Here Comes Trouble

Unabashed madcap with Tracy playing a character named Dodo, which about says it all. Biggest surprise, for me at least, was tough guy Joe Sawyer doing comedic hijinks, and well too. Seems Dodo's gotten promoted to police reporter by newspaper boss Blake because it's literally a dead-end job, which means the inept Dodo won't be around to marry Blake's daughter Penny (Lloyd). But things quickly complicate ending in a madcap spree on a stage show that's funny but over-extended. Anyway, for guys there's plenty of eye candy, especially Woodbury as a stripper, and drop-dead gorgeous Lloyd looking a lot like Jane Russell's sister. (Too bad Lloyd dropped her brief career soon after this; I wish IMDB knew why.) All in all, the sub-hour's a lot of silly knock-about, but good for some laughs as everyone gets in on the goofy act.

(In passing-- Watch for bony-face Charles Middleton best known as Ming The Merciless as a non-speaking reporter in one of the crowd scenes.)

Here is the King of Comedy, Hal Roach, on the downslide. This is a very low budget film, a continuation of the series starring William Tracy and Joe Sawyer which was usually the bottom of the double feature at the local theater.

I first saw Tracy as Misto Bottome in "Brother Rat" and thought he was wonderful. He had the look of a mischievous child and oh, that voice!!! He continued to look much younger than he actually was but in this film he is beginning to show his age.

The plot, what there is, revolves around the efforts of a reporter to prove himself to his publisher who is the father of his girlfriend. The finale is a mess......it is the worst type of slapstick with everybody running on and off a stage, falling down, being boffed on the head and generally causing mayhem. It was dated even in 1948. Roach made a career from this type of humor but the times had changed and audiences were not buying it.

Don't get me wrong......I like both Tracy and the excellent Joe Sawyer but this wasn't up to their comedic talents. It's not a total loss but comes pretty close.

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.

This appears to be a very, very low-budget production. It is a comic treatment of crime. It is a comic treatment of ex-GIs who have returned from WWII. The acting is generally not only slapstick but also slapdash.

A GI returns to his job on a newspaper. He is in love with the editor's daughter. She wants him to get a better job. Light bulb goes off: Dad needs a new crime reporter, because it is so dangerous. Gives it to ex-GI. Ex-GI encounters friend from the war who has been booted up to a job in the police. The laughs proceed on this premise.

Joan Woodbury is actually very entertaining as a burlesque star called Bubbles LaRue. She wears shoes with ankle straps that reminded me of the first girlie magazine I ever saw. I couldn't figure it out, because it had photos from the 1940s -- ankle straps and all -- and I was a child in the sixties.

Though the movie is not very good, it is fun to see. One really tires of the same old things when it comes to vintage movies. My cap is off to whoever unearthed this.

This film is actually one of the "Sgt. Doubleday" series that was popular in the 1940's. In this one, both Doubleday and Ames are civilians. Tracy is a reporter, and Sawyer is a police officer. They are more of a team in this film than they were in the Army comedies, even though their characters are the same.

This was one of the "Hal Roach Streamliner" comedies, and at a shorter than full length running time, it moves quickly from one situation to another. Fast paced and fun, these films deserve to be seen again. William Tracy was a very funny comedian, and Joe Sawyer was a perfect comical nemesis.