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Little Cafe, The (1930)

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Little Cafe, The (1930)

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The Little Cafe (French:Le petit café) is a 1931 French-language American Pre-Code musical film directed by Ludwig Berger and starring Maurice Chevalier, Yvonne Vallée and Tania Fédor. The film is a foreign-language version of the 1930 film Playboy of Paris, which was based on the play The Little Cafe by Tristan Bernard. Multiple-language versions were common in the years following the introduction of sound film, before the practice of dubbing became widespread.

The film received a better reception from critics than the English-language version had.[1]

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Synopsis

Albert Loriflan, a waiter in a Paris cafe, unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money from a wealthy relative. His unscrupulous boss, Philibert, refuses to release him from his long-term contract in the hope that Albert will buy him off with a large payment. But Albert refuses, and continues to work at the cafe even though he is now very rich. Before long he falls in love with Philibert’s daughter Yvonne.

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Cast

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References

  1. Jump up^ Bradley p.119

Bibliography

  • Bradley, Edwin M. The First Hollywood Musicals: A Critical Filmography Of 171 Features, 1927 Through 1932. McFarland, 2004.

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Big Pond, The (1930)

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The Big Pond (1930)

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Director: Hobart Henley

Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, George Barbier, Marion Ballou, Andree Corday, Frank Lyon, Nat Pendleton, Elaine Koch

72 min

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The Big Pond is a 1930 American Pre-Code romantic comedy film based on a 1928 play of the same name by George Middleton and A.E. Thomas.[1] The film was written by Garrett Fort, Robert Presnell Sr. and Preston Sturges, who provided the dialogue in his first Hollywood assignment, and was directed by Hobart Henley.

The film stars Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert, and features George Barbier, Marion Ballou, and Andrée Corday, and was released by Paramount Pictures.

The Big Pond was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Maurice Chevalier, and also provided Chevalier with his first American hit song “Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight” written by Al Sherman and Al Lewis.[2]

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Plot

Pierre Mirande (Maurice Chevalier), is a Venetian tour guide from a poor French family who falls in love with Barbara Billings (Claudette Colbert), a wealthy American tourist whose father (George Barbier). Although Barbara loves Pierre as well, her suitor, Ronnie (Frank Lyon) and her father see him as a fortune-hunter. Barbara’s mother (Marion Ballou) persuades her husband to give Pierre a job in his chewing-gum factory in the States. Despite living in a dingy boardinghouse and being given the hardest job in the plant, he manages to captivate his landlady (Andrée Corday) and the maid (Elaine Koch) with his humorous songs. Unfortunately, he falls asleep on the night he is to attend Barbara’s party, and is then fired when he is wrongly accused of spilling rum on some chewing gum samples. He wins back his job, and is promoted as well, when he sells liquor-coated chewing gum as a sales gimmick. Barbara disapproves, and plans to marry Ronnie, but Pierre whisks her away in a speedboat.

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Cast

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Songs

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Production

The Big Pond and its French language version La grande mare[6] were shot simultaneously at the Paramount Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens, New York City.[7][8]Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, Andrée Corday and Nat Pendelton played the same roles in both versions.[6]

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Awards

Maurice Chevalier was nominated for a 1930 Academy Award for “Best Actor in a Leading Role” for his performance in The Big Pond as well as his performance in The Love Parade (1929).[8]

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French version

The French language version of The Big Pond, which was filmed simultaneously with the English version, was called La grande mare. The cast was:

  • Maurice Chevalier as Pierre Mirande
  • Claudette Colbert as Barbara Billings
  • Henry Mortimer as Mr. Billings
  • Maude Allen as Mrs. Billings
  • Andrée Corday as Toinette
  • William B. Williams as Ronnie
  • Nat Pendleton as Pat O’Day
  • Loraine Jaillet as Jennie

Writer Preston Sturges was fluent in French, but additional dialogue was provided by Jacques Bataille-Henri. The technical credits for the two versions are the same, except the editing for the French version was done by Barney Rogan.[6]

