Ask Any Girl | |
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Directed by | Charles Walters |
Written by | George Wells |
Based on | Ask Any Girl by Winifred Wolfe |
Produced by | Joe Pasternak |
Starring | David Niven Shirley MacLaine Gig Young Rod Taylor Jim Backus Claire Kelly |
Cinematography | Robert J. Bronner |
Edited by | John McSweeney Jr. |
Music by | Jeff Alexander |
Production companies | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Euterpe, Inc. |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,140,000 [1] |
Box office | $3,475,000 [1] |
Ask Any Girl is a 1959 American romantic comedy film directed by Charles Walters and starring David Niven, Shirley MacLaine, and Gig Young. It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [2] and based on a novel by Winifred Wolfe. [3]
A wide-eyed Meg Wheeler comes to New York City and takes a job in market research for a large firm. She's also keeping an eye open to meet the right man, her research making her aware that the United States has five million more females than males.
Upon meeting two clients, the reserved and somewhat stodgy Miles Doughton and his playboy younger brother Evan, it doesn't take long for Meg to realize she's romantically interested in Evan.
Miles is willing to help. He has seen so many of his brother's conquests come and go that he knows what Evan likes in a girl. Therefore, in a Pygmalion-like way, he sets out to transform Meg into exactly that kind of girl. What she doesn't yet know is that Miles secretly comes to want her for himself.
MGM bought the rights to the novel in June 1958, before it had been published. David Niven signed to star in November. [4] Jeff Alexander composed the music for the film, [5] with Harry James and His Orchestra releasing two songs from the film, "Ballad for Beatniks" and "The Blues About Manhattan", on an MGM single. [6]
According to MGM records, the film earned $2,075,000 in the US and Canada, and $1,400,000 elsewhere, turning a profit for the studio of $505,000. [1]
It recorded admissions of 255,797 in France. [7]
Shirley Maclaine won the 1959 BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress, and also the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival. [8] She was also nominated for a Golden Globe, losing out to Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot .
Rod Taylor's performance was much admired and helped lead to his casting in The Time Machine (1960). [9]
James David Graham Niven was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. Niven was known as a handsome and debonair leading man in Classic Hollywood films. He received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Shirley MacLaine is an American actress and author. Known for her portrayals of quirky, strong-willed and eccentric women, she has received numerous accolades over her eight-decade career, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Volpi Cups and two Silver Bears. She has been honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Tribute in 1995, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1998, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2013.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a 1974 American romantic comedy drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Robert Getchell. It stars Ellen Burstyn as a widow who travels with her preteen son across the Southwestern United States in search of a better life. Kris Kristofferson, Billy "Green" Bush, Diane Ladd, Valerie Curtin, Lelia Goldoni, Vic Tayback, Jodie Foster, Alfred Lutter and Harvey Keitel appear in supporting roles.
Rodney Sturt Taylor was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including Young Cassidy (1965), Nobody Runs Forever (1968), The Train Robbers (1973) and A Matter of Wife... and Death (1975).
Gig Young was an American stage, film, and television actor.
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Joseph Herman Pasternak was a Hungarian-American film producer in Hollywood. Pasternak spent the Hollywood "Golden Age" of musicals at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, producing many successful musicals with female singing stars like Deanna Durbin, Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell, as well as swimmer/bathing beauty Esther Williams' films. He produced Judy Garland's final MGM film, Summer Stock, which was released in 1950, and some of Gene Kelly’s early breakthrough roles. Pasternak worked in the film industry for 45 years, from the later silent era until shortly past the end of the classical Hollywood cinema in the early 1960s.
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Small Town Girl is a 1936 American romantic comedy film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Janet Gaynor, Robert Taylor, and James Stewart. The supporting cast features Binnie Barnes, Andy Devine, Lewis Stone and Edgar Kennedy.
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A Life of Her Own is a 1950 American melodrama film directed by George Cukor and starring Lana Turner and Ray Milland. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart focuses on an aspiring model who leaves her small town in the Midwest to seek fame and fortune in New York City. The film was produced by Voldemar Vetluguin and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Latin Lovers is a Technicolor 1953 romantic musical comedy film made by MGM. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and written by Isobel Lennart. The music score is by Nicholas Brodszky, and the cinematographer was Joseph Ruttenberg.
Arena is a 1953 Ansco Color 3-D film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Gig Young, Jean Hagen, and Polly Bergen. It was promoted as "the first 3-D Western" of the era.
The 9th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 26 June – 7 July 1959. The festival welcomed the cinematic movement known as the New Wave and screened the work of directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda and François Truffaut. The Golden Bear was awarded to the French film Les Cousins directed by Claude Chabrol.
Two Loves is a 1961 American drama film directed by Charles Walters and starring Shirley MacLaine, Laurence Harvey, Jack Hawkins, and Nobu McCarthy. It is based on the book Spinster by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. It was entered into the 11th Berlin International Film Festival.
Cynara is an American pre-Code 1932 romantic drama film about a British lawyer who pays a heavy price for an affair. It stars Ronald Colman, Kay Francis, and Phyllis Barry. It is based on the 1928 novel An Imperfect Lover by Robert Gore-Browne. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career. A text panel at the beginning of the film explains the title: “Inspired by Ernest Dowson's immortal lines—‘I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion.” The poem in question, Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae, was first published in 1894.
Some Came Running is a 1958 American drama film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by James Jones. Set in 1948, it tells the story of a troubled Army veteran and author who returns to his Midwestern home town after 16 years, to the chagrin of his wealthy, social-climbing brother.
Winifred Wolfe was an American novelist, playwright, and television writer best known as the author of the novels Ask Any Girl (1958) and If a Man Answers (1960). She was head writer of the television soap operas As the World Turns and Somerset during the 1970s.