Wonderland Burlesque's
Let's All Go To The Movies
She's A Lady!
Part XXIV
Yes, sometimes? It takes a lady.
Or so these films would have us believe.
They promise lots of drama, the occasional comedy or musical, and a little bit of dirt!
Let's take a walk down Hollywood Blvd. and shine a light on these magnificent classic films.
This way, if you please. But remember...
Ladies first!
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Fight For Your Lady
(1937
Ham Hamilton knows that gold-digger Marcia Trent is only after Robert Densmore for his money, so he tells Marcia that Robert is broke and she calls off the announced wedding. Disappointed and ready to die, Robert goes to Budapest, with Ham as his companion, where he decides he can best accomplish his death wish by making love to Marietta, whose husband, Spadissimo is the finest swordsman in all of Europe and will surely kill him in a duel. The duel is on and Robert is very quickly on the losing end when Ham, knowing that Spadissimo has a mother complex, poses as Robert's mother and Spadissimo breaks down in tears, while Robert, Marietta and Ham make a quick exit stage left. Marcia, having learned that Robert is not broke enters ready to renew the romance, but takes her romance notion in another direction when the sees the size of the castle of the recently-jilted Spadissimo.
Fight for Your Lady is a 1937 American comedy film directed by Benjamin Stoloff and written by Ernest Pagano, Harry Segall and Harold Daniel Kusel. The film stars John Boles, Jack Oakie, Ida Lupino, Margot Grahame, Gordon Jones, Erik Rhodes, Billy Gilbert and Paul Guilfoyle.
According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, Herbert Marshall was to star in this film.
RKO borrowed Ida Lupino from Paramount for this picture.
John Boles and Ida Lupino
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Swing Your Lady
(1938)
Promoter Ed Hatch arrives in a small town in the Ozarks with his monstrous wrestler Joe Skopapolous and Joe's trainers, Popeye Bronson and Shiner Ward, with the hopes of putting on a wrestling match. Unfortunately, there are no local candidates who would be suitable opponents until Ed meets the Amazonian blacksmith, Sadie Horn. Ed thinks an inter-gender match would be a good gimmick and offers Sadie $100 to compete. Sadie accepts his offer so she can buy a suite of bedroom furniture. Joe meets Sadie during a training run and is immediately smitten, so much that he refuses to fight her, despite her pleas for him to do so. When Ed finds out that Sadie has been courted by mountain man Noah Webster, he arranges a fight between Joe and Noah. Putting his promotional ability to work, Ed announces that Sadie will marry the winner. Sadie agrees to this, but reveals to Ed that she favors Joe over Noah. When Joe says he'll give up wrestling for her, Ed suddenly realizes he could lose his livelihood. In desperation, Ed shows Sadie a picture of a woman and children and lets Sadie believe that they are Joe's family. Sadie tells Ed she will go back to Noah, and Ed convinces Joe to lose the fight. Then Ed hears that Madison Square Garden wants to present the winner, leaving Ed with a sudden dilemma.
Adapted from a Broadway play by Kenyon Nicholson and Charles Robinson, this American country musical comedy was directed by Ray Enright and stars Humphrey Bogart, Frank McHugh, Ida Lupino, Louise Fazenda, Nat Pendelton, Daniel Boone Savage and Penny Singleton. Ronald Reagan is also in the cast in one of his early roles.
Humphrey Bogart initially refused to do this movie; he only agreed once his weekly salary was raised by $200. The actor was very disenchanted with the film roles that Warner Bros. was offering him at this stage of his career; the following year he appeared in his only horror/sci-fi film, The Return of Doctor X, and these were two roles he never liked talking about once he became a major film star several years later. Bogart considered his performance in Swing Your Lady the worst of his career.
One of only two films featuring Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan; the other is Dark Victory (1939).
The film featurs Daniel Boone Savage, a professional wrestler, making his film debut and Nat Pendleton, a former Olympic and professional wrestler. Pendleton had been a champion collegiate wrestler and won the Silver Medal in the 1920 Olympics.
Louise Fazenda's daughter is played by Joan Howard. It's a rare acting appearance by the daughter of Moe Howard of the The Three Stooges.
Penny Singleton, then a brunette, plays a character named Cookie, which happens to be the name of Blondie and Dagwood's daughter in the Blondie comic strip. Going blonde, Singleton would appear in a string of 28 pictures as Blondie.
Swing Your Lady features the first film performance by the Weaver Brothers and Elviry, a comedy troupe better known as The Arkansas Travelers during their many years in vaudeville and on the Grand Ole Opry radio show.
One of the films included in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way) by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell.
