Mary Martin Movies

Hosted by the American Film Institute, this video is a tribute to career of Lillian Gish. Included are excerpts from: The Birth of a Nation, Duel in the Sun, The Scarlet Letter and other films. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

As co-hosted by Gene Kelly and Kathryn Crosby (the wife of Bing Crosby), this exclusive video compilation presents priceless back-to-back clips from many of Bing's Christmas specials that aired from the early 1960s through the late 1970s. Featured guests include: Jackie Gleason, Twiggy, David Bowie, Fred Astaire, Carol Burnett and many others. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

In this thriller, an engraver gets involved with a counterfeiting ring until the gang members commit murder. He decides to flee, grabs his daughter and heads for Spain. His vengeful comrades pursue him and then abduct his child. Fortunately, two smugglers help the engraver to get her back. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Paul Douglas repeats his Broadway stage role as corrupt, bombastic scrap-metal tycoon Harry Brock in this Hallmark Hall of Fame production of Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday. Taking over from Judy Holliday in the role of Harry's dimwitted mistress Billie Dawn is Mary Martin, while Arthur Hill is seen as Paul Verrall, the bespectacled Washington DC reporter whom Harry hires to instill "refinement" in the brash and unschooled ex-chorine Billie. Anxious to organize a covert business cartel with the help of a few bought-off politicians, Harry realizes that Billie's stupidity and tendency to say whatever pops into her head might queer the deal--thus, he engages the services of Verrall. What Harry doesn't count on is that Paul will "educate" Billie to the point that she develops a conscience, and a sense of patriotism that causes her to rebel against Brock's disreputable tactics. As in the original play and the 1950 film version, the highlight of the proceedings is the classic gin-rummy game between Harry and Billie, though running a close second is Billie's blockbuster response to Brock's brutishness: "Do me a favor, will ya Harry? Drop dead." Garson Kanin himself directed this production, which originally aired live and in color. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Irregularly scheduled on NBC from 1954 through 1957, Producers' Showcase was a series of lavish, full-color 90 minute specials, bringing the best of Broadway to the 21 inch screen. On September 11, 1955, the series expanded to two hours to offer an elaborate "life from Hollywood" staging of Thornton Wilder's surrealistic comedy The Skin of Our Teeth. Though the action ostensibly takes place in New Jersey--first the city of Excelsior, then on the boardwalk of Atlantic City--the episodic plotline girdles the entire history of the world, with Mankind represented by the "ubermensch" Antrobus family. Surviving the Creation, the Ice Age, the seven deadly plagues, the Black Death and every other historical calamity, the unflappable and always fastidiously dressed George Antrobus (a rare acting performance by legendary Broadway director George Abbott) and his even-tempered wife (Helen Hayes) personify every man and woman who has weathered the most harrowing of storms "by the skin of their teeth." Acting as a combination Greek Chorus and Protean Player is the Antrobus' sexually uninhibited maid Sabina (Mary Martin, in a role created on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead), whose duties range from wrangling baby mastodons to periodically replenishing the human race. Featured in the cast as Gladys is Heller Halliday, the daughter of costar Mary Martin. This lively adaptation of Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play was originally staged in Paris as part of the American National Theater Academy's Salute to France program. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 1953 television special was produced in celebration of the 50th birthday of Ford Motor Corporation and brought together two dissimilar vocalists, Mary Martin and Ethel Merman in one rare performance together. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide

