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

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies:

All The World Is A Stage

Part 11 of 12

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

Did we miss a few? Sure thing. We've only scratched the surface, for there are dozens and dozens of films which fall in this particular category. Did we miss your fave? Well, don't worry, something tells me we'll be revisiting this subject sometime in the future. The topic seems inexhaustible. 

 

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, one last time, for today, all the world is, indeed, a stage!

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42nd Street

(1933)

Renowned Broadway producer/director Julian Marsh is hired to put together a new musical revue. It's being financed by Abner Dillon to provide a starring vehicle for his girlfriend, songstress Dorothy Brock. Marsh, who, though quite ill, is a difficult taskmaster who works long hours and continually pushes the cast to do better. When Brock breaks her ankle one of the chorus girls, Peggy Sawyer, gets her big chance to be the star and finds romance along the way.

Adapted from the 1932 novel of the same name by Bradford Ropes, this American pre-Code musical was directed by Lloyd Bacon, with songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin. All the film's numbers were staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It starred an ensemble cast of Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, and Ginger Rogers.

Novelist Bradford Ropes envisioned his novel as a muckraking expose of the exploitation of chorus girls on Broadway. He described the work as the "Uncle Tom's Cabin of the chorus girl." In the original novel director Julian Marsh, who has no interest in the chorus girls other than their dancing abilities, is gay, and juvenile lead Billy Lawler is his lover.

Illness prevented Mervyn LeRoy from directing, so he handed the reins over to Lloyd Bacon. This may have also occurred because LeRoy's film, I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932), was running over schedule.

The following actors were considered for roles in the film: Warren William or Richard Barthelmess instead of Warner Baxter; Kay Francis or Ruth Chatterton instead of Bebe Daniels; Loretta Young instead of Ruby Keeler; Joan Blondell instead of Ginger Rogers; Glenda Farrell instead of Una Merkel; Frank McHugh instead of George E. Stone.

This was the film debut of Ruby Keeler. And the first of seven films in which newcomers Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler were paired as a romantic team. This, coupled with two other musicals from the studio the same year - Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and Footlight Parade (1933) - made Warner Bros. a  rival with MGM in the expensive movie musicals department. Coincidentally, all of those Warner Bros. musicals featured Ruby Keeler.

Ginger Rogers took the role of  'Anytime Annie' at the urging of director Mervyn LeRoy, whom she was dating at the time.

Henry B. Walthall originally had a large role, including a key scene in which he died on stage during rehearsals. However, almost all of his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Lyle Talbot is still credited for the role of 'Geoffrey Waring', even though most of his scenes were deleted prior to the film's release. He did. however, narrate the film's trailer.

As a publicity stunt, a train called 'The 42nd Street Special' traveled from Hollywood to New York City, arriving in time for the opening at the Strand Theater on 3/8/33. On the train were Warner Bros. contract players who were called to the stage after the movie was shown. Included were Joe E. Brown, Tom Mix and his horse, Bette Davis, Laura La Plante, Glenda Farrell, Lyle Talbot, Leo Carrillo, Claire Dodd, Preston Foster and Eleanor Holm.

The film was so financially successful it saved Warner Bros. from bankruptcy.

This was the first Warner Bros. film for Busby Berkeley. After the 42nd Street number was completed, Busby Berkeley was promoted from weekly contract status and given a term contract by the studio.

This film, released on 3/9/33, singlehandedly rescued the movie musical, which had been considered a money-losing proposition since mid-1930. Early "all talking, all dancing" musicals typically suffered from severe camera restrictions coupled with poor musical staging, and soured the public on the genre. 

Universal's huge losses from the lively King of Jazz (1930) put an unofficial moratorium on the musical form and no other studio wanted to risk producing one. Warner Bros., at the time of the film's release, had Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) nearing completion and pre-production plans were well underway for Footlight Parade (1933), all utilizing the talents of Busby Berkeley. 

The success of this film would convince Radio Pictures to produce Flying Down to Rio (1933)  featuring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. However, other major studios would continue to shy away from musicals throughout 1933, although Paramount would proceed with plans to produce the lavish Murder at the Vanities (1934) toward the end of the year.

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Gold Diggers 1935

(1935)

In a luxury hotel, stage director Nicoleff produces a show in order to get the money to pay his bills. Mrs. Prentiss, the financial backer, wants her daughter Ann to marry the millionaire T. Mosely Thorpe, but Ann falls in love with Dick Curtis, while Dick's girl friend marries Ann's brother, Humbolt. It looks like the show may get it's backing pulled, but the hotel stenographer, Betty saves the day; she knows a way to avoid difficulties with old Mrs. Prentiss!

