Ann Miller Movies

In his final starring film, bandleader Kay Kyser is cast as bandleader Kay Kyser. Picking up where Kyser's previous RKO Radio film Around the World left off, Columbia's Carolina Blues finds Kay and his band returning to America after a worldwide USO tour. Phineas J. Carver (Victor Moore), the woebegone "black sheep"scion of a powerful family of industrialists, poses as one of his wealthier relatives to persuade Kyser to perform at a defense plant. When Kyser's regular vocalist Georgia Carroll quits the band to get married, Carver's talented daughter Julie (Ann Miller) steps in as replacement. Naturally, Julie is a hit, and equally naturally, she lands Kyser as a husband. Outside of the expected musical numbers (which, in addtion to Kyser's aggregation, feature such artists as The Step Brothers and the Nicholas Brothers) Carolina Blues is highlighted by the bravura performance of Victor Moore, who essays five roles in all. Ironically, singer Georgia Carroll did retire from show business in real life to get married-to Kay Kyser! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

New chorus member Eadie Allen (Ann Miller) is the only thing that's good or lively or fresh in a run-down burlesque revue run by Tommy Farley (William Wright). He gives her a featured number and soon she's the star of the show, and he'd like to get to know her better because, conniver though he is, he's also genuinely falling in love with her, but she won't let him know anything about herself. And with good reason -- Eadie is a socially prominent debutante, a member of an old-money family of blue-noses; she wants to be an actress (something they wouldn't hear of) and Farley was the only producer willing to hire her. She's appalled by burlesque, and the physical comedy she's forced to perform, but the audience loves her and she gets to prove she can do a good song, and is also conned by Farley -- appealing to her patriotism and her good nature -- to stay with it. And she becomes a star, which is wonderful until the two sides of her life start to collide at the edges. Her college roommate Pepper (Miss Jeff Donnell) is attracted to the eccentric Professor Diogenes Dingle (Joe Besser), who is no professor but a burlesque comic himself impersonating a teacher; and one of Eadie's legitimate teachers twice spots her performing on stage and otherwise identified in public. The complications pile up until it looks as though Eadie will lose her chance at real love and also her chance to graduate from college. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Eve Knew Her Apples is an pinchpenny musical reworking of Frank Capra's Oscar-winning It Happened One Night. Musical star Ann Miller takes over the Claudette Colbert role; this time she's not a runaway heiress but a runaway radio star, escaping her stuffy fiance rather than her autocratic father. William Wright assumes the Clark Gable part as the man who helps the girl on her flight for his own mercenary interests, but who eventually falls in love with her. Clocking in at 64 minutes rather than It Happened One Night's 105, Eve Knew Her Apples is more successful as a showcase for the terpsichorean talents of Ann Miller than as a romantic comedy. Columbia Pictures would attempt to musicalize It Happened One Night again with 1956's You Can't Run Away From It, filmed with ten times the budget but only half the entertainment value of Eve Knew Her Apples. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The comedienne who shot to stardom as "the world's worst housewife" offers an intimate look at her life and career on the eve of her farewell stand-up performance. Phyllis Diller has been keeping her fans in stitches for nearly half-a-century. A gleefully self-depreciating comic whose outlandish sense of style always set her apart from the pack, Diller not only recollects her rise to stardom, but also allows viewers into her home to show just what life is like behind the scenes. A press conference leading up to her final performance showcases the quick-witted Diller at her unscripted best, with additional rehearsal and dressing room footage showing just what an incredible impact she has had on the world of show-business. Additional appearances by Rip Taylor, Don Rickles, Roseanne Barr, Red Buttons, and Lily Tomlin offer a chance for some of Diller's best known fans to reflect on their fondest memories of the star. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Musical star Ann Miller plays a Broadway leading lady coaxed into reteaming with Larry Parks, her former producer. Parks is now a lowly Army G.I., anxious to produce a show for the troops--with a 200 dollar budget! This being a wartime musical, Ann Miller succumbs to Patriotism and stars in Parks' threadbare production. This being a Hollywood film, the "inexpensive" revue cost several times as much as any real-life show of this nature. Hey Rookie proved a boon to the Columbia publicity department when Ann Miller set a tap-dance record of 550 taps per minute in her climactic musical number. