Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins
August 27, 1964
Disney
Musical, Historical, Fantasy, Children's
DVD
B-

Forgive me, but the magic has faded.  This used to be one of my favorite Disney movies, but watching it now (on the 50th anniversary special edition DVD), I notice things like that the animation isn't as amazing as I remembered, and the bird woman is covered in pigeons (and probably their poo).  Although some people seem to appreciate the "father" plot more now that they're adults, seeing Saving Mr. Banks a few months ago only confirmed that I never cared for Mr. Banks even after he reforms.  (And why is the mother a suffragette on the streets but a "yes, dear" sort of wife at home?)  The "laughing" scenes aren't exactly infectious, and I kept thinking that I'd hate to have a neighbor shoot off a cannon a couple times a day.

That all said, I still like the chemistry between Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke (his bad accent aside), the kids are cute but not cutesy, and most of the songs are good to great.  The special effects are impressive for their time.  Bill Walsh also cowrote the screenplay for Merlin Jones, which was directed by Stevenson, and obviously this is more ambitious and imaginative.  It's been a very long while since I've read the books, but I think it's fair to say that the best parts of the movie-- like the very catchy "Step in Time" song & dance by the chimneysweeps, have little to do with the actual story.

Arthur Treacher, who's the constable, does not look 70, but it had been almost 30 years since he played Jeeves.  Sam Harris was in several of my movies, going back to the '30s, but this is the last of his I own.  (He would die in 1969, at 92.)  Marjorie Bennett, who plays Miss Lark, was the corset saleslady in Ma and Pa Kettle at Home.  Marjorie Eaton, who's Miss Persimmon, would appear in Harold and Maude.  Hal Taggart was in There's No Business Like Show Business.  Dal McKennon, who does several voices, was one of the detectives in Merlin Jones.

Elsa Lanchester, who appears early in the film as Katie Nannna, would shortly have a more substantial role, as Aunt Wendy in Pajama Party.  Bert Stevens was in a few of my earlier movies, most recently Some Like It Hot, and he would be in I'll Take Sweden.  Ed Wynn, who plays Uncle Albert, would be in Dear Brigitte.  (And, yes, he's the father of Keenan and the grandfather of Ned, so '64 was a year you could see three generations of Wynns at the movies.)  Thurl Ravenscroft, who does the voice of the hog, would be in The Love God?  Bill Lee, who voices the ram, would be a singer in Charlotte's Web.  Reta Shaw, who plays Cook, would be the manager of the orphanage in Escape to Witch Mountain.  Marc Breaux, who voices the cow and was the choreographer for the movie, would more dubiously be the choreographer for Sextette.

Palm Springs Weekend

Palm Springs Weekend
November 5, 1963
Warner Bros.
Comedy, Drama, Romance
VHS
C+

This is never as much campy fun as it could be but if you're patient you may find it worthwhile.  Mostly I watch it for the cast, particularly scene-stealing nine-year-old Billy Mumy as Boom Boom.  The more recognizable "teenagers" in the cast include Jerry Van Dyke, 36, providing most of the comic relief, such as it is, and playing the banjo; Robert Conrad, 28, as the spoiled rich villain; Troy Donahue, 27, as the hero (and singer of the title tune); Connie Stevens, 25, as an 18-year-old pretending to be 21; Stefanie Powers, 21, as Bunny, who despite the name comes across as proto-feminist in one scene where she criticizes the double standard.  (She also is, perhaps coincidentally, in a similar situation to Trudy Kockenlocker's in Miracle of Morgan's Creek, in that she works in a record shop and has a protective policeman father, although she decides not to give in to her own or Troy's "biological urges.")

The script is by Earl Hamner, Jr., later of Waltons fame, and among the un-Walton-like elements are

• A patio and swimming pool completely covered in laundry-detergent bubbles
• The policeman's wife trying to put tranquilizers in his orange juice
• Van Dyke trying to give Boom Boom a "milky Finn"
• A house-wrecking brawl
• A Nanette-Fabray-style makeover
• A gigantic Bugs Bunny doll
• A young man who hiccups when he thinks about sex
• A couple drag races 
• A weekend that lasts a whole week (Spring Break/ Easter vacation)
• A folk band in a casino

Hamner obviously isn't responsible for the most unintentionally funny aspect of the film, the repeated shots of the cyclorama of the desert by the casino, with the studio lights clearly visible in several shots!  (And it's not even like I have a big TV.  It's really obvious.)  Trying to make sense out of all this nonsense is Norman Taurog, who had been directing since the '20s (and apparently was one of the several directors of The Wizard of Oz), but in the '60s he started getting "teen movie" assignments, including a few for Elvis, so we'll be seeing his work again.

