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Sunkist Stars at Palm Springs (1936)
Character: N/A
Winners of the Lucky Stars National Dance Contest - one woman from each state of the United States - are welcomed to Palm Springs. Palm Springs being the desert playground for the movie stars, the women are introduced to the cavalcade of stars vacationing in Palm Springs at the time.
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Nothing But Nerves (1942)
Character: Mr. Benchley
After some investigation, Robert Benchley finds his nerves are in a bad state. He has the jitters so bad he can't hold his cup still enough to drink his coffee, and he thinks the arrival of some plumbers is just a giant conspiracy to keep him unnerved.
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The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928)
Character: Lecturer
Dr. Benchley is addressing the Ladies Club on the subject of the reproductive habits of the polyp, a small aquatic organism. Although he is not able to display his live specimens, he has prepared a series of pictures of his subjects. He explains that the subject is made more complicated by the fact that polyps are able to change their sex from time to time. Then he presents some of the pictures of his specimens and the experiments that he has done with them.
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How to Vote (1936)
Character: Mr. Robert Benchley
A candidate has laryngitis, so his assistant must make a speech in his place. Both the speaker and his audience are soon befuddled.
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A Night at the Movies (1937)
Character: Husband
A Night at the Movies is a short film starring Robert Benchley. It was Benchley's greatest success since How to Sleep, and won him a contract for more short films that would be produced in New York. In this comedic short, a man and his wife suffer through a night at the movies. The film was nominated for an Academy Award at the 10th Academy Awards, held in 1937, for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).
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The Treasurer's Report (1928)
Character: Treasurer
Assistant Treasurer Benchley reports on the annual expenditures of the club for its home for "boys between the ages of 14", and other projects.
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How to Start the Day (1937)
Character: Lecturer
Benchley tries his best to demonstrate the routine one should follow to start the day right.
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How to Behave (1936)
Character: Mr. Benchley
Two men working below a manhole cover wonder what they would do if a woman was to fall in. This leads to one of the workers saying that Robert Benchley always has the best advice about any social situation. Hilarity ensues.
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My Tomato (1943)
Character: Joseph A. Doakes
Joe Doakes is lamenting to his wife the lack of variety in his meals. In particular, he misses eating stewed tomatoes, the fruit which he believes incorrectly is being rationed as a war measure. Mrs. Doakes knows that tomatoes aren't rationed, but she doesn't correct him, especially after he announces that he will grow enough tomatoes to feed the entire block. As he proceeds with his tomato garden, he, unaware of what it actually takes to grow tomato plants successfully, accepts advice from the many people who are willing to give it. The problem ends up being that much of the advice is conflicting. But at the end of the process, Joe is pleased with the fact of having grown a fruit to maturity - regardless of the actual yield of the garden - until someone else, or something else, has a say in what happens to that fruit.
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Mental Poise (1938)
Character: Psychoanalyst / Mr. Ostegraf
In this comedic short, a psychoanalyst encounters a patient who eerily resembles himself.
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An Hour for Lunch (1939)
Character: Lecturer / Joe
Benchley shows how to budget one's time during lunch hour to get things done efficiently. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned.
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The Romance of Digestion (1937)
Character: Joe Doakes
A brief, illustrated lecture on digestion. Aburdist humor is the hallmark of this pseudo-scientific description of biting, chewing, swallowing, and digesting food. The on-screen narrator begins with teeth, "little sentinels" as he calls them, and the tongue. Then it's on to the stomach: he describes the stomach's workings as if it were an office or a factory. He uses an illustration of the side view of a human torso, with mouth, esophagus, and stomach visible, saying it's a photograph of a man with a visible digestive tract.
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Why Daddy? (1944)
Character: Joseph A. Doakes
When Joe Doakes listens to a quiz show on the radio and knows all the answers, his wife encourages him to go on a quiz show himself. He appears on a new show called "Why Daddy?", where a child and an adult compete against each other, with less than stellar results.
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See Your Doctor (1939)
Character: Lecturer / Joseph H. Doakes
A lecturer tells the audience that it is National Take Care Week. He tells the story of a man who gets stung in his garden and the problems the man has when he seeks treatment at the doctor's office.
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Home Movies (1940)
Character: Joe Doakes
A comedy short staring Robert Benchley. He tries to show us how to make our own movies.
