Children of Paradise (1945), Singin' in the Rain (1952), La Grande Illusion (1937), Limelight (1952), I Vitelloni (1953), Night Is My Future (1947), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Chaplin (1992) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Vaudeville movies.
Storyline: Larry Haines, a mediocre vaudeville entertainer, boards a train bound for Los Angeles. Is Hollywood waiting for him with open arms? Not really as the one he signed a contract for is Percy, his roller-skating penguin partner! But, as the proverb says, the shadow of glory is better than no glory at all! Anyway, doesn't Larry meet a woman on the train? And a blonde one! And a British agent into the bargain! The delicious creature who is carrying a coded message hidden in a brooch and is being pursued by Nazi agents. She will need Larry (and Percy)'s help to elude her pursuers and to get the secret information to destination. The mission will be accomplished, although in an eventful and hilarious way...—Guy Bellinger
Plot Keywords: humiliation, watermelon, truck driver, theater, taxi driver, show business, ship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: At the turn of the century, Duke and Chester, two vaudeville performers, go to Alaska to make their fortune. On the ship to Skagway, they find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been stolen by McGurk and Sperry, a couple of thugs. They disguise themselves as McGurk and Sperry to get off the ship. Meanwhile, Sal Van Hoyden is in Alaska to try and recover the map; it had been her father's. She falls in with Ace Larson, who wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke and Chester, McGurk and Sperry, Ace and his henchmen, and Sal, chase each other all over the countryside, trying to get the map.—John Oswalt <jao@jao.com>
Plot Keywords: road movie, breaking the fourth wall, mistaken identity, vaudeville, alaska, map, rug ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Murderesses Velma Kelly (a chanteuse and tease who killed her husband and sister after finding them in bed together) and Roxie Hart (who killed her boyfriend when she discovered he wasn't going to make her a star) find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.
Plot Keywords: prison, newspaper, bad girl, jazz age, reporter, marionette, ambition ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Setting off on a journey to the west in the 1830s, the Prescott family run into a man named Linus, who helps them fight off a pack of thieves. Linus then marries daughter Eve Prescott (Carroll Baker), and 30 years later goes off to fight in the Civil War with their son, with bloody results. Eve's sister, Lily, heads farther west and has adventures with a professional gambler, stretching all the way to San Francisco and into the 1880s.
Plot Keywords: imperialism, saloon, san francisco california, singing, small town, spinster, st. louis missouri ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Mama Rose lives to see her daughter June succeed on Broadway by way of vaudeville. When June marries and leaves, Rose turns her hope and attention to her elder, less obviously talented, daughter Louise. However, having her headlining as a stripper at Minsky's Burlesque is not what she initially has in mind.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: 1920s, based on book, mother daughter relationship, fame, singing, showbiz, sister sister relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Set during WW I, Palmer and Hayden team up as vaudeville artists. Harry Palmer deliberately injures his hand to avoid being drafted to the army. Later, he makes up for this. WW I patriotism for a WW II audience, very sentimental, great musical episodes and songs.—Gerhard Gonter <g.gonter@ieee.org>
Plot Keywords: actor, eiffel tower paris, tap dancing, song and dance, regret, moral reformation, military ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Ambitious Helen Chernin (Ida Lupino) pushes her talented younger sister Katherine (Joan Leslie) into marriage with broken down song-and-dance man Albert Runkel (Jack Carson) so that the two women can leave the dirty steel town where they live. Runkel's partner Paul Collins (Dennis Morgan), however, sees through Helen's plan. Helen continues driving her sister's career and eventually Katherine becomes a star on Broadway, while Runkel and Collins' act flounders. Success soon goes to Katherine's head and she becomes a fast-living party girl. Time passes and Helen and Katherine run into Paul, now a successful band leader. He and Katherine soon fall in love. The two sisters eventually have a showdown on opening night of Katherine's latest show when Katherine discovers that Helen is also in love with Paul.—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>
Plot Keywords: theatrical producer, tennis, swimming, suicide, singer, show business, sailing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Recently widowed well-to-do Laura Henderson is at a bit of a loose end in inter-war London. On a whim she buys the derelict Windmill theatre in the West End and persuades impresario Vivian Van Damm to run it, despite the fact the two don't seem to get on at all. Although their idea of a non-stop revue is at first a success, other theatres copy it and disaster looms. Laura suggests they put nudes in the show, but Van Damm points out that the Lord Chamberlain, who licenses live shows in Britain, is likely to have something to say about this. Luckily Mrs Henderson is friends with him.
