20,000 Cheers for the Chain Gang is an extant musical comedy film released in 1933. It was directed by Roy Mack. [1] The 20-minute film is about escaped prisoners trying to break back into a jail where condition have improved dramatically. The film was written by A. Dorian Otvos and Cyrus Wood. It is a spoof of the 1932 film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang . [2] [3] and 20,000 Years in Sing Sing . It is a Vitaphone film. [4]
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a 1932 American pre-Code crime-drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Paul Muni as a wrongfully convicted man on a chain gang who escapes to Chicago. It was released on November 10, 1932. The film received positive reviews and three Academy Award nominations.
Berton Churchill was a Canadian stage and film actor.
Robert Elliott Burns was an American World War I veteran known for escaping from a Georgia chain gang and publishing a memoir, I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, exposing the cruelty and injustice of the chain gang system.
Edward LeSaint was an American stage and film actor and director whose career began in the silent era. He acted in over 300 films and directed more than 90. He was sometimes credited as Edward J. Le Saint.
The 4th National Board of Review Awards were announced on December 22, 1932.
Sheila Terry was an American film actress.
Joseph W. Girard was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 280 films between 1911 and 1944. He was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
Harry Franklin "Hal" Price was an American film and stage actor. He appeared in more than 260 films between 1930 and 1952. He is the father of character actress and comedian Lu Leonard.
Jack La Rue was an American film and stage actor.
The forgotten man is a political concept in the United States centered around those whose interests have been neglected. The first main invocation of this concept came from William Graham Sumner in an 1883 lecture in Brooklyn entitled The Forgotten Man who articulated such a man to be one who has been compelled to pay for reformist programs. In 1932, President Franklin Roosevelt appropriated the phrase in a speech, using it to refer to those at the bottom of the economic scale whom Roosevelt believed the state needed to help.
David Landau was an American stage and film actor who appeared in 33 films from 1931 to 1935. He appeared on Broadway in 12 plays from 1919 to 1929.
James Harlee Bell was an American film and stage actor who appeared in about 150 films and television shows through 1964.
Everett G. Brown was an American actor.
Brown Holmes was an American screenwriter who worked for several major Hollywood studios in the 1930s and 1940s.
Noel Francis was an American actress of the stage and screen during the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Texas, she began her acting career on the Broadway stage in the mid-1920s, before moving to Hollywood at the beginning of the sound film era.
Louise Carter was an American stage and film actress. She appeared in 48 films between 1924 and 1940, mostly in maternal supporting roles. Among her roles were the mother of Paul Muni in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), the wife of Lionel Barrymore in Broken Lullaby (1932) and the wife of W. C. Fields in You're Telling Me! (1934).
Bernhard Kaun was an American composer and orchestrator. He is known for the Frankenstein (1931) theme.
Howard J. Green was an American screenwriter who worked in film and television. He was the first president of the Screen Writers Guild and a founder of the subsequent Writers Guild of America, West.
Patti Pickens was an American performer.