Mickey Rooney was an American actor. In a career spanning nearly nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the silent-film era. He was the top box-office attraction from 1939 to 1941, and one of the best-paid actors of that era. At the height of a career marked by declines and comebacks, Rooney performed the role of Andy Hardy in a series of 16 films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized the mainstream United States self-image.
Susan Peters was an American actress who appeared in more than twenty films over the course of her decade-long career. Though she began her career in uncredited and ingénue roles, she would establish herself as a serious dramatic actress in the mid-1940s.
Richard Quine was an American director, actor, and singer.
That's Entertainment! is a 1974 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The success of the retrospective prompted a 1976 sequel, the related 1985 film That's Dancing!, and a third installment in 1994.
Ann Marie Blyth is an American retired actress and singer. For her performance as Veda in the 1945 Michael Curtiz film Mildred Pierce, Blyth was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema, and became the earliest living acting Academy Award nominee upon the death of Angela Lansbury in 2022.
Babes on Broadway is a 1941 American musical film starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and directed by Busby Berkeley, with Vincente Minnelli directing Garland's big solo numbers. The film, which features Fay Bainter and Virginia Weidler, was the third in the "Backyard Musical" series about kids who put on their own show, following Babes in Arms (1939) and Strike Up the Band (1940). Songs in the film include "Babes on Broadway" by Burton Lane (music) and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (lyrics), and "How About You?" by Lane with lyrics by Ralph Freed, the brother of producer Arthur Freed. The movie ends with a minstrel show performed by the main cast in blackface.
Francis the Talking Mule is a fictional mule who first appeared in three short stories written for Esquire by David Stern, which he later combined into the 1946 novel Francis. This was the basis of a series of seven Universal-International comedy films released from 1950 to 1956.
Bring Your Smile Along is a 1955 American Technicolor comedy film by Blake Edwards. It was Edwards' directorial debut and the motion picture debut of Constance Towers. Edwards wrote the script for this Frankie Laine musical with his mentor, director Richard Quine. Songs Laine sang in the film included his 1951 hit "The Gandy Dancers' Ball."
The Desert Rats is a 1953 American black-and-white war film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Robert L. Jacks, directed by Robert Wise, that stars Richard Burton, James Mason, and Robert Newton. The film's storyline concerns the Siege of Tobruk in 1941 North Africa during World War II.
Gordon Wynnivo Jones was an American character actor, a member of John Wayne's informal acting company best known for playing Lou Costello's TV nemesis "Mike the Cop" and appearing as The Green Hornet in the first of two movie serials based on that old-time radio program.
Operation Mad Ball is a 1957 American military comedy from Columbia Pictures, produced by Jed Harris, directed by Richard Quine, that stars Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, Kathryn Grant, Arthur O'Connell, and Mickey Rooney. The screenplay is by Blake Edwards, Jed Harris, and Arthur Carter, based on an unproduced play by Carter.
Drive a Crooked Road is a 1954 American crime film noir directed by Richard Quine and starring Mickey Rooney and Dianne Foster. The drama's screenplay was adapted by Blake Edwards and Richard Quine from "The Wheel Man", a story by Canadian James Benson Nablo.
Baby Face Nelson is a 1957 American film noir crime film based on the real-life 1930s gangster, directed by Don Siegel, co-written by Daniel Mainwaring—who also wrote the screenplay for Siegel's 1956 sci-fi thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers—and starring Mickey Rooney, Carolyn Jones, Cedric Hardwicke, Leo Gordon as Dillinger, Anthony Caruso, Jack Elam, John Hoyt and Elisha Cook Jr.
Girl Crazy is a 1943 American musical film starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Produced by the Freed Unit of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it is based on the stage musical Girl Crazy – which was written by Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin. It was the last of Garland and Rooney's nine movies as co-stars, the pair appearing only once more together on film, as guest stars in 1948's Words and Music.
Strike Up the Band is a 1940 American musical film produced by the Arthur Freed unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was directed by Busby Berkeley and stars Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, in the second of a series of musicals they co-starred in, after Babes in Arms, all directed by Berkeley. The story written for the 1927 stage musical Strike Up the Band, and its successful 1930 Broadway revision, bear no resemblance to this film, aside from the title song.
Off Limits is a 1953 American comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope, Mickey Rooney and Marilyn Maxwell. Hope plays a manager who enlists in the army to keep an eye on his boxer, who has been drafted. The picture was written by Hal Kanter and Jack Sher, and was released in the UK as Military Policemen, as the characters played by Hope and Rooney join the military police.
Love Laughs at Andy Hardy is a 1946 American comedy film directed by Willis Goldbeck and starring Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone and Bonita Granville. It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film is also known under its American promotional title Uncle Andy Hardy. This was the fifteenth and penultimate film in the Andy Hardy series. The final installment, Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958), would be released 12 years later.
Joanne Jordan was an American actress and television spokesmodel. Her film credits include Loophole and Son of Sinbad. She also portrayed Queen Mirtha on the television series "Space Patrol." Besides film, she acted on stage, at one time performing in a Noël Coward play at the Harold Lloyd co-founded Beverly Hills Little Theatre for Professionals.
Siren of Bagdad is a 1953 Technicolor fantasy adventure film produced by Sam Katzman and directed by Richard Quine set in the medieval Iraq. It stars Paul Henreid as a travelling Master magician who seeks to recover his troop of beautiful dancing girls who are to be sold into slavery. Patricia Medina portrays his love interest who seeks to overthrow the corrupt Grand Vizier with the magician's help. Hans Conried plays the sidekick to Quine's magician, who is transformed into a beautiful blonde woman who spies and distracts the Grand Vizier while retaining Conried's voice.
The Mickey Rooney Show is an American television situation comedy that was broadcast on NBC from August 28, 1954, to June 4, 1955. It was also shown with the title Hey Mulligan.
