Two musical star biopics about facing adversity with bravery

Above: Susan Hayward as Jane Froman in "With A Song in My Heart"

Below: Eleanor Parker as Marjorie Lawrence in "Interrupted Melody"

The Nissen Hut, known to Americans as the Quonset Hut

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissen_hut

The song Kate Smith was famous for

Recently-posted "GI version" of one patriotic song made me think of this classic and the woman who was famous for singing it!

"G. I. version" of the U.S. Army song (Tge Caussibs Go Rolling Along)

Kay recalled hearing both this and less-clean parodies during her time in the WAAC and then as a civilian worker at a military airfield.. 

Kay's era, in another part ofr the world: Composer of film music for Mexican mummy movie also left us a pearl

Recently I borrowed the 1957 horror flick "The Aztec Mummy" from Netflix, and while the credits moved along, I saw this one, and it rang a bell.

 

Ten years before "The Aztec Mummy," Antonio Diaz Conde did the music for the  Spanish-language film version of the John Steinbeck story "The Pearl." Spanish title: "La Perla."  Here's the film on YouTube. It has English subtitles.

The wrong Stooge or the right Stooge?

When I was a kid, a local television show interspersed a kiddie host with "Three Stooges" shorts on Saturday mornings, in the same way that the after-school show brought us Popeye cartoons. I really had no idea that a Stooges film short originally appeared in movie theaters, along with a newsreel, cartoon,l and a B picture to round out an all-day movie theater presentation. 

The Stooges were highly recognizable celebrities in the 1930s and 1940s, and did show-within-a-show comedy bits in many films, as well as cameo appearances. I was not expecting any Stooges in the 1941 film "Road Show," recently borrowed from Netflix on DVD. But here came someone I mistook for Moe Howard without the bowl haircut. Then I realized it was actually Shemp with a normal haircut. But his character's name in the movie is "Moe." An in-joke? Was Moe supposed to do the appearance, and then Shemp need to step in for some reason? Some Stooges scholar knows, but I don't.

 

Model shows off 1940s tomato red faille suit

 I think the next-to-last time I encountered the word "faille" (pronounced "file") was in the Fabrics part of the Home Ec curriculum at Creston Junior High.  The last time was in one of Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer novels, this week. 

The most unlikely perfume brand movie tie-in of the 20th century

 

 

 

The company which makes Jergen's hand lotion once made perfume branded after one film version of "Ben-Hur." Since this movie ad is from 1930 and the box is very Art Deco,  the marketing people were thinking of the silent 1925 version with Ramon Navarro and Francis X. Bushman as the dueling charioteers. Neither Conrad Nagel nor Leila Hyams were in "Ben Hur," but they were about to co-star in the unmemorable film "Hell in a Circus."

Someone on YouTube has added an amusing modern musical soundtrack to the chariot race scene:

The radio hit which told Kay that her musical era was fading away

 Kay was coming to the end of her radio program "Boogie Woogie Baton," more for personal reasons that anything, but this hit by The Four Freshman, accordion to an interview Kay gave in the 1980s, signaled that American musical tastes were changing and that swing, jazz, and blues were no longer in favor.

Couldn't leave Glenn Miller behind at Goodwill, could I?

 

Someone's put the "At Last" track on YouTube: 

 

 

Someone else has posted the whole soundtrack:

 

And here's the popular 1941 film: 

 

Adolphe Menjou in "Road Show"

 Adolphe Menjou seemed European to movie audiences, though he was actually from Pittsburgh and the son of a French father and an Irish mother. He often played debonair types who looked good in evening dress. In the 1941 comedy "Road Show," Menjou starts out dressed in a white suit a la Mark Twain, then changes into a giant-check zoot suit with enormous wide-brim hat.

In  the film, Menjou plays a man who lives in a mental hospital, from which he's been able to escape if he wants. His main "symptom" is the Bloom-A-Daisy, an invention which is like one of those puff-of-smoke-from-the-flash-pan cameras. but which a hand-cranked Polaroid type print mechanism which... Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it?

