Texas Guinan Movies
Broadway's legendary nightclub hostess, the toast of the Roaring Twenties, Texas Guinan (born Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan) actually came close to becoming the screen's first successful cowgirl star. In the late 1910s, Guinan appeared in a series of independent oaters -- The Gun Woman(1918), She Wolf (1919), The Wild Cat(1920), and others -- usually playing a Calamity Jane type of character, who softens up and settles down with a good man before the fadeout. But apparently Guinan's heart wasn't in it and she would become much more famous as a Broadway speakeasy proprietor whose legendary greeting of "Hello, suckers!" came to define an entire era. She returned to films as Queen of the Night Clubs (1929), but the Wall Street crash and the ensuing Depression put a damper on such frivolity. The irrepressible Guinan hit the road instead and was performing one-night stands in Vancouver, British Columbia, when she suddenly died from an intestinal infection. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide- 1933
This drama was written by famed radio announcer Walter Winchell. It chronicles the tragic love between a racketeer and a singer. So smitten is he by the chorus girl's charms that he buys her a nightclub. Unfortunately for him, the club's male crooner/bandleader also loves the girl. Realizing that he cannot compete, the crook bows out. However, during her wedding the racketeer lays down his life in exchange for hers when others attempt to kidnap her. He is shot, but survives. In the hospital he listens to the radio and hears that he is considered a hero and that the would-be kidnappers have been killed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Constance Cummings, Russ Columbo, (more)
Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld brought his legendary "Follies" to the silver screen in Glorifying the American Girl. The barely visible plotline concerns a virginal young miss (Mary Eaton) who aspires to greatness as a Follies girl. With stars in her eyes, she heads to New York, leaving her hometown boyfriend to fend for himself. Upon arriving in the Big Apple, our heroine links up with a two-bit dancer who offers to make her a star -- if only she'll let him make her, period. The greater part of the film is given over to a re-creation of a "typical" Follies production, replete with musical solos by Rudy Vallee and Helen Morgan and a sidesplitting comedy sketch with Eddie Cantor and Louis Sorin as a pair of kvetching Jewish tailors ("Vat's der idea uff calling me a damn fool in front uff der customers?" "So, it's a secret?"). From time to time, the camera cuts away to the many celebrities enjoying the show, including journalist Ring Lardner, nightclub doyenne Texas Guinan, New York mayor Jimmy Walker, Paramount Pictures head man Adolph Zukor, and Flo Ziegfeld himself, accompanied by his then-wife, Billie Burke. And yes, that's Johnny Weissmuller on-stage as a provocatively undraped "Nature Boy." As a bonus, the musical score was the handiwork of Irving Berlin. Originally filmed in Technicolor, Glorifying the American Girl is presently available only in black-and-white. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Eaton, Edward Crandall, (more)
- 1929
To sophisticated filmgoers of 1929, the designation "queen of the nightclubs" could mean only one person: Colorful Manhattan speakeasy proprietress Texas Guinan, of "Hello, Sucker!" fame. More or less playing herself, the brash, blowsy Guinan is cast as Tex Malone, a New York nightery owner who hires innocent young songstress Bee Wallace (Lila Lee) to perform in Tex's club. This effectively breaks up Bee's vaudeville act with hoofer Eddie Parr (Eddie Foy Jr., the brother of director Bryan Foy). Feeling put-upon, Eddie is the most likely suspect when Tex's close friend Don Holland (John Davidson) is murdered. In the course of the trial, Tex discovers that Eddie is actually her own son. Without ever revealing her relationship with Eddie to the world, Tex manages to prove that the actual killer was rival club owner Andy Quindland (played by veteran movie "drunk" Arthur Housman, in a rare sober characterization). George Raft makes his film debut by re-creating the "hot" Charleston dance solo that first brought him Broadway fame (the details of Raft's move to Hollywood, and his friendships with such gangsters as Owney Madden and Bugsy Siegel, would later be fictionalized in Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 production The Cotton Club). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Texas Guinan, Eddie Foy, Jr., (more)
