"I'd done songs in other movies, but they were low-budget productions. "I had two songs to do, and I was very excited," said Storm in her autobiography. Storm was also upset with Del Ruth because he wouldn't allow her, a trained singer, to perform her own songs in the film. Director Roy Del Ruth, she felt, didn't make the most of the story's potential. The material was decidedly "Capra-esque" - a warmhearted human story about the "little guy" with underlying social and political commentary - and would have suited his trademark directing style well. It’s not quite a Christmas classic, but it is a very good film.From a post on tcm.com, quoting from Gale's autobiography, published in 1981.Īctress Gale Storm was always sorry that Frank Capra hadn't been the one to direct It Happened on Fifth Avenue. The movie was nominated for a best Writing Oscar, but lost to Miracle on 34th Street. The complications of syndication kept it off TV screens for years, but it came back recently. It was successful enough to Monogram to eventually rename itself. He sold the rights to Monogram Pictures, a poverty row studio best known for B pictures and westerns.Monogram was trying to improve its reputation and created Allied Artists, making It Happened on Fifth Avenue their first production. It was originally planned by Frank Capra as the inaugural film for his Liberty Pictures, but he dropped it when he saw the script to It’s a Wonderful Life. The movie has an interesting production history. is probably best known as the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.ĭirector Roy Del Ruth was one of the top directors of the 30s and early 40s. John Hamilton (Perry White in The Adventures of Superman) has a few lines, and the great Charles Lane shows up as a prickly landlord. There are quite a few familiar faces in the movie. And Charlie Ruggles was a successful character actor for years. I remember Gale Storm fondly from the TV shows My Little Margie and The Gale Storm Show (Oh! Susannah). He was a fairly solid star on Broadway before going into films as a career this is one of his bigger roles. One thing I liked about it was that it resolved comic misunderstandings in the situation without dragging it out. You could make a case that Aloysius is Santa Claus, and, in many ways, O’Connor is Scrooge. The movie is light and charming and has something of a Christmas theme. He joins the crew, as does Trudy’s mother Mary (Ann Harding), who has divorced her father because he was too devoted to making money. Trudy’s father finds her, but she convinces him to pretend to be homeless, too, because Jim would hate her if he knew she was the daughter the man who evicted him. Jim meets a couple of war buddies Whitey (Alan Hale, Jr.) and Hank (Edward Ryan), who join the crew. Trudy is attracted to Jim, so doesn’t reveal her identity, since Jim hates her father for putting him into the cold. Jim and Aloysius find her and think she’s trying to squat there. Meanwhile, O’Connor’s daughter Trudy (Gale Storm) lets herself into the mansion after running away from finishing school. Jim runs into Aloysius, who invites him to enjoy the mansion with him. Jim Bullock (Don DeFore) is a war veteran who loses his apartment when O’Connor buys it to tear down to put up an office building. Though homeless, he spends his winters in the mansion of Michael O’Connor (Charles Ruggles) when O’Connor boards it up to spend winters in North Carolina. It Happened on Fifth Avenue is not an inspiring name for a film, but the result on the screen is a charming little movie.Īloysius McKeever (Victor Moore) has a sweet setup. You need to come up with something that’s both memorable and intriguing. Starring Don DeFore, Charles Ruggles, Victor Moore, Gale Storm, Ann Harding, Alan Hale, Jr., Dorothea Kent Written by Everett Freeman (screenplay), Vick Knight (additional dialog), Herbert Lewis (original story)
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