Wonderland Burlesque's Let's Go To The Movies: That Girl! Edition Part IV

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's Go To The Movies

That Girl! Edition Part IV

City girls and play girls dominate this week's Let's Go To The Movies edition as we continue our look at 'that girl'. 

You know the one!

The one whose essence can instantly be captured with one or two words before attaching the word 'girl'. Sure, she's a full-blooded woman (in most cases), but let's keep it young and vital and grant her 'girl' status anyway.

What makes her tick? And, more importantly... what sells tickets?

Yes, these girls have plenty to offer and are eager to please. So, let's pop some corn, grab a seat on the aisle and take a peek at this week's selection of cinematic magic.

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City Girl

(1930)

(After falling in love with a Minnesota farmer, a Chicago waitress decides to trade city life for life in the country. Will she succeed and will love conquer all?)

(Based upon the play The Mud Turtle by Elliot Lester, this silent film was directed by F. W. Murnau, and stars Charles Farrell and Mary Duncan. Initially the film was completed as a silent feature, however, given the technological advances of the time, some sound elements were added before it was released.)  

"He was woman ignorant. She was man-wise!"

(According to a newspaper article in the Heppner Gazette-Times the film's original working title was Our Daily Bread. The film was shot on location in Athena and Pendleton, Oregon. When actress Mary Duncan arrived in Pendelton to shoot the film in August 1928, she was crowned The Round-Up Queen of the town's 1928 Round-Up Rodeo. According to research by film historians, a farm was constructed for the making of the film. The farm became a short-lived of a tourist attraction - that is until the studio had it torn down.)

"Fanaticisms and bitter prejudices are ground as fine as the grist in their mills... where a boy and girl sowed primitive passion and reaped the whirlwind."

(The Fox Film studios for whom Murnau was working were subject to a hostile takeover during filming. The new owners requested a number of changes to City Girl, including the addition of those sound sequences which Murnau resisted. Things became so tense between the director and new owners that Murnau eventually walked away to begin filming his next project, a film called Tabu, A Story of the South Seas. The new owners should have listened to Murnau; the sound version of City Girl flopped at the box office and has since been lost.)

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Play Girl

(1932)

"She wanted love the worst way - and she got it!"

(A young woman works hard at her department store job, but dreams of a better life. When she falls hard for fast talking gambler who showers her with gifts, she thinks those dreams have come true. However, as financial troubles mount, the two argue and the marriage quickly grows troubled. After a big fight, she tosses him out the house and out of her life, only to learn that she's pregnant. Oh, what's a girl to do?)

(This romantic drama stars Winnie Lightner, Loretta Young, and Norman Foster.)

(Winnie Lightner is best known as the man-hungry Mabel in 1929's Gold Diggers of Broadway. She's also remembered for introducing the song Singin' in the Bathtub in the 1929's The Show of Shows. Often typecast as a wise-cracking money-hungry gal, she was frequently cast in roles which made the most of her talents as a comedian and singer.) 

(Oddly, by the end of 1930, audiences had grown tired of musicals. Lightner was in the process of shooting three of them: Sit Tight, Gold Dust Gertie, and Manhattan Parade. They all were released... but with the all the music cut out. Given this shift in public taste, Warner Bros. decided move Lightner into dramatic roles. The first, 1931's Side Show was a flop. Warner Bros. then changed direction and cast her in two comedies where she co-starred with Loretta Young. In the first one, Play Girl, she was billed with her name above the title, but in the second, She Had to Say Yes, it was Young who received top billing. These were Lightner's final pictures with the studio.)

(One of six films Loretta Young appeared in 1932.)

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City Girl

(1938)

(A waitress at a café yearns for something more exciting. She decides to leave her boyfriend, a promising young assistant district attorney for the fast life and good times with a local gangster. This irks the gangster's moll, who attacks the waitress with a pair of scissors. Defending herself, the waitress shoots the other woman. To escape the law, she resorts to plastic surgery. Now, rendered unrecognizable, she goes undercover on behalf of her former boyfriend to help investigate the dirty dealings of the gangster. Once discovered, tragedy ensues.)

 

(This crime drama was directed by Alfred L. Werker and stars Ricardo Cortez, Phyllis Brooks, Robert Wilcox, Douglas Fowley, Chick Chandler and Esther Muir.) 

