Category Archives: Musical Monday

Musical Monday: The Gang’s All Here (1943)

Posted on by
2

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:
The Gang’s All Here (1943) – Musical #310

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Director: Busby Berkeley

Starring: Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, James Ellison, Phil Baker, Eugene Pallette, Charlotte Greenwood, Edward Everett Horton, Dave Willock, Sheila Ryan, Jeanne Crain (uncredited), June Haver (uncredited), Adele Jergens (uncredited), Adele Jergens (uncredited), Mary Stewart (uncredited), Frank Faylen (uncredited), Charles Saggau (uncredited)
Themselves: Benny Goodman and his Orchestra, Tony De Marco

Plot:
Nightclub performer Edie Allen (Faye) meets soldier Andy Mason (Ellison) in a night club. Andy falls for her, but gives her a false name. Edie writes to Andy (or Casey which is the name he gave her), while he is fighting in the Pacific. When he returns home a hero, a War Bond benefit is given in his honor starring Edie and the rest of the nightclub performers. The problem is, Andy is engaged to another girl (Ryan).

Continue reading →

Advertisements

Musical Monday: Love Me or Leave Me (1955)

Posted on by
Reply

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:
Love Me or Leave Me – Musical #39

Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director: Charles Vidor

Starring:
Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell, Robert Keith, Tom Tully, Harry Bellaver, Richard Gaines, Claude Stroud, Audrey Young, Dorothy Abbott, Veda Ann Borg, Robert Dix (uncredited), Jay Adler,

Plot:
Biographical musical on Ruth Etting (Day). Etting has dreams of becoming a singer. Etting is discovered by gangster Marty Snyder (Cagney) after she is fired as a taxi dancer. Using his force, Snyder helps Etting get singing bookings. Etting’s talent carries other offers, but Snyder still continues to control Etting’s life and career from Broadway to Hollywood, including having her marry him. Etting is also in love with her piano player Johnny Alderman (Mitchell), but is trapped by Snyder.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Maytime in Mayfair (1949)

Posted on by
Reply

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 500. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Maytime in Mayfair (1949)– Musical #594

Studio:
Herbert Wilcox Productions

Director:
Herbert Wilcox

Starring:
Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Peter Graves, Nicholas Phipps, Thora Hird, Michael Shepley, Tom Walls, Mona Washbourne

Plot:
Michael Gore-Brown (Wilding) is a broke aristocrat who inherits the fancy lady’s dress shop in the fashionable neighborhood, Mayfair. Michael is planning to sell the shop until he meets and falls in love with the shop’s owner and designer Eileen (Neagle). He tries to run the shop on his own but realizes he needs Eileen to compete with another sophisticated shop owner, D’Arcy Davenport (Graves).

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: The Girl from Mexico (1939)

Posted on by
Reply

In 2011, I announced I was trying to see every film released in 1939. This new series chronicles films released in 1939 as I watch them. As we start out this blog feature, this section may become more concrete as I search for a common thread that runs throughout each film of the year. Right now, that’s difficult. 

1939 film:  The Girl from Mexico (1939)

Release date:  June 2, 1939

Cast:  Lupe Velez, Donald Woods, Leon Errol, Linda Hayes, Donald MacBride, Edward Raquello, Elisabeth Risdon, Ward Bond

Studio:  RKO Studios

Director:  Leslie Goodwins

Plot:
Dennis Lindsay (Woods) is an advertising businessman who goes to Mexico to find a singer for a client. He finds quick-tempered Carmelita Fuentes (Velez) and brings her back to New York to audition. While in New York, Carmelita explores the city with Dennis’s Uncle Matt (Errol) and gets into trouble. All the while, Dennis falls in love with Carmelita, but the problem is that he’s engaged (Hayes).

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: The Student Prince (1954)

Posted on by
Reply

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:
The Student Prince – Musical #467

Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director: Richard Thorpe

Starring:
Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, John Ericson, Louis Calhern, Edmund Gwenn, S.Z. Sakall, Betta St. John, John Williams, Evelyn Varden, Richard Anderson, John Hoyt, John Qualen, Mario Lanza (singing voice)

Plot:
Prince Karl Franz (Purdom) is set to marry Princess Johanna (St. John) to help his kingdom financially. When the princess finds Prince Karl to be stuffy and unfeeling, he is sent by the King (Calhern) to Heidelberg to study and also learn how to be a human being. While at the university, Prince Karl falls in love with a barmaid, Kathy (Blyth), he has to choose between love and duty.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Too Many Girls (1940)

Posted on by
1

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:
Too Many Girls (1940) – Musical #178

Studio: RKO Studios

Director: George Abbott

Starring:
Lucille Ball, Richard Carlson, Ann Miller, Eddie Bracken, Frances Langford, Desi Arnaz, Hal Le Roy, Libby Bennett, Douglas Walton, Harry Shannon, Van Johnson (uncredited), Chief John Big Tree (uncredited), Iron Eyes Cody (uncredited), Harry James (uncredited), Grady Sutton (uncredited)

Plot:
Connie Casey (Ball) is known for her wild reputation so four football players (Carlson, Bracken, Arnaz, Le Roy) are hired by her father to enroll in Pottawatomie College in New Mexico to chaperon her.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)

Posted on by
Reply

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:
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) – Musical #606

Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director: Herbert Ross

Starring:
Peter O’Toole, Petula Clark, Michael Redgrave, George Baker, Siân Phillips, Michael Bryant, Michael Culver

Plot:
In a film that begins in the 1920s and ends in the years following World War II, Arthur Chipping (O’Toole) is an unpopular teacher at an all boy’s school. He falls in love and marries a showgirl Katherine Bridges (Clark). The school and its patrons don’t think Katherine is refined enough to be connected to the school.

Continue reading →