Hollywood On 52nd Street
When Your Lover Has Gone, composed by Einar Aaron Swan for the 1931 film Blonde Crazy. The films stars were James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Louis Calhern, Ray Milland and Guy Kibbee famous for Cagney’s line, “That dirty, double-crossin’ rat!”
The Story: Bert Harris, works for a hotel as a bellboy. One day he meets Anne Roberts, who signs up as a chambermaid. He takes a fancy to her and lets her in on his racket, conning people out of money.
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Hollywood on 52nd Street
How Little We Know was originally written as a waltz. It was composed by Hoagy Carmichael for Lauren Bacall in her film debut to sing in the 1942 film To Have and Have Not, also starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Brennan. Although it was nominally based on the novel of the same name written by Ernest Hemingway. The story was extensively altered for the film.
The Story: Harry Morgan and his alcoholic sidekick, Eddie, are based on the island of Martinique and crew a boat available for hire. However, since the second world war is happening around them business is not what it could be and after a customer who owes them a large sum fails to pay they are forced against their better judgment to violate their preferred neutrality and to take a job for the resistance transporting a fugitive on the run from the Nazis to Martinique. Through all this runs the stormy relationship between Morgan and Marie “Slim” Browning, a resistance sympathizer and the sassy singer in the club where Morgan spends most of his days.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
W.C. Handy composed St. Louis Blues used as the title track for the 1958 film of the same name. The movie had as its stars Nat King Cole portraying W.C. Handy and Ruby Dee as Elizabeth as well as a host of musicians and vocalists not limited to Eartha Kitt, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, Barney Bigard, Red Callender and Pearl Bailey.
The Story: Will Handy grew up in Memphis with his preacher father and his Aunt Hagar. His father intends for him to use his musical gifts only in church, but he can’t stay away from the music of the streets and workers. After he writes a theme song for a local politician, Gogo, a speakeasy singer, convinces Will to be her accompanist. Will is estranged from his father for many years while he writes and publishes many blues songs. At last the family is reunited when Gogo brings them to New York to see Will’s music played by a symphony orchestra.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
I’m Getting Sentimental Over You lyrics were written by Ned Washington and the music by George Bassman and surfaced to become a jazz classic out of the 1947 fictionalized biographical film The Fabulous Dorseys.
The Story: The rise and rise of the Fabulous Dorsey brothers is charted from their humble beginnings of boyhood in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in this whimsical step down memory lane, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey play themselves in this vehicle for their excellent music. From being raised by their father who insists on them learning music, to the split that just saw their careers rise even further, to their personal reunion.
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Hollywood On 52nd Street
Harry Warren composed the music and Mack Gordon, the lyrics for the now jazz standard, I Had the Craziest Dream, for the 1942 film Springtime In The Rockies. The film starred Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, John Payne, Cesar Romero, Harry James and His Music Makers and the vocal group Six Hits and a Miss.
The Story: Broadway partners Vicky Lane and Dan Christy have a tiff over Christy’s womanizing. Jealous Vicky takes up with her old flame and former dance partner, Victor Price, and Dan’s career takes a nosedive. In hopes of rekindling their romance and getting Vicky back on the boards with him, Dan follows her to a ritzy resort in the Canadian Rockies, where she and Victor are about to open their new act. But things get complicated when Dan wakes after a bender to find that he’s hired an outlandish Latin secretary, Rosita Murphy, which makes Vicky think he’s just up to his old tricks again.
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