Tag Archives: 1950s musicals

Musical Monday: Merry Andrew (1958)

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:
Merry Andrew (1958) – Musical #241

Studio:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director:
Michael Kidd

Starring:
Danny Kaye, Pier Angeli, Salvatore Baccaloni, Noel Purcell, Robert Coote, Patricia Cutts, Rex Evans, Walter Kingsford, Peter Mamakos, Rhys Williams, Tommy Rall, Richard Anderson (uncredited), Frank Jenks (uncredited), John Dodsworth (uncredited)

Plot:
School teacher Andrew Larabee (Kaye) wants to be taken seriously by his father, the headmaster (Purcell) and asks if he can go on an archaeological excursion to find the missing statue of Greek mythology figure, Pan. When Andrew travels to where he believes the statue is located, a circus is performing on the spot where he would like to dig. Andrew friends the circus family, and falls in love with performer, Selena (Angeli). The problem is Andrew is engaged to be married to someone else.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Sweethearts on Parade (1953)

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:
Sweethearts on Parade (1953) – Musical #844

Studio:
Republic Pictures

Director:
Allan Dwan

Starring:
Ray Middleton, Lucille Norman, Eileen Christy, Bill Shirley, Estelita Rodriguez (billed as Estelita),
Clinton Sundberg, Harry Carey Jr., Irving Bacon, Leon Tyler, Marjorie Wood, Mara Corday, Elinor Donahue (uncredited), Mimi Gibson (uncredited)

Plot:
Kathleen Townsend (Norman) and her daughter, Sylvia (Christy), live a quiet and peaceful life in Kokomo, Indiana in the late 1800s. Sylvia misses having a father, Cam Ellerby (Middleton), who Kathleen left when Sylvia was a baby due his philandering ways. Years later, Cam and his traveling medicine show comes to Kokomo, the three are reunited.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: I’ll Get By (1950)

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:
I’ll Get By (1950) – Musical #843

Studio:
20th Century Fox

Director:
Richard Sale

Starring:
June Haver, William Lundigan, Gloria DeHaven, Dennis Day, Thelma Ritter, Steve Allen, Danny Davenport, Harry Antrim
Himself: Harry James
Cameos: Jeanne Crain, Dan Dailey, Reginald Gardiner, Victor Mature

Plot:
William Spencer (Lundigan) is a song plugger with aspirations of getting into the publishing business. When he runs across songwriters Freddy Lee (Day) and Chester Dooley (Davenport), they buy into his business. They realize they need to promote their music with singers. They meet singing duo, Liza Martin (Haver) and Terry Martin (DeHaven), who agree to sing thor songs. As Spencer and Lee rise to fame a song publishers, Liza and Terry feel they are more career driven than caring about anything else.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Rock n’ Roll Revue (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:
Rock n’ Roll Revue (1955) – Musical #834

Studio:
Studio Films Inc.

Director:
Joseph Kohn

Starring:
Host: Willie Bryant
As themselves: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, Larry Darnell, Cholly Atkins and
Charles ‘Honi’ Coles (billed as Cole & Atkins), The Clovers, Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, Big Joe Turner

Plot:
A musical review of the top performers of the time.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Cinderella (1957)

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:
Cinderella (1957) – Musical #143

Studio:
CBS

Director:
Ralph Nelson

Starring:
Julie Andrews, Ilka Chase, Edie Adams, Jon Cypher, Howard Lindsay, Dorothy Stickney, Alice Ghostley, Kaye Ballard

Plot:
Set to music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the story focuses on Cinderella (Andrews), a lonely young woman whose father has died and she lives only with her stepmother (Chase) and stepsisters (Ballard, Ghostley). Her stepmother and stepsisters have made Cinderella their servant, while Cinderella dreams of a better life. The Prince (Cypher) is in search of a wife, and the King and Queen (Lindsay, Stickney) hold a ball so he can find a wife. Cinderella’s fairy godmother (Adams) helps her get to the ball, but she must leave by midnight.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Jack and the Beanstalk (1952)

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:
Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) – Musical #809

Studio:
Produced by Executive Productions, Distributed by Warner Bros.

