Here Comes Kelly

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.