The Great Gildersleeve

Headed to the train to pick up Aunt Emma (Jane Darwell) to help convince the court he can take care of the kids, the title character (Harold Peary) finds Leroy (Freddie Mercer) has wasted the gas, and Birdie (Lillian Randolph) can’t help, but there’s another vehicle handy, in The Great Gildersleeve, 1942.

Title character (Harold Peavy) is hiding in the basement (visited by Lillian Randolph as Birdie) to avoid aggressive spinster Amelia (Mary Field), who’s made an unwelcome house call on singing pupil Leroy (Freddie Mercer, a highly trained singer, doing his own vocal, on an aria often sung by Enrico Caruso), who’s sort-of rescued by sister Margie (Nancy Gates) and her band, early in the first feature in the RKO series, The Great Gildersleeve, 1942.

The orphan kids (Nancy Gates and Freddie Mercer as niece and nephew Margie and Leroy) don’t want to be separated by Judge Hooker (Charles Arnt) from their uncle, the title character (Harold Peary) so they decide to mount an aimless campaign, using his own hobby printing press, on his behalf, in the first movie in the RKO series based on the NBC radio sit-com, The Great Gildersleeve, 1942.