Zeus

George White's Scandals (1945)

• Director
  • Felix E. Feist
• Writers
  • Hugh Wedlock Jr.(screenplay)
  • Howard Snyder(screenplay)
  • Peter Levy(screenplay)
• Stars
  • Joan Davis
  • Jack Haley
  • Phillip Terry

  Like the same-named 1934 and 1935 films, RKO Radio's 1945 musical George White's Scandals uses the eponymous Broadway revue as a framework for a fabricated plotline. The main story concerns the romance between stage comedienne Joan Mason (Joan Davis) and back-bay Bostonite Jack Williams (Jack Haley), which is staunchly opposed by Jack's spinsterish sister Clarabelle (Margaret Hamilton, who of course had previously costarred with Haley in The Wizard of Oz) A secondary romance involves the hot-and-cold relationship between British socialite Jill Martin (Martha Holliday) and Tony McGrath (Philip Terry), the assistant to Broadway impresario George White (played not by the real White but by Glenn Tryon). Musical specialties are provided by Gene Krupa and his band, organ virtuoso Ethel Smith and pianist Rose Murphy. The film's highlight is "Who Killed Vaudeville?", a tour-de-force for Joan Davis and Jack Haley which was later excerpted in the RKO musical pastiche Make Mine Laughs (prompting a lawsuit from Haley!)