Frances Langford Movies

This 48-minute Hal Roach "streamliner" represents a rare directorial assignment for veteran Hollywood choreographer LeRoy Prinz, who also produced the film. Johnny Downs stars as Bob Sheppard of Quinceton University, who is appointed by his frat brothers to get even with the snotty sorority gals at all-female Marr Brynn U. This requires Bob to dress up in drag as a "blonde bombshell" and to enter Marr Brynn's annual beauty contest. When he's not flouncing around in curls and crinolines, Bob spends his time romancing pert co-ed Virginia (Frances Langford). The supporting cast ranges from silent-comedy veteran Harry Langdon to leggy newcomer Marie Windsor. The film's four musical numbers (representing approximately 25 percent of the running time!) include the Oscar-nominated "Out of the Silence". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A never-completed stage musical was the source for the MGM superproduction Born to Dance. The plot is another three-sailors-on-leave affair, with Ted (James Stewart), Mush (Buddy Ebsen) and Gunny (Sid Silvers, who also co-wrote the script) romancing the eminently romanceable Nora (Eleanor Powell), Peppy (Frances Langford) and Jenny (Una Merkel). Nora aspires to become a dancing star, but her career nearly ends before it begins when she inadvertently comes between Broadway luminary Lucy James (Virginia Bruce) and her producer-lover McKay (Alan Dinehart). If anyone watching back in 1936 really cared about the plot, they probably weren't music lovers. The lovely Cole Porter score (his first written directly for the screen) includes "I've Got You Under My Skin", sung by Virginia Bruce to James Stewart, and "Easy to Love", warbled by Stewart to Eleanor Powell. Highlights include Reginald Gardiner's impersonation of a symphony-conducting traffic cop (a routine he'd previously performed on stage) and Eleanor Powell's climactic tap routine on board an art-deco battleship (a sequence later re-deployed for the climax of 1944's I Dood It). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The career girl in this PRC musical is Joan (Frances Langford), a Kansas City gal with showbiz aspirations. She heads to New York, where she sets up residence in a theatrical boarding house straight out of Stage Door. A few setbacks later, Joan lands the lead in a Broadway musical revue, which despite its threadbare production values (a PRC trademark) bids fair to be the hit of the season. Endearingly old-fashioned, Career Girl puts over its clichés with energy and verve. Besides, any picture with wisecracking Iris Adrian in a large role can't be all bad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Paige plays a struggling songwriter who poses as a millionaire cowboy. It's all part of a zany, wacky and nutty scheme to win the hand and heart of Broadway star Frances Langford. Apparently Paige is a fast worker, since the film runs only 54 minutes. If one looks closely, one might deduce that Cowboy in Manhattan has traces of an earlier Universal musical. That it does; the film is a remake of 1937's You're A Sweetheart, which starred Alice Faye and George Murphy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ever so slightly, the quality of PRC Pictures' film output improved as the 1940s rolled on. In PRC's Dixie Jamboree, Frances Langford plays Susan Jackson, the daughter of a showboat skipper (Guy Kibbee). Captain Jackson's vessel, the Ellabelle, is the last of the Mississippi showboats, and as such has become a refuge for such social outcasts as con artists Tony (Lyle Talbot) and Curly (Frank Jenks), itinerant musician Jeff Calhoun (Eddie Quillan), and ham actors Yvette (Fifi D'Orsay) and the Professor (Charles Butterworth). When Jackson inadvertently picks up a shipment of whiskey, Tony and Curly, assuming that the captain is a wealthy distiller, plan to hijack the boat and its cargo. All of this is set to the music of Cajun ditties, black spirituals, and lively cakewalks, performed con brio by Frances Langford and company. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Alice Faye, Frances Langford, and Patsy Kelly play three humble factory workers (with a Hollywoodized wardrobe beyond the budget of any genuine factory girl) who occasionally sing together for the fun of it. They harbor dreams of becoming famous, but the prospect isn't likely until bandleader George Raft hears the girls harmonizing. He promotes the girls into top radio stars, while each of the girls entertains romantic thoughts about Raft. (And yes, he does win one of them romantically, at the end of the picture). The likable but unimportant Every Night at Eight sparked a minor controversy in the rarefied world of 1960s film criticism. "Auteur" theorist Andrew Sarris pointed out a brief scene in which star George Raft awakens from a nightmare, cited other such scenes in the work of director Raoul Walsh, and used this "evidence" to support his theory that Walsh was a true auteur who left his "signature" on each of his films. Anti-auterist Pauline Kael spoke for many when she advised Sarris to go fly a kite. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical, the second entry in a five-film series, a thrift shop owner sells his business and buys a small time radio station. He begins looking for sponsors. He finds one with a department store owner who will only lend him the money if he will allow his daughter, an aspiring tap-dancer and singer, to perform on the air. This is unfortunate as she is tone-deaf. To compensate, the owner hires a real singer to dub the daughter's voice. The singer and the owner's nephew fall in love and mayhem ensues. Songs include: the Oscar nominated "Who Am I?," "Swing Low Sweet Rhythm," "In The Cool of the Evening," "Make Yourself at Home," "The Swap Shop Song," "The Trading Post," "Sally," "Ramona," "Sweet Sue," "Dinah," "Margie," and "Mary Lou." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Make Mine Laughs was the second of three RKO Radio "pastiche" films, largely comprised of musical and comedy highlights from previous RKO productions. Comedian Gil Lamb hosts the proceedings, finding time to make satirical comments about the opening credits and to perform his "swallowing the harmonica" specialty. The filmclips include two short subjects, Leon Errol's Beware of Redheads and one of RKO's Flicker Flashbacks entries, both presented in their entirety. Also featured are Frances Langford singing "Moonlight Over the Islands" (from Bamboo Blonde), Anne Shirley and Dennis Day duetting on "If You Happen to Find a Heart" (from Music in Manhattan), and specialties performed by the likes of orchestra leaders Frankie Carle and Freddie "Schnickelfritz" Fisher, ventriloquist Robert Lamouret, and dance teams Manuel & Marita Viera and Rosario & Antonio. Make Mine Laughs was withdrawn from distribution after Ray Bolger and Jack Haley brought suit against RKO for unauthorized use of clips from Bolger's boxing pantomime in Four Jacks and Jill (1944) and Haley's "Who Killed Vaudeville?" number from George White's Scandals (1945). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Universal's standing Show Boat sets get another workout in the 60-minute B-picture Mississippi Gambler. On the trail of mob hitman Mathews (Douglas Fowley), reporter Johnny Forbes (Kent Taylor) journeys from New York to Mississippi. Here he finds big-time gangster boss Carvel (John Litel), long thought dead but actually living pseudonymously as a respectable plantation owner. Despite his civilized veneer, Carvel continues mastermining his criminal empire, including a chain of gambling emporiums. With the help of leading ladies Beth (Frances Langford) and La Verne (Claire Dodd), Forbes manages to trap Carvel in his own den. Shemp Howard shows up as a zany taxi driver, doing a lot more for the film than it does for him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Just before his brief turn as a "singing cowboy," radio crooner Smith Ballew starred in Paramount's Palm Springs. Filmed on location at the famed California resort community, the story concerns the efforts by near-bankrupt gambler Capt Smyth (Sir Guy Standing) to marry off his daughter Joan (Frances Langford) to wealthy Englishman George Brittel (David Niven). Unfortunately for Smyth, Joan falls in love with Slim (Ballew), who hails from Wyoming and apparently hasn't got a dime. The film can't seem to make up its mind to be a straight comedy or a musical, nor does it seem that anyone concerned cared all that much about the plot. The songs are by Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin, who evidently saved their best stuff for Bing Crosby. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Singer Frances Langford stars as herself in Purple Heart Diary. The film is a reenactment of Langford's USO tours during WW II, as reported in the singer's newspaper columns for the Hearst syndicate. Also appearing as themselves are two of Langford's fellow troupers, singer Tony Romano and comic pianist Ben Lessy. Since Langford couldn't very well participate in a fictional wartime romance (her actual love life was public domain thanks to the various Hollywood columnists of the era), the love interest is handled by Aline Towne and Brett King, cast respectively as an army nurse and a crippled ex-football jock. The musical sequences in Purple Heart Diary play a lot more credibly than the melodramatic "courage under fire" setpieces. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this musical comedy, a pregnant disc jockey misses her husband who is fighting overseas. Stressed out by the situation and her job, she decides to take some time off and convinces her twin sister to trade places with her. The switcheroo causes the soldier her husband appointed as her unofficial guardian no end of confusion. Songs include: "Annie Laurie," "Rug Cuttin' Romeo" (sung by Susan Miller), "My Melancholy Baby" (Ernie Burnett, George A. Norton, sung by Frances Langford), "I'm Gonna Swing My Way to Heaven" (Eddie Cherkose, Jacques Press, sung by Langford), "Got Love" (sung by Langford). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide