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Joseph Santley

Joseph Santley

Directing

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Joseph Mansfield Santley (born Joseph Ishmael Mansfield, January 10, 1890 – August 8, 1971) was an American actor, singer, dancer, writer, director, and producer of musical theatrical plays motion pictures and television shows. He adopted the stage name of his stepfather, actor Eugene Santley. Joseph Santley was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a boy, he and older brother Fred began performing in live theatre appearing in summer stock and touring with their parents. In 1906, at age seventeen, Joseph Santley co-wrote and starred on Broadway in the play, Billy the Kid. In 1907, he acted in film for the first time for Sidney Olcott at the Kalem Company in a silent Western film short called Pony Express. In 1928, Santley directed his first motion picture, a short talkie for Paramount Pictures that featured singer Ruth Etting. The next year, Paramount had Santley direct three more films that were short singing productions, one with Etting, another with crooner Rudy Vallee, plus a third titled High Hat with Broadway singing star Alice Boulden. Also, he directed A Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic, a musical film featuring Eddie Cantor along with Eddie Elkins and his orchestra. In 1929, Joseph Santley co-directed, with Robert Florey, the first Marx Brothers feature film The Cocoanuts, a musical comedy for which he is most famous. Based on the George S. Kaufman play, and with music by Irving Berlin, the film was billed as "Paramount's All Talking-Singing Musical Comedy Hit." His other notable directorial efforts include 1935's Harmony Lane, a biographical musical on the life of composer Stephen Foster. In 1940, he directed Melody Ranch starring "singing cowboy" Gene Autry. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. During World War II, Joseph Santley worked for the war effort and in 1942 made the film Remember Pearl Harbor. In 1950, he made his last feature film but came back at age sixty-five to produce the 1954-55 television comedy The Mickey Rooney Show. In 1956, he put together two segments of Jazz Ball, a made-for-TV musical revue created from various filmed performances by jazz greats from the 1930s to the 1950s. Joseph Santley died in 1971 in Los Angeles.

Known For

Brazil
5.2

Brazil is perhaps the best of the handful of US films made by singing sensation Tito Guizar. In typical screwball-comedy fashion, the plot is set in motion by authoress Nicky Henderson, who has hit the best-seller charts with her latest tome, Why Marry a Latin? While researching her next book in Rio De Janeiro, she finds out "why" when she meets handsome songwriter Miguel Soares. Upon learning about Nicky's book, Miguel decides to teach her a few lessons in the affairs of the heart. Edward Everett Horton is also on hand, twittering his way through the role of a well-meaning buttinsky. Thanks to the "Good Neighbor" policy of the 1940s, South American musicals were a glut on the market, but Brazil was good enough on its own merits to pay its way at the box office.

Brazil

1944
Melody Ranch
6.2

His Arizona hometown of Torpedo invites Gene back to be the honorary sheriff of the Frontier Days Celebration.

Melody Ranch

1940
Sleepy Lagoon
5.0

Young radio personality Judy Joyner becomes mayor of the moribund town, Sleepy Lagoon, after running on an all women ticket and promptly sets out to turn the town around.

Sleepy Lagoon

1943
All Americans
5.0

People of all nations come to America, sing a native song and go into a “melting pot”. This scene was later used in King of Jazz (1930).

All Americans

1929
Here Comes Elmer
10.0

This musical comedy stars radio star Al Pearce has a double role playing himself and Elmer Blurt, the leader of a small-town band that struggles toward stardom in the big city. Their journey begins when Elmer decides to eject their female singer because she isn't really right. Unfortunately, her angry father is their sponsor and when he finds out, he withdraws all support.

Here Comes Elmer

1943
She's Got Everything
5.8

The day after Carol returns from a European trip, she wakes up to find her dead father's creditors hauling everything away. Her aunt wants her to marry a millionaire, but Carol insists on getting a job.

She's Got Everything

1937
The Cocoanuts
6.5

During the Florida land boom, the Marx Brothers run a hotel, auction off some land and thwart a jewel robbery.

The Cocoanuts

1929
Blond Cheat
7.3

Socially prominent Michael Ashburn, chief assistant for a London loan broker makes a large loan during a closing time to a man for a pair of earrings. He is unaware that the collateral can not be removed from the ears in which they reside, so then Julie becomes part of the collateral.