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hit the Deck is the second film version of the same-named 1927 hit Broadway musical. Though updated for the 1950s, the basic plot remains the same. Sailors Tony Martin, Vic Damone and Russ Tamblyn spend their entire shore leave in pursuit of three beautiful gals. Martin is "that way" about Ann Miller, Damone is stuck on Jane Powell, and Russ Tamblyn only has eyes for Debbie Reynolds. Some fun is extracted from the fact that Tamblyn is the son of by-the-book admiral Walter Pidgeon. Additional comedy relief is provided by Alan King (the same!) and Henry Slate as a pair of dumb-dumb shore patrolmen. The Vincent Youmans-Leo Robin-Clifford Grey-Irving Caesar score includes such standards as "Sometimes I'm Happy", "I Know that You Know", and the showstopping "Hallelujah". The 1930 version of Hit the Deck, starring Jack Oakie, was filmed by RKO; that version was purchased by MGM and hasn't been seen publicly in nearly 70 years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate is a musical within a musical -- altogether appropriate, since its source material, Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, was a play within a play. Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson star as famous Broadway singing team who haven't worked together since their acrimonious divorce. Keel, collaborating with Cole Porter (played by Ron Randell), plans to star in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew titled "Kiss Me Kate." Both he and Porter agree that only one actress should play the tempestuous Katherine, and that's Grayson. But she isn't buying, especially after discovering that Keel's latest paramour, Ann Miller, is going to be playing Bianca. Besides, Grayson is about to retire from showbiz to marry the "Ralph Bellamy character," played not by Bellamy, but by Willard Parker. A couple of gangsters (James Whitmore and Keenan Wynn) arrive on the scene, convinced Keel is heavily in debt to their boss; actually, a young hoofer in the chorus (Tommy Rall) owes the money, but signed Keel's name to an IOU. But since Grayson is having second thoughts about going on-stage, Keel plays along with the hoods, who force Grayson at gunpoint to co-star with her ex-husband so that they'll get paid off. Later the roles are reversed, and the gangsters are themselves finagled into appearing on-stage, Elizabethan costumes and all, though that scene is less of a comic success. This aside, Kiss Me Kate is a well-appointed (if bowdlerized) film adaptation of the Porter musical. Virtually all of the play's songs are retained for the screen version, notably "So in Love," "Wunderbar," "Faithful in My Fashion," "Too Darn Hot," "Why Can't You Behave?," "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" (a delightful duet delivered delightfully by Keenan Wynn and James Whitmore), and the title song. Additionally, Porter lifted a song from another play, Out of This World, and incorporated it in the movie version of Kiss Me Kate; as a result, "From This Moment On" has been included in all subsequent stagings of Kate. This MGM musical has the distinction of being filmed in 3-D, which is why Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson throw so many chairs, dishes, and pieces of fruit at the camera in their domestic battle scenes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Beautifully restored to its original theatrical length of 84 minutes by the Gene Autry Foundation, Melody Ranch is a bright, tuneful, and at times quite action-packed piece of B-Western extravaganza, Republic style. The victim of both a drop in ratings and a tardy leading lady, radio star Gene Autry is only too happy to oblige when old friend Pop Laramie (George "Gabby" Hayes) proposes that he return to his hometown of Torpedo as honorary sheriff during the upcoming Frontier Day celebration. With leading lady Julie Shelton (Ann Miller), city slicker announcer Cornelius Courtney (Jimmy Durante), and bemused sponsor Tommy Summerville (Jerome Cowan) in tow, Gene takes Torpedo by storm. That is, everyone except the Wildhack brothers (Barton MacLane, Joe Sawyer, and Horace MacMahon), old enemies who take umbrage to Gene's lampooning them on his daily broadcast. Julie, meanwhile, falls in love with the Wild and Woolly West in general and Gene in particular, and when the crooner proposes to leave show business and run for the office of sheriff for real, she decides to stay as well. The Wildhack brothers, meanwhile, attempt to sabotage the election, but Gene and his pals persevere against the odds. Produced at a cost of 500,000 dollars, Melody Ranch was the first Autry Western to be booked into first-run theaters, which had been Republic Pictures' goal all along. Autry, Ann Miller, Jimmy Durante, Mary Lee, and Bob Wills and His Playboys perform "Melody Ranch," "We Never Dream the Same Dream Twice," "Call of the Canyon," My Gal Sal," "Torpedo Joe," What Cowboys Are Made Of," and "Rodeo Rose," all by Jule Styne and Eddie Cherkose, and a good time is had by all. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

New Faces of 1937 was supposed to be the vanguard of a series of annual musical comedies -- RKO Radio's latest attempt to revive its long-dormant "Radio City Revels" concept. The plot is based on an old show-business legend, later immortalized in Mel Brooks' The Producers: Crooked Broadway producer Robert Hunt (Jerome Cowan) deliberately produces flops so that he can pocket the backers' money himself. His next sure-fire disaster is a show built around talented unknowns (there actually was such a "New Faces" series on Broadway, yielding such stars-to-be as Imogene Coca and Henry Fonda, but it was produced on the up-and-up). When the show threatens to become a hit, the producer desperately seeks a method to sabotage the production. The various subplots involve such vaudeville and radio comedians as Milton Berle (who performs a side-splitting "stockbroker" sketch with Richard Lane), Joe Penner, Bert "Mad Russian" Gordon and Parkyakarkus (aka Harry Einstein, the father of present-day comedians Bob Einstein and Albert Brooks). Among the New Faces displayed herein are 14-year-old dancer Ann Miller, The Brian Sisters, The Three Choclateers and the Four Playboys. Perhaps the fictional Robert Hunt would have been pleased to find out that New Faces of 1937 was a box-office bomb, precluding any follow-ups. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Very much a product of its times, Priorities on Parade was disliked by everyone but the public when it was first released in 1942. The story takes place in a wartime aircraft plant, where a group of entertainers secure jobs putting on shows for the workers during lunch and dinner breaks. The troupe's duties also include a bit of spot-welding and assembly-line work as well, leading to a variety of mildly comic complications. Naturally, all plot roads lead to a big, morale-boosting musical finale, highlighted by choreographer Jack Donahue's precision-dance routines, wherein the entertainers elect to turn down a Broadway show in favor of defense-plant work (this is a fantasy, isn't it?) The four protagonists are played by zany Jerry Colonna, handsome Johnnie Johnston, and gorgeous Ann Miller (in a blonde wig) and Betty Rhodes, while Vera Vague supplies her usual dizziness as a Rosie-the-Rivetter type. The Frank Loesser-Jules Styne-Herb Magidson score includes the hit tune "You're in Love With Somebody Else But I'm in Love With You". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Beverly Ross (nn Miller) is a would-be radio personality, but the closest she gets to being on the air is running the switchboard at a local station. Worse yet, the blustery station owner Mr. Kennedy (Tim Ryan) wants no part of programming "jive" (i.e., swing music) that she loves, preferring the classics. But she manages to con Vernon Lewis (Franlin Pangborn), the host of the station's early morning classical show, into believing that he needs a vacation and slips into his time-slot at 5 am, where she starts running records by Bob Crosby's band, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Frank Sinatra in place of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. The soldiers at the local army base pick up on the new show, and two of them, wealthy candy company magnate Barry Lang (William Wright) and his former chauffeur Andy Adams (Dick Purcell, decide they want to meet this new disc jockey, and as luck would have it her brother (Larry Parks) is in their platoon and invites them to his home. But the two men decide to switch identities, Barry denying his wealth and pretending to be Andy, and Andy presenting himself as the candy heir Barry -- and as if matters aren't complicated enough for Beverly, coping with their antics, she has to fight to keep her radio show. But when the soldiers listening to her start writing in by the thousands, and Barry suggests she call her 5am show "Reveille," she takes it one step further and "Reveille With Beverly," and becomes a smash. But can she sort out the intertwining romantic overtures of the two men in her life? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Having paid $255,500 for the rights to John Murray and Allen Boretz' Broadway hit Room Service, RKO Radio then scouted about for a "perfect" cast. Thanks to the persistence of show-biz agent Zeppo Marx, RKO was able to secure the services of Zeppo's brothers Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx for $100,000. The result is an uneven but entertaining blend of traditional stage farce and Marxian madness. Groucho plays two-bit producer Gordon Miller, who has gone deeply into debt while trying to stage a turgid production called "Hail and Farewell". Miller and his entire cast are ensconced in the Great White Way Hotel, managed by his brother-in-law Gribble Cliff Dunstan, who is fed up with the troupe's inability to pay its bills. As Miller, his director Harry Binelli (Chico) and his business manager Faker Englund (Harpo) try to figure out new methods of raising money, in walks Leo Davis Frank Albertson, the wide-eyed playwright, who is unaware that his masterpiece is in danger of closing before it even opens. He soon figures out what's what after Harry and Faker hock his typewriter for eating money. When hotel inspector Wagner Donald MacBride threatens to throw Miller and his entourage out bag and baggage, the producer and his cronies fake a measles epidemic so that Wagner will be forced to allow them to stay. Salvation seems at hand when Jenkins Philip Wood, a potential backer, arrives with a blank check in hand. But after sampling a bit of the lunacy that has surrounded the play since its inception, Jenkins dashes off, refusing to finance such a chancy property. Miller manages to mollify Wagner by pretending that Jenkins has invested money in the show, but when this scheme falls through, our hero resorts to really drastic measures by pretending that Davis and Faker have both committed suicide because of Wagner's persecution. Weaving in and out of the proceedings are nominal heroines Lucille Ball and Ann Miller, as well as Philip Loeb (who played Faker in the original Broadway production), brilliantly cast as a mild-mannered bill collector. Room Service is hardly typical Marx Bros. fare, despite the efforts by screenwriter Morris Ryskind to inject characteristic verbal gags and visual bits into the action; the film works better as a situation comedy than as a Marx vehicle (Groucho's only comment on the subject was that his brother Zeppo should have arranged a larger salary). In 1943, RKO Radio remade Room Service as a musical titled Step Lively, which was actually something of an improvement on the original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide