ShangLuda Admirable film.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

zardoz-13 Patsy Kelly and Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams incite both charisma and comedy in director Guy Meins' laffer "Kelly the Second," a riotous farce about a roughneck truck driver who is turned into a prize-winning boxer. This lively, black & white, 1936 comedy starts out with Molly (Patsy Kelly) getting carjacked in the wrong direction when a dim-witted truck driver accidentally rear ends her coupe and inadvertently careens around town with her in tow. When he finally pulls up near a pool hall, Cecil Callahan is surprised and amused that he has dragged this scrappy, irate dame across town. Mind you, Molly gives him 'the dickens' until a well-meaning, innocent bystander intervenes in patronizing fashion and tries to help her out. Immediately, our heroine tells him off, but not before the gentleman slugs Callahan in the snout. All hell breaks loose on the sidewalk. Fists fly as Callahan plunges into a knuckle-busting Brannigan. Knocked backward out of the fight, Molly triggers a photograph and it plays the venerable tune 'The Irish Washerwoman.' This music revitalizes Callahan and his fists into veritable tornados. He flattens virtually everybody in sight, and the ensuing fracas galvanizes the local flatfoots into action. They summon the paddy wagon. Sirens howling as the police rush to the scene of the fight, our heroine and hero hightail it, after Callahan puts Molly's car into the back of his truck. They flee the scene of the donnybrook and take refuge in Dr. J. Willoughby Klum's (classic silent movie comedian Charley Chase of "Public Ghost # 1") drug store where Molly serves food at the counter. The disgruntled police officers show up not long afterward, and they haul Callahan off to court for creating a public disturbance. They haul in Dr. Klum and Molly on a charge of harboring a fugitive. The judge convinces the top cop to drop the charges against Dr. Klum and Molly. Dr. Klum goes to bat for Callahan, and the judge releases the truck driver into Klum's custody to the tune of $1000 dollars. The judge warns Callahan that if he creates another public disturbance that he will land in jail. Klum pledges his drugstore on Callahan's behalf and worries about his future. Outside the courthouse, Molly sees the number one prizefighter, Butch Flynn (Maxie Rosenbloom of "Gangs of New York"), and decides that Callahan can fight, but in the ring for the big bucks. Callahan's first fight doesn't last long because he tried to fight on a full stomach after he made the weight to qualify for the boxing match. Initially, Dr. Klum thought that he had a surefire winner, and another guy, a gangster named Ike Arnold (Edward Brophy of "The Invisible Woman"), listens to Klum's chatter and drops a grand on Callahan to win. Although he doesn't win the fight, Callahan makes a believer out of Ike when he decks the champ and sends him backwards, smashing through a wall, with one punishing pile-driver of a punch.Ike strongarms Klum into a partnership with Callahan, and Molly serves as the trainer. The secret of Callahan's success is his ability to thrash anybody in sight once the "The Irish Washerwoman" tune is played. Molly trains Callahan, and they surge to the top of the fight racket. Of course, it is basically a lowest common denominator comedy, but the timing and the physical action succeed in generating laughs if you're willing to chuckle. Look for Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer in a cameo as a kid with a stomach ache who swallowed two dimes and a nickel. There is another cameo by Harry Myers who co-starred with Charlie Chapin in his immortal comedy "City Lights" (1931) as a millionaire drunken who befriended the Tramp. Of course, "Kelly the Second" contains a cheerful happy ending.

Itsamoomoo This was my first Patsy Kelly film. I am almost fifty and I've heard her name for years from my parents. But I've never seen her in anything before unless you want to count "Rosemary's Baby" which I didn't even care for.So I watch the film and at first you're not sure what to make of her. But as someone else posted here, yes, she begins to grow on you.As the movie progressed I could not help but keep watching. She made some funny facial expressions that can't hold a candle to Lucille Ball, yet I couldn't help but giggle at them.I like old films from the 1930s. So this helped to keep my interest going. At the times the film/storyline was a bit lame, yet before I knew it I found myself chuckling out loud and I didn't know why. Like when Kelly, Guinn and the Charley Chase's car stopping right in the middle of the train tracks. How many times have we seen this train tracks gag before? Yet they managed to pull it off with Kelly's pant leg getting caught on the gear shifts and the car pulling out just in time, in front of film screen of a train whizzing by! I had a good laugh on that one.This was also my first Big Boy Guinn film and he reminds a lot of Nat Pendleton, a favorite of mine. So I'll be keeping an eye out for more films of his on TCM.I walked away from this film a Patsy Kelly fan and I am now on the hunt to see more of her. I may even rent "Rosemary's Baby" to appreciate her in that role.A friend who saw this with me didn't laugh much except when I laughed. So a film like this might not appeal to all. But I am glad I watched it and hopefully this will get released on DVD sometime in the future.My next goal is to check out Judy Canova and see what the big deal was about her. Stay tuned.

