Wallace Beery’s 1940s films with Marjorie Main released by Warner Archive

Burly, graveled-voice character actor Wallace Beery is an acquired taste for contemporary audiences, but in the golden age of Hollywood he was one of the biggest stars at MGM, winning a lead actor Oscar as a washed-up boxer in the 1931 weepie “The Champ.” But Beery also had a bad reputation at the studio: He was difficult on set and was especially thorny around child stars. Warner Archive has just released several of the popular films Beery made with Marjorie Main (“Ma and Pa Kettle”): 1941’s “Barnacle Bill”; 1942’s “Jackass Mail” and “The Bugle Sounds”; 1946’s “Bad Bascomb”; and “Big Jack,” released just days before he died at age 64 on April 15, 1949.