13:00 pm: Andy Hardy's Paris Follies (1943).

Andy Hardy and his sister sneak into France on a secret mission for their father. Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, Ann Sheridan. Director: Charles Chaplin. Black-and-white; 79 minutes

Seeing this forgotten gem listed, I had to pull out my notes from my Miskatonic University Film 100 correspondence course and share them with my fellow movie aficionados...

Andy Hardy's Paris Follies made with wartime austerity, brought welcome guffaws to theaters in late 1943. Director Charles Chaplin was selected to helm the picture purely by chance, having been on the MGM lot to deliver sandwiches originally ordered by Irving Thalberg sometime in 1937. An associate producer, mistaking the pastrami-laden fellow for another Charles Chaplin, snapped him up on the spot, impressed by Chaplin's low salary requirement of $3 a week.

The plot is a more adventurous than most of the Hardy films, with Andy (Mickey Rooney) and sister Marian (Cecilia Parker) flying to occupied Paris on a desperate mission. Their Pop, Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone), has become despondent over the import ban on Vichy water (his favorite mixer) and those devil-may-care kids will do darn near anything to make him a happy man again.

By train, plane and Liberty ship, the plucky pair make their way to the Continent with multiple hilarious escapes from befuddled MP sergeant Lionel Stander. Things take a dangerous turn, though, when a sinister passenger on their trans-Atlantic flight (Peter Lorre) overhears their comments on "Vichy Water" and assumes they are spies sent to sabotage Nazi atomic research being carried on in an abandoned spa (actually Louis Mayer's cabana with a borrowed Van de Graff generator).

This intelligence quickly reaches the ears of the evil Colonel von Bockwurst (Conrad Veidt), who launches a manhunt for the Hardys upon their arrival in France. Andy and Marian are cornered in a dark alley by giant Nazi thug Liebfraumilch (Rondo Hatton), but are rescued by Resistance fighters. Andy is shocked to discover that the leader of the band is none other than his erstwhile girlfriend Betsy Booth (Judy Garland)!

(Chaplin explained the twist in later years, saying "Well, she was only in three movies and then disappeared. Continuity demanded we know what had happened to her!')

The siblings are smuggled out of Paris, along with beautiful torch singer Wendy Sunshines (Ann Sheridan), secretly the Allied master spy code-named "L'Eclaire." They go into hiding on the farm of an elderly French farm couple (Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride). But the Gestapo aren't far behind.

When they arrive in the local village, Andy and his friends realize their only chance of survival is a ruse, and pretend to be traveling entertainers. The trick works so well that the Germans decide the chums should provide a command performance for visiting Reichsmarschall Goering (Margaret DuMont).

By staging "Ring of the Nibelung" in the farmer's barn, Andy, Marian and Wendy not only get a standing ovation from the Nazis, but provide cover for Betsy to blow up the secret atomic project in the abandoned spa, which just happens to be nearby. This, alas, was why Chaplin never directed another film; his enthusiasm for realism resulted in the destruction of Louis Mayer's cabana and subsequent blackballing from the industry.

Their blow for democracy struck--and a case of mineral water, the gift of a grateful General deGaulle (Basil Rathbone), in hand-- Andy and Marian return home to a surprised and grateful Judge Hardy (Lionel Barrymore reprising the role he originated, as a fill-in for Lewis Stone who called in sick that morning).

The final shot is the good Judge toasting his offspring with a bourbon-and-water to their half-size chocolate sodas. After all, as he reminds the kids at the fade-out:

"There's a war on!"