76% (1) Hellzapoppin' 84 min, [Comedy, Musical] [H.C. Potter] [26 Dec 1941]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 76%, External Reviews
Actors: Chic Johnson, Hugh Herbert, Martha Raye, Ole Olsen
Writer: Nat Perrin (screenplay), Warren Wilson (screenplay), Nat Perrin (based on an original story by)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Ole and Chick are making a movie, but the director is not satisfied. So he brings them to a young writer, who outlines them an absurd story. They have to support Jeff and Kitty in setting up a musical revue in their garden and want to bring it up on Broadway. If Jeff is successful he can marry Kitty. But there is his rich friend Woody, who also loves Kitty, Chick's sister Betty, who's in love with a false Russian count, and detective Quimby. They all make the thing very complicated for Ole and Chick. After some mistakes they think that Kitty isn't the right girl for Jeff and they start sabotaging the show, but the Broadway producer is impressed and signs the contract. That's the story the writer tells them. For this he's sued by the director.
Rotten Tomatoes: Hellzapoppin' is the film version of the "anything goes" Broadway hit starring Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. The original production was part musical comedy, part "blackout" revue, with wild sight gags, zany props, audience participation sequences, dirty jokes, and never-ending gunshots. There was no plot, and in fact no two performances were exactly alike. When Hellzapoppin' was optioned by Universal, the original intention was to film the play as it stood (minus the more ribald one-liners), but the studio got cold feet and grafted on a conventional plot and romantic interest. The film's story concerns a musical show being staged at a fancy estate, and the romantic triangle of the show's producer (Robert Paige), the wealthy girl who lives at the estate (Jane Frazee), and the girl's erstwhile fiance (Lewis Howard). The show's stars are Olsen, Johnson, and Martha Raye. Martha is mistaken for the wealthy girl by a penniless Russian aristocrat (Mischa Auer), and the entire proceedings are "investigated" by a goofy private detective (Hugh Herbert). Olsen and Johnson are thus reduced to supporting players in their own film, but when they do manage to command the screen, the results are hilarious. The best moments range from a throwaway gag about Citizen Kane (Johnson finds a sled marked "Rosebud" and mutters "I thought they burned that!") to the more elaborate special-effects routines involving the mixed-up projectionist (Shemp Howard) who's ostensibly running Hellzapoppin for the benefit of the film audience. While the movie version fails to completely capture the spirit of the original play (except in a bizarre opening sequence), and the finale is a major disappointment, Hellzapoppin remains one of the few sustained filmic examples of the "nut humor" exemplified by Olsen and Johnson.
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71% (1) Fashions of 1934 78 min, [Comedy, Drama, Musical] [William Dieterle] [14 Feb 1934]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 71%, External Reviews
Actors: Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, William Powell
Writer: F. Hugh Herbert (screen play), Carl Erickson (screen play), Harry Collins (story), Warren Duff (story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English, French Country: USA
Plot: Sherwood Nash is a swindler who bootlegs Paris fashions for sale at cut-rate prices. His assistant Lynn poses as An American interested in a dress and Snap conceals a camera in his cane. When they try to steal the latest Baroque designs hidden cameras capture them. Threat and counterthreat lead to the suggestion of putting on a legitimate show.
Rotten Tomatoes: Now known simply as Fashions, the lavish Warner Bros. musical Fashions of 1934 stars the unlikely but copacetic team of William Powell and Bette Davis. It all begins when genial con artist Sherwood Nash (Powell) transfers his base of operations from New York to Paris. Sensing that the fashion "racket" is a hot commodity, Nash puts all his energies into promoting heroine Lynn (Davis) as France's foremost fashion designer. Along the way, of course, Nash and Lynn fall in love, but first the plotline must find a nice way to dispose of Nash's former partner-in-crime The Duchess (Veree Teasdale), currently posing as a White Russian Countess. Fashions is the picture in which a bevy of Busby Berkeley beauties are dressed (but just barely) as harps, prompting the apocryphal admonition from a chorus girl's mother, "Mr. Berkeley, I didn't raise my daughter to be a human harp!"
