Category Archives: Musical Monday

Musical Monday: Ballad in Blue (1965)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Ballad in Blue (1965) – Musical #733

ballad

Studio:
Alsa Productions, distributed by 20th Century Fox

Director:
Paul Henreid

Starring:
Themselves: Ray Charles, The Raelettes
Actors: Tom Bell, Mary Peach, Dawn Addams, Piers Bishop, Betty McDowall, Joe Adams, Anne Padwick, Monika Henreid,

Plot:
While Ray Charles (himself) is performing at a school for a school for blind children, he meets and befriends David (Bishop). David’s mother Peggy (Peach) is overprotective of her son, which makes her constantly at odds with her boyfriend Steve (Bell), who thinks the child should have more independence. Ray tries to show Peggy that David can live successfully without his sight, but also recommends a surgeon who may be able to help them. Ray also offers a job to Steve as a music arranger and composer. Steve wants Peggy and David to travel with them, but Peggy is reluctant to uproot David.

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Musical Monday: Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955) – Musical #732

rhythm and blues

Studio:
Studio Films Inc.

Director:
Joseph Kohn

Starring:
Host: Willie Bryant
Themselves: Faye Adams, Bill Bailey, Ruth Brown, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Count Basie, Martha Davis, The Delta Rhythm Boys, Freddy and Flo, Lionel Hampton, Herb Jefferies, The Larks, Little Buck, Amos Milburn, Mantan Moreland, Nipsey Russell, Big Joe Turner, Sarah Vaughan

Plot:
A musical revue of top performers of the 1950s.

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Musical Monday: Stormy Weather (1943)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

stormy weatherThis week’s musical:
Stormy Weather (1943) – Musical #731

Studio:
20th Century Fox

Director:
Andrew L. Stone

Starring:
Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Dooley Wilson, Matthew ‘Stymie’ Beard, Flournoy Miller, Johnnie Lee, Emmett ‘Babe’ Wallace (uncredited), Ernest Whitman (uncredited),
Themselves: Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra, Katherine Dunham and Her Troupe, Fats Waller, The Nicholas Brothers, Ada Brown, Mae E. Johnson

Plot:
Told as a flashback, dancer Bill Williamson (Robinson) reminisces about returning from World War I and meeting (and falling in love with) singer Selina Rogers (Horne). Bill works to get into the show business.

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Musical Monday: The Emperor Jones (1933)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

emperorThis week’s musical:
The Emperor Jones (1933) – Musical #730

Studio:
United Artists

Director:
Dudley Murphy

Starring:
Paul Robeson, Dudley Digges, Frank H. Wilson, Fredi Washington, Ruby Elzy, George Haymid Stamper, Moms Mabley (uncredited), Rex Ingram (uncredited), Harold Nicholas (uncredited), Billie Holiday (uncredited)

Plot:
Brutus Jones (Robeson) leaves home after being hired as a Pullman porter on a train. Jones does well for himself, until he fights with his best friend (Wilson) and ends up killing him. Jailed for murder, Jones escapes from prison. Jones hops a freighter shoveling coal and jumps off the boat to swim to a remote island. On the island, Jones works himself up to being the emperor of the people.

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Musical Monday: Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) – Musical #166

till the couds

Studio:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director:
Richard Whorf
Vincente Minnelli (Judy Garland’s numbers)

Starring:
Robert Walker, Van Heflin, Lucille Bremer, Dorothy Patrick, Harry Hayden, Mary Nash, Paul Langton, Paul Maxey, William ‘Bill’ Phillips
Specialty Performances from: June Allyson, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Kathryn Grayson, Angela Lansbury, Van Johnson, Tony Martin, Cyd Charisse, Gower Champion, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Ray Macdonald, Virginia O’Brien, Caleb Peterson, Karin Booth, Sally Forrest, Johnny Johnston, Matt Mattox, Lee Wilde, Lyn Wilde

Plot:
The musical biographical film on the life songwriter Jerome Kern (Walker) and his rise to fame, starting with his collaboration with song arranger James I. Hessler (Heflin).

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Musical Monday: The Singing Nun (1966)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

singing nunThis week’s musical:
The Singing Nun (1966) – Musical #47

Studio:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director:
Henry Koster

Starring:
Debbie Reynolds, Ricardo Montalbán, Greer Garson, Agnes Moorehead, Juanita Moore, Katharine Ross, Chad Everett, Tom Drake, Ricky Cordell, Michael Pate, Charles Robinson, Monique Montaigne, Joyce Vanderveen, Anne Wakefield, Pam Peterson, Marina Koshetz, Nancy Walters, Violet Rensing, Inez Pedroza, Jon Lormer (uncredited), Dorothy Patrick (uncredited)
Themselves: Ed Sullivan

Plot:
A nun, Sister Ann (Reynolds), loves music and enjoys singing. Father Clementi (Montalban) thinks Sister Ann should make a record, and she writes a song which becomes a hit. The record sells well and she even appears on the Ed Sullivan Show. As she rises to fame, Sister Ann realizes that the popularity may conflict with the vows she took. The film is a fictionalized biographical musical on the life and career of Jeannine Deckers (who served in the church as Sister Luc Gabriel and known professional as Soeur Sourire), a nun who rose to fame with her hit “Dominque.”