Jack Weston, who was the playwright/cabbie in Please Don't Eat the Daisies, plays the health-food fanatic basketball coach.  Sam Harris has been in several of my movies, dating back to the '30s, the most recent before this being Auntie Mame; next would be Mary Poppins.  Dorothy Abbott was in The Apartment.  Roger Bacon was in Beach Party and would appear in Pajama Party.  Red West would be in Girl Happy, Jim Shane and Louie Elias in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!, and Jack Shea in I'll Take Sweden.  Lesley-Marie Coburn, listed at IMDB as "Beatnick [sic] Babe," would do Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!

"And I think that's the commissary over there."

Oh, and the trailer is a lot more fun than the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWB_tDhLLwU

Auntie Mame

Auntie Mame
December 27, 1958
Warner Bros.
Comedy, Historical
DVD
B-

This is based on the Patrick Dennis novel, by way of the hit stageplay that Rosalind Russell starred in.  (My review of the book is here
http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/auntie-mame-irreverent-escapade.html.)  It's much more sentimental, and much more of a star vehicle than the book, with Patrick often offscreen and the focus, sometimes literal, on Mame.  (Many scenes end theatrically, with the spotlight on Mame.)  The movie also isn't as racy as the book, as seen with the most outrageous word on Patrick's vocabulary list being "heterosexual."  Still, for its time it's pretty out there, and it's interesting to contrast the almost casual "unwed" pregnancy of Agnes Gooch with the coyness of the handling of Trudy Kockenlocker's dilemma in Miracle of Morgan's Creek about fifteen years earlier.  The timeline is somewhat different in AM-the-movie than AM-the book, including mistakenly starting things off in 1928 and having the Crash happen a few weeks later.  Still it's a reasonably faithful adaptation and author Patrick Dennis himself approved.  (His good friend Cris Alexander has a small role in the film and apparently played many roles in the stage production.)

I will admit to sometimes finding the 1974 movie musical Mame, with an offkey too old Lucille Ball, more fun because of it's so-bad-it's-goodness, but I'll discuss that when we get there.

Adolph Faylauer, who plays the sleeping audience member at the play, was part of an onscreen audience more than twenty years earlier, in A Night at the Opera.  Margaret Dumont allegedly plays the noblewoman in the play, but I didn't notice her.  (And IMDB is sometimes wrong.)  Frank McClure was in His Girl Friday and Citizen Kane.  Sam Harris was also in Citizen Kane.  Thomas Martin was in All About Eve.  Rand Harper was in Sabrina.  Lee Patrick (Mrs. Upson) was in There's No Business Like Show Business.  I'm pretty sure Colin Kenny and Carl M. Leviness were in some of my earlier movies, although I don't know which ones offhand.

Bert Stevens was in Citizen Kane and would appear in Some Like It Hot.  Harold Miller would be in Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Willard Waterman (Mr. Upson) in The Apartment, Peter Bourne in I'll Take Sweden, and Louise Land in Dear Brigitte.  Fred Clark was in Sunset Blvd. and would do Sgt. Deadhead, among other movies.  Peggy Cass, who plays scene-stealing Agnes, would be a very different mother in Gidget Goes Hawaiian.

Sabrina

Sabrina
October 1954
Paramount
Romance
VHS
B-

It took me awhile to sort out how I felt about this movie on my second viewing.  (My first was just a few months ago, when I bought the tape for a dollar.)  I think the problem is that while it's clearly in the romance genre-- it has moments of comedy and drama but it is primarily about who Sabrina will end up with and how-- the title question of the recurring song "Isn't It Romantic?" turns out to not be rhetorical.  To begin with, the three leads are all miscast to one degree or another, and the script (cowritten by director Wilder but based on an apparently very different stageplay) undermines them at every turn.

I know, you're going to say, "What, Audrey Hepburn miscast as the awkward girl turned glamour queen?"  The thing is, she's not actually much more glamorous after two years in Paris than she is before she leaves.*   She has a better wardrobe, a fluency in French, and a poodle.  There's a moment when she shows up at a party and the male guests have exaggerated jaw-dropped reactions that wouldn't look out of place in The Girl Can't Help It.  (No milk bottles overflow though.)  Now, I know tastes change, especially after sixty years, but the truth is to my modern eyes, Hepburn is a pretty girl yet one with fairy-like looks that would not be ogled at a distance of several yards.  Beyond that, there's an unpleasant undertone to her character, as if she's a less honest (including to herself) version of Monroe's gold-digger in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  She pines for (almost stalks) David Larrabee for years, including when he's engaged (and possibly married, see below).  She almost commits suicide over him.  And then there's an implication that she becomes an elderly baron's mistress while in France.  True, she refuses bribes to give David up, but there's no question that part of her infatuation is with the Larrabee lifestyle.  Although I haven't seen a lot of Hepburn movies (I think this is the only one I own), usually (except in Breakfast at Tiffany's) her character doesn't have such an innocent surface with so much rot underneath.

Hepburn was 25 playing a girl of 20 and then 22, so at least she was well-cast by her age.  But then we have 36-year-old William Holden as David.  He was not too old for Hepburn, as they fell in love while making this picture.  His character, on the other hand, is presumably not past his mid-20s, as David kissed Sabrina when she was 9 and it would be creepy if he were then more than 11 or 12.  Yet he's somehow had the time by 1954 (his parents have been married 48 years, since 1906, so the movie is mostly set in the then-present) to attend several colleges and get married and divorced three times.  In fact, his second wife wore an Adlai Stevenson button to the wedding, so that must've been in 1952, when Sabrina was in or on her way to Paris, although no mention is made of this.  His third marriage would definitely have been while she was away, yet the household servants (including Nancy Culp, the future Miss Hathaway of The Beverly Hillbillies) keep shipping Sabrina/David.  See what I mean about an unpleasant undertone?  Also, he's a lazy playboy, and he's got the baggage of the unscrupulousness of Holden's characters in Sunset Blvd. and to a lesser degree The Moon Is Blue.

Then there is of course the colossal miscasting of Humphrey Bogart, as Bogie would be the first to agree.  He was 54 and had always looked old for his age, plus he was a few years away from dying of cancer.  In a different way than in The Band Wagon, I don't buy the older-man/younger-woman romance, because Hepburn is not the right sort of younger woman for Bogart.  (Lauren Bacall had a surface toughness and an underlying romantic side, which is sort of the inverse of Hepburn's steel pixie.)  His character of Linus Larrabee is at least old enough to have gone to college in the '20s (he has a phonograph with "Yes, We Have No Bananas," which was a hit in 1923), but there's never any explanation of why there's such a big age gap between him and his brother David.  (In the family painting, they look like they were children at the same time, with no more than maybe a five years' difference.)  Also, Bogart has his own screen baggage, as a tough guy, and while I could buy him as a self-made businessman, I can't believe him as a rich man's son.  (IMDB says Bogart's father was "moderately wealthy," but that's not his film persona.)  In great contrast to Holden and Hepburn, he and Hepburn don't have chemistry together.  The only reason why we're meant to root for him is because he's hard-working and wants to bring capitalism to developing countries so that they can have straight teeth and movies on Saturdays.

