Quote:
Originally Posted by BDiH
There was an Akron on Hollywood Way, across from Albin's Hobbies & Toys, which is now the Train Shack.
I remember going to the grand opening of Newberry's in the early 1950s. The California Theatre opened around the same time. I saw...[...]...Rhubarb at the Magnolia in 1951 and later The Birds and the Bees and Sing Boy Sing. Has anyone heard of these movies, much less seen them?
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Never heard of
Sing Boy Sing. Wiki says this is a musical drama starring Tommy Sands as a singing idol with a controlling manager, a la Elvis Presley and was expanded from an episode of the Kraft Television Theatre, titled The Singin' Idol, also starring Sands.
The Birds and the Bees sounds familiar, but that doesn't mean I've seen it. (IMDB Says it's a remake of Preston Sturges' "The Lady Eve.")
Now
Rhubarb I've heard of.
Tom Hatten used to show it a lot on his KTLA movie programs that he hosted. It's based on a 1946 H. Allen Smith novel about a cat that inherits a baseball team. It's very Damon Runyonesque. I actually read it about ten or more years ago. I believe there was a sequel to the novel, too. I have the DVD of it, too. And if you don't know, a "rhubarb" is also baseball slang for a fight or argument among players and/or umpires.
Ray Milland and Jan Sterling are the stars. William Frawley is also in it. Sources say that "Strother Martin and Leonard Nimoy have uncredited roles in this film" as well. This film is often called a screwball noir comedy. I can see that. (!) Ray Milland also did another screwball baseball film called "It Happens Every Spring" where he is a college professor who invents a substance that, if you rub it on bats, it repels the baseballs. (I wonder what happens if you rub it on other things?)
Tom Hatten used to tell the story about a nationwide casting search for the cat to play Rhubarb, and would say that it rivaled the search for someone to play Scarlett in Gone with the Wind. And after all that they found him (Orangey) in their own backyard.
On the Cinema Cats site, for the review of this movie, they write: "We will be posting a Feature Story on the behind the scenes casting of Orangey and his illustrious career in a future article, as it’s far too detailed to include in this review." But I can't find it on there. (Can you?)
Sources say that this cat, Orangey, is the only animal to have won 2 Patsy Awards (for animal actors) for Rhubarb and for playing "Cat" in Breakfast at Tiffany's ten years later!
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