An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.
When asked about the Ghost Riders song he sings, Gene Autry tells this legend: Gene is about to resign as an investigator for the county attorney and go into the cattle business with his pal Chuckawalla Jones but decides instead to help Anne Lawson clear her father, rancher Ralph Lawson, of a false murder charge. He looks for the three witnesses who can testify that Lawson shot only in self defense in killing a gambler, but the witnesses are terrorized by another gambler, town boss Rock McCleary, who shoots witness Pop Roberts Morgan. Fatally wounded, Pop gives Gene the information needed to clear Lawson, then dies crying the "Ghost Riders" are coming for him. Gene then heads for a showdown with McCleary.
The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.
Oliver Pease gets a dose of courage from his wife Martha and tricks the editor of the paper (where he writes lost pet notices) into assigning him the day's roving question. Martha suggests, "Has a little child ever changed your life?" Oliver gets answers from two slow-talking musicians, an actress whose roles usually feature a sarong, and an itinerant cardsharp. In each case the "little child" is hardly innocent: in the first, a local auto mechanic's "baby" turns out to be fully developed as a woman and a musician; in the second, a spoiled child star learns kindness; in the third, the family of a lost brat doesn't want him returned. And Oliver, what becomes of him?
Funloving Pearl White, working in a garment sweatshop, gets her big chance when she "opens" for a delayed Shakespeare play...with a comic vaudeville performance. Her brief stage career leads her into those "horrible" moving pictures, where she comes to love the chaotic world of silent movies, becoming queen of the serials. But the consequences of movie stardom may be more than her leading man can take
Based on and built around the west coast radio program, "The Hollywood Barn Dance", although no members of the 1947 cast of the program are in the film, but the better-known (on a national scale) Ernest Tubb and His Texas Troubadors, Jack Guthrie and Jimmy and Leon Short more than make up for that. The slight plot, around 18 songs, begins with Tubb and his band searching for $2000 needed to rebuild their town chuch after it burned down while they were rehearsing in it. Hollywood, here they come!
A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.
Gridley is mining silver from an old Mexican mine and bringing it into the USA thru a passage into his worthless mine. Border guard Rogers suspects Gridley and finally finds the secret entrance to the Mexican mine. He sends Lee Madison for help only to have her captured by Gridley. Trigger brings help that takes care of Gridley's men and now Roy has to rescue Madison.
Two silky-smooth producers line up a potential backer (who'll put up half the cash) for a musical review. The catch is that they must find someone else to put up the other half. Enter cigar-smoking cross-dresser "Bumpsie" (Tim Moore), who poses as a wealthy society matron to fool the angel! Features vintage jam sessions with swing drummer Gene Krupa, Big Sid Catlett and his band, The Slam Stewart Trio and The International Jitterbugs.
A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.
In Junction 88, a small all-black community, pretty Lolly Simpkins loves gentle songwriter Buster Jenkins, who makes too little money to marry. Her father favors rival suitor Onnie, crude but with a better income. Buster's best chance comes when impresario Bob Howard, to whom he's sent songs, comes to town looking for him. But Bob is looking for a pseudonym, 'Hewlett Green', that nobody's ever heard of. Will Buster reveal himself? Meanwhile, a very jazzy church concert.
Light bio-pic of American Broadway pioneer Jerome Kern, featuring renditions of the famous songs from his musical plays by contemporary stage artists, including a condensed production of his most famous: 'Showboat'.
Ware College is a small Black college in Ware, Ohio. Once prominent, it is now low in attendance, low in enrollment and low on money; and at a meeting with instructors Drury and Annabelle Brown, Dean Hargreaves reveals that CEO Benjamin Ware III, grandson of the college's founder, claims the estate of his late grandfather is now also destitute, which they believe is untrue and a result of Annabelle's having spurned his affections. They decide to appeal to their famous alumni for financial help thru a reunion, and invitations are sent. Many could help; but surely not Lucius Jordan, a timid lad who loved Annabelle too but dropped out under pressure from Ware. What they don't know is, he's now Louis Jordan, king of swing and leader of the Tympani Band.
Roy Rogers rides to the rescue when a bank robber's orphaned son (Tommy Cook), who is living at a ranch for homeless boys run by Gabby Whittaker (George "Gabby" Hayes), attracts the attention his father's rowdy gang, who want to claim the boy's inheritance for themselves
The goings on of a few members of a radio show's audience is the premise for this feature film derived from the popular ABC radio show of the 1940s. This film features Tom Breneman, the radio show's host, as well as Bonita Granville, Beulah Bondi, Zasu Pitts, Billie Burke and Hedda Hopper. Musical performances are provided by Nat King Cole and the King Cole Trio, along with Spike Jones and his City Slickers.
During the Austrian-Prussian war, Anna Marie is a dancer who is forced to flee her country after she is accused of being a spy. She ends up in a lawless western town in Arizona, where she uses her charms and dancing skills to transform herself into "Salome" during her dance routines.