Harry JamesFilmography

Benny Goodman: Adventures in the Kingdom of Swing

Actors: Benny Goodman

Synopsis: This biography of musical legend Benny Goodman contains testimonials from various contemporaries and scholars, and offers several clips of the man in performance. Nearly two-dozen songs can be heard including "California, Here I Come," "A Fine Romance," "Why Don't You Do Right," "I've Got a Heart Read More

Stage Bands on Film

Swing: The Best of the Big Bands, Vol. 1

Synopsis: The Swing era conjures up images of sophisticated ladies, debonair gentlemen, and the big bands who entertained them with a certain élan. This program is the first volume in a series that captures that elegant era on film, with a look at the big bands. This episode features the renowned Tommy Read More

Swing: The Best of the Big Bands, Vol. 3

Synopsis: The Swing era conjures up images of sophisticated ladies, debonair gentlemen, and the big bands who entertained them with a certain élan. This program is the third volume in a series that captures that elegant era on film, with a look at the big bands. This episode features Gene Krupa, the Glenn Read More

Trumpet Kings

Big Bands, Vol. 101

Synopsis: Original footage of the great swing bands and their leaders including Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton are included in the films that comprise this eleven tape set. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Big Bands, Vol. 108

Synopsis: Big-band performances on this tape include Count Basie's "Shake, Rattle, And Roll," Duke Ellington's "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," and Lionel Hampton's "Flying Home." ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Big Bands, Vol. 102

Synopsis: Original artists playing their hits make for a pleasant trip down memory lane. "Sentimental Journey" and "Rhapsody in Blue" are among the many songs included. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Meet the Band Leaders - 102

Meet the Band Leaders - 111

The Sting II

Actors: Jackie Gleason, Mac Davis, Teri Garr, Karl Malden, Oliver Reed

Synopsis: Although penned by the same screenwriter, David S. Ward, this sequel to The Sting (1973) is tarnished by comparisons to its predecessor. Jackie Gleason fills the shoes of Paul Newman as Harry Gondorff and Mac Davis slips into the Robert Redford role of Johnny Hooker, two con men pals whose latest Read More

Ella Fitzgerald in Concert

Actors: Ella Fitzgerald

The Ladies' Man

Actors: Jerry Lewis, Helen Traubel, Kathleen Freeman, Hope Holiday

Synopsis: Comedian Jerry Lewis began directing movies in 1960, and this often unkind satire on the nature of American womanhood is one of his early efforts in that regard. The rubber-legged, rubber-faced Lewis plays Herbert, a man who is despondent over the break-up of his romance. While looking for a job Read More

The Big Beat

Actors: William Reynolds, Andra Martin, Gogi Grant, Jeffrey Stone

Synopsis: Shipped out on a double bill with Summer Love, Universal's The Big Beat is another of those "rock & roll salads" so popular in the late 1950s. What plot there is concerns the efforts by record executive John Randall (William Reynolds) to sign up several top R&R acts. John also wants to prove his Read More

Outlaw Queen

The Opposite Sex

Actors: June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Jeff Richards, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Leslie Nielsen, Harry James, Dick Shawn, Jim Backus

Synopsis: The Opposite Sex is an opulent musical remake of Clare Booth Luce's The Women (1939). June Allyson stars in the old Norma Shearer role, playing the virtuous wife who loses her husband to scheming Joan Collins (as the Joan Crawford character). At first agreeing to a divorce, June decides to win Read More

The Benny Goodman Story

Actors: Steve Allen, Donna Reed, Berta Gersten, Herbert Anderson, Robert Simon

Synopsis: Steve Allen makes his dramatic film debut in The Benny Goodman Story. Outside of Goodman's conflicts with his parents over his career choice, and his early frustration over not being able to play his kind of music, the film tends to be more a series of musical highlights than a biography. The film Read More

Lanza on TV

Actors: Mario Lanza

Synopsis: Few classical vocalists have captured the attention of pop music fans the way Mario Lanza did at the peak of his fame in the 1950's, and the gifted and charismatic tenor was a frequent guest on television variety shows as well as the silver screen and the concert stage. Lanza on Television is Read More

Shower of Stars [TV Series]

Synopsis: Taken from the television variety show of the same name, this collection features a number of episodes from the program. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

