Rudy ValleeFilmography

Music Classics, Vol. 4

Synopsis: The 1940s was a monumental decade for the United States. Amid World War II, economic recovery, and the start of the Cold War, American music provided a soundtrack to a generation. The Music Classics line from MPI Home Video attempts to offer the chance to relieve the era with a ten-volume series Read More

Music Classics, Vol. 5

Synopsis: Volume five of this ten-volume set celebrates the sounds of the popular 1940s big band music era. Its performance clips feature some of that decade's biggest stars, including Duke Ellington and his band playing "Fly Me to the Moon" and "Take the 'A' Train." Roberta Sherwood appears in another Read More

Miller's Crossing

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, Marcia Gay Harden, Jon Polito, John Turturro

Synopsis: Joel and Ethan Coen's third collaboration, the gangster film Miller's Crossing, stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom Reagan, the right-hand man of big-city Irish mob boss Leo (Albert Finney). The film opens with Italian mobster Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) and his second in command Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman) Read More

Preston Sturges: The Rise And Fall of An American Dreamer

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Thomas Quinn Curtiss, Betty Hutton, A.C. Lyles

Synopsis: This documentary, made for PBS' American Masters series, explores the life and career of the renowned screenwriter and director Preston Sturges (1898-1959), whose few but very influential films managed to change the entire film industry. The documentary features clips from his films, and Read More

City Heat

Crew: Songwriter

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Jane Alexander, Madeline Kahn, Rip Torn

Synopsis: This standard, tongue-in-cheek, gangsters and good guys saga is carried on the star power and screen presence of Clint Eastwood as Lt. Speer, a taciturn, tough, play-it-by-the-book cop, and on Burt Reynolds as Mike Murphy, Speer's old friend in the force, now turned private eye but still a Read More

Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood

Actors: Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Art Carney, Phil Silvers, Ron Leibman

Synopsis: This spoof makes fun of a certain famous German shepherd movie star from the 1920s. The mayhem begins when the head honcho of a financially struggling studio turns a lost dog into a legend. The story features a number of old stars making cameo appearances. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Slashed Dreams

Synopsis: In this violent drama, two hippies head for the wilds of California to find a good buddy and end up assaulted and raped by two terrifying woodsmen. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Phynx

Actors: Michael Miller, Ray Chippeway, Dennis Larden, Lonny Stevens, Lou Antonio

Synopsis: Have you ever longed for the day when James Brown, Martha Raye, and Col. Harland Sanders would appear in a movie together? Well, that's barely the tip of the improbable casting iceberg in this bizarre cold-war spoof. The leaders of the American intelligence organization the S.S.A. ("Super Secret Read More

Petticoat Junction: But I've Never Been in Erie, P.A.

Synopsis: Singer Rudy Vallee guests in this episode as H.A. Smith, a powerful industrialist who has journeyed from Erie, Pennsylvania to repay his long-ago benefactor--none other than Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan). Smith has come Hooterville to offer Joe the opportunity to become a millionaire many times over. Read More

The Night They Raided Minsky's

Actors: Jason Robards, Jr., Britt Ekland, Norman Wisdom, Forrest Tucker, Harry Andrews

Synopsis: Narrator Rudy Vallee announces that he knows we are a "real high class audience," thus he has "some swell story to tell." Thus begins The Night They Raided Minsky's, set in the rarefied world of burlesque in the 1920s. Amish girl Rachel Schpitendavel (Britt Ekland) comes to New York in hopes of Read More

Live a Little, Love A Little

Actors: Elvis Presley, Michele Carey, Don Porter, Rudy Vallee, Dick Sargent

Synopsis: Singing stars from two very different generations appear in Live A Little, Love A Little. Elvis Presley plays Greg, a photographer who divides his time working for a skin magazine and a conservative newspaper. Rudy Valle plays Penlow, the veteran newspaper publisher. Lansdown (Don Porter) is the Read More

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Actors: Robert Morse, Michele Lee, Rudy Vallee, Anthony Teague, Maureen Arthur

