Bobby Barber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bobby Barber (December 18, 1894 – May 24, 1976) was an American actor who appeared in over 100 films. Barber is notable for his work as a foil for Abbott and Costello on and off screen.
Barber was often used by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello as a form of "court jester" on the set of their films. It was his job to keep the energy level up with pranks and practical jokes. Sometimes, he even suddenly appeared on camera during a take to break up the cast and crew. In Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Costello answers a knock at the door expecting to see large actor Lon Chaney Jr. Instead, the very short Barber walks in wearing a funny hat with a feather. In another outtake from that film, Bela Lugosi, in full Dracula regalia, is solemnly descending a staircase to meet Abbott and Costello when all of a sudden the actors and crew burst out laughing. Lugosi, annoyed, turns around to see Barber following right behind him, mimicking his steps.
Barber also appeared in bit parts, such as a delivery boy, waiter, bellhop, or man on the street, often uncredited in movies, and in many of Abbott and Costello's films and about half their television shows. Sometimes his likeness was in a picture on a wall or a "wanted" poster in a post office. His final film appearance was in Lou Costello's last movie, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959). His film career included bit parts in over 100 (known) feature films.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 4.268 |
Birthday | 1894-12-17 |
Place of Birth | New York City, New York, USA |
Also Known As | Robert S. Barbera, |
1941
The Lady Eve
7.2/333
It's no accident when wealthy Charles falls for Jean. Jean is a con artist with her sights set on Charles' fortune. Matters complicate when Jean start...
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The Lady Eve
1937
History Is Made at Night
6.5/41
An American woman falls in love with a romantic Parisian head waiter who tries to save her from her possessive wealthy ex-husband who wants to keep he...
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History Is Made at Night
1943
Hit the Ice
5.9/22
After Flash Fulton and Weejie McCoy take pictures of a bank robbery, they're lured to the mountain resort hideout of the robbers, where they meet an o...
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Hit the Ice
1947
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
6.953/118
Teenager Susan Turner, with a severe crush on playboy artist Richard Nugent, sneaks into his apartment to model for him and is found there by her sist...
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The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
1938
Carefree
6.603/58
Dr. Tony Flagg's friend Steven has problems in the relationship with his fiancée Amanda, so he persuades her to visit Tony. After some minor misunders...
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Carefree
1938
Having Wonderful Time
4.9/13
Teddy Shaw, a bored New York office girl, goes to a camp in the Catskill Mountains for rest and finds Chick Kirkland.
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Having Wonderful Time
1944
And Now Tomorrow
5.7/3
Emily Blair is rich and deaf. Doctor Vance, who grew up poor in Blairtown, is working on a serum to cure deafness which he tries on Emily. It doesn't...
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And Now Tomorrow
1937
Super-Sleuth
5/4
A movie actor playing a detective gets carried away with his role and starts trying to solve real-life crimes.
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Super-Sleuth
1944
Rainbow Island
6/1
Three merchant seamen fleeing the Japanese take refuge on a Pacific island, where they come across a doctor and his daughter who take care of the nati...
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Rainbow Island
1944
I Love a Soldier
4/2
During World War II in San Francisco, Eve Morgan and her single girlfriends spend their days welding ships and their nights dancing with soldiers and...
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I Love a Soldier
1950
Let's Dance
5.8/5
Years after the death of her husband, Kitty McNeil takes her son and flees from the home of her wealthy and controlling mother-in-law. Alone and joble...
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Let's Dance
1938
Topper Takes a Trip
6.4/20
Mrs. Topper's friend Mrs. Parkhurst has convinced Mrs Topper to file for a divorce from Cosmo due to the strange circumstances of his trip with ghost...
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Topper Takes a Trip
1951
Across the Wide Missouri
5.867/30
In the 1830's beaver trapper Flint Mitchell and other white men hunt and trap in the then unnamed territories of Montana and Idaho. Flint marries a Bl...
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Across the Wide Missouri
1943
The Sky's the Limit
6.1/19
Flying Tiger Fred Atwell sneaks away from his famous squadron's personal appearance tour and goes incognito for several days of leave. He quickly fall...
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The Sky's the Limit
1945
Anchors Aweigh
6.813/150
Two sailors, Joe and Clarence have four days shore leave in spend their shore leave trying to get a girl for Clarence. Clarence has his eye on a girl...
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Anchors Aweigh
1940
Spring Parade
6.8/9
In this light and lovely romantic musical, a Hungarian woman attends a Viennese fair and buys a card from a gypsy fortune teller. It says that she wil...
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Spring Parade
1937
Breakfast for Two
5.9/18
After a night on the town, Jonathan Blair wakes to find that Texan Valentine Ransome has escorted him home. Valentine is attracted to Jonathan and set...
