Nugget Reviews - 19

If You Knew Susie ( 1948 ) 14k

A show business family retires from the stage in the hopes of opening a restaurant in a small village in New England but find themselves snubbed by the locales for their lack of an illustrious forefather. When they find that a letter from George Washington expressing his debt to their ancestor, the town accepts them - and the billions of dollars that the US government supposedly owes them! Eddie Cantor, Joan Davis, Allyn Joslyn, Bobby Driscoll. RKO Pictures. Directed by Gordon Douglas.

Eddie Cantor rolls his eyes and friskily skips about in this delightful outing with comedienne Joan Davis, riddled with some fine one-liners and plenty of vaudevillian humor. They were such a great team in Show Business it's no wonder they were reunited for another picture. Keep your eyes out for Bobby Driscoll and Margaret Kerry ( as their children ). These two talented youngsters later worked together in Walt Disney's Peter Pan with Driscoll voicing and modelling for Peter and Margaret modelling for Tinkerbell. 

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Artists and Models ( 1955 ) Elct. 

An artist and his roommate try to break into the booming comic book industry after meeting a famous comic illustrator and her creation - "Bat Lady".  Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Dorothy Malone, Shirley MacLaine. Paramount Pictures. Directed by Frank Tashlin. 

The Martin and Lewis films rarely featured memorable plots ( or the scripts to enhance them ) but this one seemed particularly lacking in direction...at least for the first hour. Its splendid Technicolor, the peek into the comic industry of the 1950s, and Dino's songs redeem it somewhat, but on the whole it is an embarrassing entry in the comedic duos string of films with about twenty minutes of plot stretched to two hours. Kathleen Freeman, who had small parts in twelve different Jerry Lewis movies, plays a sour landlady. 

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Stowaway ( 1936 ) 14k

When invading armies attack a Chinese village, the young ward of a missionary family gets sent to Shanghai to safety. En route she meets an American playboy who takes to her fondly and becomes a stowaway on his ship. Shirley Temple, Robert Young, Alice Faye, Eugene Palette, Helen Westley. 20th Century Fox. Directed by William A. Seiter. 

Stowaway is not considered one of Shirley's most famous films, but - when compared to her classics Heidi and The Little Princess - I find it much more entertaining, especially since it is set in an exotic location - the Orient. Only the ending of the picture disappoints. Shirley Temple plays her usual oochie-coochie self in this Asian outing, save for a few Chinese proverbs tossed into her repertoire, while Alice Faye is lovely as ever, singing a great song - "Goodnight, Sweetheart". Robert Young was such a clean-cut young man during the 1930s, it is very difficult to believe him to be a wild playboy - especially since his parts with Shirley are so wonderful - however, Young did have problems with alcohol later in life, so perhaps he did enjoy an extra slug or two in his youth. 

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Father Goose ( 1964 ) 18k

An alcoholic island hopper gets blackmailed into accepting a job as a Navy coast watcher. He then - unwillingly - rescues a diplomat's daughter and the seven schoolgirls she is escorting. In spite of their hatred for each other, they try to work together until a rescue plane could come to their aid. Cary Grant, Leslie Caron, Trevor Howard. Universal Pictures. Directed by Ralph Nelson.

Cary Grant takes his ten fine toes and wiggles them in the sand with ease for his role of the boozy beach bum, Walter. Years later, Grant claimed that this part was the most natural for him to play. Cary Grant wanted Audrey Hepburn to play the part of the French diplomat's daughter but she was already committed to My Fair Lady, which ironically, Cary Grant had turned down the lead in ( Henry Higgins ) in favor of this role. Leslie Caron did a great job on her own. Beautiful location filming and a highly entertaining script make this an all-around winning comedy. 

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On an Island with You ( 1948 )  14k 

A Hollywood star finds herself kidnapped by a navy officer and taken to a secluded island for the sole purpose of having one dance. Of course, she falls in love with him after that dance. Who can resist Peter Lawford in dress uniform? Esther Williams, Peter Lawford, Ricardo Montalban, Jimmy Durante, Cyd Charisse. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. Directed by Richard Thorpe.

After watching an Esther Williams film one can't help but have a lingering smile on the heart, it must be all that Technicolor, water, sand and rumba music. This outing to the "islands" ( filmed at Cypress Gardens, Florida ), has some particularly good hip-swinging music and a great overall look but lacks an engaging script. Even with all the right elements and a great cast, if it ain't got that zing, it ain't got that zing! It's a good Saturday night picture nevertheless. 

The Films of Joan Davis - A Slapstick Sensation

Joan Davis was a master of zany comedy. She was the feminine variant of Danny Kaye, Oscar Levant and Billy de Wolfe all rolled into one. But mostly she was uniquely Joan Davis : rubber-faced, loose-limbed and shamelessly outrageous. A lost species from the bygone era of vaudeville.  