Say what?  This is where I remind you of who the writer-director is: Billy Wilder, a deeply cynical man, who not only gave us an obsessive romance in Sunset Blvd., but in Some Like It Hot would include a marriage-merger, like the one Linus is trying to orchestrate for David, until the chauffeur's daughter throws a monkey wrench into the business.  In Some Like, a made-up merger is Joe's excuse to get out of his lying affair with Sugar, and it's the antithesis of romance.  Here, Linus has a plan for David to marry the lovely Martha Hyer (not as sensible as in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars but again playing a girl whose engagement is threatened through no fault of her own).  This marriage will help Larrabee Industries (or one of their subsidiaries) produce a miracle plastic.  (And somewhere Mr. McGuire of The Graduate is taking notes.)  Hyer's character seems a bit shallow, but so is David, and it's not like he couldn't just divorce her quickly like usual.  (After all the paperwork is finalized of course.)  He does marry her in the end and Linus goes off to Paris with Sabrina, after trying to trick her into going there with David but then revealing his scheme because he's fallen in love with her himself.  This isn't Casablanca and the problems of three little people-- played by three big stars-- apparently do amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

Or do they?  I'll note that the other recurring song in the movie is "La Vie en Rose," which Sabrina explains means looking at life through rose-colored glasses.  But the main glasses in the movie are the champagne glasses David sits on, getting a literal pain in the ass.  He wants to write a love poem to Sabrina and asks Linus what rhymes with "glass."  Linus suggests "alas."

"Surprise!  There is no movie called Duck Soup!"-- Joe Adamson, Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo (1973)

Billy Wilder has taken many disparate elements, some of which he couldn't have planned on, and subversively made them into one of the most unromantic romances ever.  For that alone, and because he's given me so much to think about, I'm giving the movie a B-.

Walter Hampden, who plays Oliver Larrabee, was the Aged Actor in All About Eve.  I couldn't spot Gregory Ratoff this time.  (Or Marion Ross for that matter!)  But, yes, that's Ma and Pa's Billy Reed, Emory Parnell, as Charles the Butler.  Sam Harris was in Citizen Kane and at least one other of my movies.  Ellen Corby, who's Miss McCardle here, was Miss Davis in It's a Wonderful Life.  (But she's best known as Grandma Walton.)  Marcel Dalio, who at 54 plays the 74-year-old Baron, was the magistrate in Gentlemen Prefer.

Chuck Hamilton was in Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation and would be in There's No Business Like Show Business, which would also feature Ralph Brooks, again as a party guest.  John Williams, who's actually quite good (and well cast) as Sabrina's father, would go on to Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?  (I'm numbering him, to distinguish him from the composer and any other John Williamses we run into.)  Rand Harper would be in Auntie Mame.  Marjorie Bennett, who plays the cook and was the corset saleslady in MaPK at Home, would appear in Mary Poppins.  Francis X. Bushman, who portrays Mr. Tyson, was a silent-film star, so it's surprising he didn't appear in Sunset Blvd., but I do have his very last film appearance, in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini of all things.


*We see much less of Paris than we did in Ma and Pa on Vacation or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, just the Eiffel Tower out a window.  Bogart's character says that Paris is for lovers and that's why he stayed only 35 minutes.  Consider this a hint.

"Bogie, hold her like you've just met and wish you hadn't."

Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation

Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation
April 20, 1953
Universal
Comedy
VHS
C+

The vacation is to Paris, France, with Kim's parents, who appeared in the couple series entries I'm missing.  Sixty-something Pa almost went to France during the first World War, but they "didn't scrape the bottom of the barrel."  He and Ma are of course fish out of water, but not much humor results from this.  (I did like Ma protesting "wife-beating" by interrupting Apache-dancing.)  As if aware that this wasn't enough to work with, the script throws in an espionage plot, with the Kettles facing the Marxes' old nemesis Sig Ruman.  Citizen Kane's nemesis Gettys, on the other hand, played by Ray Collins, is friendly in-law Jonathan here.  The movie never quite clicks, although there are moments, as when an irate Frenchman speaks ill of the Marshall Plan, and when Pa (whose real name is Franklin) thinks the bobbysoxers are chasing him rather than the Sinatra lookalike.  I was most interested in, one, the view of air travel (from Idlewild Airport); and two, the way that Pa luring the French police to the rescue somewhat foreshadows Paul's grandfather's maneuvers in A Hard Day's Night (although it's much funnier there).