Synopsis: Robert Morse recreated his Tony-winning stage role in this 1967 film version of Frank Loesser's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical. A humble window washer at the New York offices of World Wide Wickets, J. Pierpont Finch applies the lessons he's learned from a book called How to Succeed in Read More

On Broadway Tonight

The Helen Morgan Story

Actors: Ann Blyth, Paul Newman, Richard Carlson, Gene Evans, Alan King

Synopsis: Ann Blyth plays famed "torch singer" Helen Morgan, from her humble beginnings as a carnival dancer to the height of her nightclub fame in the 1920s. Helen spends most of her spare time anguishing over the on-and-off affections of her boorish boyfriend (Paul Newman), who had discovered Helen during Read More

Jazz Ball

Synopsis: This evening of musical magic includes some of the greatest jazz artists and their exciting performances. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

Actors: Jane Russell, Jeanne Crain, Alan Young

Synopsis: In this tuneful, romantic sequel to the classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, two gorgeous brown-haired Broadway chorines head for the City of Light to escape their ardent, predatory fans and find true love after having many adventures. The story is paralleled by that of their mother and aunt who did Read More

Ricochet Romance

Actors: Marjorie Main, Chill Wills, Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, Alfonso Bedoya

Synopsis: Marjorie Main is the whole show in the Universal programmer Ricochet Romance. Playing the outspoken new cook at a rundown dude ranch, Marjorie forces everyone around her to pitch in and bring some life back into the place. She also sets her sights on old layabout Chill Wills, scheming to rope the Read More

The Admiral Was a Lady

Actors: Edmond O'Brien, Wanda Hendrix, Rudy Vallee, Johnny Sands, Steve Brodie

Synopsis: Wanda Hendrix is awfully cute as a WAVE officer who is endlessly pursued by lascivious men. Ex-airmen Edmond O'Brien, Johnny Sands and Steve Brodie spend most of their time chasing Wanda about, but she manages to keep them at arms' length. You see, she only has eyes for her boyfriend Dick Erdman Read More

Mother Is a Freshman

Actors: Loretta Young, Van Johnson, Rudy Vallee, Barbara Lawrence, Robert Arthur, Betty Lynn

Synopsis: The same studio that brought forth Father Was a Fullback was responsible for Mother is a Freshman. Loretta Young stars as Abbigail Abbott, the widowed mother of coed Susan Abbott (Betty Lynn). In order to legally validate Susan's scholarship fund (a legacy of her late grandmother), Abigail enrolls Read More

The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend

Actors: Betty Grable, Cesar Romero, Rudy Vallee, Olga San Juan, Sterling Holloway

Synopsis: Preston Sturges' final American film was generally conceded to be a disaster in 1949; even star Betty Grable publicly bad-mouthed the finished product. When seen today, Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, while no classic, seems a lot better than it did five decades ago. Grable plays a western Read More

Father Was a Fullback

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Maureen O'Hara, Betty Lynn, Rudy Vallee, Thelma Ritter

Synopsis: First came 20th Century-Fox's Mother Was a Freshman; then, a few months later, the same studio's Father Was a Fullback. Fred MacMurray stars as college football coach George Cooper, whose team can't win a game to save its life. George finds some comfort in the arms of his wife Elizabeth (Maureen O'Hara Read More

Unfaithfully Yours

Actors: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Barbara Lawrence, Rudy Vallee, Kurt Kreuger, Lionel Stander

Synopsis: Preston Sturges' Unfaithfully Yours is a typically witty and wild screwball comedy starring Rex Harrison as a symphony conductor named Alfred de Carter who is convinced his wife (Linda Darnell) is having an affair. During one of his concerts, Alfred begins planning three different ways of solving Read More

So This Is New York

Actors: Henry Morgan, Rudy Vallee, Bill Goodwin, Leo Gorcey, Virginia Grey

Synopsis: Radio humorist Henry Morgan made his film debut in So This is New York. Based on The Big Town, a collection of stories by Ring Lardner, the film traces country bumpkin Morgan's progress as he uses an inheritance to take a trip with his wife (Virginia Grey) and sister-in-law (Dona Drake) to the New Read More

