Toby Wing

Documentary profile of legendary dance choreographer Busby Berkeley.

The story of the short film from the beginning of the movies in the 1890s, when all movies were shorts, through the 1950s when short subjects virtually disappeared from theaters.

This film is a compilation, with narration by Steve Allen, of comedies from the old Mack Sennett silent studio. Sennett, himself, appears in a cameo at the end of the film.

Two Dutch children stumble on a clearing in the woods where gnomes are going about their business. The gnomes are friendly to the children. A witch comes and takes them away on her broom to her gingerbread house, where she turns nasty on them, turning the boy into a spider, her yowling cat to stone, and tries to turn the girl into a rat when a gnome's arrow stops her. While the gnomes are fighting the witch, Hansel and Gretl free the other children who have been imprisoned and transformed by the witch.

King Midas is visited by an elf; the elf turns his cat to gold, then claps his hands and it changes back. Midas begs for the golden touch, but the elf warns him it would be a curse to him. Midas insists. He dances about joyfully at first, but discovers the drawbacks when he sits down to dinner. Fearing death by starvation, he summons the elf and agrees to surrender everything he owns to have the curse lifted.

A young woman uses her body and her sexuality to help her climb the social ladder, but soon begins to wonder if her new status will ever bring her happiness.

Broadway director Julian Marsh needs just one more hit show so he can retire and recover his health. It looks like he just may pull it off until temperamental star Dorthy Brock breaks her ankle on the eve of the show's premiere and has to be replaced by her understudy Peggy.

A modern-day tale of gangsterism and revenge. After a notorious mobster murders a Jewish tailor and is let off for the crime, a band of outraged high-school students turns into vigilante crusaders hell-bent on punishing the wrongdoers. Memorable pre-Code moment: the students torturing a gangster by dangling him over a pit filled with rats.

A college professor and the school's star football player are both rivals for the same beautiful coed.

A former government agent in France, who has failed at an assignment and been disavowed, is deported back to the USA, where he can only find work at a low-rent detective agency. He soon gets involved with a woman with ties to a crooked gambling club owner, who is a client of his agency.

The team behind a successful Broadway production tries to stop the married stars from transitioning to Hollywood.

A writer takes a job as a secretary because her scrupulous husband isn't bringing in the dough as an attorney. When her new employer is murdered, she can't seem to make up her mind as to whether she "dunnit" or not.

Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

Florence Denny is Tommy Nelson's girlfriend and secretary at a clothing manufacturer during the Great Depression. In order to boost sales they have been using professional female entertainers to keep their clients very happy, but the clients are getting bored of them. Tommy convinces management to replace the professionals with "volunteers" from the pool of stenographers. Inevitably some clients expectations are greater than their "dates", boyfriends become unhappy, and the "voluntary" duty becomes less so over time. At first, Tommy prevents Florence from being a volunteer, but eventually the prospect of a bonus becomes too great and he encourages her to volunteer. Afterwards, Tommy considers Florence a loose woman.

Eddie and his Mexican friend Ricardo are expelled from college after Ricardo put Eddie in the girl's dormitory when he was drunk. Per chance Eddie gets mixed up in a bank robbery and is forced to drive the robbers to safety. To get rid of him they force him to leave the USA for Mexico, but a cop is following him. Eddie meets Ricardo there, Ricardo helps him avoid being arrested by the cop when he introduces Eddie as the great Spanish bullfighter Don Sebastian II. The problem is, the cop is still curious and has tickets for the bullfight. Eddie's situation becomes more critical, when he tries to help Ricardo to win the girl he loves, but she's engaged to a "real" Mexican, who is, unknown to her father, involved in illegal business. While trying to avoid all this trouble, Eddie himself falls in love with his friend's girl friend's sister Rosalie, who also want to see the great Don Sebastian II to kill the bull in the arena.

In this high-flying mystery set aboard a cross-country flight to New York, some of the passengers are kidnappers who are trying to locate a hidden cache of loot. Unfortunately, something goes wrong during the trip and the pilots must land the plane in the Arizona desert during a terrible storm. There all of the passengers and crew find cramped accommodations in a lonely farmhouse where murder, mystery and mayhem occur.

A short semi-documentary about a "typical extra girl" on a DeMille film.

Prohibition is ending so bootlegger Bugs Ahearn decides to crack California society. He leases a house from down-on-her-luck Ruth and hires her as social secretary. He rescues Polly Cass from a horsefall and goes home to meet her dad who sells him some phony stock certificates. When he learns about this he sends to Chicago for mob help.

