Leo Donnelly

In this short film, an elderly cameraman and his camera reminisce about their days shooting silent films and news stories.

A man, his wife and his overgrown son visit a penny arcade, where he drops a penny in the moviola and he (and we) watch The Perfectly Formed Woman (1910), and another penny to watch The Song of the Wildwood Flutes (1910). The man encounters the disdain of his goody-two-shoes plump wife because of his lascivious ogling.

They show clips of Mayor Robert van Wyck and the Jeffries-Fitzsimmons fight and point out how unimportant they were in the 1930s. They also show a cutdown of a comedy starring Kate Price with an annoying voice over commentary provided by Leo Donnelly.

"This Nude World" is a groundbreaking 1932 "documentary" celebrating the age-old tradition of playing volleyball in you socks... and nothing else. The film purports to pose probing questions about the morality of nudist colonies o cover its actual aim of getting naked people on screen... primarily in long shots. A highlight of the film is the peeks at the phenomena in Germany, France (including Lido de Paris) and the United States along with wonderful pre-WWII footage of the cities visited A real hoot. It passed the National Board of Review in 1932.

This short humorously recreates the experience of going to a nickelodeon during the silent film era, using footage of silent films and sarcastic narration.

Leo Donnelly narrates footage of some of Robert Ripley's bizarre discoveries from around the world.

This entry of the Robert Ripley series does not feature Robert (who is away gathering material on his tours). Leo Donnelly narrates various odds and ends like a church service held on a river in boats, one of the largest sculptures in the world, sand art in bottles and a man who pulls cars with his hair. This episode also has a greater amount of "critter" material: chickens learn to be aquatic thanks to a training duck, another hen adopts puppies as her own, the Australian platypus is discussed (not as famous then as today) and a couple of horse topics (a motorized blacksmith and a horse with double-hoof).

Noted team of detective and criminologist solve the murder of a new bride, in her compartment, on the train on which they are travelling.

An office with two stuffy guys of the music business, one of them Mac who says to "keep that dame away," when Trixie Brown has come by to sing for them, and he thinks she's awful. But when Trixie barges in on her own, Mac turns on his friendly face and tells her to wait in room number three, where he'll be in to listen to her. He then passes through the tin pan alley offices, quickly side-tracked when he sees Lee Morse with a piano man practicing a number.

'Blind Bob' has written a song and the folks at the music publishing company think that Joe Frisco, his old friend from the Bowery is just right for it. So we see Joe at stage doing his peddler routine. He goes over to the publishing company, where he flirts with a girl act, and then tries out some eccentric dancing to the new song, which happens to be 'Get Happy.'

Pressed into service, an inept comedian offers a burlesque on Helen Morgan.

Based on the Hammett novel, this ultra-rare film—is nominally taken from the author's classic gang-war novel Red Harvest, which proved too brutal and cynical even for pre-Code Hollywood.