Fancy Pants (film)

Last updated
Fancy Pants
Fancy Pants.jpg
Theatrical re-release poster ca. 1961
Directed by George Marshall
Screenplay by
Based onRuggles of Red Gap
by Harry Leon Wilson
Produced byRobert L. Welch
Starring
Cinematography Charles Lang
Edited by Archie Marshek
Music by Van Cleave
Color process Technicolor
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • July 19, 1950 (1950-07-19)(United States)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$2.6 million (US rentals) [1]

Fancy Pants is a 1950 American romantic comedy western film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. It is a musical adaptation of Ruggles of Red Gap .

Contents

Plot

A British actor attempts to impress two visiting American women, Efflie Floud and her tomboyish daughter, Agatha, by having the cast of his drawing-room comedy pose as his aristocratic family. Effie persuades the 'butler', Humphrey, really a struggling American actor named Arthur Tyler, to accompany them to the United States and help to refine both her husband and daughter. She sends a telegram home, referring to the person she believes is Humphrey as a "gentleman's gentleman", which the rural western townfolk misunderstand as meaning he is an aristocrat and presumably the future husband of Agatha. Arthur must now pretend to the family that he is this British butler while pretending to the rest of the town, and the visiting President Theodore Roosevelt that he is a politically savvy Englishman. The deception is eventually uncovered, and the actor and the family's daughter gradually fall in love.

Cast

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Ruggles of Red Gap</i> 1935 film by Leo McCarey

Ruggles of Red Gap is a 1935 American comedy film directed by Leo McCarey and starring Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, and ZaSu Pitts and featuring Roland Young and Leila Hyams. It was based on the best-selling 1915 novel by Harry Leon Wilson, adapted by Humphrey Pearson, with a screenplay by Walter DeLeon and Harlan Thompson. It is the story of a newly rich American couple from the West who win a British gentleman's gentleman in a poker game.

<i>I Love Lucy</i> American television sitcom (1951–1957)

I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons. The series starred Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian Vance and William Frawley, and follows the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a young, middle-class housewife living in New York City, who often concocts plans with her best friends and landlords, Ethel and Fred Mertz, to appear alongside her bandleader husband, Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz), in his nightclub. Lucy is depicted trying numerous schemes to mingle with and be a part of show business. After the series ended in 1957, a modified version of the show continued for three more seasons, with 13 one-hour specials, which ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as The Lucille Ball–Desi Arnaz Show, and later, in reruns, as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Frawley</span> American actor (1887–1966)

William Clement Frawley was an American Vaudevillian and actor best known for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the sitcom I Love Lucy. Frawley also played "Bub" O'Casey during the first five seasons of the sitcom My Three Sons and the political advisor to the Hon. Henry X. Harper in the film Miracle on 34th Street.

<i>Murder by Death</i> 1976 film by Robert Moore

Murder by Death is a 1976 American comedy mystery film directed by Robert Moore and written by Neil Simon. The film stars Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, and Estelle Winwood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Denning</span> American actor (1914–1998)

Richard Denning was an American actor who starred in science fiction films of the 1950s, including Unknown Island (1948), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Target Earth (1954), Day the World Ended (1955), Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), and The Black Scorpion (1957). Denning also appeared in the film An Affair to Remember (1957) with Cary Grant and on radio with Lucille Ball in My Favorite Husband (1948–1951), the forerunner of television's I Love Lucy. He's more well-known as Governor Paul Jameson in late 1960s-early 1980s police procedural TV series Hawaii Five-O.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Bowman</span> American actor (1914–1979)

Lee Bowman was an American film and television actor. According to one obituary, "his roles ranged from romantic lead to worldly, wisecracking lout in his most famous years".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Purl</span> American actress

Linda Purl is an American actress known for her roles as Ashley Pfister on Happy Days, Sheila Munroe in the 1982 horror film Visiting Hours, Pam Beesly's mother Helene in The Office, and Ben Matlock's daughter Charlene Matlock for the first season of the television series Matlock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Howard</span> British actor (1910–1995)

Arthur Howard was an English stage, film and television actor.

