plumbers is just a giant conspiracy to keep him unnerved.
Writer
As Joe Doakes is reading the newspaper, he begins to talk to himself. Questioned by his wife, he explains that he is disturbed by the paper's account of the ways that a government investigative committee has been interrogating its witnesses. Joe then nods off, and imagines that he is being questioned by the committee. He envisages how satisfying it would be to turn the tables on the investigators.
Joe Doakes
As Joe Doakes is reading the newspaper, he begins to talk to himself. Questioned by his wife, he explains that he is disturbed by the paper's account of the ways that a government investigative committee has been interrogating its witnesses. Joe then nods off, and imagines that he is being questioned by the committee. He envisages how satisfying it would be to turn the tables on the investigators.
Eddie Turner
A Braodway playwright wants to keep on writing plays for his wife to star in, but all she wants is to retire to Connecticut and, following a few 'worlds-apart" discussion of the issue, they get a divorce. The actress marries a banker in a fit of pique only to quickly discover the divorce was not valid. She communicates this information to her not-yet ex-husband and he, to prevent consummation of the invalid marriage rescues her by sending plumbers, waiters, porters, chambermaids, bellhops, desk clerks, exterminators and, finally, a crowd of roistering conventioneers to the suite to ensure no bedtime story would take place there
Wilburforce Puddle, hotel manager
Faith and Hope Banner, sisters, are "convention hostesses" in a hotel. A body is discovered next door as the magician's convention is leaving and the mortician's convention is arriving, and the sisters, with help from manager Wilburforce Puddle, try to hide it. Complicating matters, Hope's boyfriend, Tommy, is a newspaper reporter in the hotel covering some labor negotiations.
Husband
In this Robert Benchley instructional video, he demonstrates the pitfalls of a homebody husband attempting to take a vacation apart from his wife.
Martin Cortland
A Broadway choreographer gets drafted and coincidentally ends up in the same army base as his object of affection’s boyfriend.
Robert Benchley
Humorist Robert Benchley attempts to find Walt Disney to ask him to adapt a short story about a gentle dragon who would rather recite poetry than be ferocious. Along the way, he is given a tour of Walt Disney Studios, and learns about the animation process.
Joe Doakes / Father
Robert Benchley's wry forerunner to "Father of the Bride" detailing his perspective of the upcoming nuptials.
Writer
A police officer alerts his audience to the fact that inanimate objects can be as dangerous as human criminals. He then displays several offenders that have recently been brought in. Shoelaces, for example, have an objectionable habit of breaking at crucial moments. The officer proceeds to call attention to window shades, bedroom slippers, and other menaces. He also answers his critics who advocate reasoning with these objects rather than punishing them.
Sgt. Benchley / Joe Doakes
A police officer alerts his audience to the fact that inanimate objects can be as dangerous as human criminals. He then displays several offenders that have recently been brought in. Shoelaces, for example, have an objectionable habit of breaking at crucial moments. The officer proceeds to call attention to window shades, bedroom slippers, and other menaces. He also answers his critics who advocate reasoning with these objects rather than punishing them.
Prof. Oliver Wendel Holmes Dana
Jane is a nice girl and has had her eyes on a young man who seems more interested in his hand-built car than in Jane. She decides to shed her "nice girl" image when an associate of her father comes to town on his way to study Australian Aboriginal tribes.
Writer
Robert Benchley aims his keen observational skills toward expectant fathers.
Joe Doakes
Robert Benchley aims his keen observational skills toward expectant fathers.
Writer
Benchley, in his own unique way, starts to drive his wife crazy. First he waits until just as she is serving dinner before he goes to wash his hands and shave. Then she sends him to the store for some butter, and he comes back with everything - except butter. Finally, he decides to install a small shelf on the wall - and makes a major production out of it.
Joe Doakes
Benchley, in his own unique way, starts to drive his wife crazy. First he waits until just as she is serving dinner before he goes to wash his hands and shave. Then she sends him to the store for some butter, and he comes back with everything - except butter. Finally, he decides to install a small shelf on the wall - and makes a major production out of it.
Roger Van Horn
Ad man Stephen Dexter asks his secretary Kendall to marry him as a loophole in order to protect his finances during an important business deal. Once the deal is completed, he asks Kendall for a divorce and is dismayed when she refuses.
Dialogue
The European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Johnny Jones, an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, has a nose for a good story—which promptly leads him to the crime of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest. In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring and—not entirely coincidentally—falls in love.
Stebbins
The European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Johnny Jones, an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, has a nose for a good story—which promptly leads him to the crime of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest. In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring and—not entirely coincidentally—falls in love.
Writer
A comedy short staring Robert Benchley. He tries to show us how to make our own movies.
Joe Doakes
A comedy short staring Robert Benchley. He tries to show us how to make our own movies.
Writer
Joe Doakes, like most men, is unable to cope with personal emergencies or those in a position of authority (real or imagined).
Joseph H. 'Joe' Doakes
Joe Doakes, like most men, is unable to cope with personal emergencies or those in a position of authority (real or imagined).
Producer
A lecturer tells the audience that it is National Take Care Week. He tells the story of a man who gets stung in his garden and the problems the man has when he seeks treatment at the doctor's office.
Screenplay
A lecturer tells the audience that it is National Take Care Week. He tells the story of a man who gets stung in his garden and the problems the man has when he seeks treatment at the doctor's office.
Lecturer / Joseph H. Doakes
A lecturer tells the audience that it is National Take Care Week. He tells the story of a man who gets stung in his garden and the problems the man has when he seeks treatment at the doctor's office.
Joe Doakes
Joe Doakes tries to take a day off.
Lecturer / Joe Doakes
Humorist Robert Benchley discusses the issue of food and how different situations can affect one's ability to consume and digest food, using his stock everyman and slightly bumbling character Joe Doakes to dramatize such situations. Situations that can impede digestion include receiving bad news resulting in stress, being in love, and feeling scared. Snacking or nibbling between meals can ruins one's appetite at meal time. Having the correct posture while eating is important for digestion; finding the right posture can be difficult in certain circumstances, such as being on a picnic or eating in bed (specifically for men when using trays). Sharing tables with staring strangers may also impede digestion. And it's difficult to digest food when one can't get any of it. Written by Huggo (Taken from the imdb page)
Joe Doakes
A businessman goes home early to surprise his family and is treated with suspicion, mostly by his wife's bridge club.
Screenplay
A businessman goes home early to surprise his family and is treated with suspicion, mostly by his wife's bridge club.
Writer
A man buys a magic set for his son, but the tricks worked better in the store than they do at home.
Joe Doakes
A man buys a magic set for his son, but the tricks worked better in the store than they do at home.
Lecturer / Joe
Benchley shows how to budget one's time during lunch hour to get things done efficiently. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned.
Writer
A man fumbles through an apartment sub-let assessment while his wife is away.
Joe Doakes
A man fumbles through an apartment sub-let assessment while his wife is away.
Writer
In this comedic short, a psychoanalyst encounters a patient who eerily resembles himself.
Psychoanalyst / Mr. Ostegraf
In this comedic short, a psychoanalyst encounters a patient who eerily resembles himself.
City Treasurer Benchley
The City Treasurer stands in for the mayor, throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day.
Writer
Humorist Robert Benchley illustrates the fine points of attending an American football game.
Football Fan
Humorist Robert Benchley illustrates the fine points of attending an American football game.
Writer
Robert Benchley offers a humorous lecture on how to avoid different types of strain during reading.
Lecturer
Robert Benchley offers a humorous lecture on how to avoid different types of strain during reading.
Writer
Robert Benchley revamps his pre-code classic "Sex Life of the Polyp" for a new generation.
Zoology Lecturer
Robert Benchley revamps his pre-code classic "Sex Life of the Polyp" for a new generation.
