Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: All The World Is A Stage - Part 6 of 12

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies:

All The World Is A Stage

Part 6 of 12

She's just a Broadway baby!

This is the sixth of a twelve-part series of posts dealing with show business, be it the stage or soundstage.

Yes, show people, their tawdry little lives - in the theatre or movie studio - in all their glory, projected up there on the big screen, bigger than life; and they wouldn't have it any other way. For you see, they live for the stuff; the imitation glamor, the insufferable players, the exhausting rehearsals, and the oh-so important reviews - but above all else - they do it for the applause.

So hit the lights, for today, all the world is, indeed, a stage!

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Broadway Babies

(1929)

AKA: Broadway Daddies, Ragazze d'America, Broadway Flickor

Dee lives with her two girlfriends in a boarding house. Billy is in love with Dee and runs the show where Dee is in the chorus. He soon has Dee stepping from the chorus into a featured dancer role. Gessant is a importer and gambler from Detroit, with local gang trying to keep him in town in order to fleece him. To do so, they use Dee as bait. He is introduced to Dee after her show and Gessant invites her to go out with him and his gambling buddies for a night on the town. Dee only agrees to go because she is mad at Billy. After hitting it off, Gessant helps her get another job as headliner at the New Moon Club. Billy and Dee break up over this and Gessant falls hard for Dee. But Billy is still in  love with Dee, so Dee must choose between the two. Who will win Dee's heart?

Adapted from Broadway Musketeers, a story by Jay Gelzer, this all-talking Pre-Code black and white American musical was produced and distributed by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. The film was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and stars Alice White and Charles Delaney.

Broadway Babies was one of the many movie musicals with a Broadway setting that were made at the dawn of the 'talkie' era. Such films were called 'backstagers', a vogue that evolved during the emergence of sound pictures and from the success of The Jazz Singer (1927) and The Singing Fool (1928), both Warner Bros.' films. Broadway Babies was also one of a number of similar vehicles created for Alice White.

Three songs were written for White to perform in Broadway Babies: Wishing and Waiting for Love with lyrics by Grant Clarke and music by Harry Akst; Jig, Jig, Jigaloo, lyrics by Al Bryan, music by George W. Meyer; and Broadway Baby Dolls, also by Bryan and Meyer. Incidental music included Give My Regards to Broadway (George M. Cohan), Vesti La Giubba (Ruggero Leoncavallo), and Bridal Chorus (Here Comes the Bride) (Richard Wagner).

This served as the talkie debut for silent star Alice White and, despite misinformation to the contrary, White did all her own singing in this film. This proved to be her biggest box office hit.

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Broadway Bad

(1933)

Married chorus girl rides scandal to stardom. Showgirl Joan Blondell, supported by her friend Ginger Rogers, fights for the custody of her son during a divorce hearing.

Released on February 24, 1933, by Fox Film Corporation, this American Pre-Code drama was directed by Sidney Lanfield and written by Maude Fulton. The film stars Joan Blondell, Ricardo Cortez, Ginger Rogers, Adrienne Ames, and Francis McDonald.

Joan Blondell was on loan to Fox from Warner Brothers.

Ginger Rogers and Joan Blondell

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Mr. Broadway

(1933)

Ed Sullivan visits night spots all over New York, joking and listening to stories the patrons tell. The plot involves a newspaper reporter (Ed Sullivan) gathering material for his column. The plot was patterned on a similar film by columnist Walter Winchell, Broadway Through a Keyhole (1933). It primarily serves as a vehicle for Sullivan to escort viewers to various trendy New York nightclubs to watch celebrities.

This American pre-Code comedy was written by Abel Green and Ed Sullivan. It was directed by Johnnie Walker, who was also a silent film actor and producer, and stars Sullivan along with a cast of celebrity walk-ons. It was completely shot in New York City.

This film contains about 20 minutes of footage from a film by Edgar G. Ulmer called The Warning Shadow (AKA: Love's Interlude), which was started in 1932, but never completed

This is the only film other than The Wizard of Oz (1939) to feature in its cast both Jack Haley and Bert Lahr.

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Blossoms On Broadway

(1937)

The wealthy 'Death Valley' Cora (Kitty Kelly) is coming to New York but is kidnapped by con-man Ira Collins (Edward Arnold) who has showgirl Sally Shea (Shirley Ross) impersonating her to fit a scheme he has to get an eccentric millionaire, P.J. Quinterfield Sr.(Frank Craven), to turn over to him coined gold which he will melt down and present as newly-mined from Cora's Death Valley mine. Sally is in on the scheme as Collins has told her it is part of the plan to get Quitenfield's son to finance a show for her. But Sally falls in love with Neil Graham (John 'Dusty' King), who is an undercover G-Man and the plot thickens.

Released on November 19, 1937, by Paramount Pictures, this American comedy was directed by Richard Wallace and stars Edward Arnold, Shirley Ross, Kitty Kelly and John Trent. 

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She's Back On Broadway

(1953)

When Catherine Terris's career in Hollywood hits the skids, she heads back to the site of her first great triumphs...Broadway! She takes the lead in a play which is being directed by Gordon Evans, the man who was both her Svengali and her lover. Evans is still bitter that she walked out on him to become the toast of Hollywood years earlier. Can Terris and Evans put aside their mutual animosity long enough to make a go of this production? The way things start off? It doesn't seem likely!

This musical comedy-drama Warnercolor film was directed by Gordon Douglas and stars Virginia Mayo in her final musical film, with her singing voice being dubbed by Bonnie Lou Williams. Also appearing is Gene Nelson, Frank Lovejoy and Steve Cochran. 

The film was Mayo's unofficial successor to her 1952 musical hit She's Working Her Way Through College.

Steve Cochran and Virginia Mayo worked together in the classic films, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and White Heat (1949). In both, Virginia cheated on husbands Dana Andrews and James Cagney, respectively, with Cochran. 

In real life, Mayo wed actor Michael O'Shea in 1947, and they remained married until he died in 1973. She was a lifelong Republican and a good friend of Ronald Reagan. 

Virginia Mayo

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And that's all for now, folks.

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel.

Broadway Baby Dolls - Alice White