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68% (1) Faithless 77 min, APPROVED, [Drama] [Harry Beaumont] [15 Oct 1932]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 68%, External Reviews
Actors: Hugh Herbert, Maurice Murphy, Robert Montgomery, Tallulah Bankhead
Writer: Carey Wilson (screen play), Mildred Cram (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Socialite Carol Morgan romps through the depression and her wealth while breaking up with Bill Wade and getting back together with him.
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67% (1) The Perfect Specimen 97 min, APPROVED, [Comedy] [Michael Curtiz] [15 Dec 1937]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 67%, External Reviews
Actors: Edward Everett Horton, Errol Flynn, Hugh Herbert, Joan Blondell
Writer: Norman Reilly Raine (screenplay), Lawrence Riley (screenplay), Brewster Morse (screenplay), Fritz Falkenstein (screenplay), Samuel Hopkins Adams (magazine story)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Raised in seclusion to be the epitome of mental, physical and moral perfection, Gerald Beresford Wicks is resigned to following his grandmother's wishes until a chance encounter with Mona Carter leads him into the outside world.
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64% (1) There's One Born Every Minute 60 min, [Comedy] [Harold Young] [26 Jun 1942]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 64%, External Reviews
Actors: Guy Kibbee, Hugh Herbert, Peggy Moran, Tom Brown
Writer: Robert B. Hunt (screenplay), Robert B. Hunt (story), Brenda Weisberg (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: The advertising slogans of Jimmy Hanagan and the lab reports reveal that the patented prepared pudding invented by Lemuel P. Twine has a treasure of Vitamin Z and is full of Zumph. Lemuel's...
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64% (1) Goodbye Again 66 min, Unrated, [Comedy, Romance] [Michael Curtiz] [09 Sep 1933]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 64%, External Reviews
Actors: Genevieve Tobin, Hugh Herbert, Joan Blondell, Warren William
Writer: George Haight (play), Allan Scott (play), Ben Markson (screenplay)
External Links: Wikipedia IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Famed author Kenneth Bixby is on a tour of the US with his assistant Anne Rogers to promote his latest novel, Miriam. Their lives get more complicated while in Cleveland when Ken receives a visit from an old flame, the former Julie Clochessy now married Julie Wilson, the two who have not seen each other in years since their college days. Julie is still infatuated with Ken, especially as she is sure that she is the inspiration for the tragic heroine, Miriam. Julie feels she has to see Ken in light of that and the promise they made to each other in college that they would someday get married, which is more difficult now that she is Mrs. Harvey Wilson. Harvey too is aware of his wife's infatuation as she constantly criticizes him by saying "Kenneth Bixby wouldn't do that", and as such he wants to meet the competition. Also aware of Julie's infatuation are Julie's sister, Elizabeth Clochessy, and Elizabeth's lawyer, Arthur Westlake, who speak to Anne about a scheme to keep Ken totally preoccupied while in Cleveland so that Julie would have no chance to be alone with him, and as such avoid scandal. Ken may have his own opinions about how to handle the situation with Julie based on his feelings for her. Caught in the middle is Anne, who is faithful and loyal to Ken as his assistant, but who is also in love with him, that dichotomy which will factor into who she helps in the situation.
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63% (1) Danger Lights 74 min, PASSED, [Adventure, Drama] [George B. Seitz] [21 Aug 1930]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 63%, External Reviews
Actors: Hugh Herbert, Jean Arthur, Louis Wolheim, Robert Armstrong
Writer: James Ashmore Creelman (story and dialogue)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Head railroad man Dan is as ugly as he is honorable. When he spots a drifter who'd hopped a freight held up by a landslide, Dan offers the man a job; then he finds the man was a railroader, too, and takes him under his wing. Engaged to Mary, Dan doesn't notice the growing attraction between his protégé and his intended, but focuses instead on running the railroad.
Rotten Tomatoes: In this drama, an older railroad supervisor is engaged to a lovely young woman. Unfortunately, she falls in love with the handsome hobo her husband befriended and employed as an engineer. A rivalry ensues, but when a life is endangered the two team up and save the day. The film may be most interesting for its detailed look into the railroads of the past.
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