Writer
American humorist Robert Benchley provides a comedic look at the difficulty in being a father.
Lecturer Father
American humorist Robert Benchley provides a comedic look at the difficulty in being a father.
Writer
Robert Benchley's everyman spends an evening home alone.
Joe Doakes
Robert Benchley's everyman spends an evening home alone.
Writer
Benchley fills in for a music critic on a radio show. His performance is less than stellar.
Robert Benchley
Benchley fills in for a music critic on a radio show. His performance is less than stellar.
Writer
A man humorously attempts to give an overview of income taxes.
Joe Doakes
A man humorously attempts to give an overview of income taxes.
Lecturer
Benchley tries his best to demonstrate the routine one should follow to start the day right.
Writer
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).
Husband
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).
Oscar
A starving, uncompromising artist and an heiress fall in love on first sight and immediately get married. She loves his outrageous behaviour, his strange room-mate and the best apartment poverty can buy.
Robert Benchley
A series of vignettes with a loose plot. Featured are Frank Morgan, Groucho Marx, Frank McHugh, Robert Benchley and The Brian Sisters. Not bad, more interesting for the historical significance than for entertainment.
Duffy
Steve Raleight wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a backer, Herman Whipple and a leading lady, Sally Lee. But Caroline Whipple forces Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. Sally purchases a horse, she used to train when her parents had a farm before the depression and with to ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.
Writer
A brief, illustrated lecture on digestion. Aburdist humor is the hallmark of this pseudo-scientific description of biting, chewing, swallowing, and digesting food. The on-screen narrator begins with teeth, "little sentinels" as he calls them, and the tongue. Then it's on to the stomach: he describes the stomach's workings as if it were an office or a factory. He uses an illustration of the side view of a human torso, with mouth, esophagus, and stomach visible, saying it's a photograph of a man with a visible digestive tract.
Joe Doakes
A brief, illustrated lecture on digestion. Aburdist humor is the hallmark of this pseudo-scientific description of biting, chewing, swallowing, and digesting food. The on-screen narrator begins with teeth, "little sentinels" as he calls them, and the tongue. Then it's on to the stomach: he describes the stomach's workings as if it were an office or a factory. He uses an illustration of the side view of a human torso, with mouth, esophagus, and stomach visible, saying it's a photograph of a man with a visible digestive tract.
Mr. Benchley
This Robert Benchley 'How To' comedy short attempts to teach us how to profile criminals by physical characteristics.
Writer
This Robert Benchley 'How To' comedy short attempts to teach us how to profile criminals by physical characteristics.
Writer
A candidate has laryngitis, so his assistant must make a speech in his place. Both the speaker and his audience are soon befuddled.
Mr. Robert Benchley
A candidate has laryngitis, so his assistant must make a speech in his place. Both the speaker and his audience are soon befuddled.
Bill Macon
Jim's father wants to marry Eugenia, but her sister Netta refuses to allow it. When Jim sees Ann at a club, he falls for her even though she is with Lord Priory. He meets her the next day at the riding path, but she quickly loses him. He searches all over for her, not knowing that his father's hopeful fiancée is her Aunt. As his caricature work suffers as he searches, he is fired from his paper. But he makes a comeback with the comics 'Rags to Riches' which is based upon the Pett's. But this upsets the Pett's so much that they go back to New York, and he follows, being careful not to let them know that he is the one who draws the strip that parodies them.
Winners of the Lucky Stars National Dance Contest - one woman from each state of the United States - are welcomed to Palm Springs. Palm Springs being the desert playground for the movie stars, the women are introduced to the cavalcade of stars vacationing in Palm Springs at the time.
Lecturer / Dog Owner
This comedic short provides a lesson in how NOT to train a dog.
Mr. Benchley
Two men working below a manhole cover wonder what they would do if a woman was to fall in. This leads to one of the workers saying that Robert Benchley always has the best advice about any social situation. Hilarity ensues.