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How to Read (1938)
Character: Lecturer
Robert Benchley offers a humorous lecture on how to avoid different types of strain during reading.
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Crime Control (1941)
Character: Sgt. Benchley / Joe Doakes
A police officer alerts his audience to the fact that inanimate objects can be as dangerous as human criminals. He then displays several offenders that have recently been brought in. Shoelaces, for example, have an objectionable habit of breaking at crucial moments. The officer proceeds to call attention to window shades, bedroom slippers, and other menaces. He also answers his critics who advocate reasoning with these objects rather than punishing them.
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The Witness (1942)
Character: Joe Doakes
As Joe Doakes is reading the newspaper, he begins to talk to himself. Questioned by his wife, he explains that he is disturbed by the paper's account of the ways that a government investigative committee has been interrogating its witnesses. Joe then nods off, and imagines that he is being questioned by the committee. He envisages how satisfying it would be to turn the tables on the investigators.
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The Trouble with Husbands (1940)
Character: Joe Doakes
Benchley, in his own unique way, starts to drive his wife crazy. First he waits until just as she is serving dinner before he goes to wash his hands and shave. Then she sends him to the store for some butter, and he comes back with everything - except butter. Finally, he decides to install a small shelf on the wall - and makes a major production out of it.
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That Inferior Feeling (1940)
Character: Joseph H. 'Joe' Doakes
Joe Doakes, like most men, is unable to cope with personal emergencies or those in a position of authority (real or imagined).
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How to Watch Football (1938)
Character: Football Fan
Humorist Robert Benchley illustrates the fine points of attending an American football game.
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Home Early (1939)
Character: Joe Doakes
A businessman goes home early to surprise his family and is treated with suspicion, mostly by his wife's bridge club.
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How to Raise a Baby (1938)
Character: Lecturer Father
American humorist Robert Benchley provides a comedic look at the difficulty in being a father.
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How to Take a Vacation (1941)
Character: Husband
In this Robert Benchley instructional video, he demonstrates the pitfalls of a homebody husband attempting to take a vacation apart from his wife.
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The Forgotten Man (1941)
Character: Joe Doakes / Father
Robert Benchley's wry forerunner to "Father of the Bride" detailing his perspective of the upcoming nuptials.
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Waiting for Baby (1941)
Character: Joe Doakes
Robert Benchley aims his keen observational skills toward expectant fathers.
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How to Sub-Let (1939)
Character: Joe Doakes
A man fumbles through an apartment sub-let assessment while his wife is away.
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Opening Day (1938)
Character: City Treasurer Benchley
The City Treasurer stands in for the mayor, throwing out the first pitch on Opening Day.
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Boogie Woogie (1945)
Character: Frederick Stumplefinger
While his wife is away, Frederick Stumplefinger lets his kids go out jitterbugging on a school night, only to have his wife return early.
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Showbiz Goes to War (1982)
Character: (archive footage)
While a few Hollywood celebrities such as James Stewart and Clark Gable saw combat during World War II, the majority used their talents to rally the American public through bond sales, morale-boosting USO tours, patriotic war dramas and escapist film fare. Comedian David Steinberg plays host for this star-studded, 90-minute documentary, which looks at the way Tinseltown helped the United States' war effort.
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The National Barn Dance (1944)
Character: J.B. Mitcham
This film gives a fictionalized version of how the popular real-life radio program of the title began.
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Duffy's Tavern (1945)
Character: Robert Benchley
The staff of a record factory drown their sorrows at Duffy's Tavern, while the company owner faces threats of bankruptcy.
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Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Character: Stebbins
American crime reporter John Jones is reassigned to Europe as a foreign correspondent to cover the imminent war. When he walks into the middle of an assassination and stumbles on a spy ring, he seeks help from a beautiful politician’s daughter and an urbane English journalist to uncover the truth.
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You'll Never Get Rich (1941)
Character: Martin Cortland
A Broadway choreographer gets drafted and coincidentally ends up in the same army base as the boyfriend of his object of affection.
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Flesh and Fantasy (1943)
Character: Doakes
Anthology film of three tales of the supernatural. The first story is set at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The second involves a psychic who predicts murder. The third is about a man who literally meets the girl of his dreams.
