Topper Returns

Roy Del Ruth

A fun-loving young woman Gail (Joan Blondell) is murdered after trading bedrooms with her wealthy friend Ann (Carole Landis). Her ghost seeks aid from Topper (Roland Young) to find the murderer. The cast includes Billie Burke & Eddie (Rochester) Anderson.


About Face (1952)

Roy Del Ruth

It's all singing and dancing as the military cadets go after the girls! Three friends and roommates at Southern Military Institute pull together to win a big baseball game, pass their exams and graduate. But when two discover the third is secretly married they do an About Face! Marriage is strictly against the rules, and cadets Tony Williams (Gordon MacRae) and Dave Crouse (Dick Wesson) discover that their roommate, Biff Roberts (Eddie Bracken), is not only married, but soon to be a father. But that doesn't slow them down from wooing the women as the three pull together to graduate as officers. Featuring an early performance by Cabaret star Joel Grey as a put-upon plebe.


The Chocolate Soldier

Roy Del Ruth

To test his wife's faithfulness, the jealous husband of a musical comedy duo impersonates a Russian officer and proceeds to court her in The Chocolate Soldier. Karl Lang (Nelson Eddy--Knickerbocker Holiday, Rosalie) and Maria Lanyi (Risë Stevens) are the musical toast of Vienna. Karl has fame, fortune, success, a beautiful wife... and suspicions. But his ruse to test her loyalty proves a frustrating experience when she keeps him in constant emotional turmoil by alternately accepting and rejecting his advances. Finally, deciding his real self is losing the battle for her affections, Karl drops the dual role... but there are still more surprises in store for him in this romantic musical comedy.


Blessed Event

Roy Del Ruth

Fast-talking Lee Tracy stars as a gossip columnist loosely based on real-life fast-talking radio gossip monger Walter Winchell, a man who will reveal any secret and destroy any person to further his meteoric rise to fame. Along the way, newspaper gossip columnist Alvin Roberts (Lee Tracy) makes enemies of both big-time racketeer Sam Gobel (Edwin Maxwell) and popular crooner Bunny Harmon (Dick Powell). But Roberts' knowledge of dirty secrets protects him--even from the hit man sent to kill him, whom Roberts blackmails into becoming his bodyguard. But even as malicious gossip fuels Roberts' rise, it destroys his personal life.


The Little Giant (1933)

Roy Del Ruth

Edward G. Robinson stars as a Chicago mobster who heads west for a quiet life in the sun when the end of Prohibition in the United States means the end of bootlegging for The Little Giant. Bugs Ahearn (Robinson) pays off his latest moll and heads to California, but in a mansion overlooking the sea and the Santa Barbara polo grounds, Ahern finds a new girlfriend, unaware that she -- and all her relatives -- are bigger crooks than he ever dreamed of being in this comic send-up of the gangster movies of the 1930s.


Maisie Gets Her Man

Roy Del Ruth

Showgirl Maisie Ravier gets mixed up with bookies and a stage-shy entertainer when Maisie Gets Her Man. Ann Sothern teams up with Red Skelton in this episode of Maisie's adventures. Broke and stranded yet again, showgirl Maisie Ravier finds work at the wrong end of a knife-throwing act. While working there she dedicates herself to helping would-be comedian Hap Hixby (Skelton) overcome his debilitating stage fright. Sothern puts on another outstanding portrayal of the luckless, yet always capable, Maisie, and Red Skelton shows he can raise laughs even while playing a character who can't crack a joke.


On Moonlight Bay

Roy Del Ruth

After moving to Indiana, young Marjorie Winfield begins a relationship with William Sherman, who lives across the street. Marjorie is a tom-boy, and her father has traditional views not shared by William. Marjorie is forced to learn to dance, despite her and Williams' shared love for baseball.


