Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934 - RKO)

Next showing:
Monday, August 30, 2010
11:30 AM Eastern Turner Classic Movies
Runtime:  67 Minutes

One of the funniest and best of Wheeler & Woolsey’s musical comedy movies, full of scantily clad dancing girls, double-entendre jokes, and the sort of high paced action and physical humor that made the team wildly popular, especially among younger men and teenage boys.

Wheeler & Woolsey play a pair of poverty-stricken street vendors one step ahead of the law. Through quick-wittedness and a lot of luck, they manage to talk their way into running a women’s lingerie firm. Even critics and nonfans agree this is one of Wheeler & Woolsey’s best movies.

Next showing:
Monday, August 30, 2010
11:30 AM Eastern Turner Classic Movies
Runtime:  67 Minutes

Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934 – RKO) is a post from: Wheeler and Woolsey

With Dorothy Lee, Noah Berry Sr., Thelma Todd.
Director: Mark Sandrich

Many critics (including Leonard Maltin) and fans alike consider this to be W & W’s greatest movie. While it’s hard to pick favorites, this is certainly among the best. It’s a rare period piece set in 17th Century England with our heroes conning their way through the local royals and romancing the prettiest girls in the kingdom. The song “The Big Bad Wolf Was Dead” is a highlight and was popular as sheet music when the movie was released as well as being very funny and fun in the way it is performed in the film. Record this one for multiple viewing if you can!

Cockeyed Cavaliers (1935 – RKO) is a post from: Wheeler and Woolsey

Wheeler and Woolsey’s third movie together was intended to equal the success of 1929′s Rio Rita. It starred longtime leading lady Bebe Daniels, who came to prominence in 1915 as Harold Lloyd’s love interest in his string of hit comedies. Dixiana was a lavish and expensive musical with a color sequence near the end of the film, which included dance routines by Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, as well as Wheeler & Woolsey. The film fared poorly at the box office, possibly because the effects of the Great Depression were in full force by September 1930, when the film was released. Wheeler and Woolsey had already established themselves as stars earlier that year with The Cuckoos and would save RKO with their extremely successful films following Dixiana. Though a bit long and slow at times, Dixiana has a lot of great laughs and music whenever Wheeler and Woolsey are on the screen.

Please enjoy this film clip from the 1930 Feature film, Dixiana.

Dixiana (1930 – RKO) is a post from: Wheeler and Woolsey

Girl Crazy

Wheeler & Woolsey’s most often remade film (three or four times) was based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name. RKO paid composers George and Ira Gershwin to even write a new song exclusively for the film. Rumor has long been the the final product was compromised by then-studio head David Selznick’s constant tampering with the film, but it’s well worth a viewing as is.

Girl Crazy (1932 – RKO) is a post from: Wheeler and Woolsey

The Cowboy Quarterback (1939 – Warner Bros) is a post from: Wheeler and Woolsey

Hold ‘Em Jail (1932 – RKO) is a post from: Wheeler and Woolsey

Rio Rita 1929

Rio Rita was adapted from Ziegfeld’s hit musical of 1928. The stage version catapulted Wheeler and Woolsey to stardom after years of moderate success as solo performers. This 1929 film made the team movie stars, eclipsing the top billed Bebe Daniels and John Boles, both long established film stars. The herald (handbill) pictured was used throughout Australia and reversed the star billing to Wheeler and Woolsey over Boles and Daniels, who received star billing in the U.S. release. This big budget film was the first true movie musical and was a smash hit which was re-released to theaters twice after its initial run. It included a lengthy Technicolor musical sequence near the end of the film and began the screen partnership of Wheeler & Woolsey as a comic duo, a partnership that lasted 21 feature films and nine years. Without “Rita”, the team of Wheeler & Woolsey would have never existed and RKO would have gone bankrupt before making “King Kong”, “Citizen Kane”, the Fred Astaire – Ginger Rogers movies, or anything else RKO released after 1930. Wheeler & Woolsey were RKO’s biggest moneymakers from 1929 to 1935 and kept the studio solvent through the worst days of the Great Depression.

Trailer for Rio Rita (1929):

Rio Rita (1929 – RKO) is a post from: Wheeler and Woolsey