The Strip (1951)

Drummer Stanley Maxton moves to Los Angeles with dreams of opening his own club, but falls in with a gangster and a nightclub dancer and ends up accused of murder.

Director:

László Kardos

Writer:

Allen Rivkin

Stars:

Mickey Rooney, Sally Forrest, William Demarest

Nominated for 1 Oscar.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Mickey Rooney	...	Stanley Maxton
Sally Forrest	...	Jane Tafford
William Demarest	...	Fluff
James Craig	...	Delwyn 'Sonny' Johnson
Kay Brown	...	Edna
Louis Armstrong	...	Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong and His Band	...	Themselves
Tommy Rettig	...	Artie Ardrey
Tom Powers	...	Detective Lt. Bonnabel
Jonathan Cott	...	Behr
Tommy Farrell	...	Boynton
Myrna Dell	...	Paulette Ardrey
Jacqueline Fontaine	...	Frieda
Vic Damone	...	Himself
Monica Lewis	...	Herself

Storyline

Drummer Stanley Maxton moves to Los Angeles with dreams of opening his own club, but falls in with a gangster and a nightclub dancer and ends up accused of murder.

---

Plot Keywords:

nightclub | dancer | drummer | jazz | cigarette girl | 

---

Genres:

Drama | Film-Noir | Music

---

Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

August 1951 (USA)

Also Known As:

Amei e Errei

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

85 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Of Joe Pasternak's 57 MGM productions released between 1942 and 1966, this film was just one of two which failed to garner a contemporary New York Times review. The second movie was Looking for Love.

---

Goofs

Child actor playing Artie giggles after inadvertently causing car wreck in which vehicle he is riding runs into another car - hardly the reaction a real child would have.

---

Connections

Featured in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

---

Soundtracks

"Basin Street Blues"
Written by Spencer Williams

User Reviews

MGM co-feature...relentlessly padded, even at 85 minutes

Ex-serviceman, posing as an insurance salesman but actually working for a racketeer, allows a pretty but romantically-aloof waitress to talk him into taking the drummer's gig at the jazz club where she works; naturally, he thinks this means she loves him, but she's got eyes for his dapper former boss. "The Strip"--as in Hollywood's famous Sunset Strip--is, if nothing else, a flashback to Los Angeles in 1951, when wealthy mobsters ruled the underworld and nightclubs were packed with patrons just waiting for a hot drum solo. If it weren't for Joe Pasternak's production and Robert Surtees' cinematography, this MGM effort would easily pass for a b-movie. The script and characters are too thin to support the framing story about a shooting, while Mickey Rooney's hyper lead performance verges on camp. Rooney, playing a musician so clean-cut he actually leaves the lucrative 'dark side' for a life of hoped-for domesticity, is unconvincingly unfettered by drugs or booze--his vice is romance! The movie has no connection with reality, though the soloists (including Louis Armstrong and Vic Damone) are enjoyable. ** from ****