(Phyllis Brooks carved out a career in B movies. She, along with actress Una Merkel, was the first civilian woman to travel to the Pacific theater of war during World War II on a USO tour. They were accompanied by Gary Cooper. Brooks was also at one time linked romantically to Cary Grant.)

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Play Girl

(1941)

(A professional gold-digger finds herself low on finances and her mature glamor much less effective. To make ends meet, she takes on an impoverished 19-year-old beauty as an apprentice, telling the girl: "between your youth and my spirit, we can do it." Initially reluctant, the younger woman soon warms to the scene. but when a cowboy she falls hard for proves to be a wealthy rancher, she has a change of heart.)

(This romantic comedy film stars Kay Francis and features James Ellison, Mildred Coles, Nigel Bruce, Margaret Hamilton and Katherine Alexander.)

(Between 1930 and 1936, Kay Francis  was the number one female star and highest-paid actress at Warner Bros. studio. Due to her statuesque frame, the studio considered Francis a clothes horse, lavishing expensive wardrobes and sets on her films, rather than concentrating on great storylines. This was done to capitalize on the hunger of depression era audiences and make Francis the epitome of chic. Dubbed  box office poison in 1938, Warner Bros. dropped her like a stone. With the help of Carol Lombard, who insisted she be cast, Francis transitioned into a successful career as a supporting player.)

(Her diaries, which are preserved along with her film-related material in an academic collection at Wesleyan University, paint a picture of a woman whose personal life was often in disarray. She regularly socialized with gay men, one of whom, Anderson Lawler, was reportedly paid $10,000 by Warner Bros. to accompany her to Europe in 1934, to keep her out of mischief.)

(Originally titled Debutantes, Inc., both Sheila Ryan and Elyse Knox were under consideration for the role of the young apprentice, but RKO eventually went with Mildred Coles, a former beauty queen signed to Warner Bros. to play the part.)

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Slave Girl

(1947)

AKA: The Flame Of Tripoli

(An American playboy embarks on a mission to Tripoli to buy the freedom of a group of American Sailors. There, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful dancing girl who steals the gold meant for the ransom. She wants to give the gold to her lover, the brother of the reigning warlord, so her lover can overthrow the current regime. But she, along with the American rescue crew, are imprisoned by the man she thought to be her lover, who plans on selling them as slaves to a neighboring chieftain. The playboy and the dancer then join forces, fighting for their freedom while finding true love.)

(This Technicolor adventure comedy was directed by Charles Lamont and stars Yvonne De Carlo and George Brent.)

(Originally titled The Flame of Tripoli, it was announced with Yvonne De Carlo and George Brent with a budget of $1.6 million. Dona Drake was to appear in the film but fell ill and was replaced by Lois Collier.  Parts of the film were shot in Paria Canyon and the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah.)

(Initially envisioned as a melodrama, the writer-producers decided to add more comedy to liven things up. The first previews were not encouraging, so the powers that be added a title card featuring a camel, so that audiences would know it was a comedy. The camel got such a good response, additional scenes involving the camel commenting on the action were added, much to the delight of the audience. Unfortunately, that meant that several of De Carlo's dance sequences were removed from the film, which made for a very unhappy star. She also complained that George Brent was far too old to play the dashing playboy. Apparently DeCarlo got it wrong... the film was a big hit at the box office, earning over $2 million in the US.)

Yvonne De Carlo

(In 1945, De Carlo returned to Vancouver to attended a celebration held in her honor , where she was introduced to billionaire Howard Hughes. She later discovered he had flown directly from Los Angeles because he wanted to meet her outside of Hollywood. Hughes told her he had seen her film, Salome, Where She Danced more than five times and was smitten. De Carlo "felt just kind of sorry" for the "lanky, underfed, and remarkably sad" Hughes. The following day they went out on a date and began a romance. Hughes wanted to keep their relationship private and away from the press. De Carlo wanted to marry him but he was not so inclined. De Carlo later wrote: "Howard Hughes was one of the most important loves of my life.")

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Naughty Girl

(1956)

AKA: Cette sacrée gamine / Mam'zelle Pigalle

(When a nightclub owner must go on the lam in order to avoid prosecution, he asks one of the club's  entertainers to look after his 'baby' - which turns out to be an impulsive, shapely sex kitten who has a habit of creating havoc wherever her hijinks takes her.)  

