The Ross Sisters – Solid Potato Salad
An evening pause: From the 1944 movie, Broadway Rhythm. It might be cheesy, but who cares.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
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Suddenly my back hurts!
Oh my! That has to hurt. Love it, though.
My fantasy mind just went into overdrive.
I was born way too late.
They’re bent out of shape over potato salad ?
“The Ross Sisters were a trio of American singers and dancers comprising Betsy Ann Ross (1926–1996), Veda Victoria “Vicki” Ross (1927–2002), and Dixie Jewell Ross (1929–1963), who used the stage names Aggie, Maggie, and Elmira.[1] They performed as a three-part harmony trio, who also danced and have become particularly noted for their acrobatics and contortionism. Their careers peaked during the 1940s, when they featured prominently in the 1944 film Broadway Rhythm,[2] footage from which appeared in the 1994 compilation film That’s Entertainment! III, and later online.”
eddie– watch it!
(in 1944, the youngest was 15 years old…)
Col Beausabre-
Thanks for the factoids.
Check this out:
https://flashbak.com/dickie-henderson-sad-story-dixie-ross-sisters-390121/
related….
“Three Winter Sisters”
Soundie (ca. “1940’s”)
https://youtu.be/BVKkNAf1ruI
2:59
“The sisters were Effie, Mae, and Dorothy Winter. Their father, Everett H. Winter, a physician, originally from Maine, died of cancer when the girls were very young and they went into performing to earn money. They traveled extensively all over the United States, Europe and South America performing with some of the greatest entertainers of the era. They entertained US armed forces troops while traveling with Bob Hope’s USO tour. They were also trained to be trick pony riders and performed in Billy Rose’s Broadway production of Jumbo. In this performance they are accompanied by the Glenn Miller Modernaires, Andy Mayo and Reg Kehoe and His Marimba Queens.”
Broadway Rhythm is one of the finest Technicolor films ever shot as this clip makes clear. I saw it projected from a pristine print in a revival house more than 40 years ago. Breathtaking. It starred George Murphy, who was, much later, a one-term Senator from California and the subject of one of Tom Lehrer’s satirical songs, and the comparatively little-known Virginia Simms, seen in this clip. Lower-billed were the preposterously gorgeous Gloria DeHaven – also seen (barely) in this clip – and a young Nancy Walker, decades prior to her iconic Bounty commercials.
Sadly, everyone in this film has now passed on. The divine Gloria was the last to go just 2-1/2 years ago.
eddie willers,
You and me both. And even the Ross Sisters have to fall in line behind the awesome Gloria DeHaven.
It’s still one of the wonders of the age that the Ross Sisters ever made it past the Hays Code censors.
Dick-
great factoids and an excellent point about the Hays Code. I can’t prove this right here, but when you get into 1942-1944-ish, sexual mores lightened up considerably. There’s something about war & sex.
Thelma White’s & Her All Girl Band
Shoo Shoo Ya Mama
Soundie 1946
https://youtu.be/KCPlc24JjVQ
2:36
(“I wonder…who boogies her woogie now? You’d be surprised…”
Infamously known as Mae, the tough mistress of dope-dealer Jack in “Tell Your Children” AKA Reefer Madness.
While doing USO tours in Alaska she contracted a polio-like disease which put her out of work for 5 years. She did some work in the early 50’s and eventually became an Agent for Robert Blake and James Coburn.
Yet again you demonstrate your mastery of nugget-finding on YouTube. Neat stuff.
tangential–
Restored 1939 “Mills Panoram”
https://youtu.be/Hn26O7f97IE
3:05
“The large endless reel held 8 or 9 complete soundies so you can watch multiple films without changing the reel.”
http://www.1940.co.uk/acatalog/soundies.html
“Soundies – A new form of entertainment.”
Written By Nigel Bewley
“Soundies were a brand new form of entertainment conceived in early 1940, born in January 1941 and then suffered a lingering demise mid-way through 1947. They were three minute black and white films with an optical soundtrack designed to be shown on self-contained, coin-operated 16mm rear projection machines situated in bars, diners, nightclubs, roadhouses and other public places throughout the States and Canada.
The most widely distributed of these projectors was the Panoram, a complicated device using a system of mirrors and with a screen mounted on top of a stylish cabinet. They were made by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago, market leaders in the manufacture of juke boxes and coin-operated machines, at the cost of $600 (about $12,000 today).
The range of Soundies catered for all tastes and included swing, big bands, jazz, blues, country and western, hillbilly, Gospel, Latin American, Hawaiian, dance, musical comedy, vaudeville and even swimmers, ice-skaters, knife throwers and gymnasts! One reel of eight Soundies was released each week, with more hitting the Panorams at holidays and other peak periods.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s son, James, formed a company to make the films in 1940, but distribution did not commence properly until 1941 after the Panorams were perfected. A few rival companies set up to produce the films, but the biggest was RCM Productions, named after James Roosevelt himself, songwriter Sam Coslow and Herbert Mills the Panoram manufacturer.
Soundies were unpopular with cinemas and other exhibitors and ran into trouble with the film projectionists’ union but between 1941 and 1947 more than 1,800 were produced and distributed, many of them reissued.
War time restrictions spelled doom for Soundies and by summer 1946 only around 2,000 projectors were in use throughout North America compared to the 10,000 only three years previously.”