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Notes

  1. Jump up^ The Big Pond at the Internet Broadway Database
  2. Jump up^ Sherman, Robert B. Walt’s Time: from before to beyond, Santa Clarita: Camphor Tree Publishers, 1998.
  3. Jump up^ Erickson, Hal Plot synopsis (Allmovie)
  4. Jump up^ TCM Full synopsis
  5. Jump up^ TCM Music
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b c La Grande Mare on IMDb
  7. Jump up^ IMDB Filming locations
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b TCM Notes

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Safety In Numbers (1930)

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Safety In Numbers (1930)

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Director: Victor Schertzinger

Cast: Charles Buddy Rogers, Kathryn Crawford, Josephine Dunn, Carole Lombard, Roscoe Karns, Richard Tucker, Francis McDonald, Raoul Paoli, Virginia Bruce, Tom London

80 min

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Safety in Numbers is a 1930 American Pre-Code musical comedy film. Directed by Victor Schertzinger, it stars Buddy Rogers, and features Kathryn Crawford, Josephine Dunn, and Carole Lombard (in one of her early roles).

Plot

William Butler Reynolds, a 20-year-old San Franciscan with a penchant for dancing and song-writing, is about to inherit a sizable fortune.

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His guardian uncle decides to send him to New York to be educated in the “ways of the world” by three lady friends–Jacqueline, Maxine, and Pauline, Follies girls, who agree not to vamp him though he falls for Jacqueline and is jealous of her admirer, Phil Kempton.

Bill’s inept attempt to promote a song with a producer results in the firing of all three girls; and when Jacqueline then resists his advances, he picks up Alma, a telephone operator, and becomes attentive to Cleo, a Follies vamp, but the girls save him from her wiles. Luckily, the producer accepts the song and rehires the girls; Jacqueline, realizing the sincerity of the boy’s love for her, embarks for Europe with Phil; but Phil realizes the appropriateness of the match and sees to it that the lovers are united.

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Cast

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Reception

The reviewer for the Motion Picture Herald wrote, “Here’s that rare combination of intelligent direction, brilliant dialogue, and rich humor. The result is a picture that is entertainment plus.” Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times was less enthusiastic, but praised the musical numbers.[1]

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References

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Ott, Frederick W. (1972). The Films of Carole Lombard. Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press. pp. 75–77. ISBN 978-0806502786.

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Reaching for the Moon (1930)

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Reaching for the Moon (1930)

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Director: Edmund Goulding

Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Bebe Daniels, Edward Everett Horton, Claud Allister, Jack Mulhall, Walter Walker, June MacCloy, Bing Crosby

91 min

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Reaching for the Moon is a 1930 American Pre-Code black and white musical film. Originally released at 91 minutes; surviving versions are usually cut to 62 minutes. A 74-minute version aired in 1998 on USA cable channel AMC. The DVD version runs just under 72 minutes. The film’s working title was Lucky Break and is known as Para alcanzar la Lunain Spain. It is not to be confused with the Fairbanks silent film, Reaching for the Moon (1917).

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Background

The film was originally intended to be a musical with songs written by Irving Berlin but problems soon developed. From the start, Berlin found Edmund Goulding, the director, difficult to work with. Also by mid-1930 the studio realized that the public’s demand for musicals had disappeared. So Goulding jettisoned many of Berlin’s songs from the score.

Although just five Berlin songs had been recorded, the film, even in its scaled-down form, proved very expensive to make. By the time the filming was complete, the costs had come to about a million dollars, a huge budget for the times, and one that virtually ruled out the possibility of the film returning a profit.[1]

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The one song that was retained was “When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low Down” introduced by Bing Crosby who had filmed it late at night after completing his work at the Cocoanut Grove.[2] Variety commented on this song specifically, saying: “None of the Berlin songs is left other than a chorus of hot numbers apparently named “Lower Than Lowdown” [sic]. Tune suddenly breaks into the running in the ship’s bar when Bing Crosby, of the Whiteman Rhythm Boys, gives it a strong start for just a chorus which, in turn, is ably picked up by Miss Daniels, also for merely a chorus, and then in an exterior shot to the deck where June MacCloy sends the lyric and melody for a gallop of half a chorus.[3]

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Plot

Wall Street wizard, Larry Day, new to the ways of love, is coached by his valet. He follows Vivian Benton on an ocean liner, where cocktails, laced with a “love potion”, work their magic. He then loses his fortune in the market crash and feels he has also lost his girl.