I'll Get By

Actors: June Haver, William Lundigan, Gloria de Haven, Dennis Day, Harry James

Synopsis: I'll Get By is an updated remake of the 1940 20th Century-Fox musical Tin Pan Alley. William Lundigan and Dennis Day play William Spencer and Freddie Lee respectively, successful song publishers who make hits out of such numbers as "I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo", "Deep in the Heart of Texas", "You Read More

On Our Merry Way

Actors: Burgess Meredith, Paulette Goddard, Fred MacMurray, James Stewart, Hugh Herbert, Dorothy Lamour

Synopsis: Also known as A Miracle Can Happen, On Our Merry Way is a multipart comedy linked by inquiring reporter Burgess Meredith. It is Meredith's job to interview several people, asking them what effect children have had on their lives. First he checks with two itinerant musicians (James Stewart and Henry Fonda Read More

Carnegie Hall

Actors: Emile Boreo, Marsha Hunt, William Prince, Joseph Buloff, Frank McHugh, Martha O'Driscoll, Walter Damrosch, Hans Yaray, Olin Downes

Synopsis: Auteur theorists who've charted the career of "cult" director Edgar G. Ulmer have seldom mentioned Carnegie Hall, simply because it was more expensive than most of Ulmer's films and thus can't be regarded a "low-budget masterpiece." The wafer-thin plotline concerns a young immigrant woman (Marsha Hunt Read More

Do You Love Me?

Actors: Maureen O'Hara, Dick Haymes, Harry James, Reginald Gardiner, Richard Gaines

Synopsis: That new-fangled swing music is the focus of this musical comedy. The trouble begins when a music school dean boards a train to meet her husband the symphony conductor. En route she meets Harry James, the big band leader. She is deeply impressed by the swingin' beat of the new music. It becomes Read More

If I'm Lucky

Actors: Perry Como, Harry James, Carmen Miranda, Phil Silvers

Synopsis: The second of Perry Como's two starring vehicles for 20th Century-Fox, If I'm Lucky is an easygoing remake of 1937's Thanks a Million. Como plays the old Dick Powell role as Allan Clark, an entertainer who is maneuvered into politics by conniving manager Wally (Phil Silvers, in the role originated Read More

Strictly G.I.

Two Girls and a Sailor

Actors: Van Johnson, June Allyson, Gloria de Haven, Jimmy Durante, Lena Horne

Synopsis: Two Girls and a Sailor is another of those all-star, no-plot wartime musicals turned out by the bushel basket in the 1940s. Its lack of nuance does not lessen its entertainment value in the least. Gloria DeHaven and June Allyson play a couple of well-meaning sisters who stage their own USO shows Read More

Best Foot Forward

Actors: Lucille Ball, Tommy Dix, William Gaxton, Virginia Weidler, Nancy Walker, June Allyson, Gloria de Haven

Synopsis: Five original cast members of the hit Broadway musical Best Foot Forward appear in this Technicolor MGM screen adaptation. Set at a small town military prep school, the story gets under way when movie star Lucille Ball (played by movie star Lucille Ball) pays a visit to the campus for publicity Read More

Private Buckaroo

Crew: Musical Direction/Supervision

Actors: The Andrews Sisters, Dick Foran, Joe E. Lewis, Jennifer Holt, Shemp Howard

Synopsis: This upbeat WW II-era musical features performances by the Andrews Sisters and Harry James as it tells the story of a rebellious young inductee who has trouble toeing the line until he meets a retired officer's lovely daughter. James and his band are also drafted and decide to perk up their camp Read More

Syncopation

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Jackie Cooper, Bonita Granville, George Bancroft, Ted North

Synopsis: This musical chronicles the history of jazz music and features many of the most popular musical acts from the early 1940s, including Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman. The story centers on a trumpet player who falls for a young woman with an equal passion for music. Unfortunately, the girl is still Read More

Hollywood Hotel

Actors: Dick Powell, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Johnnie Davis, Ted Healy, Alan Mowbray, Hugh Herbert

Synopsis: In this lighthearted musical comedy from legendary director Busby Berkeley, Henry Bowers (Dick Powell) is a saxophonist in a jazz band who wins a talent contest. His prize is a ten-week contract with a movie studio, Miracle Pictures (whose slogan is "If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle"). One Read More