Here Comes Kelly

This rather dull Monogram programmer is a remake of a picture from the early 1930s. Despite some interesting antecedents -- including being based on a story by Dore Schary -- it rarely shows much in the way of flair, with the exception of the scenes with Armida, who looks interested in being the new Lupe Velez. But the photography is workaday, the acting rarely more than adequate and the jokes are too low-key to be worth much. Even Luis Alberni can't put much into a rather straightforward performance made between gigs with Preston Sturges. Maxie Rosenbloom is amusing, but he is on for just a couple of minutes.

Most of this can be laid at the feet of director William Beaudine, a veteran of the silent days who worked for another three decades. His nickname was 'One-Shot' and, so long as there was film in the camera and the lens cap off, he rarely bothered with a second take; and of Eddie Quillan, the lead, who was often good playing small comedy bits, but seems to have taken this rare lead too seriously.

No, this isn't a great movie by any means, but it's got its virtues. Eddie Quillan, though he looks to be trying to channel Joe E. Brown a bit too hard, is good in the lead, rambunctious and basically a good guy but able to make the character's faults believable. I've loved Joan Woodbury since I saw her in PRC's "Gangs, Inc." a.k.a. "Paper Bullets" — in which she managed to glue together widely disparate scenes in an ill-constructed role and build a convincing characterization out of them — and while her work here isn't at that level, she's a genuinely warm and touching female lead and I suspect only the rather odd bone structure of her face kept her from major-studio stardom (she certainly had the acting chops for it!). I also liked seeing Mary Gordon have more of a role than her brief appearances as Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes' landlady, in the Rathbone-Bruce Holmes films gave her. This doesn't have the ineffable tackiness of most Monogram productions of the period — the sets look solid enough that one doesn't fear for the actors' safety and the camera-work, though straightforward, is clear and renders the action visible — and the script, though hardly laugh-out-loud funny, is charming and amusing in a way a lot of Monogram so-called "comedies" of the period weren't. I suspect I'd like the earlier version better but "Here Comes Kelly" is a genuinely charming time-filler and needs no apologies.