FILMS MAIN

The Films of Julie London

1944 to 1946

Nabonga      Diamond Horseshoe      On Stage Everybody      A Night in Paradise

Nabonga

1944. Producers Releasing Corp. 75 mins. Available on VHS and DVD.

Sigmund Neufeld - Producer
Sam Newfield - Director
Holbrook Todd - Editor
Fred K. Myton - Screenwriter

Robert C. Cline - Cinematographer
David Chudnow - Score

Cast:

Buster Crabbe -  Ray Gorman
Fifi D'Orsay  -  Marie

Barton MacLane  -  Carl Hurst

Julie London  -   Doreen Stockwell

Bryant Washburn   -   Hunter

Herbert Rawlinson   -   T.F. Stockwell

Prince Modupe   -   Tobo

Jackie Newfield   -   Doreen Stockwell, as a child

Ray Corrigan   -    Nbonga the Gorilla

PLOT: In this campy jungle adventure, an embezzler's daughter is the sole survivor of a plane crash. Hurt and afraid, the woman is befriended by a gorilla who protects her from danger. They stay together for many years when one day a man appears looking for the stolen loot. At first Nabonga wants to rip his head off, but the girl soothes him and convinces him that the stranger is okay. After that the threesome set off across the jungle to have many more adventures and stop the villains who pursue them. Also known as Gorilla. Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Diamond Horseshoe

1945. Twentieth-Century Fox. 104 minutes. Available on VHS.

William Perlberg - Producer

George Seaton - Screenwriter, Director

Robert Simpson - Editor

Ernest Palmer - Cinematographer

Harry Warren - Score

Mack Gordon - Lyrics

John Kenyon Nicholson - Play on which film is based

Cast:

Betty Grable - Bonnie Collins
Dick Haymes - Joe Davis, Jr.
Phil Silvers - Blinky Walker
William Gaxton - Joe Davis, Sr.
Beatrice Kay - Claire Williams
Margaret Dumont - Mrs. Standish
Carmen Cavallaro - Himself
Willie Solar - Himself
Roy Benson - Eddie Harper
George Melford - Pop
Hal K. Dawson - Sam Carter
Reed Hadley - Interne
Eddie Acuff - Clarinet Player
Edward Gargan - Grogan
Ruth Rickaby - Wardrobe Woman
Alex Melesh - Major Catastrophe
Bess Flowers - Duchess of Duke
Charles Coleman - Major Domo
Dick Elliott - Waiter
Dorothy Day - Dorothy
Eric Wilton - Sir How-Dare-You
Evan Thomas - Duke of Duchess
Ferdinand Munier - Prince Too-Much-Belly
Harry Seymour - Waiter
Jean Fenwick - Lady Be-Good
Julie London - Girl
Kenny Williams - Dance Director
Mack Gray - Mack, the waiter
Milt Kibbee - Stagehand

PLOT: The real Diamond Horseshoe was a Las Vegas nightclub created by impresario Billy Rose, which spotlighted old-time stars from the early 20th century recreating the songs and skits that had made them great. Rose allowed 20th Century-Fox to use the name "Diamond Horseshoe" for a Technicolor musical, but only on the proviso that Rose's name be included in the title. Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe does have the occasional old-timer specialty, but for the most part the plot concentrates on Betty Grable, a young entertainer who romances would-be songwriter Dick Haymes. The affair is frowned upon by Haymes' father (William Gaxton), the manager of the Diamond Horseshoe, who is determined that his son pursue a medical career. The predictability of the storyline is redeemed by Haymes' rendition of the song hit "The More I See You", and by the comedy turns of Phil Silvers. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

New York Times review by Bosley Crowther (May 3, 1945)

Seldom have business and pleasure been conjoined to such a notable degree as they are in Twentieth Century-Fox's new picture, "Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe." At least a million dollars worth of fanfare for Mr. Rose's New York night club is ballyhooed by this far from modest pageant, which came to the Roxy yesterday, and it is also a snappy entertainment in the strictly gala musical-spectacle line. That's because all the standard ingredients of such fare have been pleasantly combined with a book of more than average life and humor, and it has all been directed cheerfully.

Don't groan when we tell you that it's another backstage boy-girl romance, because it happens that the author and director, George Seaton, had mildly kidded the idea. He has taken a stage-struck young doctor and a gold-digging night club girl and has juggled them cutely in a love-duel which makes—now, get this!—psychological fun. That is to say, the little lady has what the lad calls a "mink coat complex" and he has what she discovers to be a self-demonstration urge. Together they solve their complexes in a neatly conventional way.

With that yarn—which, incidentally, all happens in and around Mr. Rose's lush night club—Mr. Seaton has mixed some very fancy and entertaining extravaganza stuff. He has put on some decorative parades of magnificent show girls, some comedy routines of lively nature and three or four pleasant songs. Betty Grable plays the glamorous cutie with considerable down-to-earthiness, and Dick Haymes is surprisingly natural as the wishful young medico. William Gaxton plays the latter's hoofing father with real grease-paint authority and Phil Silvers has some big opportunities to be amusing—and makes the most of them.

Best of the musical numbers is a contrapuntal song routine in which Beatrice Kay yowls "Play Me an Old-Fashioned Melody" and Miss Grable swings "A Nickel's Worth of Jive." The latter, wearing a brief but gaudy costume, also sells "Acapulco" pepperishly, and she and Mr. Haymes exchange their sentiments very sweetly with "The More I See of You."

If it is true, as has been reported, that Mr. Rose was paid $75,000 for this privilege of advertising his night club, somebody was crazy—and it wasn't Mr. Rose. (Incidentally, the Mighty Bantam isn't in it, other than as reverently mentioned name.)