Based on a story by Robert Lord, who also produced the film, and Peter Milne, this American musical was directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley and stars Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Stuart, Alice Brady, Hugh Herbert, Glenda Farrell, and Frank McHugh, and features Joseph Cawthorn, Grant Mitchell, Dorothy Dare, and Winifred Shaw. The songs were written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin the film is best known for its famous Lullaby of Broadway production number. That song, sung by Wini Shaw, won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The screenplay was by Manuel Seff and , .

This movie was the fourth in the 'Gold Diggers' series, after the silent film The Gold Diggers (1923), the partially lost 'talkie' Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). The first three films, all financially successful, were all based on the 1919 play The Gold Diggers. Gold Diggers of 1935 was the first one based on a wholly original story. It was followed by Gold Diggers of 1937 and Gold Diggers in Paris.

 Although Busby Berkeley's had his own unit at Warner Bros. - to execute the elaborate production numbers he conceived, designed, staged and directed, this film was the first where he sat in the director's chair.  

Leading lady Gloria Stuart would have many successes in the 1930s, before disappearing from movie screens until her triumphant return in 1997, playing 'Old Rose' in the mega-hit Titanic. That film reigned for several years as the biggest grossing movie of all time, won eleven Oscars - including Best Picture - and Stuart herself was nominated as Best Supporting Actress.

This film was made one year before the Academy Awards created the Best Supporting Actress category, so Alice Brady's performance as the dithery rich matron did not earn her an Oscar nomination. However, the following year, Brady portrayed an essentially similar character in My Man Godfrey, and became one of the first five women ever to be nominated in that new category.

Wini Shaw's recording of Lullaby Of Broadway was an unlikely hit in Britain in 1976, reaching #42 on the charts!

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Goodbye Broadway

(1938)

Pat and Molly Malloy, once famed vaudeville and Broadway performers, arrive to play the small town of Hamilton, CT - with a troupe of dancers, singers, a trained dog and an educated seal. Harry Clark, the clerk at the rundown Swanzey Hotel, insults Pat and the latter uses the $4000 he and Molly have been saving for years to buy a retirement farm, to buy the hotel so he can fire Harry. Local skinflint, J.A. Higgins wants the hotel as he knows the state has intentions to buy it for a museum, but Pat won't sell. Hatching a plot, Higgins puts an ad in Variety and a swarm of jobless vaudevillians, headed by Marvello, descend to take advantage of the "free board" mentioned in the ad. Soon the hotel turns into a three-ring circus. The only paying customer, Iradius P. Oglethorpe, informs Pat that the old chairs stored in the cellar are priceless antiques. Based on that, Pat refuses Higgins' second, higher offer, but soon learns that Oglethorpe is the village idiot and the chairs are worthless. Their last hope to save the day is a benefit show, staged by Higgins' nephew, Chuck Bradford, who loves Jeanne Carlyle, a member of the Malloy troupe. However, things look mighty grim - for on the day of the promised extravaganza - the free-loading vaudeville boarders up and skip town!

This American comedy was directed by Ray McCarey and stars Alice Brady, Charles Winninger, Tom Brown, Frank Jenks and Dorothea Kent. 

This movie is based on the play The Shannons of Broadway written by actor and ex-vaudevillian James Gleason. A previous film had been made of the play entitled The Shannons of Broadway (1929).

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Comet Over Broadway

(1938)

AKA: Curtain Call

Eve Appleton, wife of small-town garage owner Bill Appleton, has theatrical ambitions. Bill gets into an argument with a visiting actor who is paying the wrong kind of attention to his wife and accidentally kills him. Bill ends up being sent to prison. Eve, realizing her part in Bill's fate, vows to right matters; she takes her infant daughter and goes to to make it big in the theatre. But it's tougher than she realized and, in order to concentrate on her career, she decides to leave her baby girl with a friend. Back on Broadway, Bert Ballin befriends her and they fall in love. When thing become too much for her, she flees abroad; where she becomes a big star. Back in America, as the Toast of Broadway, she is forced to deal with her former marriage vows by Joe Grant, her hometown lawyer. Oh, what is a girl to do? Two men! And... what about that baby?

Based on a story by Faith Baldwin, this American drama was directed by an uncredited John Farrow and stars Kay Francis, Ian Hunter and Donald Crisp. It was produced and released by Warner Bros.

While the film stars Kay Francis, the story behind the scenes is all about the tenacious Bette Davis.

In February 1938, the lead role was assigned to Bette Davis, who had just had a huge financial and critical hit with Jezebel. William Keighley as assigned to direct, with George Brent and Donald Crisp, who'd both been in Jezebel, assigned to the cast.   

At that time, Kay Francis, for whom Comet Over Broadway was originally intended, and one of Warner Bros. brightest (and most expensive) stars, was busy  working on My Bill (1938), directed by John Farrow.

