Sunday, March 30, 2014

FROM "BOY" TO "BOMBA"



JOHN MATTHEW SHEFFIELD CASSAN
(1931 - 2010)

In late 1938, British actor Reginald Sheffield read a story headline in the Hollywood Reporter (one of the movie industry's best-known trades) which asked...
"Have you a Tarzan Jr. in your backyard?"

Sheffield's second child John had show biz experience, having performed in ON BORROWED TIME on both Broadway and the West Coast. So an audition was set up at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the 8-year-old to audition for the newly-established role as a son to Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan and Maureen O'Sullivan's Jane.

When the "kiddie cattle call" was over, star Weissmuller had personally selected the Sheffield moppet over roughly 300 other tykes to play the role of "Boy" in the next Tarzan film about to begin shooting. MGM went along with the Olympian's request.

So, beginning with the 1939 release of TARZAN FINDS A SON, Johnny Sheffield was a member of the Edgar Rice Burroughs / MGM jungle family.

"Big" Johnny and "Little" Johnny made eight Tarzan features together before size and age had Sheffield written out of the series. Weissmuller himself would make only one more ape man movie after "Boy" excited the jungle.

Monogram Pictures, a Poverty Row B-studio had purchased the rights to the Roy Rockwood Bomba the Jungle Boy books and figured that the available Sheffield would be perfect for the role of the Tarzan knock-off character.

He was.

So, in 1949, Sheffield made the first of twelve Bomba movies, designed for the small-fry / Saturday matinee / drive-in crowds.

The films made money for both Monogram and the theatres which played the films.

Here in Rowan County, they were mainstays for Salisbury's downtown Victory Theatre, as well as the outlying movie houses in Spencer, Rockwell, China Grove and Landis. The Rowan Drive-In theatres played the Bombas as well.

In 1955, the jungle series was halted and Sheffield, then 24, left show biz for good to enroll in college.

BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY
1949

BOMBA ON PANTHER ISLAND
1949

THE LOST VOLCANO
1950

THE HIDDEN CITY
1950

THE LION HUNTERS
1951

ELEPHANT STAMPEDE
1951

AFRICAN TREASURE
1952

BOMBA AND THE JUNGLE GIRL
1952

SAFARI DRUMS
195

THE GOLDEN IDOL
1954

KILLER LEOPARD
1954

LORD OF THE JUNGLE
1955

Saturday, March 29, 2014

JUDY! JUDY! JUDY! - - 1936 - 1942





PIGSKIN PARADE
1936

THOROUGHBREDS DON'T CRY
1937

BROADWAY MELODY OF 1938
1937

EVERYBODY SING
1938

LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY
1938

LISTEN DARLING
1938

THE WIZARD OF OZ
1939

BABES IN ARMS
1939

ANDY HARDY MEETS DEBUTANTE
1940

STRIKE UP THE BAND
1940

LITTLE NELLIE KELLY
1940

ZIEGFELD GIRL
1941

LIFE BEGINS FOR ANDY HARDY
1941

BABES ON BROADWAY
1941

FOR ME AND MY GAL
1942

JUDY! JUDY! JUDY! - - 1943 - 1963


PRESENTING LILY MARS
1943



GIRL CRAZY
1943

MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS
1944

THE CLOCK
1945

ZIEGFELD FOLLIES
1945

THE HARVEY GIRLS
1946

TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY
1946

THE PIRATE
1948

EASTER PARADE
1948

IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME
1949

SUMMER STOCK
1950

A STAR IS BORN
1954

JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG
1961

GAY PURR-EE
1962

A CHILD IS WAITING
1963

I COULD GO ON SINGING
1963

Monday, March 24, 2014

FORTIES FUN


STATE THEATRE
February 25, 1940

VICTORY THEATRE
June 30, 1940

STATE THEATRE
July 12, 1940

STATE THEATRE
August 4, 1940

STATE THEATRE
September 1, 1940

VICTORY THEATRE
December 21, 1940

CAPITOL THEATRE
August 25, 1942

CAPITOL THEATRE
October 14, 1942

CAPITOL THEATRE
March 16, 1943

VICTORY THEATRE
March 22, 1945

CAPITOL THEATRE
May 14, 1946

CAPITOL THEATRE
March 9, 1947

CAPITOL THEATRE
June 6, 1948

CAPITOL THEATRE
July 18, 1948

VICTORY THEATRE
November 12, 1948