Best movies like Strictly in the Groove

J. P. Courtney wants to update the music on the radio program he sponsors, but his wife, Agatha Courtney, is the final authority and addicted to the classics and won't allow him to replace Professor Bistell and his symphonic orchestra. Conspiring with his daughter Sue and her friends, Marvo the Great, the Andrews Sisters, Anne Payne and bandleader Woody Herman, they devise a sabotage plot that gets rid of Professor Bistell, and a new sound is soon heard on the program.

Set in New York City, flapper Pink Watson works a telephone operator at a cement factory who dreams of marrying rich. Her constant daydreaming of wealth annoys her fellow workers, and ruins the heart of one of her worshiping colleagues.

Saunders with his Cattlemen's Protective Agency is running roughshod over the ranchers. Lawyer Larry Kimball is fighting him but he needs a rancher that will stand up with him against Saunders. He finds him when Lou Gehrig retires from baseball to take up ranching. Lou expects to relax on his ranch but quickly joins Larry in the fight.

A bandleader, desperate to get his band's instruments out of hock, promises the pawnshop clerk--an aspiring songwriter--that he'll let the band's female singer do the clerk's songs at a local club if he will let the band "borrow" their instruments at night. The clerk's girlfriend, however, thinks that the band singer is after more than her boyfriend's songs.

Two telephone repairmen have many adventures and romance a pair of blondes.

Nicky Nelson is a fast-talking sideshow barker with a wax-and-alive concession on Atlantic City's boardwalk. Even with the band of his friend, struggling musician Gene Krupa, playing on the sidewalk to attract the customers, "The Living Corpse" and other low-rent acts aren't enough to lure the seen-it-all boardwalk strollers, and the landlord closes the show in lieu of never-paid rent. Nicky, always promoting, goes to Stephen Hanratty, head of the pier's Dance Pavilion, to plug Krupa's band as an attraction, but Hanratty won't even listen to them. But, while there, he meets singer Lily Racquel, who knows he is a phoney but might have the ability to to talk a radio-station manager into giving her an audition. She gives him a ring to help finance the project; he promptly loses it in a crap-game.

New York playboy Danny Churchill is sent to a small town in Arizona, where being sheriff is very dangerous, to keep away from girls, but he decides to open a dude ranch there. He asks his friend Slick, a professional gambler and his wife Kitty, to help him. Slick decides to go there in a cab, driven by shy Jimmy. Jimmy's younger sister Tessie also travels there. There Danny has fallen in love with Molly, but troubles arise for him when the local heavy decides that he doesn't like the ranch and announces running for sheriff. Danny and Slick got the idea that Jimmy would be the ideal candidate, especially because of the fact that the heavy has announced he would kill another sheriff. With some help Jimmy is elected, but Molly leaves Danny with a New York shyster for Mexico. Mitzi, Danny, Kitty, Patsy - Jimmy's sweetheart as well as Jimmy and Slick follow her to win her heart back for Danny, but they are followed by the local heavy and his friend.

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

A financially strapped college is transformed into a summer holiday resort with the help of music and radio stars.

Two men, Thurman and Beady, and a woman, Georgia, ply a confidence game in Alaska by selling 'salted' gold mines to gullible newcomers. But the cold Far North gets too hot for them and they move to greener pastures in the western United States. Business is good until a young cattleman, Tom Hatfield, falls for their trap. But Georgia falls in love with him and this causes problems for her partners.

The daughter of a formerly wealthy man tries to get a job singing on a radio show, but gets involved in a feud and murder.

The story of Andy Bryant, a University of Arizona student whose grades suffer because of his preoccupation with an upcoming intercollegiate rodeo. Andy's father is more interested in embarrassing a rival at the rodeo than he is with his son's academic progress. When his lack of focus nearly causes a tragic accident in the university chemistry lab, Andy decides to hunker down and study.

A telephone operator plays homicide detective with her boyfriend, making it harder for the police.

Krag Sabine has aroused the wrath of all the ranchers by stealing their land with the aid of his henchmen, led by Ace Barco; when Lafe Martin objects, the outlaws shoot him down. Lucky Randall promises Ann Martin he will avenge her wounded father. He sets up headquarters on the Martin ranch and sends for Bob Merritt and his men, the Texas Playboys (Jesse Ashlock, Leon McAuliffe, Cotton Thompson, Junior Barnard and Luke Wills). Krag organizes his remaining men for an attack on the ranch. Lucky's men get the upper hand but Krag escapes with Ann as his hostage.

