Best movies like A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story

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This highly-rated television film covers the life of American movie/TV/pop music idol Annette Funicello. The movie starts with the move of her family from New York to California, where in 1955 shy Annette becomes one of the cast of The Mickey Mouse Club. The movie covers her child stardom, her teen idol years, her singing career with big hits like "Tall Paul", her romance with Paul Anka, her classic beach party films with Frankie Avalon, and her first marriage. It also shows her large comeback in the late 1980s and her second marriage, and the day when she found out she had multiple sclerosis.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story
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Words and Music

Encomium to Larry Hart (1895-1943), seen through the fictive eyes of his song-writing partner, Richard Rodgers (1902-1979): from their first meeting, through lean years and their breakthrough, to their successes on Broadway, London, and Hollywood. We see the fruits of Hart and Rodgers' collaboration - elaborately staged numbers from their plays, characters' visits to night clubs, and impromptu performances at parties. We also see Larry's scattered approach to life, his failed love with Peggy McNeil, his unhappiness, and Richard's successful wooing of Dorothy Feiner.

The Wrecking Crew

A celebration of the musical work of a group of session musicians known as "The Wrecking Crew." a band that provided back-up instrumentals to such legendary recording artists as Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, and Bing Crosby.

Beach Blanket Bingo

In the fourth of the highly successful Frankie and Annette beach party movies, a motorcycle gang led by Eric Von Zipper kidnaps singing star Sugar Kane managed by Bullets, who hires sky-diving surfers Steve and Bonnie from Big Drop for a publicity stunt. With the usual gang of kids and a mermaid named Lorelei.

Beach Party

Anthropology Professor Robert Orwell Sutwell and his secretary Marianne are studying the sex habits of teenagers. The surfing teens led by Frankie and Dee Dee don't have much sex but they sing, battle the motorcycle rats and mice led by Eric Von Zipper and dance to Dick Dale and the Del Tones.

Bikini Beach

A millionaire sets out to prove his theory that his pet chimpanzee is as intelligent as the teenagers who hang out on the local beach, where he is intending to build a retirement home.

Teen Beach Movie

Life's a beach for surfers Brady and McKenzie – until a rogue wave magically transports them inside the classic '60s beach party flick, "Wet Side Story," where a full-blown rivalry between bikers and surfers threatens to erupt. There, amidst a sea of surfing, singing and dancing, Brady and Mack accidentally change the storyline, and the film’s dreamy hero and heroine fall for them instead of for each other!

Duet for One

When Stephanie, a famous violinist, contracts multiple sclerosis her life begins to fall apart. Her career ends, her husband leaves her for another woman and her favorite pupil leave the country. Unable to bear all this loss, Stephanie attempts suicide.

Dreamboat

Thornton Sayre, a respected college professor - secretly formerly a silent films romantic action hero - is disturbed, feeling his privacy has been violated, and his professional credibility as a scholar jeopardized, when he learns his old movies have been resurrected and are being aired on TV. He sets out to demand this cease. However, his former co-star is the hostess of the TV show playing the films, and she has other plans.

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine

In this campy spy movie spoof Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) has invented an army of bikini-clad robots who are programmed to seek out wealthy men and charm them into signing over their assets. Secret agent Craig Gamble (Frankie Avalon) and millionaire Todd Armstrong set out to foil his fiendish plot.

Pajama Party

A Martian teenager sent to prepare for an invasion falls in love with an Earth girl.

Fireball 500

Stock car racer Dave Owens plays into the hands of whiskey runners by agreeing to drive in a cross-country road race.

Troop Beverly Hills

A Beverly Hills housewife in the middle of a divorce tries to find focus in her life by taking over her daughter's Wilderness Girls troop.

Sunny Side of the Street

A TV worker has fickle designs on an aspiring singer for whom she arranges an audition.

Harlow

Loosely based biography of 1930s star Jean Harlow as she begins her climb to stardom. One of two "Harlow" film biographies that appeared in 1965, this one stars Carol Lynley in the title role that begins as Jean Harlow, a bit player in Laurel and Hardy comedies, is invited to test for director Jonathan Martin for the lead in Howard Hughes's "Hell's Angels." She is an instantaneous sensation, and in a series of films devoted more to her body than her talent, she becomes Hollywood's "Platanum Blonde."

I'll Cry Tomorrow

Deprived of a normal childhood by her ambitious mother, Lillian Roth becomes a star of Broadway and Hollywood before she is twenty. Shortly before her marriage to her childhood sweetheart, David Tredman, he dies and Lillian takes her first drink of many down the road of becoming an alcoholic.

Love Me or Leave Me

A fictionalized account of the career of jazz singer Ruth Etting and her tempestuous marriage to gangster Marty Snyder, who helped propel her to stardom.

The Singing Fool

After years of hopeful struggle, Al Stone (Jolson) is on his way. "I'm Sittin' on Top of the World", he sings to an appreciative speakeasy crowd. But, as Al discovers, getting there is one thing. Staying there is another. Singing waiter Stone gets his huge break on a magical night when his song wows a big-time producer and a gold-digging showgirl he fancies. Broadway success and marriage follow, but sure enough, hard times are on the way. Al's fickle wife abandons him, taking the beloved son he calls Sonny Boy with her. Heartbroken, Al becomes a devastated loner until friends from the speakeasy that launched his career rescue him from a life on the streets. Soon, Al is back in lights. But another crisis awaits: Sonny Boy is in the hospital and dying....

