Julius J. Epstein Movies
Identical twin screenwriters Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein were the sons of a prosperous New York livery stable owner. Both Epsteins attended Penn State, then went off to seek their separate fortunes as journalists. Julius was employed as a press agent when, in 1933, he headed to Hollywood to help out a couple of old college friends who'd sold a story to Warner Bros. but were having trouble finishing the script. He continued to contribute anonymously to other screenwriter's efforts, finally receiving a credit for 1935's Broadway Gondolier.Around that same time, Julius' brother, Philip, arrived in Hollywood to work at RKO; in 1938, the brothers formed a writing team that would flourish until Philip's sudden death in 1952. Before long, it became common Hollywood practice for producers, directors, and writers to cry out, "Get me the Epsteins!" whenever a script became mired down. Among the films that the Epsteins worked on (credited and uncredited) were The Strawberry Blonde (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), The Male Animal (1942), My Foolish Heart (1948), and Forever Female (1952). Their prolific output is all the more remarkable in that they never typed a script, choosing instead to write in longhand. To hear the brothers tell it, they were of equal talent, though an argument can be made that Julius was the better raconteur and Philip was more skilled at bypassing censorship (it was Philip who saved the ending of Arsenic and Old Lace (1942) by purifying the line "I'm a bastard!" into "I'm the son of a sea cook!"), The Epsteins' best-known credit was the award-winning Casablanca. Outside of his work with Philip, Julius wrote or co-wrote four plays (including the popular Chicken Every Sunday), and wrote the scripts for The Tender Trap (1956), Kiss Them for Me (1957), Return From the Ashes (1965), Any Wednesday (1967), and Pete 'N' Tillie (1973), also functioning as producer on several of these films. Philip G. Epstein's credits without his brother include The Bride Walks Out (1936) and The Mad Miss Manton (1938). In 1983, the 74-year-old Julius J. Epstein won the fourth of his Oscar nominations for Reuben, Reuben.
On the eve of 2001 the master of sharp wit and sardonic dialogue was silenced forever. With the death of Julius Epstein on December 30, 2000, Hollywood lost the final remaining contributor to one of films most beloved treasures, Casablanca. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1935
In the wake of Shirley Temple, every Hollywood studio scrambled to find a child star who might possibility match Temple's selling power. Warner Bros.' candidate was South Africa-born Sybil Jason, who starred in several of the studio's short subjects and was headlined in a handful of features like Little Big Shot. Here she is cast as Gloria Gibbs, whose daddy is knocked off by gangsters early in the picture. Left in the care of confidence tricksters Steve Craig (Robert Armstrong) and Mortimer Thompson (Edward Everett Horton), it doesn't take long for Gloria to twist her surrogate "parents" around her little finger. With the help of Steve, Mortimer and lunch-counter waitress Jean (Glenda Farrell), our heroine not only puts the finger on the gang responsible for her father's demise, but collects a huge reward as a result. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sybil Jason, Glenda Farrell, (more)
- 1935
This musical chronicles the rise to stardom of a humble bellhop after he is discovered by a talent agent. Though he becomes a very popular singer of contemporary songs, the young man really aspires to a career in opera. At first his manager is appalled and refuses to let him, but when his disconsolate star begins hitting the sauce, he relents and success ensues. Songs and production numbers include "Broadway Cinderella," "Where Am I?," "At Your Service Madam," "You Let Me Down," "Over Yonder Moon," "September in the Rain" (Al Dubin, Harry Warren), "Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie" (Carson J. Robison), and selections from "Aida" (Giuseppe Verdi), and "Martha" (Friedrich von Flotow). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pat O'Brien, James Melton, (more)
- 1935
Per its title, this merry Warner Bros. musical was filmed on location in the resort community of Agua Caliente. Pat O'Brien plays magazine editor Larry MacArthur, whose scathingly negative review of tempestuous dancer La Espanita (Dolores Del Rio) has incurred the lady's considerable wrath. Through a fluke, MacArthur finds himself in Caliente, where he begins ardently pursuing the lovely Rita Gomez, not realizing -- at least at first -- that Rita and La Espanita are one in the same. Intending to humiliate MacArthur, Rita relents when she realizes she's fallen for him as well. Of the supporting players, only Edward Everett Horton is given any worthwhile material, and he makes the most of it. The Busby Berkeley dance numbers are okay, but the film's musical highlight is Wini Shaw's rendition of "The Lady in Red", followed by Judy Canova's semi-parody version of the same tune. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Del Rio, Pat O'Brien, (more)
