Here Comes Trouble

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.

Here Comes Trouble (1948)

** (out of 4)

Another in the Hal Roach series featuring Doubleday (William Tracy) and Ames (Joe Sawyer). This time out the two are out of the Army and Doubleday, thanks to his soon to be father in law, is working as a reporter and he tries to crack a big case against a gangster. Ames, working as a policeman, gets in and tries to help but of course chaos follows. I believe this is the fifth film I've seen with the duo and there's no doubt that this one here is the weakest. The previous films were always going for laughs but this one here really seems a tad bit lazy because it seems not much of an effort was given in the screenplay to try and get any laughs. For the most part you get a lot of dialogue and none of its funny. Not because the material bad but because the material doesn't even go for laughs. Tracy is his usual self here but Sawyer seems really bored because his comic flair is never seen, although, to his credit, the screenplay doesn't offer him too much. Another problem is that most of the film's in the series ran from 40-45 minutes but this one here clocks in at 55-minutes and it really feels like 55-hours.

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.

I just happened to be off and alone at home when I found this on Turner Classic Movies. It is the first time I've seen the characters of Ames and Doubleday and now I want more. Seeing that it was a Hal Roach Production meant that I was in for a good comedic movie and I wasn't disappointed. We will never see comedies such as this again and now I am searching for more of the Ames and Doubleday movies. We get so caught up in modern movies that are called comedies, but rely on foul language and noisy bodily functions for the laughs rather than on the actors ability to make us laugh. This is a really refreshing movies to relax and enjoy and the fact that it is almost 59 years old, only shows the timelessness of real comedy.