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Breakfast for Two
1935
I Don't Remember
2/1
Amnesiac can't find the other half of his winning sweepstakes ticket.
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I Don't Remember
1947
Vigilantes of Boomtown
0/1
The ranch of Red Ryder (Allan Lane) and his aunt, The Duchess (Martha Wentworth), is being used as the training site for "Gentleman Jim" Corbett (Geor...
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Vigilantes of Boomtown
1935
We're Only Human
6.5/2
A cop, who plays by his own rules, brings down a notorious gangster.
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We're Only Human
1936
Walking on Air
5.8/5
A strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home to meet her parents.
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Walking on Air
1938
Everybody's Doing It
5/1
Gangsters are attempting to control the solutions (and winning) of the puzzles in a national newspapers picture puzzles contest craze.
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Everybody's Doing It
1940
The Villain Still Pursued Her
5.111/9
Victorian melodrama is sent up in this spoof of the old production "The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved." Dastardly villain Silas Cribbs schemes to get...
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The Villain Still Pursued Her
1938
Professor Beware
6.125/4
Egyptologist, Dean Lambert, accused of car-theft, skips bail and begins a cross-country trek to join a group in New York headed for Egypt. With the po...
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Professor Beware
1944
Practically Yours
0/0
In this screwball comedy a WW2 US pilot bombs a Japanese aircraft carrier, is assumed to be dead, and then is misquoted in the press as fondly remembe...
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Practically Yours
1939
Pest from the West
7/5
A millionaire vacationing in Mexico falls for a local girl and sets out to win her.
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Pest from the West
1940
Nothing But Pleasure
5.8/4
To save money, Buster and his wife decide to drive to Detroit to buy a new car, then drive it home.
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Nothing But Pleasure
1962
To Kill a Mockingbird
8.005/2534
Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their recl...
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To Kill a Mockingbird
1948
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein
7.081/285
Baggage handlers Bud and Lou accidentally stumble upon Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula and the Wolf Man.
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Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein
1936
The Preview Murder Mystery
6/4
The star of "Song of the Toreador" receives threatening messages that he will not survive the preview screening of the film. The studio publicist wor...
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The Preview Murder Mystery
1930
The Life of the Party
6.3/5
Two gold diggers try a French dressmaker, two Mr. Smiths and Havana.
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The Life of the Party
1945
Sensation Hunters
4.7/6
A naive young girl, looking to escape from a bad family situation, falls in love with a man who turns out to be a cad, and leads her down the road to...
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Sensation Hunters
1936
Smartest Girl in Town
5.5/4
A girl in search of a rich husband mistakes a millionaire for a male model.
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Smartest Girl in Town
1936
Hollywood Boulevard
2.5/2
With a full Hollywood background and settings but more an expose of scandal-and-gossip magazines of the era, has-been actor John Blakeford agrees to w...
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Hollywood Boulevard
1936
Modern Times
8.295/3601
A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the w...
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Modern Times
1942
Beyond the Blue Horizon
0/0
A young girl's parents are killed on a tropical island, and the girl is raised and protected by the jungle animals. When she is found, as a grown woma...
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Beyond the Blue Horizon
1940
Primrose Path
6.5/23
Ellie Mae lives on Primrose Hill with her good-hearted and fancy free mother, her drunken father, her younger sister and a mean-spirited grandmother....
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Primrose Path
1932
Horse Feathers
6.844/209
Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against rival Da...
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Horse Feathers
1940
Broadway Melody of 1940
6.7/37
Johnny Brett and King Shaw are an unsuccessful dance team in New York. A producer discovers Brett as the new partner for Clare Bennett, but Brett, who...
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Broadway Melody of 1940
1951
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man
6.389/95
As novice detectives, Bud and Lou come face to face with the Invisible Man.
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Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man
1944
Laura
7.631/772
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.
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Laura
1943
All by Myself
0/0
Career woman Jean. almost a partner in Mark's advertising firm, has been falling in love with Mark, who of course is unaware of it. But unknown to Jea...
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All by Myself
1941
King of the Texas Rangers
6/1
Tom King Jr. seeks to discover who murdered his father, a Texas Ranger; the trail leads to a network of Axis spies.
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King of the Texas Rangers
1940
They Knew What They Wanted
5.4/6
While courting a young woman by mail, a rich farmer sends a photograph of his foreman instead of his own, which leads to complications when she accept...
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They Knew What They Wanted
1940
Stranger on the Third Floor
6.484/93
Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.