Ski Party

Remember the beach movies of the sixties? They're back! Well, not quite, but since Avalon, Hickman, and even Funicello appear in this one, it sure feels right. This time, though, read snow instead of sand and you got it. Ski lodge, to be precise, and though the plot is somewhat inane, with the boys cross-dressing to discover the secret of a friend's success with the girls, it's still a somewhat fun outing.

Star!

Gertrude Lawrence rises to stage stardom at the cost of happiness.

Tab Hunter Confidential

In the 1950s, Tab Hunter is number one at the box office and number one on the music charts. He is Hollywood’s most sought-after star and America’s boy next door. Natalie Wood, Debbie Reynolds and Sophia Loren are just a few of the actresses he is romantically linked to. Nothing, it seems, can damage Tab Hunter’s career. Nothing, that is, except for the fact that Tab Hunter is secretly gay. Now, Tab Hunter’s secret is out. We will meet, for the first time, the real Tab Hunter as he shares with us the whole story of a happy, healthy survivor of Hollywood’s roller coaster.

Tender Mercies

Alchoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career.

Back to the Beach

Cowabunga! The surfing '60s ride into the new wave as Frankie and Annette star in this hip update of their old-time, good-time beach movies. With special appearances by Bob Denver, Tony Dow, Pee-Wee Herman, Jerry Mathers and other familiar faces. Frankie and Annette grow up and have kids in the midwest. They return to LA to visit their daughter who is shacked up with her boyfriend and tries to hide the fact. They begin to have marriage problems when Frankie runs into Connie, who has erected a shrine to him in her night club. Their punk son has joined up with the local surf toughs, and things all come to a head when the toughs challenge the good guys to a surfing duel

The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack

With the help of her mother, family, friends, and fellow musicians, Aiyana Elliott reaches for her father, legendary cowboy troubadour, Ramblin' Jack Elliott. She explores who he is and how he got there, working back and forth between archival and contemporary footage. Born in 1932 in Brooklyn, busking through the South and West in the early 50s, a year with Woody Guthrie, six years flatpicking in Europe, a triumphant return to Greenwich Village in the early 60s, mentoring Bob Dylan, then life on the road, from gig to gig, singing and telling stories. A Grammy and the National Medal of Arts await Jack near the end of a long trail. What will Aiyana find for herself?

The Idolmaker

Based on the life of rock promoter/producer Bob Marucci, who discovered, among others, Frankie Avalon and Fabian.

Absolute Beginners

A musical adaptation of Colin MacInnes' novel about life in late 1950s London. Nineteen-year-old photographer Colin is hopelessly in love with model Crepe Suzette, but her relationships are strictly connected with her progress in the fashion world. So Colin gets involved with a pop promoter and tries to crack the big time. Meanwhile, racial tension is brewing in Colin's Notting Hill housing estate...

Muscle Beach Party

Local beach-goers find that their beach has been taken over by a businessman training a stable of body builders.

Beach Ball

Edd Byrnes tries to get an ethnic-music-studies grant to buy instruments for his rock and roll group.

Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story

In the Lifetime® movie, THE FANTASIA BARRINO STORY: LIFE IS NOT A FAIRYTALE, a single teenage mother overcomes all odds - sexual abuse, poverty and illiteracy - by relying on her spectacular singing voice. She ultimately gains national prominence as the winner of a hit talent show. Fantasia Barrino plays herself in this modern true Cinderella story. Also starring Loretta Devine, Kadeem Hardison and Viola Davis.

The Comic

An account of the rise and fall of a silent film comic, Billy Bright. The movie begins with his funeral, as he speaks from beyond the grave in a bitter tone about his fate, and takes us through his fame, as he ruins it with womanizing and drink, and his fall, as a lonely, bitter old man unable to reconcile his life's disappointments. The movie is based loosely on the life of Buster Keaton.

Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special

Pee-wee Herman and pals are celebrating Christmas in the Playhouse in their own creative ways: Pee-wee makes a list for Santa Claus 1 1/2 miles long, teaches Little Richard how to ice skate, goes for a sleigh ride with Magic Johnson, commands Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello to make Christmas cards, receives a long phone call from Dinah Shore, even has more musical fun with k.d. lang, the Del Rubio Triplettes and Charo! Finally, Big Red arrives and announces that Pee-wee's Christmas list was so big, he didn't have enough presents for all the children of the world. Will Pee-wee follow his own advice and help others?

A Ray of Sunshine

It follows a chronically ill young woman who finds herself alone at rock bottom, struggling to come to terms with her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis while searching for the strength to push forward with her dreams before it's too late.

Bring Your Smile Along

Nancy Willows (Constance Towers), pretty blonde high school teacher, writes song lyrics which spark the careers of struggling young pianist-composer Martin Adams (Keefe Brasselle')and would-be singer Jerry Dennis (Frankie Laine). When Nancy and Martin fall in love but quarrel over her old flame, David Parker (William Leslie), Nancy returns to her teaching job. Jerry reunites Nancy and Martin and, in turn, succumbs to the charms of his new secretary Marge Stevenson (Lucy Marlow).

The Beach Boys: The Lost Concert

Archive performance from 1964, long thought lost to posterity, this concert footage features the California boys in the days that Brian Wilson still appeared on stage with them. Includes the hits 'Little Deuce Coupe', 'Fun, Fun, Fun', 'In My Room' and 'Surfin' USA'.

The Beach Boys

A celebration of the legendary band that revolutionized pop music, and the iconic, harmonious sound they created that personified the California dream, captivating fans for generations and generations to come.

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