- 1935
In this drama, an amateur pilot is driven to living life in the fast lane after he pilots that plane that crashed and killed his parents and his sister. He goes on to marry. He and his new wife live in terrible conditions until he suddenly inherits $8,000 which he uses to buy a plane and start up a commuter service. Unfortunately, he finds himself again in debt. His disgusted wife leaves, but when he is hurt in a car crash, she eventually returns. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kay Francis, George Brent, (more)
- 1935
Though Busby Berkeley is the director of I Live for Love, there isn't a dancer or dance number anywhere to be seen. Dolores Del Rio stars as hot-tempered South American stage favorite Donna Alvarez, who is brought to America to headline a Broadway show. The film details the backstage romance between Donna and her handsome co-star Roger Kerry (played by Everett Marshall, an opera star who'd last been seen on-screen in 1930's Dixiana). They fight, make up, fight again, make up again, and fight and make up again. And that's all, folks. The film's singular highlight is the barbershop-quartet lampoon "A Man Must Shave". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Del Rio, Guy Kibbee, (more)
- 1935
A tuneful taxi driver secretly works to achieve his dream of becoming a radio singer in this musical comedy. One day he gives a radio station secretary a lift. She prattles on about a sponsor's new contest. The sponsor, a prominent cheese company, is looking for a singing gondolier to participate in their newest campaign. Later the secretary and the head cheese go to Venice to look for the real McCoy, unaware that the determined cabbie is already there waiting for them. Sure enough, they are fooled and he is hired. Things go really well until he feels compelled to tell the truth during a major broadcast. Songs include: "Lulu's Back in Town", "The Rose in Her Hair", "Lonely Gondolier", and ""You Can Be Kissed"". ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, (more)
- 1936
In this musical comedy, a pacifistic song-and-dance man is compelled to don a military uniform for one of his acts. Before he can blink, he finds himself fighting in Germany. Later he is tossed into jail after being accused of being an enemy spy. He escapes and somehow manages to capture a strategic hill; he is then awarded the prestigious Croix de Guerre for his heroism. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe E. Brown, Joan Blondell, (more)
- 1937
German director Joe May brought a decidedly Teutonic ambience to his American film Confession--no surprise, since the film was based on the 1935 German production Mazurka. Kay Francis plays a onetime singer who confesses to the murder of her pianist, Basil Rathbone. In flashback, we learn that Rathbone had been responsible for the breakup of Francis's marriage. Years later, Rathbone came back into her life, this time with the intention of seducing Ms. Francis' grown daughter (Jane Bryan). In a variation of Madame X, Francis was stuck with the dilemma of deflecting Rathbone from his "mission"--and of keeping her true identity secret from her daughter. Prior to Mazurka, the Hans Rameau story upon which Confession was based had been filmed as a silent picture starring Gloria Swanson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, (more)
- 1938
Fannie Hurst's Sister Act was the source for this money-making Warners weeper. The four daughters of the title are played by the Lane Sisters--Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola--and by Gale Page. All are musical prodigies, and all are daughters of master-musician Claude Rains. To help make ends meet, Rains rents several rooms of his home to boarders--most of whom, thanks to the dictates of the plot, seem to be marriageable men. We're supposed to care the most about the mutual attraction the daughters feel towards handsome Jeffrey Lynn, but the film really belongs to John Garfield, making his movie debut (no, he wasn't in 1933's Footlight Parade) as an embittered piano genius. Garfield has us in the palm of his scruffy hand the moment he begins philosophizing about "the fates:" "So they flipped a coin...heads he's poor, tails he's rich....they flipped a coin--with two heads." Aware that he can bring only unhappiness to Priscilla Lane, the daughter who cares most for him, Garfield obligingly drives into a heavy snowstorm and is killed in an auto accident (but it's not staged as a suicide, lest the Hays Office spank). John Garfield made so powerful an impression in Four Daughters that Warners was compelled to write him into the sequel Four Wives, first as a flashback and then as (implicitly) a ghost. Another film, Daughters Courageous, was hastily constructed using the same cast, but with different character names so as to accommodate a happier denouement for Garfield and Lane. Four Daughters was remade in 1954 as Young at Heart, with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day in the John Garfield and Priscilla Lane roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Rains, May Robson, (more)