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Janie Gets Married (1946)
Character: John Van Brunt
Newlywed Janie's (Joan Leslie) World War II-veteran husband (Robert Hutton) goes to work at her father's (Edward Arnold) newspaper.
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Pan-Americana (1945)
Character: Charlie Corker
A New York magazine sends its editors to South America to find beautiful girls.
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China Seas (1935)
Character: Charlie McCaleb
Captain Alan Gaskell sails the perilous waters between Hong Kong and Singapore with a secret cargo: a fortune in British gold. That's not the only risky cargo he carries; both his fiery mistress and his refined fiancee are aboard!
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How to Sleep (1935)
Character: Host / Narrator
A lecturer seated at a desk promises an informative film about how to sleep; it's a sequel to and inspired by "How to stay awake," which put his audience to sleep. He plans to examine the causes of sleep, the causes of insomnia, and recent research on sleep, including a time-lapse film of a man changing positions 55 times during an 8-hour rest: why exercise, he asks, when you can sleep like a top? The film instructs one on how to get a drink of water during the night without waking completely, and other useful skills for the insomniac.
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Three Girls About Town (1941)
Character: Wilburforce Puddle, hotel manager
Faith and Hope Banner, sisters, are "convention hostesses" in a hotel. A body is discovered next door as the magician's convention is leaving and the mortician's convention is arriving, and the sisters, with help from manager Wilburforce Puddle, try to hide it. Complicating matters, Hope's boyfriend, Tommy, is a newspaper reporter in the hotel covering some labor negotiations.
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Show-Business at War (1943)
Character: Self
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.
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Take a Letter, Darling (1942)
Character: G.B. Atwater
A struggling painter takes a job as a secretary to a female advertising executive. While working to obtain an account from a tobacco company, they end up falling in love.
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Rafter Romance (1933)
Character: Hubbell
A working girl shares her apartment with an artist, taking the place in shifts.
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Young and Willing (1943)
Character: Arthur Kenny
For those, if any, who have wondered why so many Paramount contractees appeared in United Artists' films during the war years, this is another one of the Paramount productions that was sold to United Artists in the early-40's when U.A. was having trouble meeting their exhibitor contracts because of lack of product, mainly due to their loss of production in England. A group of starving, but young and willing, actors band together to share finances and an apartment. Norman Reese (William Holden) orders no love nonsense between the boys and girls till they are set on broadway, but Marge Benson (Barbara Britton) and Tony Dennison (James Beown) are already secretly married. A friend drops in to see Dottie Coburn (Martha O'Driscoll) and is shocked to find the boys and girls sharing the same apartment and insists it is her duty to inform Dottie's father (Jay Fassett.)
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Hired Wife (1940)
Character: Roger Van Horn
Ad man Stephen Dexter asks his secretary Kendall to marry him as a loophole in order to protect his finances during an important business deal. Once the deal is completed, he asks Kendall for a divorce and is dismayed when she refuses.
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Week-End at the Waldorf (1945)
Character: Randy Morton
Anything can happen during a weekend at New York's Waldorf-Astoria: a glamorous movie star meets a world-weary war correspondent and mistakes him for a jewel thief; a soldier learns that without an operation he'll die and so looks for one last romance with a beautiful but ambitious stenographer; a cub reporter tries to get the goods on a shady man's dealing with a foreign potentate.
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Janie (1944)
Character: John Van Brunt
Teenage Janie falls in love with a private from an Army base opposed by her editor father.
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The Major and the Minor (1942)
Character: Albert Osborne
Returning to her hometown from New York, Susan Applegate learns that she hasn't enough for the train fare and disguises herself as a twelve-year-old to travel for half the price. She hides from the conductors in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby, a military school instructor, who takes the "child" under his wing.
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It's in the Bag! (1945)
Character: Parker
The ringmaster of a flea circus inherits a fortune...if he can find which chair it's hidden in.
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The Ten-Year Lunch (1987)
Character: Himself (archive footage)
The story of the legendary wits who lunched daily at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. The core of the so-called Round Table group included short story and poetry writer Dorothy Parker; comic actor and writer Robert Benchley; The New Yorker founder Harold Ross; columnist and social reformer Heywood Broun; critic Alexander Woollcott; and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Robert Sherwood.