Plot Keywords: american flag, unwanted pregnancy, rolls royce, nipples, limousine, holocaust, anti semitism ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Princess Margaret is travelling incognito to elope with her true love instead of marrying the man her father has betrothed her to. On the high seas, her ship is attacked by pirates who know her identity and plan to kidnap her and hold her for a king's ransom. Little do the cutthroats know that she will be rescued by that unlikeliest of knights errant, Sylvester the Great, who will lead them on a merry, and madcap, chase.—Alfred Jingle
Plot Keywords: surprise ending, murder, rescue, swashbuckler, sword fight, tattoo, assumed identity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The amazing career of master magician Harry Houdini is presented from his beginnings with a carnival "wild man" act to his emergence as an internationally-acclaimed illusionist, From his dramatic escape from a locked safe under the frozen Detroit River to an even more improbable one from a locked cell in Scotland Yard, he never failed to please and astound his audiences. Although Houdini's tricks are achieved through his marvelous physical dexterity and innate sleight-of-hand, he courted death with the hazardous illusions he performed and his compulsive quest to make contact with the spirit world.—duke1029@aol.com
Plot Keywords: title spoken by character, trial, one word title, wife and husband lead actors, coney island brooklyn new york city, new york city, brooklyn new york city ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Florence Foster Jenkins, an heiress from NYC, always wanted to be a concert pianist and play Carnegie Hall. An injury in her youth deterred that dream, so she sets out to sing her way to Carnegie Hall, knowing the only way to get there would be, "Practice, practice, practice". Her husband supports her venture, and Florence Foster Jenkins' performance at Carnegie Hall becomes a truly historic event.
Plot Keywords: bad singing, concert, 1940s, singing, opera singer, singer, heiress ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The Wolves baseball team gets steamed when they find they've been inherited by one K.C. Higgins, a suspected "fathead" who intends to take an active interest in running the team. But K.C. turns outs to be a beautiful woman who really knows her baseball. Second baseman Dennis Ryan promptly falls in love. But his playboy roommate Eddie O'Brien has his own notions about how to treat the new lady owner and some unsavory gamblers have their own ideas about how to handle Eddie.—A.L.Beneteau <albl@inforamp.net>
Plot Keywords: swimming, photographer, reporter, dancing, dancer, song, theater ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Nightclub entertainer Sarah Ryan and songwriter Tommy Taylor move in to the boardinghouse run by their mothers Maggie and Norah. Tommy brings along Mr. Grasselli, a "nervous wreck" who keeps to himself.. Sarah recognizes him as the gangster Chips Maguire. He killed a cop with Tommy's gun, so Tommy must now protect him. Grasselli winds up turning the boarding house into a money-making nightclub.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: newspaper headline, champagne, irish american, face slap, romantic triangle, redhead, crooked lawyer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Preface: a stentorian narrator tells us that the USA was flooded with Nazi spies in 1939-41. One such tries to recruit college grad Bill Dietrich, who becomes a double agent for the FBI. While Bill trains in Hamburg, a street-accident victim proves to have been spying on atom-bomb secrets; conveniently, Dietrich is assigned to the New York spy ring stealing these secrets. Can he track down the mysterious "Christopher" before his ruthless associates unmask and kill him?—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: fear, montage, jail, jail cell, police station, motorcycle, pipe smoking ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: An orphan is provisionally adopted by the manager of a hotel populated by show business people. The hotel's owner doesn't like the entertainers and wants the girl returned to the orphanage.
Plot Keywords: hotel, bandleader, boarding house, midget, niece, stage, uncle ...
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