Do You Love Me? (1946), The Stork Club (1945), Sweet and Lowdown (1944), Carolina Blues (1944), Playmates (1941) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Big-band Music movies.
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 ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A hat-check girl at the Stork Club (Hutton) saves the life of a drowning man (Fitzgerald). A rich man, he decides to repay her by anonymously giving her a bank account, a luxury apartment and a charge account at a department store. When her boyfriend (DeFore) returns from overseas, he thinks she is a kept woman.—Herman Seifer <alagain@aol.com>
Plot Keywords: hatcheck girl, millionaire, marine, boss, singer, band leader, cheery ...
Movie Details Click Here!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 ...
Movie Details Click Here!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 ...
Movie Details Click Here!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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