I Remember Mama

Actors: Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka, Philip Dorn, Cedric Hardwicke

Synopsis: George Stevens's charming film version of Kathryn Forbes' collection of short stories entitled Mama's Bank Account features Irene Dunne as Mama in one of her finest and most ingratiating performances. The film is narrated by Mama's daughter Katrin (Barbara Bel Geddes), recalling the trials and Read More

My Dear Secretary

Actors: Laraine Day, Kirk Douglas, Helen Walker, Keenan Wynn, Rudy Vallee

Synopsis: Produced by comedy specialist Harry M. Popkin and his brother Leo Popkin, My Dear Secretary stars Kirk Douglas as Owen Waterbury, a best-selling novelist with an eye for the ladies. When aspiring writer Stephanie Gaylord (Laraine Day) signs on as his secretary, Waterbury assumes that he's lined up Read More

The Sin of Harold Diddlebock

Actors: Al Bridge, Harold Lloyd, Frances Ramsden, Raymond Walburn, Georgia Caine, Jimmy Conlin, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Hamilton, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: Absent from films since 1938 (except as producer of a brace of RKO Radio features), silent-screen comedy favorite Harold Lloyd returned before the cameras in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. The project began as a labor of love between Lloyd and the brilliant, innovative producer/writer/director Preston Sturges Read More

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer

Actors: Irving Bacon, Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, William Bakewell, Shirley Temple, Ian Bernard, Rudy Vallee, Veda Ann Borg, Ray Collins

Synopsis: Judge Myrna Loy decides that the best way to curb the excesses of playboyish art teacher Cary Grant is to force him to do what he does best--romance a willing young lady. In this instance, the girl is Loy's own sister, played by a blossoming Shirley Temple. Aware that Temple has a serious crush on Grant Read More

The Fabulous Suzanne

Actors: Barbara Britton, Rudy Vallee, Otto Kruger, Richard Denning

Synopsis: Barbara Britton is as cute as can be as the title character in Republic's The Fabulous Suzanne. The plot, which bears a faint resemblance to MGM's She Went to the Races, concerns a young hashhouse waitress who picks winning horses by randomly jabbing a pin into her racing form. Accumulating a tidy Read More

People Are Funny

Actors: Jack Haley, Helen Walker, Rudy Vallee, Ozzie Nelson, Phillip Reed

Synopsis: Art Linkletter had only recently taken over the popular audience-participation radio series People are Funny from Art Baker when he appeared as "himself" in this lighthearted musical comedy. The film's plot concerns a rivalry between two radio producers, both of whom want to produce a Read More

Man Alive

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Adolphe Menjou, Ellen Drew, Rudy Vallee

Synopsis: Man Alive is an inventive and consistently amusing farce dominated by stars Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou. The former plays Speed, a moderately successful garage owner. Wrongly convinced that his wife Connie (Ellen Drew) has fallen in love with his old friend Gordon (Rudy Vallee), Speed goes off Read More

It's in the Bag

Actors: Fred Allen, Jack Benny, William Bendix, Binnie Barnes, Robert Benchley

Synopsis: Based on the popular Russian novel The Twelve Chairs, this stars Fred Allen as flea-circus impresario Fred Floogle. Learning that he's inherited $12 million from his uncle, Fred also discovers that the money has been stuffed in one of thirteen chairs that he's sold at auction. The rest of the film Read More

Happy Go Lucky

Actors: Mary Martin, Dick Powell, Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Rudy Vallee

Synopsis: In this lighthearted musical comedy, Marjory Stuart (Mary Martin) is a girl who works in the hatcheck room at a Manhattan nightclub and dreams of being a rich socialite herself. Toward that end, Marjory wants to land a rich husband, so she saves up her money and takes a cruise to the Caribbean Read More

The Palm Beach Story

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee, William Demarest

Synopsis: As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not explained until the film's punch line), Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are married. "And so they lived happily ever after," exults a title Read More

Time out for Rhythm

Actors: Ann Miller, Rudy Vallee, Rosemary Lane, Allen Jenkins, Joan Merrill

Synopsis: A strong lineup of guest stars enhances the enjoyment of the Columbia B-plus musical Time Out for Rhythm. The somewhat futuristic storyline finds producers Dan Collins (Rudy Vallee), Mike Armstrong (Richard Lane) and Off-Beat Davis (Allen Jenkins) lining up talent for a series of television Read More

Too Many Blondes

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Helen Parrish, Lon Chaney, Jr., Jerome Cowan, Shemp Howard

Synopsis: One wonders if the title Too Many Blondes was inspired by the well-publicized romantic peccadilloes of the film's star, Rudy Vallee. The plot centers on a husband-wife radio team, Dick (Vallee) and Virginia (Helen Parrish). When Dick is caught in an innocent but compromising situation with brassy Read More

Second Fiddle

Actors: Tyrone Power, Rudy Vallee, Edna May Oliver, Mary Healy

Synopsis: Sonja Henie, the Norwegian skating star, reportedly played second fiddle to no one at Fox in the late '30s, and this backstage musical extravaganza is all Henie. Taking a leaf from producer David O. Selznick, Consolidated Pictures send public relation expert Tyrone Power in search of an unknown to Read More

Gold Diggers in Paris

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Rosemary Lane, Hugh Herbert, Allen Jenkins, Gloria Dickson

Synopsis: The last and least of Warner Bros.' Gold Diggers musicals, Gold Diggers in Paris at least has the novelty of a Gallic setting. The stars this time are Rudy Vallee, Rosemary Lane, and Warners musical perennial Hugh Herbert. There aren't really any "gold diggers" (i.e. young ladies on the prowl for Read More

Sweet Music

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Ann Dvorak, Ned Sparks, Helen Morgan, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: Rudy Vallee made his third feature-film starring appearance in the breezy Warner Bros. musical Sweet Music. Vallee is appropriately cast as singer-bandleader Skip Houston, who falls in love with aspiring dancer Bonnie Haydon (Ann Dvorak). Though Bonnie feels the same way about Skip, the two leads Read More

George White's Scandals

Actors: George White, Rudy Vallee, Alice Faye, Jimmy Durante, Dixie Dunbar, Gregory Ratoff, Adrienne Ames

Synopsis: Legendary Broadway impresario George White made his Hollywood debut with this musical, which he wrote, co-directed, and starred in as himself. Reporter Miss Lee (Gertrude Michael) is looking for a story and approaches White as he's assembling the latest edition of his famous revue. As it turns Read More

International House

Actors: Peggy Hopkins Joyce, W.C. Fields, Stuart Erwin, Sara Maritza, George Burns, Rudy Vallee

Synopsis: Hollywood responded to the exigencies of the Depression with such glorious nonsense as International House. The plot is motivated by a revolutionary television device called the Radioscope, which its Chinese inventor (Edmund Breese) is offering to the highest bidder. All interested parties are Read More

Musical Doctor

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Mae Questel

Betty Co-Ed

Musical Justice

Synopsis: In this musical short, Rudy Vallee is the "Judge of Musical Discretion" presiding over the "Court of Musical Justice." With the assistance of a jury of musicians, Vallee hears three separate cases. The first involves Rev. Yass Indeed of the Congregation of Exquisite Peace in the River Jordan vs. Read More

Glorifying the American Girl

Actors: Mary Eaton, Edward Crandall, Helen Morgan

Synopsis: Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld brought his legendary "Follies" to the silver screen in Glorifying the American Girl. The barely visible plotline concerns a virginal young miss (Mary Eaton) who aspires to greatness as a Follies girl. With stars in her eyes, she heads to New York, leaving her Read More

The Vagabond Lover

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Sally Blane, Marie Dressler, Charles Sellon

Synopsis: In his movie debut, Rudy Valley portrays the crooning saxophone player who falls in love with a beautiful young woman. Classic romantic tale is fun with Marie Dressler outstanding in her role as the wealthy eccentric. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Campus Sweethearts