Showtime USA is the title of a series of DVD double features from VCI. There are 4 volumes and each DVD has 2 musical films from the 1940s and 1950s. The acts are varied though they might follow a theme. Volume 1 has a Western themed movie, the other movie is is more generic, much like you'd imagine vaudeville would be like. Other volumes, and I've got the lot, feature a minstrel show, plenty of western music, some international bits, another variety show and a square dance.
Everybody's Dancin' 1950 Western Swing musician Space Cooley made the film and Robert L Lippert released the film. Spade and A Robert Nunes wrote the original story and Dorothy Raison wrote the screenplay. It was the second film Cooney and Lippert made together and it's also known as Western Varieties. In 1961 Spade was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of his second wife. He only served 7 years before the parole board scheduled him to be released in 1970. Not much of sentence for beating your wife to death in front of your kid, the times, I guess. Spade wasn't to get his parole, he was furloughed for a benefit concert for the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County, he suffered a fatal heart attack after preforming.
Richard Lane is a layabout who tries to help set up a big show in the failing Waltzland Ballroom. Spade's dad had worked there in the old days and he's a friend of the owner, Mary Berne played by Barbara Woodell. Richard has no money so he tricks people into working for free. It all works out in the end and he doesn't go to jail. There's music and celebrity guests. Lyle Talbot is a contractor, Sid Melton is an agent, Sons of the Pioneers play themselves, so do Roddy McDowall, Adele Jergens, James Ellison and Russell Hayden. There's plenty of music and it's pretty ordinary stuff. It wouldn't make me want to see the movie again, neither would the story. I only gave it a 4.
Varieties On Parade 1951 The IMDb gives Ron Ormond the directing credit but lists no writers. There isn't really any story here, the movies is only 54 minutes long. Jackie Coogan, Eddie Garr, Tom Neal, Eddie Dean, Iris Adrian and Lyle Talbot plays themselves and they provide the hosting and comedy parts of the program. There's a big parade of acts, juggles, cyclists, acrobats, musicians and singers, dancers, a dog act, and a lady with a pantomime horse. I enjoyed it better than the other movie, the acts were a bit more entertaining. It kind of reminded me of the old Ed Sullivan show. Not sorry to see the movies, wish they were better. Mind you, you cna't expect much from this low end sort of product.
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