Best movies like Earl Carroll Vanities

Winfield College students rebel against a stodgy professor who won't permit "swing" music be played in their varsity show. They appeal to a big Broadway alumnus and have him direct their show. What they don't know is that this "star's" last three shows were flops.

Out-of-work singer Victoria Grant meets a just-fired, flamboyant gay man in a club in 1920s Paris. He convinces her to pretend to be a man who is a female impersonator in order to get a job. The act is a hit in a local nightclub, but things get complicated when a gangster and nightclub owner from Chicago, King Marchan, falls in love with "him." Filmed live on Broadway, 1995.

An aspiring Broadway actress falls in love with a soldier on leave during a weekend in New York City.

Henny Brown, talent scout for the Margaret Ames Film Agency in Hollywood, mistakes Broadway show understudies Judy and Marian, for stars Betty and Eileen, and signs them up for movies. Margaret, furious with Henny for the blunder, fires him---but only temporarily. Another agent, Marty Allen, once married to and still in love with Margaret, signs Betty and Eileen. Henny arrives with Judy and Marian, and the nightclub manager asks Henny to emcee the show. Though he is not sure himself what they can do, Henny introduces the girls and they make a hit in a dramatic sketch. Big-time movie producer R. J. signs them to a film contract. Judy joins the WAVES, Marian the WACS and Marty the Marines and all have two weeks before induction, and that is more than long enough to shoot a Monogram musical-within-a-Monogram musical and have a few days to spare.

An artist follows a woman from California to New York, where he boxes for her mobster husband.

A police commissioner investigates the murder of a nightclub owner who was under police protection.

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."

Fred and Lilli are a divorced pair of actors who are brought together by Cole Porter who has written a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play. A fight on the opening night threatens the production, as well as two thugs who have the mistaken idea that Fred owes their boss money and insist on staying next to him all night.

A managing editor sends a socialite reporter to spy on her boyfriend, mixed up in murder.

Steve Raleight wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a backer, Herman Whipple and a leading lady, Sally Lee. But Caroline Whipple forces Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. Sally purchases a horse, she used to train when her parents had a farm before the depression and with to ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.

Janie lives to dance and will dance anywhere, even stripping in a burlesque house. Tod Newton, the rich playboy, discovers her there and helps her get a job in a real Broadway musical being directed by Patch. Tod thinks he can get what he wants from Janie, Patch thinks Janie is using her charms rather than talent to get to the top, and Janie thinks Patch is the greatest. Steve, the stage manager, has the Three Stooges helping him manage all the show girls. Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy make appearances as famous Broadway personalities.

Every Little Step follows the plight of real-life dancers as they struggle through auditions for the Broadway revival of "A Chorus Line" and also investigates the history of the show and the creative minds behind the original and current incarnations.

A Brodway producer discovers new talent in a small Georgia town and brings them to New York for his new show.

When the temperamental star of a new Broadway musical revue in rehearsals walks out, director and choreographer Ted Sturgis suggests casting an unknown for the role. When it is announced in the newspapers, throngs of hopefuls show up. The revue's musical composer, Leo Belney, champions ballerina Joanna Moss, while gofer Bob Dowdy is enchanted by novice Suzy Doolittle. Then producer Felix Jordan persuades Ted's former dance partner, Madelyn Corlan, to come out of retirement to try out, much to Ted's great discomfort.

Things get tough for Carol and her showgirl pals, Trixie and Polly, when the Great Depression kicks in and all the Broadway shows close down. Wealthy songwriter Brad saves the day by funding a new Depression-themed musical for the girls to star in, but when his stuffy high-society brother finds out and threatens to disown Brad, Carol and her gold-digging friends scheme to keep the show going, hooking a couple of millionaires along the way.

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

Eddie is conned into fronting a speakeasy for a local gangster who intends to frame him for the murder of a cop.

Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

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....

Light bio-pic of American Broadway pioneer Jerome Kern, featuring renditions of the famous songs from his musical plays by contemporary stage artists, including a condensed production of his most famous: 'Showboat'.

An out-of-work band singer gets a job at a jukebox company and makes a hit.

