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The Stork Club [1945]

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Director:Hal Walker
Writer:Buddy G. DeSylva
Jack McGowan
Composer:Robert Emmett Dolan
Length:98 minutes
(1 hour 38 minutes)
MPAA Rating:UR
Sorting Category:Comedy
IMDB Rating:6.3/10
Amazon Rating:3.5/5 stars
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Classifications:
  • Comedy
  • Family
Available Formats:
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Synopsis: A hat-check girl at the Stork Club saves the life of a drowning man. A rich man, he decides to repay her by anonymously giving her a bank account, a luxury apartment and a charge account at a department store. When her boyfriend returns from overseas, he thinks she is a kept woman.


Reaction: Not terribly compelling and the story is vaguely reminiscent of parts of Great Expectations. But it's got a charm to it.


Personal Rating: 5/10

Select Cast and Crew
Hal Walker => Director
Buddy G. DeSylva => Writer
Jack McGowan => Writer
Robert Emmett Dolan => Composer
Andy Russell => Jimmy 'Jim' Jones
Audrey Young => Jenny (hat check girl)
Barry Fitzgerald => Jerry B. 'J.B.' / 'Pop' Bates
Betty Hutton => Judy Peabody
Bill Goodwin => Sherman Billingsley (Stork Club owner)
Catherine Craig => Louella Parsons
Charles Coleman => MacFiske (Bates' butler)
Don DeFore => Sgt. Danny Wilton
Douglas Wood => Dr. Marston (uncredited)
Elaine Riley => Deb (uncredited)
Gloria Donovan => Barbara Billingsley (uncredited)
Iris Adrian => Gwen (Judy's friend)
Mae Busch => Vera (uncredited)
Mary Currier => Hazel Billingsley (uncredited)
Mary Young => Mrs. Edith Bates
Mikhail Rasumny => Mr. Coretti (Stork Club matire d')
Noel Neill => Jacqueline Billingsley (uncredited)
Perc Launders => Tom, Saxophone Player
Pierre Watkin => Mr. Gray (uncredited)
Robert Benchley => Tom P. Curtis (Bates' laywer)

Random Trivia For This Title:

  • The $1,000,000 that Pop's offers to Judy in his will in 1945 would be the equivalent of US$11,794,036 in 2009 dollars.
  • {Daddy O} an upbeat number performed by Betty Hutton was cut from this film but resurfaced in 1948 when recorded by Dinah Shore as the B side to her mega hit {Buttons and Bows}. To this day, the song is credited to The Stork Club on the record label.
  • The Screen Guild Theater broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on February 24, 1947 with Betty Hutton reprising her film role.
  • For the week of March 2, 1946, Betty Hutton's jovial, racing rendition of {Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief} (music by [?] Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by [?] Paul Francis Webster), via Capitol Records, sprinted to first place on the "Billboard" singles chart. Mr. Carmichael produced two best-selling takes on this number, one side in 1945 for the short-lived ARA label (1944-1946), plus a second waxing in 1946 on Decca.
  • More than 700 photographs of the Stork Club in New York City were taken to help the set designers of the movie.
  • The movie included a character [?] Sherman Billingsley the owner of the real stork club. During the movie, he talks to Danny, Judy's fiancée telling him that his wife and two daughters were the only women in his life. This is contradictory to the real life Sherman, who had a longtime affair with Ethel Merman.