Movies by Joseph Santley

Two Americans

Two Americans

Presents Lincoln's difficulties with Gen. McClellan and Secretary of State Seward, over the selection of a commander of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln asserts his leadership and appoints Gen. Grant.

Harmony Lane

Harmony Lane

The life and loves of composer Stephen Foster, from his early success through his decline, degradation, and death from alcoholism.

Sleepy Lagoon

Sleepy Lagoon

Young radio personality Judy Joyner becomes mayor of the moribund town, Sleepy Lagoon, after running on an all women ticket and promptly sets out to turn the town around.

Earl Carroll Vanities

Earl Carroll Vanities

Broadway producer Earl Carroll was a Ziegfeld-like entrepreneur who staged lavish revues featuring attractive young ladies. Carroll's annual "Vanities" provided story material for three Hollywood films: Murder at the Vanities (34), A Night at Earl Carroll's (40) and Earl Carroll Vanities (45). This last film was produced by Republic Pictures, a bread-and-butter studio specializing in Westerns and serials; Republic had made musicals before, but few of them were expensive enough to allow for lavish production numbers. Earl Carroll Vanities is ...

Shantytown

Shantytown

Liz lives with her mother and stepfather in a boarding house on the "wrong side of the tracks"

The Spirit of Culver

The Spirit of Culver

Tom Allen, an orphan accustomed to waiting in bread lines is awarded a scholarship to the Culver Military Academy. Talked into attending so that he can have free room and board, Allen initially resists the rigid discipline but later softens as he makes friends and sees the value to the hard work and discipline.

Dancing on a Dime

Dancing on a Dime

Director Ted Brooks and comedians Jack Norcross, Dandy Joslyn and Phil Miller are part of a troupe of promising young players rehearsing for a WPA show at the Garrick Theater in New York and are stunned when the government withdraws their funding on the day of the show's dress rehearsal. Destitute, the troupe plans to return home when Mac, the stage doorman, offers to allow four of the men, Phil, Dandy, Jack and Ted, to use the theater for a boardinghouse. After accepting Mac's offer, the men improvise bedrooms out of the set pieces and meet...

A Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic

A Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic

A simple filmed performance featuring Cantor, done up in his stage minstrel makeup, allegedly at the Ziegfeld Theatre Roof Garden, but actually filmed on a soundstage at the Paramount Astoria studio.

Laughing Irish Eyes

Laughing Irish Eyes

An Irish crooner flirts with prize-fighting.

Rosie the Riveter

Rosie the Riveter

In this romantic wartime comedy, four female defense plant workers share a house with four male workers. The situation is on the up and up as the men and women work different shifts and they are only making do because there is a housing shortage. Unfortunately, they soon begin to fight about who gets the house during certain hours. Romance ensues.

Ice-Capades

Ice-Capades

Bob Clemens is a cameraman for newsreels. Assigned to shoot the Swiss ice skater Karen Vadja, he arrives too late, so decides to film a woman skating on a different New York rink and pass her off as Karen. The scheme backfires when promoter Larry Herman takes a look at Bob's film and decides to make the skater a star. Unfortunately, it's actually amateur (and illegal immigrant) Marie Bergin in the newsreel footage, not the great figure skater from Switzerland. Chaos ensues as Bob tries to straighten everybody out.

Dancing Feet

Dancing Feet

Peyton Wells (Ben Lyon) rescues Judy Jones (Joan Marsh) from a very dull young man, at a sedate party given for her by her multi-millionaire grandfather Silas P. Jones (Purnell Pratt.) Judy refuses to accompany Peyton on a slumming trip to a cheap dance hall, and Peyton dances with several of the dowagers and tells them that Silas is practically dying of scarlet fever. The guests hastily depart and Joan joins Peyton at the Dreamland Dance Hall. She is mistaken by Jimmy Cassidy (Edward J. Nugent) as one of the hostesses and decides to dance w...

The Harvester

The Harvester

In a small town in Indiana in the 1890s, the domineering and ambitious Mrs. Biddle arranges a marriage between her spoiled daughter Thelma and the town's prize catch, harvester David Langston, who is wedded to the soil. David is friends with orphan Ruth Jameson and, although she is in love with him, he eventually gives in to the machinations of Mrs. Biddle and consents to marry Thelma. Meanwhile, technological advances come to town, including its first gasoline buggy, galvanic battery, and metal bathtub fitted with running water. When Mrs. B...

Three Little Sisters

Three Little Sisters

The three Scott sisters, Susie, Hallie and Lily, live in the small town of Riverdale with their father Tom, a handyman whose laziness is legendary. The high-spirited sisters relieve the tedium by collaborating on Lily's correspondence with Pvt. Robert Mason, who is stationed in Arizona....

Goodnight, Sweetheart

Goodnight, Sweetheart

A journalist attacks the campaign of a mayoral candidate who has gained the endorsement of a rival newspaper.

Meet the Missus

Meet the Missus

A small town Ohio barber accompanies his ditzy wife to Atlantic City, where she competes in the Happy Noodle Company's Mrs. America Contest.

Two Bright Boys

Two Bright Boys

A young man inherits a valuable piece of Texas land that an oil man plots to steal away.

When You're Smiling

When You're Smiling

When You're Smiling is distinguished by the presence of several top recording artists of 1950. The wafer-thin plotline concerns the misadventures of Texan Gerald Durham (Jerome Courtland), who arrives in the Big City to learn the ropes of the music business. Durham not only ends up with a recording contract, but also wins heroine Peggy Martin (Lola Albright) in the bargain. So much for the story. The principal selling card of When You're Smiling consists of the guest-star turns by Frankie Laine, Bob Crosby, The Modernaires, The Mills Brother...

Walking on Air

Walking on Air

A strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home to meet her parents.

Swing High

Swing High

To avoid hostilities, Maryan, the ward of Doc May, a medicine show owner, induces Pop Garner, a circus owner, to join forces with her guardian. Doc May and Daphne, his wife, work as clowns; and Garry, a singing soldier of fortune, sings along with Maryan's act. Ruth, Maryan's partner, quits to get married; and Joe, who is jealous of Garry, replaces her with Trixie, his former assistant. When Garry announces his engagement to Maryan, Trixie persuades him to join a strip poker game in a drunken state and "compromises" him in the presence of hi...