Musical Monday: Hallelujah (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 500. To celebrate and share this musical love, here is my weekly feature about musicals.

This week’s musical:
Hallelujah (1929) – Musical #600

Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director: King Vidor

Starring: Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney, William Fountaine, Harry Gray, Fanny Belle DeKnight, Everett McGarrity, Victoria Spivey, Matthew ‘Stymie’ Beard (uncredited), Sam McDaniel (uncredited), Clarence Muse (uncredited), Blue Washington (uncredited), Madame Sul-Te-Wan (uncredited)
Themselves: Dixie Jubilee Singers

Plot:
Zeke (Haynes) and Spunk (McGarrity) Johnson are cotton sharecroppers and go to town to sell their family’s portion of the season’s crop. While celebrating, Zeke meets Chick (McKinney) who sweet talks Zeke and woos him by dancing with him at a club. Chick is in cahoots with her boyfriend Hot Shot (Fountaine), and she causes Zeke to lose his money gambling. When a gun is pulled in an argument after losing his money, Zeke’s brother Spunk is killed. Fearful, Zeke runs away and turns around his life by becoming a pastor. Despite his new life, Zeke is still tempted by Chick.

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Watching 1939: The Four Feathers (1939)

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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 Four Feathers

Release date:  April 18, 1939

Cast:  John Clements, Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, June Duprez, Allan Jeayes, Jack Allen, Donald Gray, Donald Gray, Frederick Culley, Clive Baxter

Studio:  London Film Productions

Director:  Zoltan Korda

Plot: Set in 1902, Harry (Clements) resigns from the military right before he is supposed to go to Africa to serve, shirking tradition. He never wanted to serve in the military decides he won’t now that his father has died and he no longer has to follow his wishes. Before his friends travel to Egypt, they send him white feathers signifying that he’s a coward.

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Musical Monday: The Duke Is Tops (1938)

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

This week’s musical:
The Duke Is Tops (1938) – Musical #599

Studio: Million Dollar Productions

Director: William L. Nolte

Starring: Ralph Cooper, Lena Horne, Laurence Criner, Neva Peoples, Monte Hawley, Vernon McCalla, Lillian Randolph (uncredited), Everett Brown (uncredited)
Themselves: Basin Street Boys, Cats and the Fiddle, Willie Covan

Plot:
Duke Davis (Cooper) is a talented performer but sets his own success aside to promote singer, Ethel Andrews (Horne). Ethel reaches success as the “Bronze Nightengale.” The problem is also that Duke is in love with Ethel, and their romance ends when Ethel goes to New York City for her career. As Ethel tries to succeed, Duke tries to make ends meet by traveling with a medicine show.

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Watching 1939: Wuthering Heights (1939)

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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:  Wuthering Heights (1939)

Release date:  March 24, 1939

Cast:  Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Flora Robson, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Hugh Williams, Leo G. Carroll, Cecil Kellaway, Miles Mander, Sarita Wooton, Rex Downing, Douglas Scott, Donald Crisp

Studio:  The Samuel Goldwyn Company

Director:  William Wyler

Plot:
Mr. Earnshaw (Kellaway) lives with his two children Hindley (Scott) and Cathy (Wooton) at the family farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. When returning from a trip to London, Earnshaw brings home a young gypsy waif, Heathcliff (Downing). Heathcliff is raised as Earnshaw’s own with Hindley and Cathy – Hindley hates Heathcliff and Cathy befriends him, eventually falling in love with him. After Earnshaw dies the three grow up, Hindley (Williams) becomes the master of Wuthering Heights, drinks too much, and puts Heathcliff (Olivier) where he feels he belongs, as a servant. Cathy (Oberon) falls in love with Heathcliff, but he doesn’t behave in the grand manner she wants out of life and she doesn’t feel he can give her the life she wants. Their paths divide and come back together, and their mutual love destroys everything around them.

