Jimmy Durante was an American actor, comedian, singer, and pianist. He is best remembered as the narrator and singer in the 1969 animated special ‘Frosty the Snowman.’ He also played various characters in the ‘MGM’ cartoon show ‘Tom and Jerry.’ He started his career as a vaudeville artist and radio performer, before building a successful ‘Broadway’ career in productions, such as ‘The New Yorkers,’ ‘Billy Rose’s Jumbo,’ ‘Show Girl,’ and ‘Red, Hot and Blue’ (1936). He made his first screen appearance in ‘Roadhouse Nights,’ in 1930. Some of his successful films include ‘The Wet Parade’ (1932), ‘The Phantom President’ (1932), ‘Palooka’ (1934), ‘Carnival’ (1935), ‘You’re in the Army Now’ (1941), ‘Music for Millions’ (1944), ‘It Happened in Brooklyn’ (1947), ‘The Great Rupert’ (1950), and ‘It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World’ (1963). Some of his not so successful films are ‘Speak Easily’ (1932), ‘Student Tour’ (1934), and ‘Pepe’ (1960).Â
This action adventure comedy film revolves around a group of greedy people who hear about a hidden stash of loot. Soon they embark on an adventurous journey through the countryside in search of the buried treasure.
A sailor helps two sisters start a service canteen, and soon falls in love with Jean, the gorgeous one of the two. However, he is unaware that her sibling Patsy is also in love with him.
In Naples, a voice from the sky announces one morning that there is going to a a final judgment at 6 pm on that day. The film follows the reactions of various people to the announcement.
Roger is the son of a dairy business owner, whose father doesn’t allow him to work in his company. However, Roger doesn’t want to stay idle, and therefore he gets a job in his father’s arch-rival’s company, and things get complicated when he starts falling for the boss’s daughter.
The biopic is about the life of controversial New York City Mayor, James Walker. After a landslide victory, state senator Walker becomes Mayor of NYC in 1926. Though popular with masses, his practice of accepting bribes and favors gives his opponents a chance to question his administration’s integrity. His estrangement with wife Allie and romantic affair with Betty Compton accelerates his decline.
The Christmas Party is a short drama film, which tells the story of Jackie, who is willing to throw a Christmas party for his friends on his football team. However, he is unsure how to begin working on it, and therefore, has to take help.
Betsy is an orphan who escapes from her orphanage and starts living with her uncle, a manager who runs a hotel populated by people of the show business. However, the owner of the hotel doesn’t like her or the entertainers, and wants her to return to the orphanage.
Danny Miller returns to Brooklyn after World War II to gain a successful career as a singer. He meets music teacher, Anne Fielding, and develops feelings for her. But when Danny's shy friend and heir to a duke, Jamie Shellgrove, comes to live with him, a romantic chemistry develops between Anne and Jamie.
A wounded former submarine commander's love affair with his successor's married daughter is set against the backdrop of the US Navy's fight in the Adriatic Sea during World War I. Hell Below is based on Commander Edward Ellsberg's novel Pigboats and the movie is packed with submarine warfare action.
Based on the 1931 novel by Upton Sinclair, the film depicts how families are ruined by alcoholism. Beginning with the Chilcotes of Louisiana, which loses most of its wealth to alcohol, the story moves northwards to portray the fate of the Tarletons, meanwhile joining the two families by love and a determination to fight the evil.
Start Cheering is a musical comedy film which tells the story of a Hollywood star, who is fed up of his life in movies, and decides to retire and enroll in a college using a fake name. He tries to fit in, but in the meantime, his managers are trying to find ways to get him expelled from the college, so that he resumes his career in the movies again.
You’re in the Army Now is a war comedy film which revolves around two vacuum-cleaner salesmen who get fired from their jobs. They soon decide to join the US Army, thinking that the commitment will be minimal.
Gene Autry returns to his hometown after a long time, as a guest of honor at the Frontier Days Celebration, where he sees that his childhood enemies, have now become local gangsters. Gene finds that their actions may hurt little children, and decides to teach them a lesson.
A presidential candidate has a stiff, dull personality. A charismatic medicine show pitchman, his look-alike, replaces the presidential candidate as a frontman for the campaign.
Shy Professor Post is tricked by his butler into believing he has inherited a huge sum of money. On his trip to see the world, Post encounters a dancing troupe and becomes infatuated with dancer Pansy Peets. He then agrees to finance them to Broadway attracting the attention of spoiled actress Eleanor Espere.
In order to make Tony, her lover, jealous, Patricia brings a plumber named Elmer from Paris to pass him off as her paramour. Tony himself is having an affair with another woman named Nina Estrados.
An aspiring poet is hired by a radio comic as a gag-writer. However, a marital squabble leads to winding it up in the middle.
A burglar’s life turns upside down when he is mistaken for a baron. He keeps up the facade, although he is constantly under the fear of being found out. Things get even more complicated when he falls in love with a pretty girl.
Ted and Lulu are a successful vaudeville couple. But they quit in order to have time to raise their son. However, years later, they find that their duet act has become stale with time. Meanwhile Ted Jr. also gets married and has a son, but soon finds himself becoming a victim to excessive drinking.
Assuming that the Prohibition is getting over, Elmer Butts and Jimmy Potts restart an abandoned brewery as they want to be the first, and make money so that Elmer can impress Hortense, a gangster’s moll. Being too early, their brewery is raided, but they are let off because their incompetence has produced no-alcohol-beer. However, the money-making beer attracts gangster Butch….along with Hortense.
Ranch hand Pepe’s world is turned upside down when alcoholic Hollywood director Mr.Holt buys his beloved friend, a white stallion from its owner. Pepe then goes on an extraordinary adventure through Hollywood, meeting celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Zsa Zsa Gabór, Bing Crosby, and others before being reunited with his beloved stallion.
When their trip to Europe is threatened if they fail their exams, a group of college students decide to take their professor with them on board.
Star of popular jungle-themed movies, ‘Schnarzan the Conqueror,’ is cautioned by his manager that people are tired of his films’ worn-out lions and he needs new ones. So the ‘Jungle Star’ throws a lavish party when adventurer Baron Munchausen arrives in town with his lions. Schnarzan’s rival Liondora enters uninvited to buy the lions for his films, and disrupts the star-studded party.
Jimmy Durante Awards
| Winner | Best Comedian | 1953 |