We don't get much of the Kettle "childrun," since they're just in the scenes at home.  The eleven returning Kettle kids:

• Donna Leary, then 16, as Sally
• Ronnie Rondell, Jr., then 16, as Dannie
• Elana Schreiner, then 16, as Nancy
• George Arlen, then 12, as Willie
• Beverly Mook, then 12, as Eve
• Sherry Jackson, then 11, as Susie
• Gary Lee Jackson, age unknown, as Billy
• Jackie Jackson, age unknown, as Henry
• Margaret Brown, age unknown, as Ruthie
• Billy Clark, age unknown, as George
• Jenny Linder, age unknown, as Sara (and no, I don't know why a family has siblings named Sally and Sara, or Willie and Billy for that matter)

And two newbie Kettle kids:

• Mark Roberts, 31 (!), takes over from Eugene Persson as Teddy.
• Jon Gardner (age unknown), who was in Singin' in the Rain, replaces Teddy Infuhr as Benjamin.

Tom doesn't appear, but "Kim and the baby" are visiting him "in camp," presumably a military camp.  Rosie isn't mentioned but probably is away at college.  That gives a total of fifteen kids for Ma and Pa, after the oddity of sixteen in the previous movie.

Oliver Blake and Teddy Hart return as Indians Geoduck and Crowbar.  We learn that they can't read and they're hoping Pa will bring them back spicy French postcards.

Sam Harris was in Citizen Kane.  Suzanne Ridgeway was in Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life.  Franklin Farnum was in Sunset Blvd.  Eugene Borden also played a Frenchman in All About Eve.  Rita Moreno plays a soubrette, the one singing the can-can song.

Stewardess Alice Kelley would show up in a different role for Ma and Pa Kettle at Home.  Gloria Pall, the French Girl Walking Poodle, was actually Brooklyn-born, so it's more appropriate that she would shortly play Tall Girl in New York in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, which would also feature Russ Conway, Harold Goodwin, and Jack Kruschen.  Manuel Paris would soon be in The Band Wagon.  Alphonse Martell, a restaurant manager here, would be a headwaiter in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  Jack Chefe and Jean de Briac would also be in Gentlemen Prefer.

Easter Parade

Easter Parade
July 8, 1948
MGM
Musical, Historical
DVD
C+

This movie never quite comes together, but it's a nice attempt.  There's a romantic square, or at least rectangle, where Judy Garland's character Hannah loves Fred Astaire's Don, but he seems to be hung up on his ex played by Ann Miller, who's interested in Peter Lawford's Johnny, who falls in love with Hannah at first sight.  And none of the four couples make any sense!  In particular, we have no idea what's motivating Ann Miller's Nadine, except for maybe ambition and/or spite.  Another failure in the writing is that the musical number that Nadine's maid reports is an embarrassment for Hannah actually is embarrassing to watch.  (It's not just that Judy's in hobo drag, it's that she's so smirky about it.)  The other numbers, especially Fred's "Stepping Out," are much better.

This is only my third Technicolor movie (I'm not counting The Women), and it's just coincidence that they're all Judy Garland vehicles from MGM.  The color, especially on the 1912 costumes, looks fine, although we never actually see the title parade (more of a stroll by pedestrians).  In fact, it's hinted more than once that Nadine will have her "nose put out of joint" when she sees Hannah strolling by in her Easter finery, but one, it's hardly Judy's best outfit in the movie; and two, we never see Nadine's reaction!  On top of that, the "magazine cover" number only reminded me of better sequences in other musicals (including Marilyn's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend").  Still, this isn't a painful movie like Meet Me in St. Louis.

Sam Harris was in Citizen Kane.  Sig Frohlich was a winged monkey in The Wizard of Oz.  George Noisom, who's the Western Union messenger, was in The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, and It's a Wonderful Life, but this is his last credit.  Ruth Hall, who was Mary Helton in Monkey Business seventeen years earlier, plays a showgirl here.  Robert Emmett O'Connor, who's cast as a policeman, was Henderson in A Night at the Opera.  Ralph Sanford, the hotel detective here, was Liggett in Copacabana.  Dee Turnell was in Copacabana and would go on to Singin' in the Rain.  Angi O. Poulos plays a peddler in this and Singin'.  John Albright and Patricia Jackson would also be in that movie.  Nolan Leary would appear in Ma and Pa Kettle, Helene Heigh in The Kettles in the Ozarks.

