Three classic films starring comedy duo Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. In 'The Dancing Masters' (1943), Stan (Laurel) and Ollie (Hardy) are owners of a dance school, but are evicted for non-payment of rent. To raise money, Ollie tries an insurance scam which involves inflicting injuries on Stan, but the inept pair soon find themselves mixed up with local gangsters. Watch out for appearances by long-running Marx Brothers' foil Margaret Dumont and a youthful Robert Mitchum. In 'A-haunting We Will Go' (1942), Laurel and Hardy unknowingly offer to help a bunch of crooks smuggle a wanted man past the police in a coffin. Unfortunately, the casket gets mixed up with one used by a stage musician, leading to a comic chase. Finally, in 'The Bullfighters' (1945), Stan and Ollie are two detectives looking for a female criminal in Mexico. Stan gets mistaken for a famous matador and is forced to show his prowess in the bullring.

Drama starring Myrna Loy and Robert Mitchum, based on a screenplay adapted by John Steinbeck from his early novel of the same name. Ten-year-old Tom Tiflin (Peter Miles) lives on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley with his mother (Loy), recently-returned father (Sheppard Strudwick), maternal grandfather (Louis Calhern) and handsome hired hand Billy Buck (Mitchum). In an attempt to get closer to his son after his long absence from the ranch, Tom's father gives him a much longed-for pony. But as the pony becomes the central focus of Tom's life, the family is driven apart as Tom turns to Billy for help with rearing it.

Unlike most celebrity vocalists, Robert Mitchum actually had musical talent. Music was never anything more than an occasional sideline to his acting career, but he recorded sporadically throughout the years. That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings collects all of his commercial recordings from the '50s and '60s, including the complete albums Calypso Is Like So (1957) and That Man (1967), plus the hit single "Ballad of Thunder Road." The latter, a song Mitchum wrote for his film Thunder Road, charted twice for him and once for the bluegrass duo Jim & Jesse, who covered it for the country market in the late '60s. Calypso Is Like So is one of many albums of its era designed to cash in on the calypso craze, but is a cut above the typical offering because of Mitchum's obvious fondness for the style and the humorous songs, most of which comment on the war between the sexes. "What Is This Generation Coming To" addresses rock & roll and the generation gap, and "From a Logical Point of View" is based on the same calypso tune as Jimmy Soul's later hit "If You Wanna Be Happy." In a completely different vein, That Man is a country album Mitchum cut for Monument Records after hearing Charlie Walker's "Little Ole Winedrinker Me," which Mitchum included on the album. That song became a big country hit for Mitchum, and the rest of the album is just as good. He sings an assortment of pop and country hits, a new version of "The Ballad of Thunder Road," and a lovely pop ballad he composed, "Whippoorwill," all in a style similar to Dean Martin's country recordings. ~ Greg Adams