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

Wonderland Burlesque's 

Let's Go To The Movies That Girl! 

Edition Part VII

Who's that girl? Well, I'll tell you who...

This week we have a couple of girls so bad, they're good, one with super powers, a couple of cutie pies and a pair seeking justice or revenge!

Yes, busy, busy girls, all; more exciting adventures featuring '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 what sells tickets?

There's some classic dames on hand... and they do not like to be kept waiting!

So, let's pop some corn, grab a seat on the aisle and marvel at these golden ladies of the silver screen.

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Juke Girl

(1942)

"She's a good girl... for guys to leave alone!"

"She makes her living the hard way!"

(A pair of migrant farm workers find their way to Cat Tail, FL, which is ruled by Madden Packing Company. One chooses to work for Madden, while the other goes to work for an underdog farmer. After the underdog farmer's tomato crop is destroyed by Madden, the two migrant workers, along with a sympathetic juke girl, haul the next crop to Atlanta where they sell it for big money. The girl stays in Atlanta as the two migrant workers return to Cat Tail, where all hell is about to break loose.) 

(This drama was directed by Curtis Bernhardt and stars Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan, with a  supporting cast which includes Richard Whorf, George Tobias, Gene Lockhart, Alan Hale Sr., Howard Da Silva, Donald MacBride, Faye Emerson, Willie Best, and Fuzzy Knight.)

(Ida Lupino was under consideration for the part, but felt, due to her accent, that it was an inappropriate role. The picture was released a month after the classic Kings Row, which also stars Sheridan and Reagan. The popularity and critic's buzz from that film helped sell tickets to this one.)

 (Sheridan was an  actress/singer best known for her roles in 1937's San Quentin, 1938's Angels With Dirty Faces. 1940's They Drive By Night, 1940's City for Conquest, 1942's The Man Who Came To Dinner,  1942's King Row, and 1949's I Was A Male War Bride. She could more than hold her own when going toe-to-toe with the likes of James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, George Raft, Elia Kazan, Bette Davis, Ronald Reagan and Cary Grant.)

(In March 1939, a committee of 25 men voted Sheridan as the actress with the most 'oomph' in America. 'Oomph' ascribes "a certain indefinable something that commands male interest." Warner Bros. seized on the idea as a means of launching Sheridan as a lead actress. As a result, she entertained as many as 250 marriage proposals from fans in a single week. Behind the scenes, Sheridan, who became a popular pin-up girl in the early 1940's, loathed the title. However, as she began to appreciate the attention it brought to her career, she softened and by February 25, 1940, she told the Associated Press that she no longer "bemoaned the 'oomph' tag." Adding... "But I'm sorry now. I know if it hadn't been for 'oomph' I'd probably still be in the chorus.")

(Her second to last film was MGM's 1956 The Opposite Sex , an all-star remake of 1939's The Women starring June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Sheridan and Ann Miller.)

(In 1966, Sheridan was starring in a new television series, a Western-themed comedy called Pistols 'n' Petticoats. During production, she became ill, dying of esophageal cancer with massive liver metastases at the age of 51.)

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Sweater Girl

(1942)

"I Don't Want To Walk With You."

(While putting together the school's big show, a group of college students attempt to solve a series of murders plaguing their campus.) 

(Released on July 13, 1942, this comedy/mystery remake of  1935's College Scandal was directed by William Clemens and stars Eddie Bracken, June Preisser, Phillip Terry, and Betty Jane Rhodes.)

 

(Sung by Betty Jane Rhodes, the film marked the debut of the classic World War II-era song, I Don't Want To Walk Without You, which enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in 1980, when it was released as a single by Barry Manilow.)

(Director Preston Sturges cast Bracken in two of his best-loved films, The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek, opposite Betty Hutton, and Hail The Conquering Hero. Due to the popularity of these films, Eddie Bracken became a household name during World War II. However, in 1953, he abruptly left Hollywood for Broadway where he continued to forge a successful career. Later in life he would return to the big screen on occasion. A bit of trivia: Bracken acted in films with two actors who later became U.S. Presidents: Ronald Reagan and the orange ogre. He co-starred in The Girl from Jones Beach with Reagan in 1949, while the orange ogre had a walk-on in 1992's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.)  

Betty Jane Rhodes

(Rhodes came to Hollywood to sing for those who couldn't sing; she worked in films as a 'ghost singer' at RKO Pictures, earning $200 per week for supplying a voice for actresses who moved their lips  pretending to. However, she also managed to get her share of screen time, too; Sweater Girl being once such example.) 

