Irene Manning Movies

Escape in the Desert is a thinly disguised remake of The Petrified Forest (1936), updated with a WW II angle. Cynical Dutch pilot Philip Artveld (Philip Dorn) pays a visit to the American desert before being shipped off to the Front. He wanders into a lonely inn, where he befriends starry-eyed watiress Jane (Jean Sullivan). Before long, Philip, Jane, and several other innocent bystanders find themselves being held captive by a group of escaped German POWS, led by Captain Becker (Helmut Dantine). The existentialist philosophy of the original Robert E. Sherwood play is replaced with a great deal of Nazified prattle and All-American flagwaving, with misplaced moments of comedy relief from Alan Hale and Irene Manning. While Petrified Forest is regarded as a classic, Escape in the Desert is generally dismissed as a contrived propaganda piece. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The wartime housing shortage in Washington DC is the basis for this comedy. Several attractive young ladies rent a single DC apartment, causing no end of complications to their various professional and private lives. Also moving in (due to a misunderstanding) is a young newlywed (Jane Wyman), whose flustered husband (Jack Carson) is denied access to the apartment. The funniest of the female roommates is a visiting Russian sniper, played con brio by Eve Arden. The Doughgirls is based on the popular Broadway play by Joseph A. Fields (with uncredited assistance by George S. Kaufman). Three Stooges fans are advised to keep an eye out for Curly Joe DeRita as an unhappy schlemiel who can't find a place to sleep. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Complete with a final production number filmed in Technicolor, this tuneful musical depicts the highly fictive ups and downs of fabled vaudeville headliners Jack Norworth (1879-1959) and Nora Bayes (1880-1928). After rejecting a partnership with songstress Blanche Mallory (Irene Manning), Norworth (Dennis Morgan) discovers Miss Bayes (Ann Sheridan), who is wasting her considerable vocal talents by working in a honky tonk. Jack convinces the girl to become his partner but Nora's controlling boss, Costello (Robert Shayne), insures that the team is blacklisted everywhere. Despite this setback, the talented husband-and-wife duo finagles an engagement with the 1907 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies and vows the audiences with Jack's newest composition, the lilting "Shine on Harvest Moon." In reality, Norworth met the already famous Bayes at the office of a music publisher and later became one of her five husbands. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The popular operetta by Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II enjoyed its second screen adaptation with this film, which added four new songs and updated the story to World War II. Paul Hudson (Dennis Morgan), an American veteran of the Spanish Civil War, makes his living playing piano in a Morocco nightclub; in his spare time, he romances Margot (Irene Manning), the club's featured singer. Caid Yousseff (Victor Francen) is a Moroccan in cahoots with the Nazis who is trying to win the support of a local gang called the Riffs, even though they're under the control of the French. The Riffs are led by El Khobar, a masked do-gooder who wants to persuade Col. Fontaine (Bruce Cabot) that the Riffs deserve their independence; if it is granted, he promises that they will gladly fight against the Nazis. What Fontaine doesn't know is that El Khobar and Paul Hudson are actually the same person. The Desert Song received an Oscar for Art Direction and was much praised for its beautiful color cinematography. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Yankee Doodle Dandy is no more the true-life story of George M. Cohan than The Jolson Story was the unvarnished truth about Al Jolson -- but who the heck cares? Dandy has song, dance, pathos, pageantry, uproarious comedy, and, best of all, James Cagney at his Oscar-winning best. After several failed attempts to bring the life of legendary, flag-waving song-and-dance man Cohan to the screen, Warners scenarist Robert Buckner opted for the anecdotal approach, unifying the film's largely unrelated episodes with a flashback framework. Summoned to the White House by President Roosevelt, the aging Cohan is encouraged to relate the events leading up to this momentous occasion. He recalls his birth on the Fourth of July, 1878; his early years as a cocky child performer in his family's vaudeville act; his decision to go out as a "single"; his sealed-with-a-handshake partnership with writer/producer Sam Harris (Richard Whorf); his first Broadway success, 1903's Little Johnny Jones; his blissful marriage to winsome wife Mary (a fictional amalgam of Cohan's two wives, played by Joan Leslie -- who, incredibly, was only 17 at the time); his patriotic civilian activities during World War I, culminating with his writing of that conflict's unofficial anthem "Over There" (performed by Nora Bayes, as played by Frances Langford); the deaths of his sister, Josie (played by Cagney's real-life sister Jeanne), his mother, Nellie (Rosemary DeCamp), and his father, Jerry (Walter Huston); his abortive attempt to retire; and his triumphant return to Broadway in Rodgers & Hart's I'd Rather Be Right.

His story told, Cohan is surprised -- and profoundly moved -- when FDR presents him with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first such honor bestowed upon an entertainer. His eyes welling up with tears, Cohan expresses his gratitude by invoking his old vaudeville curtain speech: "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you." Glossing over such unsavory moments in Cohan's life as his bitter opposition of the formation of Actor's Equity -- not to mention George M.'s intense hatred of FDR! -- Yankee Doodle Dandy offers the George M. Cohan that people in 1942 wanted to see (proof of the pudding was the film's five-million-dollar gross). And besides, the plot and its fabrications were secondary to those marvelous Cohan melodies -- "Give My Regards to Broadway," "Harrigan," "Mary," "You're a Grand Old Flag," "45 Minutes from Broadway," and the title tune -- performed with brio by Cagney (who modifies his own loose-limbed dancing style in order to imitate Cohan's inimitable stiff-legged technique) and the rest of the spirited cast. Beyond its leading players, movie buffs will have a ball spotting the myriad of familiar character actors parading before the screen: S.Z. Sakall, George Tobias, Walter Catlett, George Barbier, Eddie Foy Jr. (playing his own father), Frank Faylen, Minor Watson, Tom Dugan, John Hamilton, and on and on and on. In addition to Cagney, music directors Ray Heindorf and Heinz Roemheld also won Oscars for their efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide