Best movies like Rookies on Parade

A popular band joins the army with the idea of putting on shows for troops overseas. During rehearsals, a battle erupts and the musicians must exchange their musical instruments for guns and fight.

A Broadway choreographer gets drafted and coincidentally ends up in the same army base as his object of affection’s boyfriend.

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

Georgia farm boy Will Stockdale is about to bust with pride. He’s been drafted. Will’s ready. But is Uncle Sam ready for Will? In No Time for Sergeants, Andy Griffith is certifiably funny in the role that clinched his stardom. Wearing a friendly, wide grin, he ambles into the U.S. Air Force – and lots of folks’ll never be the same.

Two starving songwriters will only get funding if they get British actress Jane Clarke to star in their show.

Beverly Ross, the switchboard operator at a local radio station, jumps at the chance to be the DJ for an early morning show before the soldiers at a nearby army camp assemble for reveille. Beverly, with her modern music, camp bulletins and chatter, is a hit with the soldiers. Beverly's younger brother and his two buddies are soldiers at the camp. The buddies vie for Beverly's attentions.

Jordan Blake (a widower) is a successful Broadway Producer who has always been to busy for his children, Barbara and Jerry. Girlfriend, Carolina a musical comedy star, urges Jordan to take his kids on a vacation and get to know them before they are all grown up. Is Jordan already too late?

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.

Around the turn of the century, two young men, Johnnie Bennett, a composer and Steve Adams, an artist, go to New York City to make their fortune. They both fall in love with the same girl, Patricia O'Neill. The artist paints a picture of her which outrages her father's sensibilities; but, as a result of the picture, she wins a chance to star in a Broadway play. She soon learns that the artist is just a trifler; and she turns to the composer, who loves her sincerely

An ex-theater actor is given one more chance to star in a musical yet his alcoholism may prevent it from happening.

Laurel and Hardy join the army. They are hardly soldiers, but they believe their employer, (Dick Nelson) will need them now he's drafted.

A young songwriter leaves his Kentucky home to try to make it in New Orleans. Eventually he winds up in New York, where he sells his songs to a music publisher, but refuses to sell his most treasured composition: "Dixie." The film is based on the life of Daniel Decatur Emmett, who wrote the classic song "Dixie."

Donald Fauntleroy Duck gets his draft notice and goes in, past all the amazingly enticing recruiting posters, to sign up. First he has to pass the physical. Despite his flat feet, he makes it. Donald wants to fly, but first he has to make it through Sergeant Pete's boot camp. He has a terrible time with close-order drills, and standing at attention without moving when he's over an ant-hill proves a real challenge. Eventually, Donald ends up on endless KP.

A private stationed in Hawaii gets involved with the general's engaged daughter. In order to avoid a scandal, the pair break up, but meet again years later when he's at West Point producing the annual play that turns out to star her.

A fledgling producer finds himself at odds with his workers, financiers and his greedy ex-wife when he tries to produce live musicals for movie-going audiences.

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

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.

John Winger, an indolent sad sack in his 30s, impulsively joins the U.S. Army after losing his job, his girlfriend and his apartment.

Two Air Force friends have fun during their enlistment.

Upon receiving his draft notice and leaving his family ranch in Oklahoma, Claude heads to New York and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to boot camp.

While vacationing at a boys' camp, the rambunctious Chip Winters befriends a famed composer Johnny Selden. Stuck for an inspiration for his latest operetta, Selden at last finds it when he meets Chip's gorgeous mother Irene Winters, a popular singer. Alas, her stiff-necked fiancé Walter Mays refuses to allow her to return to the stage, whereupon Rathbone spirals into a depression -- and even worse, a profound case of writers' block.

The Patent Leather Kid is a 1927 silent film which tells the story of a boxer who scoffs at fighting outside the ring... particularly for the United States once it enters World War I. Eventually, he is drafted, is shipped overseas, and performs a heroic act, which results in his being severely wounded.

Journalist Marion Hargrove enters the Army intending to supplement his income by writing about his training experiences. He muddles through basic training at Fort Bragg with the self-serving help of a couple of buddies intent on cutting themselves in on that extra income.

Inspired by the true story of Greg Yance. In the film, Yance (Epps) is a hood who goes to jail for possession of drugs. He is given a choice: 5 years in jail or a couple of months in boot camp. He chooses boot camp and finds out it is tougher than he thought it would be. He braves it through and comes home a better man. He then has to deal with the real world, and never gives up no matter what the odds.

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

In WW I dancer Jerry Jones stages an all-soldier show on Broadway, called Yip Yip Yaphank. Wounded in the War, he becomes a producer. In WW II his son Johnny Jones, who was before his fathers assistant, gets the order to stage a knew all-soldier show, called THIS IS THE ARMY. But in his pesonal life he has problems, because he refuses to marry his fiancée until the war is over.

