Almost every star under contract with Warner Brothers turned out for this musical-comedy showcase starring Eddie Cantor. Two producers (Edward Everett Horton, S. Z. Sakall) are putting together a celebrity charity event for the war effort, and when they approach Dinah Shore (herself) to headline, Dinah's boss Eddie Cantor (also, as himself) steps in and tries to run the show. Meanwhile, a con man posing as a booking agent has convinced aspiring singer Tommy Randolph (Dennis Morgan) that he's been signed as Cantor's protege. Cantor throws him out on his ear and Tommy heads back to Gower Gulch, a Hollywood Hills camping community for showbiz hopefuls that he and Spike Jones (as himself) have built from discarded studio sets. Tommy meets fellow aspiring songstress Pat Dixon (Joan Leslie), falls in love, and becomes determined to find a place in Cantor's staff. Helping Tommy and Pat is tour bus driver Joe Simpson (Eddie Cantor, in a dual role), a struggling dramatic actor who can't get a job because of his resemblance to Cantor. Some Indian character actor friends kidnap the real Cantor, and Joe takes his place at the show, hiring Tommy as his new sensational find!
Joe DeRita's first film role was as a meek diner customer, but his role was cut from the final release.
Film adaptation of the Broadway play, a fast-paced, dialogue driven screwball comedy, and satire on the housing and hotel shortages in wartime Washington DC.
Newlyweds Arthur Halstead and his scatter-brained wife Vivian (Jack Carson and Jane Wyman) check into a DC hotel's bridal suite, to find newlyweds Edna and Julian Cadman (Ann Sheridan and John Ridgely), who refuse to give up the accomodations. It's actually a reunion however, because Vivian and Edna are old friends who had a vaudeville act, and they're soon joined by the third member of their showgirl trio, when fellow newlywed Nan Dillon (Alexis Smith) drops in to surprise Vivian. But a convergance of bureaucratic red tape, the measles, a phony Justice of the Peace, and an ex-wife (Irene Manning) with invalid divorce papers surprises everyone to discover that no one is actually married. So the three newly-single brides take up residence in the hotel suite, along with a female Russian soldier (Eve Arden) who's on an escorted tour of Washington with Edna's State Department "husband." Over the course of a month, the hotel suite becomes a virtual 'Grand Central Station' when Arthur's officious government boss Mr. Slade (Charlie Ruggles) hires Vivian as his assistant, a nationally famous radio commentator (Alan Mowbray) takes residence in an adjoining bedroom, the FBI (Regis Toomey) begins investigating the three unwed brides and their Russian military friend, and the hotel manager is tried to the end of his patience.
In his first on-screen role Joe DeRita is very funny, costarring as a wandering businessman who's lost his room reservation, and wants nothing more than a place to sleep. He appears in a running gag throughout the film, interrupted from whatever safe haven or sofa he's found, and forced to move on. The film's fadeout is rewarded with the payoff to Joe's role in the film.
At a New York Canteen, sailor John Hill (Robert Walker) meets USO hostess Mary (June Allyson) and they elope the same night before he ships out to Europe. But John is unexpectedly classified 4F and discharged, leaving him and Mary to set up house sooner than expected, and realizing that they know very little about each other. A series of circumstances leave the newlyweds unable to spend their first honeymoon night together. Mary's ex-fiancee and boss Freddie Potts (Hume Cronyn) is anxious to split the newlyweds up. Beautiful, European downstairs neighbor Lisa Borescue helps out by introducing John to prospective employer Mr. Amboy (Reginald Owen), and she's also anxious to seduce John. Eddie "Rochester" Anderson rounds out the main cast as the building superintendent.
Joe DeRita has a brief walk-on as an inept waiter in the first reel of the film.
A fictionalized account of the creation of John Guedel's hit radio show PEOPLE ARE FUNNY.
Rival radio producers John Guedel (Philip Reed) and Leroy Brinker (Ozzie Nelson) compete to find a new radio show that they can sell to NBC sponsor Ormsby Jamison (Rudy Vallee). Radio writer Corey Sullivan uses both producers for her own ends, although she's clearly in love with Guedel. While on vacation, Sullivan bumps into Brinker, and on the drive back to L.A., the two are stranded in a small town. There they meet local radio producer Pinky Wilson (Jack Haley), who's created a popular show based on parlor games and audience participation... PEOPLE ARE FUNNY. Corey pretends to fall for Pinky as a ploy to get him and his show to L.A., where Guedel and Brinker will fight over gaining rights to produce it for NBC.
Joe DeRita appears as a contestant sent out to Hollywood Boulevard to find four women with stocking runs longer than 6", and bring them back to the studio. Art Linkletter plays himself, the host of PEOPLE ARE FUNNY.
Amateur sleuth Johnny Fletcher (Albert Dekker) and his hulkish assistant Sam Cragg (Mike Mazurki) find a dead man in their hotel room. The corpse was the watchman for Walter Winslow's Nevada desert gold mine, and in his dead grasp was a rare gold coin. Fletcher is the prime suspect in the murder, and when he sets out to clear his name and find the killer, he and Sam find themselves mixed up with a scheme involving the hording of gold coins, and a beautiful girl (Evelyn Ankers) who may know more than she thinks.
Joe DeRita costars as Detective Fox, a bumbling policeman sent to trail Fletcher and Cragg.
Entry in Monogram's musical-comedy "Teen Agers" film series. School moral is at an all-time low with a 28-year losing football team, a failing school newspaper and no talent for the annual school bazaar. But with help from Freddie Slack and Jan Savitt, and their Orchestras, the standard Hollywood twists turn everything into a musical success with a happy ending.
Joe DeRita costars as 'Tiny,' owner of the ice cream shop the kids use as their hangout, frequently caught in the middle of their antics.
Life's patsy Joe Bates (Joe DeRita) manages to destroy his kitchen before heading to work at his dress shop. Accidentally accosting a customer (Dorothy Granger), he runs afoul of her jealous fiancee (Dick Wessel). Assuming that Joe is a womanizer, Mrs. Bates (Christine McIntyre) leaves him and moves into the women-only Hotel Amazon. Hoping to win his wife back, Joe registers at the hotel in drag. But the woman from his dress shop also lives there, and Bates finds himself on the run from the boyfriend and a brutish hotel matron named Violet.
Joe Priggle (Joe DeRita) checks into the Shady Shelter Rest Home, and over a jug of applejack, tells the manager (Vernon Dent) his tale of woe and the reason he hates eggs... Answering a lonely hearts message written on an egg, home appliance inventor Joe marries Florobelle (Dorothy Granger) and then discovers that she has an adolescent brat for a son. Stepson Rudolph (Norman Ollestad) turns Joe's home life into a battleground, bringing home everything from a bow & arrow to a miniature cannon as toys. Joe's washing machine invention, which he hopes to sell to Mr. Collins' manufacturing company, becomes Rudolph's latest plaything, with Collins and his board members on the receiving end of the consequences.
Newlyweds Eddie & Betty (Joe DeRita and Christine McIntyre) move into their honeymoon house, only to find her relatives waiting to move in for a few months. The in-laws are soon eating everything in sight, and taking over the household. Friend Dick comes up with the idea for he and his wife (Dorothy Granger) to pose as Eddie's relatives, alumni of a sanitarium, to scare Betty's family away. The plan works, all too well to the newlyweds' regret.
Joe and his band practice for their big break in musical commercials. Joe also has a theory that music can cure the mentally imbalanced, and when he learns that his girlfriend Myrtle (Christine McIntyre) is a nurse for the rich, eccentric Mr. Lark (Emil Sitka), the boys head off to the Lark mansion to give a concert.
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