By Richard Harland Smith
Curtain Call
Brief Synopsis
Two producers get back at a temperamental star by putting her in a sure flop.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Frank Woodruff
Director
Barbara Read
Helen Middleton
Alan Mowbray
Donald Avery
Helen Vinson
Charlotte Morley
Donald Macbride
Jeff Crandall
John Archer
Ted Palmer
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Comedy
Romance
Release Date
Apr
26,
1940
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 3m
Sound
Mono (RCA Recording System)
Color
Black and White
Synopsis
Broadway producing team Jeff Crandall and Donald Avery resort to desperate measures when threatened with the loss of their one asset, tempermental star Charlotte Morley, who has begun contract negotiations with a rival producer. With only one remaining show on her contract with Crandall and Avery, the producers try to convince her to stay with the company, but she refuses. Hoping to blackmail the actress into signing a new contract by forcing her to play in the worst play they can find, the producers buy the ghastly first play written by country girl Helen Middleton. Helen's play is a tragedy appropriately titled The End of Everything . Their plan backfires, however, when the star professes that the tragedy is the greatest play she has ever read and she is eager to act in it. Faced with the dilemma of producing the opus at a cost of $30,000 and thereby ruining their careers, or paying the star $50,000, of which they are short $49,999, for failure to live up to their contract, the pair set out to win permission to rewrite the play. Meanwhile, Helen, overjoyed by her instant success, bids farewell to her hometown of Medbury, refuses her sweetheart Ted Palmer's proposal of marriage, and journeys to New York to begin her new career. Helen, at the strong urgings of Charlotte, refuses their request to tamper with the script, so Crandall instructs Avery to romance Helen, hoping that she will fall in love with him and give in to his demands. The plan fails, but Crandall's secretary discovers that the work may be re-written according to a certain previously unnoticed clause in Helen's contract. Meanwhile, Ted arrives in New York to try to convince Helen to marry him, but she sends him away. When the play goes into rehearsal, the leading actor complains about the terrible dialogue, and Avery, in a fit of anger, tells Helen how bad her play is. Upset, Helen runs away and hides in a cheap hotel until opening night. During her absence, Avery rewrites the play, and when it opens, it becomes an instant hit as a comedy. All ends happily when the disillusioned Helen decides that she prefers a home and marriage to the glamour of the Broadway stage, and returns to Medbury with Ted.
Director
Frank Woodruff
Director
Cast
Barbara Read
Helen Middleton
Alan Mowbray
Donald Avery
Helen Vinson
Charlotte Morley
Donald Macbride
Jeff Crandall
John Archer
Ted Palmer
Leona Maricle
Miss Smith
Frank Faylen
Spike Malone
Tom Kennedy
Attendant
Ralph Forbes
Leslie Barrivale
J. M. Kerrigan
Mr. Middleton
Ann Shoemaker
Mrs. Middleton
Tommy Kelly
Fred Middleton
Crew
Howard Benedict
Producer
John L. Cass
Recording
Albert D'agostino
Art Director Associate
Howard J. Green
Story
Millard Kaufman
Screenwriter
Lee Marcus
Executive Producer
Harry Marker
Film Editor
Russell Metty
Director of Photography
Van Nest Polglase
Art Director
Renié
Gowns
Dewey Starkey
Assistant Director
Roy Webb
Music Score
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Comedy
Romance
Release Date
Apr
26,
1940
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 3m
Sound
Mono (RCA Recording System)
Color
Black and White
Articles
Curtain Call -
This RKO showbiz comedy is not widely remembered today but it has a fascinating pedigree and anticipates the plot of Mel Brooks' The Producers (1968) by nearly thirty years. Based on an original story by Howard J. Green (Morning Glory) and produced by former Broadway press representative Howard Benedict, Curtain Call stars Alan Mowbray and Donald MacBride as hapless theatrical producers who conspire to hold back their temperamental leading lady (Helen Vinson) from professional advancement by sabotaging her career with a guaranteed bomb - a stinker of a drama by a first-time playwright (Barbara Read) titled "The End of Everything." Complications arise when their star player professes to love the play and MacBride must woo the headstrong young writer to keep her from learning what is being done with her work. Curtain Call was the first feature film directed by Frank Woodruff (Lady Scarface) and an early job as well for novelist-turned-screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Hopping from studio to studio during the Depression as he made his reputation with a run of smartly-written scripts (among them, John Farrow's grim jungle survival tale Five Came Back, co-written with Nathaniel West), Dalton earned his first Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of RKO's Kitty Foyle (1940) but is best remembered for the films he wrote after being blacklisted by the House on Un-American Activities Committee: Roman Holiday (1953), The Brave One (1956), Spartacus (1960), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962).
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
Curtain Call -
This RKO showbiz comedy is not widely remembered today but it has a fascinating pedigree and anticipates the plot of Mel Brooks' The Producers (1968) by nearly thirty years. Based on an original story by Howard J. Green (Morning Glory) and produced by former Broadway press representative Howard Benedict, Curtain Call stars Alan Mowbray and Donald MacBride as hapless theatrical producers who conspire to hold back their temperamental leading lady (Helen Vinson) from professional advancement by sabotaging her career with a guaranteed bomb - a stinker of a drama by a first-time playwright (Barbara Read) titled "The End of Everything." Complications arise when their star player professes to love the play and MacBride must woo the headstrong young writer to keep her from learning what is being done with her work. Curtain Call was the first feature film directed by Frank Woodruff (Lady Scarface) and an early job as well for novelist-turned-screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Hopping from studio to studio during the Depression as he made his reputation with a run of smartly-written scripts (among them, John Farrow's grim jungle survival tale Five Came Back, co-written with Nathaniel West), Dalton earned his first Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of RKO's Kitty Foyle (1940) but is best remembered for the films he wrote after being blacklisted by the House on Un-American Activities Committee: Roman Holiday (1953), The Brave One (1956), Spartacus (1960), and Lonely Are the Brave (1962).
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film marked the Hollywood debut of radio and stage director Frank Woodruff. The picture also marked producer Howard Benedict's first film for RKO. According to the file for the film in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, RKO was warned by the PCA to "take care with the 'fancy gyrations'" of the jitterbug dance in the film.
