Matinee Idle

A Broadway star visits his playwright friend who's working out a scene for his new play.

Cast

Henry Hull

as Frank the Actor

James Dale

as Marvin the Playwright

Reviews

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Shakespeare in Love

Young William Shakespeare is forced to stage his latest comedy, 'Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter', before it's even written. When lovely noblewoman Viola de Lesseps auditions for a role, they fall into forbidden love — and Shakespeare's play finds a new life (and title). As their relationship intensifies, the comedy soon transforms into tragedy.

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In a sleepy Louisiana parish, a group of lifelong friends stage a rather unorthodox intervention to help a young playwright unravel the truth about her complicated mother and let go of her painful past.

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You Can't Have Everything

Starving playwright Judith Wells meets playboy writer of musicals, George Macrae, over a plate of stolen spaghetti. He persuades producer Sam Gordon to buy her ridiculous play "North Winds" just to improve his romantic chances, and even persuades her to sing in the sort of show she pretends to despise. But just when their romance is going well, Gordon's former flame Lulu reveals the ace up her sleeve...

⭐ 6.5

Moliere

Molière, a down-and-out actor-cum-playwright up to his ears in debt. When the wealthy Jourdain offers to cover that debt so that Molière's theatrical talents might help Jourdain win the heart of a certain widowed marquise, hilarity ensues.

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Bullets Over Broadway

After young playwright, David Shayne obtains funding for his play from gangster Nick Valenti, Nick's girlfriend Olive miraculously lands the role of a psychiatrist—but not only is she a bimbo who could never pass for a psychiatrist—she's a dreadful actress. David puts up with the leading man who is a compulsive eater, the grand dame who wants her part jazzed up, and Olive's interfering hitman/bodyguard—but, eventually he must decide whether art or life is more important.

⭐ 7.1

Merrily We Go to Hell

A drunken newspaperman, Jerry Corbett, is rescued from his alcoholic haze by an heiress, Joan Prentice, whose love sobers him up and encourages him to write a play, but he lapses back into dipsomania.

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Like Father, Like Son

Like Father Like Son is a hilarious play that looks at issues such as fatherhood (or the lack of it) double infidelity and the unprofessional conduct of some music producers.

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Illuminata

It's the start of the 20th century, and Tuccio, resident playwright of a theatre repertory company offers the owners of the company his new play, "Illuminata". They reject it, saying it's not finished, and intrigue starts that involves influential critic Bevalaqua, theatre star Celimene, young lead actors and other theatre residents

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When perpetually single, aging music industry exec Harry Sanborn, and his latest trophy girlfriend, Marin, arrive at her mother's beach house in the Hamptons, they find that her mother, playwright Erica Barry, also plans to stay for the weekend. Erica is scandalized by the relationship and Harry's sexist ways. But when Harry has a heart attack while there, and the doctor prescribes bedrest, his only option is to stay at the Barry home. Left in the care of Erica and his doctor, a love triangle starts to take shape.

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A Broadway playwright wants to keep on writing plays for his wife to star in, but all she wants is to retire to Connecticut and, following a few 'worlds-apart" discussion of the issue, they get a divorce. The actress marries a banker in a fit of pique only to quickly discover the divorce was not valid. She communicates this information to her not-yet ex-husband and he, to prevent consummation of the invalid marriage rescues her by sending plumbers, waiters, porters, chambermaids, bellhops, desk clerks, exterminators and, finally, a crowd of roistering conventioneers to the suite to ensure no bedtime story would take place there

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A tough girl raised in the streets finds that her dialect and manners are helpful as source material for a playwright.

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Man of La Mancha

In the 16th century, poet, playwright and part-time actor Miguel de Cervantes has been arrested, together with his manservant, by the Spanish Inquisition. They're accused of presenting an entertainment offensive to the Inquisition. Inside the huge dungeon into which they have been cast, the other inmates gang up on Cervantes and his manservant, staging a mock trial, with the intention of stealing or burning his possessions. Cervantes wishes to desperately save a manuscript he carries with him and stages, with costumes, makeup, and the participation of the other prisoners, an unusual defense—the story of Don Quixote.

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Bells Are Ringing

Ella Peterson works in the basement office of Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service. She listens in on others' lives and adds some interest to her own humdrum existence by adopting different identities for her clients. They include an out-of-work Method actor, a dentist with musical yearnings, and in particular playwright Jeffrey Moss, who is suffering from writer's block and desperately needs a muse.

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Chuck & Buck

Chuck and Buck are childhood best friends whose lives have taken very different paths. While Chuck moved away and now has a real life, Buck stayed behind and developed a dangerous fixation—on Chuck's life.

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