
Willie Best
Oyuncu · 1913 – 1962 · Sunflower, Mississippi, USA
William “Willie” Best (May 27, 1916 - February 27, 1962), sometimes known as “Sleep n' Eat,” was an American television and film actor. Best was one of the first African-American film actors and comedians to become well known. In the 21st century, his work, like that of Stepin Fetchit, is sometimes reviled because he was often called upon to play stereotypically lazy, illiterate, and/or simple-minded characters in films. Of the 124 films he appeared in, he received screen credit in at least 77, an unusual feat for an African-American bit player. Willie Best appeared in more than one hundred films of the 1930s and 1940s. Although several sources state that for years he was billed only as “Sleep n' Eat,” Best received credit under this moniker instead of his real name in only six movies: his first film as a bit player (Harold Lloyd's Feet First) and in Up Pops the Devil (1931), The Monster Walks (1932), Kentucky Kernels and West of the Pecos (both 1934), and Murder on a Honeymoon (1935). Best was first loved as a great clown, then later in the 20th century reviled and pitied, before being forgotten in the history of film. Hal Roach called him one of the greatest talents he had ever met. Comedian Bob Hope similarly acclaimed him as “the best actor I know,” while the two were working together in 1940 on The Ghost Breakers. As a supporting actor, Best, like many black actors of his era, was regularly cast in domestic worker or service-oriented roles (though a few times he played the role echoing his previous occupation as a private chauffeur). He was often seen making a brief comic turn as a hotel, airline or train porter, as well as an elevator operator, custodian, butler, valet, waiter, deliveryman, and at least once as a launch pilot (in the 1939 movie Mr. Moto in Danger Island). Willie Best received screen credit most of the time, which was unusual for “bit players,” most in the 1930s and '40s were not accorded due credit. This also happened to white actors in small roles, but black actors were not credited even when their roles were larger. In more than 80 of his movies, he was given a proper character name (as opposed to simple descriptions such as “room service waiter” or “shoe-shine boy”), beginning with his second film. Best played “Chattanooga Brown” in two Charlie Chan films —The Red Dragon in 1945 and Dangerous Money in 1946. He also played the character of “Hipp” in three of RKO’s six Scattergood Baines films with Guy Kibbee: Scattergood Baines (1941), Scattergood Survives a Murder (1942), and Cinderella Swings It in 1943. (Actor Paul White, who played a young version of Best’s “Hipp” in the first film, went on to play “Hipp” in the next three films. Best returned to the role in the last two.) After a drug arrest ended his film career, he worked in television for a while and became known to early TV audiences as “Charlie the Elevator Operator” on CBS's My Little Margie, from 1953 to 1955. He also played Willie, the house servant, handyman and close friend of the title character of ABC’s The Trouble with Father, for its entire run from 1950 to 1955.
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Film6.2KomediSuçStan and Ollie get involved with con men, crooks, a genial magician, and two interchangeable coffins with disastrous but funny results.
A-Haunting We Will Go
1942 · 42 votes
Film7.1SuçDramGangster Roy Earle, uzun bir hapishane döneminden sonra şartlı salıverilir. Yine de, Earle’nin suçlu yaşamını bırakmaya hiç niyeti yoktur. Aslında bu şartlı salıverilme, yeni ve büyük bir soygun planlayan eski bir arkadaş tarafından düzenlenmiştir.
Film7.0KomediRomantikCollege town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.
Vivacious Lady
1938 · 74 votes
Film6.3BelgeselTarihPeriod music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
1975 · 9 votes
Film6.4KomediMüzikJeff Wilson, the owner of a small circus, owes his partner Carter $10,000. Before Jeff can pay, Carter's accomplices steal the money so he can take over the circus. Antonio Pirelli and Punchy, who work at the circus, together with lawyer Loophole try to find the thief and get the money back.
At the Circus
1939 · 101 votes
Film7.3KomediA stockbroker bets his new partners $10,000 that he can tell the truth, and only the truth, for twenty-four hours.
Nothing but the Truth
1941 · 16 votes
Film5.3BelgeselDiscover how television has reflected the African American experience in this retrospective of the medium's first half-century. Actors, writers and historians discuss the image of black America on television from Amos and Andy to the present day. The interviews accompany clips from groundbreaking shows and performances by entertainment pioneers that create a timeline of the portrayal of African Americans throughout TV history.
TV in Black: The First Fifty Years
2004 · 3 votes
Film6.2KomediMüzikAn Eddie Cantor look-alike organizes an all-star show to help the war effort.
Thank Your Lucky Stars
1943 · 39 votes
Film6.5KomediKorkuAfter intrepid working girl Mary Carter becomes the new owner of a reputedly haunted mansion located off the Cuban coast, a stranger phones warning her to stay away from the castle. Undaunted, Mary sets sail for Cuba with a stowaway in her trunk—wise-cracking Larry Lawrence, a radio announcer who helps Mary get to the bottom of the voodoo magic, zombies and ghosts that supposedly curse the spooky estate.
The Ghost Breakers
1940 · 84 votes
Film7.0DramSuçJohn Thompson is kidnapped by mobsters after quitting his job. Then he is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for murders they committed. A suspicious detective thinks he is innocent and works to save his life.
We Who Are About to Die
1937 · 5 votes
Film7.0DramRomantikColonel Ferris, a wealthy farmer in northern California, is strongly opposed to hydraulic mining, a new method developed during the gold rush of the 1870's, which is flooding the area's prosperous farmlands. Despite Ferris' political stance, Jared Whitney, a mining engineer from the East, becomes friends with the colonel's son Lance and falls in love with his daughter Serena. Family tensions deepen when the colonel's brother Ralph gives up farming to go to San Francisco to work for his wife Rosanna's father, Harrison McCooey, a leader in the mining venture. When Lance follows Ralph, the colonel, focusing his anger on Jared, forbids him to see Serena.