Dr. Maurice Lamar is a noted plastic surgeon who makes his rich clients beautiful, and also makes them. He makes Eve Caron, the wife of Marcel Caron, so satisfied with his skilled hands that she leaves Marcel and marries Maurice. They go on a Mediterranean honeymoon, where he soon finds the effects of his own beauty regulations are more than he can handle. He bids adieu to his new bride, and wings it back to Paris with the intention of giving up his practice and becoming a scientific researcher... after winning back the love of his simple, unadorned secretary, Anne.

Aviator Jim Blaine and his brother Neil are rivals not only as daredevil flyers, but also for the love of parachutist Jill Collins.

Several members of MGM's 'galaxy of stars' attend an evening of music and a fashion show.

The girls camp out in the woods for a publicity stunt.

A series of vignettes with a loose plot. Featured are Frank Morgan, Groucho Marx, Frank McHugh, Robert Benchley and The Brian Sisters. Not bad, more interesting for the historical significance than for entertainment.

Musical comedy antics in an art deco bakery (motto: "Glorifying the American Doughnut") where Eddie Cantor, the overworked assistant to a phony psychic, is mistaken for an efficiency expert and placed in charge. Complications ensue when the psychic and his gang attempt to rob the payroll.

A dull statistician changes his life after winning a pile of money after successfully determining the number of beans in a barrel. He decides to do something novel with the prize and ends up buying a barrel factory. He encounters trouble when the nearby pickle factory is threatened by a shyster attempting to close it.

Starring Bing Crosby as himself in a short comedy/romance telling a tale of mistaken identity. Two-reeler; directed by Mack Sennett

When she can't support her illegitimate child, an abandoned young woman puts her up for adoption and pursues a career as a torch singer. Years later, she searches for the child she gave up.

A doctor develops pills that make Hal a great tap dancer. Lola Green sees Hal dancing in a drugstore and asks him to join her vaudeville show. Everything is fine until Hal's pills disappear.

An out-of-work reporter wins a horse in a dice game. The horse turns out to be a champion runner. His girlfriend helps him get the horse into professional racing, but they get mixed up with gamblers.

La Fiesta de Santa Barbara is a 1935 American comedy short film directed by Louis Lewyn. It was nominated for an Academy Award at the 9th Academy Awards in 1936 for Best Short Subject (Color). It features a young, pre-stardom 13-year-old Judy Garland singing "La Cucaracha" with her two sisters (billed as "The Garland Sisters"). In the film, Hollywood stars participate in a Mexican-themed revue and festival in Santa Barbara. Andy Devine, the "World's Greatest Matador," engages in a bullfight with a dubious bovine supplied by Buster Keaton, and musical numbers are provided by Joe Morrison and The Garland Sisters. Comedy bits and dance numbers are also featured.

"Lucky" Davis, a ladies-man and a devil-may-care U. S. Marine Sergeant, is leading a Marine-squadron on an expedition through a Phillipine jungle where an outlaw bandit is leading a guerilla-war rebellion. Their assignment is to rescue a group of children from an island mission that has been cut off from all communication. It comes as a bit of a surprise when Davis discovers that the "children" are a group of 18-25 year-old girls blissfully bathing in a pool while awaiting rescue.

Mrs. Townes has been refused a new car by her husband for 3 years while he's driving in cabs all over town. But when Jack Townes is exposed in a newsreel pursuing a girl on the beach, Mrs. Townes has now means to negotiate.

A newsman with a no-good wife exposes a religious racket with a newswoman who loves him.

A team of con men trying to double-cross a woman they are supposedly helping to get some stolen money back wind up getting crossed themselves... by the mob.

After being convicted of stealing some jewels, Annette Eldrige is sent to a reformatory administered by a sadistic and corrupt female warder. However, one of the board of trustees takes an interest in the new arrival and begins to investigate the management of the institution.

A songwriter has to come up with a full-length theatrical piece within a few days.

This Mack Sennett produced short has Donald Novis playing Danny O'Brien, a young singer whose mother takes him to a talent agent office where she demands that the owners listen to him.

A secretary catches the eye of her amorous boss while her regular boyfriend keeps trying to propose marriage to her.

A young lady is wooed by two men

Marine Lieutenant Steve Landers has perfected a new bomb-release for airplanes which he is testing with the aid of his mechanics,'Singapore' Stebbins and Jack Murray. Dick Weber, one of a group of enemy agents attempting to steal the plans, is a friend of Colonel Dale, whose daughter, Linda, is engaged to Landers. Weber learns that "Singapore" and Jack are to deliver the final blueprints to the Colonel's home. Beckstrom , head of the spy ring, has some of his agents dress as Marines and obtain entry the the hangar. They get the plans but "Singapore" and Jack have overheard a conversation that indicates the spies are heading for a nearby island which is the headquarters of the espionage group.

