Sidney Lanfield

  • Sidney Lanfield – The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

    1931-1940CrimeMysterySidney LanfieldUSA

    Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the legend of a supernatural hound, a beast that may be stalking a young heir on the fog-shrouded moorland that makes up his estate.

    ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ (1939) is the most well-known cinematic adaptation of the book, and is often regarded as one of the better film versions of it. It differs somewhat, but not as much as the 1959 film version.Read More »

  • Sidney Lanfield – The Well Groomed Bride (1946)

    1941-1950ComedyRomanceSidney LanfieldUSA

    Synopsis
    A man and a woman fight over the last bottle of champagne left in San Francisco–she wants it for a wedding, and he wants to use it to christen a ship.Read More »

  • Sidney Lanfield – Wake Up and Live (1937)

    1931-1940ComedyMusicalSidney LanfieldUSA

    Synopsis:
    Built around the publicity “feud” between newspaper-radio-gossip spreader Walter Winchell and band leader Ben Bernie, a radio star, Alice Huntley (Alice Faye), who does an advice-and-inspiration program, helps a mike-shy singer, Eddie Kane (Jack Haley) to success by tricking him into singing with Bernie’s orchestra. Winchell uses it to expose Bernie as the trickster. But Kane becomes a great hit with the radio public, and falls in love with Alice. And Bernie and Winchell shake hands to show there’s no business like show business and fabricated feuds.Read More »

  • Sidney Lanfield – The Meanest Man in the World (1943)

    1941-1950ClassicsComedyErnst LubitschSidney LanfieldUSA

    Richard Clarke (Benny), a small town lawyer, is not making enough money to marry Janie Brown (Lane), his fiancée. To improve himself, Richard moves to New York City. Although he does not have any clients, Richard tells Janie that he is doing well. She expects to move to New York and marry him.

    His assistant Shufro (Anderson) suggests that he could make some money if he became hard and ruthless. The ultimate test of his meanness is ‘stealing candy from a baby’. He is photographed as he pulls a sucker away from a small boy. The picture is printed in the paper under the caption, “Meanest Man in the World.” He is hired to evict an old woman, Mrs. Frances H. Leggitt (Margaret Seddon), from her apartment and more pictures appear in the paper.Read More »

  • Sidney Lanfield & Frank Tashlin – The Lemon Drop Kid (1951)

    1951-1960ComedyCrimeFrank TashlinSidney LanfieldUSA

    Damon Runyon’s Broadway fable The Lemon Drop Kid was filmed twice by Paramount Pictures, but only the 1934 version with Lee Tracy paid more than lip service to the original Runyon story. The second version, filmed in 1951, was completely retooled to accommodate the talents of Bob Hope. Known far and wide as the Lemon Drop Kid because of his fondness for that particular round, yellow confection, Hope is a bookie who finds himself deeply in debt to Florida gangster Fred Clark. Magnanimously, Clark permits Hope to head to New York to raise the money–but he’d better have the dough ready by Christmas, or else. Read More »

  • Sidney Lanfield – Where There’s Life (1947)

    1941-1950AdventureComedySidney LanfieldUSA

    In a far off country, their king is critically wounded after an assassination attempt and the only heir is a timid New York radio personality, Bob Hope. After reluctantly traveling to his father’s homeland, Bob is not happy with becoming the target of the same terrorist organization that attacked the king.Read More »

  • Sidney Lanfield – Broadway Bad (1933)

    1931-1940DramaSidney LanfieldUSA

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    TCM Synopsis:

    In varying degrees of undress, the chorus girls of the “Frolics of 1929” gossip that the show’s rich backer, brokerage head Craig Cutting, has “given the gate” to his mistress Aileen, one of the dancers, in preference to Antoinette “Tony” Landers, a dancer described as “a nice kid from a nice home.” As the girls chat, Tony is being seduced by her boyfriend, Bob North, the scion of a wealthy family, in the empty stadium at Yale, where he goes to college. Sometime later, as Tony prepares to go to her social debut at Craig’s party, Aileen confuses and upsets her with taunts about Craig’s “dividend checks” and “technique.” At the party, Tony learns that the dividend checks Craig has been giving her have not come, as she supposed, from the bonds her mother left her, but instead directly from Craig. She rebukes him for putting her in a position of obligation to him and refuses to succumb to his “technique” after he denies that he expects anything in return. Just then, Bob, whose suspicions have been fueled by Aileen, arrives and, after revealing that Tony is his wife, slaps her face with the cancelled checks, calls her a “dirty little tramp” and leaves. Tony confesses to Craig that she kept the marriage secret so that Bob would not be kicked out of college. When she asks Craig to help straighten out the situation, he refuses to interfere.
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