No, this isn't a great movie by any means, but it's got its virtues. Eddie Quillan, though he looks to be trying to channel Joe E. Brown a bit too hard, is good in the lead, rambunctious and basically a good guy but able to make the character's faults believable. I've loved Joan Woodbury since I saw her in PRC's "Gangs, Inc." a.k.a. "Paper Bullets" in which she managed to glue together widely disparate scenes in an ill-constructed role and build a convincing characterization out of them and while her work here isn't at that level, she's a genuinely warm and touching female lead and I suspect only the rather odd bone structure of her face kept her from major-studio stardom (she certainly had the acting chops for it!). I also liked seeing Mary Gordon have more of a role than her brief appearances as Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock Holmes' landlady, in the Rathbone-Bruce Holmes films gave her. This doesn't have the ineffable tackiness of most Monogram productions of the period the sets look solid enough that one doesn't fear for the actors' safety and the camera-work, though straightforward, is clear and renders the action visible and the script, though hardly laugh-out-loud funny, is charming and amusing in a way a lot of Monogram so-called "comedies" of the period weren't. I suspect I'd like the earlier version better but "Here Comes Kelly" is a genuinely charming time-filler and needs no apologies.
Review of Here Comes Kelly
