Best Music Movies of 1945

In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.

During their annual visit to the Iowa State Fair, the Frake family enjoy many adventures. Proud patriarch Abel has high hopes for his champion swine Blueboy; and his wife Melissa enters the mincemeat and pickles contest...with hilarious results.

While on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, Duke and Chester find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been 'stolen' by thugs. In Alaska to recover her father's map, Sal Van Hoyden falls in with Ace Larson, who secretly wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke, Chester, the thugs, Ace and his henchman chase each other all over the countryside—for the map.

Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.

Boisterous nightclub entertainer Buzzy Bellew was the witness to a murder committed by gangster Ten Grand Jackson. One night, two of Jackson's thugs kill Buzzy and dump his body in the lake at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Buzzy comes back as a ghost and summons his bookworm twin, Edwin Dingle, to Prospect Park so that he can help the police nail Jackson.

A concert pianist with amnesia fights to regain her memory.

Anything can happen during a weekend at New York's Waldorf-Astoria: a glamorous movie star meets a world-weary war correspondent and mistakes him for a jewel thief; a soldier learns that without an operation he'll die and so looks for one last romance with a beautiful but ambitious stenographer; a cub reporter tries to get the goods on a shady man's dealing with a foreign potentate.

Prof. Joseph Elsner guides his protégé Frydryk Chopin through his formative years to early adulthood in Poland. The professor takes him to Paris, where he eventually comes under the wing and influence of novelist George Sand and rises to prominence in the music world, to the exclusion of his old friends and patriotic feelings towards Poland.

The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.

Bumbling detective Stan Laurel disguises himself as a famous matador in order to hide from the vengeful Richard K. Muldoon, who spent time in prison on Stan's bogus testimony.

A trumpet player in a radio orchestra falls asleep during a commercial and dreams he's Athanael, an angel deputized to blow the Last Trumpet at exactly midnight on Earth, thus marking the end of the world.

A soldier falls in love with a newly-married woman after her husband abandons her for a business meeting on their honeymoon.

Director Hal Walker's 1945 musical comedy stars Betty Hutton as a hat-check girl at New York City's famous nightclub. The cast also includes Barry Fitzgerald, Don Defore, Andy Russell, Iria Adrian and Robert Benchley.

Two sisters from Hungary become famous entertainers in the early 1900s. Fictionalized biography with lots of songs.

A millionaire joins the Navy hoping to find a girl who'll marry him for himself, not for his money. A beautiful gold-digger who works at a resort hotel sets out to get him.

Paramount's highly-fictionalized 1945 musical biography of Texas Guinan, the Roaring '20s New York nightclub owner and celebrity with alleged underworld connections who famously greeted her customers with the phrase, "Hello, suckers!"

Ole and Chic are comedians employed in a nightclub, but seeking to be released from their contracts to take a better job. But the prissy nightclub owner, B. J. Wagonhorn, refuses to let them go. In reprisal, they start hurling insults at the nightclub patrons… a ploy that soon has them facing multiple lawsuits… to the delight of three struggling attorneys, Charlie Rodman, Bettty Wilson and Arthur Lane.

Inspirational documentary short film featuring Hollywood stars promoting the sales of War Bonds through songs and skits.

Frank Sinatra teaches a group of young boys a lesson in religious tolerance.

The staff of a record factory drown their sorrows at Duffy's Tavern, while the company owner faces threats of bankruptcy.

A madcap comedy about a kid sister who tries to steal her older sister's boyfriend. Her plan involves joining forces with a burglar to rob the unfortunate suitor's home.

A Barbary Coast saloon owner hopes to marry his way into San Francisco's high society. Directed by Henry Hathaway, the film was released in 1945.

When a wealthy newspaper proprietor passes away, his crooked business partner moves to secure the deceased's fortune by substituting a false will. But 'Corona' Flanagan is onto the fraudster, and his efforts to unmask the villain see him popping in and out of jail – which isn't all that bad, since the governor is an old friend of his – and dressing up as a Russian countess...

Johnny Riggs, a con man on the lam, finds himself in a Latin-American country named Patria. There, he overhears a convent-bred rich girl praying to her guardian angel for help in managing her tangled business affairs. Riggs decides to materialize as the girl's "angel", gains her unquestioning confidence, and helps himself to the deluded girl's millions. Just as he and his partner are about to flee Patria with their booty, Riggs realizes he has fallen in love with the girl and returns the money, together with a note that is part confession and part love letter. But the larcenous duo's escape from Patria turns out to be more difficult than they could ever have imagined.

Young Sherry Williams dreams of having a singing career, and she idolizes her older sister Josephine, who has gone to New York to perform on the stage. When Sherry is distraught just before performing at her school, a visiting Broadway producer encourages her by telling her positive things about her sister. Soon afterwards, Sherry decides to make a surprise trip to New York to visit Josephine - but what she finds there is not at all what she expected

Four types of visual interpretation of four songs by Karol Szymanowski. Polish words by Julian Tuwin, English translation by Jan Sliwinski.

Bill wants to join the Army, but he's 4F so he asks a wizard to help him, but the wizard has slight problems with his history knowlege, so he sends Bill everywhere in history, but not to WWII.

