boblipton

College professor Thomas Mitchell he has only a few months to live. That's. Not enough time to write another book. Searching for an idea on what to do with his remaining time, he realizes that since he's going to be dead soon, he can commit a murder without effective fear of retribution. So he goes around, looking for someone whose death would benefit society.

Warner Brothers knew they had a great actor in Mitchell; but how could they find a vehicle for him? They settled on a couple of B pictures, and this is one of them/ Is Mitchell insane or not? He seems a kindly, intelligent, logical fellow all the way through. He works very hard to come up with someone who actually deserves killing, and still offers them a chance to repent. Director Vincent Sherman doesn't seem to add much to this movie. He just lets Mitchell speak in earnest, reasonable tones to performers like Geraldine Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Lynn, Mona Maris, and Jonathan Hale, all of whom have a hard time taking him seriously.

Jimmy Lydon has little interest in classical music until the new music teacher turns out to be Marian Hall. Likewise, father John Litel has no interest in buying Lydon yet another violin until he gets a load of Miss Hall. Although Lydon's interest is in boogie-woogie, he winds up in the school orchestra. When they get a chance to play with violinist Fritz Feld, Henry accidentally switches his cheap violin for Feld's Stradivarius, foiling professional thieves alongthe way. But the police are closing in. When Lydon's band takes some gigs to pay for a new piano for Miss Hall, the joint is raided, and Lydon has to abandon the instrument, not knowing what it is.

Concentrating more on the plot rather than the interactions between Henry and his mates, this is a sturdy movie for lovers of jazz, Schubert, and Chopin. There's a subplot about Olive Blakeny, playing Lydon's mother, that gets handwaved away at the end.

Jackie Coogan and his widowed mother, Barbara Tennant have to take refuge at her skinflint brother-in-law Russell Simpson's farm. He never stops complaining about the expense until Jackie runs away to join the circus. But he sends his mother the dollar he earns every week on top of his room and board. Most of the people he deals with in the circus are just as mean as his uncle, but they don't beat him. The two excceptions are Cesare Gravina the clown and his grand-daughter, Peaches Jackson, who has a bareback riding act.

It's Jackie Coogan the S*T*A*R all the way, from the posters to the same outfit he wore in THE KID in this adaptation of James Otis Kaler's "Toby Tyler: or Ten Weeks With A Circus", in which Coogan goes from near-useless scamp to the star of the show without losing his sweetness. This star vehicle is ably directed by Eddie Cline, even if there is some missing footage at the beginning and end of the movie. With Claire McDowell and Sam DeGrasse.