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Stranger on the Third Floor
1941
Second Chorus
5.9/30
Danny O'Neill and Hank Taylor are rival trumpeters with the Perennials, a college band, and both men are still attending college by failing their exam...
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Second Chorus
1940
Road to Singapore
6.463/40
Two playboys try to forget previous romances in Singapore - until they meet Dorothy Lamour...
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Road to Singapore
1945
Earl Carroll Vanities
5/4
Broadway producer Earl Carroll was a Ziegfeld-like entrepreneur who staged lavish revues featuring attractive young ladies. Carroll's annual "Vanities...
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Earl Carroll Vanities
1943
Reveille with Beverly
7/5
Beverly Ross, the switchboard operator at a local radio station, jumps at the chance to be the DJ for an early morning show before the soldiers at a n...
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Reveille with Beverly
1941
Cracked Nuts
0/0
A young man in a small town wins $5000 in a radio contest. He goes to New York City to propose to his girlfriend, but gets mixed up with a crooked att...
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Cracked Nuts
1943
Dizzy Pilots
6.625/8
The Three Stooges, as the Wrong Brothers, aid the war effort by inventing a new plane in this below-average two-reel comedy. Actually, they are attemp...
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Dizzy Pilots
1943
A Lady Takes a Chance
5.7/17
A city girl on a bus tour of the West encounters a handsome rodeo cowboy who helps her forget her city suitors.
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A Lady Takes a Chance
1932
The Night of June 13
7/2
Elna Curry, once a concert pianist, develops an unfounded jealousy of neighbor, Trudie Morrow. Elna who suffers from neurasthenia, believes that Trudi...
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The Night of June 13
1942
Powder Town
3.7/3
Director Rowland V. Lee's wacky 1942 comedy, about an absent-minded scientist working on a secret formula at an explosives plant, stars Edmond O'Brien...
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Powder Town
1938
Cipher Bureau
5.333/3
The younger brother of an officer in a secret government code-breaking unit gets involved with a gang of spies and a beautiful double agent.
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Cipher Bureau
1942
A Date with the Falcon
6.5/16
In the second film of the series (and not a second part of anything), Gay Lawrence, aka The Falcon, is about to depart the city to marry his fiancée,...
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A Date with the Falcon
1942
My Favorite Spy
6/4
The Army takes a bandleader (Kay Kyser) away from his bride (Ellen Drew) and sends him on a spy mission with a woman (Jane Wyman).
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My Favorite Spy
1943
Presenting Lily Mars
6.1/9
Starstruck Indiana small-town girl Lily is pestering theatrical producer John Thornway for a role but he is reluctant.
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Presenting Lily Mars
1943
Crazy House
5/3
Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson are Broadway stars who return to Universal Studios to make another movie. The mere mention of Olsen and Johnson's names eva...
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Crazy House
1943
Hi Diddle Diddle
6.8/11
When the bride's mother is supposedly swindled out of her money by a spurned suitor, the groom's father orchestrates a scheme of his own to set things...
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Hi Diddle Diddle
1941
The Gay Falcon
6.2/21
Having forsaken the detective business for the safer confines of personal insurance, Gay Laurence is compelled to return to his sleuthing ways. Along...
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The Gay Falcon
1946
From This Day Forward
5.2/12
A young American soldier, with an honorable discharge, returns home from World War II to his bride, whom he married after a short courtship and has no...
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From This Day Forward
1942
Roxie Hart
6.9/21
A café in Chicago, 1942. On a rainy night, veteran reporter Homer Howard tells an increasing audience the story of Roxie Hart and the crime she was ju...
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Roxie Hart
1957
Man of a Thousand Faces
6.7/38
The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bear...
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Man of a Thousand Faces
1930
Doughboys
6/7
Elmer, rich society loafer, falls for Mary, but she'll have nothing to do with him until (mistakenly thinking that he's hiring a new chauffeur) he acc...
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Doughboys
1950
Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion
6.091/33
Jonesy and Lou are in Algeria looking for a wrestler they are promoting. Sergeant Axmann tricks them into joining the Foreign Legion, after which they...
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Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion
1946
Road to Utopia
6.6/40
While on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, Duke and Chester find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been 'stolen' by thugs. In Alaska to recover her fath...
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Road to Utopia
1941
In the Navy
6.4/30
Popular crooner Russ Raymond abandons his career at its peak and joins the Navy using an alias, Tommy Halstead. However, Dorothy Roberts, a reporter,...
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In the Navy
1941
Hold That Ghost
6.7/63
Two bumbling service station attendants are left as the sole beneficiaries in a gangster's will. Their trip to claim their fortune is sidetracked when...
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Hold That Ghost
1942
Who Done It?
