Movie Monday: Brewster's Millions

Movie Monday: Brewsters Millions

Based on the 1902 novel by George Barr McCutcheon (pen name Richard Greaves), and the adapted 1906 stage production, the United Artists film Brewster’s Millions is a lighthearted comedy that released eighty years ago this month. The movie features Dennis O’Keefe, Helen Walker, and June Havoc, three actors you probably never heard of despite their extensive filmography.

Penniless WWII soldier, Montgomery Brewster returns home to discover that he has inherited seven million dollars from his uncle in Bolivia. However, the bequest has a caveat: he must give away one million of it before his 30th birthday which is two months away. Because a wife would be considered an asset, he has to put off his wedding to fiancee, Peggy Gray who struggles to understand the changes in him.

The task of getting rid of the money proves more difficult than anticipated as there are strict conditions about how he can spend it such as demonstrating good business sense by obtaining good value for the money he spends, limiting his donations to charity, losses to gambling, and value of tips (Wikipedia). Because he can’t tell anyone about the will, his friends don’t understand the situation and try to help mitigate his losses even though they are enjoying the fruits of his luxurious lifestyle.

He throws parties, plays roulette, and charters a months-long cruise to Europe and Egypt for his friends

and employees. As a result, he is lambasted as a spendthrift by the press. Throughout the movie, his friends and associates invest the monies, sell stocks and properties for profit, and conduct all kinds of business that increases his earnings. When Peggy breaks the engagement, he nearly folds, but the lawyer talks him into continuing with the project. It comes down to the last seconds, but he finally succeeds and is able to marry Peggy.

The movie met with mixed reviews, with some critics enjoying it’s “unadorned style,” while others found it too farcical. Memphis, Tennessee banned the film because Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson’s servant character had “too familiar a way about him,” and the movie depicted “too much social equality and racial mixture.”

In 1937, Jack Benny performed a one-hour version of the play on the Lux Radio Theater, and in the mid-1980s, the animated version of Punky Brewster produced an episode on television. The novel and play have been adapted to film thirteen times, the most recent in 2024 starring China Anne McClain, Romeo Miller, and Rain Pryor.

Have you seen this flick?

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Ivy's Inheritance

Has she fled one untrustworthy man only to be stuck with another?

Ivy Cregg’s father is a gambler, but this time he’s gone too far. He loses his mining fortune and her along with it in a high-stakes poker game. Unwilling to go along with the deal, she hides out with a friend who tells her about Ms. Crenshaw, owner of the Westward Home & Hearts Mail-Order Bride Agency who is in town. The prospective groom is a wealthy man which seems like an answer to prayer until Ivy discovers he made his fortune in mining. Is he as untrustworthy as her father?

After emigrating to America to fight for the Union during their Civil War, Slade Pendleton moved West while working on the railroad, then headed to the plains of Nebraska to seek his fortune. He was one of the lucky ones and now has everything he could ever want. Except a wife. With the few women in the town already married, he sends for a mail-order bride. The woman arrives carrying the telegram that explains her need to flee, but now that she’s safe, she seems to have no interest in going through with the ceremony. Should he send her packing or try to convince her to stay?

https://amzn.to/3Ca3xI6

Movie Monday: Here Come the Co-Eds

Movie Monday: Here Come the Co-eds

By February 1945, Americans were tired of war. Yes, from newspaper articles they knew the Allies would be victorious, but it had been a long three-plus years. Hollywood understood this and released lots of comedies in addition to their melodramas and war films. Abbott and Costello flicks were among the most popular, and they starred in more than a dozen during the war.

An interesting addition to the cast of Here Come the Co-eds is Lon Chaney, Jr., but at this time he hadn’t yet played the Wolfman or the Mummy and gotten pigeon-holed into horror films. The female lead was Martha O’Driscoll, a little-remembered actress who had a highly successful career between 1937 and 1947 when she retired after marrying her second husband. O’Driscoll got her start in print advertisements. Trained in singing and dancing, she appeared in several musicals during the early part of her career. During the war, she traveled with Errol Flynn in the USO and performed for troops across the globe.

In the film, O’Driscoll, Abbott, and Costello are taxi dancers, paid dancers in a ballroom who are paid

on a dance-by-dance basis. Imdb describes the plot as “two bumblers become caretakers at an all-girls’ college. During their misadventures, the duo raise money to free the school from its traditionally minded landlord.”

At one point, Costello’s character dresses in drag to join the Bixby girls’ basketball team. A fun fact is that as a high schooler, he was a gifted athlete who excelled in basketball, and according to several sources was twice the high school’s free-throw champion. He performed all the trick shots in the film.

Two comedy “routines” appear in the film. The first is the “Oyster Stew” routine where Costello attempts to eat a bowl of soup that contains an oyster that spits at him each time he tries to take a sip. This routine appears later with a frog in the Abbott and Costello movie The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap. The second routine is “Jonah and the Whale” where Costello attempts to tell a joke he claims he wrote himself, but Abbott spills the punchline. (Wikipedia)

The pair would go on to make another twenty movies between the end of the war and 1956 before splitting in 1957.

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A Love Not Forgotten

He can’t remember. She can never forget.

Allison White should be thrilled about her upcoming wedding. The problem? She's still in love with her fiance, Chaz, who was declared dead after being shot down over Germany in 1944. Can she put the past behind her and settle down to married life with the kindhearted man who loves her?

It's been nearly two years since Charles "Chaz" Powell was shot down over enemy territory. The war is officially over, but not for him. He has amnesia as a result of injuries sustained in the crash, and the only clue to his identity is a love letter with no return address. Will he ever regain his memories and discover who he is, or will he have to forge a new life with no connections to the past?

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/m2V7Mk

Talkshow Thursday: Meet Janetta Fudge Messmer

Talkshow Thursday: Meet Janetta Fudge Messmer

Linda: Welcome and thanks for joining me today. Congratulations on your recent release, It’s a Mystery...Birds. Can you tell us a bit about the book and your inspiration for your plot? 

Janetta: It’s a Mystery…Birds is Book #5 in the Early Birds series. As I’ve said to my readers, my characters are not done talking to me yet. My hubby and I brainstorm ideas for my books, and when I came up with this idea of someone tagging along in Betsy or Rose’s RV, and I wanted to make it a mystery, he wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t blame him. It was my first time doing one, but what fun I had writing it. 

LM: You’ve written in a variety of genres. How do you decide which book/genre to write next? 

Janetta: I have to say it’s back to brainstorming. An idea pops into my head and I go with it. One I have in the back of my mind could be either a historical or contemporary. I’m just not sure I want to tackle another historical. 

LM: Research is an important part of writing. What sort of research did you do for It’s a Mystery...Birds, and is there a particularly intriguing tidbit you stumbled on you knew you had to include? 

Janetta: I don’t want to say I didn’t do research for this one, but the readers here today may not know

that my husband and I are full-time RVers. Since It’s a Mystery…Birds is about a famous author tagging along with my main characters, I thought it’d be fun to imagine someone coming along on our travels. What would I have to change in my lifestyle to bring along someone? What if they’d never camped before? How would we deal with having a stranger with us 24/7 in a teeny tiny space? Meals? Quiet time? Entertaining them? 

LM: What sort of routine do you have for your writing? (e.g. do you write at a certain time during the day, set up somewhere specific, etc.) 

Janetta: Since I don’t have a designated place to write, I’ve learned I work best in the morning hours, or when my husband is off doing something. Another reason I write in the morning; we like to go sightseeing in our travels. Getting my writing done early leaves the rest of the day free. 

Linda: What is your favorite part of the writing process? 

Janetta: Since I write Comedy, I look for comical scenes for my characters. The crazier the better. Those are the most fun to write. I enjoy when my readers tell me that my words made them laugh. Side Note: I also crack myself up at time. I tried being serious in my writing, but it didn’t work for me. I also enjoy editing. I’m an editor at heart. Back to writing, I’ve written long enough now that I can cut a scene if I don’t think it works. Years ago (i.e. first book – Early Birds), I thought every word was a precious gem. HA!!! 

LM: If money were no object, where is your idea of the ultimate vacation? 

Janetta: Taking around-the-world cruise 

LM: What is your advice for fledgling writers? 

Janetta: DO NOT GIVE UP. Take some time to pray about whatever they’re working on. Listen. The answer will come. 

LM: What is your next project? 

Janetta: Right now I’m editing a memoir. Next writing project is another Contemporary Romance. No title yet. 

 

LM: Where can folks find you on the web? 

Janetta: Janetta Fudge Messmer, Author of Christian Comedies (with a touch of Romance). 

 

Books are available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01DWHA1EW 

E-mail: janettafudgemessmer@gmail.com

Website: http://janettafudgemessmer.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janetta.fudge.messmer 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nettiefudge

About It's a Mystery...Birds 

When Betsy Stevenson signed up for the writer’s conference, she thought she’d see her Houston friends and learn more about the craft of writing. However, rain, canceled flights, and a chance meeting with Dillon McCloud (a mystery writer and keynote speaker) turns her life into a back-to-back adventure. 

 

And the mayhem has to include Rose Wilford, Betsy’s bestest friend in all the world. Especially since she ‘happens’ to show up at the writer’s conference, and she isn’t a writer. While she’s there – Rosie invites Dillon to join them on a girl’s trip in her RV. The famous writer accepts.
 

Monday morning, they’re on the road. And they are no more than fifty-five miles when suspense and intrigue come knocking at the RV door. Not to mention seeing lingerie where you’d never expect to find undergarments. 

 

It’s a mystery, for sure. 

 

Follow the Early Birds, plus one, on a journey where snooping around leads them to more than clues. It may even include a little matchmaking amid criminal activity. Is there actually a crime, or is it all a marketing ploy for the mystery author to sell her latest novel?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/2WzMslH