Host / Narrator
A lecturer seated at a desk promises an informative film about how to sleep; it's a sequel to and inspired by "How to stay awake," which put his audience to sleep. He plans to examine the causes of sleep, the causes of insomnia, and recent research on sleep, including a time-lapse film of a man changing positions 55 times during an 8-hour rest: why exercise, he asks, when you can sleep like a top? The film instructs one on how to get a drink of water during the night without waking completely, and other useful skills for the insomniac.
Charlie McCaleb
Captain Alan Gaskell sails the perilous waters between Hong Kong and Singapore with a secret cargo: a fortune in British gold. That's not the only risky cargo he carries; both his fiery mistress and his refined fiancee are aboard!
Screenplay
A schoolteacher and amateur sleuth suspects foul play when a fellow passenger on a seaplane gets sick and dies. The third and final film with Edna May Oliver and James Gleason as the astute schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and the New York Police Inspector Oscar Piper busy solving crimes.
Master of Ceremonies
Clip-filled promotional short by MGM Studios celebrating the body of work by producer David O. Selznick.
Dialogue
Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. There she falls in love with dancer Guy Holden, whom she later mistakes for the corespondent her lawyer hired.
Robert Benchley
Chorus girl Patsy Shaw crashes a high-society party, meets playboy Charlie Breen, they fall in love, and are on their merry way to wedded bliss. However, Charlie's snobbish, ever-loving mama doesn't think that Patsy is worthy and sets out to prove it.
Ward King
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.
Hubbell
A working girl shares her apartment with an artist, taking the place in shifts.
Additional Dialogue
Richard Bruce, an American in fog bound London stumbles into the midst of international intrigue, with Rose Thorne, an innocent dupe. Together they try to unravel the mystery, enlisting the aid of a cat burglar named Holmes, who they bump into along the way.
Radio Announcer
A newsreel photographer neglects his love life to get the perfect shot.
Robert Benchley explains Technocracy with visual aids in his classic befuddled manor.
Writer
Robert Benchley explains Technocracy with visual aids in his classic befuddled manor.
Additional Dialogue
Two Dartmouth football players fall in love with the same girl following college graduation.
Radio Announcer
Two Dartmouth football players fall in love with the same girl following college graduation.
Writer
Wilkie and Mitchell, trying to desert their draft into the army, stow away on a ship which takes them into the war zone. While AWOL, the rivals for Mary's affections accidently destroy an ammunition dump.
Writer
Dr. Benchley is addressing the Ladies Club on the subject of the reproductive habits of the polyp, a small aquatic organism. Although he is not able to display his live specimens, he has prepared a series of pictures of his subjects. He explains that the subject is made more complicated by the fact that polyps are able to change their sex from time to time. Then he presents some of the pictures of his specimens and the experiments that he has done with them. (IMDb)
Lecturer
Dr. Benchley is addressing the Ladies Club on the subject of the reproductive habits of the polyp, a small aquatic organism. Although he is not able to display his live specimens, he has prepared a series of pictures of his subjects. He explains that the subject is made more complicated by the fact that polyps are able to change their sex from time to time. Then he presents some of the pictures of his specimens and the experiments that he has done with them. (IMDb)
Treasurer
Assistant Treasurer Benchley reports on the annual expenditures of the club for its home for "boys between the ages of 14", and other projects.
Title Graphics
A lost film - Mary Gray, whose father manufactures cold cream, is engaged to sappy Horace Niles, the son of Hugo Niles, the elder Gray's most competitive rival in the cosmetics business. Chip Armstrong, a hot-shot public relations man, quits the employ of Hugo Niles and goes to work for Gray, persuading Mary to enter the Miss America contest at Atlantic City, with the intention of using her to endorse her father's cold cream should she win. Mary breaks her engagement with Horace. When it appears that she will win the contest, Hugo lures her home on the pretext that her father is ill, and she misses the contest. Chip and Mary return to Atlantic City, discovering that the new Miss America has told the world that she owes all her success to Gray's cold cream. On this note, Chip and Mary decide to get married.