June Preisser, Frieda Inescort, Betty Jane Rhodes

(June Preisser appeared in a number of popular in musicals during the late 1930's and 1940's, many of which made the most of her skills as an acrobat. Once she married, MGM lost interest in promoting her career and she moved to Monogram Pictures, where she appeared in a string of musicals. Her final film was 1948's The Music Man.)

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Renegade Girl

(1946)

(When a renegade Indian kills her brother, a young woman, whose family is allied with a notorious crime boss, becomes an outlaw in order to seek revenge. The Missouri family, a group of Confederate sympathizers, have been feeding info about the Union Army to Confederate Raiders. With the Union hot on their heels, aided by the renegade Indian with a grudge of his own, the family tries to remain one step ahead. However, when the young woman falls for a Yankee captain, all bets are off, as her loyalties are tested to their fullest extent.)

(This American western was directed by William Berke and stars Ann Savage, Alan Curtis and Edward Brophy. This is the third film Savage made with director Berke at the helm. The other two were 1943's Saddles and Sagebrush and 1944's The Last Horseman.)

(Ann Savage was a film and television actress best remembered as the greedy cigarette-puffing femme fatale in the critically-acclaimed 1954 film noir Detour. She was featured in more than 20 B-movies between 1943 and 1946. Early on, she spent time on the MGM lot in the same class as Judy Garland, Lana Turner, Freddie Bartholomew, and Deanna Durbin, though the studio chose to never sign her. She was offered a screen test at Fox, but decided to not show up, figuring that Fox already had a bevy of blondes. Instead, she went with Columbia, where she got to work with the likes of Rosalind Russell, whose acid tongue she greatly admired - especially when it came to dealing with studio head Harry Cohn.)

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Calendar Girl

(1947)

"Biggest date of the year!

AKA: Star Dust / Sweet Music

(A pair of New York City songwriter's in love with the same girl find out that their beautiful girl is going to be an artist's model. The artist paints a picture of her which outrages her father's moral sensibilities but, as a result of the painting, she wins a chance to star in a Broadway play. However, once she discovers the artist is just a rogue, she turns to find comfort and love in the arms of one of the composers, who loves her sincerely.)

(This romantic musical was directed by Allan Dwan with a cast featuring Jane Frazee, William Marshall, Gail Patrick, Kenny Baker and Victor McLaglen.)

(A  the age of six, Frazee, along with her 12 year-old sister Ruth, launched a career in vaudeville, singing as The Frazee Sisters. In 1940, when Jane was cast in a lead role in Republic's B-movie Melody And Moonlight, the act broke up.  Soon after the film's release she was signed by Universal Pictures and was featured in 1941's Buck Privates, a high-grossing World War II  comedy  starring  Abbott and Costello. On the strength of that film, she was promoted to leading-lady, starring in a string of Universal's popular B-musicals. When Universal declined to renew her contract, she went on to star in musicals for Republic and Columbia Pictures.)

(After World War II, most of the larger Hollywood studios curtailed their lower-budget productions and focused on fewer features of higher quality. This shift affected scores of actors, who sought refuge at the smaller studios that had been making low-budget features all along. Frazee found steady, if less-than-prestigious work at Monogram Pictures and Lippert Pictures, while continuing to churn out films for Republic When audiences lost their taste for musicals, she then turned to the even lower-budgeted and faster-paced worlds of westerns, and television, ending her screen career co-starring in short subjects produced at Warner Bros.)

Gail Patrick, Jane Frazee

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Cigarette Girl

(1947)

(Telling little white lies, a couple meet and both pretend to be something they're not. The man claims to the president of an oil company and the woman claims to be a popular night club singer. But then fate steps in and circumstances arrange themselves so that soon the man is, in fact, a full-fledged tycoon, while our former-cigarette girl is catapulted to overnight stardom thanks to the bright lights of Broadway. As fame and fortune work their charms, both yearn for the simplicity of their humble beginnings.)

"She'll make your smoke dreams come true!"

(This musical comedy was directed by Gunther von Fritsch and stars Leslie Brooks, Jimmy Lloyd, Joan Barton, and Ludwig Donath - with the music being provided by Russ Morgan and his orchestra.)

 (In 1941, Brooks began appearing in movie bit roles for Columbia, before landing more sizable parts in such movies as 1944's Nine Girls , 1944's Cover Girl, and the lead in the 1948 film noir classic Blonde Ice. She retired from films in 1949, but returned to make one final film in 1971.)