Director:
Jean Yarbrough

Starring:
Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Buddy Baer, Dorothy Ford, Shaye Cogan, James Alexander, Barbara Brown, David Stollery, Arthur Shields

Plot:
Two unlikely babysitters, Jack (Costello) and Mr. Dinkle (Abbott) are hired to watch Donald Larkin (Stollery). While they are reading “Jack & the Beanstalk” to him, both babysitters fall asleep. Told in a dream sequence, the pair are transported into the story. In the story, Jack (Costello again) and his mother (Ford) live in a village that has hit hard times and the Giant (Baer) has kidnapped the Princess Eloise (Cogan), a goose that lays golden eggs, and Prince Arthur (Alexander), who is pretending to be a to be a troubadour. When Jack is asked to sell the family cow, he squanders the money by buying magic beans. The bean grows into a giant stalk that goes into the sky. Jack climbs the stalk to rescue everyone that the Giant has kidnapped, and is followed by the town butcher Mr. Dinklepuss (Abbott again), who’s interested in the golden goose.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Scared Stiff (1953)

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.

scared stiff

This week’s musical:
Scared Stiff (1953) – Musical #797

Studio:
Paramount Pictures

Director:
George Marshall

Starring:
Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Lizabeth Scott, Carmen Miranda, George Dolenz, Dorothy Malone, William Ching, Paul Marion, Jack Lambert, Tony Barr, Leonard Strong, Henry Brandon, Earl Holliman (uncredited)
Cameo appearances: Bob Hope, Bing Crosby

Plot:
Mary Carroll (Scott) has inherited an estate in Cuba, but throughout her travels, she receives death threats and notes of warning. Before sailing to Cuba, Mary meets performers Larry Todd (Martin) and Myron Mertz (Lewis). Larry believes that he killed someone in New York at Mary’s hotel, so Larry and Myron stowaway on the ship for Cuba. Once they arrive at the home, that’s believed to be haunted, the trio tries to figure out who is behind the warnings.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Those Redheads from Seattle (1953)

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:
Those Redheads from Seattle (1953) – Musical #826

Studio:
Paramount Pictures

Director:
Lewis R. Foster

Starring:
Rhonda Fleming, Agnes Moorehead, Teresa Brewer, The Bell Sisters, Gene Barry, Guy Mitchell, Jean Parker, Roscoe Ates, John Kellogg, Frank Wilcox, Walter Reed

Plot:
Vance Edmonds (Wilcox) is a newspaper man in Yukon Territory, trying to clean up a crooked town with his newspaper articles. Not knowing his life is being threatened, his family in Seattle, decides that it’s time to go be with their father including his wife, Mrs. Edmonds (Moorehead) and four daughters, Kathie (Fleming), Pat (Brewer), and Connie and Neill (the Bell Sisters). When they arrive in the Yukon, the Edmond family finds that things are not what they expected and have to find ways to support themselves amongst encounters with saloon owners (Barry) and saloon women.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Sing Boy Sing (1958)

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:
Sing Boy Sing (1958) – Musical #825

Studio:
20th Century Fox

Director:
Henry Ephron

Starring:
Tommy Sands, Edmond O’Brien, Jerry Paris, Josephine Hutchinson, John McIntire, Lili Gentle, Regis Toomey, Diane Jergens, Tami Conner
Disc Jockeys as themselves: Art Ford, Bill Randle, Biff Collie

Plot:
Virgil Walker (Sands) is a teen heartthrob singer, whose life is controlled by his manager, Joseph Sharkey (O’Brien). Sharkey also keeps Virgil isolated from his family, with the help of press agent, Arnold Fisher (Paris). Virgil was raised in a small town by his pastor grandfather (McIntire). When Virgil’s grandfather becomes ill, Sharkey tries to keep Virgil from knowing and away from his family, fearing his grandfather will turn Virgil against his “sinful” singing career.

Continue reading →

Musical Monday: Senior Prom (1958)

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:
Senior Prom (1958) – Musical #822

Studio:
Columbia Pictures

Director:
David Lowell Rich

Starring:
Jill Corey, Paul Hampton, James Komack, Barbara Bostock, Tom Laughlin, Frieda Inescort, Peggy Moffitt, Selene Walters, Francis De Sales
Themselves: Ed Sullivan, Mitch Miller, Bob Crosby, Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Sam Butera, The Witnesses, Connee Boswell, Toni Arden, Freddy Martin and His Orchestra, José Melis, Les Elgart

Plot:
A band, featuring Tom Harper (Hampton) on vocals and Dog (Komack) on the bass fiddle, are hired to perform at a college fraternity party. Carter Breed II (Laughlin) automatically dislikes Tom and the band when his girlfriend Gay Sherridan (Corey) automatically is smitten with Tom. As Tom and Gay begin a romance, Carter tries to sabotage the romance and Tom’s music career. However, Tom’s music becomes a hit and he appears on the Ed Sullivan Show. His new fame allows him to invite celebrity performers to the college’s senior prom.

Continue reading →