Highest-Rated Movies about 'Bandleader', Sort by Popularity

Girl With a Suitcase (1961), The Five Pennies (1959), PCU (1994), Wake Up and Live (1937), Do You Love Me? (1946), Jam Session (1944), Top of the Town (1937), You Were Meant for Me (1948) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Bandleader movies.

#1. Girl With a Suitcase (1961)

Storyline: Lorenzo, who's 16 and born to a wealthy family in Parma, tries to make things right toward a showgirl, Aida, whom his older brother has mistreated. In extending kindness and standing up for her, he comes of age. But, is there anything he can do that will alter Aida's situation or her prospects?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: singer, playboy, teen boy, bandleader, amusing, passionate, italy ...

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#2. The Five Pennies (1959)

Storyline: Loring "Red" Nichols is a cornet-playing country boy who goes to New York in the 1920s full of musical ambition and principles. He gets a job playing in Wil Paradise's band, but quits to pursue his dream of playing Dixieland jazz. He forms the "Five Pennies" which features his wife, Bobbie, as vocalist. At the peak of his fame, Red and Bobbie's daughter, Dorothy, develops polio. Red quits the music business to move to Los Angeles where the climate is better for Dorothy. As Dorothy becomes a young teen, she learns of her father's musical past, and he is persuaded to open a small nightclub which is failing until some noted names from his past come to help out.—Ray Hamel <hamel@primate.wisc.edu>

Plot Keywords: jazz musician, wife, daughter, coworker, bandleader, spirited, touching ...

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#3. PCU (1994)

Storyline: A high school senior comes to visit Port Chester (aka Politically Correct U) for the weekend, and the admissions department mistakenly sets him up to stay with Droz, a seven year student and party-animal who lives in The Pit, the most offensive house on campus. After trying to pawn the pre-freshman off on his house mate, Droz sets off on his normal daily activities including disrupting a political protest by throwing meat at a group of vegan protesters. The President of the University then receives a number of complaints, and with the help of her lackey, she may finally have the power to kick Droz's house off campus. But the Pit throws an all-campus rager where George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic performs, and everything might turn out alright if the various political groups can forget their protests for one night and just have fun together.

Plot Keywords: high-school student, frat boy, college president, college buddy, bandleader, feminist, brash ...

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#4. Wake Up and Live (1937)

Storyline: Built around the publicity "feud" between newspaper-radio-gossip spreader Walter Winchell and band leader Ben Bernie, a radio star, Alice Huntley (Alice Faye), who does an advice-and-inspiration program, helps a mike-shy singer, Eddie Kane (Jack Haley) to success by tricking him into singing with Bernie's orchestra. Winchell uses it to expose Bernie as the trickster. But Kane becomes a great hit with the radio public, and falls in love with Alice. And Bernie and Winchell shake hands to show there's no business like show business and fabricated feuds.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Plot Keywords: bandleader, gossip columnist, starlet, vaudevillian, singer, playful, engaging ...

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#5. Do You Love Me? (1946)

Storyline: Katharine Hilliard, mousy dean of a stuffy music school, meets and is insulted by swing band leader Barry Clayton on a train. To "show" him she takes a friend's advice, removes her glasses, and puts on a designer gown. Naturally, she becomes gorgeous. Soon, both Barry and crooner Jimmy Hale are after her, and she finds herself in the midst of triangles and misunderstandings.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

Plot Keywords: teacher, headmistress, singer, bandleader, musician, cheery, frenetic ...

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#6. Jam Session (1944)

Storyline: Kansas girl Terry Baxter has won a trip to Hollywood, tries to get a job as a dancer and ends up as secretary of screenwriter Haven. She mixes up the scripts, is fired and when she tries to explain to him what happened, she tries to break in a residence - she belives it belongs Haven's boss Stuart, but she is wrong - and is arrested. But Stuart and Haven don't let her drop.—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

Plot Keywords: dancer, screenwriter, executive, secretary, movie producer, bandleader, amusing ...

