That's My Baby!

This whole thing was a poor excuse to drag out a slew of old vaudevillians and try to make them relevant and entertaining for audiences that had moved on from stage revues, silent movies and talkies to television. It offers plenty of evidence for why such acts went the way of the dodo bird.

One can only cringe for the actors engaged to try to sell this weak story. Not even Leonid Kinsky or Richard Arlen can save this dreck and one has to wonder if they really needed the money or the screen time this desperately. You can feel the pain in their attempts to pretend to be entertained and amused by the goings-on. Ellen Drew smiles too much and much too forced. Richard Arlen does his best with the embarrassingly cheesy dialogue and fake romance and one can only feel sorry for him slogging his way through this.

Betty Moody (Ellen Drew) tries to cheer up her father (Minor Watson) who is feeling melancholy by gathering together entertainers to perform for him. A psychologist, Dr Svatsky (Leonid Kinsky) is also at hand to help in the proceedings. Can anyone make Mr Moody laugh again....?

This is a really stupid story of no interest and doesn't make sense, especially the part where Ellen Drew meets her mother Hettie (Madeline Grey). It's all so appallingly fake. The best lines come from Mr Moody when he tells people to get out coz they are annoying him. And he's right. The last thing he wants is an intrusion of crappy entertainers in his front room. The film is an excuse to string together some acts of the time. Unfortunately, the most interesting of these, Peppy and Peanuts (P&P), is interrupted by that nuisance of a doctor played by Leonid Kinsky. He is unbearable throughout the film and it is criminal how the film cuts from away from P&P for more irritating footage of Kinsky. The four stars are for Gene Rodgers (boogie woogie pianist), 'Pigmeat' the butler and Peppy & Peanuts (cabaret dance act).

Father runs a big corporation but is suffering from a severe case of melancholia. Daughter and persona non grata boyfriend cook up a plan to have every ex-vaudevillian and dancer on the club circuit that they can find attempt to make him smile. Groan. Scatterbrained ex-wife finally saves the day by remembering that father once had ambitions to be a newspaper comic illustrator (!) Nevermind, it doesn't make that much sense.

Not the most enjoyable movie ever made, but an amazing time capsule of vaudeville acts: Gene Rodgers, the stupendous boogie-woogie piano player; Mitchell & Lytell, Abbot and Costello wannabees; Alphonse Bergé & Doris Duane, a must-be-seen inverse striptease act; Al Mardo and his priceless bulldog; and most of all Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham, who steals the show with his break dancing.

There's nobody named "Peggy" in the cast, that's "Peppy" the tall jitterbug clown-dancer.

Plus, "Peanuts" is not playing "himself" but "herself," she's the tiny jitterbug dancer.

The team were called "Peppy and Peanuts" and they appear in a couple of soundies and two films, very obscure, but were once popular on the burlesque circuit as burlesque included comedy dance teams pretty regularly.

They had a really a charming act, and it's great to see part of it preserved in this little film. How sad they're so forgotten, and even miscredited.

The film also provides a chance to see part of the act of Mike Riley and His Musical Maniacs. The "Crying" routine was one of his best known. It's awful, but it reportedly made audiences hysterical in the burlesque houses.

Riley owned The Madhouse in Hollywood, a tavern never forgotten by anyone who ever saw the inside, designed to be packed with sight gags.

-paghat the ratgirl from the weird wild realm

"That's My Baby!" is a B-movie starring an actor who specialized in Bs at the time, Richard Arlen. Sadly, however, it's not among his better efforts...mostly because the film is often plotless and instead looks like a variety or Vaudeville show....and many of the acts stink. Why they chose to do this, I have no idea...perhaps they didn't trust the actors to be able to carry the film otherwise....perhaps the filmmakers knew a lot of second-rate show people and just wanted to put their friends in the film. All I know is that I can see why they let this movie slip into the public domain!!

The plot, such as it is, involves Tim Jones (Arlen) and Betty Moody (Ellen Drew) trying to make the dour R. P. Moody (Minor Watson) smile....something he hasn't done in years. To find out what did make him smile, they located Betty's long-lost mother (R. P.'s ex-wife) and come up with the idea of creating a cartoon involving a cute baby.

Nothing about this movie would compell you to care about the story....and it was watchable...just barely. Not much more worth saying about this one.