Acrobat Eddie Marsh is in the army now. His first act is to become friendly with Kathryn Jones, the colonel's pretty daughter. Their romance hits a few snags, including disapproval from her father. Eddie's also plagued by fear of having an accident during his family's trapeze act in the army variety show, which also features a gallery of MGM stars.

A Marine Corps drill instructor who is disgusted by the fact that the Corps now accepts draftees finds himself pitted against a hippie who has been drafted but refuses to accept the military's way of doing things.

The road-show troupe of a top Broadway show go cross-country while taking the audience along on the on-stage scenes as well as what happens and is happening back stage of the production. The spectacular dancing ensembles and colorful costumes and pulchritude on-stage offers a contrasting background to the drabness of the backstage, where joy, sorrow, tragedies, deception, and romance are intertwined.

An actor and two songwriters become rural con men.

Chubby William Tracy starred as Dodo Doubleday, a feckless Army draftee blessed (or cursed) with a photographic memory. Inexplicably promoted to sergeant, Doubleday becomes the bane of topkick Sgt. Ames' (Joe Sawyer) existence.

Two bumbling GIs manage to get themselves invited to a dinner party at a boarding house "for women only". When the cook comes down with scarlet fever, the authorities quarantine the house and the pair find themselves locked up in a house full of attractive women.

Three struggling theatrical performers meet a famous songwriter who is trying to convince a wealthy oilman to finance a musical he is scripting, promising them stardom if it comes to fruition.

Director Leslie Goodwins' 1941 military drama, about various men who become buddies when they join the paratroopers, stars Robert Preston, Edmond O'Brien and Buddy Ebsen.

In 1898, composer Sid Barnett manages to get his sweetheart, Adeline the beer-garden singer, to sing the lead in his new Broadway operetta; this infuriates Elysia, the erstwhile star. But Sid frets as Adeline spends increasing amounts of time with the dashing Major Day.

According to Doughboys in Ireland, there were those who sang their way through WW2. Radio tenor Kenny Baker plays Manhattan orchestra leading Danny O'Keefe, who is drafted into the army along with a Ritz Brothers-like quartet called The Jesters. Stationed in Ireland, Danny believes that his New York sweetheart Gloria (Lynn Merrick) has forgotten about him, thus he inaugurates a romance with Irish colleen Molly Callahan (Jeff Donnell).

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.

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.

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

The story takes place at a summer theater in the Berkshire Mountains, where heroine Joan Barry (Carol Bruce) is staging a Broadway-bound musical comedy. Only one problem: two guest stars are shot and killed on two successive evenings, right in front of the audience. Hoping to solve the mystery, detective William Demarest demands that everyone -- actors and theatergoers alike -- return the following weekend to restage the show. But with no major performer willing to assume the fatal guest-star slot, Joan is forced to hire the Three Jolly Jesters (Al, Harry and Jimmy Ritz), Manhattan washroom attendants with showbiz aspirations.

Nurses parachuting.

A girl from a show-business family seeks a backer for her boyfriend's musical.

Manicurists Sally, Irene and Mary hope to be Broadway entertainers. When Mary inherits an old ferry boat, they turn it into a successful supper club.

A talented songwriter gets his inspiration for songs from others and not from within himself. He is oblivious that he may harm other people when he uses their stories or their love for himself.

A soldier stationed on an army base and his fiancé, who runs a women's "fat farm" nearby, want to get married but don't have enough money. Three customers of the "fat farm" scheme to get back at their philandering husbands by hiring the soldier and two of his buddies as "escorts" for the weekend. Complications ensue when the husbands show up unexpectedly.

Musical comedy star Jimmy Leighter wants to get away from show biz and his leading lady Winnie Clark, so he joins the Army. There he gets the order to put on a show, Winnie Clark appears in a camp show, hears about his task and offers him his help. He thinks, she does it for her publicity only, so he doesn't want to know anything about this, till he finds out, that she has no such intentions.

A young woman (Janet Leigh) leaves her small hometown in Vermont and travels to New York City with hopes of becoming a Broadway star.

Joan Terry, from Kansas City, comes to New York to get a job on the stage. But until she finds an opportunity, she stays at a boarding house where other talent is also waiting. To get a better chance, the people there decide to build a talent pool, where the person with the most chances for a job gets the full support, trying to get jobs for the others there too - and Joan is chosen to do that. But this is not so easy when her fiance is trying to keep her away from the stage...

An aggressive agent turns a hotel porter into an overnight sensation.

In this musical comedy, a pregnant disc jockey misses her husband who is fighting overseas. Stressed out by the situation and her job, she decides to take some time off and convinces her twin sister to trade places with her. The switcheroo causes the soldier her husband appointed as her unofficial guardian no end of confusion.