- 1938
Kay Francis fights off tears, deprivations and a mediocre script in Warner Bros.' Secrets of an Actress. La Francis plays Fay Carter, a popular Broadway star romantically involved with architect Dick Orr (George Brent), who has put up the money for her latest production. Problem is, Dick is already married-albeit unhappily-to selfish Carla Orr (Gloria Dickson). When Carla refuses to give Dick a divorce, he decides to kick over all the traces and sail off alone to Norway. Fay manages to prevent Dick from making this radical move, simultaneously giving him up. Fortunately, Dick's business partner Peter Snowden (Ian Hunter), who isn't married, is waiting in the wings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kay Francis, George Brent, (more)
- 1939
This family drama features the same cast and crew from the highly successful Four Daughters, but it isn't actually a sequel. Whereas the first film was a chronicle of the Lemp family, this one centers on the Masters family. This film is also characterized by a much happier ending than its predecessor. The story begins as a wandering husband finally returns home after a 20 year absence. He is alarmed to discover that his wife is planning to marry a nice stodgy fellow who yearns only to stay in the town of Carmel, California, the story's setting. Though the errant husband is still suave and charming, his two angry daughters reject and do all they can to get him to leave their hometown. But he is not so easily swayed and despite their protests, stays until he charms them into submission. The peace doesn't last long when he sees that one of his four girls is about to marry a younger version of himself. His wife is terribly upset not only by this development, but also by the fact that she must choose between her dull-but devoted fiance and her exciting, irresponsible husband (of whom she was legally freed after he was declared dead). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Garfield, Claude Rains, (more)
- 1939
In this drama, the sequel to Four Daughters, the daughters are now adults. Three of the sisters rally together to find a new love for the fourth sister whose husband recently committed suicide. The widowed woman then discovers that she is pregnant with her deceased husband's child and this causes her to refuse a marriage proposal. At the same time, another sister learns that she is barren, one sister adopts and then finds herself carrying twins, and a different sister gets married. All are very happy except for the pregnant widow who bears her child prematurely. The baby is saved by a blood transfusion from her recently rejected suitor, and the grateful mother promptly elopes with the gallant chap. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, (more)
- 1940
This third film version of Maxwell Anderson's play Saturday's Children stars Claude Rains as the impecunious but proud father of a large brood. Rains' daughter Anne Shirley marries idealistic John Garfield, a would-be inventor who works for Shirley's father. Feeling that he's been tricked into marriage, Garfield gives every indication of turning out to be as much "failure" as Rains. Only when Garfield and Shirley are on the verge of breaking up do they realize that material gain is not the only barometer of success in life. Previous filmizations of this story include Saturday's Children (29), starring Corinne Griffith, and Maybe It's Love (35), costarring Ross Alexander and Gloria Stuart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Garfield, Anne Shirley, (more)
- 1940
S.N. Behrman's hit Broadway show about a guy who writes hit Broadway shows comes to the screen in this comedy. Gaylord Esterbrook (James Stewart) is a reporter from Minnesota who writes a play about life in New York City -- a place he's never visited. To his surprise, a Big Apple producer wants to stage Gaylord's show and asks him to come to New York immediately. While Gaylord hardly seems like a Big City sophisticate, his regular-guy charm makes a big impression on leading lady Linda (Rosalind Russell), who is tired of jaded braggarts like her director, Morgan (Allyn Joslyn). Gaylord and Linda get married, and he becomes one of the most successful playwrights in town, but his new popularity goes to his head, and Linda wonders what happened to the man she married. However, Gaylord's career takes a turn for the worse when he meets Amanda (Genevieve Tobin), a snooty high society type who convinces him that he ought to be writing the Great American Tragedy instead of crowd-pleasing comedies. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Stewart, Rosalind Russell, (more)
