Toronto Film Society presented A Girl, a Guy and a Gob on Monday, December 2, 2013 in a double bill with Too Many Husbands, as part of the Season 66 Monday Night Film Buff Series, Programme 3.
Steve is a shy quiet man who is an executive for a shipping firm. He meets Dot at the Opera where she had his seats and the next day she shows up as his temporary secretary. Then Coffee Cup comes to town to see Dot, his gal. When Steven is with Cecilia, everything is boring. When he is with Dot and Coffee Cup, everything is exciting and he falls for Dot. But Coffee is getting out of the Navy in a few days and he plans to marry Dot. Written by Tony Fontana Steve is a shy quiet man who is an executive for a shipping firm. He meets Dot at the Opera where she had his seats and the next day she shows up as his temporary secretary. Then Coffee Cup comes to town to see Dot, his gal. When Steven is with Cecilia, everything is boring. When he is with Dot and Coffee Cup, everything is exciting and he falls for Dot. But Coffee is getting out of the Navy in a few days and he plans to marry Dot. Written by: Tony Fontana
GEORGE MURPHY (1902-1992) started his show business career as a dancer, at first with his wife and partner Julie Johnson on Broadway and then afterwards solo in Hollywood. He made his motion picture debut not long after talkies replaced silent movies in 1930, appearing in many big-budget musicals such as Broadway Melody of 1938 (1938) and For Me and My Gal (1942). Murphy had the opportunity to work with the likes of; Shirley Temple, Eleanor Powell, Fred Astaire, and Ronald Reagan during his career. In 1945, Murphy became the president of the Screen Actor’s Guild and then retired from the silver screen in 1952 to become a TV producer. Murphy passed away in 1992, from leukemia at the age of 90. Written by: David Burgess
The woman who will always be remembered as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo was born Lucille Desiree Ball on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Her father died before she was four, and her mother worked several jobs, so she and her younger brother were raised by their grandparents. Always willing to take responsibility for her brother and young cousins, she was a restless teenager who yearned to “make some noise”. She entered a dramatic school in New York City, but while her classmate Bette Davis received all the raves, she was sent home; “too shy”. She found some work modeling for Hattie Carnegie’s and, in 1933, she was chosen to be a “Goldwyn Girl” and appear in the film Roman Scandals (1933).
She was put under contract to RKO Radio Pictures and several small roles, including one in Top Hat (1935), followed. Eventually, she received starring roles in B-pictures and, occasionally, a good role in an A-picture, like in Stage Door (1937) or The Big Street (1942). While filming Too Many Girls (1940), she met and fell madly in love with a young Cuban actor-musician named Desi Arnaz. Despite different personalities, lifestyles, religions and ages (he was six years younger), he fell hard, too, and after a passionate romance, they eloped and were married in November 1940. Lucy soon switched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she got better roles in films such as Du Barry Was a Lady (1943); Best Foot Forward (1943) and the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love (1945). In 1948, she took a starring role in the radio comedy “My Favorite Husband”, in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a Midwestern banker. In 1950, CBS came knocking with the offer of turning it into a television series. After convincing the network brass to let Desi play her husband and to sign over the rights to and creative control over the series to them, work began on the most popular and universally beloved sitcom of all time.
With “I Love Lucy” (1951), she and Dezi pioneered the 3-camera technique now the standard in filming sitcoms, and the concept of syndicating television programs. She was also the first woman to own her own studio as the head of Desilu Productions. Lucille Ball died at age 77 of an acute aorta aneurysm on April 26, 1989 in Beverly Hills, California. Written by: Tommy Peter.
Notes compiled by David Burgess