Party Time with Joe E. Brown, Patricia Ellis, Ann Sheridan and...Jack Benny?

Some vintage items recently added to my ever-growing collection...

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....

New Fun Stuff!

A few new items that have made their way into my collection in the past couple of weeks...

A vintage 8x10 still for WB "Bright Lights" (1935) showing stars Joe E. Brown and Ann Dvorak, Whoooopeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Vintage 8x10 still for WB "Union Depot" (1932) which I just had the pleasure of seeing for the first time on the very same day that this still came in the mail! Very fast-moving and fun pre-code picture with a great cast, I thoroughly enjoyed all 67 minutes of it!

Last but certainly not least, a vintage 11x14 Lobby Card for "Torrid Zone", this makes 2 lobby's and a One-sheet I now own for this film, one of my very favorite of Cagney's later WB period and one of the absolute best showcases for Ann Sheridan, who nearly steals the show from everyone!

Happy Birthday James Cagney!

My all-time favorite actor was born on this day in 1899!

I think Cagney more than any other star of his era defined and shaped "acting" as it applied to motion pictures. He brought an energy and physicality to the medium that had never been seen at the time and has never been equalled since.

Jimmy gave an unforgettable performance as mother-fixated psychopath Cody Jarret in Warner Bros "White Heat", 1949 - directed by the great Roul Walsh. It is absolute must-see Cagney!!!

"SCHLEMMMMERRRRR!"

In Billy Wilder's outrageous "One, Two, Three" Cagney, age 62, exudes the energy of 10 men half his age!

Cagney as George M. Cohan, his quintessential non-tough-guy role. If ever there was a part an actor was born to play, hell yeah this is it!

"You're a smart lawyer Frasier....very smart...only dont get smart with me!"

If I had to pick only one Cagney film I could watch for the rest of my days "Angels with Dirty Faces" would be the one. Friggin' awesome movie, period!

Did Rocky really turn Yellah?

No Fucking way man!!!

"Hey, lets ask da Fadduh!"

Cagney with Ann Sheridan and lifelong friend Pat O'Brien

For anyone who might be interested, last year I did a guest blog about Cagney at Raquelle's excellent "Out of the past" classic film blog. I really enjoyed writing that piece, brought back a lot of memories!

Happy Birthday to Me!

A few sultry lovelies to help me celebrate me Boithday!

One of my all-time faves, Ann Sheridan - "The Oomph Girl"

A publicity shot of Ava Gardner for "The Killers". Ava and Ann Sheridan were similiar in that they were both farm girls who won beauty contests, got brought to Hollywood, started out as just extremely fine window dressing but grew to become fine actresses as well.

Jean Peters

The eternally awesome Haji!

Ok now I get drunk, smoke peace pipe, shoot Buffallo....

They Had Legs . . .

And they knew how to use them!

Some more stills from my collection.

A Warner's publicity still of an incredibly sultry-looking Ann Sheridan, aka "The Oomph Girl"! I think Ann is one of the most underappreciated actresses of her era. She had style to burn and made any film she appeared in better just by being in it! Some films that really showcase her talents are "Juke Girl", "It All Came True", "City for Conquest" and "Torrid Zone", where she nearly stole the show from all including James Cagney and Pat O'Brien!

Barbara Stanwyck in a publicity still for William Wellman's classic "Lady of Burlesque". Babs also made "So Big", "The Purchase Price" and "Great Man's Lady" with Wellman

BB!!! I've only seen 2 of her films, "Dear Brigitte" with Jimmy Stewart and "The Legend of Frenchie King" with Claudia Cardinale, which was pretty much laughably bad but well-worth seeing anyway!

Carole Landis. What a shame she died so young.

Beautiful Cyd Charrise had one of the most incredible pair of stems in Hollywood history, and brother could that woman dance! She's unquestionably my fave female dancer of all time. The term "body language" was probably invented by someone watching her! I was very sad when i heard she passed away last year.

A great shot of Gloria Grahame

Amazing Grace . . . *sigh*

Ida Lupino in a publicty shot for Warner's excellent drama "The Man I Love". Ides was yet another one of those actresses who had started at another studio but really found her niche at Warner Bros.

A silly publicity still of beautiful Jane Greer.

Lana!!!!!!!

Yup, More Flynn!

The last of my Errol Flynn tribute. All these Flynn pics were scanned from stills, original and repro, from my own collection.