It was in vaudeville that Joan got her start. Billed as "The Toy Comedienne" she toured all around the states during the 1920s and by the time she reached her upper teens had performed on virtually every vaudeville circuit in the country. Her broad sense of comedy appealed to the masses and after entering films she quickly became one of the most popular comedians of the 1930s and 40s. Some critics hailed her as "the world's funniest woman". In over 45 motion pictures she exercised her raucous voice and muscle-straining grimaces in wet-your-pants-funny gags.  

Like Eve Arden at Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox often utilized Davis as "comic relief" to their box-office stars, Shirley Temple and Sonja Henie. She played second-fiddle to Alice Faye in several films ( "On the Avenue", "Wake Up and Live", "Tail Spin", "Sally, Irene and Mary" ) and got to take center stage in a number of musical showcases such as "Around the World" and "Sun Valley Serenade" where she performed solo in several short skits.  It was in these vaudevillian style skits that she really excelled. In the 1937 Sonja Henie film "Thin Ice" she performs 'Olga from the Volga' and 'My Swiss Hilly Billy' with adroit burlesque.

"Gee, if I only had your face. You know, when I was born, my father took one look at me, called up the insurance company, and said 'I want to report an accident.'" ( Show Business ) 

It was after leaving Twentieth Century Fox however that Joan Davis got starring roles in films at other studios such as Republic Pictures and RKO. In 1941 she teamed up with Jinx Falkenberg in "Two Latins from Manhattan", a film that proved to be enough of a success that the two were teamed again in "Two Senoritas from Chicago" ( 1943 ). She was paired with Eddie Foy Jr. in "Yokel Boy" ( 1942 ), Jack Haley in "George White's Scandals" ( 1945 ) and Eddie Cantor in the wonderful "Show Business" ( 1940 ) and "If You Knew Susie" ( 1948 ), one of Cantor's last films. 

Although she was a versatile comedian and could perform in any scenario with success, it was in Joan Davis' dance performances that her forte in humor lay. She would enter a dance with such an expression of seriousness and then as the number would continue, and get progressively worse, it would clearly turn into a farce, with Joan usually ending up on her rump by the conclusion of the dance. The "Swan Lake" dance with Lou Costello in Abbott and Costello's "Hold That Ghost" ( 1941 ) was Joan at her prime...no matter how many times that scene is watched a gigantic belly-laugh ensues. It remains one of the greatest shticks in any Abbott and Costello film. 

In the mid-1940s she starred in several comedies written especially to suit her unique comedic style - "Kansas City Kitty", a musical about a piano teacher literally falling for her music publisher, played by none other than Bob Crosby, and "Beautiful But Broke" where she plays a secretary who slaps together an all-girls orchestra at short notice. 

Over at Universal Joan Davis made two little gems, "She Gets Her Man" ( 1945 ) , a fast-paced mystery about the daughter of a former police chief having to fill his shoes and catch a mysterious blow-gun killer at large, and "She Wrote the Book" ( 1945 ) , a humorous tale revolving around a college professor who takes the place of a steamy bestselling author to save the real author from embarrassment only to receive a bump on her head and suffered a brief case of amnesia where she believes she is the scandalous author. Oh my.

By the late 1940s, the public's taste in humor was changing and the wild and wacky slapstick of Joan Davis wasn't selling tickets anymore. Yes, it was time to move to television! Anything goes there. Her last film was "Harem Girl" ( 1948 ) and then Miss Davis took the plunge...all the way. She formed her own production company and vigorously plugged herself as America's favorite comedienne starring in the now-obscure I Married Joan television series. The show featured the misadventures of a scatterbrained housewife married to a lawyer, a pre-Magoo Jim Backus. Whilst on-air there was an all-out war between NBC's I Married Joan and CBS's I Love Lucy which premiered one year prior. The stations battled it out and Lucy won, hands down. 

Despite the results for the shows, if Lucille Ball and Joan Davis were to go head-to-head in a battle of the dippy dames, Joan Davis would emerge the victor. She was the batty blonde to top all. 

Today Joan Davis is little known, even among film buffs. Cable channels have neglected to play her films and the I Married Joan series has yet to get an official dvd release. But as is evident in this clip from "Yokel Boy", she is a delight to watch and in our opinion remains one of the greatest film, tv and radio comediennes. 

Joan Davis ( June 29, 1907 - May 22, 1961 )  Happy Birthday Joan! 

This post is our contribution to the Funny Lady Blogathon hosted by Movies Silently where over 35 bloggers shed the spotlight on the greatest funny ladies of the silver screen.