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Cast

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Soundtrack

  • “When the Folks High-Up Do the Mean Low-Down”
Written by Irving Berlin
Sung by Bing Crosby, Bebe Daniels, June MacCloy and chorus.
Written by Irving Berlin
(heard instrumentally over the opening credits, as background music for a love scene, then briefly at the end)

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References

  1. Jump up^ Bergreen, Laurence (1990). As Thousands Cheer. London: Hodder and Stoughton. pp. 291–293. ISBN 0-340-53486-9.
  2. Jump up^ Giddins, Gary (2001). A Pocketful of Dreams. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p. 233. ISBN 0-316-88188-0.
  3. Jump up^ “Variety”. Variety. January 7, 1931.

Bebe Daniels

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Glorifying the American Girl (1929)

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Glorifying the American Girl (1929)

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Director: Millard Webb

Cast: Mary Eaton, Eddie Cantor, Helen Morgan, Rudy Vallee, Dan Healy, Kaye Renard, Edward Crandall, Gloria Shea, Sarah Edwards, Billie Burke, Noah Beery, Irving Berlin, Johnny Weissmuller, Adolph Zukor, Texas Guinan

95 min

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Glorifying the American Girl is a 1929 American Pre-Code, musical comedy film produced by Florenz Ziegfeld that highlights Ziegfeld Follies performers. The last third of the film (which was filmed in early Technicolor) is basically a Follies production, with cameo appearances by Rudy Vallee, Helen Morgan, and Eddie Cantor.

Rex Beach was paid $35,000 for the original story.[1][2]

The script for the film was written by J.P. McEvoy and Millard Webb and directed by John W. Harkrider and Millard Webb. The songs were written by Irving Berlin, Walter Donaldson, Rudolf Friml, James E. Hanley, Larry Spier and Dave Stamper. The film is in the public domain, and many prints exhibited on television are in black-and-white only, and do not include pre-Code material, such as nudity.

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Plot

The plot involves a young woman (Mary Eaton) who wants to be in the Follies, but in the meantime is making ends meet by working at a department store‘s sheet music department, where she sings the latest hits.

She is accompanied on piano by her childhood boyfriend (Edward Crandall), who is in love with her, despite her single-minded interest in her career. When a vaudeville performer (Dan Healy) asks her to join him as his new partner, she sees it as an opportunity to make her dream come true.

Upon arriving in New York City, our heroine finds out that her new partner is only interested in sleeping with her and makes this a condition of making her a star. Soon, however, she is discovered by a representative of Ziegfeld.

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Cast

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Cameo Appearances

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Production

  • This Pre-Code movie is notable for being the first talkie to use the word “damn” (that credit usually goes to either Pygmalion or Gone with the Wind). The word is used on at least one occasion by Sarah Edwards as well as multiple times in the skit involving Eddie Cantor, Louis Sorin and Lew Hearn. (The word was also used twice in the movie Coquette, released in April of the same year.)
  • The revue sequence contains virtual nudity and revealing costumes.
  • Both Paramount and EMKA failed to renew the copyright and the film is now in the public domain.[citation needed] EMKA’s successor, Universal Studios, continues to hold the original film elements; though technically the EMKA library is part of NBC Universal Television, successor to Universal Television and MCA Television (EMKA was a subsidiary of MCA).