Kid Millions

Roy Del Ruth

Who's that dodging his murderous mama, an equally murderous sheik, and the temptations of a harem full of beauties? It's Brooklyn's own Eddie Wilson, who comes to Egypt to claim an inheritance and finds that lots of other folks want a slice of his $77,000,000 pie. In one of his famed Samuel Goldwyn movie extravaganzas, Eddie Cantor sings, clowns and wows 'em as Eddie. Kid Millions also boasts dynamo Ethel Merman as Eddie's supposed mother (let's see, Eddie's twenty-five, she's nineteen… hmmm), George Murphy and Ann Sothern as young lovers, and a standout Technicolor® finale. The fun is irresistible, thanks largely to Cantor's screen charisma. "Those big rolling banjo eyes, that good-natured exuberance, that combination…of the naïve and the risqué, gave him an endearing appeal that carried him through a career of almost fifty years and is still effective today" (David Thomson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film).


The West Point Story

Roy Del Ruth

Academy Award winner James Cagney puts on his dancing shoes again for The West Point Story, a spirited comedy packed with star-power and tunes by veteran songwriters Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn.


Side Show

Roy Del Ruth

Step right up for the greatest show on earth ... or what's left of it, as the owner of Colonel Gowdy's circus (Guy Kibbee) hasn't paid his employees in weeks. So as the performers quit, Pat (Winnie Lightner) takes over their acts, from hula dancing and ballyhoo barking to diving into pools of hot water. But when her kid sister (Evalyn Knapp) decides to tag along and falls for the man of Pat's dreams (Donald Cook), the sideshow turns into a three-ring circus and the real show's about to begin. Originally intended as a musical, Side Show lost all but one of its songs when Warner realized audiences had tired of the genre. The decision also affected Winnie Lightner, one of the studio's biggest attractions. Celebrated on stage as the "Song a Minute Girl" the musical comedy star would make a few more films before retiring to marry Side Show director Roy Del Ruth in 1934.


The Mind Reader

Roy Del Ruth

Warren William tells fortunes and tempts fate in this darkly cynical pre-Code jaw-dropper costarring Constance Cummings and Allen Jenkins. A smooth-talking conman, Chan Chandler (William) works the carny circuit as Chandra the Great, a turban-clad mystic who knows all and tells all, with the assistance of his shady pal, Frank (Jenkins). When he meets Sylvia (Cummings), a small-town innocent who thinks his predictions are real, Chandler does the indecent thing and promptly marries the girl. But when she finally wises up and insists he go straight, Chandler heads to Park Avenue, where his phony act leads to murder, with Sylvia left holding the bag.


Phantom of the Rue Morgue

Roy Del Ruth

A psychopath stalks Paris. Beautiful young women are being murdered. The city is terrorized. And an innocent psychology professor is framed for the crimes of the Phantom of the Rue Morgue.


Taxi

Roy Del Ruth

"Come out and take it, you dirty yellow-bellied rat!" Independent cabbie Matt Nolan is primed to let his fists and handgun deliver payback after a big taxi firm uses intimidation and violence to squeeze out small-timers. James Cagney plays Nolan, a role suited to his pugnacious, post-The Public Enemy persona. Ramming rival cabs that have hemmed him into a too-tight parking spot, slugging the hoofer (George Raft) who bested him in a dance contest, tracking down the killer of his brother, Cagney shows why he was the era's "terrier of the screen" (Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times). Loretta Young costars as the femme who tries to tame Nolan. And Roy Del Ruth directs this swiftie as if his cab were waiting and the meter running.


The Babe Ruth Story

Roy Del Ruth

What do you do with a pitcher whose dominance has helped his team claim two world-championship banners? If the pitcher is burly lefty George Herman Ruth, you banish him from the mound, put a bat in his hand and watch him clout one record-setting home run after another. William Bendix suits up in Yankee flannels as the renowned pitcher-turned-outfielder and Sultan of Swat in a movie that mixes fact, fiction and more fiction in a way that makes it a bit of a novelty among sports biopics. Claire Trevor portrays the Babe's beloved wife. Fans of classic films and radio, plus baby boomers who were glued to the tube in the '50s will remember Bendix for his performances as the likable lunk and family man of The Life of Riley.