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Musical Monday: Swing! (1938)

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

This week’s musical:
“Swing!” (1938)– Musical #598

Studio:
Micheaux Pictures Corporation

Director:
Oscar Micheaux

Starring:
Cora Green, Larry Seymour, Dorothy Van Engle, Hazel Diaz, Alec Lovejoy, Amanda Randolph, Trixie Smith, Carman Newsome, Doli Armena, Consuelo Harris, George R. Taylor, The Tyler Twins, Leon Gross & His Orchestra

Plot:
Mandy (Green) works as a cook for a rich family in Birmingham, AL. Her husband Cornell (Seymour) says he’s a business man, but he takes all of Mandy’s money and spends it on Eloise Jackson (Diaz) who he cheating on Mandy with. After Mandy finds the two in a nightclub, Eloise moves to New York City and changes her name to Cora Smith and hopes to become an actress. Eloise’s husband Lem (Lovejoy) follows her to New York City, and Mandy moves to the New York as well when she leaves Cornell. Lena Powell also is from Birmingham and is now working for Ted Gregory, a stage producer. Lena helps Cora get a job as a seamstress for the show, which happens to be the show that Eloise is starring in.

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Watching 1939: Pacific Liner (1939)

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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:  Pacific Liner (1939)

Release date:  Jan. 6, 1939

Cast:  Victor McLaglen, Chester Morris, Wendy Barrie, Barry Fitzgerald, Alan Hale, Emory Parnell, Halliwell Hobbes, Allan Lane, Paul Guilfoyle, Cy Kendall, Florence Lake (uncredited), Douglas Walton (uncredited), Ernest Whitman (uncredited)

Studio:  RKO Radio Pictures

Director:  Lew Landers

Plot:
Set in 1932, Crusher “The Dragon” McKay (McLaglen) is the engineer of a cruise ship heading from Shanghai to San Fransisco. McKay is no-nonsense and works his men hard, especially in the boiler room, so that the ship will run at a fast pace and make good time. When there is a cholera outbreak in the decks below, Doctor Craig (Morris) takes over and calls the shots.

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Musical Monday: Show Boat (1951)

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

This week’s musical:
Show Boat (1951) – Musical #29

Studio:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director:
George Sidney

Starring:
Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown, Agnes Moorehead, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Robert Sterling, William Warfield, Linda Christian (uncredited), Adele Jergens (uncredited), Regis Toomey (uncredited), Lyn Wilde (uncredited), Dee Turnell (uncredited)

Plot:
Set in the 1880s, the Cotton Blossom Show Boat is run by Capt. Andy Hawke (Brown) and his wife Parthy (Moorehead). When the boat arrives in a Mississippi town, there’s trouble for the show’s leading lady Julie Laverne (Gardner) and her husband, Steve Baker (Sterling). In revenge for Julie turning him down, riverboat worker Pete (Erickson) tells the sheriff (Toomey) that the boat has a case of miscegenation, an interracial relationship. Julie is part black, and Steve is white, and even though he cuts her hand and sucks some of it out, the two are forced out of town by the law. In a hurry to replace their leading lady and leading man, Capt. Andy recruits his daughter Magnolia (Grayson) and a gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Keel), who was seeking passage on the boat. Magnolia and Gaylord get married, though her parents object, and the two move to Chicago, where Gaylord hopes to keep them living on velvet through gambling. However, his luck soon sours.

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Watching 1939: Lady of the Tropics (1939)

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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:  Lady of the Tropics (1939)

Release date:  Aug. 11, 1939

Cast:  Robert Taylor, Hedy Lamarr, Joseph Schildkraut, Mary Taylor, Ernest Cossart, Gloria Franklin, Charles Trowbridge, Frederick Worlock, Cecil Cunningham, Natalie Moorhead, Willie Fung (uncredited), Charles Judels (uncredited)

Studio:  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director:  Jack Conway, Leslie Fenton (uncredited)

Plot:
A wealthy, jet setting vacation group is seeing the world on a yacht and stop in French Saigon, or Indochina. The party includes American playboy Bill Carey (Taylor), who is traveling with the family of his fiancee Dolly (Mary Taylor). When they arrive, the tourists learn about people of mixed race who are half French, half Asian. A priest, Father Antoine (Cossart) who describes these individuals as flying fish “trying to stay, flying above the water only to fall into the ocean and die.” One woman who is both French and Indochinese is Manon DeVargnes (Lamarr), who desperately wants to go to Paris. Bill and Manon fall in love and marry, but society keeps them from being happy or leaving Saigon.

