By Frank Miller
Love and Learn
Brief Synopsis
An heiress surreptitiously helps two songwriters waiting for their big break.
Cast & Crew
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Frederick De Cordova
Director
Jack Carson
Jingles [Collins]
Martha Vickers
Barbara Wyngate
Robert Hutton
Bob Grant
Janis Paige
Jackie
Otto Kruger
Andrew Wyngate
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Musical
Release Date
May
3,
1947
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 23m
Synopsis
Struggling songwriters Jingles Collins and Bob Grant are unable to sell a song without an endorsement from a well-known band. After a failed attempt to demonstrate their talents to theatrical producer Hugo Bronson, Bob decides to return home to the small town where his mother lives. Jingles and his longtime girl friend Jackie then take Bob out on the town to celebrate his last night in New York City. Meanwhile, wealthy Barbara Wyngate, tired of having her life planned by her socially prominent mother, resolves to have one last fling before she marries her stodgy fiancé Willard. While her family attends the opera, Barbara goes slumming at Danceland. Because unescorted women are not allowed at the club, Barbara pretends to be a dance hostess. By chance, Bob, Jingles and Jackie are also at Danceland. Mistaking Barbara for the girl friend of the club's band leader, Linky, Jingles encourages Bob to try to persuade her to ask Linky to play one of their songs. Without revealing her real identity, Barbara explains that she has no influence with Linky, but she is attracted to Bob and later leaves the club with the others. Having fallen in love with Barbara, Bob decides to stay in New York and invites her to lunch the following day. In order to keep her identity a secret, Barbara rents a modest apartment, where she pretends to live. Later, Barbara throws a party for Jingle's birthday and asks her father to pick out a gift for him. Wyngate buys a cigarette case from Tiffany's, a gift that is far too extravagant to have been purchased by a supposedly unemployed woman. Bob's suspicions grow when Barbara gives Jingles and him a diamond bracelet to pawn so that they can use the money to publish their songs themselves. When Bob sees a newspaper report about a beautiful girl burglar, he immediately assumes that Barbara is a kleptomaniac, but after the police arrest the burglar, he is forced to find another explanation for Barbara's mysterious source of income. Barbara promises to explain everything that evening at dinner. Then she secretly asks her father for a check, which she uses to persuade music publisher Wells to publish one of Bob and Jingle's songs. Bob is so excited when Wells signs them that he rushes to Barbara's apartment to tell her the news. After Barbara's landlady tells Bob that Barbara never sleeps in her apartment, Bob sees Wyngate drop Barbara off at the apartment and mistakenly believes that she is a kept woman. Disillusioned, Bob returns to his mother's house and refuses to listen to Barbara's explanation. Even when their song becomes a big hit, Bob refuses to return to New York or to write more songs. Desperate to get his partner back to work, Jingles agrees to marry Jackie and asks Bob to be his best man. Bob takes part in the wedding but insists that he will leave town immediately afterward. When he learns that Barbara paid for publishing the song, however, Bob decides to confront her. In the meantime, Barbara has eloped with Willard. Wyngate, who dislikes Willard, clears up the misunderstanding between Bob and Barbara, and Bob and he rush off to stop the marriage. They arrive in the nick of time, and Bob and Barbara are married.