6.9/34
Two dumb soda jerks dream of writing radio mysteries. When they try to pitch an idea at a radio station, they end up in the middle of a real murder wh...
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Who Done It?
1947
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
6.3/15
Chester Wooley and Duke Egan are travelling salesmen who make a stopover in Wagon Gap, Montana while enroute to California. During the stopover, a not...
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The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
1946
Two Sisters from Boston
5.8/4
Abigail Chandler has written her stuffy Boston relatives that she's a successful opera singer in New York. In reality, she works at a burlesque house...
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Two Sisters from Boston
1943
Swing Fever
5/3
Comedy about a bandleader with hypnotic powers.
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Swing Fever
1936
Great Guy
6.2/19
A meat inspector sets out to rid his town of payoff deals affecting the quality of meat being sold to the public.
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Great Guy
1947
I Walk Alone
6.6/64
Bootleggers on the lam Frankie and Noll split up to evade capture by the police. Frankie is caught and jailed, but Noll manages to escape and open a p...
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I Walk Alone
1947
Riff-Raff
6/19
A private detective foils the plans of villains attempting to take over Panamanian oilfields when he hides a valuable map in plain sight.
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Riff-Raff
1928
All in Fun
0/0
Movie comedy with Jerry Mandy.
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All in Fun
1936
Dodsworth
7.131/122
A retired auto manufacturer and his wife take a long-planned European vacation only to find that they want very different things from life.
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Dodsworth
1930
Soup to Nuts
5.8/8
Mr. Schmidt's costume store is bankrupt because he spends his time on Rube Goldberg-style inventions; the creditors send a young manager who falls for...
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Soup to Nuts
1935
Alimony Aches
0/0
Ex-wife remarries, doesn't tell husband so he'll still pay alimony.
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Alimony Aches
1937
Fight for Your Lady
4.3/3
Wrestling trainer puts himself in charge of a singer's love life when the singer is jilted by a rich girl.
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Fight for Your Lady
1938
Vivacious Lady
6.8/52
College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.
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Vivacious Lady
1940
The Leather Pushers
0/0
A shifty boxing promoter places an amateur in fixed fights, then hands his contract over to an suspicious female investigative reporter as a raffle pr...
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The Leather Pushers
1963
The Wheeler Dealers
6.2/20
Henry J. Tyroon leaves Texas, where his oil wells are drying up, and arrives in New York with a lot of oil money to play with in the stock market. He...
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The Wheeler Dealers
1946
Calcutta
6.2/17
Neale and Pedro fly cargo between Chungking and Calcutta. When their buddy Bill is murdered they investigate. Neale meets Bill's fiancée Virginia and...
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Calcutta
1949
Africa Screams
5.714/56
When bookseller Buzz cons Diana into thinking that his friend Stanley knows all there is to know about Africa, they are abducted and ordered to lead D...
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Africa Screams
1949
Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
6.5/53
Lost Caverns Hotel bellhop Freddie Phillips is suspected of murder. Swami Talpur tries to hypnotize Freddie into confessing, but Freddie is too stupid...
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Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
1957
The Joker Is Wild
8.1/152
Prohibition-era nightclub crooner Joe E. Lewis has his career and nearly his life cut short when his throat is slashed as payback for leaving the empl...
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The Joker Is Wild
1944
You Can't Ration Love
0/0
In this WW II musical, a group of lovely college co-eds, realizing that there is a shortage of single young men, decide to begin rationing their dates...
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You Can't Ration Love
1941
The Monster and the Girl
5.796/27
After a young woman is coerced into prostitution and her brother framed for murder by an organized crime syndicate, retribution in the form of an ape...
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The Monster and the Girl
1957
The Midnight Story
5.6/23
Beloved priest Father Thomasino is murdered in a San Francisco alley, and the police have few clues. But traffic cop Joe Martini becomes obsessed with...
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The Midnight Story
1945
Lady on a Train
6.5/47
While watching from her train window, Nikki Collins witnesses a murder in a nearby building. When she alerts the police, they think she has read one t...
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Lady on a Train
1942
Matri-Phony
4.7/10
The stooges are potters in ancient Rome during the reign of Emperor Octopus Grabus. When the emperor orders all beautiful red-headed women to be broug...
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Matri-Phony
1933
I'm No Angel
6.333/48
The bold Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent need of money, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head...
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I'm No Angel
1941
Pot o' Gold
5.5/22
Jimmy, the owner of a failed music shop, goes to work with his uncle, the owner of a food factory. Before he gets there, he befriends an Irish family...
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Pot o' Gold
1943
Here Comes Mr. Zerk
0/0
Harry, a famous scientist, is mistaken for an escaped lunatic.
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