Ray Anthony

A down-and-out gangster hires a down-on-his-luck agent to make his girlfriend a recording star within six weeks.

Dixieland cornetist Red Nichols runs into opposition to his sound, but breaks through to success. He marries a warm, patient woman and even finds time to raise a family. Then tragedy strikes when their daughter contracts polio.

Wealthy American, Jervis Pendleton has a chance encounter at a French orphanage with a cheerful 18-year-old resident, and anonymously pays for her education at a New England college. She writes letters to her mysterious benefactor regularly, but he never writes back. Several years later, he visits her at school, while still concealing his identity, and—despite their large age difference—they soon fall in love.

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

To earn extra money, a prim schoolteacher takes a second job as secretary to the uncouth owner of a boisterous nightclub.

A group of beatniks unwittingly harbor a serial rapist. A cop goes after him after his wife is attacked.

A power-mad union boss resorts to murder to eliminate witnesses scheduled to testify against him.

A POW marries a woman he meets in Mexico. Controversy erupts when people find out that she's one-quarter black.

A tough kid comes to a new high school and begins muscling his way into the drug scene. This is a typical morality play of the era, filled with a naive view of drugs, nihilistic beat poetry, and some incredible '50s slang.

Ray Anthony and his Orchestra perform his songs All Anthony And No Cleopatra, as well as Mr. Anthony's Boogie.

Chip is killed accidentally while trying to rape a blonde girl, who runs. Silver becomes the number one suspect even though she has an alibi, but due to previous brushes with the law she's sent to Girls Town, a home for young women in trouble with the law which is run by nuns. Silver is rebellious and causes trouble at the school, and her friend Sarafina totters near the brink of self-destruction because of an infatuation with a young singer. Meanwhile Chip's father hires a detective to find out the truth, and Chip's friend Fred gets Silver's sister in trouble at a drag race. Silver has a lot of problems all right.

The story of the legendary Marilyn Monroe party thrown by jazz legend Ray Anthony in 1952.