Best movies like Alexander's Ragtime Band

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A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Alexander's Ragtime Band Starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Ethel Merman, and more. If you liked Alexander's Ragtime Band then you may also like: Walking My Baby Back Home, New York, New York, Night and Day, Radio City Revels, Jazz Heaven and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Classical violinist, Roger Grant disappoints his family and teacher when he organizes a jazz band, but he and the band become successful. Roger falls in love with the band's singer, Stella, but his reluctance to lose her leads him to thwart her efforts to become a solo star. When the World War separates them in 1917, Stella marries Roger's best friend and, when Roger returns home after the war, an important concert at Carnegie Hall brings the corners of the romantic triangle together.

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Walking My Baby Back Home

A young man from a wealthy New York family pursues a career as the leader of a dance band.

New York, New York

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

Night and Day

Swellegant and elegant. Delux and delovely. Cole Porter was the most sophisticated name in 20th-century songwriting. And to play him on screen, Hollywood chose debonair icon Cary Grant. Grant stars for the first time in color in this fanciful biopic. Alexis Smith plays Linda, whose serendipitous meetings with Porter lead to a meeting at the alter. More than 20 of his songs grace this tail of triumph and tragedy, with Grant lending is amiable voice to "You're the Top", "Night and Day" and more. Monty Woolley, a Yale contemporary of Porter, portrays himself. And Jane Wyman, Mary Martin, Eve Arden and others provide vocals and verve. Lights down. Curtain up. Showtune standards embraced by generations are yours to enjoy in "Night and Day."

Radio City Revels

A down-on-his-luck songwriter attempts to peddle musical compositions of a naive Arkansas hillbilly under his own name. Comedy.

Jive Junction

A young classical musician becomes the conductor a high-school all-girl jive band to entertain the troops.

Blue Skies

Jed Potter looks back on a love triangle conducted over the course of years and between musical numbers. Dancer Jed loves showgirl Mary, who loves compulsive nightclub-opener Johnny, who can't stay committed to anything in life for very long.

Carnegie Hall

A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.

Carolina Blues

When he loses his lead singer, bandleader Kay Kyser can't find a replacement he likes.

I'll Find You

Inspired by stories of Polish musicians from the 1930s and 40s. Two young lovers, Robert, a Catholic opera singer, and Rachel, a Jewish violin virtuoso, dream of one day performing together at legendary Carnegie Hall. When they're torn apart by the German invasion of Poland, Robert vows to find Rachel, no matter what the war may bring. His search leads him on a life-threatening journey through the heart of Nazi Germany, to a reckoning that Rachel may be lost to him forever.

I Love a Bandleader

A painter suffering from amnesia convinces himself that he's a famous bandleader and finds romance with a pretty singer. Comedy with music.

Holiday Inn

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.

Is Everybody Happy?

It is the story of Ted Lewis, popular band leader and clarinettist. The music for the film was written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke, except for "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy and "Tiger Rag". The film's title comes from Lewis's catchphrase "Is everybody happy?" The film's soundtrack exists on Vitaphone discs preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, but the film itself is considered a lost film, according to the Vitaphone Project website. A five minute clip from the film can be found on YouTube.

It Happened in Brooklyn

Danny has been in the army for 4 years, yet all he thinks about is Brooklyn and how great it is. When he returns after the war, he soon finds that Brooklyn is not so nice after all. He is able to share a place with Nick, the janitor of his old High School, and get a job as a singer in a music store. He also meets Leo, a talented pianist and his teacher Anne, whose dream is to singing Opera. When Jamie arrives from England, Danny tries to show him the Brooklyn experience and help him compose modern swing music. Together, these four also try to help Leo get the Brooklyn Music scholarship.

The Star Maker

This is a film about the life of Gus Edwards, a well known vaudeville composer, entertainer, and producer.

Gang War

Saxophone player Clyde meets a woman named Flowers, and teaches her to dance. He later discovers that gangster boss "Blackjack" is also in love with her. "Blackjack" is also battling gang boss Mike Luego in a violent turf war.