A sailor helps two sisters start up a service canteen. The sailor soon becomes taken with gorgeous sister Jean, unaware that her sibling Patsy is also in love with him.

A talent agent sells his girlfriend to a nightclub -- as two separate acts. The deception and constant costume changes are too much for his girl.

An all-girl band hits paydirt—and mud—when they sign a male crooner and then sell five 25% shares of his contract.

Unscrupulous agent Rush Blake makes singing waiter Buddy Clayton a big radio star while Peggy Cornell, who has lost her own radio show, helps Buddy.

An all-girl band flees to Argentina to avoid their creditors. Comedy with songs.

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.

In this low-budget musical, two sets of politically ambitious parents attempt to pair up their youngsters who unfortunately despise each other and only pretend to like each other to please their parents. On the nights they are to go out, they sneak out with their respective true loves. It all works well until the unwilling couple find themselves falling in love for real. songs include: "I'm Nobody's Sweetheart Now", and "Got Romance".

Southern California's Hotel Coronado caters to and is frequented by members of the social upper-crust. Although she lives on the wrong side of the San Diego track, in a tent-city with her father. Otto, and ditzy sister, Violet, June Wray is a singer with the Eddy Duchin Orchestra appearing to the hotel. Johnny Marvin, an aspiring songwriter and the son of a wealthy automobile manufacturer, is staying at the hotel and, from they moment June and Johnny meet, they fall instantly in love. Trouble arises when Johnny's father objects to the romance, and complications and help arrive in the form of two Marine-hating sailors,Chuck Hornbostel and "Pinky" Falls, when Chuck marries June's ditzy sister.

A Marine Sergeant, wounded in overseas service, requires an operation, and the Navy psychiatrist recommends to the Captain and Colonel that "Sarge" be given a few weeks rest before hospitalization. Through the Dean of San Juan Junior College, Sarge enters the school on a temporary basis.

Allan Jones stars as hotshot baseball player Johnny Norton, in Havana for spring training. It turns out that Johnny has a beautiful singing voice, but only when he's suffering from a cold. Enterprising nightclub manager Barney Crane (William Frawley) attempts to inflict poor Johnny with cold germs, resulting in unchecked zaniness whenever our hero recovers sufficiently to lose his voice. The film's 63-minute running time manages to accommodate the drunken comedy relief of Hugh O'Connell and Jack Norton, and an abundance of musical numbers, courtesy of Allan Jones, Jane Frazee, the Horton Dancing Group, the Jivin' Jacks and Jills and Grace & Nicco.

Buddy Rogers and Marian Nixon playing the grown children of feuding German-Americans Frank Morgan and Joseph Cawthorn. Romance blossoms between Rogers and Nixon, while Morgan and Cawthorn continue muttering Teutonic imprecations at one another.

An amateur sleuth solves three murders at his son's New England college.

The growth of juvenile crime in a small town starts a movement for the building of a youth center.

Bandleader Tim Hartley's father objects strongly to his son's occupation choice and packs him off to Hawaii to manage the family hotel holdings. This proves to be a wrong move as Hawaiia has more bands than it does pineapples.

A secretary catches the eye of her amorous boss while her regular boyfriend keeps trying to propose marriage to her.

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.

The various residents and occupants of a resort hotel await the outcome of a horse race at a nearby track, as it will affect each of their lives in different ways.

A sister act finds itself stranded and broke, and teams up with a medicine man who is promoting a child talent contest.

A couple of gamblers pressure the local night club owner to rig things so the local college rowing crew will lose their upcoming race.

The plot gets under way when Joanne, a carnival hootchy-kootchy dancer, is accepted into a snobbish college sorority when it is assumed that she hails from a blueblooded Virginia family.

Three young girls working in an agency have build a singing trio. They want to "lease" the Dictaphone of their boss to make a record of their singing, but they are caught and fired. When they are not able to pay their rent any longer, they decide to try it on an amateur contest at a radio station.

Theatrical agent Waldo Main is inducted into the army, and turns his now clientless agency over to his secretary Dottie Duncan. Dottie decides to organize an all-girl orchestra to fill the void caused by so many orchestra members being called to service due to WWII, and joins struggling singers/songwriters Sally Richards and Sue Ford in this endeavor. Dottie's screwball schemes to get engagements for the group often lead to disaster.