Flynn with Ann Sheridan in Lewis Milestones riveting "Edge of Darkness". Certainly one of the most intense and serious films either one of those great stars ever appeared in.

Flynn Shaking down Ward Bond for some info about a murder in "Dodge City". On the left is Guinn "Big Boy" Williams and on the right is, of course, Alan Hale.

Another still from "Desperate Journey". Once again Alan Hale has a hilarious expression on his face!

A hilarious scene from "They Died with Their Boots On", the last film Flynn and Oliva appeared together in and the only one where their characters got married. Warner's take on the story of General Custer is practically worthless as history but is a damn entertaining film! Sidney Greenstreet's appearance in the film is worth his weight in gold (and that's a LOT!)

Flynn once again with Ann Sheridan in the western "Silver River".

Flynn with S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall and Alexis Smith in "Montana", a film i have yet to see!

Bogey - part I . . .

A lot of actors have played characters with interesting, unique or just plain silly names but I dont think any can compare to the motley bunch that Humphrey Bogart played during his amazing career!

Bogey's colorful cast of character's started with his unforgettable performance as killer "Duke Mantee" in Archie Mayo's 1936 production of "The Petrified Forest". Bogey had played the part on stage with star Leslie Howard and legend has it that Howard insisted Bogey also play the part in the film version or he wasnt going to be involved!

In 1937 Bogey played a crooked boxing manager named "Turkey Morgan" in Michael Curtiz' "Kid Galahad" starring Edward G Robinson and Bette Davis. Sadly that was the only time Bette and Eddie G. appeared in a film together.

Here's Bogey as "Baby Face Martin" with one of Warner Bros. character actor workhorses of the 1930's, Allen Jenkins in a scene from William Wylers excellent 1937 production "Dead End". This had the first film appearance of the Dead End Kids who a year later would star with James Cagney in one of my all-time favorite films, "Angels with Dirty Faces".

Bogey with Edward G Robinson and Claire Trevor in a publicity shot for Anatole Litvak's "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse" in which Bogey plays a safe-cracking jewel thief named "Rocks Valentine".

Bogey as western bad guy "Whip McCord" squares off against James Cagney in Lloyd Bacon's riotous "The Oklahoma Kid".

Here's Bogey as gangster "Chips Maguire" with the ever-luscious Ann Sheridan in the totally wacky "It All Came True" directed by Lewis Seiler.

Bogey's first multi-dimensional gangster character was probably "Mad Dog Roy Earle" in Raoul Walsh's first-rate drama "High Sierra". The film actually had Ida Lupino getting top billing and she played the "Tarnished Angel" to perfection (as she always played everything!) but clearly this film was Bogey's from the moment he appeared on screen. Even standing next to a little guy like Bogey, beautiful Ida looked so tiny and delicate . . . *sigh*! More of Bogey's rogues gallery of colorfully named characters coming soon!

Lobby Cards . . .

My one other aquisition during my all-too brief visit to CT last weekend was this batch of 4 Lobby Cards from the 1940 Warner Bros. film "Castle on the Hudson", directed by Anatole Litvak. For the un-initiated Lobby cards are generally 11"x14" in size, printed on heavier paper than the thin 27"x41" one-sheet posters and usually have 8 cards to a set, often including what is known as a "Title Card" as the first card. John Garfield and Ann Sheridan are two of the main stars I have focused on in my collecting escapades and I have quite a few items for each of them but none from this film so I am genuinely excited to have these in the house! Of particular note is that these are printed on a weird linen type paper that Warner Bros sometimes used for their lobby cards. It always has a more yellow/brown coloring to it than the regular heavy white paper that most LC's are printed on. Many thanks to my good friend Mr Door Tree for making it possible for me to add these to my collection!

A scene card with Garfield, Annie and character actor workhorse Jerome Cowan, probably best remembered for his role as Miles Archer in John Huston's 1941 production of "The Maltese Falcon". Mr Cowan has over 200 screen credits to his name!!!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, I'm thinking it wasnt too difficult to put on a big smile with your arm around Ann Sheridan!

Nice hat Annie! This film was actually a re-make of "20,000 years in Sing Sing" released in 1932, directed by Michael Curtiz and featured Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis, the only time those two great stars ever worked together.

A scene card with all 3 of the main stars! Both John Garfield and Pat O'Brien could rattle off dilaogue at lightning speed and Annie was no piker in that department either!