Apropos of our previous posts this week featuring James Cagney and his singular style of hoofing, here’s the audacious and highly entertaining ‘Shanghai Lil’ number from ‘Footlight Parade’ (1933). As with yesterday’s clip featuring Bob Hope and Cagney dancing on a table, once again Cagney dances…on a table! (This time
The extraordinary screen dance-off of James Cagney and Bob Hope that I’ve posted above is from ‘The Seven Little Foys’, a 1955 biopic of vaudeville star Eddie Foy as portrayed by Hope. Cagney is once again reprising his role as George M. Cohan–see yesterday’s clip from Yankee Doodle Dandy for
The above number, from ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ (1942) is the great James Cagney performing the delightful ‘Off The Record’. He’s playing George M. Cohan playing Franklin D. Roosevelt and his distinctive, one-of-a-kind ass-in-air dancing style will be the subject of further posts this week. Whether you like it or not…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDlnp880Lds Harry Warren was an eminent composer of literally dozens of hit tunes written for movies from the early 1930s through the late 1950s. His last big song was the haunting theme from ‘An Affair To Remember’ and his earliest works include depression-era ditties like ‘Jeepers Creepers’, ‘Lullaby Of Broadway’,
Yesterday I posted the history of the lyric of Irving Berlin’s immortal ‘Putting On The Ritz’. Written in 1929, the original lyric had strong racist overtones which were removed when Berlin rewrote the song for the Fred Astaire vehicle ‘Blue Skies’ (1946). Before that, though, Clark Gable performed the song
‘Putting On The Ritz’ was written by Irving Berlin in May 1927 and first published on December 2, 1929. It was introduced by Harry Richman and chorus in the musical film ‘Putting On The Ritz’ (1930). I’ve posted a clip of that notoriously awful musical performance above–more about that in a minute. According to The
Yesterday I posted a short film from 1935 called ‘Broadway Highlights’. The film was part of a series of short subjects produced by Paramount Pictures in 1935 and 1936. They purported to tell the viewer, newsreel-style, what was happening on the so-called Gay White Way. In this installment, we first
‘Broadway Highlights’–subtitled ‘Intimate News Of The Gay White Way’–was a series of several short subjects produced by Paramount Pictures in 1935 and 1936. They purported to tell the viewer, newsreel-style, what was happening on the Gay White Way (as the street was dubbed in the lyric of ‘Broadway Melody’). Much
Let’s close the week with the spectacular Fred Astaire & Eleanor Powell ‘Begin The Beguine’ dance routine from ‘Broadway Melody of 1940’. You need to sit through a minute of silly singing until the dancing begins (or you can fast-forward through it) but it’s well worth the wait. The whole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTkl_Nyzh90https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXPr32BHmNAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTY6GpGdDF8 Above are three rare clips of George Raft dancing–one from the 1944 wartime propoganda musical ‘Follow The Boys’ (1944), another from one of his earliest films ‘Quick Millions’ (1931) and finally a duet with Alice Faye from ‘Every Night At Eight’ (1935). The quality of the second two clips