Created by Jack Roberts
Catalina Interlude (1948) isn’t much of a private eye movie but then, it’s barely much of a movie, either…
Clocking in at just eighteen minutes, it’s a bit of non-essential fluff about private eye DAVID BARTON (Richard Webb) who’s hired by a middle-aged movie star, Barbara Banton (Bernadene Hayes), to track down her runaway daughter Doris (Virginia Maxey) who’s intent on breaking into showbiz.
With such a short time to wrap things up, Barton tracks her down pretty quickly–auditioning for Jimmy Dorsey’s orchestra at the Avalon Casino on Catalina Island, the Hollywood getaway thirty miles off the coast of California.
But that’s not all, folks.
Barton and Doris have time to fall in love, Barton confronts and wins over the mother, and Doris has time to warble a number or two with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra.
This was the sixth and final entry in Paramount’s Musical Parade Featurettes, a short-lived series of theatrical shorts, and for that perhaps we should all feel grateful.
FILMS
- CATALINA INTERLUDE
(1948, Paramount Pictures)
18 minutes, colour
Written by Jack Roberts
Directed by Alvin Ganzer
Produced by Harry Grey
Starring Virginia Maxey as Doris Banton
and Richard Webb as DAVID BARTON
Also starring Bernadene Hayes
and Jimmy Dorsey as himself
THE DICK OF THE DAY
- April 15, 2023
The Bottom Line: Not much of a movie, not much of a private eye—but this sunny piece of fluff does offer a glimpse of the famous Hollywood getaway, circa 1948. Noir it aint.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
