Strictly Dishonorable | |
---|---|
Directed by | Melvin Frank Norman Panama |
Written by | Melvin Frank Norman Panama |
Based on | Strictly Dishonorable 1929 play by Preston Sturges |
Produced by | Melvin Frank Norman Panama |
Starring | Ezio Pinza Janet Leigh |
Cinematography | Ray June |
Edited by | Cotton Warburton |
Music by | Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco Lennie Hayton |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
|
Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,182,000 [1] |
Box office | $881,000 [1] |
Strictly Dishonorable is a 1951 romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, and starring Ezio Pinza and Janet Leigh. It is the second film to be based on Preston Sturges' 1929 hit Broadway play of the same name after a pre-Code film released by Universal Pictures in 1931 with the same title.
In New York in the 1920s, amorous opera star Augustino "Gus" Caraffa (Ezio Pinza) crosses paths with Isabelle Perry (Janet Leigh), a naive music student from Mississippi who is his biggest fan. When a news photographer catches them in a kiss, it is proposed that they get married in name only to avoid a scandal. Isabelle, who is in love with Gus, agrees to the charade, hoping that he will eventually fall in love with her. [2] [3]
Notes:
Preston Sturges approached Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the idea of doing a remake of Strictly Dishonorable with Ezio Pinza, and received $60,000 for the rights, but was disappointed when he was not hired to write the screenplay. [4]
Strictly Dishonorable was in production from mid-January to mid-March 1951, [10] and was released on 3 July of that year. [11]
According to MGM records the film earned $660,000 in the US and Canada and $221,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $664,000. [1]
Lux Radio Theatre broadcast a radio adaptation of the film on December 8, 1952, with Janet Leigh reprising her role and Fernando Lamas replacing Pinza. [4] [12]
Jeanette Helen Morrison, known professionally as Janet Leigh, was an American actress. Her career spanned over five decades. Raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Preston Sturges was an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director.
Ezio Fortunato Pinza was an Italian opera singer. Pinza possessed a rich, smooth and sonorous voice, with a flexibility unusual for a bass. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas. At the San Francisco Opera, Pinza sang 26 roles during 20 seasons from 1927 to 1948. Pinza also sang to great acclaim at La Scala, Milan and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer, pianist and writer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he immigrated to the United States and became a film composer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next fifteen years. He also wrote concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky.
If I Were King is a 1938 American biographical and historical film starring Ronald Colman as medieval poet François Villon, and featuring Basil Rathbone and Frances Dee. It is based on the 1901 play and novel, both of the same name, by Justin Huntly McCarthy, and was directed by Frank Lloyd, with a screenplay adaptation by Preston Sturges.
Risë Stevens was an American operatic mezzo-soprano and actress. Beginning in 1938, she sang for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for more than two decades during the 1940s and 1950s. She was most noted for her portrayals of the central character in Carmen by Georges Bizet. From 1963 to 1968 she was director of the Metropolitan Opera National Company.
Fanny is a musical with a book by S. N. Behrman and Joshua Logan and music and lyrics by Harold Rome. A tale of love, secrets, and passion set in and around the old French port of Marseille, it is based on Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of works titled Marius (1929), Fanny (1931), and César (1936).
Make a Wish is a musical with a book by Preston Sturges and Abe Burrows, who was not credited, and music and lyrics by Hugh Martin.
Everybody Does It is a 1949 American comedy film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Paul Douglas, Linda Darnell and Celeste Holm. In the film, a businessman's wife tries to become an opera star, failing miserably due to her lack of talent. When it turns out that her totally untrained husband is found to have a marvelous singing voice and goes on tour under an assumed name, his wife is livid.
Courage of Lassie is a 1946 American Technicolor MGM feature film featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Morgan, and dog actor Pal.
Strictly Dishonorable is a 1931 American pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by John M. Stahl and starring Paul Lukas, Sidney Fox and Lewis Stone, George Meeker, and Sidney Toler. It was written by Gladys Lehman and based on Preston Sturges' 1929 hit Broadway play of the same name. Strictly Dishonorable was Sturges' second play on Broadway, and his first to be filmed.
Strictly Dishonorable is a romantic comedy play written by Preston Sturges and first produced on Broadway in 1929. It was adapted for the screen twice, first in 1931, then again in 1951. The play was Sturges' second Broadway production, and the first of his plays to be made into a film. The Attic Theater Company revived the show at The Flea Theater in the summer of 2014.
Strictly Dishonorable can refer to:
Child of Manhattan is a 1933 American pre-Code melodrama film based on the play Child of Manhattan by Preston Sturges, which was presented on Broadway in 1932. The film was directed by Edward Buzzell and written for the screen by Gertrude Purcell, and stars Nancy Carroll, star of musical comedies at Paramount, John Boles, and cowboy star Charles "Buck" Jones.
Child of Manhattan is a 1932 play by Preston Sturges, his fifth to be produced on Broadway and his last for almost twenty years as his career took him to Hollywood. It was adapted into a film of the same name, released in 1933 by Columbia Pictures, the second play of Sturges' to make it to the silver screen, after 1929's Strictly Dishonorable.
The Good Fairy is a 1935 romantic comedy film written by Preston Sturges, based on the 1930 play A jó tündér by Ferenc Molnár as translated and adapted by Jane Hinton, which was produced on Broadway in 1931. The film was directed by William Wyler and stars Margaret Sullavan, Herbert Marshall, Frank Morgan and Reginald Owen.
I'll Be Yours is a 1947 American musical comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Deanna Durbin. Based on the play A jó tündér by Ferenc Molnár, the film is about a small-town girl who tells a fib to a wealthy businessman, which then creates complications. The play had earlier been adapted for the 1935 film The Good Fairy by Preston Sturges.
Richard Eastham was an American actor of stage, film, and television, a concert singer known for his deep baritone voice, and an inventor.
Mr. Imperium is a 1951 romantic musical drama film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Lana Turner and singer Ezio Pinza. Filmed in Technicolor, it was directed by Don Hartman, who cowrote the screenplay with Edwin H. Knopf based on a play written by Knopf. The musical score was composed by Bronisław Kaper. Turner's singing voice was dubbed by Trudy Erwin.
Esther Cunico Minciotti was an Italian actress.