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Blue Skies
(1929) United States of America
B&W : Six reels / 5408 feet
Directed by Alfred L. Werker
Cast: Helen Twelvetrees [Dorothy May], Frank Albertson [Richard Lewis], Rosa Gore [Nellie Crouch, the matron], Carmencita Johnson [Dorothy May, at age 6], Freddie Frederick [Richard Lewis, at age 8], Ethel Wales [the matron (in the first episode)], William Orlamond [the janitor], E.H. Calvert [Mr. Semple Jones], Evelyn Hall [Mrs. Semple Jones], Claude King [Richard Danforth], Adele Watson [the first assistant matron], Helen Jerome Eddy [the second assistant matron]
Fox Film Corporation production; distributed by Fox Film Corporation. / Scenario by John Stone, from the short story “The Matron’s Report” by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan. Production supervised by Jeff Lazarus. Songs “How Were We to Know,” “It’s a Fine How D’Ya Do” and “You Never Can Tell” by Walter Bullock and Lew Pollack (music and lyrics). Assistant director, Horace Hough. Cinematography by L.W. O’Connell. Intertitles written by Malcolm Stuart Boylan. Presented by William Fox. / © 18 March 1929 by Fox Film Corporation [LP218]. Released 17 March 1929. / [?] Movietone 35mm spherical 1.20:1 format and/or Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format? Western Electric Movietone sound-on-film synchronized sound system. / The film was also released in the USA in a silent version in six reels (at 5367 feet) by Fox Film Corporation in 1929. / Silent film, with talking sequences, synchronized music and sound effects.
Reviews: [Variety, 17 July 1929, page 53] Blue Skies is Fox’s kid version of Over the Hill. It’s about an orphan asylum instead of a poorhouse, with none of the tears the adult orphan picture possessed. . . . Youngsters occupy a reel with close-ups and ice cream. Hack situations of turning the hose on the matron, the fat boy getting a licking by the little boy for eating the tiny girl’s ice cream — they’re all in it. Then of a sudden it’s Frank Albertson wearing overalls and Helen Twelvetrees, the girl. The kids around them are still as young as they were in the first reel, excepting one or two. A rich daddy visits the home and Frank changes his foundling dress for that of the girl’s. Off she goes to the wealthy home. Of course a year later an identification card is found, but Frank satisfies daddy and the girl. Marriage does it.
Survival status: Print exists in the UCLA Film and Television Archive film archive.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 22 April 2010.
References: ClasIm-305 p. 55 : Website-AFI.
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