Mark Sandrich
Directing
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Mark Sandrich (birth name: Mark Rex Goldstein) (October 26, 1900 – March 4, 1945) was a Jewish American film director, writer and producer. One of the most gifted and least heralded directors of the 1930s and early 1940s, Sandrich was an engineering student at Columbia University when he started the movie business by accident. When visiting a friend on a film set, he saw that the director had a problem in setting up a shot; Sandrich offered his advice. It worked. He then entered into the movies in the prop department, and became a director specializing in several comedy shorts in 1927. He then made his first feature the next year, but returned to shorts after the sound arrival. In 1933 he directed the Academy Award-winning short, So This Is Harris!. He later returned to feature films, most notably comedies, starring the team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey in Hips, Hips, Hooray!. In 1934, Sandrich soon got his first directing assignment on the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musical The Gay Divorcee, which proved a success. The following year, he directed what is widely regarded as the best movie ever made by the legendary dance team, Top Hat, which excelled in every department, including music and choreography. It was all pulled together seamlessly by Sandrich. After that, several other movies such as Follow the Fleet, Shall We Dance, and Carefree followed. In 1940, Sandrich left RKO for Paramount, which offered him a chance to be not only a director but as well as a producer. He made other several successful films in this capacity, including two with Jack Benny, Buck Benny Rides Again and Love Thy Neighbor, both released in 1940, and the romantic comedy Skylark, starring Claudette Colbert and Ray Milland. However, while all these were hits, it was Holiday Inn in 1942 starring Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby, with music by Irving Berlin that showed Sandrich at his best. The musical/comedy actually started on the eve of America's entry into World War II. It featured sufficient serious overtones to capture the mood of the time, and showed Crosby and Astaire to brilliant advantage as performers who are rivals for the same woman; and it introduced the song "White Christmas", highlighted by the crooner Crosby which remained the biggest selling popular song in history for fifty-two years. So Proudly We Hail! was a Sandrich-produced and directed adaptation of the hit play. It was extremely popular and successful, and featured a pair of performers – Adrian Booth and George Reeves -- whom Sandrich had intended to bring to stardom after the war. However, it wasn't to be. In 1945, while in pre-production on a follow up to Holiday Inn called Blue Skies, starring Bing Crosby and featuring Irving Berlin's music, and serving as president of the Directors Guild, Sandrich died suddenly, of heart failure. He was at this time one of the most trusted and influential directors in Hollywood, respected by his colleagues and the studio management. His sons Mark Sandrich Jr. and Jay Sandrich have gone onto successful careers as directors. His interment was located at Home of Peace Cemetery. Description above from the Wikipedia article Mark Sandrich, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.
Top Hat
Lovely Linda Mason has crooner Jim Hardy head over heels, but suave stepper Ted Hanover wants her for his new dance partner after fickle Lila Dixon gives him the brush. Jim's supper club, Holiday Inn, is the setting for the chase by Hanover and his manager.
Holiday Inn
Ballet star Petrov arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ship as the dancer and musical star he's fallen for but barely knows. By the time the ocean liner reaches New York, a little white lie has churned through the rumour mill and turned into a hot gossip item—that the two celebrities are secretly married.
Shall We Dance
Seeking a divorce from her absentee husband, Mimi Glossop travels to an English seaside resort. There she falls in love with dancer Guy Holden, whom she later mistakes for the corespondent her lawyer hired.
The Gay Divorcee
During the start of the Pacific campaign in World War II, Lieutenant Janet Davidson is the head of a group of U.S. military nurses who are trapped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Davidson tries to keep up the spirits of her staff, which includes Lieutenants Joan O'Doul and Olivia D'Arcy. They all seek to maintain a sense of normal life, including dating, while under constant danger as they tend to wounded soldiers.
So Proudly We Hail
When the US Navy fleet docks at San Francisco, sailor Bake Baker tries to rekindle the flame with his old dancing partner, Sherry Martin, while Bake's buddy Bilge Smith romances Sherry's sister, Connie. But it's not all smooth sailing—Bake has a habit of losing Sherry's jobs for her and, despite Connie's dreams, Bilge is not ready to settle down.
Follow the Fleet
Dr. Tony Flagg's friend Steven has problems in the relationship with his fiancée Amanda, so he persuades her to visit Tony. After some minor misunderstandings, she falls in love with him. When he tries to use hypnosis to strengthen her feelings for Steven, things get complicated.
Carefree
A defiant young woman struggles against the norms and morals established by Victorian society and enforced by her autocratic father.
A Woman Rebels
As her fifth wedding anniversary approaches, a woman realizes that she is fed up with always coming in second to her husband's advertising business. Just at the moment when she is trying to decide what to do, she meets a handsome attorney, and their innocent flirtation begins to turn into something a bit more serious.
Skylark
Capitalizing on the famous radio 'feud' between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen. The two stars play versions of themselves, constantly at each other's throats due to real and imagined slights.
Love Thy Neighbor
Show business twin sisters Rosemary and Susie, one serious and the other a scatterbrain, join the WAVES and both fall in love with crooner Johnny Cabot.
Here Come the Waves
A bachelor millionaire on a cruise is protected by a friend from the avid attentions of a crowd of husband (and fortune) seeking girls.
Melody Cruise
Producer Bob Temple, who's brought an American show to London, loves his star Diana, but she won't take him seriously as a lover. To show her, he picks up stranger Lady Arlington, whose financier husband neglects her. On a weekend at the Arlington country house, Bob is used by both Lady A. and her friend to make their husbands jealous; this works all too well, and Bob is in danger from both husbands.
Man About Town
During World War II in San Francisco, Eve Morgan and her single girlfriends spend their days welding ships and their nights dancing with soldiers and sailors shipping out that night. Eve is determined to avoid any romantic entanglements until the war is over she refuses to spend her days and nights worrying about getting bad news about a man she has fallen for. But she doesn't count on meeting a soldier who is determined to change her mind.
I Love a Soldier
Two yokels try to crash royal society by posing as the King's physicians.
Cockeyed Cavaliers
Two yokels are framed and sent to prison, but wind up playing football on the warden's championship team.
Hold 'Em Jail
Radio star Jack Benny, intending to stay in New York for the summer, is forced by the needling of rival Fred Allen to prove his boasts about roughing it on his (fictitious) Nevada ranch. Meanwhile, singer Joan Cameron, whom Jack's fallen for and offended, is maneuvered by her sisters to the same Nevada town. Jack's losing battle to prove his manhood to Joan means broad slapstick burlesque of Western cliches.
Buck Benny Rides Again
Hips, Hips, Hooray! is a 1934 slapstick comedy film starring Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Ruth Etting, Thelma Todd, and Dorothy Lee.
Hips, Hips, Hooray!
The film is a series of comical musical numbers and skits following Phil Harris around, starting with him performing at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, which is listened to by Dorothy on the radio whose home-brewing husband Walter hates Harris. The action then moves to the country club where Walter unknowingly encounters Harris while being aggravated by his music. Walter then pretends to be Phil to meet a woman while Harris "entertains" her friend, Dorothy. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, in 2012.
So This Is Harris!
Tough Aggie gives a street guy polish and a rich kid gumption.