AlsExGal

And this is not a part of the story at all, but it's a scene that sticks with you. Why is Doc sitting in his office, seemingly writing down the names of the bones in the hand of the skeleton, like he's in medical school? But I digress.

Will Bailey (DeForrest Kelley - Yes, THAT DeForrest Kelley) is a survivor of a massacre of troops perpetrated by the Comanches. He comes to town looking for the Indian scout that was used, because he assumes the scout was in on the massacre. He intends to kill him. The scout, Amos Cartwright, enters the Long Branch intent on killing Bailey for what he is accusing him of. Strangely enough, Matt stands up and turns his gun on Bailey when Amos is standing behind Matt with his shotgun aimed at Bailey.

In spite of all of the drawn guns and bubbling testosterone, both men stand down and live to fight another day. Specifically, Bailey is killed by being scalped and Amos has disappeared into Comanche country. Complications ensue.

Amos' problem is that of the Bible verse - "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways". He has tried to live as a Comanche - he had a Comanche wife who died - and as a "white man". He has fundamentally failed at both. The outcome is not sentimentalized in the least

Gunsmoke often used the prejudice of settlers against Indians to tangentially touch on racial prejudice that was becoming an issue at that time in the US that you just couldn't come out and talk about on television. This is one of those episodes.

... this is probably the thinnest excuse for a movie plot you'll ever see on Turner Classic Movies' Noir Alley.

A drummer, Stanley Maxton (Mickey Rooney) gets out of the hospital after returning from war. His fellow patients gift him a drum set and he sets out for LA to get a job in a band. On the way there he's sideswiped by mobster Sonny Johnson (James Craig). Johnson buys Stan a new drum set and sets him up with a job in his gambling operation making 200 dollars a week, and soon Stan has forgot about why he came to LA in the first place.

A raid on the gambling operation has Stan escaping into dancer/cigarette girl Jane Tafford's (Sally Forrest's) car, ala Singin in the Rain. He visits Fluff's, the night club she works in, and jams with the band after hours. Fluff (William Demarest) is impressed and asks Jane to agree to go out with Stan and use the fact that he is falling for her to get him to work for him as a drummer. Complications ensue, including murder.

About 40% of this film consists of musical numbers, and not just any musical numbers. Louis Armstrong and his orchestra have several numbers as well as Vic Damone. It's all well done considering that this is a studio that , at the time, was not known for this kind of film or this kind of music. And, by the way, that's not Mickey Rooney on drums - although he could play - that you hear on the soundtrack. Instead it is Cozy Cole, a drummer actually associated with Louis Armstrong.

Just a few asides - First, William Demarest is a confounding figure as "Fluff". He encourages Jane to date Stan knowing full well he means nothing to her, then turns around and tells Stan that Jane is a career conscious girl who is not interested in taking part in the current Baby Boom generation. Later he dishes out some of the worst advice in the history of the world when he tells Stan to go toe to toe with his old gangster boss over Jane. As a result, his toes are about the only part of Stan not roughed up by Sonny Johnson's muscle men.

Finally, I'll just repeat a comment made by Eddie Muller - Mickey Rooney was in serious relationship with Lana Turner and actually married Ava Gardner. It's not really believable that Sally Forrest would give him the brush off.

If you like your crime dramas full of atmosphere and appreciate good jazz, this film is probably for you.

... and for Chaplin that's saying something!

Chaplin's Little Tramp character encounters two people who end up impacting his life greatly. One is a beautiful blind flower girl. Due to nothing The Tramp does deliberately, she thinks he is a rich man. The other person he encounters is a wealthy man who, one night, is determined to kill himself because his wife has left him. The Tramp stops him, befriends him, and gets him back home. The entire time the rich man is drinking heavily. But when the rich man sobers up he doesn't remember what happened when he was drunk and therefore has no memory of The Tramp or their friendship. That's not so unusual as a plot device. What makes it odd is that the wealthy man is more of a Jekyll and Hyde drunk than a blackout drunk. When he's drunk he remembers everything he's done in past drunken episodes, including who The Tramp is. When sober he remembers none of this. From both of these relationships, complications ensue.

There's a boxing scene mid film that's one of the funniest scenes of any film, ever. It's perfect physical comedy, wonderfully choreographed and I laugh out loud every time I see it. To me, it's the funniest Chaplin scene in any of his films. That scene alone raises it high for me, and then Chaplin's adventures with the millionaire and the sweet romantic scenes with the flower girl seal the deal for me.

For me, it's grander in scope than The Kid, but tighter than the other works in combining both comedy and drama.