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.

The Andrews Sisters headline this musical. They play the lead act at a popular nightclub. The trouble begins when they hire a few students from a financially foundering dance school for their newest production. One of the dancers, a rich young socialite, desperately wants to be in it too, but her prurient maiden aunts refuse to allow her to disgrace their family by becoming a common chorine. She and the club owner (who must have the aunt's permission because the girl is underage) try to convince them, but it's not easy.

An aspiring singer and her lover, a songwriter who has desperately resorted to writing radio jingles, have many conflicts on their road to success...

Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids. Fortunately, he is able to convince studio head Melville Crossman to cast him in the adaptation of a hit Broadway show. Crossman has one condition: Slade must travel to New York and convince the female star of the stage production to join the film. Slade goes, but, when he eyes the winsome Julie Clarke, he hatches a different scheme.

A wealthy young man falls hard for a beautiful showgirl, and her wily father quickly realizes the naïve boy would make the perfect investor for his daughter's new show. Comedy with music.

Pretty Melinda Howard has been abroad singing with a musical troupe. She decides to return home to surprise her mother whom she thinks is a successful Broadway star with a mansion in Manhattan. She doesn't know that her mother is actually a burnt-out cabaret singer with a love for whiskey. When she arrives at the mansion, she is taken in by the two servants who are friends of her mother's. The house actually belongs to Adolph Hubbell, a kind-hearted Broadway producer who also gets drawn into the charade. Hubbell takes a shine to Melinda and agrees to star her in his next show. Melinda also finds romance with a handsome hoofer who's also in the show. All is going well for Melinda except that she wants to see her mother who keeps putting off their reunion.

The stuffy manager of lovely opera singer Vicki Cassel and her uncle, a classical conductor, is determined to close down the noisy nightclub next door to the Cassels' home. The club's owners--Steve, a handsome ladies' man, and Jeff, his clownish sidekick--hatch a plan to keep the club open. Steve arranges to meet--and woo--Vicki and then invite her and her uncle to the club. When Vicki's snobbish aunt and the manager discover that Vicki now favors popular music over the classics, they arrange to get the club closed. But that doesn't keep Steve and Jeff down. Instead, they decide to put on a Broadway show if they can get a backer. They find their "angel" in Vicki's uncle who agrees to finance the show only if Vicki is the leading lady. But again, Vicki's aunt and manager may be the spoiler in everyone's plans.

A carnival burlesque dancer robs her junkie ex-husband, goes to New York, gets a job at a high-class club where she becomes the mistress of the wealthy owner. She seduces his son and causes a murder.

Biographical movie about the early 20th century broadway stars Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth.

Bob Allen, a struggling songwriter poses as a millionaire cowboy to win Broadway star Babs Lee.

A idealistic shipyard worker interests a beautiful Hollywood star in staging a musical tribute to the war industry, but they disagree on some important issues.

When theatrical producer Robert Chandler (E. Alyn Warren), believed drowned in a fishing accident, turns up as a lonely, broken amnesiac three months later, he arrives just in time to see his actress wife Carol Chandler (Claire Windsor), thought to be a widow, marrying her leading man Jimmy Keane (John Bowers). Rather than mar her new-found happiness, he takes a job washing cars. New York City is a small town. Will Carol need her car washed?

James Cagney has a rare chance to show his song-and-dance-man roots in this low-budget tale of a New York bandleader struggling with a Hollywood studio boss.

Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers—all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson.

Two men vie for the heart of a Cypress Gardens swimming star.

An east coast efficiency expert, who stakes his reputation on his ability to turn around a financially troubled Hollywood studio, receives some help from a former child star who now works as a stand-in for the studio.

Don Vincente is determined to make a success of himself and his band. He gets his break by performing at the Garden of the Moon, which is broadcast over the radio. The problem is that John Quinn is the club's ruthless, scheming manager who will do anything to keep Vincente under his thumb. John's assistant, Toni Blake, falls for Vincente, complicating the escalating war.

Lila Beaumont is an understudy in a Broadway musical. Her boyfriend, George Shelby, arrives in New York hoping to take Lila back home with him to marry.

