There Goes Kelly

A solid comedy-mystery from Monogram, the second directorial effort of long-time B director Phil Karlson (best known today for the 1970s version of WALKING TALL) is about a radio performer who is shot dead in a dark, locked radio studio during a performance. Jackie Moran is Jimmy Kelly, a page at the studio who wants to break into show business by whatever means possible, and Sidney Miller is fellow page and stooge Sammy, who gets roped into all of Kelly's schemes, especially when the corpses begin to pile up.

Dewey Robinson, a beefy heavy at Paramount in hundreds of roles, has a fairly substantial role as the investigating policeman, who spends most of his time chewing.... gum or tobacco, it's never specified which.

This is a bottom of the barrel type of B-film from one of the poverty row studios, Monogram, in the mid-'40s, the kind that filled out a double bill.

Only reason I watched was to see what JACKIE MORAN was like in a leading role as a page boy at a radio station who attempts to solve a murder. He played Phil Meade in GONE WITH THE WIND only two years earlier and this was one of his last teen-aged roles. He's no Mickey Rooney.

The script is as hapless as the production values and is full of cliché ridden situations with a cast of uniformly untalented individuals. WANDA McKAY is the switchboard girl who is "discovered" by a radio producer and SIDNEY MILLER is the nerdy friend of the hero who's afraid of his own shadow.

Mercifully, it's over in an hour when the murder is solved after a round-up of all the suspects. Terribly overacted, the only quiet performance of any interest is given by JON GILBREATH as Tex, the cowboy, but he bites the dust after too brief an appearance.

There are several songs, but all of them are forgettable, as are the lame jokes and dialog.

Once again I take up the cudgels (metaphorically speaking) to defend a genuinely charming and amusing Monogram film from the slighting barbs of other commentators. Only nominally a sequel to "Here Comes Kelly" of two years earlier — the leads are different and Sidney Miller as Kelly's Jewish sidekick is the only actor who's in both — "There Goes Kelly" is actually funnier, thanks largely to Phil Karlson's direction (under his original last name, Karlstein). Though Jackie Moran and Wanda McKay are nowhere near as interesting actors as the leads in the earlier film, Eddie Quillan and the marvelous Joan Woodbury, Karlson's direction makes this appealing combination of semi-musical and whodunit come alive; this film is only four minutes shorter than "Here Comes Kelly" but seems to move much faster because of the greater energy from the director. One demerit is Wanda McKay's clear discomfort with trying to match her lip movements to a pre-recorded voice (almost certainly a double — in fact, it seemed to me as if always cost-conscious Monogram used the SAME voice double for McKay and Jan Wiley) — she never makes it believable that she's a great singer the way the script tells us she is — but that's a minor glitch in a minor "B" gem.

This is a awful re-make of a very good movie called "Up In The Air" starring Frankie Darrow, Mantan Moreland and Marjorie Reynolds. I was only able to get through about 20 minutes before turning it off. Almost all the lines are identical, I have no idea why they would re-do the movie. I totally disagree with a previous post that dislikes the songs ( there the same also), In the original the singing is first rate, I'm not sure if Marjorie Reynolds actually did her own singing, it's hard to tell since the vocals were usually added later, and the songs are very good, surprising in a "B" movie. If you get the chance see the original it's available on DVD. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Two page boys working at a radio network go from trying to solve murders to performing in black-face in between work shifts. Jack Moran and Sidney Miller star in this whodunnit from 1945. Lots of fast talking, everybody yells at everybody, and the two page boys call the police detective "Marty" (played by Ralph Sanford). It's a real "shortie" at 59 minutes, and it has the feel of being adapted from a play, since it mostly takes place in a radio station soundstage. We don't really care about any of the characters, which is probably why its hardly ever shown. No big deal. This was Phil Karlson's second film as director. We're not given any clues as to who might be knocking people off, so we just kind of follow the police detective and the page boys as they all try to solve the mystery first. I'll say no more so as not to give away any spoilers.