Esther Muir
Birth : 1903-03-11, Andes, New York, USA
Death : 1995-08-01
(archive footage)
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
Bonnie Bascomb
A private detective, soon to enlist in the army, is drawn into one final case when his police officer father is killed in the line of duty. Soon his prime suspect is murdered as well, and he finds himself framed for the crime. As more witnesses get murdered, he finds himself on the run from both the police and former Prohibition violators who seem to have found a new racket.
Hilda, Telephone Operator
In this drama, an ex-vaudevillian dancer opens up a dance band agency and help street kids at the same time by hiring them to help out. Unfortunately, the local gang of hood's leader resists his attempts. More trouble ensues when the dancer helps a convict gain parole by hiring him. It later turns out that the ex-con is only interested in trying to use the agency as a front for extortion. Songs include the Oscar nominated "When There's a Breeze on Lake Louise," "Your Face Looks Familiar," "Heavenly, Isn't He?" "Let's Forget It," "You're Bad For Me," and "A Million Miles From Manhattan."
Prostitute
Fast-talking con-man and grifter Candy Johnson rises to be the corrupt boss of Yellow Creek, but his wife's alcoholic father tries to set things right.
Grace Norman
Marital comedy in which a department store mannequin is mistaken for "the other woman".
Mrs. Ellen Gordon
Robert Gordon, a sheltered 18-year-old youth reared in a Catholic school, believes he has a vocation for the priesthood. He is taken to live with his father in his palatial Florida home. There he falls in love with his step-sister, Patricia Morrow, ten years his senior. He runs away and joins the R.A.F. Shot down in battle, he is rescued and taken to a monastery where he renounces the world to study for the priesthood.
(uncredited)
In 1911, minor stage comic, Vernon Castle meets the stage-struck Irene Foote. A few misadventures later, they marry and then abandon comedy to attempt a dancing career together. While they're performing in Paris, an agent sees them rehearse and starts them on their brilliant career as the world's foremost ballroom dancers. However, at the height of their fame, World War I begins.
Duchess
Knowing that is contains valuable helium gas, a gang of bad guys first tries to purchase the ranch which Gene straw-bosses. When that fails, they lay a hidden pipeline to snag the gas.
Madame Mustache
A blustering gunfighter talks himself into the position of mayor in a small western town.
Lora Wynne
Small-time showgirl poses as a stripper to infiltrate a nightclub whose owner is believed responsible for her father's murder.
Frau Schmidt (uncredited)
A love story centered on the lives of three young German soldiers in the years following World War I. Their close friendship is strengthened by their shared love for the same woman who is dying of tuberculosis.
Opal Updyke
The wealthy owner of a Pennsylvania steel business travels to New York to break up his son's romance with a showgirl. Director George Marshall's 1938 comedy stars Victor McLaglen, Brian Donlevy, Gypsy Rose Lee, Raymond Walburn, Hattie McDaniel, Lynn Bari, Robert Kellard, Jane Darwell, Andrew Tombes, Esther Muir and Frank Moran.
Prima Donna
A baritone aids a young servant in making her dream of singing professionally come true.
Flo Nichols
In this tearful crime melodrama, a waitress becomes so taken with her dream of living in posh luxury and comfort that she leaves her honest boyfriend the district attorney to take up with a notorious gangster who lavishes her with stolen furs and fabulous diamonds. She has no idea that the crook is only using her as a pawn in his scheme to learn the DA's secrets. When she finally does learn the truth, she gives up her life for truth, justice and love.
Frances
Jack Holt stars as Robert Bailey, a Henry Ford-like auto industrialist who decides to give his millions away to various charitable causes. Naturally, this arouses hostility amongst Bailey's friends, relatives and associates, some of whom have murder on their minds.
Panda
Theater manager James Guthrie's (Melvyn Douglas) career depends on famed soprano Elsa Terry (Grace Moore) singing in his Buenos Aires opera house, however, Elsa breaks the contract in favor of a more lucrative deal in Paris. Desperate, James begins showering her with flowers and candy in an attempt to woo her to the Argentinian opera house. When Elsa overhears James confess to his friend Pancho that he'd be willing to resort to kidnapping to get Elsa to Argentina, she mistakenly believes his motives to be solely romantic.
