5" x 7" photo signed by Joe E Brown, personalized to "Mae"... maybe it was actress Mae Clarke? Joe might be best known for his hilarious performance in Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot" but he was a cash cow for Warner Bros in the early to mid 1930's, churing out about 20 silly, fast moving B-comedies during that time. These films co-starred Olivia DeHavilland (twice), Joan Bennett, Alice White, Ginger Rogers (twice), Patricia Ellis (thrice), Ann Dvorak, Thelma Todd (twice), Eric Blore and Bela Lugosi to name a few! In those films Joe did it all..singing, dancing, acrobatics, many kinds of sports, was a tractor SUPER-salesman, invented firebombs and an unsinkable bathing suit, and in one case even got to do Shakespeare! 
And speaking of.... 8" x 10" promotional still of Patricia Ellis in all her blonde winsomeness, taken by the great Elmer Fryer. Now THAT is a dress!!!
On the backside of this Pat Ellis still there is a small typewritten blurb that says: "SATIN AND SEQUINS. PATRICIA ELLIS wears this daring gown in the Warner Bros comedy BROADWAY JOE. The high wasted skirt is of black sequins moulded to the figure (blogger edit: no shit!) and showing a brief fan shaped train. The backless brassiere style upper half is made with a halter neckline set with an enormous jeweled clip fashioned in a double crescent design."
I find this interesting because Patricia actually wore this dress in "Bright Lights" with Joe E and Ann Dvorak..."Broadway Joe" must have been the original working title for the film. I have found this to be a fairly common occurence with vintage stills, either the titles were different OR in the case of another Pat Ellis still I have seen, she was announced as "next appearing in Howard Hawks' "Tiger Shark" with Edward G Robinson", which she did not (tho i wish she did, she would have been much better than rather colorless Zita Johann who did co-star in it), so sometimes we can see clues to how films underwent changes before and/or after cameras rolled.
Lastly is a Lobby Card from the hilarious Jack Benny/Ann Sheridan film "George Washington Slept Here"! I gotta say I am quite happy to have a piece of paperware from this fun and silly film! Warner Bros had a weird policy of sometiems printing their Lobby cards on linen textured paper. I have a few others like this as well. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to why they did it!and now that I have crossed Joe E. Browns name off my list, henceforth begins my mystic quest for a vintage autographed picture of Warren William....
2 comments:
Do you have a special room you put all your treasures in?
I just wondered how you display them all.
That might be a post all in itself.
my collections is on dispaly throughout my entire house, and yes i have wanted to do a post on that subject for some time. i just need to clean this place up haha!
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