Thank Your Lucky Stars | |
---|---|
Directed by | David Butler |
Screenplay by | Norman Panama Melvin Frank James V. Kern |
Story by | Everett Freeman Arthur Schwartz |
Produced by | Mark Hellinger |
Starring | Eddie Cantor Joan Leslie Dennis Morgan Dinah Shore |
Cinematography | Arthur Edeson |
Edited by | Irene Morra |
Music by | Heinz Roemheld |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 127 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,568,000 [1] |
Box office | $3,621,000 [1] $2.8 million (US rentals) [2] |
Thank Your Lucky Stars is a 1943 American musical comedy film made by Warner Brothers as a World War II fundraiser, with a slim plot involving theater producers. The stars donated their salaries to the Hollywood Canteen, which was founded by John Garfield and Bette Davis, who appear in this film. [3] It was directed by David Butler and stars Eddie Cantor, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Edward Everett Horton and S.Z. Sakall. [4] [5]
Two theater producers try to stage a wartime charity extravaganza called Cavalcade of Stars. The egotistical Eddie Cantor has Dinah Shore under contract and will only allow her to appear if he is made chairman of the benefit committee, so he is allowed to take command. Meanwhile, an aspiring singer and his songwriter girlfriend conspire to get into the charity program by replacing Cantor with their lookalike friend, tour bus driver Joe Simpson.
Many of Warner Bros.' stars performed in musical numbers, including several who were not known as singers. The show features the only onscreen musical performances by Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Ida Lupino.
Guest Stars
Some are performed as part of the plot and others are heard in rehearsal and benefit performance scenes.
Filming for Thank Your Lucky Stars began on October 14, 1942. [8] Producer Mark Hellinger and director David Butler both made cameo appearances in the film. [9] Thank Your Lucky Stars was the film debut of both Dinah Shore and Spike Jones and his City Slickers. [9] [10] Each of the cast members was paid a $50,000 fee, which was then donated to the Hollywood Canteen. [11]
The film used sets that had been built for the Warner Bros. films The Green Pastures and Wonder Bar . [9]
Bette Davis recalled that Conrad Wiedell, who had really won a jitterbug contest, was frightened at the thought of hurting her. She told him "forget about who I am...let your instincts come to the fore, and just do it!" [10]
Olivia de Havilland said that she added the over-the-top gum chewing to the act in order to help with the lip-synching. [12]
The finale was filmed with many of the cast on stage together, but all are shown when the curtain comes down, thanks to special effects that place five acts—Flynn, Sheridan, Davis, the Carson-Hale duo and the trio of de Havilland, Lupino and Tobias—over their glitter-covered stars.[ citation needed ]
Thank Your Lucky Stars was popular with audiences, and the critic James Agee called it "the loudest and most vulgar of the current musicals. It is also the most fun." [13] Ticket sales, combined with the donated salaries of the performers, raised more than $2,000,000 for the Hollywood Canteen. [14]
The film earned $2,503,000 domestically and $1,118,000 in foreign markets. [1]
At the time, Variety described the film as a "triumph for Eddie Cantor". [15] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that "the gag that the true Mr. Cantor would, if he could, gum up the show is so realistically repeated that fiction becomes painful fact...you have a conventional all-star show which has the suspicious flavor of an 'amateur night' at the studio. But at least it is lively and genial...For the sake of variety, the Warners might have worked in a little more dance and a little more femininity. Too many people sing. And too few beautiful girls display their talents. It is also too much (two hours) of a show. But, in straight omnibus entertainment that's what you have to expect." [16]
Leonard Maltin gives the picture three out of four stars, stating "Very lame plot...frames all-star Warner Bros. show, with Davis singing "They're Either Too Young or Too Old,'' Flynn delightfully performing "That's What You Jolly Well Get,'' other staid stars breaking loose." [17]
The song "They're Either Too Young or Too Old" by Arthur Schwartz (music) and Frank Loesser (lyrics) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song, but lost to "You'll Never Know" by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon from the film Hello, Frisco, Hello . The song was also a number-one hit on Your Hit Parade . [3]
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American Technicolor epic swashbuckler film from Warner Bros. Pictures. It was produced by Hal B. Wallis and Henry Blanke, directed by Michael Curtiz, and stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, and Alan Hale. The film is particularly noted for its Academy Award-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical films, suspense horror, and occasional comedies, although her greater successes were in romantic dramas. A recipient of two Academy Awards, she was the first thespian to accrue ten nominations.
Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn was an Australian actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland, and reputation for his womanising and hedonistic personal life. His most notable roles include Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which was later named by the American Film Institute as the 18th greatest hero in American film history, the lead role in Captain Blood (1935), Major Geoffrey Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and the hero in a number of Westerns such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and San Antonio (1945).
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Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland was a British-American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. At the time of her death in 2020 at age 104, she was the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and was widely considered as being the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Her younger sister was Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine.
Eddie Cantor was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author. Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, this "Apostle of Pep" was regarded almost as a family member by millions because his top-rated radio shows revealed intimate stories and amusing anecdotes about his wife, Ida, and five daughters. Some of his hits include "Makin' Whoopee", "Ida ", "If You Knew Susie", "Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me", “Mandy”, "My Baby Just Cares for Me”, "Margie", and "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm ?" He also wrote a few songs, including "Merrily We Roll Along", the Merrie Melodies Warner Bros. cartoon theme.
Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937) with Humphrey Bogart, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Bogart, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, City for Conquest (1940) with Cagney and Elia Kazan, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, Kings Row (1942) with Ronald Reagan, Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant.
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Roman Scandals is a 1933 American black-and-white pre-Code musical film starring Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Gloria Stuart, Edward Arnold and David Manners. It was directed by Frank Tuttle. The film features a number of intricate production numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley. The song "Keep Young and Beautiful" is from this film. In addition to the starring actors in the picture, the elaborate dance numbers are performed by the "Goldwyn Girls". The title of the film is a pun on Roman sandals.
Joan Leslie was an American actress and vaudevillian, who during the Hollywood Golden Age, appeared in such films as High Sierra (1941), Sergeant York (1941), and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).
John Elmer Carson, known as Jack Carson, was a Canadian-born American film actor. Carson often played the role of comedic friend in films of the 1940s and 1950s, including The Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) with Cary Grant. He appeared in such dramas as Mildred Pierce (1945), A Star is Born (1954), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). He worked for RKO and MGM, but most of his notable work was for Warner Bros.
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