00:00The Stork Club premiered right before Christmas in 1945, but Robert Benchley, the famous humorist
00:06who played the lawyer Tom Curtis in the movie, didn't live long enough to see it. He died of a
00:11cerebral hemorrhage one month earlier, and The Stork Club became one of three films he made
00:17that premiered after his death. The real New York City Stork Club was photographed in meticulous
00:22detail to create the replica you saw in the film. More than 300 pictures were taken, with full
00:28support from The Stork Club's owner, Sherman Billingsley. The movie was produced by Buddy
00:33DaSilva, who was a successful songwriter before he became a top Hollywood producer. He wrote
00:39songs like California Here I Come, Look for the Silver Lining, and the score for the hit
00:44Broadway musical Good News. DaSilva became a producer in the 1930s, first at 20th Century Fox,
00:50where he produced several Shirley Temple movies, and later at Paramount, where he became the
00:54studio's chief of production. After leaving Paramount, he started producing films independently,
01:00and The Stork Club was his first independent production. Incidentally, Buddy DaSilva's career
01:05as a songwriter was later dramatized for the big screen in the 1956 musical The Best Things
01:11in Life Are Free, where he was played by Gordon McRae. Up next, William Holden and Alec Guinness
01:17star in an Oscar-winning World War II epic, directed by David Lean.
01:24Next on TCM, The Bridge on the River Kwai, then Screaming Eagles, and later Point Blank. TCM Can't Miss, today.
01:33Next on TCM, The Bridge on the River Kwai, then Screaming Eagles, and later Point Blank.
