Comedy

Abbott and Costello’s The Naughty Nineties offers a million laughs and a nickel’s worth of plot. Most of the film takes place aboard a 19th century showboat, owned by kindly Captain Sam (Henry Travers). Bud Abbott plays the showboat’s leading man Dexter Broadhurst, while Lou Costello is handyman Sebastian Dinwiddie. A group of slick gamblers (Alan Curtis, Rita Johnson and Joe Sawyer) cheat Captain Sam out of his boat, turning the place into a floating gambling palace, but Dexter and Sebastian foil the villains and save the day. The film is a virtual encyclopedia of wheezy but still hilarious comedy routines, many of them devised by veteran Laurel & Hardy and Three Stooges gagman Felix Adler. The film’s highlight is a full-length performance of Abbott and Costello’s verbal classic “Who’s on First?”-and if one listens very closely, one can hear the cameramen and crew members laughing!
— Hal Erickson (AllMovie)Read More »

PLOT:
Maria and Paolo are in love, but they are very young, and most importantly Maria is the daughter of the municipal sweeper while Paolo is the son of lawyer Bonelli, deputy mayor and leader of the opposition.
To complicate matters there is the reconstruction of a hospice destroyed during the war. The reconstruction would obstruct the panorama enjoyable from the villa of Paseroni, big industrialist and political wheeler-dealer.
Bonelli, great speaker, becomes mayor for the death of his predecessor, and gets bribed by Paseroni, while refusing the love of Paolo and Maria for the social differences, and because Paolo should go after Paseroni’s daughter.
At this point, Paolo and Maria flee to kill themselves, just as Bonelli is about to give a speech on the radio for the inauguration of the villa of Paseroni…Read More »

Museum of Modern Art writes:
In a gender twist on the “meddling mother-in-law,” Nick Rocco’s old-world father, Vittorio Rocco (Salvatore Baccaloni), can’t help insinuating himself into his son and daughter-in-law’s lives. Nick and Emily are just a few days away from the birth of their first child and Vittorio—a skilled handyman—is called in to help with repairs in their new home. Nick is reluctant to rely upon his meddling dad, but the repairs have to be made before the baby comes home. Baccaloni was an opera singer and member of the La Scala Opera in Milan.Read More »

PLOT:
An elderly Marquis, having squandered all his fortune, begins a life as a vagabond philosopher and collects a small group of disciples to whom he teaches his thesis on the futility of work and of money.
Citing Socrates, Plato and Diogenes in his own way, according to his philosophy of life, money is useless and it is a sort of disease that afflicts humanity; moreover men should not work but devote themselves to contemplation and rest.Read More »

Quote:
It’s just a typical day in the lives of the employees, customers, and passersby of a Los Angeles car wash. There’s a would-be robbery…an assembly line of the weirdest, baddest, shadiest characters you’ve ever met, and lots of ’70s music to pass the hours till quitting time. Featuring outrageously hilarious performances by George Carlin, Professor Irwin Corey, the Pointer Sisters, and Richard Pryor as Daddy Rich–a flamboyant reverend who preaches the goodness of the dollar–Car Wash is a timeless classic celebrating an era devoted to living life in the fast lane.Read More »

Adam receives a flashlight with special powers: every liar it shines on flies into the air. Production was cancelled in 1965 due to the film’s political content. Only in 1989/90 could the director reconstruct the film, where missing sounds and images are replaced with script inserts.Read More »

Russ Raymond, America’s number one crooner, disappears and joins the Navy under the name Tommy Halstead. Dorothy Roberts, a magazine journalist, is intent on finding out what happened to Russ and she tries everything she can to get a picture of him to prove he’s Russ Raymond. Tommy’s friends, Pomeroy Watson and Smokey Adams,help him while Pomeroy writes love letters to Patty Andrews. But because Smokey makes Pomeroy lie about himself in the letters, and when Patty comes to the Navy base, she’s furious at Pomeroy. When Pomeroy, Smokey, Tommy and the Andrews sisters set sail for Hawaii, Pomeroy discovers there’s a tomato in the potato locker, and she’s been snapping shots of Tommy the whole trip. Whether Pomeroy’s proving that 7 x 13 = 28 – three different ways, having Smokey help him play ship captain for Patty, or falling out of his hammock, it’s an Abbott and Costello classic.Read More »

Synopsis
He can knock out an amazing speech on the American soul to dumbfounded schoolchildren, meddle in his fellow citizens’ lives, or make his 18-year-old daughter swear that never would she leave the family home. This is Simon Wolberg, mayor of a small provincial town, madly in love with his wife, an overwhelming father and provocative son! This man bears his family’s obsession, which drives him to put these ties to the test, verify their strength and fragility…Read More »

Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Though Jack Benny made a cottage industry out of joking about the purported rottenness of his 1945 vehicle Horn Blows at Midnght, the film is in fact a delightful comedy-fantasy-certainly not Benny’s best film, but far from his worst. While dozing off during a radio broadcast, studio musician Athaniel (Benny) dreams he’s a trumpet player in Heaven’s celestial orchestra. At the behest of glamorous angel Elizabeth (Alexis Smith), Athaniel is brought into the lavish chambers of The Chief (Guy Kibbee), who has a job for our hapless hero. Read More »