The best Gene Lockhart’s comedy movies

Kris Kringle, seemingly the embodiment of Santa Claus, is asked to portray the jolly old fellow at Macy's following his performance in the Thanksgiving Day parade. His portrayal is so complete that many begin to question if he truly is Santa Claus, while others question his sanity.

Hildy, the journalist former wife of newspaper editor Walter Burns, visits his office to inform him that she's engaged and will be getting remarried the next day. Walter can't let that happen and frames the fiancé, Bruce Baldwin, for one thing after another, to keep him temporarily held in prison, while trying to steer Hildy into returning to her old job as his employee.

Youthful Father Chuck O'Malley led a colorful life of sports, song, and romance before joining the Roman Catholic clergy. After being appointed to a run-down New York parish, O'Malley's worldly knowledge helps him connect with a gang of boys looking for direction, eventually winning over the aging, conventional Parish priest.

When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.

As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.

A smooth-talking French thief (George Sanders) wangles his way into an important position as prefect of police.

An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.

Sheltered by her conservative parents, a small-town teenager finally goes out on a date.

To stop Pinkie's widowed, struggling mother Dottie from marrying a well-off older man they know she doesn't love, teenager Pinkie and her best friend Buzz kidnap her in the family travel trailer to live a carefree life on the open road. They then get the idea to find Dottie a financially secure husband whom both she and Pinkie would like.

A man who has a talking mule gets a job on a newspaper, and both get mixed up in a murder trial.

Rich, eccentric T.J. Banner adopts a feral cat who becomes an affectionate pet. Then T.J. dies, leaving to Rhubarb most of his money and a pro baseball team, the Brooklyn Loons. When the team protests, publicist Eric Yeager convinces them Rhubarb is good luck. But Eric's fiacee Polly seems to be allergic to cats, and the team's success may mean new hazards for Rhubarb.

Bickering husband-and-wife stage stars are manipulated into a break-up for publicity purposes.

Charlie Mason and Rusty Fleming are star reporters on a Chicago tabloid who are romantically involved as well. Although skilled in ferreting out great stories, they often behave in an unprofessional and immature manner. After their shenanigans cause their frustrated city editor to resign, the publisher promotes Charlie to the job, a decision based on the premise that only a slacker would be able crack down on other shirkers and underachievers. His pomposity soon alienates most of his co-workers and causes Rusty to move to New York. Charlie resigns and along with gangster friend Smiles Benson tries to win Rusty back before she marries a stuffy society author.

Time marches on.

War-weary Captain Willoby and his men are the occupation force on an island of lovely women...and are forbidden to fraternize.

Lem Schofield, a lawyer in a one-time small-town turned industrialized big city, runs his firm on examples set by Abraham Lincoln and is a friend to the poor. Clay Clinton, his late partner's son joins the firm but is anxious for fast success and considers Schofield's old-fashioned principles antiquated. Being in love with Schofield's daughter and impatient for success he moves to offices supplied by the city's most powerful industrialist, J.T. Tapley, who has plans to use Clay's good family lineage as a stepping stone to political power. The unscrupulous Tapley precipitates a strike in his factory mill which causes a rupture between the former partners. Schofield sets out to bring Tapley and his political henchmen to justice.

The romantic hills and valleys of advertising agency secretary Linda Lawrence (Priscilla Lane) provide the basis of this comedy drama. Unlike her soon-to-be-married roommate Nancy (Penny Singleton), Linda is determined to remain single and forge a strong career. She does have a suitor, Jimmy Hall (Wayne Morris), but he is not ambitious enough for her and she keeps her distance. The girl gets her chance to climb the corporate ladder after she invents a sure-fire cure for hangovers. Sure enough she begins her ascent. Meanwhile, her suitor continues to plead with her to leave her job and become his bride. But the secretary has fallen for ambitious adman Harry Galleon (Humphrey Bogart) who is already engaged. At this point, the stage is set for considerable romantic confusion .

George Bernard Shaw’s breezy, delightful dramatization of this classic fable—about a Christian slave who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw and is spared from death in the Colosseum as a result of his kind act—was written as a meditation on modern Christian values. Pascal’s final Shaw production is played broadly, with comic character actor Alan Young as the titular naïf. He’s ably supported by Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Robert Newton, and Elsa Lanchester.

A well-bred young English lad living in lower Manhattan tries to gain acceptance from his not-so-well-bred peers at school.

Bill Weldon is an Ad man who craves his wife Margaret's approval of his work, instead he gets constructive (and on-target) feedback, which he hates. Things get really strange when Bill creates advertising for a wacky inventor's embalming fluid.