The best William Newell’s music movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best William Newell’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about William Newell.
City for Conquest
7.2/10
The heartbreaking but hopeful tale of Danny Kenny and Peggy Nash, two sweethearts who meet and struggle through their impoverished lives in New York City. When Peggy, hoping for something better in life for both of them, breaks off her engagement to Danny, he sets out to be a championship boxer, while she becomes a dancer paired with a sleazy partner. Will tragedy reunite the former lovers?
Top Man
7.1/10
In this WW II musical, a young man suddenly finds himself in charge of his family when his father is called to war. To help the flagging spirits of local factory workers, the plucky lad, his siblings and his schoolmates put on a lively little show. With a little work, he even convinces Count Basie to come with his band.
Swanee River
6.2/10
Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of the time, the film is more fictional than factual biography.
Naughty But Nice
6.1/10
Donald Hardwick (Dick Powell) is a stuffed-shirt, classical music professor. His family and small-town music college that he works are of equal mindset. When Don visits his black-sheep aunt in New York in order to find a buyer for his Rhapsody he is exposed to her shocking swing music crowd. His life begins to make dramatic changes after drinking a "lemonade" that turns out to be a Hurricane.
Honeymoon Lodge
7/10
Honeymoon Lodge is a musical variation on the old Awful Truth plotline. Divorce-bound Bob and Carol Sterling (David Bruce, June Vincent) make a last-ditch attempt to avoid their legal breakup by restaging their mountain-resort honeymoon. Things get complicated when a rancher named Big Boy (Rod Cameron, in a Ralph Bellamy-style "sap" role) shows up at the resort in ardent pursuit of Carol, while Lorraine Logan (Harriet Hilliard) sets her cap for Bob.
Ice-Capades
5.4/10
By Republic Pictures standards, 1941's Ice-Capades certainly qualifies as an "all-star" film. The many subplots center around a performance of the real-life Ice-Capades skating troupe, featuring such luminaries as Belita, Red McCarthy, Megan Taylor, and future Republic film queen Vera Hruba Ralston. James Ellison plays the nominal leading character, a hotshot newsreel cameraman named Bob Clemens. Assigned to film an international skating star in action, Clemens inadvertently wastes miles of celluloid on aspiring skater Marie (Dorothy Lewis) rather than the real star, the unphotogenic Karen Vajda (Rene Riano). But not to worry: With the help of slick showbiz promoter Larry Herman (Phil Silvers), Marie becomes an Ice-Capades headliner in her own right. In addition to Silvers, the comedy relief in Ice-Capades is in the capable hands of Vera Vague (Barbara Jo Allen), Jerry Colonna and Gus Schilling.
Rose of Washington Square
6.7/10
Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.
Rhythm in the Clouds
5.7/10
Judy Walker is a poor songwriter who, through mistaken identity, gets her songs played on the radio.
All by Myself
6.6/10
Career woman Jean. almost a partner in Mark's advertising firm, has been falling in love with Mark, who of course is unaware of it. But unknown to Jean, Mark has become engaged to singer Val. When Jean finds out she tries to save face by saying that she is also engaged, and then uses a little social blackmail to get psychiatrist Bill Perry to pretend to be her fiancé for an evening out with Mark and Val.
On Stage Everybody
6.5/10
Radio's miracle show is on the screen.
Get Hep to Love
6.8/10
Orphan prodigy singer runs away from her oppressive aunt and tricks a rural couple into adopting her.
