From the DVR: Pop Always Pays (1940)

Jeff Thompson (Dennis O’Keefe) is one of those guys who can’t hold onto a dollar.  He hasn’t even paid off the car he owns now when he’s in the market for a new one—much to the consternation of his fiancée, Edna Brewster (Pamela Blake, billed here as “Adele Pearce”).  You see, Jeff has an annoying habit of absentmindedly neglecting…

Thoroughly MODern Alley: Isn’t Life Wonderful (1924)

The time is 1923, a few years after the Armistice…and the location is Köpenick, a suburb of Berlin.  In Köpenick, Polish refugees struggle to keep body and soul together—not an easy task, since food is scarce (and expensive) and jobs even more so.  A family consisting of The Professor (Erville Alderson), The Grandmother (Helen Lowell), The Aunt…

Grey Market Cinema: Give Out, Sisters (1942)

Professor Chester Woof (Charles Butterworth) was only interested in learning the conga…and yet, he was somehow persuaded to purchase the dance school, courtesy of a fast-talking sharpie named Gribble (Walter Catlett).  That school is now swimming in a pool of red ink, but its financial salvation might come in the form of a student (and Western…

Grey Market Cinema: Richard Arlen Double Feature – Gun Smoke (1931) and The Secret Call (1931)

Boston gang lord Kedge Darvis (William ‘Stage’ Boyd) starts to feel the heat in Beantown after a robbery and a killing…and so he hits upon the idea of laying low for a while after spotting an ad in a periodical inviting “capitalists” to the tiny burg of Bunsen, Idaho.  Accompanied by a few of his top…

Adventures in Blu-ray: The Phantom Honeymoon (1919)

Professor Juno P. Tidewater (Leon Dadmun), is a respected member of the Psychological Research Society—and part of his job title with that outfit is debunking ghosts.  He’ll get the opportunity to engage in this pastime while touring Ireland with nieces Vera (Harriet Cox) and Caroline (Katherine Perkins); while the three of them are sightseeing, they happen…

Grey Market Cinema: Strictly in the Groove (1942)

The first thing I wondered out loud during the opening scenes of Strictly in the Groove (1942): “What the hell is Ozzie Nelson still doing in college?”  (The second question I asked was “Where is Mrs. Nelson (Harriet Hilliard)?”  Maybe she was picking up David and Ricky at school.)  Because the plot of this Universal B-musical finds Oz still matriculating in the…

The old Army game

Circus life is the only existence young Sally has ever known.  Her mother Mary, the daughter of a prominent Connecticut family, was disowned after marrying a “circus man” …and as she lays on her death bed, she asks her friend and fellow Big Top performer “Professor” Eustace P. McGargle (W.C. Fields) to let her parents know…

Buried Treasures: Crimebusting Double Feature – They Made Me a Criminal (1939) and Lady Gangster (1942)

At the same time I was purchasing the “Boxing Comedy Twin Bill” of The Milky Way (1936) and Kid Dynamite (1943) (which I covered on the blog earlier this month) from Oldies.com, I also invested in a “Crimebusting Double Feature”…which set me back the same amount of change as I ponied up for the “Boxing” DVD—seventy-nine cents.  (It’s now listed on the site for ninety-nine…