Musical Carradine

 

 (imdb)

DOWN MISSOURI WAY-1946-Innocuous, low budget musical about a professor of agriculture (Martha O'Driscoll; HOUSE OF DRACULA the year before) and her educated mule (Shirley playing herself) and a film company using her land for a production. Mostly forgettable except for John Carradine as Thorny Dunning, the movie within a movie's director giving a deliberately hammy performance (he seems to be channeling John Barrymore). The professor and the movie's producer Burton (William Wright) fall in love. Singing star Gloria (Renee Godfrey) is jealous. 

The songs seem abnormally long in PRC production directed by Josef Berne and produced by Sam Sherman. Also with Roscoe Karns, Will Wright and Eddie Craven. Now forgotten leading man Wright was once touted as “World War 2's answer to Clark Gable”.

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CRAZY HOUSE-Universal-1943-The second film featuring the
comedy team of (Ole) Olsen & (Chic) Johnson after their chaotic HELLZAPOPPIN (based on their Broadway show). 

The team play themselves and want to make another movie for Universal but the studio head (played by Thomas Gomez) refuses so they decide to make their own "independent" movie! They hire a director (played by Patric Knowles who was in HIT THE ICE with Abbott & Costello and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN the same year) and go about "signing" talent. Singer Cass Daley (who made very few movies) and Martha O'Driscoll (who later played the hunchback nurse in HOUSE OF DRACULA!) co-star. Parts are funny but the whole thing is bogged down by more musicial numbers than in any two Abbott & Costello movies! Many familiar character actors appear: Shemp Howard, Billy Gilbert, Percy Kilbride, Hans Conried, Franklin Panghorn, Bobby Barber and Charles Middleton. Actors and Actress appearing as themselves include: Leo Carillo, Johnny Mack Brown, Allan Jones, Count Basie and many more. Basil Rathbon and Nigel Bruce have cameos as Holmes & Watson!! Although Crazy House was not a hit, Olsen and Johnson would star in one more movie for Universal, GHOST CATCHERS (also with O'Driscoll). They would become stars of early TV several years later. Director Edward F. Cline worked with Buster Keaton on many of his classic silent films and later directed films with WC Fields and Olsen & Johnson's other movies.

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