Polly Moran

Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

Pirdy is accident prone. He has been denied insurance from every company in town because he is always getting hit or hurt in some way. On the day that he meets the lovely Ellen of the Yellow Cab Co., he also meets the crooked lawyer named Creavy. Pirdy is an inventor and when Creavy learns about elastic-glass, his new invention, he makes plans to steal the process. With the help of another con man named Doksteader, and the boys, he will steal this million dollar invention no matter who gets hurt.

A woman's attempted murder of her uncaring husband results in everyday quarrels in the lives of Adam and Amanda, a pair of happily married lawyers who end up on opposite sides of the case in court.

In 1830s England, Tom Brown attends a rugby boys' school, where his moral and personal growth is formed through friendship, bullying–particularly from the cruel Flashman–and the influence of headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold.

Pa Higgins has decided to retire but winds up being forced to run for mayor. Ladd is both boyfriend to the Higgins girl and the son of Pa's opponent.

This short film takes a nostalgic look at the Mack Sennett comedies of the silent cinema era.

In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland, populated by even more fantastic characters.

A short review hosted by Cliff Edward. Clarence Muse sings a song about the Congo, we see various Hollywood stars at a horse race in Mexico, and then a Mexican band plays a tribute to Lupe Vélez.

Jimmy Durante asks popular song writing team Mack Gordon and Harry Revel to demonstrate some of their songs. There is interplay with impersonator Florence Desmond, Ben Turpin, Rudy Vallee and many others. Sometimes this film is incorrectly labelled as A-2. In the Criteron Pictures rerelease, this has an incorrect copyright date of 1932.

In this comedy, a conservative family becomes alarmed when they begin believing their daughter is pregnant.

Famous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)

The Cattlemen's Association has called in the Mesquiteers to find cattle rustlers. They get Tex Riley to pose as Stony so Stony can arrive posing as a wanted outlaw. This gets Stony into the gang of rustlers and he alerts Tucson and Lullaby as to the next raid. But Hartley is on hand and unknown to anyone is the rustler's boss and he joins the posse with a plan that will do away with the Mesquiteers.

Jimmy Durante is jungle movie star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lions. When Baron Munchausen comes to town with real man-eating lions, Durante throws him a big Hollywood star-studded party so that he might use the lions in his next movie. But, his film rival sneaks into the party to buy the lions before Durante.

A comedy romance in which breezy Haines, as a young lady killer, tries to capture the heart of Hyams who has turned him down for Bushman. Haines plots dozens of extreme measures to win her over, and finally goes so far as to drag her from the altar, bound and gagged.

Longtime friends become feuding mothers-in-law when their children marry.

Paris plumber Elmer Tuttle is enlisted by socialite Patricia Alden to help make her lover Tony Lagorce jealous. With the help of his friend Julius J. McCracken and through the high society contacts he has made through Patricia, Elmer hopes to find financing for his latest invention, a pistol with a range-finding light. Comic complications ensue when Elmer's effort to interest a military leader is misconstrued as an assassination attempt.

A devoted sailor jeopardizes his love life for love of the sea.

A drunkard climbs a ladder into a bedroom in the wrong house and gets romantically involved with the woman who lives there.

Mary Turner gets a three year prison sentence for a crime she didn't commit. Once released, she plots to get back at the man responsible for her conviction.

A district attorney commits the perfect murder when he kills his daughter's womanizing fiancé and then tries framing the fiancé's lover.

Landladies Polly Smith and Marie Jones, who operate boardinghouses on the same side of the street, are afflicted with numerous petty envies and jealousies but nevertheless are the best of friends. Polly invests in the stock market and begins to reap rewards, but she is unable to persuade Marie to use her life's savings to buy shares of American Cheese or Brazilian Bananas. Meanwhile, Marie's daughter, Genevieve, and Polly's son, William, just back from college, fall in love; but an argument between the ladies breaks up the romance; and smarting under Polly's patronizing manner, Marie plunges into the market herself and with the winnings is able to stage a society splurge at a fashionable resort.

Benny Rubin takes a tour of the Lame Brain Sanitarium and meets some of its strange patients.

Alison Skipworth plays female mayor Josephine Bonney, at present having trouble dealing with her town's criminal element. Josephine enlists the aid of home town boy Braddock (Robert Livingston), a pretty tough customer himself, to take on the crooks.

An addled Englishman's efforts to save three young women from eviction land them all in jail and leads to other adventures and mischief.

Culture shock bombards a woman and her family when they leave their hick town to help her sister out in her big-city beauty parlor.

An immigrant girl hears that if she marries an American citizen she won't be deported, so she goes looking for a husband.

Left only with their yacht after going broke in the Great Depression, a high-society family sets sail for the South Seas. Screwball comedy, with songs.

Pola Negri, Bebe Daniels, Mitzi Green, Polly Moran, Mack Sennett and Marjorie Beebe are seen relaxing at Palm Springs, a California winter resort; Barbara Stanwyck and Ricardo Cortez play golf; other celebrities are shown in Malibu Beach.

Four bandits swoop down on a California bank and flee with $98,000, leaving a truck as the only clue to their identity. Jane Hartman, bank secretary, recognizes the truck as one on which her brother Charles worked. Fleeing to her brother, she is trapped by the gang, composed of its master-mind, Gibbs, Sidney, a gunman, and Randall, a blackballed airplane pilot. Under threat of bodily harm to her brother, she lures truck-driver Tony Andrews to the hideout, and he is forced to help them in their escape attempt.

Wise-guy carnival barker Windy bilks a group of cowboys out of their money, gets caught and is forced into working off the debt on their ranch. He falls in love with Molly, the pretty owner of the ranch, but runs afoul of foreman Steve, who also loves Molly.

