Jean Yarbrough

Abbott and Costello's musical comedy version of the classic fairy tale, directed by Jean Yarbrough. Costello plays Jack, a hapless boy who trades the family cow for magic beans, while Abbott plays Mr. Dinkelpuss, the shady butcher who swindles him. When the beans grow into a giant beanstalk, Jack and Dinkelpuss climb to the cloud kingdom, where they encounter a fearsome giant and a treasure beyond their dreams. The film was originally released in a two-color Cinecolor process and features songs by the Mellomen. It was the first Abbott and Costello film to be independently produced rather than made under their Universal contract. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Family · Fantasy · Musical

A pilot and his passengers crash-land on a Caribbean island while searching for a missing admiral and find a mansion occupied by a sinister doctor and his household, where voodoo is practiced and zombies roam. Mantan Moreland plays the pilot's valet, Jeff, and his reactions carry most of the film's comedy; he was a gifted comedian whose wide-eyed double takes were a staple of 1940s B-pictures, though the roles he was given were limited by the era's racism. The film was Monogram's answer to Paramount's Bob Hope hit The Ghost Breakers, and it earned an Academy Award nomination for its musical score, a rare distinction for a poverty-row horror comedy. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Comedy · Horror

ZaSu Pitts gets a rare leading role as Emma Bates, a fluttery small-town spinster who comes to the big city to see a prizefight and is promptly mistaken for a notorious gun moll. The mix-up pulls her into the boxing racket, a kidnapping, and a couple of gangland murders, and Emma turns out to be considerably sharper than the mobsters around her. Jean Yarbrough directs for Monogram, with Roger Pryor as a fast-talking reporter and Warren Hymer doing his patented dumb-mug routine. A lightweight but likeable entry in the era's run of little-old-lady comedies. The film entered the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime

Bela Lugosi plays a small-town chemist who breeds a giant bat and trains it to attack anyone wearing a cologne he invented. He uses it to take revenge on the family he believes cheated him, handing out the cologne as a free sample and then sending the bat after each victim. A reporter and his photographer, played by the comic team of Dave O'Brien and Donald Kerr, arrive to investigate the strange deaths. It was the first horror film from Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the poverty-row studios, and Lugosi gives it more gravity than the budget deserves. The film was a surprise hit and PRC made a fortune on it. It entered the public domain and has circulated in countless cut and restored versions ever since.

Horror · Comedy