The best Stuart Erwin’s comedy movies

Beleaguered professor Ned Brainard has already run into a pile of misfortunes with his discovery of the super-elastic substance "Flubber." Now he hopes to have better luck with a gravity-busting derivative he's dubbed "Flubbergas." Ned's experiments, constantly hampered by government obstruction, earn the consternation of his wife, Betsy. But a game-winning modification to a football uniform may help Ned make the case for his fantastic new invention.

Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.

This 1930 film, a collection of songs and sketches showcasing Paramount Studios' contract stars, credits 11 directors (including Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Schertzinger and Edmund Goulding). The cast features Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Jean Arthur, William Powell, Maurice Chevalier, Kay Francis, Buddy Rogers, Jack Oakie, Stuart Erwin and Nancy Carroll.

Bessie and Winston "Slug" Winters are married coaches whose mission is to whip their college football team into shape. Just in time, they discover a hillbilly farmhand and his sister. But the hillbilly farmhand's ability to throw melons enables him to become their star passing ace.

Famous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)

Assorted wacky characters converge on a Chinese hotel to bid on a new invention ... television.

Joe Collins (Eddie Quillan) arrives at Hanford College to begin his second year with $200 to pay his tuition, is enticed into a craps game, and loses all in this nostalgic slice of college, replete with songs, romance, prom dances and the inevitable big football game.

A grocery clerk, longing to become a cowboy actor, goes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his acting ability is non-existent.

Two sisters from Indiana, the wide-eyed and innocent Mae Thorpe, and her sister June, more streetwise, move into the Rolf House for Homeless Girls in New York. With June's help, Mae obtains a job as a stenographer for scientist Joseph von Schraeder, while June gets work as a telegraph operator at Western Union.

At the Club Habana, Henry Cabot, a bumbling busboy, is infatuated with the club's dancer, Conchita Montez. As Tiger Martin, the leader of a gang of thieves, gives Conchita a diamond bracelet, he is arrested. After Tiger is deported, Duke Selton, of Tiger's gang, pays a visit to Conchita and tells her he believes that Blackie Bennet, the leader of a rival gang, is responsible for tipping off the police about Tiger's citizenship.

A financially-strapped charter pilot hires himself to an oil tycoon to kidnap his madcap daughter and prevent her from marrying a vapid band leader.

Three sisters take their small inheritance and move from Kansas to California in search of rich husbands. To start with Pamela poses as a socialite and Moira and Elizabeth pretend to be her staff.

The marriage of an advertising man is jeopardized when he gets a chance to sell a novel he's been working on and quits his job to concentrate on writing. In order to support the family, the wife is forced to take a job as a dancer in a Broadway show. As the marriage begins to fall apart, complications ensue when she discovers that she's pregnant.

Theater usherette Bunny O'Day (Clara Bow) inadvertently becomes hostess of a private gambling den, and gets involved in a romance with a ne'er-do-well gambler.

Johnny Rutledge is a drifter who comes to and discovers a cabin in the forest where five kids: January, February, March, April, and May are living without parents. Their parents died a while ago, and they want to keep that secret from the townspeople, especially the young school teacher, Prudence Millett, to avoid being sent to a children's home and eventual separation. Johnny moves in with the kids and poses as their uncle to take care of them while romancing Prudence. But in order to keep the children, he has to get married.

Merlin Jones, a precocious and intelligent high-school boy, experiments with hypnosis and creates a mind-reading machine. However, his experiments land him in deep trouble with the law.

Also released as Montana Mike, Heaven Only Knows is an offbeat western with fantasy overtones. Hard-bitten gambling boss Brian Donlevy rules his frontier community with brawn and bullets. To his dismay, Donlevy discovers that he has a guardian angel (Robert Cummings), who shows up in the guise of an Eastern tenderfoot. The angel has been sent from Above to save Donlevy's soul, and to that end encourages the one-time villain to squire a minister's daughter (Jorja Curtwright) rather than his usual dance-hall girls. Donlevy is also given tips on winning against his enemies without resorting to gunplay. The gambler finally redeems himself with Heaven by rescuing the angel from a lynch mob (how can you lynch an angel?) Heaven Only Knows deserves an "E" for Effort for bringing a fresh twist to the venerable western genre.

Joe Palooka is a naive young man whose father Pete was a champion boxer, but his lifestyle caused Joe's mother Mayme to leave him and to take young Joe to the country to raise him.

A dull statistician changes his life after winning a pile of money after successfully determining the number of beans in a barrel. He decides to do something novel with the prize and ends up buying a barrel factory. He encounters trouble when the nearby pickle factory is threatened by a shyster attempting to close it.