Boston blueblood Aloysius Merriweather loves to play jokes on people and he's come up with a joy-buzzer of a doozy. He'll send barber Joe Jenkins in his place to a dinner party aimed at squeezing a few Merriweather millions. That Cinderella plan soon turns into a pumpkin coach with the wheels fallen off. Circumstances will force shave-and-a-haircut Joe to masquerade as Merriweather for much longer.The comedy comes fast and frantic in Mister Cinderella, from Hal Roach Studios.

College student Jimmy Shaw inherits a racehorse, named Lightning Lad, and sells stock to fellow students in order to obtain funds for racing the horse. Lightning Lad wins very race he is entered in. Marion Braddock, a spoiled rich girl who owns a racing stable offers to buy Lightning Lad, but Jimmy refuses to sell. The day of the big handicap-race arrives and Jimmy and his fellow stockholders are on their way to the track. But a group of gamblers, betting on Lightning Lad to lose, have some skullduggery plans to ensure Lightning Lad does not win the race.

A toy company owner and his daughter find a singing hillbilly in the Arkansas backwoods and take him back to the big city in hopes of helping their radio show ratings.

Bob Crosby feels inferior to brother Bing, but needs to land a big band job before he can marry sweetheart Toby. Auditioning for Anson Weeks' band, he fantasizes about Toby and some barely clad showgirls.

A naïve farmer writing songs tries his chances in New York. Unlucky, he is helped by a crooner who lusts after one of his songs. Ignoring the real value of his composition, he sold it for the money he owed to his friends: $200.

Mama Hen complains about all the work that she's gotta do. Her baby chicks run amok and drive her to collapse. The chicks have a change of heart because it's Mother's Day- and they begin to do all the work for her.

After several years of dull marriage, Alfred (Forrester Harvey) and Dorothy (Dorothy Granger), Dorothy is yearning for romance while Alfred just turns over and snores. Pete Boyle (Kenneth Thomson), the cad, suggests she take a trip to Mexico. THey fuss and she takes the trip, while Alfred wakes up and goes to Mailbu and chases some surf cuties. A Pre-code short.

A Mickey Mouse theatrical anthology with Mickey's Grand Opera, More Kittens, The Worm Turns, Mickey's Rival and Little Hiawatha

Three con artists dupe two Olympians into serving as editors of a new health and beauty magazine which is only a front for salacious stories and pictures.

A snooping reporter at a college newspaper angers a rival sorority, so they steal a statue before its unveiling to get revenge, leading to a sorority vs. sorority brawl. Co-eds end up tearing each other's clothes off.

A canary is frustrated by being caged. One day the kind old lady who owns him opens a nearby window, and also leaves the door to the cage open. Freedom! But it's not all it's cracked up to be.

After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.

Mamie, an orphan girl who was abused in the orphanage, is taken in by Mrs. Caldwell, a kindly woman with a young son named Alexander. Mamie hits it off with the lad, and nicknames him "Zander". When Mrs. Caldwell dies, the authorities decree that the boy must be placed in the same orphanage where Mamie was mistreated. Horrified, Mamie determines to see to it that the boy will be spared the same treatment that she had to suffer.

Blaze Derringer is a Texas cattle baron's son. He goes to a cabaret on his birthday, helps a pretty young woman and her guardian avoid a raid, but gets tossed from college for bad behavior. His disgusted father dispatches him to seek his fortune. Blaze jumps a freight, befriends a fake British duke and a sporting African-American, and is offered a prize fight in Galveston. He wins, but may have killed his opponent, so he takes the offer of the woman from the cabaret to accompany her to Begonia, where she's a princess about to be crowned. A court minister, the dastardly Count Verensky, has plans to share the throne and her affections. Can the plucky American help the Europeans sort things out?

A timid bank clerk has to toughen up during the search for a gang of bank robbers.

An orphan boy wins a prize for his drawing.

The Pony Express is a silent 1925 Western film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze and starred his wife Betty Compson along with Ricardo Cortez, Wallace Beery, and George Bancroft.

Just before he propelled the crime melodrama to new, macabre heights in The Unholy Three, Browning directed this partially lost morality tale pertaining to a different kind of horror: that of a middle-class family living beyond their means and falling prey to moneylenders. Produced by and starring Ruth Roland for FBO Studios, a small operation that later became RKO Pictures, Dollar Down follows Roland as the spendthrift daughter of a manufacturing firm’s general manager (Henry Walthall), who pawns a ring purchased on credit to throw an extravagant party and sends the family’s livelihood into a tailspin. Because its last reel completely disintegrated before it could be copied, the film remains an ultra-rare curio that nonetheless captures an important chapter in Browning’s career before his successful string of films made for MGM.

A minister's wife leaves her husband and child because of the disgrace of being compromised by Wall Street operator George Ransdell aboard his yacht. Fifteen years later, after having been his mistress, she has him arrested for fraud and imprisoned.