Wonderland Burlesque's Let's Go To The Movies: Any Number Of Girls Edition

Wonderland Burlesque's 

Let's Go To The Movies

Any Number Of Girls Edition

One little piggy went to market. Two little piggies stayed home. Three little piggies... well, you get the idea.

Only, for today's post? We are not talking piggies - just beautiful, bodacious, busty girls!

How many girls does it take to make a Hollywood blockbuster? Well... let us count the ways...

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One Girl's Confession

"I confess I'm the kind of girl every man wants - but shouldn't marry!"

(I believe our Miss Maddie has a t-shirt somewhere that says this exact same thing!)

"Maybe I'm bad... but what makes you so good!"

(Practice, darling. Lots and lots of practice.)

(Oh... and knee pads.)

"Men and money and me... go together!"

(Huh. My list stops at 'men.')

Two Girls On Broadway

(Look at that pairing! Blondell was a favorite on the Warner Bros. lot because she took whatever was offered her, gave it her all and never complained.) 

Three Girls About Town

(Another Blondell! This one a bit earlier than the previous. Cagney was in love with her, but married to someone else. She would marry three times: Dick Powell was husband #2 (the two costarred in ten films together) and Mike Todd was husband #3 (She left him a few years before he met Elizabeth Taylor; it was a nightmare marriage).

"Warning all males! Three wild women on the loose!"

(Binni Barnes, a British actress, had only one rule when it came to accepting roles - she would not play a submissive woman. She said, "One picture is just like another to me, as long as I don't have to be a sweet woman." Janet Blair was a big band singer, who toured the supper club circuit, a regular at The Waldorf Astoria. She recorded an album of ballads titled, Flame Out.)

Three Little Girls In Blue

(Quite the cast! June Haver was set to become the next Betty Grable. She ended up marrying Fred MacMurray. Celeste Holm played Bette Davis' best friend in All About Eve. Vivian Blaine originated the role of Adelaide in Guys And Dolls on Broadway, and reprised it in the movie version, opposite Marlon Brando. Vera Ellen danced with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, and Donald O'Connor. Thin as a rail, she is best remembered as Rosemary Clooney's sister in White Christmas.)

3 Wise Girls

(Not so wise... Harlow, America's 'Blonde Bombshell, would die of misdiagnosed kidney failure. Clarke would be chased by Boris Karloff's Frankenstein and have half a grapefruit shoved in her face by Cagney in The Public Enemy in the same year. And poor Prevost, a chronic alcoholic, would be found weeks after she'd died in a crappy apartment. Her only companion, her little dog, would... well - you can hear all about it in Nick Lowe's song Marie Prevost. Yes, she ended up as a doggy dinner. Joan Crawford paid for her funeral. Her death prompted the Hollywood community to create the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital.)  

"They knew men - and how!"

"They scoffed at love, laughed at marriage, lived for luxury alone!"

(Girls after my own heart!)

3 Smart Girls Grow Up

(Deanna Durbin was Judy Garland's biggest competitor back in the day. She possessed a pretty lyric soprano voice - suitable for operettas but, no match for the smoky allure of Garland's alto. She was Anne Frank's favorite actress. The celebrated diarist pasted two photos of Durbin on the wall in the family's hideout; the photos are still on the wall today.)

4 Girls In White

"Romantic secrets of the girls who hold your hand!"

(Girls in white, but not bridal white! Well, not at first.)

(Merkel was the first to decry Harlow's illness as they worked the platinum blonde to death on the set of Saratoga. Rutherford played Polly Benedict in the Andy Hardy films and one of Scarlett's sisters in Gone With The Wind.)

(Nurses, doctors, and hospital administrators; proximity makes for strange bedfellows!)

4 Girls In Town

(They look like paper dolls, huh?)

"A story that could be written inside any girl's heart!"

(And on the wall of any mens room stall!)

Five Wild Girls

"A spectacle of unrelenting passion!"

"Bold! Shocking!"

"...they used every female device to get what they longed for!"

"Possessed by evil,  Obsessed with passion!"

"Each searching for the secret of love... and finding it!"

(With all that verbiage, I'm amazed they found room for the name of the movie!)

Six Girls Seeking Shelter

(A Russian film from 1927: The film is by director Hans Behrendt, but the glorious artwork from 1927 is by the Stenberg brothers. This piece is typical of their work, which uses a distortion of perspective, elements from Dada photomontage, an exaggerated scale, and a bold use of color and typography. The Stenberg brothers were pioneers of constructivism and worked in a number of design fields, but their poster designs for Soviet cinema remain their best known work.)

7 Classy Girls

(A film from 1979, seven female friends decide to play an erotic game; they try to seduce as many aristocrats and middle-class men as possible with their charming 'personalities.')

8 Girls In A Boat

"No Men Allowed."

(The 1934 remake of a 1932 German musical. It starred Dorothy Wilson, a young woman who came to Hollywood with no intention of being an actress - she wanted to travel and be a secretary. She would meet her future husband on the set of this film, screenwriter, Lewis R. Foster. Foster would go on to win an Oscar in 1939 for the screenplay of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, which is based upon a book, also written by Foster.)

A Man - Eight Girls

"Filmed in the great outdoors in blazing natural color."

(Because we didn't have any budget to build sets or rent locations.)

9 Girls

"Nine girls isolated in a snowbound cabin!"

(Wonder how long before they all sync up?)

"Men beware! These girls have love in the hearts! ...and murder on their minds!"

(Sounds like a typical Saturday night to me!)

(Notables: Harding was RKO's answer to Norma Shearer, Keyes played one of Scarlett's sisters in Gone With The Wind, Louise was a child star who became a star as an adult, and Foch would go on to make a number big budget films (Spartacus, The Ten Commandments) and a name for herself as an acting instructor at USC.)

"How to commit a murder."

"They're ready to commit murder... and did!

(Is that a poster blurb or a movie review?)

The "Ten" Girls

"...more is better!"

"Hotter than Bo... and ready to go!"

(Ready to go? Where? The mall?)

(And more is only better once everyone's been checked for STI's!)

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next week. Same time, same channel.

Thanks for reading!

It's Intermission Time!