Page Miss Glory (1936 film)

Plot

The cartoon opens with a town of Hicksville preparing to welcome Miss Glory. In a nearby hotel, a teenage bellhop, Abner, is anxiously awaiting her arrival, and has prepared for it, but falls asleep while waiting. As he "sleeps", he enters a dream sequence whereupon the hotel ends up morphing into the Cosmopolitan Hotel, an upscale big city hotel, with Abner morphing into a fully grown bellhop at the same. A man arrives and asks the now grown-up Abner to deliver a message to Miss Glory, who is staying at that hotel.

At this point, a band begins singing, with Abner the bellhop joining in singing "Page Miss Glory" (at this time, it was common for cartoon shorts to be based on songs, with "I Love to Singa", also released in 1936, based on the same song, being another example). The distinct pronunciation in how Abner says "Glory" as "Glore-EE" is loosely based upon the bellhop character in the Philip Morris cigarette advertisements on radio and later television who always called out for "Phil-ip More-Iss" as he made his way through a hotel. That character was played by Johnny Roventini for nearly 40 years. Abner eventually "meets" someone who he thinks is Miss Glory, but makes the mistake of standing on the train of her dress, ripping it off just as she crosses behind a potted plant. This woman then takes two large leaves off the same plant and begins performing a fan dance, oblivious to the fact that others are watching her dancing for a while. Eventually, the presence of "Miss Glory" is announced over the hotel's PA system, with everyone in the hotel apparently recognizing who Miss Glory is. Abner, in his rush to try to see her, is unable to get into any elevator for a while everyone else rushes, and eventually he brings back one of the elevators by turning its arrow, only for the elevator operator to then refuse to take him up. While "Miss Glory" is performing in the upper floors of the hotel (with the song also being sung), Abner is trying to figure out how to work the elevator, but ends up "knocked" out of the building and in front of a streetcar, which actually turns out to be the local hotel manager in Hicksville awakening Abner from his dream sequence to tell him that Miss Glory has indeed arrived—who turns out to be a young prepubescent girl, with Abner taken aback.

Credits

Produced by Leon Schlesinger. Words and music by Warren and Dubin. Moderne Art conceived and designed by Leadora Congdon.

Availability