Here Comes Trouble

Unabashed madcap with Tracy playing a character named Dodo, which about says it all. Biggest surprise, for me at least, was tough guy Joe Sawyer doing comedic hijinks, and well too. Seems Dodo's gotten promoted to police reporter by newspaper boss Blake because it's literally a dead-end job, which means the inept Dodo won't be around to marry Blake's daughter Penny (Lloyd). But things quickly complicate ending in a madcap spree on a stage show that's funny but over-extended. Anyway, for guys there's plenty of eye candy, especially Woodbury as a stripper, and drop-dead gorgeous Lloyd looking a lot like Jane Russell's sister. (Too bad Lloyd dropped her brief career soon after this; I wish IMDB knew why.) All in all, the sub-hour's a lot of silly knock-about, but good for some laughs as everyone gets in on the goofy act.

(In passing-- Watch for bony-face Charles Middleton best known as Ming The Merciless as a non-speaking reporter in one of the crowd scenes.)

In the sixth of eight Dodo Doubleday streamliners, William Tracy is released from the army and goes back to his job on Emory Parnell's newspaper. Parnell has been trying to clean up organized crime, and the gangsters have run off four crime reporters in the last sixth months. His daughter, Penny Blake, is im love with Tracy, and lobbies for a promotion for him. So he gets promoted from copy boy to crime reporter. Maybe, Parnell reasons, he'll be killed.

It's pretty mild comedy, even if we get Joan Woodbury as a dancer in a burlesque house, and the other interesting performers that Hal Roach could get after a third of a century in Hollywood. Joe Sawyer is back as Tracy's ex-sergeant and now cop on the beat; Betty Compson has her last film role as Parnell's wife. But the small roles and uncredited bits are taken by newer names; Roach's old comics were dead or retired.

Turner Classic Movies has taken to running this in its original Cinecolor hues, and frankly, they don't help. There's a monotony to the color design of the movie, and I never saw so many men wearing orange ties!

William Tracy played Sergeant Doubleday in a cute series of films made during both WWII and the Korean War. I especially liked TANKS A MILLION, though they were all very good for B-pictures with very modest budgets. In this case, though, the war is over and Doubleday and his annoying friend, Sergeant Ames have found domestic jobs--Doubleday as a crime reporter and Ames as a cop. The only reason Doubleday got the job is that his future father-in-law hates him and wants to either see him get beaten up or chased away by local mobsters. Ames is, quite frankly, an idiot and makes a real mess of it as a cop. Both men work together at times to try to uncover who the mob leaders are, but almost get themselves killed in the process. There is a lot of slapstick, but apart from the overlong ending, it is handled expertly and the film is quite engaging. In fact, if the end hadn't just degenerated into a way too long fight sequence, the film could have easily earned a score of 8. Likable characters, good writing and a breezy script make this a fun little film that is well worth seeing.

In the final series of Ames and Doubleday, the two of them are now civilians, Doubleday working as a reporter for newspaper publisher Emory Parnell and Ames now on the police force. Joe Sawyer and William Tracy continue their series of misadventures. Despite them being in the army as well as Abbott&Costello the Allies actually won the war.

Hal Roach being the producer with great insight into comedy decided to team William Tracy and Joe Sawyer as a team and sadly they seem to have been forgotten. This is only the second of their films I've seen and I'd certainly like to have seen more.

They seem to have the best elements of Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello. Tracy as Dodo Doubleday is the innocent who just seems to go through life and he seems to stumble into heroism. Sawyer as Ames is a wiseguy know it all who slaps Tracy around like Abbott used to do to Costello, but like Ollie Hardy always is mired in the fertilizer of his own making.

Parnell, Tracy's prospective father-in-law is looking to expose the gangsters that run his town. But the mob boss is on to him, but he's got a better idea for shutting Parnell's expose down. Use burlesque queen Joan Woodbury for a little blackmail.

The problem is that Woodbury's ready to doublecross the mob. For some considerable cash she'll let Parnell have her diary which gives some mob names and places as well as their little good times.

The whole film ends in an absolutely mad chase sequence in the burlesque house after Woodbury's been murdered. And the audience is oblivious to it all, thinking it's all part of the entertainment.

In the tradition of Laurel, Costello, with a bit of Inspector Clousseau tossed in, Tracy as usual comes up a winner.

Here Comes Trouble is a fast paced comedy with an absolutely hysterical finale. It hasn't even got the touches that Universal gave Abbott and Costello, but it has just as many laughs.

This appears to be a very, very low-budget production. It is a comic treatment of crime. It is a comic treatment of ex-GIs who have returned from WWII. The acting is generally not only slapstick but also slapdash.

A GI returns to his job on a newspaper. He is in love with the editor's daughter. She wants him to get a better job. Light bulb goes off: Dad needs a new crime reporter, because it is so dangerous. Gives it to ex-GI. Ex-GI encounters friend from the war who has been booted up to a job in the police. The laughs proceed on this premise.

Joan Woodbury is actually very entertaining as a burlesque star called Bubbles LaRue. She wears shoes with ankle straps that reminded me of the first girlie magazine I ever saw. I couldn't figure it out, because it had photos from the 1940s -- ankle straps and all -- and I was a child in the sixties.

Though the movie is not very good, it is fun to see. One really tires of the same old things when it comes to vintage movies. My cap is off to whoever unearthed this.