Naughty but Nice(Warner Bros.) (1939)

CAST Zelda Manion.................. ANN SHERIDAN Professor Hardwick.............. DICK POWELL Linda, McKay iid «ccd ies GALE PAGE Aunt Matthas ocak Helen Broderick Eel Cheat re i ee Ronald Reagan FOG EME... une ea AB ae Allen Jenkins Aunt Penelope... cee. Zasu Pitts Re eee Ob. Maxie Rosenbloom Allie Grey e oisec sh... Jerry Colonna Stanislaus Pysinski. i200...) Luis Alberni Aunt Annabel.) 05.0. dj5c3 Vera Lewis Aunt Henrietta... eee Elizabeth Dunne Sow thudaene discs he Beth Bill Davidson RGR tee tee Granville Bates Degh SUrOn. sia. Halliwell Hobbes and The National Jitterbug Champions PRODUCTION 1 BL Raabe Meee Ray Enright Original Screen Play by..Richard Macaulay Jerry Wald Music and Lyrics by...... Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer with acknowledgments to Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Wolfgang Mozart, Johannes Sebastian Bach Musical Arrangements by......Ray Heindorf Musical Director.................. Leo F. Forbstein Photography by........ Arthur L. Todd, A.S.C. Art Dirgetot 735/82 Max Parker Dialogue Director.............. Hugh Cummings Pil Eetthareds 30, 0usxven, Thomas Richards ERIE TEN rinses orig ha cohen Howard Shoup SOUCY Francis J. Scheid David Forrest " RUNNING TIME—90 MINUTES AMERICA'S 'OOMPH' GIRL Ann Sheridan, lovely Texas redhead, has her most glamorous role to date (and she croons, too) in the new comedy with music, "Naughty But Nice", coming to the Strand Friday. (Mat 306—45c) (Lead Feature) Naughty But Nice’ Tells On Tin Pan Alley—But T unefully One of America’s most characteristic institutions, Tin Pan Alley, is hilariously lampooned, and side shots are taken at such other phases of Americana as the still rampant jittermania, in “Naughty but Nice,” the waggish musical satire produced by Warner Bros. which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Aside from a plot that lends itself readily to uproariously funny treatment and five new songs which all have distinct hit potentialities, the production is fitted up with a stellar line-up which includes: Ann Sheridan, Warners’ certified, triple-threat “Oomph” girl, who in this has the best role to date of her now blossoming career and incidentally does most of the singing in the piece; Dick Powell, Gale Page, Helen Broderick, Zasu Pitts, Ronald Reagan, Allen Jenkins and Maxie Rosenbloom. In addition, there are such popular players as Jerry Colonna, Luis Alberni, Vera Lewis, Elizabeth Dunne, Bill Davidson, Granville Bates and Halliwell Hobbes. Added attraction is a jam session with the National Jitterbug Champions. The new songs, all of which were written by the surefire team of Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer, include two swing numbers “Hooray for Spinach” and “Corn Pickin’,” and three which depend on their melodic loveliness, “In a Moment of Weakness,” “I Don’t Believe in Signs,” and “I’m Happy About the Whole Thing.” To point up their humorous expose of the piracy which is apparently one of the distinguishing characteristics of the art, profession and business of supplying the American public with songs to sing, whistle, hum and dance to, the authors of the screen play, Richard Macaulay and Jerry Wald, made their hero an unworldly young professor of music in a freshwater college and related what happened to him when he wandered unwittingly into Tin Pan Alley. What happened to the young professor, played by Dick Powell, was aplenty—and all of it funny. Responsible for much of it was the fact that the young classicist has an aunt, Helen Broderick, who may be old in years but is strictly up to the minute in her musical tastes and her fondness for “Jitterbug” dancing. When Powell comes to New York to sell a symphonic composition, it is she who takes him to a music publishing house which is interested only in popular tunes. Here he meets Gale Page, who writes lyrics and she persuades the publisher to buy Dick’s composition, a_ highly classical composition. After his return to the college town he is informed that his work is to be given its first performance on a radio program, and he proudly tells his dignified faculty colleagues about it. Great is his disgrace when the eagerly awaited night arrives and from the radio there blares forth a very swingy melody entitled “Hooray for Spinach,” which is based on the theme of his composition. The lifting had been done by Gale and the song was sung by a noted club and radio hot mamma played by Ann Sheridan otherwise known to us as America’s ‘oomph’ girl. He goes back to New York to stop the desecration of his work but instead gets himself involved with contracts with two rival publishers, romances with two girls, a jitterbug contest and a few other matters all of which lead him into a series of hilarious complications. After deserting his original publishers, Dick becomes an unwitting accomplice in a _ barefaced bit of tune piracy, and he is haled into court in a plagiarism suit, but his three maiden aunts save the day when they come to court, and give an impromptu concert with harp, cello and violin, to prove that the complainants in the action had no ground for complaint, because their piece had in turn been plagiarized from an even older work. The production was directed by Ray Enright, who in a long career at Warner Bros. has directed most of that studio’s successful comedies. ‘Oomph’ Girl Starred “Naughty But Nice,’ the hilarious story of a staid young music professor who unwillingly becomes a hit songwriter when his classical compositions are “swung” over the air, will be the next attraction at the Strand Theatre, starting Friday. Starred in the comedy with music are Ann (“Oomph Girl’) Sheridan, Dick Powell, Gale Page, Helen Broderick, Ronald Reagan, Allen Jenkins, Zasu Pitts and Maxie Rosenbloom. Swing Comedy for Strand The uproarious adventures of staid young music _ professor, who comes to New York’s Tin Pan Alley to sell his classical rhapsodies and remains to write swing hits based on old classics, are related in “Naughty But Nice,” which opens at the Strand Theatre on Friday. Dick Powell, Ann Sheridan and Gale Page head the stellar cast of comedians. | MUSIC PROF | a DICKTPOWELE Mat 117—15c ‘Naughty But Nice’ Coming What happens to a serious young college professor when he becomes an overnight success as a writer of swing music is the novel comedy theme of ‘““Naughty But Nice,” the Warner Bros. picture opening at the Strand Theatre Friday. Dick Powell plays the professor, whose affections are torn between Ann Sheridan, as a torch singer, and Gale Page, his collaborator. All Comedy Cast Tin Pan Alley, the legendary street of song writers, comes in for some riotous lampooning in “Naughty But Nice,” the Warner Bros. comedy opening at the Strand Theatre Friday. Heading the cast are Ann Sheridan, Dick Powell and Gale Page, with comedy assistance from Helen Broderick, Allen Jenkins, and Maxie Rosenbloom. The film introduces four new songs by Harry Warren and Mercer. ,