A Mexican crooner (Tito Guizar) tries to put off fans by faking marriage to his American co-star (Constance Moore).

An American singer stranded in Mexico is hired by a banker to distract a Mexican matador who is making a play for the banker's wife. They hatch a scheme whereby she pretends to be a Spanish countess.

In turn-of-the-century London a young music publisher fights both competitors and piracy in a time where author's royalties were still unprotected.

Radio singing star, Eve Porter, wants a vacation during her show's summer hiatus, but her manager and press have booked her for additional work. She refuses and goes to Las Vegas. When she finds them there hunting her down, she manages to escape them by hiding in the car of a newspaper reporter. She comes out of hiding while he is driving, but everything she says is misconstrued, making him believe that she is a recently-escaped convict, "The Singing Widow". He plans to use this as a story to get back into the good graces of his editor. Through some comic mishaps, he learns who she really is. He then decides to take her back to Hollywood to collect the reward for her return. But now love has entered the mix, and must be resolved with his job and her engagement to another.

An American girl falls for an RAF pilot while performing at a British music hall.

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.

A star hockey player with the Wildcats is barred from Hockey for hitting a referee. Through the actions of Chris, Don is able to get a job with Buzz Fletcher's ice-show as the novelty act.

Burlesque queen Doll Face Carroll is dismissed from an audition for a legitimate Broadway show because she lacks culture. Her boss/manager Mike decides that she can get both culture and plenty of publicity by writing her autobiography. He hires a ghost writer to do all the work, but doesn't count on the possibility that Doll Face and her collaborator might have more than a book on their minds.

In this romantic comedy, three man-hungry sisters consult a fortune-teller to help them with their romantic futures.

Set in New York's Lower East Side during the Gay '90s, this lively low-budget musical follows the exploits of a feisty and talented saloon owner's daughter who loves nothing more than to perform in her father's tavern. Her late-night shenanigans appall her wealthy and socially conscious aunt who launches a secret campaign to shut down the bar and force her niece to reside in her palatial home.

Two couples work through their issues in this backstage Broadway musical.

A girl is desperate to get to Washington D.C. to be with her lonesome brother, a wounded G.I. She persuades Bing Crosby to let her join his caravan.

A brash young singer and an unemployed "jukebox girl" hire an elderly Confederate "colonel" to teach them to be "southern" so they can land a radio gig for sponsor Plantation Coffee. Comedy.

A singing ranch foreman (Roy Rogers) and his friend (George "Gabby" Hayes) urge a chorus-girl heiress (Dale Evans) not to sell the property.

Broadway producer Earl Carroll was a Ziegfeld-like entrepreneur who staged lavish revues featuring attractive young ladies. Carroll's annual "Vanities" provided story material for three Hollywood films: Murder at the Vanities (34), A Night at Earl Carroll's (40) and Earl Carroll Vanities (45). This last film was produced by Republic Pictures, a bread-and-butter studio specializing in Westerns and serials; Republic had made musicals before, but few of them were expensive enough to allow for lavish production numbers. Earl Carroll Vanities is likewise rather threadbare, though some of the individual musical highlights aren't bad. The plot, such as it is, concerns financially strapped nightclub owner Eve Arden, who finagles Earl Carroll into staging one of his revues at her club.

A young woman who is unable to pay her rent gets some unexpected help when the other tenants throw a last-minute rent party in her apartment. In the process, they all charm the landlady out of a year's rent. The entire story is told in song (swing music) and dance (Jitterbug, Lindy Hop etc.).

In this crime drama, a young woman leaves her unhappy life at home to become a sophisticated night club singer. Her first job is nearly fatal when she entangles herself with the mobsters who own the joint and learns too much about their operation. Her boss decides to kill her and make it look like suicide. An intrepid reporter disbelieves the report and exposes the truth to the public.

In this musical comedy, an arrogant war journalist is sailing back to the Big Apple after the end of WW II. En route, he has been assigned to watch over a band of teenagers who were trapped in Europe four years ago while entertaining the troops. Their entrapment has done nothing to dim their enthusiasm for performing and while waiting for passage the crews entertain everyone at every opportunity. Songs include: "I'll Buy That Dream" (sung by Anne Jeffreys), "Heaven Is a Place Called Home," "Seven O'Clock in the Morning (Waking up Boogie)," "Somebody Stole My Poor Little Heart" (Herb Magidson, Allie Wrubel), and "The Lord's Prayer" (arranged by Albert Hay Malotte).

An adventurer is promised $1 million if he can recover a fortune in pearls, but they are guarded by a tribe of fierce natives.

An animated safety film adapts the nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice" into a song where the mice are factory workers who disregard safety rules and wind up injuring themselves.

The story involves a rather odd flashback by Dale who is visiting El Dorado, home of her grandmother. She dreams about her grandmother's adventures including a romance with a cowboy who looks very much like Roy. Roy, of course, also exists in the present for Dale.

In this amiable Columbia B musical, society girl Ann Miller escapes her Back Bay family by performing in the chorus line in a burlesque house. But trouble starts when her boss (William Wright) decides to build her up as a star. One of the many bread-and-butter Columbia productions graced by the contributions of Cole’s in-house dance studio. Cole dances behind Miller in “I’m Gonna See My Baby.” --Museum of Modern Art