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Practically Yours (1944)
Character: Judge Robert Simpson
In this screwball comedy a WW2 US pilot bombs a Japanese aircraft carrier, is assumed to be dead, and then is misquoted in the press as fondly remembering his days back home walking his dog Piggy. Instead of his dog Piggy he is thought to be in love with Peggy, a girl he worked with. The usual farce ensues after he returns home alive and tries to play along with the mistake to save embarrassment for all.
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Piccadilly Jim (1936)
Character: Bill Macon
Jim's father wants to marry Eugenia, but her sister Netta refuses to allow it. When Jim sees Ann at a club, he falls for her even though she is with Lord Priory. He meets her the next day at the riding path, but she quickly loses him. He searches all over for her, not knowing that his father's hopeful fiancée is her Aunt. As his caricature work suffers as he searches, he is fired from his paper. But he makes a comeback with the comics 'Rags to Riches' which is based upon the Pett's. But this upsets the Pett's so much that they go back to New York, and he follows, being careful not to let them know that he is the one who draws the strip that parodies them.
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Snafu (1945)
Character: Ben Stevens
A 14-year-old boy lies about his age and enlists in the United State Marine Corps without his family's consent or knowledge. He is sent into battle in the Pacific war-zone, decorated, and spotted in a newsreel by his family. The family asks the War Department to discharge him and send him home.
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How to Be a Detective (1936)
Character: Mr. Benchley
This Robert Benchley 'How To' comedy short attempts to teach us how to profile criminals by physical characteristics.
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Dancing Lady (1933)
Character: Ward King
Janie lives to dance and will dance anywhere, even stripping in a burlesque house. Tod Newton, the rich playboy, discovers her there and helps her get a job in a real Broadway musical being directed by Patch. Tod thinks he can get what he wants from Janie, Patch thinks Janie is using her charms rather than talent to get to the top, and Janie thinks Patch is the greatest. Steve, the stage manager, has the Three Stooges helping him manage all the show girls. Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy make appearances as famous Broadway personalities.
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Hollywood Victory Caravan (1945)
Character: Robert Benchley
A girl is desperate to get to Washington D.C. to be with her lonesome brother, a wounded G.I. She persuades Bing Crosby to let her join his caravan.
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The Pixar Story (2007)
Character: Robert Benchley (archive footage)
A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.
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Music Made Simple (1938)
Character: Robert Benchley
Benchley fills in for a music critic on a radio show. His performance is less than stellar.
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Her Primitive Man (1944)
Character: Martin Osborne
An anthropologist unwittingly takes a man disguised as a "primitive man" back to New York as a specimen.
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The Sport Parade (1932)
Character: Radio Announcer
Two Dartmouth football players fall in love with the same girl following college graduation.
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Syncopation (1942)
Character: Doakes (scenes deleted)
A young trumpeter rises through the jazz world and finds love.
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That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
Character: (archive footage)
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
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The Stork Club (1945)
Character: Tom P. Curtis
Director Hal Walker's 1945 musical comedy stars Betty Hutton as a hat-check girl at New York City's famous nightclub. The cast also includes Barry Fitzgerald, Don Defore, Andy Russell, Iria Adrian and Robert Benchley.
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Hollywood: The Selznick Years (1961)
Character: Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Henry Fonda hosts this retrospective on the career and films of iconic filmmaker David O. Selznick, who epitomized the era of the auteur producer in the 30s and 40s.
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Bedtime Story (1941)
Character: Eddie Turner
A Braodway playwright wants to keep on writing plays for his wife to star in, but all she wants is to retire to Connecticut and, following a few 'worlds-apart" discussion of the issue, they get a divorce. The actress marries a banker in a fit of pique only to quickly discover the divorce was not valid. She communicates this information to her not-yet ex-husband and he, to prevent consummation of the invalid marriage rescues her by sending plumbers, waiters, porters, chambermaids, bellhops, desk clerks, exterminators and, finally, a crowd of roistering conventioneers to the suite to ensure no bedtime story would take place there
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Nice Girl? (1941)
Character: Prof. Oliver Wendel Holmes Dana
Jane is a nice girl and has had her eyes on a young man who seems more interested in his hand-built car than in Jane. She decides to shed her "nice girl" image when an associate of her father comes to town on his way to study Australian Aboriginal tribes.