Blond Cheat

1938
Down Mexico Way
10.0

Like 1940's Melody Ranch, the 1941 Gene Autry vehicle Down Mexico Way was designed as a "special", to be promoted separately from Autry's regular B-western series as an A-picture attraction. The story gets under way when a pair of con artists, Gibson (Sidney Blackmer) and Allen (Joe Sawyer), breeze into the town of Sage City claiming to be movie producers. The two scoundrels promise to film a movie in the little burg on the condition that the townsfolk pony up the necessary production fees.

Down Mexico Way

1941
Hitchhike to Happiness
7.0

An aspiring playwright gets a job in a New York City restaurant favored by celebrities in hopes of getting a break. Unfortunately, most of them believe that the waiter lacks the talent to make it big. Only an aspiring songwriter, and a former waitress who has become a famous Hollywood radio star, really believe in him. When the ex-waitress drops by the restaurant to say hello, she and the others decide to play a trick on an arrogant producer by making him believe the waiter has written a sure-fire hit. They succeed and the producer puts on the show. The singer gets to be the star. When the show becomes a smash, everyone is surprised. Songs include: "Hitchhike To Happiness," "For You And Me," "Sentimental," and "My Pushover Heart."

Hitchhike to Happiness

1945
Waterfront Lady
5.3

When a young man is befriended by a gambling ship operator and made a partner in the business, he becomes involved in a police manhunt after he covers up a murder committed by his new partner.

Waterfront Lady

1935
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6.0

Middle-aged couples try to reclaim their youth at a college homecoming.

We Went to College

1936
Earl Carroll Vanities
5.4

Broadway producer Earl Carroll was a Ziegfeld-like entrepreneur who staged lavish revues featuring attractive young ladies. Carroll's annual "Vanities" provided story material for three Hollywood films: Murder at the Vanities (34), A Night at Earl Carroll's (40) and Earl Carroll Vanities (45). This last film was produced by Republic Pictures, a bread-and-butter studio specializing in Westerns and serials; Republic had made musicals before, but few of them were expensive enough to allow for lavish production numbers. Earl Carroll Vanities is likewise rather threadbare, though some of the individual musical highlights aren't bad. The plot, such as it is, concerns financially strapped nightclub owner Eve Arden, who finagles Earl Carroll into staging one of his revues at her club.

Earl Carroll Vanities

1945
Million Dollar Baby
10.0

A husband-and-wife vaudeville team disguise their young son as a girl so he can enter a contest run by a movie studio that's looking for "a new Shirley Temple".

Million Dollar Baby

1934
There Goes the Groom
6.3

After striking it rich in Alaskan gold, a young man returns to marry his fiancé only to be snubbed. Her sister, however, is worth considering, until he learns about her gold-digging family.

There Goes the Groom

1937
Mad Holiday
6.4

A temperamental film star's vacation turns deadly when he uncovers a murder.

Mad Holiday

1936
Puddin' Head
6.5

On the day that United Broadcasting System's new building is dedicated, bumbling vice-president Harold L. Montgomery, Sr. discovers that he gave the wrong survey to the builders...

Puddin' Head

1941
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9.0

In a small town in Indiana in the 1890s, the domineering and ambitious Mrs. Biddle arranges a marriage between her spoiled daughter Thelma and the town's prize catch, harvester David Langston, who is wedded to the soil. David is friends with orphan Ruth Jameson and, although she is in love with him, he eventually gives in to the machinations of Mrs. Biddle and consents to marry Thelma. Meanwhile, technological advances come to town, including its first gasoline buggy, galvanic battery, and metal bathtub fitted with running water. When Mrs. Biddle tries to convince David to give up the farming life and join her husband in real estate, Mr. Biddle, hen-pecked and dissatisfied with city life, warns David against selling his farm.

The Harvester

1936
Music in My Heart
6.5

A young woman engaged to a millionaire falls for the understudy in a Broadway musical.

Music in My Heart

1940
Two Bright Boys
10.0

A young man inherits a valuable piece of Texas land that an oil man plots to steal away.

Two Bright Boys

1939