The best Jack La Rue’s comedy movies

In prohibition-era Chicago, the corrupt sheriff and Guy Gisborne, a south-side racketeer, knock off the boss Big Jim. Everyone falls in line behind Guy except Robbo, who controls the north side. Although he's out-gunned, Robbo wants to keep his own territory. A pool-playing dude from Indiana and the director of a boys' orphanage join forces with Robbo; and, when he gives some money to the orphanage, he becomes the toast of the town as a hood like Robin Hood. Meanwhile, Guy schemes to get rid of Robbo, and Big Jim's heretofore unknown daughter Marian appears and goes from man to man trying to find an ally in her quest to run the whole show. Can Robbo hold things together?

A producer puts on what may be his last Broadway show, and at the last moment a chorus girl has to replace the star.

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 father's map, Sal Van Hoyden falls in with Ace Larson, who secretly wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke, Chester, the thugs, Ace and his henchman chase each other all over the countryside—for the map.

Jonathan Pride is a mild-mannered dance instructor in 1820 Boston. En route to visit relatives, Jonathan is shanghaied by a band of zany pirates and forced to work as a galley boy. When the pirate vessel arrives at the port of Las Palomas, Jonathan, clad in buccaneer's garb, makes his escape. Everyone in Las Palomas, including Governor Alcalde (Frank Morgan) and fetching senorita Serafina (Steffi Duna), assumes that Jonathan is the pirate chieftain, leading to a series of typical comic-opera complications.

Baby photographer Ronnie Jackson, on death row in San Quentin, tells reporters how he got there: taking care of his private-eye neighbor's office, Ronnie is asked by the irresistible Baroness Montay to find the missing Baron. There follow confusing but sinister doings in a gloomy mansion and a private sanatorium, with every plot twist a parody of thriller cliches.

A pair of bus drivers accidentally steal their own bus. With the company issuing a warrant for their arrest, they tag along with a playboy on a boat trip that finds them on a tropical island, where a jewel thief has sinister plans for them.

A wealthy young man tries to woo a university student, while her two uncles work to popularize a local club.

Hilarity ensues when a casino manager spends a day at Disneyland with a cute but troublesome little girl.

Charlie impersonates an employee of the U.S. government to foil an espionage plot which would destroy part of the Panama Canal, trapping a Navy fleet on its way to the Pacific after maneuvers in the Atlantic.

"Spy in the Green Hat, The (1966)" on the other hand, is both exciting AND funny. Especially the scene where Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) hides from THRUSH agents under a young woman's (the incredibly cute Letícia Román) bed and is caught by the woman's grandmother (Penny Santon), who is forcing Solo to marry the young woman. He successfully escapes, but is hunted by a legion of stereotyped Italian gangsters. Now that's comedy.

A would-be filmmaker and actress shake up the industry with a trick dog who gets discovered by a studio bus driver in the 1920s.

After a night of wild partying at a friend's house, a couple wake up to discover the party's host has been murdered in his bed.

Americans come west to California in the hope of peaceful settlement. Roy and Gabby sing a duet: "We're Not Coming Out Tonight." Other songs include "Sundown on the Rangeland" and "Ride on Vaquero."

The Daring Young Man is hotshot-reporter Don McLane, played by James Dunn. Always on the prowl for a good story, McLane is persistently outscooped by his rival, sob sister Martha Allen (Mae Clarke). After several reels of double-crossing one another, hero and heroine give in to the inevitable and fall in love. But as Martha waits at the altar in her wedding gown, McLane is off on another crusade, this time getting himself arrested to expose corruption within the prison system.

Young undefeated boxer Terry Dolan, who's been lying to his invalid mother about his career, confides to Maisie that he hates and is terrified by boxing and wants out. Not wanting to let down his best friend and manager Skeets Maguire, who has hopes of him becoming the next champion, he is reluctant to bring up the subject with him. Maisie convinces Terry to tell Skeets, whose unexpected reaction induces him to step into the ring again.

A high-society gent has a secret life - he writes murder mysteries and hangs out with the police attempting to solve crimes. This causes him no end of problems when his wife wants to know about his little disappearances and exceptionally late nights out.

A con man and his partner inherit a dead gangster's precocious daughter.

A New York gossip columnist feuds with a singer and enjoys the power of the press.

Nature reporter Orville Shanks retreats to the woods for material for his "Our Wild Friends" column and to volunteer for his favorite cause, the Boy Scouts. When Orville's editor, Crane, orders him to spice up his column, Orville's wife Melba writes a gossip column using animals as metaphors for people. Crane loves Melba's article and gives Orville a raise, and the column becomes a hit.