Kate Smith Movies
Though she didn't speak a word until the age of four, Kate Smith made up for lost time by launching her stage career at age five with a Washington, D.C., church choir. Despite her parent's objections, she insisted upon remaining in show business and by age ten was singing for the WWI troops, earning a special commendation from General Pershing. The hefty young contralto made her Broadway debut as Tiny Little in Eddie Dowling's 1926 musical Honeymoon Lane. She then joined the cast of Flying High, in which she was subjected to a barrage of cruel and insulting "fat jokes" by leading man Bert Lahr. Record executive Ted Collins rescued her from this nightly public humiliation by taking Smith on as a client, and by 1931 she was starring in a popular four-a-week radio series for the CBS network. Signing on each evening with her signature theme "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain," she soon developed a huge fan following with her warm, easygoing style. Less popular was an attempt at film stardom in the 1933 vehicle Hello, Everybody, though her guest appearances in such films as The Big Broadcast (1933) and This Is the Army (1943) were well received. She is undoubtedly most closely associated with Irving Berlin's patriotic ballad "God Bless America," which for all intents and purposes became her personal property after 1938. Billed as "the first lady of radio," her airwaves credits included the daytime talk show Kate Smith Speaks (1938-1947), in which she expounded extemporaneously on any number of topics, most optimistic in nature. On TV, she headlined two weekly series in 1951 and 1960. Curtailing her appearances after the death of her partner/mentor Ted Collins in 1964, Kate Smith retired completely in 1979; three years later, she received the coveted Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan (her co-star in This Is the Army). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 2003
- Add A Salute to the Red, White & Blue: Memorable Performances from The Ed Sullivan Show to Queue Add A Salute to the Red, White & Blue: Memorable Performances from The Ed Sullivan Show to top of Queue
In a time when the global war on terrorism has reached a fever pitch and the citizens of the United States have rallied together to support their military, patriotism has risen to levels not witnessed since the 1950s and 60s. In those days popular celebrity Ed Sullivan did his best to keep morale high by encouraging some of the nations best performers to do what they do best. In this release compiling the very best of those remarkable performances, Roy Rogers, Carl Sandburg, Joel Grey, Loretta Lynn, The West point Glee Club, Charlton Heston, Irving Berlin and more all come together to inspire patriotism through their talents and musicianship. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 2000
This program features a compilation of promotional film shorts produced during the 1930s as part of the Hollywood on Parade and Star Reporter in Hollywood series. A number of the Parade shorts were produced or directed by Lewis Lewyn and they often provided songs and comedy sketches. It's generally noted that these pseudo newsreels were produced by Paramount, yet the shorts feature stars from other studios as well, such as the great Buster Keaton, who was an MGM star in the '30s. He's seen here driving his "Land Yacht," a 30-foot vehicle that could sleep six people in two bedrooms and had a kitchen and a dining room. Highlights of the video also include a sequence from Hollywood on Parade No. 8 (1933), in which actress Helen Kane plays Betty Boop in a brief encounter with Bela Lugosi as a wax museum Dracula who comes to life. Other stars featured include Fredric March, Ginger Rogers, Burns and Allen, and Gary Cooper. ~ Steve Blackburn, Rovi
The splashy, star-studded This is the Army is based on the Irving Berlin Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was a reworking of Berlin's WW1 "barracks musical" Yip Yip Yaphank. In both instances, the cast was largely comprised of genuine servicemen, many of them either recently returned from fighting or on the verge of heading off to war. The Hollywood-imposed storyline concerns Jerry Jones (George Murphy), a member of the original 1918 Yip Yip Yaphank cast. His showbiz career curtailed by a leg injury, Jerry becomes a producer during the postwar era. When the US enters WW2, Jerry gathers together several other cast members from the 1918 Berlin musical to help him stage a new all-serviceman show, titled (what else?) This is the Army. The show-within-a-show framework is able to accommodate a romantic subplot, involving Jerry's son Johnny (Ronald Reagan, later a political comrade-in-arms of George Murphy) and Eileen Dibble (Joan Leslie), the daughter of Yip Yip Yaphank alumnus Eddie Dibble (Charles Butterworth). Some of the best moments in This is the Army are from the Broadway production itself, though the lengthy Alfred Lunt-Lynn Fontanne imitation and incessant "gay" jokes may have been too smart for the room in 1943. Guest stars include boxer Joe Louis, Kate Smith (singing "God Bless America", naturally) and Irving Berlin himself, who steals the show with his plaintive rendition of "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning". All profits for the stage and film version of This is the Army went to the Army Emergency Relief Fund, which also controlled the rights to the film. Long withheld from TV distribution, the film finally hit the small screen when it lapsed into Public Domain in the mid-1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- George Murphy, Joan Leslie, (more)
- 1933
Reported to have cost a whopping $2 million, this musical was actually made for far less -- and looks it. But unlike She Done Him Wrong (1932), filmed simultaneously next door, Hello, Everybody! made nary a nickel. Both films starred newcomers, but unlike the irrepressible Mae West, hefty Kate Smith, of radio fame, was given very little opportunity to shine. Awarded script and casting approval, the radio star had chosen a Fannie Hurst tearjerker about a goodhearted but plump farm girl who finds solace in music while her boyfriend takes off with her svelte sister. Paramount, however, made the fatal mistake of casting Smith's real-life manager Ted Collins as her on-screen agent as well, and Collins' overbearing presence was of no help whatsoever to the nervous songbird. Adding insult to injury, Sally Blane, the nearly emaciated sister of equally svelte Loretta Young, played Smith's sibling, insuring that Kate's ungainly girth remained steadfastly in focus. A wardrobe consisting of matronly housedresses and an especially atrocious production number entitled &Pickanninnies' Heaven" put the final nail in the coffin. In the end, Hello, Everybody! proved enough of a loser for Kate Smith to stay away from feature films entirely until a brief cameo in the all-star wartime extravaganza This is the Army(1943). Mae West, meanwhile, considered the phrase "Hello, Everybody!" such a jinx that she reportedly prohibited anyone from using it in her presence! ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kate Smith, Randolph Scott, (more)
- 1932
This early musical is a bit slim on story but features a number of vintage performances by a stellar cast, including some of the most popular radio stars of the day. George (George Burns) manages a radio station that is on the brink of bankruptcy. Leslie McWhinney (Stuart Erwin), a carefree millionaire, comes up with an idea to pull the station back into the black: persuade a host of big stars to appear on a special broadcast. One of the station's employees is a guy named Bing, played by an obviously well-cast Bing Crosby in one of his first major film appearances; Crosby gets to sing several tunes, as do Kate Smith, Cab Calloway, The Boswell Sisters, and several others. Young George Burns also performs several comic routines with his wife and partner Gracie Allen, who here plays Burns's stenographer. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Stuart Erwin, Bing Crosby, (more)
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