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Preservation

The black-and-white prints currently shown on television, with a cut-down running time of 87 minutes, were made in the 1950s and have a number of sequences cut due to their Pre-Code content, i.e. nudity, etc. The film was restored, to the length of 96 minutes, with the original Technicolor sequences, by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.[3]

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Miscellany

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Soundtrack

The film begins with a medley of hits from Ziegfeld productions, including “Tulip Time”, “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody“, “Sally, Won’t You Come Back?”, and “No Foolin’.” The band at the picnic plays “Bye Bye Blackbird” and “Side by Side.”

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  • “No Foolin'”
Music by Rudolf Friml and James F. Hanley
Lyrics by Gene Buck and Irving Caesar
Sung by Mary Eaton
  • “Baby Face”
Music by Harry Akst
Lyrics by Benny Davis
Sung by Mary Eaton
  • “I’ll Be There”
Music by Larry Spier, J. Fred Coots, and Lou Davis
Sung by Mary Eaton and played on the piano several times by Edward Crandall
  • “Spooning with the One You Love”
Performed by Dan Healy and Kaye Renard

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Music by Irving Berlin
Played by a band while the acrobats are performing
  • “Sam, the Old Accordion Man”
Music by Walter Donaldson
Danced to by Dan Healy and Mary Eaton at the picnic and later onstage
  • “Hot Feet”
Music by Jimmy McHugh
Danced to by Dan Healy and Mary Eaton
  • “I’m Just a Vagabond Lover”
Music by Rudy Vallée and Leon Zimmerman
Performed by Rudy Vallée and His Connecticut Yankees

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  • “What Wouldn’t I Do for That Man?”
Music by Jay Gorney
Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg
Performed by Helen Morgan
  • “There Must Be Somebody Waiting For Me”
Music by Walter Donaldson
Performed by Mary Eaton and chorus in the finale. Played by pianist while Eaton dances en pointe. Played during opening credits.

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See also

References

  1. Jump up^ Beach, Rex (1940). Personal Exposures. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 205.
  2. Jump up^ H.J. (January 7, 1950). “Miner and Novelist”. The Age. Retrieved August 1, 2015.
  3. Jump up^ Feature films preserved by UCLA (1977-2012)

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Fashions of 1934 (1934)

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Fashions of 1934 (1934)

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Director: William Dieterle

Cast: William Powell, Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Hugh Herbert, Verree Teasdale, Reginald Owen, Henry O Neill, Phillip Reed, Gordon Westcott, Dorothy Burgess, Nella Walker

78 min

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Fashions of 1934 is a 1934 American pre-Code musical comedy film directed by William Dieterle with musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley.

The screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert and Carl Erickson was based on the story The Fashion Plate by Harry Collins and Warren Duff.

The film stars William Powell, Bette Davis, Hugh Herbert and Frank McHugh, and has songs by Sammy Fain (music) and Irving Kahal (lyrics). (Sometime after the initial release, the title “Fashions of 1934” was changed to “Fashions”, replacing the original title with an insert card stating William Powell in “Fashions”).

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Plot

When the Manhattan investment firm of Sherwood Nash (William Powell) goes broke, he joins forces with his partner Snap (Frank McHugh) and fashion designer Lynn Mason (Bette Davis) to provide discount shops with cheap copies of Paris couture dresses. Lynn discovers that top designer Oscar Baroque (Reginald Owen) gets his inspiration from old costume books, and she begins to create designs the same way, signing each one with the name of an established designer.

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Sherwood realizes Baroque’s companion, the alleged Grand Duchess Alix (Verree Teasdale), is really Mabel McGuire, his old friend from Hoboken, New Jersey, and threatens to reveal her identity unless she convinces Baroque to design the costumes of a musical revue in which she will star. Baroque buys a supply of ostrich feathers from Sherwood’s crony Joe Ward (Hugh Herbert) and starts a fashion rage.