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(1955)
In 1880 New Mexico, a young female doctor from Boston arrives in Santa Fe to establish her new medical practice. Dr. Julia Garth is set to live with her brother, U.S. Cavalry lieutenant David Garth. The town already has a male physician, Dr. Rourke O'Brien. His tomboy niece, Spurs O'Brien, has a teenage crush on the handsome Cavalry lieutenant David Garth. The first hospital of this community is managed by Catholic priest Father Gabriel Mendoza and a few nuns. However, these are times when female doctors are almost unheard of. Some people even consider it a shameful offense for a woman to intrude in a man's profession. Therefore, Dr. Julia Garth's arrival in town and her medical practice ruffles many feathers. Dr. Rourke O'Brien is no exception. He arrogantly dismisses Julia Garth's competency as he secretly falls in-love with her. She is only welcomed with open arms by loving priest and members of the poor Mexican and Indian communities. Over time, Dr. Julia Garth has to prove herself a capable and trusted physician and gain the respect and confidence of the whole town. When some of Dr. Rourke O'Brien's patients switch their medical provider by flocking to Dr. Garth's office, O'Brien becomes envious and jealous of Dr. Garth. Nevertheless, there is a powerful attraction between the two and a romance is afoot. Unfortunately, her brother David is accused of cheating in a poker game and selling stolen cattle to the army. In response, David shoots his accuser dead before robbing the bank and skipping town. The incensed townsfolk order Dr. Julia Garth out of town. Only Dr. O'Brien can save the day.
Margaret O'Brien was originally considered for the role of Spurs O'Brien.
This was Greer Garson's first film since leaving MGM where she had been under contract since 1939. She would not make another feature film until Sunrise at Campobello (1960). Filming was suspended for five weeks in October and November of 1951 after Greer Garson had an emergency appendectomy.
Frankie Laine recorded the theme song for this picture. And while it failed to chart in the US, it did reach #6 in the UK.
An early role for Lois Smith.
Who Was That Lady?
(1960)
To get back into good graces with his wife, with whom he has had a misunderstanding, a young chemistry professor concocts a wild story that he is an undercover FBI agent. To help him with his story he enlists the aid of a friend who is a TV writer. The wife swallows the story. But later - real FBI agents and enemy spies become involved in the scheme.
Based upon the play, Who Was That Lady I Saw You With? by Norman Krasna, who also wrote the screenplay, this black and white American comedy was directed by George Sidney and stars Tony Curtis, Dean Martin, and Janet Leigh.
Shirley MacLaine was originally supposed to star, but she changed her mind and made Can-Can with Frank Sinatra instead.
The filming of this almost-two-hour movie took a mere 27 days. George Sidney claimed he was given a 40-day schedule by Columbia and had suggested to them that he could do it in just ten. They were shocked by the suggestion that a big-budget 'A' picture with important stars could be done so short a time, so Sidney compromised by doing it in 27 days. Sidney believed that doing things fast added to the fun.
Shortly after filming, Leigh called it "the best role I've ever had. The girl is really important in the comedy. Quite a few important changes were made from the stage play because of the expanded movie medium... We had a real ball making the picture; we played practical jokes on each other between scenes that kept everyone in good humor. That George Sidney's a doll too." She later confirmed in her memoirs that making the film "was a romp from start to finish... we really rolled with this one. The personal familiarity of the three of us allowed absolute freedom and the interplay was wild and woolly and inventive."
Lifelong friends Tony Curtis and Larry Storch were US Navy shipmates on a submarine during World War II and watched the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay through binoculars, some 300 yards away. Curtis and Storch appeared together in six movies during the 1960s: Who Was That Lady? (1960), 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), Wild and Wonderful (1964), Sex & The Single Girl (1964) and The Great Race (1965.). They also appeared together in a 1971 episode of the British TV series The Persuaders.
Norman Krasna was sued by a writer he'd previously worked with for plagiarism. After four trials, one of which Groucho Marx was brought in to testify, the suit was dismissed.
The costume design was by Jean Louis.
Dean Martin received a Golden Globe award nomination for his performance in Who Was That Lady?, which also was nominated for Best Comedy. Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis won Laurel Awards for their performances.
What Do You Say To A Naked Lady?
(1970)
Candid Camera's Allen Funt secretly tapes people's reactions to unexpected encounters with nudity in unusual situations, such as when a naked young woman casually exits an elevator in an office building, or when the nude male art model breaks the wall between artist and model and has off-the-cuff conversations with the clothed women artists. Funt also secretly tapes the test audience watching the preview film and their responses to it - which range from outright indignation to warm hearted-praise.
While the film does contain some titillating material and both male and female full frontal nudity, a large amount of the film involves Funt talking to people about sexuality and sexual topics.
Whereas Funt's other productions had to fall within Federal Communications Commission guidelines prohibiting nudity and sexual content on the airwaves, this film was outside the FCC's jurisdiction and Funt was free to incorporate them into the film.
In the U.S., the film was originally rated X by the Motion Picture Association of America; an edited version was rated R in 1982. When submitted to the British Board of Film Classification in 1970, the film was originally rejected, then rated X.
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And that's all for now, folks.
Tune in next time...
Same place, same channel.
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Who Was That Lady? - Dean Martin
Theme from the 1960 motion picture
Who Was That Lady?
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