https://www.amazon.com/Great-Ziegfeld-William-Powell/dp/B001N31H6Y?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B001N31H6Y
(A young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his...)
A young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his education, returns to his island after his father dies to try to stop a revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/Aloma-of-the-South-Seas/dp/B005Q3LC4E?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B005Q3LC4E
(Resounding with such songs as “Rose-Marie, I Love You,” “...)
Resounding with such songs as “Rose-Marie, I Love You,” “Song of the Mounties” and the beloved “Indian Love Call,” Rose-Marie immortalized Hollywood’s greatest singing team. This 1936 screen version of the Rudolf Friml-Herbert Stothart Broadway hit is set in the breathtaking wilderness of the Canadian Rockies. Marie de Flor (MacDonald), a glamorous Canadian prima donna, is renowned for her beauty, exquisite voice and fierce temperament. When news arrives that her brother Jack (Jimmy Stewart in one of his earliest screen roles) has been wounded in a prison escape, Marie realizes she must go to him despite the danger. Lured into the wilderness, she encounters Sgt. Bruce (Eddy), who is hunting the fugitive. Sgt. Bruce is soon hot on Marie’s trail as well! The New York Times called Rose-Marie a “blithely melodious film rich in scenic beauty.” And after all these years, this rugged romance is as wonderful as ever. When sold by Amazon.com, this product will be manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
https://www.amazon.com/Rose-Marie-Jeanette-MacDonald/dp/B007Z3N7BE?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B007Z3N7BE
(Valentine Wilmot, the owner of the popular Piccadilly Clu...)
Valentine Wilmot, the owner of the popular Piccadilly Club finds his lead male attraction, Victor Smiles (Cyril Ritchard) has quit and that the public has judged Victor’s partner Mabel as over the hill. Though they are lovers, Valentine must find another dancer to replace Mabel or face an uncertain future. When a customer (Charles Laughton in his first feature film) complains of a dirty dish, Valentine discovers the answer to all his problems down in the club’s scullery… After many years of supporting roles in Hollywood, Anna May Wong left for Europe in search of better roles. And did she find one! Her electric, sexually-charged performance in Piccadilly is a revelation. Wong is mesmerizing as Shosho, the Chinese scullery maid who overnight becomes the toast of London — and the object of sexual desire of all around her. The camera adores Wong, and against Alfred Junge’s astonishing set design, her beauty glows in every frame. Piccadilly was the brilliant apex to Dupont’s trilogy of backstage life (Varieté and Moulin Rouge), showcasing the director’s signature mix of great acting, amazing imagery and astonishing camera movements.
https://www.amazon.com/Piccadilly-Gilda-Gray/dp/B000777HUW?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B000777HUW
Gray was born Marianna Michalska on October 24, 1901, in Kraków, Austria-Hungary (now Poland), the daughter of Maximilian and Wanda Michalski. The family immigrated to Bayonne, New Jersey, around 1907 but soon moved to Cudahy, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee.
Gray attended a parochial school where her classmates included another future actress, Lenore Ulric.
Gray's theatrical career began the following year in a local bar, where as Mary Gray she entertained patrons by singing popular ballads for eight dollars a week. Shortly afterward she left her husband and began performing at the Arsonia Bar in Chicago, where she had her first success. Stridently singing "Beale Street Blues, " her face a total blank, she shook her body seductively from her shoulders to her hips. After being spotted by a talent scout, Gray went to New York. Under a new name, Gilda Gray, suggested by Tucker, she scored an instant success at Reisenweber's Cafe. Her subsequent appearance in the Shubert Gaieties of 1919 made her a national sensation. Though Gray claimed to have been the first to popularize the shimmy, others, including Mae West, have disputed this. In the public's mind, however, Gilda Gray was the undisputed "Queen of Shimmy, " the girl who launched a thousand hips. Her appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922 consolidated her claim. From then on, she appeared almost exclusively in supper clubs and vaudeville under the management of nightclub owner Gil Boag, whom she married in 1924. In the same year she appeared at his Rendezvous Room and capitalized on the recent discovery of King Tutankhamen's tomb by making her entrance lying in a coffin. Casting aside her silver funerary wrappings, she writhed and shimmied while Rudy Vallee sang. Gray's career in movies was similarly tailored to her specialized talents. In A Virtuous Vamp (1919) she did the shimmy; and two of her films, Aloma of the South Seas (1926) and The Devil Dancer (1927), were inspired by the vogue for romance in exotic settings and gave her the opportunity for quasi-ethnic dances. Two others, Cabaret (1927) and Piccadilly (made in England in 1919), dramatized the nightclub life she knew so well. They were well received and the critics were on the whole generous, particularly with regard to her performance in Piccadilly, in which she revealed unsuspected talent as an actress. From 1919 to 1929 Gray enjoyed extraordinary success. She lived extravagantly, appearing at the Palace Theater in New York for a reputed salary of $2, 500 a week. In 1929, however, she was ruined in the stock market crash. Gray continued to tour in vaudeville, but dismayed audiences by singing rather than dancing. She returned to Hollywood for a cameo role in the Nelson Eddy-Jeanette Macdonald Rose Marie (1936) and played herself in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), but her performance was cut from the final print. Subsequently Gray traveled to Mexico to film ethnic dances, hoping to put together a lecture-demonstration. She made a similar trip to Africa in 1939. Stopping in her native Poland on the way home, she barely escaped the invading Nazi armies. In 1941 Gray declared bankruptcy. An appearance at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in a nostalgic revue in which she shimmied to "St. Louis Blues" failed to return her to public favor. In addition to her financial problems, poor health plagued her; and for a time she retired to a small ranch in Larkspur, Colorado. She briefly emerged when she brought suit against the producers of Gilda (1946), claiming that the film was partly based on her career. The suit was settled out of court. In 1952 she was engaged as a "sex consultant" to young starlets. Her last attempt at a comeback (1955) failed dismally. Gray died in Hollywood on December 22, 1959. Her funeral expenses were paid by the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Gray left an unfinished autobiography, Glamor Be Damned.
(Valentine Wilmot, the owner of the popular Piccadilly Clu...)
(Resounding with such songs as “Rose-Marie, I Love You,” “...)
(A young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his...)
On October 16, 1912, Gray entered into an arranged marriage with John Gorecki, a concert violinist, and the son of Socialist and union leader Martin Gorecki. The couple, who divorced in 1923, had one son, Martin Gorecki, who became a bandleader under the name Martin Gray. After her divorce from her first husband, in 1923 she married Gil Boag; they divorced four years later. In 1933 Gray married Hector de Briceno, a Venezuelan diplomat eight years her junior; but this marriage also ended in divorce.
