Once in a Lifetime | |
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Directed by | Russell Mack |
Written by | Seton I. Miller (adaptation) |
Based on | play Once in a Lifetime by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart |
Produced by | Carl Laemmle Jr. |
Starring | Jack Oakie Sidney Fox Aline MacMahon |
Cinematography | George Robinson |
Edited by | Robert Carlisle |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 91 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Once in a Lifetime is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film based on Once in a Lifetime by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. [1] The film was produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, directed by Russell Mack and stars Jack Oakie, Sidney Fox and Aline MacMahon. [2]
It is preserved at the Library of Congress. [3]
The immense success of The Jazz Singer , the first all-talking picture, results in the cancellation of a booking for three song-and-dance vaudeville performers: Jerry Hyland, May Daniels and George Lewis. Jerry, convinced that talkies are the future, decides they will head to Hollywood to break into the fledgling movie industry before others get the same notion. May comes up with the idea to open a school of elocution to teach actors how to speak on film. On the train there, May encounters an old friend, Helen Hobart, an influential, nationally syndicated columnist. She offers to put them in touch with Herman Glogauer, the head of a major movie studio. George is smitten with another passenger, aspiring young actress Susan Walker.
They discover the movie world to be an eccentric place. George is unexpectedly appointed by Glogauer as supervisor of production, allowing him to promote Susan's career. Despite his incompetence (or rather because of it), his first picture turns out to be a critical and commercial smash hit, and Susan becomes a star.
Later, a very persuasive salesman gets George to buy 2000 airplanes, which causes Glogauer to fire him. However, air movies become very popular, and George has inadvertently cornered the market. The other studios are desperate to get airplanes from Glogauer at any price, and George is once again considered a genius.
Mordaunt Hall, film critic of The New York Times , gave the film a favorable review, calling it a "merry diversion". [1] He praised all the main performers, as well as ZaSu Pitts as the studio's obtuse receptionist. [1]
Dragon Seed is a 1944 American war drama film, about Japan's WWII-era actions in China.The movie directed by Jack Conway and Harold S. Bucquet, based on the 1942 novel of the same name by Pearl S. Buck. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Akim Tamiroff, and Turhan Bey. It portrays a peaceful village in China that has been invaded by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The men in the village choose to adopt a peaceful attitude toward their conquerors, but the headstrong Jade (Hepburn) stands up to the Japanese.
The Mouthpiece is a 1932 American pre-Code crime drama film starring Warren William and directed by James Flood and Elliott Nugent. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film is currently available on DVD in the Forbidden Hollywood series.
The Life of Jimmy Dolan, released in the UK as The Kid's Last Fight, is a 1933 American pre-Code film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Loretta Young. John Wayne has a small supporting role as a frightened boxer. The story was based on a 1933 play called "Sucker" by Bertram Millhauser. The film was remade in 1939 as They Made Me a Criminal.
The Eagle and the Hawk is a 1933 American Pre-Code aerial war film set in World War I. It was directed by Stuart Walker and Mitchell Leisen and was based on an original story by John Monk Saunders. The film stars Fredric March and Cary Grant as Royal Flying Corps fighter pilots. The supporting cast includes Carole Lombard, Jack Oakie, and Sir Guy Standing.
Albert E. Lewis was a Polish-born Broadway and film producer. His family emigrated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York when he was a boy. He became a vaudeville comedian, then started a partnership producing one-act plays for vaudeville. Around 1930 he moved to Hollywood and worked as a film producer with Paramount, RKO, and MGM until after World War II.
Babbitt is a 1934 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis directed by William Keighley and starring Aline MacMahon, Guy Kibbee and Claire Dodd. The screenplay is about a staid small-town businessman who gets ensnared in shady dealings.
Life Begins is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film starring Loretta Young, Eric Linden, Aline MacMahon, and Glenda Farrell. The film was adapted from the 1932 play of the same name by Mary M. Axelson. It was released by Warner Bros. on September 10, 1932. The film was praised for its honest portrayal of a maternity ward.
Hit the Deck is a 1930 American pre-Code musical film directed by Luther Reed and starring Jack Oakie and Polly Walker, with Technicolor sequences. It was based on the 1927 musical Hit the Deck, which was itself based on the 1922 play Shore Leave by Hubert Osborne. It was one of the most expensive productions of RKO Radio Pictures up to that time, and one of the most expensive productions of 1930. This version faithfully reproduced the stage version of the musical.
Harry Russell Hopton was an American film actor and director.
Once in a Lifetime is a play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, the first of eight on which they collaborated in the 1930s.
Aline Laveen MacMahon was an American actress. Her Broadway stage career began under producer Edgar Selwyn in The Mirage during 1920. She made her screen debut in 1931 and worked extensively in film, theater and television until her retirement in 1975. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Dragon Seed (1944).
Million Dollar Legs is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film starring Jack Oakie and W.C. Fields, directed by Edward F. Cline, produced by Herman J. Mankiewicz and B.P. Schulberg, co-written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and released by Paramount Pictures. The film was inspired by the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, California.
Silver Dollar is a 1932 American pre-Code biographical film starring Edward G. Robinson, Bebe Daniels and Aline MacMahon. Based on David Karsner's biography of the same name, it tells the story of the rise and fall of Horace Tabor, a silver tycoon in 19th century Colorado.
The Heart of New York is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film starring the vaudeville team of Smith & Dale and George Sidney. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and based on the Broadway play Mendel, Inc. by David Freedman.
Touchdown is a 1931 American pre-Code football film directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Richard Arlen, Peggy Shannon, Jack Oakie and Regis Toomey. Jim Thorpe and Herman Brix appear uncredited as unbilled football players.
Make Me a Star is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by William Beaudine and starring Joan Blondell, Stuart Erwin and ZaSu Pitts. The film is a remake of the 1924 silent film Merton of the Movies, based upon the 1922 novel of that name, and the 1923 play adapted from the novel by George S. Kaufman, and Marc Connelly. It was remade again in 1947.
Tish is a 1942 comedy-drama film directed by S. Sylvan Simon and starring Marjorie Main, ZaSu Pitts, and Aline MacMahon.
Side Streets, also known in the UK as A Woman in Her Thirties, is a 1934 American romantic melodrama film starring Aline MacMahon and Paul Kelly. The screenplay concerns a spinster who hires, then marries, a destitute sailor who is not always faithful.
While the Patient Slept is a 1935 comedy murder mystery film directed by Ray Enright starring Aline MacMahon as a nurse/crime sleuth and Guy Kibbee as her boyfriend and police detective. It is based on the novel of the same name written by Mignon G. Eberhart.
Florida Special is a 1936 American comedy film directed by Ralph Murphy and written by David Boehm, Marguerite Roberts, Laura Perelman and S. J. Perelman. The film stars Jack Oakie, Sally Eilers, Kent Taylor, Frances Drake, Claude Gillingwater and Sam Hearn. The film was released on April 21, 1936, by Paramount Pictures.