Main Cast: Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Irene Manning, S.Z. Sakall
Release Year: 1944
Country: US
Run Time: 111 minutes
Plot
Complete with a final production number filmed in Technicolor, this tuneful musical depicts the highly fictive ups and downs of fabled vaudeville headliners Jack Norworth (1879-1959) and Nora Bayes (1880-1928). After rejecting a partnership with songstress Blanche Mallory (Irene Manning), Norworth (Dennis Morgan) discovers Miss Bayes (Ann Sheridan), who is wasting her considerable vocal talents by working in a honky tonk. Jack convinces the girl to become his partner but Nora's controlling boss, Costello (Robert Shayne), insures that the team is blacklisted everywhere. Despite this setback, the talented husband-and-wife duo finagles an engagement with the 1907 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies and vows the audiences with Jack's newest composition, the lilting "Shine on Harvest Moon." In reality, Norworth met the already famous Bayes at the office of a music publisher and later became one of her five husbands. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Review
Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth may be legendary Broadway and vaudeville headliners but their rise to fame was probably not as black-and-white as Shine on Harvest Moon leads you to believe. The idea that one man could control all the nation's vaudeville circuits and thus bar such talented performers is ludicrous on the face of it but the unwieldy story is merely a carefree excuse for Warner Bros. to trot out a catalogue of Norworth songs performed by Dennis Morgan, Ann Sheridan (who was "ghosted" by Lynn Martin), Irene Manning, Jack Carson, and Marie Wilson. The latter two take care of "So Dumb But So Beautiful," a comic ditty composed for the occasion by M.K. Jerome and Kim Gannon. The climaxing production number, in Technicolor, remains a rousing tribute to the title song, with chorus girls decked out as various legumes added for instant camp value. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Jack McConaghy - Art Director, Charles Novi - Art Director, LeRoy J. Prinz - Choreography, David Butler - Director, Irene Morra - Editor, Heinz Roemheld - Composer (Music Score), Leo F. Forbstein - Musical Direction/Supervision, Perc Westmore - Makeup, Arthur Edeson - Cinematographer, William Jacobs - Producer, Jack McCanaghy - Set Designer, Edwin DuPar - Special Effects, A. Edwin - Special Effects, David Forrest - Sound/Sound Designer, Dolph Thomas - Sound/Sound Designer, Sam Hellman - Screenwriter, James Kern - Screenwriter, Francis Swann - Screenwriter, Richard Weil - Screenwriter