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Headline Shooter (1933)
Character: Radio Announcer
A newsreel photographer neglects his love life to get the perfect shot.
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Road to Utopia (1946)
Character: Narrator
While on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, Duke and Chester find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been 'stolen' by thugs. In Alaska to recover her father's map, Sal Van Hoyden falls in with Ace Larson, who secretly wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke, Chester, the thugs, Ace and his henchman chase each other all over the countryside—for the map.
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See Here, Private Hargrove (1944)
Character: Mr. Holliday
Journalist Marion Hargrove enters the Army intending to supplement his income by writing about his training experiences. He muddles through basic training at Fort Bragg with the self-serving help of a couple of buddies intent on cutting themselves in on that extra income.
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Kiss and Tell (1945)
Character: George Archer
Film adaptation of the Broadway hit, about the comic mayhem that erupts in a small town when a 15-year old high-schooler (Shirley Temple) is wrongly suspected of being pregnant.
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The Bride Wore Boots (1946)
Character: Uncle Todd Warren
A bookish husband tries to win back the affections of his horse-breeding wife.
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Social Register (1934)
Character: Robert Benchley
Chorus girl Patsy Shaw crashes a high-society party, meets playboy Charlie Breen, they fall in love, and are on their merry way to wedded bliss. However, Charlie's snobbish, ever-loving mama doesn't think that Patsy is worthy and sets out to prove it.
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Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
Character: Duffy
Steve Raleight wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a backer, Herman Whipple and a leading lady, Sally Lee. But Caroline Whipple forces Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. Sally purchases a horse, she used to train when her parents had a farm before the depression and with to ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.
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Walt Disney's Fables - Vol.6 (2004)
Character: Robert Benchley (archive sound)
Two classic animated shorts from the Disney studios. In 'The Reluctant Dragon' (1941), a young boy and a famous dragon fighter team up to teach a docile dragon the art of being a force to be reckoned with. In 'Mickey and the Beanstalk' (1947), Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck confront the fearsome Willie the Giant to try to retrieve the magical singing harp to Happy Valley.
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The Sky's the Limit (1943)
Character: Philip 'Phil' Harriman
Flying Tiger Fred Atwell sneaks away from his famous squadron's personal appearance tour and goes incognito for several days of leave. He quickly falls for photographer Joan Manion, pursuing her in the guise of a carefree drifter.
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Live, Love and Learn (1937)
Character: Oscar
A starving, uncompromising artist and an heiress fall in love on first sight and immediately get married. She loves his outrageous behaviour, his strange room-mate and the best apartment poverty can buy.
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Sunday Night at the Trocadero (1937)
Character: Robert Benchley
A series of vignettes with a loose plot. Featured are Frank Morgan, Groucho Marx, Frank McHugh, Robert Benchley and The Brian Sisters. Not bad, more interesting for the historical significance than for entertainment.
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How to Eat (1939)
Character: Lecturer / Joe Doakes
Humorist Robert Benchley discusses the issue of food and how different situations can affect one's ability to consume and digest food, using his stock everyman and slightly bumbling character Joe Doakes to dramatize such situations. Situations that can impede digestion include receiving bad news resulting in stress, being in love, and feeling scared. Snacking or nibbling between meals can ruins one's appetite at meal time. Having the correct posture while eating is important for digestion; finding the right posture can be difficult in certain circumstances, such as being on a picnic or eating in bed (specifically for men when using trays). Sharing tables with staring strangers may also impede digestion. And it's difficult to digest food when one can't get any of it.
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I Married a Witch (1942)
Character: Dr. Dudley White
A 17th-century witch returns to wreak havoc in the life of a descendant of the Puritan witch hunter who burned her.
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Dark Magic (1939)
Character: Joe Doakes
A man buys a magic set for his son, but the tricks worked better in the store than they do at home.
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The Big Parade of Comedy (1964)
Character: Joseph Doakes in 'That Inferior Feeling' (archive footage)
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
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The Reluctant Dragon (1941)
Character: Robert Benchley
Humorist Robert Benchley attempts to find Walt Disney to ask him to adapt a short story about a gentle dragon who would rather recite poetry than be ferocious. Along the way, he is given a tour of Walt Disney Studios, and learns about the animation process.
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Song of Russia (1944)
Character: Hank Higgins
American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.
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