New Faces was a musical revue with songs and comedy skits tied together by a quirky plot. It ran on Broadway for nearly a year in 1952 and was then made into a motion picture in 1954. It helped jump start the careers of several young performers including Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley, Eartha Kitt, Carol Lawrence, performer/writer Mel Brooks (as Melvin Brooks), and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. The film was basically a reproduction of the stage revue with a thin plot added. The plot involved a producer and performer (Ronny Graham) in financial trouble and is trying to stave off an angry creditor long enough to open his show. A wealthy Texan offers to help out, on the condition that his daughter be in the show.

Two couples work through their issues in this backstage Broadway musical.

An angel returns to Earth to help a Broadway producer put on a show, so a struggling young actress will have a job.

Evelyn Palmer, a débutante society girl who also is a property landlord, becomes interested in the plight of one of her tenants, a struggling band-leader, to the extent she becomes a hostess in a dance club, incognito, where the band plays, and soon is the band's singer.

Nancy Carroll stars in Manhattan Cocktail as Babs, a college coed who dreams of becoming a famous actress. Joining up with her campus chums Fred (Richard Arlen) and Bob (Danny O'Shea), likewise aspiring thespians, Babes heads to Broadway with stars in her eyes. The winsome threesome are quickly disillusioned by the heartless machinations of nasty producer Renov (Paul Lukas) and his harridan wife (Lilyan Tashman). Before the plot proper gets under way, the audience is regaled with a cute "mythological" prologue, featuring the same three leading actors. Manhattan Cocktail was a silent picture, except for two brief musical numbers showcasing Nancy Carroll.

When amateur songwriter Jill Wright moves from the Midwest to New York City, she is dismayed to discover that Rick Farrell, the owner of Miracle Publishing Co., has claimed as his own the song she submitted to his company. One of the many films made at Republic with a year attached to the "Hit Parade" title, which came from the "Hit Parade" radio program sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes.

It's hard to define her. And that's precisely the way Lady Gaga wants it. Yes, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta had a plan to remake herself into an outrageous icon. It began with Italian Catholic New York City roots then expanded to glam pop, electronic rock, burlesque and even jazz alongside nonagenarian crooner, Tony Bennett. Piano lessons began at age four and taught Stefani to create music by ear. There were lead roles in high school standard Broadway show productions then open mic nights at downtown clubs and 1 1/2 years of formal training at N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts. Even a rape at age nineteen slowed but did not stop the mission that would yield over 200 million combined album and song sales. No wonder that Gaga's fans call her "Monster Mother." An outrageous fashion sense has wrought costumes made of plastic bubbles and raw meat. While elaborate videos and spectacular stage sets are the norm,

San Antonio Rose is an amiably wacky mini-musical evenly divided between its "official" stars, The Merry Macs, and a strong cast of supporting clowns. Robert Paige plays roadhouse operator Con Conway, whose establishment is in danger of being squeezed out by its competition. Stranded entertainers Hope Holloway (Jane Frazee) and Gabby Trent (Eve Arden) decide to revivify Conway's establishment by staging an energetic floor show built around the talented Merry Macs. A rival club owner dispatches his two top hooligans Jigsaw Kennedy (Lon Chaney Jr.) and Benny the Bounce (Shemp Howard) to wreck Conway's club by posing as waiters, but the two stupes are easily cowed into submission--by the leading ladies!

The management of touring ice show faces mounting debts.

Stock-footage from Republic Pictures' earlier Zorro serials was served up once again in this 12 chapter cliffhanger, this time without the financially strapped studio having to credit Zorro creator Johnston McCulley or pay any royalties. Zorro simply became "Don Daredevil" (Ken Curtis), a foppish Easterner by day turned masked avenger by night. Like his not too distant relative, Don wore his disguise in order to battle nasty Roy Barcroft who, under a forged Spanish land grant, attempts to take over the surrounding ranch land.

This documentary traces the life and work of the legendary "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, silent film star, movie pioneer and keen businesswoman. Pickford's life also parallels an even larger story, telling of the birth of the cinema itself.