Why "Soitenly," You're the Best DAD
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Featuring Ted Healy and Larry Fine (Solo)
84.5 min. (Feature Film)
Showbiz melodrama about vaudeville actress Kitty Lorraine (Alice Brady), pregnant and then widowed when her acrobat husband falls to his death during a performance. The in-laws offer to take her and infant daughter Shirley in, if she will give up show business. Finally fed up with their disapproval after several years, she leaves Shirley with them, and impulsively marries and runs off to the Australian vaudeville circuit with old vaudeville friend Ralph Martin (Ted Healy). The marriage fails due to Ralph's womanizing and drinking, and when Kitty returns home a few years later, she learns that age has caught up and she can't find stage work. She determines to make Shirley (Maureen O'Sullivan) a show business success, and becomes the ultimate stage mother, never to be satisfied until her daughter's name is lit on Broadway. Kitty's ambition extends to lies and blackmail, destroying Shirley's love affair with artist Warren Foster (Franchot Tone), and eventually driving her into a loveless relationship with Lord Reggie Aylesworth.
The Hollywood Reporter (per TCM.com) reported that all three Stooges were to appear in this film. They do not, only Larry in a bit cameo, but there are costume & makeup test photos that show this to be true. These photos show Larry as a bearded Scotsman, Moe as an elfin European, and Curly as either [indeterminate] a Mexican or Mongol. Maureen O'Sullivan's character becomes a Broadway star, and the film presents some musical sequences from that which show her in a fantasy "around-the-world" song & dance. That musical number was apparently edited, and the Stooges were intended as characters in that. The aforementioned test photos of Moe, Larry & Curly also include the three posing with director Charles Brabin, MGM producer David Selznick, clowning with Ted Healy, Alice Brady and Jimmy Durante, and with a studio guard.
Costar Maureen O'Sullivan achieved stardom one year earlier, as 'Jane' in TARZAN, THE APE MAN (1932). Her daughter is actress Mia Farrow (PEYTON PLACE, ROSEMARY'S BABY).
Alice Brady
Katherine 'Kitty' Lorraine
Maureen O'Sullivan
Shirley Lorraine
Ted Healy
Ralph Martin
Franchot Tone
Warren Foster
Russell Hardie
Fred Lorraine
Ruth Gillette
Kitty's blonde showgirl friend
Lillian Harmer
Fred's mother
Tom Ricketts
Fred's father
Sam Ash
Mark Thorn
Ben Alexander
Francis Nolan
Alan Edwards
Al Dexter
C. Henry Gordon
Ricco
Bradley Page
Tom Banton
Phillips Holmes
Lord Reggie Aylesworth
Buddy Messinger
Young man in audience
June Gittelson
Laughing fat woman in audience
Hank Bell
Sheriff in audience
Carl Stockdale
Stagehand
Monte Vandergrift
Stage lighting hand
Beal Wong
Stage extra
Aggie Herring
Landlady
Larry Fine
Music customer
Elspeth Dudgeon
Music customer
Nora Cecil
Miss Gilford
Phillips Smalley
Music Dept. manager
Tammany Young
Taxi driver
Harrison Greene
Stage manager
Guy Usher
Theater owner
Lew Kelly
Jake
Bert Moorhouse
Navy officer
John Larkin
Porter
Jay Eaton
Mr. Sterling
Glen Walters
Dancing girl's mother
Tiny Jones
Dancing girl's mother
Greta Meyer
Dancing girl's mother
Alice Belcher
Dancing girl's mother
Leo White
Percy
Mary Ann Jackson
Auditioning child dancer
Gladden James
Audience member
Bill Elliott
Audience member
Alice Lake
Audience member
Henry Roquemore
Messenger
Garry Owen
Jerry
Margaret Bert
Nurse
Bud Geary
Orderly
Larry Steers
First nighter
Lowden Adams
Dexter's butler
Larry Steers
Party guest
Bill Elliott
Party guest
Harry Holman
Mr. Rumley
John Elliott
Politician
Frank O'Connor
Man at gangplank
Edmund Mortimer
Passenger
Florence Wix
Passenger
Luis Alberni
Room service waiter
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 1
Aunt Ida Lorraine
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 2
Nurse Anderson
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 3
Shirley as a child
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 4
Kitty's agent
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 5
Audience
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 6
Stage crew
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 7
Music dept. customers
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 8
Backstage onlookers
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 9
Train station passengers
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 10
Stage mothers
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 11
Dance students
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 12
Child auditions
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 13
Thorn's girlfriends
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 14
Theater workmen
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 15
Delivery boy
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 16
Stage doormen
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 17
Chorus girls
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 18
Piano player
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 19
Ricco's employees
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 20
Party guests
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 21
Shipboard reporters
Unidentified STAGE MOTHER 22
Passengers & crew
Charles Brabin
Director
Hunt Stromberg
Associate Producer
David O. Selznick
Producer
Bradford Ropes
Book and Screenplay
John Meehan
Screenplay
George J. Folsey
Photography
Frank E. Hull
Film Editor
Stanwood Rogers
Art Director
Douglas Shearer
Recording Director
Louis Silvers
Conductor
Maurice De Packh
Original Music
Arthur Freed
Original Songs
Nacio Herb Brown
Original Songs
Edwin B. Willis
Set Decoration
Adrian
Gowns
Albertina Rasch
Choreographer
Joseph M. Newman
Assistant Director
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