pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...
musical comedy film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as break ...
with
Technicolor
Technicolor is a family of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades.
Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and ...
First National Pictures
First National Pictures was an American motion picture production and distribution company. It was founded in 1917 as First National Exhibitors' Circuit, Inc., an association of independent theatre owners in the United States, and became the count ...
Frank Mandel
Frank Mandel (1884 – April 20, 1958) was an American playwright and producer. He co-wrote several productions. Some of his works were adapted by others. Several of his collaborations were adapted into films. UCLA's libraries have a collection of ...
. ''
No, No, Nanette
''No, No, Nanette'' is a musical with a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel based on Mandel's 1919 Broadway play ''My Lady Friends''; lyrics by Irving Caesar and Harbach; and music by Vincent Youmans. The farcical story centers on three coup ...
'' was a popular show on Broadway, running for 321 performances, and was produced and directed by
Harry Frazee
Harry Herbert Frazee (June 29, 1880 – June 4, 1929) was an American theatrical agent, producer, and director, and owner of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox from 1916 to 1923. He is well known for selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yanke ...
.
Plot
Jim Smith, a millionaire due to his Bible publishing business, is married to the overly frugal Sue. They desire to teach their ward Nanette to be a respectable young lady; she, in turn, has an untapped wild side. Nanette wants to have some fun in
Atlantic City
Atlantic City, sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., is a Jersey Shore seaside resort city in Atlantic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Atlantic City comprises the second half of the Atlantic City- Hammonton metropolitan sta ...
, while she is being pursued by Tom Trainor.
With so much unspent income at his disposal, Jim decides to become the benefactor for three beautiful women, but soon realizes his good intentions are bound to get him in trouble. He enlists his lawyer friend Bill to help him discreetly ease the girls out of his life. Sue and Billy's wife, Lucille, learn about the women and assume their husbands are having affairs with them.
Eventually, Bill and Jim explain the situation and are forgiven by their wives. Likewise, Nanette and Tom sort out their difficulties and decide to get married.
Cast
* Bernice Claire as Nanette
*Alexander Gray as Tom Trainor
*
Lucien Littlefield
Lucien Littlefield (August 16, 1895 – June 4, 1960) was an American actor who achieved a long career from silent films to the television era. He was noted for his versatility, playing a wide range of roles and already portraying old men befor ...
as Jim Smith
*
Louise Fazenda
Louise Fazenda (June 17, 1895 – April 17, 1962) was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.
Early life
Fazenda was born in her maternal grandparents' house in Lafayette, Indiana, the daughter of merchandise bro ...
as Sue Smith
*
Lilyan Tashman
Lilyan Tashman (October 23, 1896 – March 21, 1934) was an American stage, silent film, and sound film actress.
Early life
Born Lillian Tashman in 1896 in Brooklyn, New York to a Jewish family, Tashman was the youngest of eight children, bor ...
as Lucille
*
Bert Roach
Egbert Roach (August 21, 1891 – February 16, 1971) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 320 films between 1914 and 1951. He was born in Washington, D.C., and died in Los Angeles, California, age 79.
Selected filmography
* ...
as Bill Early
*
ZaSu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts (; January 3, 1894 – June 7, 1963) was an American actress who, in a career spanning nearly five decades, starred in many silent film drama film, dramas, such as Erich von Stroheim's 1924 epic ''Greed (1924 film), Greed'', along wi ...
as Pauline
*
Mildred Harris
Mildred Harris (November 29, 1901 – July 20, 1944) was an American stage, film, and vaudeville actress during the early part of the 20th century. She began her career in the film industry as a child actress at age 10. She was also the first w ...
Otto Harbach
Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach (August 18, 1873 – January 24, 1963) was an American lyricist and librettist of nearly 50 musical comedies and operettas. Harbach collaborated as lyricist or librettist with many of the leading B ...
, music by
Vincent Youmans
Vincent Millie Youmans (September 27, 1898 – April 5, 1946) was an American Broadway composer and producer.
A leading Broadway composer of his day, Youmans collaborated with virtually all the greatest lyricists on Broadway: Ira Gershwin, ...
Irving Caesar
Irving Caesar (born Isidor Keiser, July 4, 1895 – December 17, 1996) was an American lyricist and composer primarily for theater who wrote lyrics for numerous song standards, including " Swanee", " Sometimes I'm Happy", " Crazy Rhythm", ...
, music by Vincent Youmans
* "I Want to Be Happy" – words by Irving Caesar, music by Vincent Youmans
*"King of the Air" – words and music by Al Bryan and Ed Ward
*"Dancing to Heaven" – words and music by Al Bryan and Ed Ward
*"As Long As I'm With You" – words and music by
Grant Clarke
Grant Clarke (May 14, 1891, Akron, Ohio – May 16, 1931, California) was an American songwriter.
Clarke moved to New York City early in his career, where he worked as an actor and a staff writer for comedians. He began working on Tin Pan Alley, ...
and
Harry Akst
Harry Akst (August 15, 1894 – March 31, 1963) - accessed November 19, 2011 was an American
*"Dance of the Wooden Shoes" – words and music by
Ned Washington
Ned Washington (born Edward Michael Washington, August 15, 1901 – December 20, 1976) was an American lyricist born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Life and career
Washington was nominated for eleven Academy Awards from 1940 to 1962. He won the Be ...
,
Herb Magidson
Herbert A. Magidson (January 7, 1906 – January 2, 1986) was an American popular lyricist. His work was used in over 23 films and four Broadway revues. He won the first Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1934.
Life and career
Magidson was ...
and Michael Cleary
Preservation
According to the George Eastman Museum 2015 Book "The Dawn of Technicolor, 1915-1935" the BFI National Archive holds a 35mm incomplete nitrate print 160 ft.
Box office
According to Warner Bros records the film earned $839,000 domestically and $612,000 foreign.
Critical reception
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934.The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' wrote, "''No, No, Nannette'', proves to be quite a merry affair with tunes that are now well known and players whose activities were rewarded with gusts of laughter from the first-night audience at Warners' Strand. It is a show that stirs up mirth from persons who might desire a more sophisticated type of entertainment, for its comedy of wives discovering the more or less harmless deceit of their husbands is invariably unfailing. The technicolor sequences are not always as well lighted as one would wish, but the staging of these tinted episodes is wrought with no little imagination, especially the glimpses of an airship with turquoise lights and a variety of colors on the fuselage. It is from this stage contrivance that Bernice Claire as Nanette sings one of her songs. Her partner, Tom Trainor, played by Alexander Gray, is also moved to song. The most effective stretches of this diversion, however, are those in black and white."
See also
*
List of early color feature films
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
List of incomplete or partially lost films
The following is a list of notable films that are incomplete or partially lost. For films for which no footage (including Trailer (promotion), trailers) is known to have survived, see List of lost films. For films that were never completed in the ...