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Musical Monday: Gypsy (1962)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

gypsy 7This week’s musical:
Gypsy (1962) – Musical #164

Studio:
Warner Bros.

Director:
Mervyn LeRoy

Starring:
Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, Ann Jillian, Karl Malden, Paul Wallace, Morgan Brittany (billed as Suzanne Cupito), Diane Pace, Betty Bruce, Jean Willis, Parley Baer, Harry Shannon, Faith Dane, Roxanne Arlen, Jack Benny (uncredited), Harvey Korman (uncredited), Bert Michaels (uncredited), Cubby O’Brien (uncredited), Trudi Ames (uncredited), Dick Winslow (uncredited),

Plot:
A look at the lives of performers June Havoc (Brittany, Jillian) and Louise, who became Gypsy Rose Lee (Pace, Wood), and how they were thrust into show business by their stage mother Rose (Russell). The story starts when June and Louise are young and progresses as vaudeville declines.

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Musical Monday: The Best Things in Life Are Free (1956)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Best Things in Life Are Free (1956) – Musical #729

best thing in life

Studio:
20th Century Fox

Director:
Michael Curtiz

Starring:
Gordon MacRae, Dan Dailey, Ernest Borgnine, Sheree North, Tommy Noonan, Murvyn Vye, Phyllis Avery, Larry Keating, Julie Van Zandt, Jacques d’Amboise, Roxanne Arlen, Harold Miller, Linda Brace, Patty Lou Hudson, Robert Banas (uncredited), Barrie Chase (uncredited), Ann B. Davis (uncredited), Juliet Prowse (uncredited), Marion Ross (uncredited)

Plot:
Musical biographical film on the songwriting trio Buddy DeSylva (MacRae), Ray Henderson (Dailey) and Lew Brown (Borgnine) and the music they wrote together during the 1920s. The film depicts how the trio worked together and how they grew apart when De Sylva went to Hollywood and wanted to produce pictures, leaving Henderson and Brown behind.

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Musical Monday: Somebody Loves Me (1952)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Somebody Loves Me (1952) – Musical #457

somebody loves5

Studio:
Paramount Pictures

Director:
Irving Brecher

Starring:
Betty Hutton, Ralph Meeker, Robert Keith, Adele Jergens, Billie Bird, Sid Tomack, Henry Slate, Nick Adams (uncredited)
Themselves: Jack Benny

Plot:
Biographical film on entertainer Blossom Seeley (Hutton) and her rise to fame and her marriage to performer Benny Fields (Meeker). The film begins in 1906 the night of the San Francisco earthquake and goes through the 1920s.

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Musical Monday: Show of Shows (1929)

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It’s no secret that the Hollywood Comet loves musicals.
In 2010, I revealed I had seen 400 movie musicals over the course of eight years. Now that number is over 600. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Show of Shows (1929) – Musical #721

show of shows3

Studio:
Warner Bros.

Director:
John G. Adolfi

Starring:
Master of Ceremonies: Frank Faylen

Armida, Johnny Arthur, Mary Astor, William Bakewell, Richard Bartelmess, Noah Berry, Sally Blane, Monte Blue, Irène Bordoni, Joseph A. Burke, Marion Byron, Georges Carpentier, Ethlyne Clair, James Clemens, Ruth Clifford, William Collier Jr., Betty Compson, Chester Conklin, Heinie Conklin, Dolores Costello, Helene Costello, Jack Curtis, Viola Dana, Alice Day, Marceline Day, Sally Eilers, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Louise Fazenda, Pauline Garon, Albert Gran, Alexander Gray, Lloyd Hamilton, Julanne Johnston, Sôjin Kamiyama, Lupino Lane, Frances Lee, Lila Lee, Ted Lewis, Winnie Lightner, Beatrice Lillie, Jacqueline Logan, Myrna Loy, Nick Lucas, Tully Marshall, Shirley Mason, Otto Matieson, Philo McCullough, Patsy Ruth Miller, Bull Montana, Lee Moran, Chester Morris, Jack Mulhal, Edna Murphy, Carmel Myers, Marian Nixon, Molly O’Day, Sally O’Neil, Gertrude Olmstead, Kalla Pasha, Anders Randolf, Rin Tin Tin, Bert Roach, Sid Silvers, Ann Sothern, Ben Turpin, Ada Mae Vaughn, Alberta Vaughn, Lolita Vendrell, Edward Ward, Alice White, Ted Williams, Lois Wilson, Grant Withers, Loretta Young, John Aasen

Plot:
With 23 songs and skits, there is little plot to this film. It is a talent revue to exhibit the speaking and singing talent of Hollywood stars during the dawn of sound.

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