This Three Stooges comedy begins with a joke similar to their 1943 short Phony Express -- there's a poster of the Stooges, who are wanted for vagrancy. The reward is 50 cents each, or three for a dollar. To escape getting thrown in the hoosegow, the boys (Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine) head west to Peaceful Gulch. As might be expected, things aren't too peaceful in Peaceful Gulch at the moment. Bad guys are shooting up the town and have virtually taken over the saloon. A couple of frightened bankers take the Stooges "wanted" photo and run it in the local paper, proclaiming them to be three famous marshals. The Stooges arrive at the saloon to clean up the place -- literally (they're looking for janitorial work), and the bad guys are actually intimidated for about two minutes before figuring out that the Stooges are dangerous only to themselves. The boys manage to round up the outlaws anyhow and put them behind bars. The sheriff, however, is crooked and releases them almost immediately. The bandits dress up as ghosts and head for the Horton house where the Stooges are guarding the bank's money. Moe and Larry are captured, but Shemp saves the day by stealing one of the outlaw's disguises and knocking out the other bad guys. The local cowboy "hero" shows up to admire the boys' work, but faints when he sees one of the unconscious crooks is bleeding. While not a complete rip-off like some of the other, later Stooges films, this picture is quite similar to 1950s Punchy Cow Punchers. ~ Janiss Garza, 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 lighthearted musical comedy, Marjory Stuart (Mary Martin) is a girl who works in the hatcheck room at a Manhattan nightclub and dreams of being a rich socialite herself. Toward that end, Marjory wants to land a rich husband, so she saves up her money and takes a cruise to the Caribbean, where she poses as wealthy debutante. Marjory quickly makes friends with Bubbles Hennessy (Betty Hutton), a brassy but good-natured singer who's on board to rendezvous with her boyfriend Wally Case (Eddie Bracken). Tagging along with Wally is his pal Pete Hamilton (Dick Powell), a beach bum with charm and personality but no bankroll. Bubbles, Wally, and Pete soon realize that Marjory is hardly a member of the upper crust, but they like her enough to help her snag the man she has her eye on, stiff-as-a-board millionaire Alfred Monroe (Rudy Vallee). However, just as Marjory begins making progress with Alfred, she and Pete begin to realize that they've fallen in love. Both Betty Hutton and Mary Martin sing several songs along the way (Hutton's standout number, "Murder, He Says," later found it's way into Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors), and legendary calypso performer Sir Lancelot performs "Ugly Woman" (later a hit for Jimmy Soul under the title "If You Want To Be Happy"). Hutton and Bracken were reunited a year later in the Preston Sturges classic The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Rather shaky as history, Birth of the Blues delivers the goods in terms of entertainment, thanks to the unbeatable star combination of Bing Crosby and Mary Martin. Set in New Orleans in the 'teens, the film stars Crosby as clarinetist Jeff Lambert, who breaks away from a traditionalist orchestra to form his own jazz band. His partners in this endeavor are songstress Betty Lou Cobb (Martin) and trumpeter Memphis (Brian Donlevy), a character obviously meant to be a white-bread version of Louis Armstrong. Inspired by the rhythms heard amongst the African American population of Louisiana, Jeff, Betty Lou and Memphis rise to fame and fortune, but internal jealousies and external gangster threats seriously compromise their success. An added complication is the presence of cute little orphan girl Phoebe (Carolyn Lee), Betty Lou's aunt, whom Jeff is obliged to hide from the child-welfare behemoths. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson is in his element as Jeff's long-suffering general factotum Louey, whose near-death experience towards the end of the story results in one of film's most powerful musical vignettes. The 14 songs heard in Birth of the Blues range from such classics as "St. Louis Blues" and "St. James Infirmary" to such newly-minted ditties as Johnny Mercer's "The Waiter, the Porter and the Upstairs Maid". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Billy Wilder was among the screenwriters of this easy-to-take Bing Crosby musical. Basil Rathbone dominates the proceedings as Oliver Courtney, a popular composer whose most successful tunes were actually ghost-written by musician Bob Summers (Crosby) and lyricist Cherry Lane (Mary Martin). Unaware of each other's existence at first, Bob and Cherry eventually discover that they've been duped by the pompous Courtney. They decide to break away from their employer and team up on their own, but the powerful Courtney manages to block their professional efforts. Ultimately, hero and heroine emerge triumphant, and Courtney is forced to help them get started on the road to success lest he be exposed as a charlatan. Piano prodigy Oscar Levant essays his first full-out comedy role as Courtney's sarcastic assistant, taking time out to poke fun at his own real-life phobias (in his memoirs, Levant recalled that he spent many a pleasant afternoon listening to the middle-aged Basil Rathbone discuss his digestive problems in vivid and eloquent detail!) None of the seven original songs in Rhythm on the River grew up to be hits, but the title tune did manage to get generous airplay thanks to Bing Crosby. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta, which takes place in New Orleans, performed before a wintry Alpine backdrop! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide