Dear Ron,  

I am replying to one of your comments made in the first topic of mine (Introductory section). I hope that you like some of the above photos that I have chosen from the public internet picture collections.

I saw the end of the "Road to Hong Kong" film and it was nice to see Dorothy Lamour who still looked the part.   English actress Joan Collins (I was at school with her young brother. Her father was the manager of the Odeon, Marble Arch Cinema and my mother when she was young helped save his life once!) was very good with Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in the most popular and award-winning episode of "Star Trek" (including the Writers Guild of Amercia Award for Best Episodic Drama on Television and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation) called "The City on the Edge of Forever" aired on TV in 1967 but I do not think that she could have quite handled the dramatic role that Dorothy performed in the 1940 film "Johnny Apollo" apart also from Dorothy singing the torch song "This is the Beginning of the End" (Mack Gordon) and the very lively "Dancing for Nickels and Dimes" (Lionel Newman & Frank Loesser) with dancers.  Please see film clips of both these songs via the links below:







I love all the songs that Dorothy performed in the "Road" films particularly "Moonflowers", "The Moon and the Willow" and "You're Dangerous".

I received the double-feature NTSC Dvd shown in one of the photos in the above posting a few days ago from America and watched both Tyrone Power films on the same day.  Linda Darnell, who was only 16, played Tyrone's young wife in "DAY-TIME WIFE" (1939) and she is so very pretty in the film and has a lovely way of speaking.

Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell were also together in the "Mark of Zorro" (1940) co-starring Basil Rathbone [he was likewise the villain in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) unsuccessfully hunting Errol Flynn and proclaiming "I'll have him dangling in a week"].  Linda was again most charming in the "Mark of Zorro". Not long ago, the "Mark of Zorro" was colourised. Linda had less to do in the Zorro film but is a very personable and elegant co-star.

It would be very nice to see Bing, Bob & Dorothy's film "Road to Morocco" (1942) in colour - perhaps the best and least dated of the series, although the "Road to Rio" (1947) is very good too story-wise and in which Dorothy looks stunning (even when hypnotised - "I hate you, I loathe you, I despise you"), also Elvis Presley's film "King Creole" (1958) partly shot in New Orleans (particularly the opening scene where Elvis sings "Crawfish" from the balcony - this was Elvis's fourth movie and his last one before entering the US Army for two years service during which his beloved mother, Gladys Presley, died at the age of 46).  I read that Dorothy was once "Miss New Orleans" at the age of 17. It's amazing that one of Dorothy's subsequent co-stars, the lovely Linda Darnell, was only 16 when she co-starred in "Day-Time Wife" with handsome Tyrone Power in 1939 who co-starred with Dorothy Lamour the following year in "Johnny Apollo" as mentioned above..

Dorothy Lamour with Bing Crosby in a still from the "Road To Rio" (1947)


Regards, Victor.  16th May 2020

Last edited by VictorM (09/6/2020 7:18 pm)

Victor,
In that second clip above sitting with Tyrone Power is Lloyd Nolan, an old favourite of mine.
Story relating to Joan Collins, which is lying deep here on this site, is the following.
During 1979 I worked at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, having transferred from British Transport Hotels HQ in St. Pancras Chambers - now a hotel again.
Anyway,Sophia Loren stayed there and was interviewed, telling a reporter that she was not famous, as he suggested, but well known.
A couple of weeks later Joan Collins arrived. One of the assistant managers said that she was all woman. Well, at lunch time she went into the restaurant and asked where were all the men.
At dinner time there were men hanging around like bees in a honeypot.
Still don’t think she should have been in Hong Kong.
Perhaps it was better that the Road to the Fountain of Youth was never made.

Further reply to Ron's message (in the Introductions section)

Dear Ron & Members,

There are references to the "Road to Hong Kong" film in the following Obituary of Dorothy Lamour published by the INDEPENDENT newspaper in 1996. Dorothy passed away on the 22nd September 1996 just over two months off her 82nd birthday. Also mentioned are Dorothy's songs in the film "Johnny Apollo" although the authorship of the second one seems to be wrong.

Dorothy Lamour (1914 - 1996)
Hollywood's "sarong girl" Dorothy Lamour made no claims to be a great actress, but few stars of the screen's vintage years are regarded with greater affection. She is remembered with such warmth for three reasons: as star of a string of jungle pictures, clad in the sarong that was to become her trademark; as one of the four most popular pin-ups of the Second World War (along with Betty Grable, Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth); and as co-star with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope of the phenomenally successful "Road" films - only the James Bond movies have been more profitable as a lengthy sequence. Lamour was also a seductively sultry singer who introduced several song standards, and became an adept comedienne.

Born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in 1914 in New Orleans, she started performing songs at charity shows from the age of four and at 14 won a beauty contest as Miss New Orleans. Taking her stepfather's surname Lambour, she moved to Chicago and worked in a department store as an elevator-girl while trying to break into show business. Singing in a talent contest she was spotted by the band-leader Herbie Kaye, who signed her as vocalist and changed her name to Lamour.

In 1935 they were married. Kaye's former college chum Rudy Vallee introduced Lamour to the owner of the famed New York nightspot the Stork Club and she was signed to sing there. This led to more club work, radio performances and her screen debut in a two-reel short, The Stars Can't Be Wrong (1936). Moving to Hollywood for a regular spot (billed as "the sultry songstress of the airwaves") on NBC Radio, she was given a screen test by Paramount and cast in The Jungle Princess (1936). As a naive native girl, with only a tiger and a chimpanzee as friends, she rescues a stranded hunter (Ray Milland) who teaches her English and saves her from villainous natives. Lamour introduced a song hit, Frederick Hollander and Leo Robin's "Moonlight and Shadows", and clothed only in a sarong, her long black hair caressing her shoulders, scored an instant hit with the public, who made the modest film a surprising smash hit.

Lamour's next role was a supporting one in Swing High, Swing Low (1937) but her song in it, "Panamania" , was another hit. In Mamoulian's High, Wide and Handsome (1937) she again had a minor role but sang Kern and Hammerstein's "The Things I Want". The director John Ford, preparing to film The Hurricane for the producer Sam Goldwyn, suggested Lamour for the role of Samura, daughter of a native chief, and Goldwyn traded his contract star Joel McCrea with Paramount to secure her. She again scored a great personal success and had another hit song with her recording of the film's theme tune, "The Moon of Manakoora".

Paramount, now convinced that Lamour and a sarong were a winning combination, starred her in Her Jungle Love (1938), as a native girl who rescues a stranded aviator (Milland again). He teaches her English ("What is this word `Kiss'?" she asks him) and rescues her from crocodiles, an earthquake and a power-crazy villain. Though Lamour's jungle films were fantastic and formulaic they were colourful, amusing pieces of pure escapism which the public loved.

Now a top star, Lamour was borrowed by Fox to star with Tyrone Power in the gangster melodrama Johnny Apollo (1940), singing two fine songs with lyrics by Frank Loesser, "This is the Beginning of the End" and "Dancing for Nickels and Dimes", the latter performed in a fetching urchin outfit that Lamour hated. Paramount next put her back in the jungle for Typhoon (1940) with Robert Preston, another enormous hit.

Then came one of the most fortuitous pieces of casting in screen history. The screenwriters Don Hartman and Frank Butler had adapted an old script of Paramount's as a tropical adventure-comedy entitled The Road to Mandalay for Fred MacMurray and Jack Oakie, who turned it down. George Burns and Gracie Allen also rejected it before the producer William LeBaron thought of Hope and Crosby, who already had a well-publicised comic feud going on their respective radio shows. The tropical setting made Lamour the perfect choice for heroine. Retitled Road to Singapore (1940), the first of a legendary series went into production.

With the aid of their radio gag-writers Barney Dean and Monty Brice the two male leads were soon improvising material and ad-libbing to an extent that initially perplexed Lamour. "I was trying to follow the script but just couldn't get my lines out," she said later. "Finally, I realised that I should just get the general idea of a scene rather than learn the words by heart, then go along with the boys." Said Hope, "Dottie is one of the bravest gals in pictures. She stands there before the camera and ad-libs with Crosby and me knowing that the way the script is written she'll come second or third best, but she fears nothing."

The mixture of ad-libs, asides to the audience and irreverent in-jokes plus the songs of Crosby and Lamour and wisecracks of Hope made the films irresistible. Though not initially planned as the first of a series, the film was swiftly followed by Road to Zanzibar (1941), which was even funnier and had the New York Post commenting: "Dorothy Lamour, ceasing her feverish efforts to become An Actress, begins to shine in a new light."

Lamour next partnered Hope in Caught in the Draft (1941), proving again what an admirable foil she was becoming as she adopted a bemused, somewhat acerbic reaction to Hope's frantic shenanigans. She was reunited with her Hurricane co-star Jon Hall in the vividly coloured Aloma of the South Seas (1941), singing "White Blossoms of Rahni" and dealing with the wicked high priests and an erupting volcano in another box-office hit.

She followed this with one of the finest wartime musicals, The Fleet's In (1942), playing an aloof night-club singer whose heart is melted by William Holden, and introducing the Victor Schertzinger-Johnny Mercer standard "I Remember You".

Road to Morocco (1942) is considered by many the best of the "Road" films, its surreal pleasures including a talking camel and a version of the hit tune "Moonlight Becomes You" in which the three stars sing with each other's voices.

Lamour's role opposite Crosby in Dixie (1943), a loose biography of the minstrel star and composer Dan Emmett, was a disappointing one in which she had no song solos, but in And The Angels Sing (1944), she introduced the Johnny Burke-Jimmy Van Heusen standard, "It Should Happen to You".

During the war, besides being a favourite pin-up of the forces, Lamour made many tours to promote the sale of war bonds. Road to Utopia (made in 1944 but released two years later) was another gem, this time set in the Yukon during gold-rush days. Lamour had a further hit song with the Burke-Van Heusen "Personality" though she stormed off the set one day after waiting hours in costume for her leading men then finding they had gone to play golf. "They always joked about my temperament after that," she stated, "but they never did that to me again!"

Two demanding roles - in an adaptation of John Steinbeck's scathing portrait of wartime hypocrisy A Medal for Benny (1945) and in Claudette Colbert's former role in an ineffectual remake of Midnight entitled Masquerade in Mexico (1945) - exposed Lamour's thespian limitations, but in My Favourite Brunette (1947) she again proved a splendid foil for Hope, while in the all-star Variety Girl (1947) she engagingly partnered tough-guy Alan Ladd as he made his singing debut duetting "Tallahassee".

When Paramount had announced that Road to Utopia would be the last of the series they received over 75,000 letters of protest, so in 1947 Road to Rio was released, another hit though it would mark the end of Lamour's golden period. Paramount were shedding many of its stars including Lamour, and as a freelance her films and performances met with mild response, though Slightly French (1949) was an amusing farce in which Lamour got laughs as a carnival dancer masquerading as a French cabaret star.

In 1950 and again in 1958 she triumphed at the London Palladium (the audience roaring its approval when she donned her sarong) and in 1952 played in two major films. She was a circus performer in De Mille's The Greatest Show on Earth - a small part but it included a brief Hawaiian song and dance - and Road to Bali, the sixth film in the series. Night-clubs and television were now her main professional outlets, but she was once more international news in 1961 when Hope and Crosby announced that they would be making Road to Hong Kong but (at Crosby's insistence) with a younger leading lady.

The public outcry that ensued led to Lamour being offered a cameo role which, with the encouragement of Hope, she accepted. In a generally dire film, Lamour was to have the brightest moment when, asked by the two stars to help them hide from gangsters, she listens to their summary of the plot so far then replies, "OK, boys, I'll hide you." "From the gangsters?" they ask. "No," she says, "From the critics."

Her feeling for Crosby was cool after this, particularly when he failed to use her in publicising the film. John Ford gave her a small role in Donovan's Reef (1963) and in 1967 she had a great success with a lengthy tour of Hello, Dolly on stage. She published an autobiography, My Side of the Road, in 1980 and continued to appear in clubs and nostalgic stage shows (including a charity show in London a few years ago) until ill-health forced her retirement.

Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton (Dorothy Lamour), actress: born New Orleans 10 December 1914; married 1935 Herbie Kaye (marriage dissolved 1939), 1943 William Ross Howard (died 1978; two sons); died Los Angeles 22 September 1996.

INDEPENDENT newspaper - 24th September 1996

Last edited by VictorM (18/5/2020 12:16 am)

Dorothy Lamour & Linda Darnell and Henry Fonda in "CHAD HANNA" (1940)

        
I just got a Spanish Dvd of the 1940 film "CHAD HANNA" starring a young Henry Fonda plus his two leading ladies, Dorothy Lamour and the 17 year-old Linda Darnell (apparently her studio put out that she was 22).

Lovely Linda Darnell is seen (below) in colour for the first time I believe!   

 . 
           (Henry - Linda - Dorothy)

Isn't it wonderful to see these movie artists all so "young and beautiful". 1940 also saw Linda Darnell co-starring with handsome Tyrone Power in the fantastic "Mark of Zorro".
  

  
 
Linda Darnell had wanted to be with Tyrone Power in "Johnny Apollo" where instead Dorothy excelled in her dramatic role as well as a singer. Linda was adorable in the Zorro film (in recent years colourised) whilst the dashing masked Tyrone Power was thrilling (whilst pretending to be otherwise).

Last edited by VictorM (19/5/2020 2:24 am)

STARDUST

In this section of Bing's Forum, David has explored dozens of cover versions of some of Bing's songs principally associated with him including early '30s gems such as "I'm Thru With Love", "Please", "Temptation" "Dinah", "Where The Blue of The Night", "A Ghost of a Chance", "I Surrender Dear" etc.

However one of Bing's famous 1931 recordings was where he was not the first artist to introduce or record the music, is "Stardust" composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Mitchell Parish only added two years later in 1929. The song's original title was "Star Dust" i.e. two words. The original sheet music was published under the title "Star Dust" by Mills Music with a copyright date of 1929.

Bing Crosby made the definitive recording on 19th August 1931 with the Victor Young Orchestra.

Here it is (note that the title is written as STAR DUST on the Brunswick record label:



This is the powerful voice (complete with a short whistle at the end) that the future young Frank Sinatra had to try to follow at the start of his career.

This song does not seem to have been recorded in any of Bing's films but there was a film made with the song and music used. This film was in 1940 starring the young and very attractive Linda Darnell (who that same year also appeared in "Chad Hanna" with Henry Fonda and Dorothy Lamour) with co-star John Payne.

In the film, Linda in her role as a very young aspiring actress (which she herself was!) refers to a sarong style cape she is wearing as being like the one Dorothy Lamour wore in "Pagan Love" and she also walks around outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre and notices the footprints of "Tyrone Power" in the pavement tribute paving slabs (of course Linda co-starred with Tyrone Power the year before in "Day-Time Wife" when she was only 16 years of age and also was with him in the exciting "Mark of Zorro" in 1940 recently colourised by 20th Century Fox). After her eventual success as a dramatic actress in the film, Sid Grauman (playing himself) is there when Linda's character makes her own footprint marks on the pavement of fame.



Tragically, at the age of 41, Linda Darnell died after being caught in a terrible fire at the home of her former secretary who was helping her sort out her tax affairs and daughter in Chicago. The fire happened after Linda had been watching TV and her own film "Star Dust" was the one showing that night. 

Please see a short Tribute to lovely Linda Darnell on the Web by 20th Century Fox accompanied by the piano and orchestra playing "Star Dust":




Amongst the scene extracts in the tribute can be seen Roland Young, who starred in "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" (Alexander Korda) in 1937 and Sid Grauman himself.
 

I think, Victor that your interest in Dottie is becoming a little overwhelming. Perhaps a little moderation is called for?

Even when directly related to Bing, embedded clips, or indeed links, are really only called for if they are items newly posted on Youtube or elsewhere which are relevant and to which you are drawing attention because of their newness, or which are appropriate to illustrate a point that you are making.

A long list of embedded clips that all can find (and probably have if they are interested in any way) by a simple search on Youtube does not help much in furthering the objective of the discussion forum, especially when they do not directly relate to Bing in any way.

I would add that long sequences of clips slow access to the board considerably for those with limited bandwidths. 
I personally found that I was unable to load many items when travelling a couple of years ago and there are certainly three or four people who access this forum who experience difficulty.

Please remember that this board has the objective of providing  a means of disseminating information relating to Bing Crosby and his works and enable discussion between those with an interest. Clearly, in doing so we touch on people who were associated with Bing, but I think we have reached something approaching saturation point on the topic of Dorothy Lamour for the time being.

I have converted all your most recent embeeded clips to links. I ask for no more for the time being.