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#7. Top of the Town (1937)

Storyline: Diana Borden (Doris Nolan, a bleeding-heart rich-girl, returns from a trip to Russia filled with sympathy for the "little" people of the slums and wants to do "something" artistic and socially significant for them...so she opens up a nightclub atop a 100-story skyscraper. For her, that means acts such as opera singers, extracts from "Hamlet" and three sailors imitating a giraffe. Bandleader Ted Lane (George Murphy)thinks hot-music, burlesque-acts and the old razzle-dazzle is just the ticket. Her programming leads to early exits and no-returns.Film debut for 12-year-old Peggy Ryan.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Plot Keywords: bandleader, chorus girl, club owner, uncle, love interest, amusing, rousing ...

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#8. You Were Meant for Me (1948)

Storyline: 1920's bandleader Chuck Arnold meets hometown girl Peggy at one of the band's dances and next day weds her. Though she loves him, life on the road becomes increasingly difficult for her, but it is the 1929 Crash that makes things really tough for the both of them.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

Plot Keywords: bandleader, flapper, husband, wife, manager, musician, emotional ...

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#9. Sweet and Lowdown (1944)

Storyline: After their annual free concert at Chicago's Dearborn Settlement, Benny Goodman and his band are packing up to move on to their next engagement at a military camp, when a kid, Tony Birch, steals Goodman's clarinet. Goodman and Popsie pursue him to a tenement flat where he has led them to hear his brother, Johnny Birch, play the trombone. Goodman offers him a job, over Popsie's protest, with the band. Aboard the train, Johnny accidentally enters the compartment of the band's singer, Pat Sterling, and gets his face slapped. At the military camp, which turns out to be a boy's military academy (which accounts for juvenile players such as Dickie Moore and Harry McKin running around with such titles as General and Major), Goodman finds a real audience in the jive-mad, jitterbug kids. Masquerading as a sweet, 16-year-old girl friend of one of the cadets who is, in reality, her nephew, Trudy Wilson meets her old friend Goodman who introduces her to Johnny, whose music she admired. However, Johnny brushes her off, thinking she is just a kid. Months later, while practicing for their opening at the exclusive Leopard Room in NYC, Johnny runs into Trudy, and is furious that she has followed him to New York. Pat tells Johnny that Trudy is the débutante daughter of Norman Wilson, who runs the symphony association. Johnny decides she is out of his league but they fall for each other when he invites her to a jam session. At a swank party at Trudy's house, where Goodman plays the Mozart Quintet, one of the snobbish guests makes a remark when Johnny's brother Tony, sister Helen and his mother suddenly appear. A brawl ensues and Johnny, feeling he has disgraced himself in front of Trudy, flings his resignation at Goodman and stalks out. Pat's manager gets her to break with Goodman, sets up Johnny as a name band, and hires the Goodman band to join.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Plot Keywords: bandleader, musician, brother, manager, singer, beautiful girl, spirited ...

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#10. Carolina Blues (1944)

Storyline: Band Leader Kay Kyser wants to take a holiday, but his publicist Charlotte has promised that he'll give a concert for defense plant workers. Due to the fact that his vocalist has quit to get married, the plant owner's daughter Julie sings instead. But Kay dislikes her idea of joining the band.—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

Plot Keywords: singer, bandleader, wealthy man, publicist, industrialist, campy, lighthearted ...

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#11. Playmates (1941)

Storyline: Lulu Monahan (Patsy Kelly), the press agent for John Barrymore (John Barrymore),is attempting to get a sponsor for a radio program. To that end, she and the agent for bandleader Kay Kyser (Kay Kyser), plant a story that the great Shakespearean actor, over his heartfelt objections, will teach Kyser how to play Shakespeare, which isn't the same as playing Paducah, which soon becomes evident. Highlights are the singing of Ginny Simms and a rumba by Lupe Velez; lowlights already cited.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Plot Keywords: bandleader, singer, dancer, grandmother, airy, amusing, charming ...

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#12. Four Jacks and a Jill (1941)

Storyline: Karanina "Nina" Novak (Anne Shirley), is befriended by Nifty (Ray Bolger), the leader of a four-piece orchestra, and in return, secures an engagement for them at the Little Aregal Cafe, with herself as the vocalist, by pretending she once knew the King Stephan VIII of Aregal back in the old country. Steve (Desi Arnaz) shows up pretending to be the King of Aregal, and complicates the growing romance between Nina and Nifty. When Steve runs off with Opal (June Havoc), the real King of Aregal (also Desi Arnaz) appears and complicates things again.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Plot Keywords: singer, immigrant, bandleader, mobster, cab driver, nightclub owner, amusing ...

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