Director
Frederick De Cordova
Director
Cast
Jack Carson
Jingles [Collins]
Martha Vickers
Barbara Wyngate
Robert Hutton
Bob Grant
Janis Paige
Jackie
Otto Kruger
Andrew Wyngate
Barbara Brown
Victoria Wyngate
Tom D'andrea
Wells
Florence Bates
Mrs. Davis
Craig Stevens
Willard
Angela Greene
Phyllis McGillicuddy
Don Mcguire
Delaney
John Alvin
William
Herbert Anderson
Pete
Jane Harper
Receptionist
Lou Nova
Marty
Jack Kenney
Editor
Grady Sutton
Man on street
Charles Marsh
Hotel clerk
Grayce Hampton
Mrs. Bronson
George Meader
Mr. Bronson
Philo Mccullough
Hugo Bronson
Creighton Hale
Butler
George Lloyd
Barker
Hank Mann
Ticket seller
Iris Adrian
Blonde
Colin Campbell
Jehu, old driver
Jimmy Ames
Policeman
Tom Wells
Messenger
Oliver Blake
Pawnbroker
Sarah Padden
Mrs. Grant
Edward Clark
Justice of the peace
Ross Ford
Reporter
George Campeau
Reporter
Trudy Irwin
Singer
Almira Sessions
Byron Foulger
Crew
Wesley Anderson
Director of Photography
Harry Barndollar
Special Effects Director
Everett A. Brown
Sound
Eugene Conrad
Screenwriter
Murray Cutter
Orchestra Arrangement
Elmer Decker
Assistant Director
I. A. L. Diamond
Screenwriter
Edwin B. Dupar
Special Effects
Stanley Fleischer
Art Director
Ray Heindorf
Orchestra Arrangement
Ray Heindorf
Composer
William Jacobs
Producer
Felix Jacoves
Dialogue Director
M. K. Jerome
Composer
James Leicester
Montage
Frank Magee
Film Editor
Harry Sauber
Story
Jack Scholl
Composer
Max Steiner
Music score comp and Adapted by
Francis Swann
Screenwriter
Walter Telford
Set Decoration
Charlie Tobias
Composer
Travilla
Wardrobe
Jack L. Warner
Executive Producer
Perc Westmore
Makeup Artist
Film Details
Genre
Comedy
Musical
Release Date
May
3,
1947
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Distribution Company
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
Country
United States
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 23m
Articles
Love and Learn
When Eleanor Parker chose suspension over appearing in the third version of Harry Sauber's original story about an heiress who finds love while posing as a working-class woman, Martha Vickers stepped in, turning this slight comedy with songs into a follow-up to Warner's earlier The Time, the Place and the Girl (1946). That Technicolor musical had cast her as an opera singer who goes slumming at a nightclub run by Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson and Janis Paige. For the new picture, Warner's stuck to black-and-white, but still had Carson and Paige, with Robert Hutton filling in as romantic lead. He and Carson are songwriters, with Paige as Carson's girlfriend. They think Vickers is a taxi dancer, not realizing she's the one who funded their first song publication. When her father (Otto Kruger) shows up, they decide he must be her wealthy boyfriend, which throws a monkey wrench in the stars' budding romance. In earlier versions of Sauber's story, the heiress fell for a simple working guy, with Dick Powell and Josephine Hutchinson as the lovers in Happiness Ahead (1934) and Mildred Coles and Edward Norris teaming up for Here Comes Happiness (1941).
By Frank Miller
By Frank Miller
Love and Learn
When Eleanor Parker chose suspension over appearing in the third version of Harry Sauber's original story about an heiress who finds love while posing as a working-class woman, Martha Vickers stepped in, turning this slight comedy with songs into a follow-up to Warner's earlier The Time, the Place and the Girl (1946). That Technicolor musical had cast her as an opera singer who goes slumming at a nightclub run by Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson and Janis Paige. For the new picture, Warner's stuck to black-and-white, but still had Carson and Paige, with Robert Hutton filling in as romantic lead. He and Carson are songwriters, with Paige as Carson's girlfriend. They think Vickers is a taxi dancer, not realizing she's the one who funded their first song publication. When her father (Otto Kruger) shows up, they decide he must be her wealthy boyfriend, which throws a monkey wrench in the stars' budding romance. In earlier versions of Sauber's story, the heiress fell for a simple working guy, with Dick Powell and Josephine Hutchinson as the lovers in Happiness Ahead (1934) and Mildred Coles and Edward Norris teaming up for Here Comes Happiness (1941).
By Frank Miller
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Editor Frank Magee's name was misspelled as "McGee" in the onscreen credits. A August 5, 1946 Hollywood Reporter news item notes that Eleanor Parker refused an assignment in this picture, stating that the script was not suitable, and was placed on suspension. One week later, Martha Vickers was cast in her place. Harry Sauber's original screen story was also the basis for the 1934 Warner Bros.' film Happiness Ahead, directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Dick Powell and Josephine Hutchinson (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films 1931-40; F3.1775).