When lifelong best friends Leo and Ulrich return home after completing their military training, Leo meets the stunning Felicitas at a railway station and is mesmerized by her beauty. A scandal follows, for which Leo is sent away. Returning home three years later, he discovers that much has changed.

Socialite Anatol Spencer, finding his relationship with his wife lackluster, goes in search of excitement. After bumping into old flame Emilie, he lets an apartment for her only to find that she cheats him. He is subsequently robbed, conned, and booted from pillar to post. He decides to return to his wife and discovers her carousing with his best friend Max.

On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder—a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.

Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.

Working as a pageboy on an ocean liner, a street orphan and his friend Slugger end up on the wrong side of the ship's captain when they try to tell him that his wife is cheating on him with other members of the crew. The boys end up in deeper trouble, after they are thrown in the brig and the ship starts sinking...

The abandoned Balfour House, the owner of which was found dead five years earlier, comes back to life with the arrival of two suspicious sinister-looking tenants.

Scheming coed Babs comes between college buddies Eddie and Biff.

Bill Whipple is a happy-go-lucky mechanic for MacDonald who thinks that he is the worlds greatest driver and lover. Mac has treated Bill like a son since he took him in. One day at the track, Bill sees Pat Bannon, and tries his best to impress her, but to no avail. On his way to catch a flight, he tricks Pat into taking him to the airport and she gets even by taking him up in a plane. He hates to fly, but will not show her that he is afraid and when the plane breaks up, he is a hero for rescuing her. This gets him publicity and Renny offers him his car to drive in the Indianapolis 500. Bill breaks with Mac to drive the car and puts it on the pole for the race. Then Renny double crosses Bill and plans to drive the car himself since Bill has tuned it so well.

After his boss fires him for secretly dating his daughter, Joan, a fired clerk named Eustis and his towering friend Sharkey Nye sneak aboard Joan's China-bound ship. Refusing to be separated, the bumbling duo follows the women on a slapstick journey filled with chaotic, romantic misadventures.

In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.

Two men are rivals for the same girl. When she finally agrees to marry one, the other--appearing to be magnanimous in defeat--presents his former rival with a beautiful German Shepherd dog as a wedding present. It turns out, however, that he had an ulterior motive--he had trained the pooch to allow absolutely no one to get near the young woman. Complications ensue.

Fortune hunters from all over the country rushing to the Klondike in 1897 to seek their fortunes in the gold are tested by hardships of the journey.

Two thieves, the Blackbird and West End Bertie, fall for the same girl, a French nightclub performer named Fifi. Each man tries to outdo the other to win her heart.

An all-star revue featuring MGM contract players.

Rough sea dog John Patrick Duke has a weakness for women and strong drink. Little does he know that he won a million dollars on Longchamp with the horses. Earlier, he caused a riot in a French hotel. He therefore thinks he is being pursued when officials try to inform him of that cash prize. In the end, John and his friend Axel are forced to take the money. This allows them to have a party with their French friends. The film is believed to be lost.

Roommates panic and plan when they hear a radio report of a murderer loose in their neighborhood.

Gray plays a reporter trying to unravel a murder involving organized crime. Lorraine plays the heroine.

Clyde is a handyman around a circus. His mother is the bearded lady in the side-show; his father is a millionaire separated from his family. Clyde is endeavoring to get the old man's fortune, with the strong man of the circus scheming to beat him to it.

The story of two feuding Irish immigrant families living in a tenement.

[For 9 minute surviving fragment] Lucian, a soldier in Paris, is to ship out for Algiers at 9 that evening. He stops by for a last meal with his love, Marianne. He may be worried that when he leaves she will find another soldier to love. They argue then embrace and, when the clock strikes midnight, he is still in her arms. Is desertion in the cards? Can the relationship survive the military demands and a soldier's obligations? A lost film.

A con woman working the Atlantic City hotels targets a visiting businessman from Alabama.

When a rash of murders depletes their number, a billionaire's employees are brought together at an Englishman's estate.

Papa, Mama, Daughter and Son Gimplewort move into their new house. Two movers are talking to each other about the murder of a saxophone player that took place in the house. They say his ghost still roams the house. Night comes and every noise and creak in the house scares the papa, mama and son (the daughter is out on a date). The Mover gives the daughter a parrot saying "It's a religious parrot – I bought it from a sailor". At any rate, the parrot gets into the act by yelling scaring Papa and Son who have come down looking for the source of the noise. Later Daughter and Remover return from a costume party and sneak into the house. The young man is dressed in a skeleton outfit and the fun continues. There has been film reconstruction in a number of places, particularly the last third of the film. In many cases there is a photograph depicting the scene being described.

Jimmie Adams and Sid Smith comedy produced by Jack White and distributed by Educational.

Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome's dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.

Pansy O'Donnell, a salesgirl, is given a two-week vacation at a summer resort, where she advertises clothing made by her company. The hotel clerk mistakes her for movie actress Marie La Tour, and gossip spreads that she is staying incognito.

Carl Behrend, son of a wealthy businessman, marries Pauli Arndt, daughter of a pacifist professor. When World War I breaks out, Carl is drafted. Pauli and her family and friends are left behind to experience the suffering which befell civilians during the war. Her luck worsens when her father is dismissed from his professorship for teaching that war is evil. Her father argues violently with Carl's father, and degradation and despair descend on Pauli and her family as they await Carl's return from the front.

Charley impersonates his stunt double, a man named Bud Gordon, unaware that he's a wanted criminal.

A slick city crook arrives in the town and succeeds in making honest Nell fall in love with him. He then suggests an entertainment with local talent, the while his confederates crack the safe and make off with the town's wealth. Nell, with her faithful but brainless lover, journeys to the city in pursuit of the loot and the looter