Broadway Rhythm

Broadway producer Johnny Demming is only interested in big-name talent and scoffs that his sister, father and other small-time talent could be used in a successful show.

Music Man

Bickering brothers unwittingly wind up working together on the same musical production.

Rainbow Over Broadway

Ex-vaudeville performer Trixie makes a come-back, and threatens to thwart the ambitions of her song-writing step-children, Bob and Judy.

The Strip

Drummer Stanley Maxton moves to Los Angeles with dreams of opening his own club, but falls in with a gangster and a nightclub dancer and ends up accused of murder.

Satchmo the Great

In this 1957 biography film of the jazz-great Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, he and his band tour the world as American good-will ambassadors bring jazz at its best to the people of the world. Within the film, the life of Louis Armstrong is portrayed through the music. One of the outstanding scenes in this "biography/docudrama" shows blind songwriter W. C. Handy, with tears streaming down his face, as Armstrong, backed by Leonard Bernstein leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Handy's immortal "St. Louis Blues."

Beach Ball

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

New Orleans

A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.

Chances

Two brothers, Jack and Tom, are in love with the same woman, Molly. While the two brothers go off to war and Molly does her part in the effort, Tom believes that Rose is waiting for him, while in fact, she loves Jack and only turned to Tom on the rebound. Jack and Molly meet while he is on leave, and when he returns to battle, he doesn't know how to handle the situation with his brother.

Stars and Stripes Forever

Marine bandmaster John Philip Sousa (Clifton Webb) becomes famous for his marches and inspires the sousaphone.

The Great American Broadcast

After WWI two men go into radio. Failure leads the wife of one to borrow money from another; she goes on, after separation, to stardom. A coast-to-coast radio program is set up to bring everyone back together.

Do You Love Me

Katharine Hilliard, mousy dean of a stuffy music school, meets and is insulted by swing band leader Barry Clayton on a train. To "show" him she takes a friend's advice, removes her glasses, and puts on a designer gown. Naturally, she becomes gorgeous. Soon, both Barry and crooner Jimmy Hale are after her, and she finds herself in the midst of triangles and misunderstandings.

Song of Russia

American conductor John Meredith and his manager, Hank Higgins, go to Russia shortly before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Meredith falls in love with beautiful Soviet pianist Nadya Stepanova while they travel throughout the country on a 40-city tour. Along the way, they see happy, healthy, smiling, free Soviet citizens, blissfully living the Communist dream. This bliss is destroyed by the German invasion.

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).

Sitting on the Moon

A successful songwriter and a struggling singer become involved professionally and romantically on the road to stardom.

Our Christmas Love Song

When country star Melody Jones is accused of plagiarizing her holiday single, she returns home to spend Christmas with her estranged family and old flame and learns what is important in life.

Dearie

Finding herself in dire circumstances, the widowed Sylvia Darling determines that her son, Stephen, will complete his college education and develop his supposed literary talents; thus, she accepts a contract as singer in a Broadway nightclub, billed as "Dearie," and becomes an immediate sensation.

Swingin' on a Rainbow

A young girl goes to New York to find a band leader who has stolen all the songs she wrote and is passing them off as his own.

Here Comes the Band

In this musical, a songwriter goes to court to claim the rights to his song that was stolen by an unscrupulous music publisher. He brings his girlfriend with him. Also going to court are the Jubilee singers, hillbillies, and some cowboys and Indians who demonstrate that the composer wrote his song by rearranging four folk tunes. He wins his song back and $50,000 in damages. Songs include: "Heading Home," "Roll Along Prairie Moon," "Tender Is the Night," "You're My Thrill," "I'm Bound for Heaven," and "The Army Band."

Sing While You Dance

Susan Kent, hoping to establish herself as a song-plugger, tries to obtain a second song from a young songwriter, Johnny Crane, after his first song becomes a hit. While pursuing her objective, she falls in love with Johnny, and lands in jail, but she acquires the song, the job, and Johnny.

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