On Stage Everybody

1945. Universal. 75 minutes. Not available on VHS or DVD.

Lou Goldberg - Producer

Jean Yarbrough - Director

Warren Wilson - Screenwriter, Producer

Oscar Brodney - Screenwriter

Phil Cahn - Editor

Charles Van Enger - Cinematographer

Milton Rosen - Score

Cast:

Peggy Ryan - Molly Sullivan
Jack Oakie - Michael Sullivan
Julie London - Vivian Carlton
Esther Dale - Ma Cassidy
Wallace Ford - Emmet Rogers
Milburn Stone - Fitzgerald
Steve Wayne - Tom
Jimmy Clark - Dick

PLOT: Jack Oakie and Peggy Ryan head the cast of the Universal "B plus" musical On Stage Everybody. As indicated by the title, this is a "Let's put on a big show" affair, set this time at a radio station. Veteran vaudevillian Michael Sullivan (Jack Oakie) refuses to admit that his brand of entertainment is all but dead, though his partner-daughter Molly (Peggy Ryan) is a little more progressive. After resisting the "newfangled" radio for several years, Michael becomes an enthusiastic supporter of the Airwaves, even unto helping organize a bigtime variety show spotlighting new talent. Based on the ABC radio network program of the same name, On Stage Everybody spotlights several promising newcomers (none of whom, alas, went on to stardom), along with such established favorites as the King Sisters. Previewed at 75 minutes, the film was eventually released in a 65-minute form. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A Night in Paradise

1946. Universal. 84 minutes. Not available on VHS or DVD.

Walter Wanger - Producer

Arthur Lubin - Director

Ernest Pascal - Screenwriter

Miton Carruth - Editor
Hal Mohr - Cinematographer
Frank Skinner - Score

Jack Brooks - Lyrics

George S. Hellman - Book author ("Peacock's Feather")

Emmett Lavery - Book adaptation

Cast:

Merle Oberon - Delarai
Turhan Bey - Aesop "Jason"
Thomas Gomez - King Croesus
Gale Sondergaard - Attossa
Ray Collins - Leonides
George Dolenz - Frigid Ambassador
John Litel - Archon
Ernest Truex - Scribe
Jerome Cowan - Scribe
Douglas Dumbrille - High Priest
Paul Cavanagh - Cleomenes
Marvin Miller - Scribe
Moroni Olsen - High Priest
Richard Bailey - Lieutenant
Wee Willie Davis - Salabaar
Roseanne Murray - Marigold
Hans Herbert - Priest
Ruth Valmy - Palace Maiden
Karen X. Gaylord - Palace Maiden
Kathleen O'Malley - Palace Maiden
Karen Randle - Palace Maiden
Kerry Vaughn - Palace Maiden
Daun Kennedy - Palace Maiden
Julie London - Palace Maiden
Eula Morgan - Townswoman
Art Miles - Townsman
Barbara Bates - Palace Maiden
Jean Trent - Iris

PLOT: If Grecian storyteller Aesop really did exist, he was most likely a black slave. He wasn't an Austrian actor with an Egyptian name, but that's who played him in A Night in Paradise. Turhan Bey portrays the fable-spouting Aesop, who tries to escape his bondage by disguising himself as an old man. It is at the lavish court of King Croesus that the greyed-up Aesop first meets luscious Grecian princess Merle Oberon. The low-born talespinner is smitten, and determines to win the princess for his very own. Moral: If Universal buys a novel by George S. Hellman titled The Peacock's Feather, transforms it into a picture called A Night in Paradise, and appoints onetime Abbott and Costello cohort Arthur Lubin as director, you know what you're in for. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

New York Times review by Bosley Crowther (June 6, 1946)

Close your eyes, children, and relax, and we shall attempt to recount the "once upon a time" story of "Night in Paradise," which came to Loew's Criterion yesterday by courtesy of Walter Wanger, the producer, and Universal Pictures. Here is an animated fairy tale, all done up in gaudy Technicolor and pointing the moral that free men are the happiest and that all the wealth and power in the world can't bring peace of mind to one who has lost his honor.

Now just imagine that you are in the fabulous land of Lydia, a few hundred years B. C., and that all the country around and across the Mediterranean must pay tribute to a greedy, tyrannical king, name of Croesus—you know, the fellow who had all that gold. He is a very, very wicked ruler, and a glutton to boot who devours lobsters and other delicacies by the bushel. And when Aesop, the aged story-teller and Ambassador from the Greek Island of Samos, barges into the court of Croesus, his head is saved by the timely intervention of the beautiful Persian princess, Delarai, who is Croesus' intended wife.

Aesop's real mission is to divert Croesus from sending his legions to enslave the free people of Samos, but he can only discharge this obligation indirectly, as his life depends upon keeping both the king and the princess amused with his astonishing fables. Of course, Aesop is not quite the doddering old ape that he appears, for, in truth, he is a handsome young man who affects a gray wig and whiskers because he realizes that everyone expects a wise man to be an ancient. But once Aesop looks upon Delarai, he reveals his true self and when Delarai sees him in this light she falls madly in love with him. As all fairy tales must have a happy ending, so does "Night in Paradise."

Mr. Wanger tells this fable against a background of sumptuous settings in which beautiful maidens romp barefooted and in which Merle Oberon as Delarai sports a variety of jeweled and revealing costumes and luxuriates in a milk bath that is second only to Cecil B. DeMille's washing of Claudette Colbert in "Cleopatra." Turhan Bey as Aesop, Thomas Gomez as Croesus, Gale Sondergaard as Atossa, queen of Phrygia and sorceress extraordinary, and Ray Collins as the effeminate court chamberlain. Leonidas, all disport themselves with an air of self-conscious silliness. In short "Night in Paradise" is an extravaganza which is more ridiculous than entertaining.

1944 - 1946          1947 - 1949