The best Russell Simpson’s music movies
We present our ranking of the best Russell Simpson’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Russell Simpson.
San Francisco
7.2/10
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the big earthquake.
Riding High
4.9/10
No relation to the 1950 Frank Capra film of the same name, the 1943 Technicolor musical Riding High is a by-the-numbers vehicle for Dorothy Lamour and Dick Powell. Lamour stars as Ann Castle, a former burlesque queen who heads westward to claim her father's silver mine. Powell plays mining engineer Steve Baird, who like Ann has a vested interest in the worked-out mine. With the help of genial counterfeiter Mortimer J. Slocum (Victor Moore), Steve and Ann are able to peddle mining stock, thus saving her from bankruptcy. The stockholders are in a lynching mood when it appears that they've been flim-flammed, but a last minute "miracle" saves the day. Featured in the cast are Paramount stalwarts Cass Daley and Gil Lamb, the former doing her quasi-Martha Raye act and the latter swallowing his harmonica for the millionth time. Production values are excellent and the songs are exuberantly performed; it's only in its hackneyed plot that Riding High slows to a clip-clop.
Meet Me at the Fair
5.9/10
In 1904, Doc Tilbee, medicine show huckster and champion tall-tale teller, gives a ride to a young boy escaped from an orphanage, where bad conditions (the result of political graft) are being investigated by new appointee Zerelda Wing, who doesn't know that her fiancée is one of the politicians responsible. Tad wants to stay with his new friend Doc, who is attracted to Zerelda, to the discomfiture of his old flame Clara...all amid nostalgic musical numbers.
Moonlight in Vermont
6.4/10
A poor country girl from Vermont travels to New York City to attend a theatrical school.
Paddy O'Day
6/10
A wealthy, eccentric collector of stuffed birds (Pinky Tomlin) and a beautiful Russian singer (Rita Hayworth) provide refuge to an orphaned Irish child (Jane Withers) who has arrived illegally in New York. Director Lewis Seiler's 1936 comedy, with numerous songs, also features Jane Darwell, George Givot, Robert Dudley, Vera Lewis, Louise Carter, Francis Ford, Russell Simpson and Clarence Wilson.