Sherwood then opens Maison Elegance, a new Paris fashion house that’s a great success until Baroque discovers Lynn is forging his sketches. He has him arrested, but Sherwood convinces the police to give him time to straighten out the situation. He crashes Baroque and Alix’s wedding and promises to humiliate the designer by publicly revealing who his bride really is unless Baroque withdraws the charges. The designer agrees and purchases Maison Elegance from Sherwood, who assures Lynn he’ll never get involved in another illegal activity if she returns to America with him.

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Cast

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Cast notes:

  • Arthur Treacher, appearing in his fourth Hollywood film, played his first part as a butler, a role he was to play many times in his long career.[1]

Production

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With this film, Warner Bros. chief Jack L. Warner tried to change Bette Davis‘ screen persona by putting her in a platinum blonde wig and false eyelashes and dressing her in glamorous costumes.

The actress, who had been trying to convince the studio head to loan her to RKO so she could portray slatternly waitress Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage, was appalled at the transformation, complaining they were trying to turn her into Greta Garbo.[2] In an interview with Photoplay editor Kathryn Dougherty, she complained, “I can’t get out of these awful ruts. They just won’t take me seriously.

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Look at me in this picture – all done up like a third-rate imitation of the MGM glamour queens. That isn’t me. I’ll never be a clothes horse or romantic symbol.”[3] To Gerald Clarke of Time she lamented, “I looked like somebody dressed up in mother’s clothes. But it was a great break because I learned from the experience. I never let them do that to me again. Ever!”[4]

Working titles for the film, which was filmed at Warner Bros. Burbank studios in 1933, were King of Fashion and Fashion Follies of 1934. Warners listed writers Gene Markey and Katherine Scola as having adapted the original story that was the basis of the film, but according to the Screen Writers Guild they had nothing to do with the film.[5]

Songs

The film’s musical numbers included “Spin a Little Web of Dreams” and “Broken Melody” by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal and “Mon Homme (My Man)” by Maurice Yvain, Albert Willemetz, and Jacques Charles. Harry Warren wrote the untitled theme that accompanies the fashion show.

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Critical reception

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The New York Times described it as “a brisk show” and added, “The story is lively, the gowns are interesting and the Busby Berkeley spectacles with Hollywood dancing girls are impressive . . . William Dieterle, that expert director who has been responsible for several imaginative pictures, does well by this particular production.”[6]

Variety called it “a bit far-fetched and inconsistent . . . but it has color, flash, dash, class, girls and plenty of clothes . . . Just why and how Bette Davis enters the picture never quite rings true.”[7]

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References[edit]

  1. Jump up^ IMDB Arthur Treacher
  2. Jump up^ The Lonely Life by Bette Davis, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962, pg. 173
  3. Jump up^ Lorraine LoBianco “Fashions of 1934” TCM article
  4. Jump up^ “Just a Dame from New England” by Gerald Clarke, Time, April 14, 1980
  5. Jump up^ TCM Notes
  6. Jump up^ New York Times review
  7. Jump up^ Variety review

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Sapphires, The (PG)

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Release Date: 07/11/2012

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Sapphires, The (PG)

The Sapphires is a 2012 Australian musical comedy-drama film based on the 2004 stage play of the same name which is loosely based on a true story.[5] The film is directed by Wayne Blair and written by Keith Thompson and Tony Briggs, the latter of whom wrote the play.

The Sapphires is about four indigenous women, Gail (Deborah Mailman), Julie (Jessica Mauboy), Kay (Shari Sebbens) and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), who are discovered by a talent scout (Chris O’Dowd), and form a music group named The Sapphires, travelling to Vietnam in 1968 to sing for troops during the war. Production began in 2010, with the casting of the four members of The Sapphires and filming taking place in and around Albury in Australia and Vietnam during August and September 2011.

Director: Wayne Blair

Starring: Chris O’Dowd, Jessica Mauboy, Deborah Mailman, Miranda Tapsell, Shari Sebbens

Distributor: Entertainment One

Locations: Saturation

Format: 2D/35 mm

Film Website: 

Film Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sapphires_(film)

Film IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1673697/?ref_=nv_sr_1

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