Davis was unhappy with the film. "This was the first nothing script I was given since my court battle in England", Davis later recalled, referring to the lawsuit in which she tried to win her freedom from Warner Bros. after being forced to appear in a series of mediocre films. "It was heartbreaking to me. After winning a second Academy Award... I was asked to appear again in junk."

Conferences were held to see if the script could be altered to her satisfaction. On March 30, with the film to start that Monday, Davis refused to make the movie claiming it was not up to the standard set by Jezebel.

On April 1, Warner Bros. put Davis on suspension. She claimed she was ill but would have made the effort to appear in a film if it had been more than a "routine Cinderella yarn. Had it been The Life of Sarah Bernhardt or Maximillian and Carlotta, both of which have been scheduled for me, I would have attempted to go to the studio, but I did not feel justified in jeopardizing my health on behalf of such an atrocious script." Keighley was then assigned to another movie.

Warner Bros. lodged an official complaint against Davis with the Screen Actors Guild, which stated it needed time to investigate the matter.

Davis opted to go on suspension and remained on suspension when the studio offered her Garden of the Moon, a Busby Berkeley musical. "I was on suspension for a good part of the year following Jezebel. So much wasted time at a time when I felt my career could from then on become a truly successful one. It took a lot of courage to go on suspension. One received no salary. I couldn't afford it, nor could I afford, career-wise, to make films such as Comet Over Broadway and Garden of the Moon!"

Warner Bros. sent the script to Irene Dunne to see if she would do it. Nope.

Miriam Hopkins was then cast in the lead, however, a week later she withdrew to do another film, and the lead role was given to Kay Francis - who Warner Bros. had originally wanted for the film.

You see, Kay Francis was on the dole at Warner Bros. for a cool $200,000, so Warner Bros. kept handing her films like this in order to encourage her to quit! Instead, Kay took whatever was handed her and laughed all the way to the bank.

Busby Berkeley was originally assigned to direct. However, John Farrow, as a favor to Kay Francis, stepped in as director when Busby Berkeley became ill. Oddly, Farrow was uncredited on the film.

Kay Francis

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Broadway Rhythm

(1944)

Broadway producer Jonnie Demming courts big-name talent for his upcoming musical, oblivious to the talent all around him - among his family and friends. When Jonnie finally lands Hollywood star Helen Hoyt for his cast, Helen herself tries to open Jonnie's eyes to the talents of his dad and sister, but Jonnie remains adamant. Will his family and friends launch their own show, and go head to head with Jonnie's? Stay tuned!

This Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Technicolor musical was produced by Jack Cummings and directed by Roy Del Ruth. It stars George Murphy, Ginny Simms, Lena Horne, Nancy Walker, Charles Winninger, Gloria DeHaven, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, the Ross Sisters, and Ben Blue, as well as Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra.

Talk about your tortured births! 

Arthur Freed bought the rights to the Broadway musical Very Warm For May, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, as the starting point for this film, which was originally meant as a vehicle for Judy Garland. In typical Hollywood fashion, by the time they were done adapting it, all the original songs except All the Things You Are had been dropped, replaced by material from other writers. The project was then handed over to Jack Cummings.  

The film was originally announced as Broadway Melody of 1944 to follow MGM's 'Broadway Melody' films of 1929, 1936, 1938, and 1940. It was then slated to star Eleanor Powell, Gene Kelly and Lena Horne. However, Louis B. Mayer and MGM loaned Kelly out to Columbia to play opposite Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl (1944). So George Murphy, who had appeared in Broadway Melody of 1938 and Broadway Melody of 1940, was brought in to replace Kelly and Mayer then replaced Powell with Ginny Simms. Ginny who? Well...

Yes, it seems MGM chief Louis B. Mayer decided to turn this film into a vehicle to make a star out of his then-mistress Ginny Simms! Horne was then placed into this film in a supporting role and her Brazilian Boogie and Somebody Loves Me numbers  - which were originally filmed to appear in Broadway Melody of 1943 - were inserted into this one!  

And that's how Broadway Rhythm came to be!

Nightclub impressionist Dean Murphy plays the 'Hired Man' in a barnyard scene with Nancy Walker. He impersonates several celebrities of the day in the following order: Joe E. Brown, Edgar Bergen as Charlie McCarthy then Mortimer Snerd, Clark Gable, Ronald Colman, Wendell Willkie, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Franklin D. Roosevelt and finally Eleanor Roosevelt.

Nancy Walker actually has her own musical number - Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet.

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel!

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Lullaby Of Broadway - Wini Shaw

from the 1933 musical 42nd Street

Part I

Lullaby Of Broadway - Wini Shaw

Part II

Lullaby Of Broadway - Wini Shaw

Part III

Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet - Nancy Walker

from the 1944 musical Broadway Rhythm