The best Preston Foster’s comedy movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Preston Foster’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Preston Foster.
Doctor X
6.4/10
A wisecracking New York reporter intrudes on a research scientist's quest to unmask The Moon Killer.
The Harvey Girls
7/10
On a train trip West to become a mail-order bride, Susan Bradley meets a cheery crew of young women traveling out to open a "Harvey House" restaurant at a remote whistle-stop.
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood
6.3/10
When two bumbling barbers act as agents for a talented but unknown singer, they stage a phony murder in order to get him a plum role.
Army Girl
5.7/10
A young captain hoping to replace the U.S. Army's horses with mechanized vehicles faces court-martial after his commanding officer, who's opposed to modern changes, is killed.
Sleepers East
No good deed goes unpunished for Lena Karelson (Wynne Gibson), hooker with a heart of gold trying to go straight in the big city. Covering a bachelor party for a friend in need, Lena winds up at a gambling house where she is the sole witness when Mayor Wentworth's drunken lout of a son shoots the owner. Wentworth's political machine wants Lena to falsely incriminate mob boss Callahan to bolster their re-election campaign. Callahan's mouthpiece nabs Lena first, conveying her stealthily by train from Toledo to New York to prevent her from testifying against the big boss. A midnight special smash-up, a tense courtroom finale and true love triumphant round out this typical Fox pre-Code programmer, released just before the Legion of Decency dropped the hammer in 1934.
Love Before Breakfast
6.2/10
Scott is a very rich businessman who hangs out with a snooty, silly Countess, but has the hots for Kay who is already engaged to Bill. Scott pursues Kay like crazy, going so far as to buy Bill's oil company so that he can banish him to Japan, leaving Kay unmoored.
Twice Blessed
6/10
Stephanie and Terry are identical twins who have been raised separately since their parents divorced seven years earlier. Each envies the lifestyle of the other; and they decide, without telling Jeff or Mary, to switch families for a day or two. They soon find that it is harder to do what the other person is expected to do, and that looking alike is not enough. When they find that their charade may bring their parents back together, they agree to continue it. A major complication begins when Alice, Jeff's girlfriend and co-worker, finds out the real story.
You Said a Mouthful
6.1/10
Two men bear the name Joe Holt. One is a shipping clerk, the other a champion Canadian swimmer. When a socialite gets them confused, thinking the clerk is the inventor of an unsinkable swim suit, she enters him in a 20 mile swim race.
Elmer, the Great
6.1/10
Elmer does not want to leave Gentryville, because Nellie is the one that he loves. Even when Mr. Wade of the Chicago Cubs comes to get him, it is only because Nellie spurns him that he goes. As always, Elmer is the king of batters and he wins game after game. When Nellie comes to see Elmer in Chicago, she sees him kissing Evelyn and she wants nothing to do with him anymore. So Healy takes him to a gambling club, where Elmer does not know that the chips are money. He finds that he owes the gamblers $5000 and they make him sign a note for it. Sad at losing Nellie, mad at his teammates and in debt to the gamblers, Elmer disappears as the Cubs are in the deciding game for the Series.
First Lady
6.2/10
A politician's wife plots for her husband to become the next U.S. President.
Unfinished Business
6.4/10
With Irene Dunne, Robert Montgomery, Preston Foster, and Eugene Pallette. This sublime film exemplifies La Cava’s gift for creating comedies that contain a profound depth of feeling. Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman sharing their train compartment – the film charts the relationship that develops between Irene Dunne, a small-town girl in the big city, and Robert Montgomery, the brother of the man who has heartlessly seduced and abandoned her. Their love affair is all the more affecting for taking place against a backdrop of heartbreak and alcoholism, all conveyed under the guise of comedy. UNFINISHED BUSINESS is truly one of the most remarkable Hollywood films of the 1940s.
Society Smugglers
6/10
The Treasury Department plants a female agent in the office of a luggage company that is suspected of smuggling diamonds.
Heads Up
5.6/10
Jack Mason of the Coast Guard Academy meets Mary at the graduation ball and falls in love with her, though the girl's mother finds wealthy Rex Cutting a more proper choice for her daughter. On a yachting cruise arranged by Mrs. Trumbull, Jack is not invited. Meanwhile, Mary suspects Rex of picking up contraband beyond the 12-mile limit and refuses his proposal of marriage, while Betty, her impish sister, drives Skippy to distraction in the galley, where he has installed an automatic kitchen that does most of his work. Jack smuggles himself aboard but is forcibly ejected at port by a coast guard, and Mrs. Trumbull discourages his attempt to elope with Mary; but on a subsequent cruise, he hides himself in a lifeboat with two aides. When the captain stops to take on a cargo of rum, Jack and his aides take over the vessel, and a battle ensues. The yacht is wrecked on an island, and Jack proves his heroism, while Rex reveals his true colors and is identified as a fugitive bootlegger.
News Is Made at Night
6.3/10
Newspaper editor (Foster) will do almost anything to increase circulation. He campaigns to free a condemned man while accusing a wealthy ex-criminal of a string of murders.
Double Danger
5.7/10
A crime novelist devises a scheme to catch the thief who has stolen the valuable "Konjer Diamonds". Director Lew Landers' 1938 B-film stars Preston Foster, Whitney Bourne, Cecil Kellaway, Donald Meek, Samuel S. Hinds, Arthur Lake, Paul Guilfoyle and June Johnson.
Follow the Leader
5.5/10
Ed Wynn, a waiter, tries to get hit employers daughter a start on the stage; Ginger Rogers replaces Ethel Merman when Merman is kidnapped.
Nothing But the Truth
6.3/10
A young man bets $10,000 that for 24 hour he can tell nothing but the truth.
You Can't Beat Love
5.8/10
The film begins with a knuckle-head playboy (Preston Foster) working on a road crew dressed in a tux in order to win a bet. Apparently, this guy will take on any bet or act on a whim. This becomes very apparent when he disrupts a food giveaway hosted by the mayor's daughter and as a result of this, he announces he's running for mayor--though he seems very much apolitical and has no interest in the job. Later, when he once again meets up with the mayor's daughter (Joan Fontaine) they supposedly fall in love--although there seemed to be little chemistry between them and it made very little sense for Fontaine to suddenly love a guy she so quickly hated at the beginning of the film. Plus, she really had plenty of reason to dislike the guy.
Everybody's Doing It
4.9/10
Gangsters are attempting to control the solutions (and winning) of the puzzles in a national newspapers picture puzzles contest craze.
Up the River
6/10
A group of prison inmates pass the time playing football and romancing ladies in this prison escape crime musical screwball comedy that was apparently a wacky spoof of the crime movies that were so popular in the 1930s. It seems to be completely forgotten today, except by major film buffs.