 Menjou's zoot suit ensemble is perfect for the last scene in the film, in which the veteran actor, working at a small carnival, drives off thugs with a miniature baseball bat and, later, a fire hose. 

 

 

Film Stars of Kay's Era: a favorite image of Patsy Kelly

From the carnival fight scene in "Road Show" (1941)

 

 

Military film from Kay's era: "Crack That Tank," 1943

 

Films of Kay's Era: Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" )1933)

 

Films of Kay's Era: Agnes Moorhead having a very bad day in "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942)

Agnes Moorehead is so good as Fanny Minaver that the only way I can watch this scene is to remember that in real life, the actress was much beloved and had many friends. 

 

 

Commentary on Hollywood Golden Age movie hype, via cartoon

 This exaggerated movie marquee (remember those?) is from Irish-born cartoonist Graham Laidler, who signed his work with his school nickname "Pont."

Dr. Seuss cartoon lampoons pre-WWII isolationism and willful ignorance

 

 

 

You can read an article about the cartoonist's sand on "America First" on The Atlantic website, HERE

Movies from Key's Era: "Dillinger" (1940)

 Here's the trailer:

Australian opera star Margerie Lawrence makes 1947 comeback after polio

 

The 1930s and 1940s were so complex in terms of culture. Star soprano Marjorie Lawrence was most famous for singing the works of Richard Wagner, strongly associated with Nazi culture. Yet Lawrence herself was heroic, traveling with legs weakened by polio and performing from a seated position for Allied soldiers during the Second World War. The French awarded Lawrence the Legion of Honor for her service to France.

 

 

The 1972 radio broadcast below includes this short summary of Lawrence's experience with illness and her return to the stage. 

Thr radio broadcast above makes mention of Laswrence's memoir, Interrupted Melody. 

 

 

The book became an MGM film in 1955. 

 

 

Can you guiess the movie from the film still? #2

The answer to Film Still #1 was "Love Affair" (1939). 

This time:   Can you name the movie from which this still was taken?

 

 

 

 

"Undertow" (1949) -- Movies from Kay's Era

 

Do you recognize the movie from the film still? #1

 

 

Not sure? I'll post the answer tomorrow at the Facebook Page for the Kay Kemble Project.

One of my favorite Helen Hokinson cartoons ever

 Helen Hokinson drew her girls for magazines for many years, and like almost everything from the earlier part of the 20th century, the messaging is complicated. Sometimes Hokinson's women appear foolish, snobbish, or self-deceiving. But sometimes they show an artist's loving heart and kind eye. Here's a lady who's climbed a railing to wave her hankie at a ship either sailing from a harbor or into one. The illustration is from the Hokinson cartoon collection So You Want To Buy a Book.

 It's not just the publication date which made me find this fitting for the Kay Kemble blog, but the mode of travel. Now that air travel is the way people travel, and boats are simply for cruising around in a leisurely manner, it's hard to remember that sailing used to be how people went, say, from the United States to Europe. 

Restored World War II flying boat does its thing!

 

Celebrities of Kay's Era: Rita Hayworth married Prince Aly Khan

 

Found at the thrift store for a buck -- Glenn Miller EP on RCA Victor

Looked for this recording for a while and then found it at Goodwill...at last. 

 

 

Hank Williams Sr. -- You Were On My Lonely Mind, 1950

 

Frank Sinatra sends off 1943 with short end-of-year greeting, then "As Time Goes By"

Frankie!!

A video maker takes a look back at the DuMont television netowrk

A nice YouTube find!

 

 

Royal Hawaiians TV show sponspored by Regal Pale ale -- 1954

Harry Owens and the Royal Hawaiians on live TV, on a beer-sponsored show which ran for ten years, starting in 1948.

Cartoon of Kay's era -- see concert promoter Betty Boop find a female swing band leader in an unlikely place!

 "Sally Swing," from 1938:

 

 

Victory Parade of Spotlight Bands -- Jimmy Joy

Coca-Cola sponsored radio concerts featuring Big Band stars touring military bases and defense plants. Today's selection is a jumping version of "Blue Skies" from Jimmy Joy's band.  

