GREEN SHEET
When Milwaukee hosted its first real Hollywood premiere
Chris Foran
Milwaukee had had Hollywood movie premieres before. But for the city's 100th birthday, it finally hosted a real one.
In 1921, "Camille," with Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino, had its world premiere at the Strand. In 1930, the Prohibition comedy "See America Thirst" debuted at the Alhambra. Famously, "The Wizard of Oz" premiered in Oconomowoc in 1939.
And in 1944, Milwaukee hosted the world premiere of "The Very Thought of You," a melodrama starring Dennis Morgan, who was born in Prentice and worked in Milwaukee before going to Hollywood.
As with the past Hollywood premieres in Milwaukee, neither Morgan nor the movie's other stars came to town — a fact that irked Milwaukee Journal Green Sheet editor Larry Lawrence enough that he wrote an "open letter" to Warner Bros. chief Jack Warner.
"You promised, through various of your big men, that pretty soon Milwaukee would have a world shindig," Lawrence wrote in the Oct. 9, 1944, Green Sheet. "And now you're throwing it. But how? Without a single star. Sure, you're planning to put it on sort of big, but we want it big, with stars, searchlights, stars, orchids, tom-toms, stars and flags, etc. etc."
Apparently, Lawrence's in-print temper tantrum got results. But the movie's title — and its stars — might have been a factor.
On April 6, 1946, Warner Bros. announced it would bring the world premiere of "Two Guys From Milwaukee," a comedy starring Morgan and Jack Carson, a comic actor who grew up in Milwaukee.
The movie's premiere would be at Milwaukee's Warner Theatre on July 25, 1946 — smack in the middle of Centurama, the celebration of the city's 100th birthday.
ARCHIVE:Milwaukee's lakefront hosted a different kind of big gig — in 1946
The city and the movie studio went all out to make the movie premiere a big deal.
On July 22, Warner Bros. sponsored a fashion show/beauty contest — held on board a passenger plane, 2,000 feet above the Lake Michigan shoreline — to pick "blind dates" for Morgan and Carson when they arrived in Milwaukee (both men were married at the time); the winners, The Journal dutifully reported on July 22, were selected for their resemblances to the two female co-stars of "Two Guys From Milwaukee," Joan Leslie and Janis Paige.
The day of the premiere, Morgan and Carson arrived to a huge welcome in the Milwaukee harbor.
"Shortly afterward occurred one of the wildest mob scenes in Milwaukee's history," The Journal wrote in its breathless coverage of the event, published July 26, 1946. "In the parade that followed, the impromptu demonstration of hero worship became so intense that police actually fought with teenage youngsters determined to push close to the stars. A crowd estimated at 100,000 filled Wisconsin Ave. from the lakefront to 12th St."
"This is just plumb ridiculous!" Morgan shouted to the press car following them in the parade, according to a Journal story on July 25.
"It's too bad," Morgan said to Carson later, according to a Journal story July 26, "that we didn't invent the atomic bomb or penicillin or something like that. Then maybe we would deserve something like this."
The movie itself, the Sentinel and Journal critics wrote, yielded a milder reaction.
In "Two Guys From Milwaukee," Morgan plays a prince whose country is about to decide whether it should become a democracy. To find out whether that's a good idea, he comes to New York, ditches his handlers and, on the loose, meets a Brooklyn cabbie played by Carson, who shows him the ropes.
Why "From Milwaukee"? As Morgan the prince and Carson the cabbie talk things over in a saloon, Carson asks Morgan where he's from; the latter, seeing a sign for "Glitzweiser" beer above the bar, says he's from Milwaukee.
Carson's reply? "I'm from Milwaukee, too! I suppose you know Larry Lawrence and Russ Winnie and Buck Herzog?"
"Sure," Morgan replies, cementing their friendship.
Winnie was the radio voice of Packers and Badgers football on WTMJ. Herzog was the the show business columnist for the Sentinel.
In his review of "Two Guys" in the July 26 Sentinel, Herzog dubbed "Two Guys" a "worthy audience show"; The Journal's review called it "an amusing but improbable story, and, while often highly entertaining, it is not likely to win any Oscars."
The movie didn't win any Oscars, but the movie won the next best thing in Hollywood. Two years later, Morgan and Carson starred in a hit sequel, "Two Guys From Texas."
ABOUT THIS FEATURE
Each Wednesday, Our Back Pages dips into the Journal Sentinel archives, sharing photos and stories from the past that connect, reflect and sometimes contradict the Milwaukee we know today.
Special thanks and kudos go to senior multimedia designer Bill Schulz for finding many of the gems in the Journal Sentinel photo archives.