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Musical Monday: The Kissing Bandit (1948)

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

This week’s musical:
The Kissing Bandit (1948) – Musical #236

Studio:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director:
Laslo Benedek

Starring:
Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, J. Carrol Naish, Mildred Natwick, Billy Gilbert, Mikhail Rasumny, Sono Osato, Clinton Sundberg, Carleton G. Young, Edna Skinner, Nana Bryant (uncredited)
Specialty dancers: Ricardo Montalban, Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, Sally Forrest

Plot:
Set in the 1800s, shy Ricardo (Sinatra) returns to Spanish California after receiving his education in Boston. Ricardo believes he’s taking over his deceased father’s business, running an inn. However, his father’s friend Chico (Naish) informs him, but the family business is being the Kissing Bandit, a robber who kisses women. When he meets Teresa (Grayson), the daughter of the governor, he is smitten but doesn’t kiss her, much to Teresa’s dismay. Ricardo can’t get close to her because the governor is searching for the Kissing Bandit, so Ricardo pretends to be the tax collector.

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Watching 1939: Blondie Takes a Vacation (1939)

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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: Blondie Takes a Vacation (1939)

Release date: July 20, 1939

Cast: Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Larry Simms, Danny Mummert, Daisy the Dog, Donald Meek, Donald MacBride, Thomas W. Ross, Elizabeth Dunne, Robert Wilcox, Harlan Briggs, Irving Bacon, Milton Kibbee (uncredited)

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Director: Frank R. Strayer

Plot:
After originally missing their vacation, Blondie (Singleton), Dagwood (Lake) and Baby Dumpling (Simms) head to the mountains on vacation and meet a series of issues. After their reservations are canceled at their first hotel, they end up as the only guests at a mountain resort whose business is failing. The family helps get the resort back up on its feet, making their trip more work than a vacation.

1939 Notes:
• The third Blondie film of the 28 film series from 1938 to 1950.
• Three Blondie films were released in 1939: Blondie Meets the Boss, Blondie Takes a Vacation, Blondie Brings Up Baby

Other trivia:
• Harry Davenport was originally going to co-star in this film but had to drop out due to his role in “Gone with the Wind” (1939), according to the Hollywood Reporter.
• Filmed at Cedar Lake and Big Bear in California

Larry Simms, Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake in “Blondie Takes a Vacation”

My review: Searching for the “1939 feature”:
The Blondie comic strip was re-created as a radio show and then a film series.

The film series, starring Arthur Lake, Penny Singleton and Larry Simms, had 28 films, and three of those were released in 1939: Blondie Meets the Boss, Blondie Takes a Vacation, and Blondie Brings up Baby.

“Blondie Takes a Vacation” is the usual mad-cap story with Blondie (played by Penny Singleton) putting up with Dagwood (played by Arthur Lake) being a knucklehead. Larry Simms as Baby Dumpling probably has the most sense of anyone in the family.

While “Blondie Meets the Boss” had some painful moments, “Blondie Takes a Vacation” is better. There are some slapstick moments that are predictable, like Baby Dumpling thinking he finds a “kitty,” but it’s a skunk. Or a vacuum bag swelling up like a balloon and floating to the ceiling. But I like this one because it puts the family in a different setting – on vacation.

The family goes to the mountains on the vacation that they were denied in the last film (“Blondie Meets the Boss”). But things, of course, run afoul. On the train to vacation, they irritate a man sitting near them (Donald MacBride) who happens to own the resort they are going to. When he sees the family enter, he kicks them out and refuses to house them. The family finds a nearby hotel, which is nice but failing because of the other resort. Rather than resting during their vacation, Blondie and Dagwood spend their trip working to help the elderly couple make their hotel a success.

This series of films can be tiresome to me, but these serial films were generally cheap to make and did alright in theaters. There were 28 blondie films in all. This one is more interesting because they are out of their home and also helping others.

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