Redhead from Manhattan
Cast & Crew
Lew Landers
Lupe Velez
Michael Duane
Tim Ryan
Gerald Mohr
Lillian Yarbo
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
When their ship is torpedoed off the Atlantic coast, American saxophone player Jimmy Randall and Latin American stowaway Rita de Silva, the only two survivors, take refuge on a small raft, in the hopes that they will be rescued and taken to New York. The raft eventually makes landfall on a remote American beach, where Rita and Jimmy find a cache of thousand-dollar bills and dynamite belonging to Nazi saboteurs. Soon afterward, some local fishermen discover Rita and Jimmy holding a Nazi flag, and accuse them of being saboteurs. A struggle ensues between the shipwrecked couple and the fisherman, but Rita manages to subdue the fishermen by hitting them with Jimmy's saxophone. Though they manage to escape on the back of truck, Rita and Jimmy soon realize that they will be the subjects of a nationwide manhunt when the fishermen report their discovery to the police. Fearing that they will arouse unwanted suspicion if they use any of the thousand-dollar bills, Jimmy and Rita decide to entertain at a roadhouse to make enough money to buy bus tickets to New York. When Jimmy and Rita arrive in New York, Rita makes an unsuccessful attempt to contact her cousin, Maria de Silva, whom she hoped would help them sort out their troubles. In the bus station, Jimmy is provoked into a fistfight with a stranger, after which he and Rita flee in haste. As they run out of the station, Jimmy suggests that they split up and meet later. Rita eventually finds Maria, her look-alike, performing on Broadway under the name "Elaine Manners." Maria, who is married to Paul, an F.B.I. agent, is pregnant, and has kept her marriage a secret from tough nightclub owner Chick Andrews, who wants to marry her himself. Things look bad for both Maria and Rita until Mike Glendon, Maria's manager, suggests that Rita replace and impersonate Maria while Maria leaves the show to have her baby. As a result, Rita misses her rendezvous with Jimmy, and believes she will never see him again. One day, Jimmy, substituting for a member of the orchestra in Rita's show, sees Rita on stage, but when he tries to get her attention, he is thrown out of the theater. After the show, Chick, unaware that Rita is impersonating Maria, demands that Rita respond to his marriage proposal. When Rita rejects Chick and tells him that she loves Jimmy, Chick and a few of his men find Jimmy and rough him up. Chaos ensues when Chick and Jimmy go to Maria's apartment and discover Rita, Maria, an infant child, and Paul. Rita explains everything to Chick and Jimmy, after which Jimmy tells her that they are no longer being pursued. Rita then consents to marry Jimmy, and looks forward to becoming an American citizen.
Director
Lew Landers
Cast
Lupe Velez
Michael Duane
Tim Ryan
Gerald Mohr
Lillian Yarbo
Arthur Loft
Lewis Wilson
Douglas Leavitt
Clancy Cooper
Douglass Drake
Ben Carter
Al Herman
Shirley Patterson
Alma Carroll
Ben Gerien
Peter Dunne
Jack Gardner
Stanley Brown
Lynton Brent
Roger Gray
Frank Richards
Richard Talmadge
Dewey Robinson
Pat O'malley
Adele Mara
Larry Parks
Robert Hill
Eddie Kane
Edythe Elliott
Jerry Franks Jr.
Margaret Savage
Gertrude Messinger
John Estes
Mickey Rentschler
Donald Kerr
Crew
Lionel Banks
Irving Briskin
Saul Chaplin
Jack Haynes
Joseph Hoffman
Wallace Macdonald
George Montgomery
William O'connor
Eddie Prinz
Walter G. Samuels
Perry Smith
M. W. Stoloff
James Sweeney
Philip Tannura
Rex Taylor
Travilla
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was Redhead from Rio. Although a Hollywood Reporter production chart places Frank Sully in the cast, his participation in the released film has not been confirmed. The picture contains a scene in which Lupe Velez appears in blackface, speaking Southern jive talk.