 (Roger Vadim, was brought in by the producer who had heard about the successful last-minute rewrite Vadim did on a film called, Julietta, The producer wanted Vadim to do the same for this film, which had been sold to Italy, and was to star Jean Bretonniere, who hated the script. Vadim agreed provided his then-wife Brigitte Bardot be cast as the female lead and if  he got to choose the director. Vadim later wrote "for the first time, Brigitte played a character written for her, in modern language; and she had a classically trained director who was making his first film." He called the movie "a French equivalent of a Doris Day movie but with a bolder, more liberated edge.")

(A box-office hit in France, it ended up being the 12th most popular movie of the year and slightly more popular than And God Created Woman which Vadim directed later that year.)

(Bardot's parents forbid her to become an actress, however her grandfather was supportive, saying: "If this little girl is to become a whore, cinema will not be the cause." At an audition, Bardot met Vadim, who later had to tell her she didn't get the part. They immediately fell in love, something else her parents were fiercely opposed to. When her father told her that she would continue her education in England and had a train ticket to whisk her away the next day, Bardot stuck her head in an oven with open fire. After stopping her from self-harm, the parents agreed to accept Vadim, on condition that she marry him at the age of 18.)

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Contest Girl

(1964)

AKA: The Beauty Jungle

(While on holiday at the seaside, a pretty typist from Bristol meets a reporter from her local paper. He convinces her to enter a beauty pageant which she wins. With dreams of stardom in her head, she ditches her dependable, but drab fiancé and moves to London with the reporter, who is now acting as her manager, in tow. Things grow complicated when he reporter finds he has feelings for the girl and wants to be more than just her manager. However, that's not how his client sees things at all.)

(This British drama directed was by Val Guest, and stars Ian Hendry, Janette Scott, Ronald Fraser and Edmund Purdom.)

(Though they didn't have a scene together, Edmund Purdom had an affair with Linda Christian (Tyrone Power's ex) who was playing herself as one of the competition judges. At the time, Purdom was quite married, leading to a very messy divorce. Christian and Purdom would eventually marry... it lasted less than a year.)

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Swamp Girl

(1971)

(A young blonde-haired girl is abandoned by her parents in the Florida swamps only to be rescued and raised by a black man she calls 'Pa'. She does her best to protect all the creatures in her swamp from poachers and other dangers, winning the respect of the local sheriff. The girl is kidnapped by an escaped convict and her boyfriend, who, in order to escape detection, demand that the girl act as their guide through the swamp. However, they're on her turf and she has something else in mind.)

(A drive-in movie favorite, this low-budget, backcountry drama was independently made in Georgia in the  the Okefenokee Swamp. Directed by Don Davis, who also co-produced and co-wrote the script, the film stars country singer Ferlin Husky and singer/songwriter Claude King. Simone Griffeth, a native of Georgia, plays the title role in her screen debut.)

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Nashville Girl 

(1976)

AKA: New Girl In Town/Country Music Daughter

AKA: Country Music Daughter

(Inspired by her country music idol, a Kentucky teenager defies her family in order to pursue a singing career as a singer. But the path to stardom is paved with sordid sexual encounters, a stint as a masseuse, hard time in juvenile detention overseen by a domineering female warden, and a romp in the bed of a famed record producer. She's destined to make it big, but at what price?)

(This exploitation drama from New World Pictures was directed by Gus Trikonis, who spent time in Nashville, Tennessee prior to shooting so he'd be more familiar with the film's subject.)

(Also known as Country Music Daughter in order to capitalize on the success of the film Coal Miner's Daughter. Produced by Roger Corman who claims the film proved very popular in the southern United States... and in Europe, which totally surprised him.)

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Summer Girl

(1983)

(When a seductive, needy young teen comes to babysit for a couple dealing with marital discord, she's after more than extra spending money! After winning over the kids and working her wiles on the husband, the evil nanny plots to remove the wife and mother from the picture - and heaven help anyone foolish enough to get in her way.)

 

(Kim Darby and Diane Franklin also starred together in the John Cusak film Better Off Dead two years later.)

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next week...

Same time, same channel.

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