bkoganbing Patsy Kelly and Guinn Williams prove to be a funny and romantic team in their own way Kelly The Second. The title refers not to any order of birth, but the fact that Patsy acts as Big Boy Williams's second in his boxing career.I liked Williams playing a lovable lunkhead of a truckdriver who will goodnaturedly brawl on a given occasion. One such brawl damages pharmacist Charley Chase's establishment so that Chase is owing money big time. It's Kelly who gets the idea to turn Williams's talent for brawling into his becoming a prizefighter.Of course gamblers Harold Huber and Edward Brophy get involved as well as blond golddigger Pert Kelton. The heavyweight championship fight with Williams against Maxie Rosenbloom is something hilarious and pure Hal Roach.The gimmick at the end is that Williams goes into the ring thoroughly soused to the gills. But another thing that audiences today can't appreciate is Maxie Rosenbloom who two years earlier lost the world light heavyweight title after a five year reign. Rosenbloom's nickname as a fighter was 'Slapsie Maxie' because of his tendency to almost paw at his opponent. He was a tough man in the ring, but he rarely knocked out any opponent because of that. Fight fans in 1936 would know that and realize that Williams in his condition might fare better against a Rosenbloom than say Joe Louis. The final scene of course is Williams becoming the heavyweight champion, but the fight itself with a drunk Big Boy in the ring with Slapsie Maxie is hysterical. And of course the help he gets from Patsy and in fact the whole audience really make Big Boy, the People's Champion.

vandino1 Hal Roach decided to try pushing Patsy Kelly up from short subjects to feature stardom and this is the first attempt. It's actually quite good, mostly because of the expert cast on hand. An odd title, although it refers to Patsy Kelly's character being Guinn Williams "second" in the ring, it's never said: she's referred to only as William's trainer. But the film is an odd duck overall, anyway. It has a loopy start with Williams as a two-fisted truck driver who gets into a donnybrook on the street after accidentally hijacking Kelly's car onto the rear bumper of his truck. When the cops arrive the two of them dash off to her place of employment: a pharmacy run by Charley Chase. Now the film becomes equal parts Kelly-Williams and Chase as Williams is given a 'no-fight-or-else' probation by the Judge and Chase inadvertently puts up his pharmacy as Williams' bond. Weirdly, Kelly and Chase decide that Williams SHOULD keep fighting... but in the boxing ring instead. This leads to a ringside get together with gangster Ed Brophy and his mob, featuring girlfriend Kelton and head bodyguard Harold Huber. From here on the film becomes equal parts Chase, Brophy and Kelly-Williams. When Chase gets in trouble with Brophy lots of complications ensue.Quite a slapsticky film, with lots of frantic antics keeping the movie going at top speed. It rarely lets up for a quiet moment and that's to its advantage. Even with all the fights and gangsters and jealousy stuff between Kelton and Kelly over Williams, the film is still a good- natured romp from start to finish. Even the gangsters are fun, especially Huber who looks like he's having a blast as Brophy's slyly wisecracking strong arm. Charley Chase, even here late in his career, plays the nervous bumbler better than any other. And Williams may never have gotten a bigger or better role in his career, seeing as he was usually relegated to small supporting roles in most of his film appearances. Kelly is expert, as always, although she's directed to shout most of her lines, making her a tad too brassy and one-note after awhile (whereas in contrast Chase and Huber get laughs by almost muttering some of their lines). Only the expert comedian Pert Kelton is left without much of a part and almost nothing funny to say. Too bad. But this little comedy is still worth a look for its modest but goofy charm.