Showing posts with label Jack Benny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jack Benny. Show all posts

Friday, February 10, 2012

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....