 

 

 

 

 

From Kay's Era: "Up Pops the Devil" on film and on the radio too

Playwrights and screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett -- a married couple -- famously based a 1934 film script very loosely on the plot from Dsshiell Hammett's novel The Thin Man and begin a hit movie series about a wild-living, well-to-do, witty couple solving a crime. 

Three years before "The Thin Man" arrived in movie theaters, Goodrich and Hackett's play "Up Pops the Devil" became a film starring Carole Lombard and Skeets Gallagher. (This 1931 movie has a similar title to"Up Jumps the Devil," a lost 1941 comedy with an all-Black cast.)

The YouTube version of this early comedy detective film isn't the best quality, but there is a good-quality radio version done for Lux Radio Theatre in 1937. The radio version stars Fred MacMurray and Madge Evans. Enjoy!

Ida Red Likes to Boogie, but Kay Kemble didn't like Western Swing

 Kay was famous among friends for her dislike of the Western craze which took over music and movies in the 1940s and 1950s. This included Western Swing, for sure. But in the "Mama don't allow but I'm gonna play it anyhow" mode,I'm posting "Ida Red Likes the Boogie" by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

Mystery novel of Kay's era benefits from author as screenwriter + direction by Michael Curtiz

 This suspense novel...

 

 

 ...became this film in 1947:
 

 

 

 

Movies of Kay's Era: Dick Tracy's Dilemma -- RKO -- 1947

 

Radio in Kay's Day: Dorothy L. Sayers story adapted for "Suspense" with Charles Laughton

Old-time radio show "Suspense" broadcast of "The Man Who Knew How," adapted from a story by Dorothy L. Sayers. 

 

 

 

People of Kay's Era, European edition: Children's author Enid Blyton

 Pathe film, 1946:

 

 

Music of Kay's Era: The Wedding Samba (1950)

 

Films of Kay's ear: 1950 movie with Jane Powell and Ricardo Mantelban doing the tango

 "Two Weeks with Love"

"Real radio" in Kay's era -- Don McNeil and the Breakfast Club

 

A tour guide in Chicago, where The Breakfast Club originated, has done THIS SHORT PROFILE of the show, including some fun photos and memorabilia.

Politics in Kay's Day: "Mister American," Ike's campaign bio-pic

This fourteen-minute newsreel style portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower was shown in movie theaters and civic clubs during Ike's run for the Presidency.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?417599-1/mister-american

 

 

Comedy in Kay's day: Jack Pearl and The Three Stooges in "Meet the Baron"

 

 

 

Social Reforers of Kay's Era: Miriam Van Waters, The Lady at Box 99

 

Miriam Van Waters was a gentle, fierce reformer of women's prisons. She was profiled by author Burton J. Rowles in the book The Lady at Box 99.

Music technology of Kay's era: Hawaiian guitar

Odd Jobs in World War II

 I was looking up piecework done by defense workers during the Second World War , because Kay's partner did some of that, and while I haven't quite found what I'm looking for, I did find this illustrated of odd jobs people did during the war. 

https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2001405/10-odd-jobs-of-world-war-ii/https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/story/Article/2001405/10-odd-jobs-of-world-war-ii/

Snug as a Bug in a Rug

 

1s film in Britain -- "Went the Day Well?" from Ealiung fim studio

 

Lani McIntyre, "The One Rose"

 

Wikipedia has a lot of good information about Lani McIntyre (and his brothers), including Lani's work with Jimmie Roidgers and his influence on the Hawaiian guitar sound which was once widely popular. 

Here's the link to the article.

Bandleaders: Ray Noble

 

 

Film from Kay's era: This Is the Army

 

In Kay's Time: "Paris After Dark," 1943

Kay's Peers: guitarist Linda Lee

 

From Kay's era --1950s square dance program on television

 Everyone in Kay's life was very clear that Western TV shows and movies and cowboy records were anathema to her, I am not sure where she stood on the square dance question.