<i>Miss Grant Takes Richmond</i> 1949 film by Lloyd Bacon

Miss Grant Takes Richmond is a 1949 American comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Lucille Ball, William Holden and Janis Carter It was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was released under the alternative title Innocence Is Bliss in Britain.

<i>Best Foot Forward</i> (film) 1943 film by Edward Buzzell

Best Foot Forward is a 1943 American musical film adapted from the 1941 Broadway musical comedy of the same title. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Edward Buzzell, and starred Lucille Ball, William Gaxton, Virginia Weidler, Chill Wills, June Allyson, Gloria DeHaven, and Nancy Walker.

<i>Sorrowful Jones</i> 1949 film by Sidney Lanfield

Sorrowful Jones, also known as Damon Runyon's Sorrowful Jones, is a 1949 American comedy-drama film directed by Sidney Lanfield. The film stars Lucille Ball and Bob Hope.

<i>The Fuller Brush Girl</i> 1950 film by Lloyd Bacon

The Fuller Brush Girl is a 1950 slapstick comedy starring Lucille Ball and directed by Lloyd Bacon. Animator Frank Tashlin wrote the script. Ball plays a quirky door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman for the Fuller Brush Company. The film also stars Eddie Albert and has an uncredited cameo by Red Skelton. The film reunites Lucille Ball with director Lloyd Bacon, producer S. Sylvan Simon and Frank Tashlin at Columbia Pictures after their 1949 film Miss Grant Takes Richmond.

<i>Goodbye, My Fancy</i> (film) 1951 film by Vincent Sherman

Goodbye, My Fancy is a 1951 American romantic comedy film starring Joan Crawford, Robert Young, and Frank Lovejoy. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by Henry Blanke. Distributed by Warner Bros., the film was based on the 1948 play of same name by Fay Kanin and adapted for the screen by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts. Reinforcing social changes brought on by World War II and movies portraying women as successful on their own, such as 1945's Academy Award-winning Mildred Pierce, the plot follows an influential Congresswoman who returns to her former college to receive an honorary degree only to find her old flame as the university president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Hope filmography</span>

This is a selection of films and television appearances by British-American comedian and actor Bob Hope (1903-2003). Hope, a former boxer, began his acting career in 1925 in various vaudeville acts and stage performances

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Alexander (actor)</span> American actor (1897–1982)

John Alexander was an American stage, film, and television actor.

<i>Misbehaving Husbands</i> 1940 film by William Beaudine

Misbehaving Husbands is a 1940 American comedy film directed by William Beaudine for Producers Releasing Corporation. The film had the working titles At Your Age and Dummy Husbands. Harry Langdon, Betty Blythe, Esther Muir, and others in the cast had been stars in silent films. It was Gig Young's film debut, under his real name Byron Barr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucille Ball</span> American actress (1911–1989)

Lucille Désirée Ball was an American actress, comedian, producer, and studio executive. She was recognized by Time in 2020 as one of the most influential women of the 20th century for her work in all four of these areas. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She earned many honors, including the Women in Film Crystal Award, an induction into the Television Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Let Us Be Gay is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film produced and distributed by MGM. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard and stars Norma Shearer. It was based on and filmed concurrently with the 1929 play by Rachel Crothers which starred Tallulah Bankhead and ran for 128 performances at London's Lyric Theater. Critics generally preferred Tallulah's rendition to Shearer's.

<i>Ruggles of Red Gap</i> (1918 film) 1918 American film

Ruggles of Red Gap is a lost 1918 American silent comedy film directed by Lawrence C. Windom and starring Taylor Holmes, a Broadway stage actor. It was produced by veteran film company Essanay Studios. It was based on Harry Leon Wilson's novel Ruggles of Red Gap.

Jack Kirkwood was a Scottish-American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. He was known for playing the role of Charley Hackett in the American sitcom television series One Happy Family.

References

  1. "The Top Box Office Hits of 1950". Variety . January 3, 1951.