Ruby Keeler teams with the Nelsons (of TV and radio fame) as the singer in Ozzie's band. The setting is a college campus which is suffering from monetary woes, but somehow Ozzie's band manages to attract enough attention to increase the enrollment and keep the school from having to shut down.

A campus flirt who has been "pinned" by most of the boys of Sigma Chi fraternity falls for a no-nonsense athlete who doesn't have time for such diversions as women.

Young man just out of college tries to persuade his father, who owns a record company, to start signing up rock 'n' roll acts.

Two pairs of lovers try to thwart an arranged marriage at Costa Rican fiesta time.

National DJs help a promoter make an unknown girl a star, to prove the power of radio over TV.

In this musical, a gang of college students decide to play a little trick by creating the perfect student. The fictional gal has everything a university would ever want. The trouble begins when the campus psych professor becomes determined to meet this girl. If the gang cannot bring her forward, they will be expelled. They hire a New York actress to portray the imaginary girl and all is well at the end. Songs include: "It Seems I've Heard That Song Before," "You're So Good to Me" "If It's Love," "Man," "Gotcha Too Ta Mee," "You Got to Study, Buddy." All the songs were penned by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne who went on to become one of Hollywood's top song-writing teams.

Jack Haley plays Jack North, the nether end of a vaudeville horse act who inherits a western ranch. When he heads to the Great Outdoors to take possession, Jack winds up at the wrong place: a swanky dude ranch. He immediately begins running things, at it's quite a while before his error is discovered. By the time he shows up at his own ranch, he's up to his ears in unpaid debts-which naturally requires a fund-raising musical show as a bail-out. Harriet Hilliard handles the romantic portion of the proceedings, occasionally dueting with her real-life husband, bandleader Ozzie Nelson.

In this musical western, a cowboy band is offered the chance to appear in a Hollywood movie and begins the journey to the West Coast. Unfortunately, the band ends up stranded in Texas and must take a job running a ranch. Musical mayhem ensues: Songs include: "Let's Love Again," "Where the Prairie Meets the Sky," "Don't You Ever Be a Cowboy," "Texas Polka," "No Letter Today," "I Got Mellow in the Yellow of the Moon," "Sip Nip Song," "Salt-Water Cowboy," "The Blues," "Little Brown Jug" and "And Then."

A former bootlegger is now the prosperous owner of a popular nightclub. A hustling promoter manages to pass off a young singer as the heir to a fortune and gets her booked at the club.

The "Eleven Brooklyn Bombshells," a band led by Mickey Monroe ('Dennis O'Keefe (I)' ), are stranded in Tahiti at the time of the fall of France to the Nazis. Suzette "Suzie" Durand (Simone Simon). a French-American girl singing in a nightclub is consumed with a desire to go to the United States. Things go from bad to worse for the band,. and they are faced with the necessity of either taking a girl singer into the group,which they all regard as bad luck, or starving. The band insists that she be dropped as soon as they can earn enough to catch a bot home. But Mickey falls in love with Suzie, and smuggles her on board the ship.

In this musical comedy, two star-struck small town kids head for the Big Apple and become famous for their jitterbug act. Their fame doesn't last long, but they had fun anyway. Songs include: "Baltimore Bubble," "Gingham Gown," "Just a Bore," "Wasn't It You," "Kaneski Waltz" (Frank Skinner, Charles Henderson).

In this Western, Ken Curtis, Columbia Pictures' low-budget answer to Gene Autry, romanced one of the studio's most beautiful starlets, Rita Hayworth-lookalike Dusty Anderson. She played Helen Wyatt, whose father (the rotund Guy Kibbee) loses his ranch to the hayseed singing group the Hoosier Hot Shots. Unbeknownst to Wyatt, the Hot Shots have been swindled by a couple of Eastern crooks (Ian Keith and Matt Willis) and consider themselves the lawful owners. Chased by the irascible Wyatt, the band members seek protection from aspiring singer Curt Stanton (Curtis), who they mistake for a gunslinger.

Arriving in Arizona, the band members discover that the hotel is haunted and that it properly belongs to young Jimmy Benson (Curtis), the nephew of the previous owner. The "ghosts," however, turns out to be a trio of confidence men, Zeke Winslow (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams), Noah Jones (Raymond Hatton) and Slim Jensen Victor Potel, who are hoping to buy the place themselves.

While raising cash to pay a debt, a Vegas gambler tricks a night club crooner there who looks like him to play him for a bit.The gambler's Latina girlfriend opens the eyes of the prissy crooner.