3 Sailors and a Girl

Roy Del Ruth

In this entertaining 1950s musical, a trio of sailors and a young singer join a struggling producer to bring a stage flop to Broadway where, of course, it becomes the hottest show in town. Terrific score by Sammy Fain and Sammy Cahn, based on George S. Kaufman's "The Butter and the Egg Man."


It Happened On 5th Avenue

Roy Del Ruth

Each Christmas, an industrial tycoon and his family travel from New York City to Florida to spend the holiday season in the sun, and while they are gone, a philosophical homeless man takes up residence in the millionaire's Fifth Avenue mansion. Letting himself in through a hole in the fence, he puts on designer clothes, smokes expensive cigars, eats gourmet food, and opens up the townhouse to his homeless friends so that they, too, can share in the holiday spirit. When the real homeowner's daughter returns to NYC early and discovers the house has been taken over, the homeless haven is in danger of disappearing forever. However, the warmhearted nature of the homeless intruders reinvigorates the unhappy wealthy family, and everyone succumbs to the true spirit of Christmas. Starring Victor Moore ("Swing Time," "The Seven Year Itch"), Academy Award-nominee Ann Harding ("Holiday," "When Ladies Meet") and Emmy Award-nominee Charles Ruggles ("Bringing Up Baby," "The Parent Trap").


Lady Killer

Roy Del Ruth

A cinema usher turns to crime, flees to Hollywood, and becomes a movie star.


Du Barry Was a Lady

Roy Del Ruth

Lucille Ball, Gene Kelly, Red Skelton and Zero Mostel star in the Cole Porter musical comedy DuBarry was a Lady. In this film, loosely based on the hit Broadway musical, Manhattan nightclub worker Louis Blore (Skelton) has dreams of showgirl May Daly (Ball--"I Love Lucy"). But his dreams take him and Daly back to the French court of Louis XV . . . and a run in with the Black Arrow (Kelly--Brigadoon, An American in Paris). Featuring the Cole Porter songs "Katie Went to Haiti," "Do I Love You, Do I?," "Well, Did You Evah?," "Taliostro's Dance" and "Friendship."


Broadway Melody of 1936

Roy Del Ruth

Golden Globe-winner Jack Benny (TV's "The Jack Benny Show," "To Be or Not to Be") plays an ambitious Broadway columnist who uses an innocent dancer to frame a producer. This entertaining comedy co-stars Eleanor Powell ("That's Dancing!," "Born to Dance") and Golden Globe-winner Robert Taylor ("Waterloo Bridge," "Camille"). Nominated for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture. Winner for Best Dance Direction.


Born to Dance

Roy Del Ruth

Multiple Oscar and Golden Globe-winner James Stewart ("It's a Wonderful Life") stars in this fun and enjoyable musical about a sailor who helps a young dancer make it to the top on Broadway. Virginia Bruce ("The Great Ziegfeld"), Eleanor Powell ("That's Dancing!"), and Una Merkel ("42nd Street") co-star. Stewart gives an excellent performance and tests his musical abilities when he sings some great songs by Cole Porter.


Broadway Melody of 1938

Roy Del Ruth

Backstage problems jeopardize a Broadway musical.


Blonde Crazy

Roy Del Ruth

James Cagney and Joan Blondell star as a wanna-be con man and the girl who can drive any man Blonde Crazy. Conniving bellhop Bert Harris (Academy Award winner Cagney) uses Ann Roberts (Blondell) as a lure to scam a jewelry salesman (Guy Kibbee) out of $5,000, and the pair head to New York City. But this small-time swindler in the Big Apple is soon scammed out of his cash. And Roberts realizes she can work alone by conning straight-arrow Joe Reynolds (Academy Award winner Ray Milland) into marriage--and a permanent meal ticket. When Harris turns to real crime to get the money to win Roberts back--and Roberts realizes she can't lead a life as a respectable wife--he lands in prison, and she vows to wait for him in this pre-Hayes Code comic romance.