- 1941
Ann Sheridan and her then-husband George Brent did their expected box-office duty in the Warner Bros. comedy Honeymoon for Three. Brent plays confirmed-bachelor novelist Kenneth Bixby, who wards off marriage-minded females by pretending to be married to his secretary Anne Rogers (Sheridan). Complications begin piling up when Bixby is arduously pursued by his old flame Julie (Ona Massen), now wed to provincial stuffed-shirt Harvey Wilson (Charles Ruggles). The supporting cast includes such Warners "regulars" as star-to-be Jane Wyman and future producer William T. Orr (who happened to be Jack Warner's son-in-law), not to mention Walter Catlett as a funny waiter. Honeymoon for Three was based on the venerable stage play by George Haight and Alan Scott. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Sheridan, George Brent, (more)
- 1941
Strawberry Blonde is the second, and by far the most well-regarded, of the three film versions of James Hogan's play One Sunday Afternoon. James Cagney stars as Biff Grimes, a turn-of-the-century dentist married to onetime suffragette Amy Lind (Olivia de Havilland). A former convict, Biff has great difficulty keeping his temper--and when alderman Hugo Barnstead (Jack Carson), the man responsible for Cagney's unjust prison term, shows up one Sunday afternoon to have a tooth pulled, the pugnacious dentist begins developing homicidal urges. In a lengthy flashback, we learn that Biff and Hugo, once the best of friends, were business partners in a construction firm. When one of their buildings collapsed due to shoddy materials, Biff was sent to jail for five years, while Hugo escaped scot-free. Even worse, Hugo stole Biff's girlfriend Virginia Brush (Rita Hayworth), the "strawberry blonde" of the title. The flashback over, Biff sharkishly welcomes Hugo into his office, fully intending to bump off his old enemy. But during a reunion with his "dream girl" Virginia, Biff realizes for the first time that Amy was the right girl for him all along, and that Hugo did him a favor by taking the strident, shrewish Virginia off his hands. Letting Hugo off with little more than a sore jaw, Biff takes Amy in his arms--but not before settling a few old accounts with his fists, just for old time's sake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, (more)
Neither James Cagney nor Bette Davis were particularly pleased with the outdated screwball comedy The Bride Came C.O.D., but both performers behaved with thorough professionalism, doing a lot more for the film than the film did for them. Davis stars as flighty heiress Joan Winfield, whose impending marriage to bandleader Allen Brice (Jack Carson) does not rest well with her oil-rich father Lucius K. Winfield (Eugene Pallette). When Joan announces that she intends to defy her father's wishes and elope with Brice, Winfield hires charter pilot Steve Collins (Cagney) to kidnap the girl and deliver her back home, C.O.D. Nearly bankrupt, Steve goes along with the scheme, but on the return flight his plane crashes in the desert. Realizing that he's only a few miles from civilization, Steve schemes to keep Joan from signalling any potential rescuers by chasing her into an old tunnel and convincing her that they're hopelessly lost. When Joan tumbles to the scheme, she forces Steve to let her marry Brice. The surprisingly cooperative Steve agrees, knowing full well that he still has a few aces up his sleeve. So guess who Joan ends up with at fadeout time? Genuine laughs are few and far between in this hectic farce, but at least Bette Davis has one hilarious moment, predicated on her outraged delivery of the word "Mustard!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Cagney, Bette Davis, (more)
The George S. Kaufman/Moss Hart Broadway hit The Man Who Came to Dinner was inspired by the authors' mutual friend, waspish critic/author Alexander Woollcott. Generously bearded ex-Yale professor Monty Woolley, no mean curmudgeon himself, plays the Woollcott character, here rechristened Sheridan Whiteside. While on a lecture tour in Ohio, Whiteside slips on the ice outside his hosts' home; until his broken leg heals, the hosts (Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke) are forced to put up (and put up with) the imperious Whiteside. This means enduring an unending stream of Whiteside's whims, caprices and vitriolic bon mots, as well as his long-distance phone calls, eccentric guests and a variety of critters, ranging from penguins to octopi. Like the real Woollcott, Whiteside insists upon stage-managing the lives of everyone around him. He is particularly keen on discouraging a romance between his faithful secretary Maggie Cutler (top-billed Bette Davis) and local newspaper editor Bert Jefferson (Richard Travis). Once he realizes he's gone too far in this respect, Whiteside is forced to reunite the lovers. That's only one aspect of a three-ring-circus plotline that accommodates a Lizzie Bordenish axe murderess, takeoffs of Woollcott intimates Harpo Marx, Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, and a general practitioner who's willing to let his patients suffer for a chance to pitch his interminable memoirs to Whiteside. Featured in the cast are Jimmy Durante as "Banjo" (the Harpo clone), Reginald Gardiner as the Noel Coward-like Beverly Carlton, Anne Sheridan as the predatory Gertrude Lawrence counterpart Lorraine Sheldon, and Mary Wickes as the long-suffering Nurse Preen ("You have the touch of a love-starved cobra!") The script, by the Epstein brothers, manages to retain most of the play's best lines and situations, even while expanding Bette Davis' role to justify her start status; it's a shame, though, that we are robbed of Sheridan Whiteside's imperishable opening line, "I may vomit!" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, (more)
One of the most beloved American films, this captivating wartime adventure of romance and intrigue from director Michael Curtiz defies standard categorization. Simply put, it is the story of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a world-weary ex-freedom fighter who runs a nightclub in Casablanca during the early part of WWII. Despite pressure from the local authorities, notably the crafty Capt. Renault (Claude Rains), Rick's café has become a haven for refugees looking to purchase illicit letters of transit which will allow them to escape to America. One day, to Rick's great surprise, he is approached by the famed rebel Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), Rick's true love who deserted him when the Nazis invaded Paris. She still wants Victor to escape to America, but now that she's renewed her love for Rick, she wants to stay behind in Casablanca. "You must do the thinking for both of us," she says to Rick. He does, and his plan brings the story to its satisfyingly logical, if not entirely happy, conclusion. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, (more)
- 1942
In this screen version of the James Thurber-Elliot Nugent Broadway play of the same name, Henry Fonda stars as bespectacled, bookish college professor Tommy Turner, who puts his career on the line by insisting upon standing up for his right to free speech. Determining to read a letter written by executed anarchistic Bartolomeo Vanzetti to his classroom,Tommy not only risks dismissal and castigation by the conservative college trustees, but seriously jeopardizes his marriage to his wife Ellen (Olivia DeHavilland), who wishes that Tommy would stop making waves and start lobbying for a raise. Coinciding with all this is the arrival of former college football star Joe Ferguson (Jack Carson), who many years earlier had been Tommy's rival for Ellen's affections. Eminently successful and aggressively athletic, Joe seems to be everything that Tommy isn't, and the little professor is worried that he's going to lose Ellen to Joe after all. An all-night drinking session with equally idealistic student Michael Barnes (Herbert Anderson) convinces Tommy to stick to his principles no matter what the cost-and miracle of miracles, this resolve makes him a hero in everyone's eyes, including sweet Ellen. The Male Animal was remade in 1952 as She's Working Her Way Through College, with the liberal ideology of the original film sacrificed in favor of McCarthy-era banalities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, (more)
From a novel of the same name by "Elizabeth", the film begins in 1914, with Bette Davis cast as vain, flighty society woman Fanny Trellis. Informed by Jewish-American financier Job Skeffington (Claude Rains) that her brother Trippy (Richard Waring) has stolen money to pay his gambling debts, Fanny marries Job, securing his promise that he won't prosecute her thieving sibling. Angered by Fanny's agreeing to this loveless union, Trippy runs off to join the army, and is killed during World War I. Fanny holds Skeffington responsible for her brother's death, and demands a divorce with a generous cash settlement. Despite Job's oft-repeated belief that "a woman is only beautiful when she is loved," Fanny uses her coquettish beauty to flit indiscriminately from man to man. While on a sailing trip with her latest beau, Fanny comes down with diphtheria. The disease destroys her facial beauty, and before long the shallow Fanny is left completely alone. Her self-centered efforts to reunite all of her old boyfriends for a party is a failure due to her pathetic middle-aged efforts to be kittenish, and the grotesqueness of the mounds of facial makeup she apples. Meanwhile, Skeffington, who has resettled in Europe with his daughter, is captured by the Nazis and placed in a concentration camp. He manages to escape, returning to the US totally blind and utterly penniless. A chastened Fanny comes back to her husband, promising to care for him for the rest of his life. Most TV prints of Mr. Skeffington run 127 minutes; the videocassette and cable TV versions have been restored to the original length. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Claude Rains, (more)
Arsenic and Old Lace is director Frank Capra's spin on the classic Joseph Kesselring stage comedy, which concerns the sweet old Brewster sisters (Josephine Hull, Jean Adair), beloved in their genteel Brooklyn neighborhood for their many charitable acts. One charity which the ladies don't advertise is their ongoing effort to permit lonely bachelors to die with smiles on their faces--by serving said bachelors elderberry wine spiked with arsenic. When the sisters' drama-critic nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant) stumbles onto their secret, he is understandably put out--especially since he has just married the lovely Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane). Given the homicidal tendencies of his aunts, the sinister activities of his escaped-convict older brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey) and the disruptive behavior of younger brother Teddy (John Alexander)--who is convinced that he's really Theodore Roosevelt, and runs around the house yelling "CHAAAAARGGGE"--Mortimer isn't keen on starting a family with his new bride. "Insanity runs in my family," he explains. "It practically gallops." Further complications ensue when the murderous Jonathan Brewster arrives home, with his snivelling accomplice Dr. Einstein (Peter Lorre) in tow. When Jonathan learns that his darling aunts have killed twelve men, he is incensed--they're challenging his own record of murders. Though the movie rights for Arsenic and Old Lace were set up so that the film could not be released until 1944, director Capra shot the film quickly and inexpensively in 1941, so that his family could subsist on his $100,000 salary while he was serving in World War II. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, (more)
- 1946
In this comedy, an adaptation of the play The Animal Kingdom, a liberal, social reformist photographer falls in love with a wealthy gadabout, and finds she abhors his decadent life even though she loves him. She then takes up with another whom she marries. Unfortunately, she still loves the playboy. This does not make her new hubby very happy especially when she and her ex-love meet again and begin carrying on. The husband ends up headed for a quickie divorce in Reno. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, (more)
This cute film is Doris Day's film debut and in it she plays Georgia Garrett, a substitute traveller on an ocean cruise. Her friend Elvira Kent (Janis Paige) had scheduled the cruise but at the last minute cancels when she suspects that her husband is cheating on her and she decides to stay at home to check up on him. So she gets her friend Georgia to go on the cruise in her stead. Meanwhile the husband hires a detective to watch Elvira while on the cruise, because, he too, suspects cheating. Of course, the detective falls for the substitute Elvira (Doris Day), making a somewhat complicated scenario with many possibilities. This is a fun-filled spoof with lots of good tunes by Doris Day. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Doris Day, Jack Carson, (more)
- 1948
George Seaton's 1948 comedy Chicken Every Sunday was based on the play by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein as well as the original memoirs of Rosemary Taylor. Set during the turn of the century on the American frontier, Emily Heffernan (eleste Holm) is the practical wife of foolish would-be businessman Jim Heffernan (Dan Dailey). While Emily struggles to keep the household together by renting out rooms to boarders, Jim wastes the family's earnings on get-rich-quick schemes. Told in flashback, Emily recalls her 20-year marriage before filing for divorce. Emily has had enough and wants to leave, but their friends try to get them back together. Also starring Colleen Townsend, Alan Young, and a ten-year-old Natalie Wood. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dan Dailey, Celeste Holm, (more)