Gold Is Where You Find It
1938 · 10 votes
Film5.8GizemSuçSuave private detective Simon "The Saint" Templar arrives in San Francisco and meets Val, a woman whose police inspector father killed himself after being accused of corruption and dismissed from the force. Convinced of the man's innocence, Templar takes it upon himself to vindicate the memory of Val's father. To do so he must take on the city's most dangerous criminal gang, while also battling hostile members of the police department.
The Saint Strikes Back
1939 · 21 votes
Film6.5MüzikFantastikWhen compulsive gambler Little Joe Jackson dies in a drunken fight, he awakens in purgatory, where he learns that he will be sent back to Earth for six months to prove that he deserves to be in heaven. He awakens, remembering nothing and struggles to do right by his devout wife, Petunia, while an angel known as the General and the devil's son, Lucifer Jr., fight for his soul.
Cabin in the Sky
1943 · 51 votes
Film6.1KomediRomantikA bookish husband tries to win back the affections of his horse-breeding wife.
The Bride Wore Boots
1946 · 9 votes
Film6.5GizemKomediAn amateur sleuth suspects foul play when a fellow passenger on a seaplane suddenly dies. The third and final film with Edna May Oliver and James Gleason as the astute schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and the New York Police Inspector Oscar Piper busy solving crimes.
Murder on a Honeymoon
1935 · 13 votes
Film5.8DramRomantikOn return from Europe Dr. Decker foils glamour girl Georgi from jumping overboard. At Decker's suggestion to keep busy, she assists at his clinic in the slums.
I Take This Woman
1940 · 10 votes
Film6.2KomediOgden Spencer Trulow III is a wealthy kleptomaniac who turned to stealing when he was spurned by a girl. His psychoanalyst advises him to find another girl for a cure. He fastens his interest upon Sally Martin, who happens to be engaged in helping some crooks steal a valuable necklace.
Hold That Blonde!
1945 · 12 votes
Film7.0KomediAileBlondie and Dagwood are about to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary but this happy occasion is marred when the bumbling Dagwood gets himself involved in a scheme that is promising financial ruin for the Bumstead family.
Blondie
1938 · 11 votes
Film6.2KomediGizemWhen a close friend of the Drew family is accused of murder in a rural community, Nancy, aided by boyfriend Ted, helps her lawyer father expose the real killers.
Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter
1939 · 12 votes
Film6.7SuçGizemIn Puerto Rico to investigate a glut of contraband diamonds that are flooding the world's jewel market, Mr. Moto and his sidekick, a wrestler, find themselves involved in murders by thrown daggers, the frame-up of an overstressed Army colonel, and a pirate gang led by an unknown boss who has inside knowledge of the ensuing investigation.
Mr. Moto in Danger Island
1939 · 23 votes
Film6.1GerilimGizemA group of people are invited to a party at a creepy mansion where legend has it a ghost appears once a year.
The Girl Who Dared
1944 · 6 votes
Film6.4KomediDramShirley Temple'ın babası isyancı bir askerdir. Ailesini görmek için yıkık dökük çiftliğine gizlice geri döner ve yakalanır. Bir Yankee, Shirley'in babasına acır ve bir kaçış ayarlar. Fakat herkes yakalanır. Askerler idama mahkûm edilirler. Shirley ve “Bojangles” Robinson, Başkan Lincoln'e araya girmesi için yalvarırlar.
The Littlest Rebel
1935 · 35 votes
Film6.5KomediAileBig Steve Halloway, gambler and proprietor of New York's Horseshoe Cabaret, is in desperate need of money. He arranges for his fellow bookies, especially Sorrowful Jones, to each pay him $1,000 for his racehorse, Dream Prince, to lose. With all bets being placed at the window, Sorrowful encounters a gambler, having lost $500, wanting to place his bet but unable to come up with $20. Instead, he places his little girl, Marthy Jane, as security, or in bookie's terms a "marker". "Marky", as she comes to be known, winds up under the care of Sorrowful Jones and his lady friend, singer Bangles Carson.
Little Miss Marker
1934 · 26 votes
Film5.4KomediGizemWhen the body of Violet Feverel is discovered on the Central Park bridle path, Inspector Oscar Piper presumes her death was accidental, until his friend, amateur detective Hildegarde Withers, locates Violet’s horse and discovers it is streaked with blood.
Murder on a Bridle Path
1936 · 11 votes
Diziler4
Dizi6.5DramAksiyon ve MaceraRacket Squad is an American TV crime drama series starring Reed Hadley as Captain John Braddock, a fictional detective working for the San Francisco, California Police Department. The show aired in syndication for a season before being picked up by CBS for three seasons. The series was filmed at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, and was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, hence there was a pack of the sponsor's brand on Braddock's desk at the beginning and end of the episode, as well as occasional scenes of him or other characters "lighting up".
Racket Squad
1951 · 4 votes
Dizi5.0KomediMy Little Margie is an American situation comedy starring Gale Storm and Charles Farrell that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955.
My Little Margie
1952 · 2 votes
Dizi7.7KomediThe Stu Erwin Show
1950 · 3 votes
Dizi7.5Aksiyon ve MaceraDramWaterfront is an 1954-1955 American series following the adventures of tugboat captain John Herrick, played by Preston Foster.
Waterfront
1954 · 2 votes