Meet Me in St. Louis

Meet Me in St. Louis
January 1945
MGM
Musical, Historical
DVD
D+

The only reason why I have this movie is because it was part of a four-pack that was the only form I could get Singin' in the Rain on DVD.  This is the second time I've seen MMiSL and I still dislike it.  I didn't care for anyone in the Smith family, particularly not the deeply annoying Tootie.  She'd already worn out her welcome in the first half hour, but wait till you get to the part where she claims that their neighbor (who Garland's character Esther has a crush on) tried to kill her, when he was actually protecting her!  And she doesn't get punished!  Even Esther was unlikable, as when she tells her grandfather that he was the first "human being" she danced with that night.  I was glad as always to see Marjorie Main (playing a cook, as she did in Turnabout), although there's not enough of her.  The house looks good in color.  And "The Trolley song" and "Have a Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" were nice, but hardly worth sitting through the rest of the movie, which is so far the worst in my collection.

The script is by Irving Brecher, who also wrote At the Circus and Go West.  Robert Emmett O'Connor was Henderson in A Night at the Opera.  Mary Astor, who's Mrs. Smith, was Marion Manning in Turnabout.  Sam Harris was in Citizen Kane.  That's Hugh Marlowe, the future Lloyd Richards of All About Eve, as Colonel Darly.  Leon Ames, who plays Mr. Smith, would be in The Misadventures of Merlin Jones.  Sid Newman, who's a boy on the trolley, over fifty years later would be in The Wedding Singer.

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man

You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
February 18, 1939
Universal
Comedy
DVD
B

While this movie has some definite faults, including that it bears more than a passing resemblance to The Old Fashioned Way and Poppy, I had a good time watching it, finding it superior to Fields's Paramount movies.  It helps that I not only thought Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were funny (Mortimer Snerd, not so much), but I thought that Bergen made a surprisingly sweet romantic lead, speed-courting Fields's loyal-nineteenish-daughter-du-jour, here played by Constance Moore, who does a fine job.  (Why her brother has a Southern accent was beyond me though.)  And seeing Charlie and Fields go head to head in their insults was fun.  Fields himself, here as Larson E. Whipsnade, is funnier than in the previous movies I've viewed, whether making a rich woman faint at the mere mention of snakes, startling spinsters at the circus when he seems to be nude, or dealing with people (kids included) who seem to be more dishonest than he is!  There isn't any completely honest man in the movie, but there is a title-drop early on, one that also includes the phrase "Never give a sucker an even break."  Since this is at least the second mention in his movies, its eventually becoming a title feels inevitable.

There's also Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, whom I always felt was the best thing about The Jack Benny Show.  He has a certain dignity, even when dealing with annoying bosses, as here.  I will admit that I wasn't sure how to take the racism of Whipsnade, as when he refers to a group of blacks as "Ubangis," which Anderson corrects to "coloreds."  And there's a scene where Charlie does black-face!  I do give the writers points for the "Bella Schicklgruber" joke, on the eve of World War II.

Edward F. Cline, who is uncredited (except at IMDB) for codirecting, also directed The Bank Dick, which features Evelyn Del Rio, Edward Thomas, Bill Wolfe, and that minor gem Jan Duggan (Cleopatra Pepperday in The Old Fashioned Way, the ping-pong-loving Mrs. Sludge here).  It also offers Grady Sutton, who has a much smaller role here than as Fields's brother-in-law in Man on the Flying Trapeze.

Tiny Jones was in Double Wedding.  Edmund Mortimer and Frank O'Connor were in previous films and would shortly be in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and At the Circus respectively.  Leyland Hodgson also appears in Castle.  Grace Goodall and Beryl Wallace would go on to The Women, Delmar Watson and Frank Jenks to His Girl Friday, Si Jenks and Otto Hoffman to My Little Chickadee, Sam Harris and Arthur Yeoman to Citizen Kane.  Florence Wix, who was a party guest in Day at the Races and would be one again in High Society, is a wedding guest here.  Another party guest, Russell Wade, would be a party guest again in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante.  Ethelreda Leopold (as Blonde at Party) would soon be a manicurist in The Wizard of Oz.  And Bergen & McCarthy's last appearance would be in The Muppet Movie, which is dedicated to them.