Virginia Sale Movies

Voodoo, hungry 'gators, and love abound in this Z-grade exploitationer set within the steamy Florida Everglades. There a man tries to save his gal from a rival. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Robert Morse recreated his Tony-winning stage role in this 1967 film version of Frank Loesser's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical. A humble window washer at the New York offices of World Wide Wickets, J. Pierpont Finch applies the lessons he's learned from a book called How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to wangle his way to the top of the executive heap. Though advised by the mailroom supervisor (Sammy Smith) to keep a low profile and play things "The Company Way," Finch follows his own skewed set of rules, endearing himself to bombastic company president J. B. Biggely (Rudy Vallee) by posing as a graduate of Grand Old Ivy, Biggely's alma mater. As he climbs to the top, Finch manages to dispose of an over-amorous rival by arranging a tryst between that rival and curvaceous secretary Hedy LaRue (Maureen Arthur)--who happens to be Biggely's live-in girlfriend. Finch also gets rid of the troublesome Mr. Ovington (Murray Matheson) by exposing the latter as an alumnus of Old Ivy's hated rival university. Graduating to vice-president, Finch feels secure enough to sing the show's one genuine love song "I Believe In You"--to himself! Actually, he's really in love with true-blue secretary Rosemary (Michele Lee), but won't admit to this until he suffers a career setback. Most of Loesser's songs survived the transition from stage to screen, with the exception of "Paris Original," which is heard merely as background music. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When the Hooterville Cannonball is derailed, Homer Bedloe (Charles Lane) hopes to use the "disaster" as an excuse to put the engine out of commission. In response, the citizens of Hooterville take over the operation of the Cannonball themselves. At first, engineers Charley (Smiley Burnette) and Floyd (Rufe Davis) are delighted--but after a few weeks of suffering the impossible demands of the engine's new "owners", the boys are on the verge of quitting! Virginia Sale, who'd appeared in several earlier episodes as Selma Plout, returns in the role of Maude Blake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ever seeking opportunities to bring prestige to the Shady Rest Hotel, Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) tries to stir up interest in inviting the state governor to visit Hooterville. Unfortunately, no one else in town is willing to support Joe in his efforts, forcing him to take drastic (and potentially disastrous) action. The role of Emily Simpson is played by Florence Lake, the sister of moviedom's "Dagwood Bumstead" Arthur Lake and a longtime fixture of Edgar Kennedy's "Mr. Average Man" two-reelers of the 1930s and 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hooterville has never had a mayor, and never needed a mayor--until now. Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) has persuaded the locals to hold a mayoral election, in hopes that he will land the job. But unexpectedly stiff opposition comes in the form of Selma Plout (Virginia Sale), the arch-rival of Joe's niece Kate Bradley (Bea Benadaret). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As a reward for a $10 million endowment, Jed Clampett receives an honorary doctorate from Greely College. Unfortunately, this incurs the jealousy of Granny, who up until now was the only "doctor" in the family. Somehow or other, the plot of this episode brings Granny in close contact with a troupe of sideshow performers, including a "chicken woman" (imagine the jokes inspired by this character!) "Doctor Jed Clampett" initially aired on October 21, 1964. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's "Romeo and Juliet", Hooterville style, when rumors spread that Billie Jo Bradley (Jeannine Riley) is engaged to Dan Plout. Seems that Billie Jo's mother Kate (Bea Benadaret) and Dan's mom Selma (Virigina Sale) are bitter enemies, and they aren't about to let their families be united. Ironically, Dan Plout is played by Mike Minor, who in Petticoat Junction's fourth season would join the cast as Steve Elliott--the sweetheart, and ultimate husband, of Billie Jo's sister Betty Jo (played by Minor's real-life wife Linda Kaye). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

From at least the 1930s on to the 1970s, the upbeat protestant minister, Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, ministered to the well-heeled and upwardly mobile of the United States from his pulpit at the Riverside church on Fifth Avenue in New York City. At least as positive-thinking as the similarly cheery Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People), his lift-yourself-by-your-bootstraps message of good cheer was perceived as unorthodox by many within the churches he grew up in. After many decades of preaching his message, summed up in his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking, he was enshrined as a sort of secular saint. His influence reached to Presidents and corporate heads, and his name became synonymous with a kind of extraverted wholesomeness which has long since vanished. This biopic traces his career in the most respectful possible manner. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In early 1947, Screen Guild Productions experimented with a new format: a 90-minute double feature package, consisting of two simultaneously-filmed 45-minute mysteries. As it turned out, The Hat Box Mystery and The Case of the Baby Sitter were released separately, within two weeks of one another. Both films starred Tom Neal as a private detective named Russ and Pamela Blake as his secretary Susan, both were cowritten by Carl K. Hittelman, and both were directed by the prolific Lambert Hillyer. In Hat Box Mystery, Russ comes to Susan's rescue when she's accused of murdering one of their clients. Per the title, the main clue is a sawed-off shotgun, hidden in a hatbox-a gimmick reportedly inspired by a real-life murder case. Allen Jenkins provides some laughs as a near-illiterate goofball inappropriately named Harvard. ~ Hal Erickson, 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

This tender but fluffy romantic comedy centers on the romantic travails of a beautiful European princesss who goes to New York to find the newspaper reporter she fell for when he was visiting her mythical country. She stays at the Big Apple's finest hotel and while there finds herself mistaken for a maid by a sweet-natured bellhop. Charmed by his confusion, she insists that he become her personal escort. She does not realize that the impressionable fellow has fallen in love with her and so misconstrues her every kindness. When not with her, the bellhop is visiting a beautiful invalid, who is secretly in love with him. Meanwhile the princess eventually finds the reporter. She makes him a proposition, but he, believing them to be too different, rejects the offer. Later, she takes the bellhop and goes to the reporter's favorite bar in hopes of seeing him. Unfortunately, the joint gets raided and she ends up in jail until the reporter shows up to bail her out. Soon afterward, she learns that her father has died and that she is now queen. Things get sticky then, as both the bellboy and the new queen find themselves faced with choosing between wealth and power or true love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this romantic comedy, three man-hungry sisters consult a fortune-teller to help them with their romantic futures. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide