Ann Pennington Movies
Famous for her dimpled knees, diminutive Ann Pennington was one of Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld's most charming discoveries whose signature dance, "The Black Bottom," came to epitomize her era. Moonlighting in the movies, Pennington starred as Suzie Snowflake (1916), The Rainbow Princess (1916), and Sunshine Nan (1918), popular if middling entertainment that didn't... (read more) interfere with her nightly appearances in the Follies or George White's Scandals. In the 1920s, Pennington's screen appearances were mainly specialty turns but she did star as The Mad Dancer (1925), in which she posed in the nude. When sound came in, Pennington was highly visible in early musicals such as Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), Tanned Legs (1929 -- although the gams in question were June Clyde's not Ann's), and Happy Days (1929). The latter, in which she appeared as herself, was Pennington's final feature film until, inevitably, The Great Ziegfeld (1936). In that epic film-biography of her erstwhile mentor (played with less than historical accuracy by William Powell), she again appeared as herself, but the footage ended up on the cutting-room floor. She played a couple of minor supporting roles on screen in the early 1940s and continued appearing on stage and in vaudeville until the late 1940s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
China Girl
1942
China Girl charts the exploits of two-fisted newsreel photographer Johnny Williams (George Montgomery), stationed in Burma and China in the early stage of WW II. Captured by...
Unholy Partners
1941
If Edward G. Robinson thought he'd get away from tough-guy roles by moving from Warners to MGM, he was sorely mistaken. Robinson plays the editor of a 1920s tabloid newspaper,...
Texas Terrors
1940
Don "Red" Barry, the "Wyoming Outlaw" and "Tulsa Kid" in other Republic westerns, does not play any one of the title characters in Texas Terrors. That honor goes to the film's...
The Great Ziegfeld
1936
In MGM's three-hour-plus The Great Ziegfeld, William Powell stars as the titular theatrical impresario, whose show business empire begins when he stage-manages a tour for...
Happy Days
1930
Filmed in "Fox Grandeur," an early widescreen process, Happy Days was the immediate follow-up to Fox Studios' Movietone Follies of 1929. Most of the film takes place on the...
Night Parade
1929
A young boxer on his way to the top is scheduled for an important championship fight in this sports melodrama. He meets a beautiful woman and, wanting to impress her but not...
Gold Diggers of Broadway
1929
Previously filmed in 1923, Avery Hopwood's 1920 comedy The Gold Diggers was resurrected in 1929 as the Technicolor musical Gold Diggers of Broadway. Nancy Welford,...
Night Club
1929
Apparently, The Night Club was planned as a feature-length adaptation of a popular novel by Katherine Brush. What emerged was a 52-minute crazy quilt, comprised of selected...
Is Everybody Happy?
1929
Inimitable, top-hatted clarinetist Ted Lewis stars in Is Everybody Happy? (the title, of course, was a Lewis catchphrase). Lewis plays Tod Todd, a Hungarian-emigre...
Tanned Legs
1929
The aforementioned appendages appear aplenty in this musical comedy that centers on a husband and wife seeking to recapture their youth by wooing younger partners. More mayhem...
Mad Dancer
1925
Follies star Ann Pennington had been away from motion pictures for several years when she played the title role in this drama. Naturally she gets the opportunity to...
Pretty Ladies
1925
This comedy-drama about the Follies was written by veteran newspaper reporter and "sob sister" Adela Rogers St. John. Maggie (ZaSu Pitts) is the Follies comedienne,...
A Kiss in the Dark
1925
Frederick Lonsdale's witty 1924 play Aren't We All was turned into a vehicle for the debonair Adolphe Menjou by Paramount the following year. Menjou played Walter...
The Lucky Horseshoe
1925
Either you loved Tom Mix or you disapproved of his turning westerns into three-ring circuses. The Lucky Horseshoe presented Mix at his very best/worst in a story that was...
Manhandled
1924
Although an executive at Paramount came up with the racy title for this comedy-drama, the plot came from a Saturday Evening Post story by Arthur Stringer. {%Tessie...
The Antics of Ann
1917
Ziegfeld Follies star Ann Pennington, she of the dimpled knees, stars in The Antics of Ann. There's a plot lurking about somewhere concerning the hoydenish...
The Rainbow Princess
1916
Hope (Ann Pennington) has an act in a traveling circus where she is "the rainbow princess" and performs a Hula dance. The owner of the circus pawns the girl off on Judge...
Susie Snowflake
1916
Ziegfeld Follies dancer Ann Pennington, she of the "dimpled knees," made her movie debut in Paramount's Susie Snowflake. Pennington, of course, plays Susie, the...