Leslie Brooks

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Stop Press Girl

(1949)

"The girl who stops the wheels going round!"

(A beautiful young woman has the power to alt all kinds of machinery, leading to all sorts of headaches and shenanigans.) 

(This British fantasy/comedy was directed by Michael Barry and stars Sally Ann Howes, Gordon Jackson, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, with the latter two actors playing multiple roles in the film. Sally Ann Howes and James Robertson Justice play a niece and uncle in this movie and nearly twenty years later, they would reunite as daughter and father in the classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.)

(Billed as 'Mechanical Types' and played by Radford and Wayne, the comic duo play several different roles, performing as mechanics for trains, buses, and planes, film operators in a cinema and as watchmakers during the course of this film. This served as the final pairing of  Radford and Wayne, who had started working as a team back in 1938's The Lady Vanishes.

(This film is also notable for having been made utilizing Rank's 'Independent Frame' production system. The system itself ended up being a costly flop. This film was one of the four of David Rawnsley's films that used this technique, a form of back projection.)

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Undercover Girl

(1950)

"The inside story of America's daring police women!"

(In a quest to track down the killer who murdered her father, a young woman joins the  New York Police Department . She goes undercover, posing as a good-time gal in order to wrangle her way into the confidence of a ne're do well physician whose office is a front for a dope ring.)

This film noir was directed by Joseph Pevney and stars Alexis Smith and Scott Brady.

(Smith appeared in several major Hollywood films in the 1940's and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972 for the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical Follies. As a result of the critical acclaim heaped upon her Broadway debut, she appeared on the cover of the May 3, 1971 issue of Time magazine.)

(Signed by Warner Brothers, Smith appeared opposite Anne Sheridan, Paul Henreid, Ronald Reagan, Humphry Bogart, Erroll Flynn, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Joel McCrea, Frederich March, and many more. She later said of her Warners years "more often than not I played the other woman," "a mirror to reflect others' emotions".)

Alexis Smith

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Hot Money Girl

(1959)

AKA: The Treasure Of San Teresa / Rhapsodie in Blei / Long Distance

"She was trash!"

"She would do anything for a price!"

(A fortune in jewels lies hidden somewhere inside a convent in Czechoslovakia attracting the attention of a lot of people, some good, some... not so good.)

(Based on a play by Jeffrey Dell, this British-West German thriller was directed by Alvin Rakoff and stars Eddie Constantine, Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee and Marius Goring.)

Eddie Constantine and Dawn Addams

(Addams was a British actress, particularly in Hollywood films of the 1950's and on British television in the 1960's and 1970's. She became a bona fide princess when she married Don Vittorio Emanuele Massimo, Prince of Roccasecca, in 1954. They separated four years later, after the birth of their son, but didn't formally divorce until 1971. Addams died in 1985 in a London hospital at age 54 from lung cancer.)

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Rent-A-Girl

(1965)

(A sleazy New York modeling agency that rents out girls to perverted clients with "special needs". Fetishes include an eccentric artist who paints directly on his nude models and a water freak who likes to drench bound beauties with a garden hose. Agency owner Mrs. Grant also throws wild 'swingers-only' parties with peculiar adult games for her depraved friends and clients.)

Barbara Woods

(While most grindhouse films were knocked-off in a week or less for around $10K, Rent-A-Girl is a cut above the rest because its script - which delivers all the usual titillation items (nudity, decadence, kinky fetishes) presents such fare as legitimate plot points within the story. It also features a black actress in the ensemble. Black actresses, utterly neglected by mainstream Hollywood in the '60's, were often cast in these independent sexploitation features.)

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My Best Friend's Girl

(1983)

AKA: La femme de mon pote

(An attractive Parisienne seeking some fun during a vacation on the ski slopes of Courchevel in the Alps starts up a relationship with an attractive sportswear salesman. However, he's not the only man to capture her attention; at the same time she finds herself smitten with a little chubby night club DJ. A love triangle whose sides are not equal.)

This French comedy was directed by Bertrand Blier and stars Isabelle Huppert and Thierry Lhermitte.

(Frequently described as "one of the best actresses in the world", Huppert is known for her portrayals of cold and disdainful characters devoid of morality. She is one of international film's most prolific actresses, having worked in France, Italy, Russia, Central Europe, and in Asia. In 2016, she garnered international acclaim for her performance in Elle, which earned her a second César Award, a Golden Globe Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won Best Actress awards from the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for that role.)

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And that's all for now...

Tune in next week!

Same time, same channel.

I Don't Want To Walk Without You - Kay Loraine