Swing Your Lady with Humphrey Bogart.  Humphrey Bogart plays a wrestling manager/promoter touring the country with Joe 'Hercules' Skopapolous, setting up local matches to build up a reputation for Joe.  He finds himself in the Ozarks unable to find a suitable local challenger and ends up scheduling a match with a lady blacksmith.

This movie has all the nice little tidbits of Zeitgeist that I look for in the MCMXXXVIII movies.  This was a movie version of a popular Broadway play of the same name and apparently played on the popularity of 'hillbilly' humor at the time.  It stars a group known as "The Weaver Brothers and Elviry" who were a popular vaudeville hillbilly act and who starred in a whole series of movies for Republic Pictures after this film.  Joe Skopapolus was played by actor Nat Pendleton who was a former Olympic and pro wrestler.  One of his opponents in this movie was played by Daniel Boone 'Whiskers' Savage, a real professional wrestler who was in no other movies.  The big wrestling match in this movie was scheduled for Decoration Day, which we would call Memorial Day.

Familiar faces: Allen Jenkins and Penny Singleton (who sings and dances).  Also a small appearance by Ronald Reagan.

Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan

Racket Busters with Humphrey Bogart and George Brent.  Political cronies of known racketeer John Martin (Humphrey Bogart) sweep the city elections, so the Governor appoints Special Prosecutor Hugh Allison (Walter Abel) to combat the expected increase in racketeering.  Martin begins his multi-step plan to take control of New York's food distribution industry by strong-arming the truckmen into joining his new "Manhattan Trucking Association".  Meanwhile Special Prosecutor Allison (based on Thomas E. Dewey) cannot make any progress fighting these racketeers because no one will speak out against them.  George Brent plays Denny Jordan, a truckman who is first respected by his peers for defying the racketeers and then shunned by them when he joins the new association in order to protect his wife.

I need to mention Allen Jenkins who plays 'Skeets' Wilson, Jordan's best friend.  I should have been listing him in my "familiar faces" section but I was afraid that he was only familiar to me because he has been in so many MCMXXXVIII movies.  He usually plays a run-of-the-mill mug, but this time he actually ends up as the hero, displaying more honor than George Brent's character.  Gladys, Skeets's fiancée in this film, is played by Penny Singleton.

Black shirt and white tie means "gangster".

Penny Singleton and Allen Jenkins

Men Are Such Fools with Priscilla Lane.  Ambitious ad woman Linda Lawrence (Priscilla Lane) rises from secretary to copy writer to account executive in her advertising firm, all the while fending off advances from her male coworkers.  One suitor from another ad agency, Jimmy Hall (Wayne Morris) is so persistent that she falls in love and agrees to marry him.  She insists on continuing work after marriage, at least until her current ad campaign is finished, but the amorous advances of coworker Harry Galleon (Humphrey Bogart) provokes such jealousy from her husband that she quits.  Her business ambition is not so easily thwarted and she tries to satisfy it vicariously through Jimmy's career.  Jimmy doesn't share her drive and it seems as if their marriage cannot survive the friction.

I know it doesn't sound like it but this was a very light-hearted movie.  It just made me uncomfortable.  It was like watching the AMC series "Mad Men" only without the sinister undercurrent surrounding the politically incorrect behavior.  Here is what I saw: 1) Office romance was an inextricable part of office life - it wasn't even something that anyone objected to.  2) Women did not work after they got married.  3) When pursuing a girl, "no" didn't mean "no".  There was also a casual disregard for marital fidelity (and a not entirely casual disregard for marriage at all from Humphrey Bogart).

Familiar faces: Penny Singleton as Linda's best friend.

Jimmy convinces Linda to accept his marriage proposal by parking on the train tracks.

Jimmy convinces Linda to set a wedding date by holding her under water.

What does the phrase "the Frenzied Fifties" mean in the context of 1938?  Is it referring to 50th through 59th Street?

Crime School with Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, and the Dead End Kids.  Neighborhood delinquents Frankie, Squirt, Spike, et al (The Dead End Kids) almost kill their pawnshop 'fence' in a disagreement over the payment for stolen goods.  They are caught and sent to a corrupt reform school with a reputation for graduating hardened criminals.  Luckily for them there is new Deputy Commissioner, Mark Braden (Humphrey Bogart).  Braden sweeps into the reform school the day after the Kids arrive and cleans house of the crooked superintendent and most of the bad guards.  He takes over operations and slowly wins the respect of the Kids (and starts to date Frankie's pretty sister, Sue (Gale Page)).  Unfortunately the corrupt head guard has managed to survive the house cleaning and works to undermine Braden and ruin the Kids' chances of parole.

This is the second of five 1938 Bogart movies that TCM showed as part of a Bogie weekend. Busy fellow.

Gale Page and Humphrey Bogart

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart.  Edward G. Robinson plays Dr. T. S. Clitterhouse, a physician who has a theory that a criminal's occupational stress causes physical changes in him.  In order to test his theory he needs to perform physical examinations of criminals at various stages during the commission of their crimes.  His difficulty finding subjects leads him to commit crimes himself, taking his own vital signs along the way.  In his calm, analytical way, he's actually very good at crime.  He ends up as the boss of a local burglary gang, although next-in-command 'Rocks' Valentine (Humphrey Bogart) is not overjoyed at this.  Clitterhouse is having such a high time that he takes a sabbatical from his medical practice to lead his gang on a crime spree, taking blood samples from his men after every job.  He gathers enough research data to write a book.  When 'Rocks' tries to kill him, he decides that his research is finished and returns to his practice.  His evil past follows him, though, and events culminate with him being put on trial for murder.  His best defense? Insanity!

Familiar faces:

Gale Page (the only Lane Sister who wasn't a Lane) as Nurse Randolph.

Irving Bacon, who I mistakenly thought was Tom Fadden (the toll keeper from It's a Wonderful Life) when I wrote about Hard to Get.  Here he was again and since he was actually in the credits (as Foreman of Jury) I was able to positively identify him.  The two look alike to me.

Nurse Randolph discovers stolen jewels in Clitterhouse's medical bag

Angels with Dirty Faces with James Cagney and Pat O'Brien.  Cagney and O'Brien are childhood friends in Hell's Kitchen.  While stealing fountain pens from a stopped railway car, Cagney is arrested but O'Brien gets away.  Cagney's stint in reform school is just the start of 15 years of crime and arrests.  He often beats the rap but on the advice of his crooked lawyer partner, Humphrey Bogart, he accepts a plea to spend another 3 years in prison while Bogart keeps their money and builds up their crime businesses.  Once out of stir, Cagney looks up his old pal O'Brien who has become a priest in the old neighborhood.  He also finds himself betrayed by Bogart.

This may be the only Cagney gangster movie I've ever watched from start to finish.  He was nominated for Best Actor for this role but to me it was just Cagney acting like Cagney.  If this movie wasn't a stereotype at the time it must have laid the groundwork for all such movies to follow.  There were big shootout scenes where Cagney fired by making "punching" motions with his gun.  There was also a heavy presence by the "Dead End" kids.

"Whadda ya hear? Whadda ya say?"