Nettie Horton
This wacky vaudeville-style romp casts the irreverent comedy team as feuding co-owners of a drug company, William “Willy” Hobbs (Wheeler) and Claude Augustus Horton (Woolsey), who agree to wrestle each other for the sole ownership of the business. The winner will take the company and the loser must become the other’s valet for a year. But when Hobbs loses, he sends his wife to Florida and schemes to trick Horton. What follows are hilarious hijinks as only Wheeler and Woolsey can pull off!
'Flo' Marlowe
Doctor Hugo Hackenbush, Tony, and Stuffy try and save Judy's farm by winning a big race with her horse. There are a few problems. Hackenbush runs a high priced clinic for the wealthy who don't know he has his degree in Veterinary Medicine.
Carmel Prevost
An opera singer whose career is on the wane finds newfound fame doing popular songs on the radio.
Gold Digger (uncredited)
A woman reporter is hired by an author-songwriter to help him avoid additional breach-of-promise suits.
Girl in Apartment Listening to Radio (uncredited)
Joe, who owns a gas station along with his brothers and is about to marry Katherine, travels to the small town where she lives to visit her, but is wrongly mistaken for a wanted kidnapper and arrested.
Elaine Bostwick
Racehorse-owner Dan Morgan is ruled off the track and out of racing when his horse is doped by a rival owner who knows that Dan's horse can win a high-stakes race. Trying to clear his name, Dan runs into many difficulties and incidents, including a blazing barn filled with valuable horses, before he is able to gather the needed evidence against the guilty man.
Pianist
Kathleen Gerard, a high society wife fed up with her husband's artistic "protegées", decides to take one of her own in Nino, a promising tenor, patronizing him to study in Paris. He and her girlfriend are perfectly happy until the Gerards pay a visit and Mrs. Gerard starts to show too much interest in him.
Jane, Andy's Sister-in-Law
While on a business trip, Andy accidentially gets into a compromising position with the wife of a client.
Spellek's Wife (uncredited)
A wide-eyed working girl wins a $5,000 sweepstakes and plunges into the lush life of New York City, where she meets a bellboy who is more than he seems.
Beer Garden Band Leader (Uncredited)
A countess marries a Gypsy fiddler instead of a baron's son at harvest time in Tokay wine country, Hungary.
Mrs. Vail
An unprincipled hustler who makes his living getting--or making up--evidence in divorce cases finds that he's framing his own daughter.
Lucille 'Lucy' Weston
A stenographer who works at a large hotel finds herself caught in the middle of a major swindle.
A comedy short.
Babe - Masseuse
Innocent Nancy Carroll falls in love with con man Edmund Lowe and the pair swindle their way across the country until they decide to settle down in a small town and give up their life of crime. He goes into business and all seems to be going well until some ex-partners he double crossed show up in town demanding the money he cheated them out of.
Mrs. Johnson-Martini
Broke lion tamers travel to Africa to make a movie about Amazon women, from a distance.
Violet
Daniel Pardway, starting with almost nothing after the great Chicago fire, builds the biggest department store in town. He wants to pass on the business to his three sons and daughter, but has to deal with their lack of interest or aptitude.
Lolly
The story of aging chorus girl Frankie Arnette, who'll do anything for publicity. Fiercely ambitious, Frankie even promises that if she is given a leading role in an upcoming Broadway musical, prominent producer Morgan Andrews will be allowed to enjoy the "attentions" of her own daughter Marilyn. But Marilyn is in love with likeable Ray Joyce, and wants no part of her mother's intrigues.
Minnie Broadhurst
U.S. sailor Jimmy Harrigan, on shore leave in San Pedro, meets and falls for Sally Brent She promises to wait for him when he ships out to San Francisco, but Jimmy becomes jealous and tells her off when he learns Sally has entered a marathon dance contest sponsored by a lecherous snake named Baron Portola. Along with several of his Navy pals, Jimmy goes to the ballroom the night of the dance marathon, to try to change Sally's mind and win her back.
Peggy
Holt plays police lieutenant McHenry, while Graves is his friendly rival, crime reporter Wally Cook. After the two men verbally duel over a variety of details, they hunker down to business, that of solving the murder of a lawyer who was in the midst of reading a will to a motley collection of heirs.
Esther Studebaker
Comedy sketch in which a pair of hapless guys try to pick up a couple of girls. The girls perform a song, then depart. When the guys attempt to follow, their car breaks down.