Robert Arthur Movies

A woman looks back at her childhood in show business in this musical comedy. At the turn of the century, Myrtle McKinley (Betty Grable) is working her way through business school and gets a job dancing at a San Francisco vaudeville house. She meets fellow hoofer Frank Burt (Dan Dailey), and they soon fall in love. Marriage follows, and Myrtle and Frank begin performing a song and dance act on the road. Myrtle leaves the act when she becomes pregnant with the first of two children, but when the kids are old enough to go out on tour, she and Frank work them into the act, and they learn to live out of a suitcase like their parents. Years later, Iris (Mona Freeman) and Mikie (Connie Marshall) are attending college when they learn that Mom and Dad have pulled their act out of mothballs -- and are booked to perform at a theatre near their campus. Mother Wore Tights won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score, and it was nominated for Best Song ("You Do") and Best Color Cinematography; the great Mexican ventriloquist Senor Wences appears as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Faced with the challenge of writing a screenplay based on the life of fabulously wealthy, fabulously successful composer Cole Porter, one Hollywood wag came up with a potential story angle: "How does the S.O.B. make his second million dollars?" By the time the Porter biopic Night and Day was released, the three-person scriptwriting team still hadn't come up with a compelling storyline, though the film had the decided advantages of star Cary Grant and all that great Porter music. Roughly covering the years 1912 to 1946, the story begins during Porter's undergraduate days at Yale University, where he participated in amateur theatricals under the tutelage of waspish professor Monty Woolley (who plays himself). Though Porter's inherited wealth could have kept him out of WWI, he insists upon signing up as an ambulance driver. While serving in France, he meets nurse Linda Lee (Alexis Smith), who will later become his wife. Focusing his attentions on Broadway and the London stage in the postwar years, Porter pens an unbroken string of hit songs, including "Just One of Those Things," "You're the Top," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Begin the Beguine," and the title number. The composition of this last-named song is one of the film's giddy highlights, as Porter, inspired by the "drip drip drip" of an outsized rainstorm, runs to the piano and cries "I think I've got it!" The film's dramatic conflict arises when Porter is crippled for life in a polo accident. Refusing to have his legs amputated, he makes an inspiring comeback, even prompting a WWI amputee to remark upon his courage! Corny and unreliable as biography, Night and Day is redeemed by the guest appearances of musical luminaries Mary Martin (doing a spirited if disappointingly demure version of her striptease number "My Heart Belongs to Daddy") and Ginny Simms, the latter cast as an ersatz Ethel Merman named Carole Hill. Jane Wyman, seen as Porter's pre-nuptial sweetheart Gracie Harris, also gets to sing and dance, and quite well indeed. Beset with production problems, not least of which was the ongoing animosity between star Grant and director Michael Curtiz, Night and Day managed to finish filming on schedule, and proved to be an audience favorite -- except for those "in the know" Broadwayites who were bemused over the fact that Cole Porter's well-known homosexuality was necessarily weaned from the screenplay. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this film noir with romantic overtones, con man and cardsharp Nick Blake (John Garfield) returns home after serving in WWII to discover that a rival syndicate now controls New York's gambling rackets -- and that his girlfriend Toni (Faye Emerson) has run off with his money. Looking for a fresh start, Nick heads for California, where he becomes reacquainted with Pop Grueber (Walter Brennan), who gave him his start in the underworld. Pop and his boss Doc Ganson (George Coulouris) tip Nick off to a scam they've brainstormed to separate young widow Gladys Halvorsen (Geraldine Fitzgerald) from her recently inherited fortune. Nick's job is to sweet talk Gladys out of her money and then make tracks, but he finds himself falling in love with her and wants out of the deal. Meanwhile, Toni comes back into the picture and tries to convince Doc that Nick is trying to cheat him, leading to a kidnapping. Incidentally, John Garfield won the leading role in Nobody Lives Forever after Humphrey Bogart turned it down. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This odd combination of roughneck comedy and serious domestic drama was adapted by Louise Randall Pierson from her own autobiographical novel. Rosalind Russell is cast as young Louise Randall, the headstrong daughter of a New England merchant. Inheriting her father's business, Louise intends to persevere in a "man's world," and to that ends takes business courses at Yale. Here she meets and marries banker's son Rodney Crane (Donald Woods), with whom she has four children. When wishy-washy Rodney runs off with another woman, Louise marries a second time to irresponsible but likable gambler Harold Pierson (Jack Carson) -- and gets pregnant again. Though Louise and Harold are as different as night and day, theirs is a lasting union, which remains solid despite whatever misfortunes come their way. The story ends at the outbreak of WW II, with Louise and Rodney bidding a tearful but hopeful goodbye to their three grown sons as the boys prepare to enter military service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an amoral, manipulative womanizer gets his comeuppance. The story begins as the handsome cad is witnessed quickly leaving a hotel room in the East. He has just stolen money, and a wedding band from a dead woman. He is next seen in L.A. living under an alias. There, he begins victimizing two naive sisters and uses them to substantially increase his wealth. Eventually, the two figure out the man's evil game, but there is little they can do to thwart him. Meanwhile, the gigolo is being stalked by the husband of the woman he robbed in the film's beginning. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide