The best Florence Bates’s comedy movies

Three sailors - Gabey, Chip and Ozzie - let loose on a 24-hour pass in New York and the Big Apple will never be the same! Gabey falls head over heels for "Miss Turnstiles of the Month" (he thinks she's a high society deb when she's really a 'cooch dancer at Coney Island); innocent Chip gets highjacked (literally) by a lady cab driver; and Ozzie becomes the object of interest of a gorgeous anthropologist who thinks he's the perfect example of a "prehistoric man". Wonderful music and terrific shots of New York at its best.

Spoiled playboy Henry van Cleve dies and arrives at the entrance to Hell, a final destination he is sure he deserves after living a life of profligacy. The devil, however, isn't so sure Henry meets Hell's standards. Convinced he is where he belongs, Henry recounts his life's deeds, both good and bad, including an act of indiscretion during his 25-year marriage to his wife, Martha, with the hope that "His Excellency" will arrive at the proper judgment.

Walter Mitty, a daydreaming writer with an overprotective mother, likes to imagine that he is a hero who experiences fantastic adventures. His dream becomes reality when he accidentally meets a mysterious woman who hands him a little black book. According to her, it contains the locations of the Dutch crown jewels hidden since World War II. Soon, Mitty finds himself in the middle of a confusing conspiracy, where he has difficulty differentiating between fact and fiction.

Amateur plumber Cluny Brown gets sent off by her uncle to work as a servant at an English country estate.

A conman poses as a war relief fundraiser, but when he falls for a charity worker, his conscience begins to trouble him.

The wealthiest man in the world, John P. Merrick, is a private person who likes to stay anonymous. One of his many assets is Neeley's Department Store. There is labor unrest at the store, and the employees' anger is directed at him, who they hang in effigy outside the store despite not knowing what he looks like. Merrick, not happy at what he sees going on, decides to mete out the rabble-rousers. So he goes undercover as a sales clerkin the shoe department.

Circumstance, an old flame and a mother-in-law drive a happily married couple to the verge of divorce and insanity.

Students at the Davis School of the Theatre are assigned "Antigone" as their class play, but they conspire to do a swing musical instead.

Left by a con man, Belle De Valle, a dancer, finds him again in gold-rush Alaska running an honest casino/dance hall.

Aspiring singer Ann Carter visits her stepbrother in New York, hoping to make it on Broadway.

Small-town soda-jerk Peggy Evans quits her dead-end job and moves to New York where she invents a new identity.

Eddie Tayloe's grandfather leaves him six thousand dollars and the money belt it came in, freeing Tayloe to leave his dull newspaper job in Texas and move to New York to become a playwright. Along the way, his car breaks down and a girl walking along the highway asks for a lift. It turns out she's a nice girl, named Perry, running away from a job at a gasoline station. Soon they're off to New York together, but part ways once they arrive. Time passes and Eddie is failing to sell his play; Perry is failing to find a job. Odd circumstances, involving an old pickpocket named Mandy, bring them together again.

Rich playboy Drogo Gaines is in imminent danger of marrying a gold digger, and escapes by feigning insanity. The joke's on him when he wakes up in an asylum full of comical lunatics. There he befriends Colonel Carraway, and together they escape, catching a ride with a beautiful blonde who proves to be Penguin Moore, carnival owner.

Bumbling reporter Robert Kittredge has been fired after bungling his latest assignment. His career isn't all he's botched up: his girlfriend Chris is tired of waiting for him to marry her. When he gets a hot tip on some Nazi spies operating in Washington, D.C., he convinces Chris to help him break the story so he can get his job back. The pair soon find themselves in several awkward predicaments as they track the criminals down in a night club, a burlesque show, and face a final showdown at a beauty salon.

A penniless former princess weds an equally cash-strapped baron, so they support themselves by becoming houseguests at the homes of wealthy American socialites.

After a long absense from the island, Chester Tuttle returns to Tahiti to find that little has changed. His large family, particularly his scheming Uncle Jonas, would rather dance and romance than earn a living. When Jonas loses the family plantation in a cockfight, Chester saves the day by towing in a large ship abandoned at sea and claiming the salvage. But opening a joint bank account in the name of the Tuttle clan may not have been a wise decision.

Glamour artist Bob Randolph is world famous for his paintings of a stunning beauty dubbed "The Randolph Girl". What the world doesn't know is that his pin-up creation is really a composite of parts of the anatomy of 12 different models. In an effort to find one girl who possesses all the proper physical attributes, Randolph and PR man Chuck Donovan pursue Ruth Wilson, a beauteous schoolteacher who prefers to be admired for her brain rather than her curves. Ruth changes her tune, however, when a published photo of her in a swimsuit causes her to be fired by the uptight schoolboard. She sues for reinstatement and in the process learns that swimsuits and sex appeal do have a place in her world, after all. Written by Dan Navarro

The stuffy manager of lovely opera singer Vicki Cassel and her uncle, a classical conductor, is determined to close down the noisy nightclub that's next door to the Cassels' home. The club's owners--Steve, a handsome ladies' man, and Jeff, his clownish sidekick--hatch a plan to keep the club open. Steve arranges to meet--and woo--Vicki and then invite her and her uncle to the club. When Vicki's snobbish aunt and the manager discover that Vicki now favors popular music to the classics, they arrange to get the club closed. But that doesn't keep Steve and Jeff down. Instead, they decide to put on a Broadway show if they can get a backer. They find their "angel" in Vicki's uncle who agrees to finance the show only if Vicki is the leading lady. But once again, Vicki's aunt and manager may be the spoiler in everyone's plans.